<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">The Dominican Republic's government has announced that it is closing all borders with neighboring Haiti. The closing of the border started today in a dispute over a canal on the Haitian side that would use water from a river along their frontier.</p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">President Luis Abinader said that air, sea, and land borders would remain shuttered until necessary, as last-minute talks between the countries had failed to head off the closure. It is a rare move for the Dominican Republic and could hit economies in both countries, though it will be most acutely felt in Haiti.</p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #222222;">The closure is a response to the excavation of a canal by a farming group on the Haitian side that targets waters from the Massacre River, which runs along the border shared by the two countries on the island of Hispaniola.</span></p>