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Peru’s ex-president Castillo to be jailed for 18 months as protesters declare ‘insurgency’
CNN
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Peru’s ousted former president Pedro Castillo will remain in pretrial detention for 18 months, the country’s Supreme Court ordered on Thursday, as crowds of his supporters protested outside the courthouse and around the country.
Castillo, a former teacher and union leader from rural Peru, was impeached and removed from office last week after he attempted to dissolve Congress and install an emergency government – a tactic that lawmakers slammed as an attempted coup.
He has since been accused of rebellion and conspiracy, which he denies.
The lengthy detention reflects the complexity of the case and possible flight risk, Supreme Court Judge Juan Carlos Checkley said, after prosecutors warned that the ex-president might seek asylum outside the country and said 18 months would cover the duration of their investigation. Castillo’s lawyers say that the former leader is not a flight risk.
Castillo himself did not speak in court. But in another hearing earlier this week, he defended his actions, saying “I have never committed the crime of conspiracy or rebellion” and adding that he still considered himself president.
“I will never resign and abandon this popular cause,” he said at the time.
In the days since his removal from office, Castillo’s supporters have taken to the streets in cities across the Andean nation, in what some protesters described as a “national insurgency.”
“Peru has declared ourselves in a state of insurgency, a national insurgency, because we do not owe obedience to a usurping government,” one protester in Lima said Thursday, referring to Castillo’s successor and former vice president Dina Boluarte, who was swiftly sworn into the presidency by Congress hours after her former boss’s impeachment.
Another protester described Peru’s judicial system as “corrupt” and Castillo’s detention as a kidnapping.
“(Castillo) is kidnapped, we are outraged, it’s the national insurgency in Peru,” she told news agency Reuters.
At least 11 people have died amid the demonstrations. On Thursday, four were killed and at least 39 injured after protesters clashed with police near an airport in Peru’s southern region of Ayacucho, according to the local health department.
Peru’s current government has responded to protesters with both stick and carrot. President Boluarte has offered the possibility of holding early elections, while her Defense Minister Luis Alberto Otárola this week declared a state of emergency and deployed troops to the street.
But efforts so far to dampen the protests appear to have failed to address protesters’ central complaints, which see the country’s political landscape as corrupt and disorganized, and accuse Peru’s elite of unjustly overturning their elected leader.
“If the people of Congress consider themselves so democratic, then respect the people’s voice, respect that we voted for (Castillo),” protester Sonia Castaneda told Reuters.
Demonstrators have also called for a general election, the dissolution of Congress, and the creation of a new constituent assembly.
Their anger has been amplified by some leftist leaders in the region. In a joint statement on Monday, the governments of Colombia, Mexico, Argentina and Bolivia expressed concern over Castillo’s fate, claiming he had been a victim of “undemocratic harassment” since his election last year and urging Peru to honor the results of last year’s presidential vote.
Peru responded on Thursday by summoning ambassadors for a consultation over “interference” in Peru’s “internal affairs,” Foreign Minister Ana Cecilia Gervasi said on social media.
Castillo – who prior to becoming president had never previously held public office – campaigned on a promise to redistribute wealth and uplift the country’s poorest.
But his government was mired in chaos, with dozens of ministers appointed, replaced, fired or quitting their posts in little over a year. Castillo himself faced multiple corruption investigations and two failed impeachment attempts before he was ousted last week.
Hallmark Fans Declare Lacey Chabert the New “Queen of Christmas” After Latest Instagram
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Make way for the new Queen of Christmas!
Just a few months after starring in the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries film Groundswell, actress Lacey Chabert is teasing yet another role for the channel — this time for a festive Hallmark Christmas movie. The 40-year-old Mean Girls alum revealed the details of the new film, Haul Out the Holly, in an Instagram post on November 5.
“Meet the neighbors of Evergreen Lane in just 3 weeks!” Lacey captioned the movie poster with co-star Wes Brown. “I hope ‘Haul Out The Holly’ brings you some holiday cheer!🎄🎅🏻🎄 🎅🏻 11/26 on @hallmarkchannel.”
Needless to say, Hallmark fans reacted to Lacey’s news with excitement, flooding the comments with messages of support for the actress. “You are my favorite Hallmark female lead! Can’t wait to see this! 😁” one person wrote. “I always look forward to watching your Christmas movies every year!” another added. “The queen of Christmas ❤️,” a different follower said — a comment that Lacey herself made sure to like.
Of course, until now, there had been another actress who long claimed the title of “the Queen of Christmas” at the Hallmark Channel: Candace Cameron Bure, who starred in over 30 Christmas movies in her 10 years with the network. Earlier this spring, the Fuller House actress announced she was ending her long relationship with the Hallmark Channel to join Great American Country Media (GAC).
Though Candace will still be starring in plenty of Christmas movies at GAC, it seems that fans are excited to crown Lacey as the new Hallmark Christmas Queen. But as folks may know, the name has also been shared with singers like Darlene Love, Dolly Parton, Mariah Carey and others.
As for Haul Out the Holly, Lacey stars as Emily, who “unexpectedly spends the holidays alone at her parents’ house” as “their HOA insists that she participate in its many Christmas festivities.” Along with Lacey and Wes, the film also features Stephen Tobolowsky, Melissa Peterman and Ellen Travolta.
We’ll definitely be watching Hallmark Christmas movie over and over!
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Germany set to declare starvation of Ukrainians under Stalin a genocide | Ukraine
Germany’s Bundestag is planning to pass a resolution declaring the starvation of millions of Ukrainians under Joseph Stalin a genocide, a move that parliamentarians hope will serve as a “warning” to Moscow as Ukraine faces a potential hunger crisis this winter.
The resolution, which will be jointly brought to the vote next week by the three governing parties and conservative opposition leaders, will describe the 1932-33 Holodomor as part of “a list of inhuman crimes by totalitarian systems that extinguished millions of human lives in Europe in the first half of the 20th century”.
“People across Ukraine, not just in grain-producing regions, were affected by hunger and repression”, the resolution will say. “This meets the historical-political definition from today’s perspective for genocide.”
The victims of the Holodomor – Ukrainian for “death by starvation” – are traditionally commemorated in Ukraine on the last Saturday of November.
Kyiv regards the historical event as part of a deliberate campaign by Stalin’s regime to collectivise agriculture and root out Ukraine’s fledging nationalist movement. Historians estimate between 4 million and 7.5 million people were killed in the human-made disaster.
Moscow has rejected Kyiv’s version of history, placing the deaths in the broader context of famines that devastated regions of Central Asia and Russia.
“Putin is part of Stalin’s cruel and criminal tradition,” said Robin Wagener, the German Green party MP who initiated the resolution. “Today Russian terror is once again haunting Ukraine. Once again the plan is to use violence and terror to deprive Ukraine of livelihood, to subdue an entire country,” he told newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Knut Abraham, a Christian Democratic Union (CDU) ombudsman of the parliament’s committee on legal affairs and human rights, said the resolution was meant to send a signal to Moscow. “This recognition is even more important because Ukraine has once again become the target of Russian aggression.”
A spokesperson for the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said: “She welcomes very much that there is a lot of support in the German parliament for this.”
WHO and CDC declare measles a global imminent threat
A combined report from two major public health bodies has declared measles an “eminent threat” to the global community.
Released on Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) feared that a record decline of measles vaccination rates and persistent large outbreaks meant that the respiratory virus was an “imminent threat in every region of the world”.
WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was “absolutely critical” that immunization programs were bought back on track to avoid what he said is a “preventable disease”.
“The paradox of the pandemic is that while vaccines against Covid-19 were developed in record time and deployed in the largest vaccination campaign in history, routine immunization programs were badly disrupted, and millions of kids missed out on lifesaving vaccinations against deadly diseases like measles,” said Dr Ghebreyesus.
According to the WHO, India, Somalia and Yemen are the three countries with the largest measles outbreak.
While measles is thought to be one of the most contagious viruses, the measles, mumps and rubella-containing vaccine administered during childhood is considered the best defence to reduce future outbreaks.
In Australia, the shot is free for children between 12 to 18 months. People under the age of 20, refugees and humanitarian entrants may also be eligible for a catch up vaccine.
The CDC states that nine out of 10 people who are not vaccinated against the disease will become infected in the advent of exposure.
The virus is transmitted through water droplets released in the sneezes and coughs of infected people. Common symptoms include fever, cold-symptoms, conjunctivitis and red and blotchy rashes that first appear around the face and hairline before spreading elsewhere around the body.
The characteristic rash generally emerges three to four days after the initial symptoms develop.
Last week, visitors who travelled through Melbourne airport were asked to monitor for symptoms until Saturday, December 3.
Three confirmed cases were recorded in a family travelling to Melbourne from Singapore, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in 2022 to five.
The passengers boarded a Qantas flight QF36/ Emirates flight EK5036 in Singapore on Monday and landed at Melbourne Tullamarine Airport on Tuesday at about 6:10 am. They were reportedly inside the airport until 8:40 am.
Victoria’s deputy chief health officer Deborah Friedman urged people who developed symptoms to seek medical care, and to wear a mask and call ahead to ensure they can be isolated from others.
She said young children and adults with weakened immune systems are the most at risk of serious illness.
“Measles is a highly infectious viral disease that spreads quickly with close contact, especially in those who are not fully vaccinated,” said Ms Friedman.
This comes as NSW reported its first case of measles in two years in September this year. A person in their 50s was infected after traveling to Asia and developed symptoms after returning to Sydney.
Georgia voters fed up with rising costs declare which party’s best to tame inflation
Inflation remains a top consideration for Georgia residents heading into the midterms, but voters are torn on which party has the best plan to bring costs back down.
“It’s obviously the Republican Party this time,” Monty told Fox News in Columbus. “Democrats are the ones that have caused the problem by spending and printing too much money.”
He said inflation is affecting everything.
“It’s absolutely murderous,” Monty said. “Food, gas prices. Inflation is awful.”
Matthew said inflation is very noticeable and that a gallon of milk has definitely gone up in price since his grandparents’ day. But he couldn’t point to one party or another as having the best solution
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“If somebody is going to be in that office, just do the right thing,” he said.
In the most recent Fox News poll, 38% of Georgia voters said inflation was their top issue heading into the midterms. Abortion was the next priority at 18%.
FOX NEWS POLL: WALKER GAINS GROUND IN GEORGIA SENATE RACE
In Savannah, Rick said both parties have contributed to the problem.
“I think a lot of short-term finger pointing really doesn’t do us any good,” he said. “I vote both ways so I don’t have a real strong opinion that it’s the Democrats fault or the Republicans have a good solution.”
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Derrick said any solution will depend on lawmakers working together.
“If the Republicans will allow the Democrats to try to do what they were put in place to do, then maybe we can see some type of change,” he said.
To hear Georgia voters’ concerns about inflation, click here.
Army officers appear on Burkina Faso TV, declare new coup
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — More than a dozen soldiers seized control of Burkina Faso’s state television late Friday, declaring that the country’s coup leader-turned-president, Lt. Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba, had been overthrown after only nine months in power.
A statement read by a junta spokesman said Capt. Ibrahim Traore is the new military leader of Burkina Faso, a volatile West African country that is battling a mounting Islamic insurgency.
Burkina Faso’s new military leaders said the country’s borders had been closed and a curfew would be in effect from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. The transitional government and national assembly were ordered dissolved.
Damiba and his allies overthrew the democratically elected president, coming to power with promises of make the country more secure. However, violence has continued unabated and frustration with his leadership has grown in recent months.
“Faced by the continually worsening security situation, we the officers and junior officers of the national armed forces were motivated to take action with the desire to protect the security and integrity of our country,” said the statement read by the junta spokesman, Capt. Kiswendsida Farouk Azaria Sorgho.
The soldiers promised the international community they would respect their commitments and urged Burkinabes “to go about their business in peace.”
“A meeting will be convened to adopt a new transitional constitution charter and to select a new Burkina Faso president be it civilian or military,” Sorgho added.
Damiba had just returned from addressing the U.N. General Assembly in New York as Burkina Faso’s head of state. Tensions, though, had been mounting for months. In his speech, Damiba defended his January coup as “an issue of survival for our nation,” even if it was ”perhaps reprehensible” to the international community.
Constantin Gouvy, Burkina Faso researcher at Clingendael, said Friday night’s events “follow escalating tensions within the ruling MPSR junta and the wider army about strategic and operational decisions to tackle spiraling insecurity.”
“Members of the MPSR increasingly felt Damiba was isolating himself and casting aside those who helped him seize power,” Gouvy told The Associated Press.
Gunfire had erupted in the capital, Ouagadougou, early Friday and hours passed without any public appearance by Damiba. Late in the afternoon, his spokesman posted a statement on the presidency’s Facebook page saying that “negotiations are underway to bring back calm and serenity.”
Friday’s developments felt all too familiar in West Africa, where a coup in Mali in August 2020 set off a series of military power grabs in the region. Mali also saw a second coup nine months after the August 2020 overthrow of its president, when the junta’s leader sidelined his civilian transition counterparts and put himself alone in charge.
On the streets of Ouagadougou, some people already were showing support Friday for the change in leadership even before the putschists took to the state airwaves.
Francois Beogo, a political activist from the Movement for the Refounding of Burkina Faso, said Damiba “has showed his limits.”
“People were expecting a real change,” he said of the January coup d’etat.
Some demonstrators voiced support for Russian involvement in order to stem the violence, and shouted slogans against France, Burkina Faso’s former colonizer. In neighboring Mali, the junta invited Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group to help secure the country, though their deployment has drawn international criticism.
Many in Burkina Faso initially supported the military takeover last January, frustrated with the previous government’s inability to stem Islamic extremist violence that has killed thousands and displaced at least 2 million.
Yet the violence has failed to wane in the months since Damiba took over. Earlier this month, he also took on the position of defense minister after dismissing a brigadier general from the post.
“It’s hard for the Burkinabe junta to claim that it has delivered on its promise of improving the security situation, which was its pretext for the January coup,” said Eric Humphery-Smith, senior Africa analyst at the risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.
Earlier this week, at least 11 soldiers were killed and 50 civilians went missing after a supply convoy was attacked by gunmen in Gaskinde commune in Soum province in the Sahel. That attack was “a low point” for Damiba’s government and “likely played a role in inspiring what we’ve seen so far today,” added Humphery-Smith.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Friday that nearly one-fifth of Burkina Faso’s population “urgently needs humanitarian aid.”
“Burkina Faso needs peace, it needs stability, and it needs unity in order to fight terrorist groups and criminal networks operating in parts of the country,” Dujarric said.
Chrysogone Zougmore, president of the Burkina Faso Movement for Human Rights, called Friday’s developments “very regrettable,” saying the instability would not help in the fight against the Islamic extremist violence.
“How can we hope to unite people and the army if the latter is characterized by such serious divisions?” Zougmore said. “It is time for these reactionary and political military factions to stop leading Burkina Faso adrift.”
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Mednick reported from Barcelona. Associated Press writers Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal, and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed.
Putin to declare annexation of Ukraine regions within days, U.K. says
With Putin’s impending announcement, and fears that it could be accompanied by a declaration of martial law, the exodus of fighting-age Russian men trying to flee military mobilization appeared to be reaching critical levels, with worsening traffic jams and huge queues at border crossings.
The staged referendums, which are illegal under Ukrainian and international law, are due to end Tuesday and there is no doubt the outcome will be portrayed as showing overwhelmingly public support for joining Russia. However, Russia does not fully control any of the four regions, militarily or politically. In addition, many residents have been displaced by the war, and there have been many reports of civilians being forced to vote at gunpoint or under other forms of coercion.
“Russia’s leaders almost certainly hope that any accession announcement will be seen as a vindication of the ‘special military operation’ and will consolidate patriotic support for the conflict,” the British Defense Ministry said. It cautioned, however, that the chaos surrounding the “partial mobilization” that Putin declared last week would serve to undermine the Kremlin’s messaging about annexation.
Pro-Kremlin leaders of the separatist-controlled parts of Luhansk have already declared the referendum “accomplished” and said they plan to announce preliminary results on Tuesday evening.
In Russia, there are rising fears, particularly among fighting-age men, that once Ukrainian regions are absorbed, Putin will declare martial law, closing off the possibility of going abroad to escape conscription.
And with Putin’s expected announcement drawing close, there was growing disarray at major border crossings.
Authorities of the North Ossetia region bordering Georgia, which has been one of the main transit hubs for Russians fleeing military mobilization, said Tuesday that they were considering declaring a state of emergency as thousands of cars lined up to cross the Verkhniy Lars checkpoint.
“The influx is too big, and no one expected it to be this massive,” the head of the region, Sergey Menyailo, said in a live interview on a social media channel run by Vladimir Soloviev, the Russian television presenter and Kremlin propagandist.
“We can’t close the passage to the republic, so we are trying to introduce an electronic queue specifically for cars,” Menyailo said. “But the issue is very complicated, and most likely, I will decide to introduce a partial state of emergency,” he added.
The North Ossetia branch of the Interior Ministry said it would set up a makeshift enlistment office next to the crossing.
Human rights groups reported that some Russians have been turned back from border posts, citing decisions passed down from their local military commissariats banning departures from the country.
Georgia said it has bolstered the number of guards at the checkpoint but saw no reason to shut the border. Georgian Internal Affairs Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri said that about 10,000 Russians are arriving in the country every day, almost double the number compared to Sept. 21, when the mobilization was announced.
In Kazakhstan, another neighboring country that permits visa-free entry for Russian passport-holders, residents of the border city of Uralsk refurbished a movie theater into a temporary shelter for arriving Russians who couldn’t find a hotel room or apartment to rent.
Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said Tuesday that his country has an obligation to help the arriving Russians.
“In recent days, many people from Russia have been coming to us,” Tokayev said. “Most of them are forced to leave because of the current hopeless situation. We must take care of them and ensure their safety. This is a political and humanitarian issue.”
Underscoring a growing rift with the Kremlin over the invasion of Ukraine, the Kazakh leader also called for respect for territorial integrity, alluding to the annexation referendums. And he took an indirect swipe at Putin, who has been in power since 2000, saying that if just one person rules a country for years, “this does not do honor either to this country or its leader.”
New Israeli rules would require foreign passport holders to declare romantic relationships with Palestinians
The 97-page Israeli ordinance detailing the new restrictions requires foreign passport holders, including, in some cases, American Palestinian dual citizens, in a romantic relationship with a Palestinian resident of the West Bank to “inform” Israeli security authorities “in writing (at a special e-mail address) within 30 days of the relationship’s start.”
“The ‘starting date of the relationship’ shall be considered the day of the engagement ceremony, of the wedding, or of the start of cohabitation — whichever occurs first,” it said.
The new restrictions — which also ask applicants to declare if they have land or are inheriting land in the West Bank — would not apply to the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The territory’s two-tiered legal structure treats Jewish Israelis as citizens living under civilian rule while Palestinians are treated as combatants under military rule, subject to nighttime military raids, detention and bans on visiting their ancestral lands or accessing certain roads.
Palestinian rights advocates condemned the updated, more stringent procedures on social media as another example of Israel stripping rights from Palestinians living under its 55-year occupation.
“One side of this is about control & isolation,” Salem Barahmeh, executive director of Rabet, the digital platform of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, wrote on Twitter Saturday. “The other is: if you can’t be together in Palestine then you will have [to] leave & to do so elsewhere. It’s about driving as many people as they can outside of Palestine to maintain supremacy.”
Fadi Quran, campaign director for activist group Avaaz, tweeted that the new rules signal that in the occupied West Bank, “love is dangerous.”
Foreigners visiting the West Bank already face intensive screening. One Palestinian woman, who lives in Germany and is married to a German man, said she worries that the rules will make it even more difficult for her and her husband — and their future children — to visit her relatives in the West Bank. The woman spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid calling the attention of Israeli authorities to her case.
After learning of the new rules, the woman decided to bring her new husband to the West Bank to meet her family in May, before they took effect.
Even then, she said, Jordanian authorities at the border crossing advised the couple not to cross together and to scrub any evidence of their relationship from their phones, since Israeli officials had been turning back foreign spouses of Palestinians.
The couple took off their wedding rings, unlinked their Airbnb booking and deleted their WhatsApp conversations and photos together. Her husband told border guards he was visiting the West Bank for tourism. Still, he faced intense questioning from the Israeli police.
A spokeswoman from COGAT, Israel’s military agency responsible for coordinating with the Palestinians on civilian matters, declined to comment on the new restrictions, but said that a new version of the regulations would likely be published on Sunday.
The ordinance describes the “purpose of the procedure” as a way to codify norms that have already been in place for years for foreign passport holders entering the occupied territory. The goal is to “define the levels of authority and the manner of processing for applications from foreigners who wish to enter the Judea and Samaria area through the international crossings, in accordance with policy and in coordination with the appropriate offices,” said the document, referring to the biblical name Israel uses for the West Bank.
Since first announced in February, implementation of the new restrictions has been delayed repeatedly by Israel’s High Court.
In June, HaMoked, an Israeli human rights organization, along with 19 individuals, petitioned the High Court to halt the new rules, arguing that they set “extreme limitations on the duration of visas and visa extensions” that would impede foreigners’ ability to work or volunteer for Palestinian institutions for more than a few months, bar them from leaving the West Bank and returning during the visa period, and in some cases require people to remain abroad for a year after their visa expires before they can apply for another.
The rules would also “deny thousands of Palestinian families the ability to live together without interruption and lead a normal family life,” HaMoked said in a statement in June, as well as make it more difficult for foreign academics to work at Palestinian universities.
The new rules allow 100 professors and 150 students with foreign passports to stay in the West Bank — a substantial blow to Palestinian higher education institutions. They rely on academic collaborations and recruit hundreds of foreign passport-holding students every year. More than 350 European university students and staff studied or worked at Palestinian universities under the Erasmus program, an E.U. student exchange program, in 2020, up from just 51 five years earlier.
Mariya Gabriel, E.U. commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, suggested in July that the development could also harm Israel-Europe academic ties.
“With Israel itself benefitting greatly from Erasmus+, the Commission considers that it should facilitate and not hinder access of students to Palestinian universities,” Gabriel said. She added that E.U. officials have expressed their concerns to Israeli authorities “including at the highest levels.”
Sam Bahour, an American-Palestinian economist, cited Israel’s High Court rulings to delay the new rules’ implementation as proof of their illegitimacy.
He said he has been fielding daily phone calls from Palestinian emigres throughout the world worried that the new procedures could make future visits difficult or impossible. He said the new protocols would be so “absurd” that they would be “impossible to implement.”
But, he said, they have delivered a decades-old message from Israel to the Palestinians: “Stay away.”
Jackson, Mississippi, water: Gov. Tate Reeves will declare emergency as city’s main water facility fails
The governor said he will declare a state of emergency for the state’s largest city and state authorities are scrambling to begin distributing water to 180,000 residents.
The city’s troubled water system has been plagued with issues for years. In February 2021, a winter storm shut down Jackson’s entire water system, leaving tens of thousands of residents without water for a month amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
On Monday evening — as Jackson residents were dealing with record-setting rain that resulted in the Pearl River cresting at a dangerously high level — Reeves announced the city is failing to produce running water.
“It means we do not have reliable running water at scale. It means the city cannot produce enough water to fight fires, to reliably flush toilets and to meet other critical needs,” Reeves said.
As a result, officials announced all Jackson public schools will shift to virtual learning Tuesday.
The water pressure issue is on top of a boil water notice in place for the past month due to a water quality problem.
Authorities said the water is not safe to drink or use while brushing teeth.
“Please stay safe. Do not drink the water. In too many cases, it is raw water from the reservoir being pushed through the pipes,” Reeves told Jackson residents. “Be smart, protect yourself, protect your family.”
Residents are being told to conserve the water resources they do have and boil any water they use for three minutes.
The state is expected to call in the national guard to help distribute drinking and non-drinking water as crews work to get the water treatment plant back online, state officials said.
“Replacing our largest city’s infrastructure of running water with human distribution is a massively complicated logistical task,” Reeves said. “We need to provide it for up to 180,000 people for an unknown period of time.”
Besides preparing to distribute water to residents, the state is setting up a tanker system to provide water for fire trucks as Jackson loses the ability to take water from fire hydrants, officials said.
A system long plagued with issues
The problem stems from one of two water treatment facilities in the city, the O.B. Curtis plant, which is run by the city of Jackson, according to the governor. “O.B. Curtis is not operating anywhere near capacity. And we may find out tomorrow’s not operating at all,” Reeves said.
O.B. Curtis is meant to provide about 50 million gallons for the city daily. The other plant, which usually provides about 20 million gallons daily, has been approved to ramp up its output amid the shortage, authorities said.
The main pumps at O.B. Curtis were severely damaged and the facility began operating on smaller backup pumps about a month ago, around the same time a prolonged boil water notice began, the governor said.
The governor said he was told Friday that “it was a near certainty that Jackson would fail to produce running water sometime in the next several weeks or months if something did not materially improve,” the governor said.
Over the weekend, state officials started developing water distribution plans and “preparing for a scenario where Jackson would be without running water for an extended period.”
“All of this was with the prayer that we would have more time before their system ran to failure,” Reeves said. “Unfortunately, that failure appears to have begun today.”
The mayor of Jackson, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, declared a water system emergency Monday, saying recent flooding of the Pearl River was to blame for the latest water pressure issues.
“As one crisis may be diverted, another one rears its head,” Lumumba said during a news conference after addressing the flooding in the city.
The mayor said because O.B. Curtis received additional water from the reservoir during the flooding, the facility had to change the way it treats the water, which has led to the reduction of water being put out into the system and reduced tank levels. This is affecting the water pressure at residents’ homes, he said.
“It is no secret to any of us that we have a very fragile water treatment facility,” the mayor said, adding that the outage “could potentially last for a few days.”
Jackson has had ongoing challenges with its water system and some residents were already reporting low to no water pressure and raw sewage flowing in city streets and neighborhoods.
Lumumba previously told CNN a lack of political will and years of neglect on a national level has prevented Jackson from getting the help it needs to fix its water and sewer crisis.
Besides the infrastructure issues, the plant has also been faced with staffing issues, according to the mayor and governor.
“A far too small number of heroic frontline workers were trying their hardest to hold the system together, but that it was a near impossibility,” the governor said.