VOA常速英语:海地23人因未遂政变被逮捕

This is VOA news. Via remote, I'm Marissa Melton. Haitian authorities on Sunday arrested at least 23 people including a Supreme Court judge for their role in an alleged plot to oust President Jovenel Moise. The arrests come after leading opposition figures this week announced a plan to replace Moise with a new head of state, accusing the president of being authoritarian and presiding over economic chaos in the Western hemisphere's poorest country. Earlier on Sunday, anti-government demonstrators in the capital clashed with police, who responded with tear gas. There were also street protests against Moise in some other towns. The dispute over when the president's term ends stems from Moise's original election. He was voted into office in a poll later cancelled on grounds of fraud. He was then elected again a year later, in 2016. Voting to elect deputies, senators, mayors and local officials should have been held in 2018, but the election was delayed, triggering a power vacuum in which Moise says he is entitled to stay for another year. The United States on Friday accepted the president's claim to power, with State Department spokesman Ned Price saying Washington has urged, quote, "free and fair legislative elections so that parliament may resume its rightful role."

The Biden administration said Saturday it's suspending Trump-era asylum agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, as part of a bid to undo his Republican predecessor's hardline immigration policies. The so-called "safe third country" agreements signed in 2019 forced asylum seekers from the region to first seek refuge elsewhere before applying in the United States. The moves came after Biden unveiled a host of measures last week aimed at revamping the U.S. immigration system. VOA news.