LATAM POLITICS TODAY-Costa Rica says China apologized for balloon 'incident'

Haitian PM installs council to prepare for long-delayed vote PORT-AU-PRINCE - Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry installed a transition council whose job will be to prepare for long-overdue elections in the Caribbean country, amid a humanitarian crisis driven in part by violence from armed gangs.

The latest in Latin American politics today: China says sorry for balloon over Costa Rican airspace

SAN JOSE - China apologized to Costa Rica for a balloon that flew over its territory, Costa Rica's government said, after a separate suspected Chinese spy balloon traveling over the United States sparked a major political and diplomatic spat. According to Costa Rica's foreign ministry, the Chinese government recognized that one of its balloons flew over Costa Rica, and China's Embassy in San Jose "apologized for the incident," while insisting the balloon was focused on scientific research, mainly weather studies.

Voters in Ecuador appear to vote down allowing extradition QUITO - Ecuadorans likely rejected a government-backed referendum to allow extraditions for drug crimes and other charges, preliminary results showed, while voters in the country's two largest cities backed mayoral candidates from leftist former President Rafael Correa's political movement.

The results reinforced a difficult scenario for conservative President Guillermo Lasso, who has struggled to contain rising insecurity, protests by indigenous groups that have hurt the economy, and widespread violence in prisons. Haitian PM installs council to prepare for long-delayed vote

PORT-AU-PRINCE - Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry installed a transition council whose job will be to prepare for long-overdue elections in the Caribbean country, amid a humanitarian crisis driven in part by violence from armed gangs. The transition council is expected to develop a road map for the next elections and choose members of a provisional electoral council. Haiti has been without elected representatives since early January, and last held presidential elections in 2016.

Days ahead of a visit from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Henry said the council unanimously backed his request for an international force to help police restore order. Miners in Brazil's Yanomami reservation seek help to leave

BRASILIA - Illegal gold miners blamed for causing a humanitarian crisis on Brazil's largest indigenous reservation are asking authorities to help them leave, one of their leaders and a Brazilian senator said. Aware of an imminent military enforcement operation to evict them, Jailson Mesquita, head of the Wildcat Mining Is Legal movement, called on the government to airlift miners from Yanomami territory or lift a no-fly zone to allow them to fly out on small planes from clandestine airstrips inside the reservation where mining is banned under Brazil's constitution.

More than 20,000 miners have occupied the reservation, bringing disease, sexual abuse and armed violence that has terrified many Yanomami, and led to malnutrition and some deaths. (Compiled by Steven Grattan and Sarah Morland; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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