INTL Latin America and the Islands: Politics, Economics, Military- December 2021

[Plain Jane]

November's thread:

INTL - Latin America and the Islands: Politics, Economics, Military- November 2021

October's thread is here: https://www.timebomb2000.com/xf/index.php?threads/latin-america-and-the-islands-politics-economics-and-military-october-2021.608385/ Main Coronavirus thread beginning page 1340: https://www.timebomb2000.com/xf/index.php?threads/main-coronavirus-thread.566780/page-1430...

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Main Coronavirus thread beginning page1455:

CORONA - Main Coronavirus thread

He said the infected person came to San Francisco from South Africa and is experiencing "mild symptoms." Fauci also said the person is experiencing "mild symptoms" and is self-quarantining. Would note that the person came to San Francisco on Nov 22, and started quarantine today.

www.timebomb2000.com

EXPLAINER: What are Colombia's ex-FARC splinter groups?

The Biden administration has revoked the terrorist designation of Colombia’s former FARC guerrilla army, five years after the rebel group signed a peace deal with the government

apnews.com

EXPLAINER: What are Colombia’s ex-FARC splinter groups?
By ASTRIN SUÁREZ and MANUEL RUEDAyesterday

FILE - Rodrigo Granda, right, a former rebel commander and member of the FARC political party, shakes hands with Rocio Lopez, sister of two kidnap victims, who were eventually released, during a ceremony where former FARC members apologized to locals for the kidnappings they carried out over decades in the rural area of Pipiral near Villavicencio, Colombia, Oct. 29, 2020. The U.S. State Department on Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021, revoked its designation of the FARC as a “foreign terrorist organization”, allowing U.S. officials to work with members of the rebel group as they continue to shift into political life. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, File)

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The Biden administration revoked the terrorist designation of Colombia’s former FARC guerrilla army on Tuesday, five years after the rebel group signed a peace deal with the government. However, it imposed the same designation on two splinter groups that are still fighting in remote pockets of the South American country.

The FARC holdouts newly designated by the United States as foreign terrorist organizations are the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army – known by the Spanish acronym of FARC-EP --- and Segunda Marquetalia.

Here are more details on these newly designated terrorist groups:

HOW DID THE SPLINTER GROUPS ARISE?
After five decades of internal conflict that killed an estimated 26,000 people and forced more than 6 million to flee their homes, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia signed a peace deal in which 13,000 fighters gave up their weapons in exchange for numerous concessions from the government, including development programs for rural areas and the opportunity for former guerrilla leaders to participate in local politics and avoid time in prison.


But a group of about 1,000 fighters led by commander Néstor Gregorio Vera refused to lay down their weapons and continued to conduct attacks and kidnappings in southeastern Colombia. These fighters now use the acronym FARC-EP.

In 2019, three years after the peace deal was signed, former FARC commander Iván Márquez announced he would be taking up arms again in a video shot at an undisclosed location, creating the Segunda Marquetalia group.

Márquez, whose real name is Luciano Marin, was the FARC’s lead negotiator during peace talks with the government. He accused the Colombian government of not keeping its promises and of failing to stop the murders of dozens of former FARC fighters. When Márquez announced his return to arms, the former FARC commander and some of his close associates were under investigation for drug trafficking in Colombia and the United States.

HOW LARGE ARE THESE HOLDOUTS AND HOW DO THEY OPERATE?
The FARC splinter groups are fragmented and lack a central command structure. Security analysts in Colombia also say they are not ideologically oriented and are mainly focused on controlling drug trafficking routes, illegal mines and other illicit economies.

A report published in September by the Institute for Peace and Development Studies, a Colombian research group, estimates the splinter groups have around 5,000 members, most are new recruits, though there are also hundreds of former FARC fighters in their ranks.

The Colombian government says the FARC-EP and Segunda Marquetalia have assassinated human rights leaders, as well as dozens of former fighters who gave up their weapons during the 2016 peace deal. Colombian officials also say these splinter groups were behind a recent attempt to assassinate President Iván Duque in northeastern Colombia.


WHAT DOES BEING DESIGNATED A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION ENTAIL?
Members of Segunda Marquetalia and FARC-EP cannot hold accounts in U.S. banks or receive any kind of support from the U.S government or its contractors, and any private organization that does business with them also risks being sanctioned. Being designated as terrorist groups could also make these organizations a priority for the U.S. military.

WHAT HAPPENS WITH THE ORIGINAL FARC GROUP?
The group formerly known as the FARC are now a political party in Colombia called the Common People’s Party, which has 10 seats in the nation’s congress. After being removed from the U.S terrorist list the group’s members will be able to participate in U.S. funded activities such as programs to remove landmines in Colombia’s countryside or rural development programs that benefit farmers in Colombia.
The State Department said removing the FARC’s terrorist designation will facilitate peace building efforts in Colombia and work with former combatants, but it also pointed out that former FARC leaders can still face charges in the United States for drug trafficking and other crimes.

 

[Plain Jane]

Mexico president reaches midterm with high approval rating

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador held a massive rally in Mexico City Wednesday to mark the midway point in his six-year term with polls showing that about two-thirds of Mexicans approve of the job he is doing.

apnews.com

Mexico president reaches midterm with high approval rating
By FABIOLA SÁNCHEZyesterday



1 of 9
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador speaks to the crowd at a rally to commemorate his third anniversary in office, in the main square of the capital, the Zocalo, in Mexico City, Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2021. (Photo AP/Marco Ugarte)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador held a massive rally in Mexico City Wednesday to mark the midway point in his six-year term with polls showing that about two-thirds of Mexicans approve of the job he is doing.

López Obrador’s masterful use of televised news briefings, his folksy style and personal austerity have apparently won over Mexicans, despite a number of indicators suggesting the country isn’t doing so well.

Mexico is approaching 450,000 COVID-19 deaths, has fully vaccinated only about half its population; inflation has reached around 7% and there is an almost unabated wave of drug gang homicides.

But with no mask requirements — a hallmark of his administration, which has eschewed mass testing and travel bans — on Wednesday the president did what he loves best: bask in crowds of cheering supporters.

“We are standing tall, despite the pandemic,” López Obrador told the crowd, repeating his calls to nationalize the country’s lithium deposits and demand the United States grant legal status to 11 million migrants living north of the border.

He predicted that money sent home to Mexico by migrants would top $50 billion this year, and asked for a round of applause for the country’s migrants.

López Obrador angrily defended his unprecedented reliance on the army, which he has entrusted with everything from building and operating infrastructure projects to taking the lead role in law enforcement.

“They are not the same as any other armed forces in the world!” López Obrador said, practically shouting. “Soldiers are the people in uniform!”

Bands played for thousands of supporters packed into the plaza. Most had facemasks but were crowded shoulder to shoulder, and a significant number appeared to be government employees.

Patricio Morelos, a political science professor at the Monterrey Technological Institute, said the president has an unusual ability to market his politics.

López Obrador “controls the political agenda, controls the public opinion tendencies, and that has allowed him for the last three years to tell us every morning in the ‘mañaneras’ what Mexico’s political reality is,” Morelos said.

The “mañaneras” are briefings López Obrador has held almost every weekday since he took office on Dec. 1, 2018. While not really news conferences — seating and admission limits largely restrict questions to a preselected core of supportive web sites and bloggers — the televised briefings have given Mexicans unprecedented access to a president who likes folk sayings and eating at working-class diners.

The president clearly has the common touch, and was disappointed when last year’s Dec. 1 rally was held without crowds because of the pandemic. Even though the omicron variant of the coronavirus has caused concern, López Obrador said earlier this week, “It has been too long, and we have to gather” in the Zocalo, the capital’s sprawling main plaza.

The pandemic also caused an 8.5% economic contraction in 2020, and while the economy recovered about 6.4% in the first nine months of 2021, it is still hurting.

Ana Laura López, a 37-year-old cleaning employee, reflected glumly on the day.

“I don’t have anything to celebrate today because I am worse off than I was three years ago,”

López said as she ate a chicken taco a neighbor had given her. López, no relation to the president, sat in a car where she has lived since losing her steady job during the pandemic. A hotel where she previously rented a room also closed because of coronavirus.

The $73 López makes every week sweeping streets isn’t enough to rent an apartment, or even a room, in the rough Obrera neighborhood of Mexico City.

Nor has crime gotten much better; Mexico’s nearly 29,000 homicides in the first ten months of 2021 are just 3.6% below the 30,030 in 2020.

The Mexican peso has dropped in value against the U.S. dollar, and rising fuel prices spurred inflation.

Francisco Velasco, a 55-year-old barber, also isn’t doing well. He was laid off during the pandemic from the barber shop where he had worked for 23 years.

Velasco has rented a tiny storefront barbershop in the Obrera neighborhood to try to support his wife and three children.

“Prices have gone up a lot even though the president promised they would go down,” Velasco said, though he doesn’t blame López Obrador. “Things will get better,” he said. “Three years isn’t enough for the president to do anything. ... It takes more time.”

The president has made strides in increasing minimum wages, and prohibiting tax forgiveness once frequently granted to influential businessmen.

On Wednesday, the country’s Business Coordinating Council said it had reached an agreement with the government and labor to raise the minimum wage by 22% in 2022, to the equivalent of about $6.90 per day. Along the northern border a higher $8.25 regional daily minimum wage would apply. The government later confirmed that agreement.

Adding to López Obrador’s luster is the utter lack of any opposition figure with credibility or charisma.

But the president hasn’t done himself any favors by dismissing academics, critics, nongovernmental organizations, businessmen and opponents and lumping them all together into one basket as “conservatives” nostalgic for the old day — a sort of “us versus them” approach to almost everything.

“You cannot govern by making enemies of a significant part of the population,” Morelos said. “Having a more open president would do Mexican democracy a lot of good.”

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Iranian condensate cargo expected to discharge in Venezuela's port

A cargo of Iranian condensate intended for Venezuela's state-run oil company, PDVSA, the fourth delivery this year, will discharge in coming days at the country's main oil port, a Venezuelan lawmaker said on Thursday.

www.reuters.com

December 2, 202112:48 PM PST
Last Updated 15 hours ago

Commodities
Iranian condensate cargo expected to discharge in Venezuela's port
By Deisy Buitrago

CARACAS, Dec 2 (Reuters) - A cargo of Iranian condensate intended for Venezuela's state-run oil company, PDVSA, the fourth delivery this year, will discharge in coming days at the country's main oil port, a Venezuelan lawmaker said on Thursday.

Iran last year began providing PDVSA with condensate that is used to make the South American nation's extra heavy oil exportable. This year, PDVSA and the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) signed a swap deal that formalized the exchange of Venezuelan crude for Iranian condensate.

The swaps, occurring amid U.S. sanctions on both nations and their oil industries, have allowed PDVSA to ramp up crude output this autumn to levels close to those of early 2020.

"Two million barrels of diluent have just arrived. Where? - from Iran," said Angel Rodriguez, a lawmaker from President Nicolas Maduro's socialist party. "This shows what is the country's situation. We are forced to receive products we used to make due to the blocking," he added, referring to the U.S. sanctions.

Rodriguez did not disclose the name of the vessel. PDVSA and NIOC did not reply to requests for comment.

Washington imposed trade sanctions on PDVSA and its subsidiaries in 2019 as a way to oust Maduro after it called his re-election a sham. The measures barred exports to the United States, which used to buy most of Venezuela's crude.

PDVSA has adapted to the measures by finding new customers and ways to ship its crude and refined products to countries including China.

Iran has delivered some 4.8 million barrels of condensate to PDVSA and its joint ventures this year and has also supplied it with gasoline. It has received in return at least 5.8 million barrels of Venezuela's Merey 16 heavy crude and jet fuel.

Reporting by Deisy Buitrago in Caracas and Marianna Parraga in Houston; Editing by Peter Cooney

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Maduro Ousts EU Mission to Venezuela After Election Crackdown

Maduro Ousts EU Mission to Venezuela After Election Crackdown

www.bloombergquint.com

Maduro Ousts EU Mission to Venezuela After Election Crackdown
Andreina Itriago Acosta 05:49 AM IST, 02 Dec 2021 03:55 PM IST, 03 Dec 2021

(Bloomberg) -- European Union electoral monitors are being kicked out of Venezuela days before their scheduled departure amid a clamp down by the government of Nicolas Maduro following last month’s elections.

E.U. analysts and a handful of staff members will fly out this weekend after the foreign ministry refused to extend their visas, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation. They received an order to leave the country from the foreign ministry and the National Electoral Council, the person said.

Neither the ministry nor the electoral council responded to messages seeking comment.

The team had planned to be in the country until Dec. 13 under a schedule agreed to with the council and blessed by Maduro’s government. But tensions began to grew in the run up to the election when Maduro preemptively dismissed their findings. He then accused the monitors of being “spies” following the release of a preliminary report that pointed out shortcomings and irregularities in the Nov. 21 regional elections. The decision to kick them out early further stains elections that Maduro has promoted as free and fair.

The country’s high court, which is stacked with government loyalists, has already intervened in a governor’s race, calling a repeat after an opposition candidate led in the vote count. Authorities have harassed mayors elected from opposition parties. In another state race won by the opposition, Maduro is stripping the governor-elect of some powers.

The E.U. sent 130 people to monitor the vote, its first delegation in 15 years. While most observers already left, those that remain were conducting interviews, following up on objections to the electoral process from candidates and parties, and gathering information for a final report they plan to release by early February.

The delegation was not told why their trip is being cut short, the person said.

 

[Plain Jane]

Brazil's senate OKs evangelical Bolsonaro ally to top court

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil's senate approved an evangelical former justice minister nominated by President Jair Bolsonaro to fill a vacant position on the supreme court, in what is seen as a nod to the conservative religious movement that helped bring him to power.

apnews.com

Brazil’s senate OKs evangelical Bolsonaro ally to top court
By MAURICIO SAVARESEDecember 1, 2021

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro exits a convention center in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021, after attending a ceremony where he officially joined the centrist Liberal Party. (AP Photo/Raul Spinasse)

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil’s senate approved an evangelical former justice minister nominated by President Jair Bolsonaro to fill a vacant position on the supreme court, in what is seen as a nod to the conservative religious movement that helped bring him to power.

André Mendonça, 48, is Bolsonaro’s second pick to the 11-justice high court, the first being moderate Catholic Kássio Nunes. The latter’s approval by the Senate in October of last year sparked criticism from the president’s evangelical base.

Brazil’s president, who is Catholic, had earlier pledged to select a “terribly evangelical” candidate for the supreme court.

Mendonça has been waiting for approval since July 13, but disagreements between Bolsonaro’s administration and a key senator stalled the proceedings for months. On Wednesday, senators approved his appointment 47 votes to 32. The Bolsonaro ally will be able to sit on Brazil’s top court until age 75.

Earlier Wednesday, a Senate panel heard Mendonça for more than nine hours.

“Though I am genuinely evangelical, I understand there is no space for public religious demonstrations during the sittings of the Supreme Court,” he told senators. “The constitution is and must be the foundation to any decision by a supreme court justice. As to myself, I say: in my life, the Bible, and at the supreme court, the constitution.”

Mendonça was Brazil’s justice minister between April 2020 and March of this year, when he became attorney-general for the second time.

 

[Plain Jane]

Voters protest disqualification of Venezuelan candidate

BARINAS, Venezuela (AP) — About 500 supporters of a Venezuelan gubernatorial opposition candidate who was retroactively disqualified as the vote count showed him ahead in the home state of the late President Hugo Chávez protested Saturday against a decision that has become emblematic of what opponen

apnews.com

Voters protest disqualification of Venezuelan candidate
By REGINA GARCIA CANOtoday



1 of 10
Opposition leader Freddy Superlano greets supporters in Barinas, Venezuela, Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021. Superlano, who was leading the race for governor in Barinas State in the recent Nov. 21 regional elections, called for a protest this Saturday after a court ruling ordered new elections in the state and disqualified him from running(AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

BARINAS, Venezuela (AP) — About 500 supporters of a Venezuelan gubernatorial opposition candidate who was retroactively disqualified as the vote count showed him ahead in the home state of the late President Hugo Chávez protested Saturday against a decision that has become emblematic of what opponents say are unfair election conditions.

Under a heavy military and police presence, supporters of Freddy Superlano decried the decision of Venezuela’s highest court to schedule a new gubernatorial election in January, saying they are being robbed of the punishment vote they exercised against the ruling party’s candidate. They vowed to keep any pro-government candidate out of the governor’s office.

The northwestern state of Barinas has been considered a bastion of Chávismo. Superlano was ahead in the Nov. 21 race against incumbent Argenis Chávez, one of Hugo Chávez’s brothers. Argenis along with Adán Chavez and father Hugo de los Reyes Chávez have served as governors of the state of Barinas since 1998.

“It was a punishment against all the wrong they have done,” retiree Jose Montiya, 71, said. “The state should have been cared for like a little gold cup, the Chávez family has governed here, and look at how the state is.”

Montiya, whose pension is roughly $2 a month, then rattled a long list of concerns: serious gasoline shortages; lack of health care facilities; no basic services like gas, water and electricity; and hunger.

Venezuela’s Supreme Court of Justice on Monday ruled that Superlano should not have been on the ballot because he had been disqualified over an administrative sanction imposed in August stemming from his work as a legislator between 2015 and 2020.

The disqualification raised further doubts about the fairness of Venezuela’s electoral system following the first vote in years in which most major political forces agreed to take part and which was monitored by observers from the European Union. President Nicolás Maduro’s government invited the monitors but called them “spies” after they issued a preliminary report critical of the electoral system.

The court is one of many government bodies seen as loyal to the Maduro government. In past years, it and other agencies have blocked or ruled against major opposition parties and candidates.

People arrived at the protest outside a Catholic church by the busload from across the state or walking from nearby neighborhoods, where residents have seen their salaries and pensions shrink over the years and have been forced to pay a few dollars for a package of food that the government previously distributed for free. Many wore orange T-shirts and caps with their candidate’s name, waved Venezuelan flags and showed two thumbs down whenever Maduro was mentioned.

Among those at the protest, gasoline rationing was a common complaint about Argenis Chávez’ administration. He implemented a system that allowed people to refuel on a limited number of days, affecting everyday life for many. Ahead of the protest, the government announced it was ending the refueling system.

“We need to live better. We need to breathe, we feel drowned, tired, of these arbitrary people,” Barinas resident Raquel Coromoto, 57, said. “We feel like we are in a dictatorship and we want change.”

On Saturday, Superlano introduced his wife, Aurora Silva, as his party’s candidate for the Jan. 9 election. Argenis Chávez on Tuesday announced his decision to resign as governor and not run again as the ruling party’s candidate. The United Socialist Party of Venezuela had not picked a candidate as of Saturday.

Silva previously worked as a youth activist but has never held office before.

“I am sure that the regime did not think that we would respond in this way in Barinas. It is for the future of our children, women, it is for them that we are going to go (to the polls),” Silva said to the crowd. “We are on the right side of history and Barinas is an example; Barinas got up.”

Juan Guaidó, leader of the U.S.-backed faction of the opposition and who did not vote during the election, surprised protesters, who swarmed him as he arrived.

The report from EU observers concluded the regional contests happened under better conditions compared to the country’s elections in recent years but were marred by the use of public funds and other actions meant to benefit pro-government candidates. The monitors also noted that the elections were tainted by the disqualification of opposition contenders.
The observers on Saturday announced they would end their mission Sunday and return early next year to present an in-depth report. They did not make any comments on Superlano’s disqualification.

The court’s decision was in response to a complaint filed by the political leader Adolfo Superlano, who alleged “violation of the constitutional rights to participation and suffrage” in Barinas. Adolfo Superlano, who is not related to the now-disqualified candidate, is one of seven opposition dissidents under U.S. economic sanctions after being accused of leading “actions that undermine democracy” in Venezuela.

 

[Plain Jane]

Dominican Republic expels, mistreats Haitians, activists say

DAJABON, Dominican Republic (AP) — Bien-Aimé St. Clair frowned as the stream of older Haitian migrants pushed past him.

apnews.com

Dominican Republic expels, mistreats Haitians, activists say
By DÁNICA COTOyesterday



1 of 28
A man holds a rooster in a store that sells chickens in the Little Haiti neighborhood of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Sunday, Nov. 21, 2021. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians are believed to live in the Dominican Republic, even before many fled Haiti in recent months in the wake of a presidential assassination, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake, a severe shortage of fuel and a spike in gang-related violence and kidnappings. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

DAJABON, Dominican Republic (AP) — Bien-Aimé St. Clair frowned as the stream of older Haitian migrants pushed past him. Accused of living in the Dominican Republic illegally, they knew they had no choice but to go back across the border to Haiti.

But St. Clair, 18, hesitated. He shouted at an immigration agent.

“Boss! Hey! I don’t know anyone there,” he yelled in Spanish, motioning toward Haiti as he stood on the frontier that the two countries share on the island of Hispaniola.

St. Clair was a child when his mother brought him to the Dominican Republic, and though his life has been hard -- his mom died when he was young, his father disappeared, and he was left alone to raise his disabled brother -- it’s the only life he has known.

And now, he was being forced to leave, like more than 31,000 people deported by the Dominican Republic to Haiti this year, more than 12,000 of them in just the past three months -- a huge spike, observers say. As the rest of the world closes its doors to Haitian migrants, the country that shares an island with Haiti also is cracking down in a way that human rights activists say hasn’t been seen in decades.

_____
This story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
____
The increasing mistreatment of the country’s Haitians, they say, coincided with the rise of Luis Abinader, who took office as president in August 2020.

They accuse the government of targeting vulnerable populations, separating children from their parents and racial profiling -- Haiti is overwhelmingly Black, while the majority Dominicans identify as mixed race. Dominican authorities, they say, are not only seeking out Haitians who recently crossed illegally into the Dominican Republic, but also those who have long lived there.

“We’ve never seen this,” said William Charpantier, national coordinator for the nonprofit National Roundtable for Migration and Refugees. “The government is acting like we’re at war.”

They’ve arrested Haitians who crossed illegally into the Dominican Republic; Haitians whose Dominican work permits have expired; those born in the DR to Haitian parents but denied citizenship; even, activists say, Black Dominicans born to Dominican parents whom authorities mistake for Haitians.https://apnews.com/article/dominica...ed-crackdown-fb0b796b645e6c418094fe3f28298ea5
https://apnews.com/article/business...sassinations-a4ebaab13ebb6be6f4474f1740379d6f

Haitian officials and activists also say the government is violating laws and agreements by deporting pregnant women, separating children from parents and arresting people between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Meanwhile, activists say hostility against Haitians is spiraling as Abinader unleashed a flurry of anti-Haitian actions.

He suspended a student-visa program for Haitians, prohibited companies from drawing more than 20% of their workforce from migrant workers and ordered Haitian migrants to register their whereabouts.

He announced an audit of some 220,000 people previously awarded immigration status to determine if they still qualify, and he warned that anyone who provides transportation or housing to undocumented migrants will be fined. And he suspended pension payments owed to hundreds of former sugarcane workers -- most of them Haitian.

The measures follow Abinader’s announcement in February that his administration would build a multimillion-dollar, 118-mile (190-kilometer) wall along the Haitian border.

The construction has begun. Meanwhile, life has become ever more miserable for Haitians who remain in the Dominican Republic and those, like St. Clair, who have been deported.

The teenager watched as the bus that dropped him off at the border pulled away, empty except for a machete, hammer and other work tools the other migrants were carrying when they were detained.

“Hey!” he yelled.

No response. St. Clair clicked his tongue and sighed.
___
Haiti and the Dominican Republic have long had a wary and difficult relationship, stained by a 1937 massacre in which thousands of Haitians were killed under Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.

Racism and rejection of Haitians is still palpable, with Dominicans cursing them or making disparaging comments when they see them on the street.

Still, hundreds of thousands of Haitians were believed to live in the Dominican Republic, even before many fled Haiti in recent months in the wake of a presidential assassination, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake, a severe shortage of fuel and a spike in gang-related violence and kidnappings.

“We don’t come here to take over the country. We’re trying to survive,” said Gaetjens Thelusma of the nonprofit group We Will Save Haiti.

The government has repeatedly said it treats migrants humanely. Abinader recently told the United Nations that his country had borne the burden of dealing with the ripples of Haiti’s crises on its own, without much help from the rest of the world.

While his country has demonstrated solidarity and collaboration with Haiti and will keep doing so, he said, “I also reiterate that there is not and will never be a Dominican solution to the crisis in Haiti.”

His own ministers have referred darkly to Haitians as invaders: Speaking in favor of the border wall, Dominican Migration Director Enrique García said in October that “we cannot lose our country.”

“What option do you have when you can’t handle your neighbor any longer? Protect your house, your property and your family,” he told D’Agenda, a local TV news program.

And in early November, Jesús Vázquez, Dominican minister of the interior and police, inaugurated the first of several dozen offices where foreigners will be required to register.

He told reporters: “The main threat that the Dominican Republic faces nowadays is Haiti, and we are called upon to defend our homeland.”

___
Rosemita Doreru was nine months pregnant when she was detained in early November inside a hospital in the capital of Santo Domingo. She was later deported, leaving behind three young children.

“Every day they ask me, ‘When is Mom coming home? When is Mom coming home?’” said her partner, Guens Molière. “They cry almost daily.”

She gave birth in Haiti; Molière remains angry that officials did not let him send her a suitcase with her clothes and items for their newborn before she was deported. And he does not know what will happen next -- he can’t afford the $260 that human smugglers are now charging to illegally cross pregnant women and those with young children into the Dominican Republic.

Doreru is not alone in her misery. On a recent afternoon in Dajabón, authorities deported more than 40 unaccompanied children and dozens of lactating women, said Rolbert Félicien with the nonprofit Institute of Social Wellbeing and Research. If the children’s parents or relatives are not found, they are placed in an orphanage in Haiti.

Dozens of Haitian migrants interviewed in other Dominican cities and towns accused Abinader’s administration of treating them “like dogs.”

The treatment is not reserved only for those who entered the country unlawfully; on a bustling market day in the dusty border town of Dajabon, at least one Dominican official used a stun gun on migrants who crossed the border legally to buy and sell goods.

“Deportations exist in every country, but they are mistreating Haitians,” said 25-year-old Sabrina Bierre, a street vendor who sells used clothes and other items in a section of Santo Domingo known as Little Haiti. “They are undocumented, but they’re not animals.”

Earlier this month, 26-year-old Véronique Louis gave birth to a daughter at a hospital in Santo Domingo. She returned days later for further treatment because they botched the cesarean, but medical staff denied her care, according to her husband, Wilner Rafael.

“They said they weren’t treating Blacks, and that Haitians aren’t people,” he said. Louis nodded.
Louis now has an open wound that is a couple of inches wide and winces in pain every time she moves. A Haitian doctor from the community stops by on occasion to treat Louis at their cramped room, tucked inside a maze of dilapidated homes covered in soot.
___
These days, many Haitian migrants and those of Haitian descent stay home out of fear of the authorities, or leave the house one at a time to avoid abandoning a child if both parents are deported.

On a recent morning at the country’s main migration office, dozens of Haitians clutching folders, papers and passports lined up in hopes of renewing work permits, something many said they’ve done repeatedly to no avail; activists accuse the government of refusing to process the paperwork so they have reason to arrest them.

“Things are bad for us right now,” said Edouard Louis, who came to the Dominican Republic more than 30 years ago to work in sugarcane fields under a bilateral agreement. He now sells locks, chargers and USB cables at a small outdoor market in the outskirts of Santo Domingo, earning just enough to buy eggs and rice for sustenance.

His work permit expired last year, and despite repeated attempts to renew it, he hasn’t received a response from the government. He still carries that permit along with older ones in a weathered black wallet in hopes that if he gets detained, he can prove to authorities that he crossed the border legally.

Those born in the Dominican Republic to Haitian immigrants are in a similar situation. Tens of thousands of them were never awarded citizenship and don’t have the documents needed to work or attend university. The Dominican Republic awards citizenship only to those born to Dominican parents or legal residents as a result of a 2013 court ruling that the Organization of American States said “created a stateless situation never before seen in America.”

The ruling was applied retroactively to those born between 1929 and 2010.

A year later, the government approved another law that offered a path to citizenship if they were born in the Dominican Republic, but a large majority have still not been able to do so, especially those whose parents do not have the required documents.

“I still cry about it,” said 16-year-old Erika Jean, who was born in the Dominican Republic to Haitian parents and lives in Batey La Lima, an impoverished community surrounded by a massive sugarcane plantation in the southern Dominican coastal city of La Romana.

“I truly have an ugly future,” she said. “I’ve lost all hope of obtaining the documents.”

Luis Batista, a 70-year-old retired sugarcane worker who came to the Dominican Republic in 1972 on a government-sponsored work permit that has since expired, said: “We have absolutely nothing here. No papers. No pension. No medical care,” he said.

In his neighborhood, children fly kites made of plastic bags, make face masks out of discarded cartons, tie a string around a bucket to bounce it on nearby potholes. Some homes are made of corrugated metal, with discarded rice bags stuffed into the holes of rickety wooden doors to keep out pests.

Batista said he is partially blind after spending years in burning sugar cane fields next to his wife, 68-year-old Ramonita Charles, whose father died while working in those fields and received no medical help from the company that employed him.

“They don’t give us a pension. We don’t have a job. We can’t go out on the street,” said Charles, who grew up working in sugarcane fields and is illiterate. She now sells eggs, chips, cookies and other small items out of a tin shack to sustain her four siblings, three children and her mother, a former sugarcane worker who is in her early 90s.

And now, there are the deportations.
“You go out and you don’t know if you’re going to come back home,” she said.
___
The raids, deportations and mistreatment by the government have dissuaded some Haitians from crossing into the Dominican Republic, according to a human smuggler who only gave his first name as Luis Fernando.

He was born in Haiti but has lived in the Dominican Republic for 19 years. He paints and works in construction but also helps migrants cross illegally, paying Dominican officials anywhere from $35 to $90 to look the other way. In mid-November, he placed a group waiting to cross on hold.

“For now, it’s best that they stay over there. Until things cool down,” he said.
And yet, some still insist on making their way to the DR.

St. Clair, the teenager marooned in Dajabon, looked around as immigration officials who had detained him left and authorities prepared to close the border for the night. Gone was the stream of border crossers, the rumble of trucks and roar of motorcycles carrying plantains, onions and other goods.

Apologetic UNICEF workers had told him they couldn’t help -- he turned 18 in October and was now considered an adult.

St. Clair began walking back toward the Dominican Republic. One concerned immigration official yelled after him, “Where are you going to sleep? You don’t have any money.”

St. Clair didn’t respond. As the sun set, he slipped past authorities, sneaked into the Dominican Republic and disappeared down a quiet street.

 

[Plain Jane]

US religious group says Haitian gang releases 3 hostages

A religious group based in Ohio has announced that a violent gang in Haiti has released three more hostages, while another 12 remain abducted.

apnews.com

US religious group says Haitian gang releases 3 hostages
By PETER SMITH and EVENS SANONyesterday



1 of 3
Workers ride out of the gate of the Christian Aid Ministries headquarters in Titanyen, north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Monday, Dec. 6, 2021. The religious group based in Ohio said that three more hostages were released on Sunday, while another 12 remain abducted in Haiti. The group provided no further details. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A religious group based in Ohio announced Monday that a violent gang in Haiti has released three more hostages, while another 12 remain abducted.
The statement from Christian Aid Ministries said the people were released on Sunday in Haiti and are “safe and seem to be in good spirits.” The group provided no further details.

On Nov. 21, the religious organization announced that the 400 Mawozo gang had released the first two hostages of a group of 17 kidnapped in mid-October. There are 12 adults and five children in the group of 16 U.S. citizens and one Canadian, including an 8-month-old.

The leader of the 400 Mawozo gang has threatened to kill the hostages unless his demands are met. Authorities have said the gang was seeking $1 million per person, although it wasn’t immediately clear that included the children in the group.

“We are thankful to God that three more hostages were released last night,” said the statement from Christian Aid Ministries, an Anabaptist missions organization based in Berlin, Ohio. “As with the previous release, we are not able to provide the names of the people released, the circumstances of the release, or any other details.”

The group reiterated its request for supporters to devote Monday through Wednesday as days of prayer and fasting “to intercede for those who are still being held as well as those who have been released.”

The release comes amid an ongoing spike in kidnappings in the capital of Port-au-Prince and elsewhere in Haiti, which is struggling to recover from the July 7 presidential assassination, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck in mid-August and a severe fuel shortage.

On Sunday, a gang leader known as “Ti Lapli” posted a YouTube video warning people not to cross in upcoming days through the Martissant community, which has been the site of violent clashes between warring gangs.

“Insecurity has increased,” the gang leader said. “I invite the people of Martissant to stock up on food and gasoline. The next few days will be difficult... We will not remain with our arms crossed in face of those who try to destroy us.”
___
Smith reported from Pittsburgh.

 

[Plain Jane]

Chile passes law to legalize same-sex marriage – DW – 12/08/2021

Lawmakers in Chile have voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. The law is being called a "step forward" for equality in the conservative Latin American country.

www.dw.com

Chile passes law to legalize same-sex marriage
Lawmakers in Chile have voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. The law is being called a "step forward" for equality in the conservative Latin American country.




Activists applaud the passage of a bill in Chile's Congress approving same-sex marriage

Chile's Congress passed a bill Tuesday recognizing the legal rights of same-sex couples to marry.

The Senate and lower house both voted overwhelmingly in favor of the measure.

The passage of the law Tuesday was lauded by rights groups, equal marriage rights advocates and same-sex couples.

Ramon Lopez told AFP news agency at the doors to Congress that he was waiting for the law's passage so he could marry his partner of 21 years.

"It is something very significant," Lopez said, adding, "One really feels dignified as a human being, as a person. This opens the doors and breaks down all those prejudices."

After the vote, Chile's minister of social development, Karla Rubilar, said it was "one more step forward in terms of justice, in terms of equality, recognizing that love is love."

Milestone bill for conservative Chile
The passage of the bill marks something of a milestone for the conservative Latin American nation.



Watch video02:11
Celebrating same-sex marriage twenty years on
Former President Michelle Bachelet first introduced the measure in 2017.
Civil unions have been allowed in Chile since 2015.

President Sebastian Pinera supports the bill and is expected to sign it into law before leaves office in March.

The new law granting same-sex couples who wish to marry the same rights as heterosexual couples will come into effect 90 days after the bill is published in Chile's official gazette.
It also means same-sex couples with children will see both parents receive full legal recognition.

With the passage of the bill, Chile joins over 20 countries worldwide, including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica and Uruguay in Latin America, in legalizing same-sex marriage.


Watch video01:47
Argentine gay rugby club champions diversity in sports
Progressive vs. conservative in Chile
Chile faces a pivotal run-off in the presidential election on December 19. Chileans will choose between progressive candidate Gabriel Boric and the socially conservative Jose Antonio Kast.

Despite a long-held reputation for holding conservative values, most Chileans support same-sex marriage rights.

In what is perceived as a nod to centrist voters, the conservative candidate Kast has said he would have passed the bill had he been president.

In recent years, Chileans have indicated a shift to the left on social and cultural matters.
ar/wmr (AFP, Reuters)

 

[Plain Jane]

U.S. Treasury: El Salvador government negotiated with gangs

The U.S. Treasury says the government of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele secretly negotiated a truce with leaders of the country’s powerful street gangs.

apnews.com

U.S. Treasury: El Salvador government negotiated with gangs
By CHRISTOPHER SHERMANyesterday



1 of 3
FILE - El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele speaks to the press at Mexico's National Palace after meeting with the President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico City, March 12, 2019. The government of President Bukele secretly negotiated a truce with leaders of the country’s powerful street gangs, the U.S. Treasury announced Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021, cutting to the heart of one of Bukele’s most highly touted successes in office: a plunge in the country’s murder rate. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s government secretly negotiated a truce with leaders of the country’s powerful street gangs, the U.S. Treasury charged Wednesday, contradicting Bukele’s denials and raising tensions between the two nations.

The U.S government alleges Bukele’s government bought the gangs’ support with financial benefits and privileges for their imprisoned leaders including prostitutes and cellphones. The explosive accusation cuts to the heart of one of Bukele’s most highly touted successes in office: a plunge in the country’s homicide rate.

Bukele’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the president responded sarcastically via Twitter. “Cell phones and prostitutes in the prisons? Money to the gangs? When did that happen? Didn’t they even check the date? How can they put out a such an obvious lie without anyone questioning them?”

Bukele vehemently denied the accusation when it was reported in August 2020 by the local news site El Faro. And on Wednesday, he alluded to a gang truce negotiated by a previous administration for which several former officials are being prosecuted.

The U.S. Treasury announcement came as it designated two officials from Bukele’s government for financial sanctions.

In 2020, Bukele’s administration ’’provided financial incentives to Salvadoran gangs MS-13 and 18th Street Gang (Barrio 18) to ensure that incidents of gang violence and the number of confirmed homicides remained low,” the Treasury statement said. “Over the course of these negotiations with Luna and Marroquin, gang leadership also agreed to provide political support to the Nuevas Ideas political party in upcoming elections.”

Bukele’s New Ideas party won legislative elections earlier this year in a landslide, giving it control of El Salvador’s congress.

The two officials who negotiated directly with the gang leaders were Osiris Luna Meza, chief of the Salvadoran Penal System and Vice Minister of Justice and Public Security, and Carlos Amilcar Marroquin Chica, chairman of the Social Fabric Reconstruction Unit.

The announcement comes as a number of former officials from previous administrations are being prosecuted for negotiating a similar pact with the gangs.

Former Attorney General Raul Melara said he would investigate the El Faro report at the time, but when Bukele’s party took over congress, the new lawmakers ousted Melara and replaced him with someone linked to Bukele’s administration.

The U.S. Treasury said that an investigation into government officials and gang leaders revealed the secret negotiations. Luna and Marroquin allegedly “led, facilitated and organized a number of secret meetings involving incarcerated gang leaders, in which known gang members were allowed to enter the prison facilities and meet with senior gang leadership.”

In addition to financial benefits for the gang members, incarcerated leaders received special treatment in the prisons, including access to mobile phones and prostitutes. It said Luna also negotiated support from MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs for Bukele’s national quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Luna and his mother, Alma Yanira Meza Olivares, also allegedly put in motion a scheme to embezzle millions of dollars from the prison system and were stealing pandemic relief supplies and then re-selling them to the government. Meza was also designated.

The designations Wednesday mean that any assets Luna and Marroquin have in the United States are blocked and U.S. citizens are prohibited from any transactions with Luna and Marroquin.

The revelations are sure to raise tensions between Bukele and the Biden administration. After the new congress removed the attorney general and the justices of the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court in May, the U.S. government expressed concern over the direction of the country.

The U.S. Agency for International Development announced it would shift aid from government agencies in El Salvador to non-governmental organizations. The head of that agency, Samantha Power, then went to El Salvador and gave a speech about the fragility of democracy.

The new attorney general in June announced the government was cancelling the Organization of American States anti-corruption mission in El Salvador.

In May and July, the U.S. government published lists of allegedly corrupt officials in Central America that included the name of Bukele’s Chief of Staff Carolina Recinos.

Last month, the United States’ top diplomat in El Salvador announced that she was leaving the post, adding that Bukele’s government “is showing no interest” in improving the bilateral relationship.

Bukele enjoys extremely high popularity. He stepped into a political vacuum left by discredited traditional parties from the left and right who had left a legacy of corruption.

In a series of Twitter messages Wednesday, Bukele went on to say that in his last meeting with interim U.S. chargé d’affaires Jean Manes, she asked him for several things, including the release of a former San Salvador mayor, not to re-elect Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado and to not pursue former President Alfredo Cristiani and former Attorney General Douglas Meléndez.

Bukele said that after the meeting he cut off communication with Manes. He also said the U.S. had told El Salvador’s foreign affairs minister to stop passage of proposed “foreign agent” legislation or risk losing all international aid. That legislation has not been brought to a vote before the full Legislative Assembly.

Bukele said he told Manes he couldn’t release the former San Salvador mayor, thought Delgado was doing a good job as Attorney General and even though he had nothing personal against Cristiani and Meléndez, he wouldn’t protect them.

Tom Shannon, a lobbyist for the El Salvador government in Washington, said the U.S. government had lobbed an “artillery shell” into the country’s domestic politics with the announcement Wednesday.

He noted that the statement did not include any explanation of the evidence the U.S. government had to support the allegations.

“It’s quite remarkable the United States would treat an ally, a partner in this fashion,” said Shannon, former U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs. He questioned whether the U.S. government was interested in having a constructive relationship with El Salvador if it turned to making public allegations rather than addressing it diplomatically directly with the government.

The U.S. Treasury did not immediately respond to a request for additional information about the investigation.

 

[Plain Jane]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Tropical Warzone: Gunmen On Jet Skis Open Fire At Cancun Beach Resort

BY TYLER DURDEN
THURSDAY, DEC 09, 2021 - 08:00 PM
The Northern Hemisphere winter is just 12 days away, and some Americans have already packed their bags and headed to the sandy beaches of Cancun to escape cold weather. Vacationers this year have to be on guard amid a spate of shootings that have turned the area into a tropical warzone.
The latest incident occurred Tuesday outside the four-star Oasis Palm resort in Cancun. According to NBC News, a group of gunmen pulled up on jet skis and began shooting in the hotel zone.


Here are the jetskis used in the shooting.



Andy Guyrich and Kerry Arms, who were visiting from Minnesota, described the incident as terror on the beach:

"We just had to hit the deck.
"There was a delayed reaction for about maybe five seconds, then everybody started scrambling and screaming and crying, and running," Arms said.

The shooting at the Oasis Palm is just the latest in a string of violent incidents we have documented this year from Cancun to about 2 hours south in Tulum.

Last month, cartel gunfire erupted at a high-end resort at Hyatt Ziva Riviera. A shootout between two rival cartels left two drug dealers dead.

Multiple cartels are battling over who controls the drug trade to tourists. In October, in Tulum, gunfire among two rival cartels left two female foreign tourists dead and three injured.


Mexico was left with no other choice than to deploy 1,500 National Guard members to quell the violence in resort areas.

Readers may recall, as early April, we noted ""Crisis In Paradise" - Mexican Tourist Mecca Descends Into Chaos As Cartels Wage War During Spring Break," documenting the rapid deterioration in the resort areas as cartels waged war on one another with tourists in the crossfire.

A little late but a good start, the US Department of State issued a travel warning to Americans vacationing in Cancun to "exercise extreme caution" amid the surge in violence.

 

[Plain Jane]

Mexico: 55 migrants killed when truck overturns – DW – 12/10/2021

At least 55 people from Central America were killed in Mexico when the truck they were in overturned. The deceased were covered in white shrouds and laid out at the crash site side by side.

www.dw.com

Mexico: 53 migrants killed when truck overturns
At least 53 people from Central America were killed in Mexico when the truck they were in overturned. The deceased were covered in white shrouds and laid out at the crash site side by side.




Police and rescue workers tend to victims of a crash in which at least 53 migrants died
At least 53 migrants from Central America were killed Thursday in Chiapas state, southern Mexico when a truck flipped. Most of those deaths were reported to have been migrants tucked in the trailer of the truck hoping for a new life in the US.

Luis Manuel Garcia, the head of the Chiapas civil protection agency told Reuters news agency the truck crashed on a sharp curve on the highway between the city of Chiapa de Corzo and the state capital of Tuxtla Gutierrez.

"According to the statements of the survivors, most of them are from Guatemala," he said.
The civil protection services in Chiapas said 58 other people were injured in the accident, with men, women and children among the victims.

Watch video28:31
La Bestia - Hitching a ride on the Death Train
What happened?
Images from the crash site show a white trailer on its side on the highway as victims are scattered about on tarps as they receive medical attention.

Several of the deceased were covered in white shrouds. The deceased were laid out side by side.

In one video broadcast on social media, a woman holds her weeping child in her lap while both are covered in blood. Another video shows a man in the trailer after the wreck curled up and unable to move as rescue crews worked to assist him.

Chiapas Governor Rutilio Escandon tweeted his solidarity with the victims and said he instructed rescue crews to the scene.

What is the reaction to the crash?
After the collision, Celso Pacheco of Guatemala said the truck felt like it was going too fast before it lost control. Pacheco said the people were from Guatemala and Honduras and estimated there were nearly a dozen young children inside.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wrote on Twitter that the tragedy was "very painful."

Each year, hundreds of thousands try to reach the US via Mexico from Mexico itself or Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador in Central America and elsewhere. Most of these migrants are transported in truck trailers operated by human traffickers.


Watch video03:02
Mexico-Guatemala border: Migrant purgatory inTapachula
ar/wd (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)

 

[Plain Jane]

US hostage envoy visited Venezuela to meet jailed Americans

The Associated Press has learned that a senior U.S. diplomat quietly traveled to Venezuela this week and met with imprisoned Americans in an ongoing effort to secure their release.

apnews.com

US hostage envoy visited Venezuela to meet jailed Americans
By JOSHUA GOODMAN and ERIC TUCKERyesterday



1 of 2
A mural depicting late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez adorns a wall at his home town Sabaneta, in Barinas state in Venezuela, Sunday, Dec. 5, 2021. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro named Former foreign minister Jorge Arreaza via a livestream as the ruling party's candidate to the gubernatorial race for Barinas State. The announcement came less than a week after the country's highest court disqualified opposition candidate Freddy Superlano for the governorship of Barinas as he was leading the vote count, a move that has become emblematic of what the opposition says are unfair election conditions. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

MIAMI (AP) — A senior U.S. diplomat quietly traveled to Venezuela this week and met with imprisoned Americans as part of an ongoing effort to secure release of men the Biden administration believes are being held as bargaining chips by a top U.S. adversary, The Associated Press has learned.

Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs and the government’s top hostage negotiator, arrived in Caracas on a chartered flight Tuesday evening and returned home Friday in a previously unreported visit.

It’s not clear who in the heavily sanctioned socialist administration of President Nicolás Maduro he met.

But It was the first known face-to-face outreach by a top U.S. official since the Trump administration shuttered the American Embassy in Caracas in March 2019 after recognizing opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate leader. Ever since, relations between the two countries have grown steadily more hostile, with the U.S. government imposing strict oil sanctions on the country and targeting top officials with criminal indictments, something Maduro has likened to a “soft coup.”

“It was a good thing to see the guys, to show them that their government cares. It was also positive to report back to their families that I had seen them,” Carstens told the AP, adding that he was grateful to Maduro’s aides for inviting him down for what he described as a “wellness check.”

The timing of the visit is likely to raise eyebrows, coming on the heels of gubernatorial elections considered deeply undemocratic by the Biden administration after numerous opposition candidates were barred from running.
https://apnews.com/article/latest-inflation-numbers-consumer-prices-616055db3bf67691b4fdc0015fc00783

“Fearful of the voice and vote of Venezuelans, the regime grossly skewed the process to determine the result of this election long before any ballots had been cast,” the State Department said after the Nov. 21 vote.

The Maduro government, which in the past hasn’t hesitated to publicize peacemaking missions by prominent American interlocutors, has kept mum about the surprise visit. Carstens confirmed the visit late Friday afternoon.

During his visit, he was permitted to check on a group of six American oil executives held in Caracas’ infamous El Helicoide prison, a one-time modernist shopping mall converted into a facility housing the government’s top opponents.

One person familiar with the visit described Carstens’ jailhouse meeting with the six executives from Houston-based Citgo, which lasted about 90 minutes, as highly emotional. Carstens told the prisoners he had discussed their case with Maduro government officials while in Caracas but declined to say whom.


The person and several others with knowledge of the meeting spoke on condition of anonymity to AP because they were not authorized to discuss Carstens’ travels.

Tomeu Vadell, Jose Luis Zambrano, Alirio Zambrano, Jorge Toledo, Gustavo Cardenas and José Pereira were hauled away in 2017 by masked security agents who stormed into a Caracas conference room. The men had been lured to Venezuela just before Thanksgiving of that year to attend a meeting at the headquarters of the company’s parent, state-run oil giant PDVSA.

The six were convicted of embezzlement last year in a trial marred by delays and irregularities. They were sentenced to between 8 and 13 years in prison for a never-executed proposal to refinance billions of dollars in the oil company’s bonds. Maduro at the time accused them of “treason.” They all pleaded not guilty and the U.S. considers them to be wrongfully detained.

After having been granted house arrest, they were swiftly thrown back in jail Oct. 16, 2021, the same day that a close ally of Maduro was extradited by the African nation of Cape Verde to the U.S. to face money laundering charges.

While at El Helicoide prison, Carstens also met with Luke Denman and Airan Berry — two former Green Berets arrested in connection with a failed raid aimed at toppling Maduro that was staged from Colombia. He also conducted a wellness check with former U.S. Marine Matthew Heath, who is being held at a separate facility on unrelated allegations.

The visit came just weeks after family members of the Americans jailed in Venezuela, and other relatives of hostages and detainees, complained in a letter to the Biden administration that they felt the releases of their loved ones weren’t being sufficiently prioritized.

John Pereira, the son of Jose Pereira, who weeks ago was rushed to a private clinic for emergency treatment for a cardiac condition, told the AP at the time that “our feeling is that they can do more.”

President Joe Biden has so far been less public on the issue of hostage affairs than his predecessor, Donald Trump, who scored several high-profile releases around the world over four years, giving officials great leeway to pursue negotiations.

Trump also invited hostages and detainees who were freed under his watch to appear alongside him in a video aired during the Republican National Convention. That includes Joshua Holt, a Utah man who spent two years in a Caracas jail after traveling to Venezuela to marry a fellow Mormon he met online.

Though no Americans were freed during the current visit, any future releases would represent a significant win for Carstens, a retired U.S. Army Special Forces officer who was a rare holdover from the Trump administration. Last month, journalist Danny Fenster was freed after nearly six months in jail in military-ruled Myanmar.

His release was negotiated by former U.S. diplomat Bill Richardson, who has also traveled to Caracas in the past to push for the Americans’ release.

Richardson called Carstens’ visit to Caracas a “significant” development.

“Speaking directly with those who are holding Americans is important,” he said in a statement to The AP. “It does not guarantee success, but I commend Roger Carstens for taking that first step, the families of our detainees for pushing for these efforts and the Maduro government for allowing this humanitarian gesture to take place.”

At least 61 Americans are known to be wrongfully detained or held hostage abroad, according to the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, named for James W. Foley, a freelance journalist killed at the hands of the Islamic State group in Syria.
____
AP Writer Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela and Matthew Lee in Liverpool, England contributed to this report. Tucker reported from Washington.

 

[Plain Jane]

El Salvador pushes ahead with cryptoplan – DW – 12/13/2021

After making Bitcoin legal tender in his country, Nayib Bukele aims to use a $1 billion bond sale to turn the fortunes of the economically depressed nation around. Stakes are high for the iconic leader and El Salvador.

www.dw.com

El Salvador's president pushes ahead with cryptoplan
After making Bitcoin legal tender in his country, Nayib Bukele aims to use a $1 billion bond sale to turn the fortunes of the economically depressed nation around. Stakes are high for the iconic leader and El Salvador.




Bukele's rock star image made him the darling of the crypto community. Will he convince serious investors, too?

Nayib Bukele did it again. When the news of the newly emerging omicron coronavirus variant was spreading around the world in early December, sending riskier financial assets like stocks, junk bonds, and not least of all cryptocurrencies in a tailspin, the Salvadoran president bought the dips.

Though missing the bottom of the sell-off in Bitcoin by 7 minutes, as he wrote in a tweet later on, the smart purchase got El Salvador another 150 bitcoins for a "knockdown price."

It isn't the first time the 41-year-old president praised himself for successfully hunting the world's largest cryptocurrency for the good of the tiny Central American country that has just about $3.4 billion (€3 billion) in foreign currency reserves. While other developing countries are using their hard-earned dollars and euros to shore up their struggling currencies, the youthful president buys Bitcoin.

His policy has won him accolades from crypto aficionados, as well as criticism from mainstream economists. One of them, Peter Schiff, was quick to reply to Bukele's tweet. "There's a lot more dips coming. How much taxpayer money do you intend to waste?," he wrote.

The US stock broker and renowned financial commentator touched on a weak spot in Bukele's buy-the-dips strategy: It works only as long as cryptocurrencies continue their meteoric rise that saw, Bitcoin soar 90% in 2021 alone.



Watch video02:07
Bitcoin is now legal tender in El Salvador
From rags to riches
Before the introduction of Bitcoin as legal tender in September 2021, the US dollar reigned supreme as the currency most widely used by the country's about 6.8 million citizens.

Under new laws adopted in June, companies and businesses must also accept Bitcoin for payment now. In October, thousands of people took to the streets in brief protests against the controversial policy, and at least one of the estimated 200 Bitcoin ATMs scattered across the country reportedly went up in flames.

Salvadorans remain skeptical about Bitcoin, demanding the president doesn't make their country his private business

Since then, the protests have largely died down, giving the Salvadoran president the opportunity to push ahead with even bolder plans.

At a Bitcoin conference in mid-November, Bukele unveiled his vision of a so-called Bitcoin City he wants to build close to the country's border with Honduras and Nicaragua. It would be situated near the Conchagua volcano, he said, and would boast residential and commercial areas as well as an airport.

"He made the announcement at a huge party on the beach," said Aaron Koenig, a crypto enthusiast and digital entrepreneur, who was at the event and shared his impressions with DW.

Funding for the mammoth undertaking to start in 2022 is to be raised through the sale of a sovereign Bitcoin bond to the tune of $1 billion — "the hottest investment in the cryptosphere at present," Koenig believes. "At the moment, there are many 'Bitcoiners' having both the resources and the willingness to invest."

Thermal energy generated from the Conchuaga volcano is to provide emissions-free power for Bitcoin City

Volcano bond
El Salvador plans to sell the debt in US-dollar-denominated 10-year bonds with a coupon of 6.5%. Half of the income from the sale will be used to buy Bitcoin to hold for five years and the rest would fund construction projects in energy and crypto-mining infrastructure. The tokenized bond will be issued in partnership with Blockstream, a digital assets infrastructure company based in Canada.

Blockstream Chief Strategy Officer Samson Mow told financial news service Bloomberg that investors can expect much more than interest payments. "For the first five years, there'll be a 6.5% coupon, but then it accelerates to what I call a Bitcoin dividend. This is a special dividend from basically the Bitcoin being sold off. The Salvadoran government will share that with the bondholder."

Those dividends will either be paid in dollars or the cryptocurrency Tether, a so-called stablecoin meant to be a dollar proxy, Mow said, adding that he was convinced the issuance would be many times oversubscribed due to high demand.

Global investors in El Salvador's Bitcoin plans can enjoy multiple tax benefits

But the $1billion debt sale may only be a first step, because President Bukele himself has said that $17 billion will be needed to build his Bitcoin City — the equivalent of 300,000 bitcoins. The sums circulating in the debate are unheard of in a country where the average annual income of people is about $3,400.

Default looming?
For German economist Christian Ambrosius, Bukele's plans are "highly dangerous." In an interview for DW, he said he assumed the president was seeking a smart way out of a looming default on El Salvador's older debts. It was striking, he noted, that the $1 billion sum was exactly the same amount money the government had previously hoped to borrow from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as fresh loans.

And indeed, the plan to sell new, tokenized bonds could offer Bukele some breathing room after the IMF announced June it would reassess granting fresh loans to the country after the introduction of Bitcoin as legal tender. In November, the global lender of last resort published an analysis that concluded Bitcoin volatility would pose "a significant risk to financial stability" in El Salvador.

Blockstream's Samson Mow argued, though, such analyses were meaningless for crypto investors, because the crypto community had a different vision of the future of money, he told Bloomberg. "A lot of these organizations, like the IMF or the World Bank, won't be relevant in a world based on Bitcoin. They are only relevant because they create money out of thin air. You can't do that on a Bitcoin standard. It really takes us back to what money should be, which is just money, and not a surveillance mechanism or a tool to enforce your economic policies on another nation."

But Christian Ambrosius is concerned about what he sees as an emerging alliance between the cryptocurrency crowd and "increasingly authoritarian regimes." Even though Bukele was democratically elected, he'd made several attempts at weakening governance and the rule of law in El Salvador, he said.


Watch video03:45
El Salvador: Bitcoin policy 'working and attracting investment'
Crypto entrepreneur Aaron Koenig also views Bukele with some skepticism, but nevertheless believes in the president's attempt to spread the popularity and usage of cryptocurrencies in his country and beyond. Bitcoin has been on a tear for most of this year, reaping El Salvador millions in additional state revenue. But in the crypto world, money won can quickly turn into money lost.
This article has been adapted from the original German.

 

[Plain Jane]

Chile sees migrant crossings rise ahead of presidential vote

A merciless sun sears the migrants as they walk through one of the driest places in the world, trying to illegally cross the border from Bolivia into Chile fearing it might soon be closed.

apnews.com

Chile sees migrant crossings rise ahead of presidential vote
By MATÍAS DELACROIX and PATRICIA LUNAtoday



1 of 16
Migrants stand on the Bolivian side of the border as soldiers stand guard on the Chilean side near Colchane, Chile, Thursday, Dec. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix

COLCHANE, Chile (AP) — A merciless sun seared the migrants as they walked through one of the driest places in the world, trying to illegally cross the border from Bolivia into Chile fearing it might soon be closed.

It has become common in recent months to see migrants trudging across the Atacama Desert but the flow appears to have increased in recent days ahead of Chile’s presidential runoff Sunday. The migrants fear that if far-right candidate José Antonio Kast wins he will close the border as he promised during his campaign.

The conservative lawmaker, who has defended Chile’s military dictatorship, finished first in the country’s presidential election in November but did not get enough votes to win outright setting up a runoff against leftist Gabriel Boric. Kast has said he will order a ditch to be built to prevent migrants from crossing from Bolivia.

Immigration has been a recurring topic in Chile’s presidential campaign as the country sees an increasing flow of migrants, mainly from Venezuela, but also from nations like Haiti and Colombia. It’s a divisive issue and recently there was a widely publicized case of Chileans attacking Venezuelan migrants in Iquique, near the border with Bolivia and Peru.


The U.N. International Organization for Migration estimates there are almost 1.7 million immigrants in Chile. Only this year, Chilean authorities have registered more than 25,000 people arriving through the Atacama Desert, a significant increase compared to the 16,500 for all 2020.

“We have relatives here in Chile who told us that we had to go before Dec. 19, because if the one who won the first round (Kast) wins again, he will close all borders,” said Rayber Rodríguez, a Venezuelan traveling with his wife and daughter.

Tatiana Castro, a Colombian who also crossed into Chile through the desert, put it bluntly. “We had to cross right now for fear that they would send us back.”

She said people “do not know how hard it is, that we have to go through many countries and across many borders where it is hard for us, we have to endure hunger… cold weather.”

The border has been guarded for months by the police and the army, though migrants cross using different paths in the desert in plain sight. The border area was empty until few years ago. Now it looks like the transit area of a train terminal.

Once in Chilean territory, migrants are not detained. Some keep walking to the closest city while others turn themselves in to authorities so they can start a process that might help them to regularize their immigration status.

Colchane, a Chilean town near the border with fewer than 1,600 inhabitants, mostly Indigenous Aymara, has seen a constant flow of migrants in recent months. Sometimes the migrants outnumber the local population.

“We can’t take it anymore”, said Nicolás Mamani Gómez, who wants Kast to win, so “no more immigrants will come.”


Some of the migrants walk further after crossing the border and make it to the city of Iquique.

There, some of the migrants have been living in public parks and beaches. And not all the residents are happy. A few weeks ago, some locals attacked a camp where Venezuelans were staying and burned their belongings.

Virginia Carrasco, a 30 years-old Venezuelan, crossed the desert and entered into Chile with her three children — 11 and 8 years old, and a baby of six months — looking for a better life.
Carrasco said she wants a better health care system for them.

“In Venezuela’s hospitals you get nothing,” she said, as she dragged a cart filled with suitcases, bags and backpacks. “There are people who have died because they cannot get medicine or doctors. I expect a better quality of life for my children in Chile, that’s why I came here.”
____
Luna reported from Santiago, Chile.

 

[Plain Jane]

Fireball from overturned tanker kills 75 in Haiti: official

Authorities say at least 75 people were killed and dozens more injured after a gasoline tanker overturned and exploded in northern Haiti.

apnews.com

Fireball from overturned tanker kills 75 in Haiti: official
By PIERRE-RICHARD LUXAMA and EVENS SANONtoday



1 of 11
A health worker attends a man burned after a gasoline truck overturned and exploded, at the Justinien University Hospital in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021. The explosion engulfed cars and homes in flames, killing more than 50 people and injuring dozens of others. (AP Photo/Joseph Odelyn)

CAP-HAITIEN, Haiti (AP) — A gasoline tanker overturned and exploded in northern Haiti, unleashing a fireball that swept through homes and businesses on its way to killing at least 75 people Tuesday, according to local authorities, in the latest tragedy to befall the Caribbean nation.

The blast occurred shortly after midnight in Cap-Haitien, Haiti’s second largest city, along the northern coast. Hours later, buildings and overturned vehicles were still fuming as firefighters covered the burned bodies of the young victims in white sheets and loaded them onto the back of a construction truck.

Hundreds of Haitians — who aren’t easily shocked amid their country’s multiple misfortunes — looked on from rooftops in disbelief at the loss of so much life. Prime Minister Ariel Henry, himself a physician, visited a hospital where victims bandaged head to toe were fighting for their lives amid a shortage of medical supplies and health workers.

“It’s horrible what happened,” said Patrick Almonor, deputy mayor of Cap-Haitien, who said late Tuesday that 75 people had died.. “We lost so many lives.”

Among survivors who spoke with the prime minister was Riche Joseph, who spent hours on the floor of Justinien University Hospital, the city’s largest, connected to an IV while he waited for a bed.

His sister, Bruna Lourdes, said her brother stepped out of the house late at night where they lived together with their mother to look for something to eat. When she heard the explosion, she rushed down from the hillside shantytown in panic.

“I’m praying to God that he won’t take his life,” said Lourdes, who is studying to be a nurse and plans to spend the night by her brother’s beside to offer whatever assistance she can to the overstretched medical staff.

Early reports indicate that the tanker was trying to avoid an oncoming motorcycle when it flipped. Onlookers then rushed to the scene with buckets to scoop up what they could of the tanker’s valuable cargo, likely for resale on the black market, as the fuel spilled toward a nearby pile of smoldering trash.

“It was after midnight and I heard a loud noise so I asked one of my boys to go and look. He told me a gasoline truck exploded,” said Abraham Joanis, 61, as he carried around a guitar rescued unscathed from the charred remains of his home, one of 50 gutted by the blaze.
“Right away, I left with my family, and I headed the other way to the bridge,” he added.

Contributing to the high death toll is the desperation that has forced impoverished Haitians in recent months to scramble for gasoline due to severe shortages that have shuttered gas stations, sent fuel prices on the black market spiraling and forced businesses to close as the U.S. and Canadian governments warn their citizens to leave while they still can.

The shortages are the latest manifestation of a society that has been on the brink since the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise and a 7.2 magnitude earthquake a few weeks later that killed more than 2,200 people and destroyed tens of thousands of homes.

The country of more than 11 million people also has been hit by a spike in gang-related kidnappings, including 17 people with a U.S. missionary organization who were abducted in mid-October. Five of them have been released but another 12 are still being held.

“It’s terrible what our country has to go through,” said Dave Larose, a civil engineer who works in Cap-Haitien.

Hospitals in Haiti’s second largest city seemed ill equipped to deal with the disaster and 15 victims had to be evacuated by air to hospitals in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Some of the burn victims were being treated by teams from Doctors without Borders.

“Surviving and recovering from a severe burn is a difficult process that requires specialized medical care, often for weeks or months,” Jean-Gilbert Ndong, the group’s medical coordinator. “We will continue to receive patients according to the needs and our capacity.”

Burn victims at Justinien hospital screamed in agony as they pleaded for basic supplies and more medical staff.

Henry, wearing a biohazard suit, clasped his hands and leaned over to console one man collapsed on the hospital’s concrete floor because there were not enough beds in the historic city’s largest hospital.

The prime minister promised more help in the form of field hospitals and a contingent of medical professionals. But minutes after he left the facility, five more patients died.

“The entire Haitian nation is grieving,” Henry said on Twitter while declaring three days of national mourning. “It is with a torn heart that I see the critical condition of some of our compatriots admitted to this facility.”
___
Sanon reported from Port au Prince, Haiti. AP Writer Joshua Goodman contributed to this report from Miami.

 

[Plain Jane]

US Treasury targets Brazil's top drug gang with sanctions

SAO PAULO (AP) — The U.S. Treasury on Wednesday imposed sanctions on people and businesses connected to drug trafficking gangs, including the biggest criminal organization in Brazil, known as the PCC.

apnews.com

US Treasury targets Brazil’s top drug gang with sanctions
By MAURICIO SAVARESEyesterday


SAO PAULO (AP) — The U.S. Treasury on Wednesday imposed sanctions on people and businesses connected to drug trafficking gangs, including the biggest criminal organization in Brazil, known as the PCC.

The move stems from new authority designated under an executive order from President Joe Biden “to target any foreign person engaged in drug trafficking activities, regardless of whether they are linked to a specific kingpin or cartel,” the Treasury said in a statement.
The PCC is one of the 10 individuals and 15 entities targeted in four countries, including China’s Shanghai Fast-Fine Chemicals and Mexico’s Los Rojos criminal group, among others.

People and companies linked to the targets could be stopped from using the U.S. financial system, said Brian Nelson, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
“We will continue working closely with our partners to reduce threats from these groups and disrupt their business models,” Nelson was quoted as saying in the statement.

The PCC was founded in the prisons of wealthy Sao Paulo state and remains dominant there. It has expanded its reach into other Brazilian states, plus elsewhere in South America and abroad.
https://apnews.com/article/joe-bide...e-long-beach-dc2ede07c81ecedcd699b11eaeb07c3d

Security experts in Brazil say the PCC’s leadership sees violence as a hindrance to their business model in major cities, but are open to using when they feel it is needed.

That has been the case many times in neighboring Paraguay, a country that is key for the PCC’s routes for smuggling cocaine and marijuana. The Brazilian gang has been involved in multiple killings in border towns in recent years as it seeks to seize complete control.

The latest violent incident in the region linked to the PCC came in October, with four people killed by dozens of shots in the Paraguayan city of Pedro Juan Caballero. One of them was the daughter the local governor. Local police said at the time the Brazilian gang was involved.

The PCC is “the most powerful organized crime group in Brazil and among the most powerful in the world,” the Treasury’s statement said. It “has forged a bloody path to dominance through drug trafficking, as well as money laundering, extortion, murder-for-hire, and drug debt collection.”

Brazil’s foreign ministry did not reply to an emailed request from The Associated Press seeking comment on the U.S. action.

 

[Plain Jane]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Crypto Rich Flock To Puerto Rico, World's New Luxury Tax Haven Paradise

BY TYLER DURDEN
THURSDAY, DEC 16, 2021 - 09:20 PM
President Joe Biden says the 1980s Reagan era trickle-down economics doesn't work as he wants to roll back tax cuts for the rich. The impending clampdown has spooked top affluent investors, including crypto investors, who are descending to Puerto Rico to dodge tax hikes.

Puerto Rico passed two important tax bills in 2012 that has transformed the island into a cryptocurrency tax haven paradise. Under Act 22 of its local tax code, the Caribbean island and unincorporated U.S. territory offers full exemption from all local taxes on passive income to new residents. Act 20, provides a 4% corporate tax rate and exemptions on dividends. This is a much better deal than the U.S., where investors pay 20% in long-term capital games and 37% in short-term gains.


The explosion of remote work, expansion of crypto markets, and tax haven have made the Caribbean island attractive for crypto investors.

That was the case for Anthony Emtman, who left Los Angeles behind and bought a condo at the resort in March. The chief executive officer of Ikigai Asset Management is now a part of a burgeoning crypto community along Puerto Rico's north shore, where the tropical weather is just a bonus.
Emtman and his crypto peers take a page out of hedge funds' books and seek residence on the island to reap huge tax savings. - Bloomberg

The rise in crypto markets has made it an easy target for the Biden administration and Democrats to tax the living hell out of the industry. Smart money understands what's coming and wants no parts of it.
Crypto funds Pantera Capital and Redwood City Ventures have moved to the tropical island to escape U.S. taxes. Facebook product manager-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen recently disclosed that she moved to Puerto Rico to be with her crypto buddies.

Now, "it's not just, 'Move to Puerto Rico to save tax,'" said Giovanni Mendez, a corporate tax attorney. "It's, 'Move to Puerto Rico because everybody is there.'"

Puerto Rico's tax laws were put in place to help its struggling economy a decade ago. Hedge funds have been shifting operations from the Northeast U.S. to the island for at least half a decade or more.

So far this year, Puerto Rico has received more than 1,200 applications — a record — through its Individual Investors Act, which exempts new residents from paying taxes on capital gains, according to the island's Department of Economic Development and Commerce. The number of U.S. mainlanders seeking Puerto Rico's tax breaks has tripled this year.
Another 274 corporations, LLCs, partnerships and other entities were approved for the Exports Services Act, which provides a 4% corporate tax rate and a 100% exemption on dividends. Both fall under Puerto Rico's Act 60, a group of tax breaks that were packaged together in 2019 to attract investment not just from crypto, but finance, tech and other industries. -Bloomberg

Michael Terpin, the founder of BitAngels, moved to the island from Las Vegas in 2016. He's known as the "messiah" for convincing people to move to the island.

Crypto investors are interested in several areas on the island: Bahia, which resides 26 miles east of San Juan, and the Ritz-Carlton Dorado Beach resort.

The wave of new newcomers has lifted property markets in the country. Francisco Diaz Fournier, the founding partner of Luxury Collection Real Estate, said some properties are now selling for more than $20 million.

"Right now we are selling a home in Dorado Beach for $27 million, and another one is going for $29 million," Fournier said.

Blanca Lopez, the founder of Gramercy Real Estate Group, said Bahia prices per square foot have doubled.

"We are seeing prices north of $3,000 per square foot," Lopez said. She said homes in Condado are between $1,400 to $1,500 per square foot, an approximately 35% increase from a year ago.

Meanwhile, inventory is running low for high-end homes.

"We don't have room, at least not in Dorado, Bahia or Condado," said Fournier. "The market is spreading out, so we're seeing spillovers in areas of San Juan where people wouldn't look before."

So far, the tax incentives appear to be working. Crypto investors flock to the island to dodge Biden's proposed tax increases. However, the IRS has a message for net-worth individuals, corporations, and cryptocurrency traders moving to the island: 'We're waiting for you...'
The bad news is the push for statehood would kill its tax system. In the meantime, wealthy crypto investors don't care and seek tax shelter on the tropical island.

 

[Plain Jane]

All from US missionary group freed in Haiti, police say

The remaining members of a U.S.-based missionary group who were kidnapped two months ago have been freed. That's according to the group and to Haitian police.

apnews.com

All from US missionary group freed in Haiti, police say
By EVENS SANON and PETER SMITHtoday



1 of 13
Unidentified people depart on route to the airport from the Christian Aid Ministries headquarters at Titanyen, north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Dec. 16, 2021. Twelve remaining members of a U.S.-based missionary group who were kidnapped two months ago have been freed, according to the group and to Haitian police. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The remaining members of a U.S. missionary group who were kidnapped two months ago in Haiti have been freed, Haitian police and the church group said Thursday.

The spokesman for Haiti’s National Police, Gary Desrosiers, confirmed to The Associated Press that the hostages had been released, but did not immediately provide additional details.

“We glorify God for answered prayer — the remaining 12 hostages are FREE!” Christian Aid Ministries said in a statement. “All 17 of our loved ones are now safe.”

A convoy of at least a dozen vehicles, including U.S. Embassy SUVs and Haitian National Police, brought the missionaries to the Port-au-Prince airport late Thursday afternoon from the missionary group’s offices in Titanyen, north of the capital.

Earlier, people at the Christian Aid Ministries campus could be seen hugging each other and smiling.

News of their release spread quickly in and around Berlin, Ohio, where CAM is headquartered.

“It’s an answer to prayer,” said Ruth Miller, who was working at the front desk of the town’s Amish & Mennonite Heritage Center.

Berlin is in Holmes County, Ohio’s Amish heartland, and many Amish and Mennonites volunteer in CAM ministries and donate to it.

Wes Kaufman, who attends a church where some CAM leaders also worship, said many congregations had heeded the mission group’s recent request to devote three days to fasting and praying over the situation.

“It’s amazing how God works,” Kaufman said as dined with family in nearby Walnut Creek at Der Dutchman, a restaurant featuring traditional Amish and Mennonite fare.

In Washington, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre praised the law enforcement work and Haitian officials who helped get the hostages freed. “We welcomed reports that they are free and getting the care that they need after their ordeal,” she said.

The missionaries were kidnapped by the 400 Mawozo gang on Oct. 16. There were five children in the group of 16 U.S. citizens and one Canadian, including an 8-month-old. Their Haitian driver also was abducted, according to a local human rights organization.

The gang’s leader had threatened to kill the hostages unless his demands were met. Authorities have said 400 Mawozo was demanding $1 million per person, although it wasn’t clear if that included the children.

It remained unclear whether any ransom was paid or what efforts led to the hostages’ freedom.

Carleton Horst, a member of Hart Dunkard Brethren Church in Hart, Michigan, whose members were among the hostages, said church members received a text message Thursday morning from “someone connected to the situation” that all of the hostages had been released.

A mother and her five children, two of them adults, who belong to the church were among the hostages. Horst, who is friends with the family, said the church is rejoicing and he’s “elated that that portion of things is finally over, just praise the Lord for that.”

“We’re feeling great,” said the Rev. Ron Marks, a minister at the church.

“From what I gathered, they were treated relatively well,” Marks said later in a news conference held on Zoom.

Two of the hostages were released in November, and three more earlier this month. They were not identified, but members of the Hart congregation told local media in Michigan that two were from Hart.

In addition to Michigan, the hostages are from Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Ontario, Canada, according to the missionary group.

“Today is the day we have been hoping for, praying for and working so hard to achieve,” said Congressman Bill Huizenga, whose western Michigan congressional district includes Hart.

“I want to thank members of the hostage negotiation team for their diligence in securing the safe release of all the hostages. This is a great day for families in Michigan and across the nation who have been worried about the safety of their loved ones,” Huizenga said.

Christian Aid Ministries is mainly staffed and supported by conservative Anabaptists — members of various Amish, Mennonite and related churches characterized by such things as plain dress, a belief in non-resistance to violence and separation from the dominant society.
The organization’s roots date to the 1980s, when it began working in then-communist Romania. It has since expanded worldwide but has been particularly active in Haiti.

CAM’s work ranges from starting churches and providing food, school supplies and other materials to those in need, to disaster relief and putting up billboards with evangelistic messages.
___
Smith reported from Berlin, Ohio. AP writer Anna Nichols in Lansing, Michigan, and Colleen Long in Washington contributed to this report.
___
This story has been corrected to reflect that a woman and five children who belong to the church were hostages, not four children.

See this thread also:

PRYR RQST - UPDATES: Haiti Missionary Kidnapping - UPDATE - hostages released

2 HOSTAGES RELEASED https://christianaidministries.org/updates/haiti-staff-abduction/ Nov 21, 2021 We have learned that two of the hostages in Haiti were released. We praise God for this! Only limited information can be provided, but we are able to report that the two hostages who were released...

www.timebomb2000.com

 

[Plain Jane]

US pulls out of settlement talks in family separation suits

The U.S. government has withdrawn from settlement negotiations to end lawsuits filed on behalf of parents and children who were forcibly separated under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance border policy.

apnews.com

US pulls out of settlement talks in family separation suits
By BEN FOXDecember 16, 2021



1 of 2
FILE - Migrant teens eat lunch at a "tender-age" facility for babies, children and teens, in Texas' Rio Grande Valley, on Aug. 29, 2019, in San Benito, Texas. The American Civil Liberties Union says the Department of Justice has withdrawn from talks to settle lawsuits filed on behalf of parents and children who were separated under the Trump administration's zero-tolerance border enforcement policy. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government withdrew Thursday from settlement negotiations to end lawsuits filed on behalf of parents and children who were forcibly separated under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance border policy.

Justice Department officials informed lawyers for the plaintiffs in a conference call that the government would not offer a global settlement in family separation cases and will defend each one in court, said Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed one of the suits.

The decision comes after eight months of negotiations and weeks after reports of a proposed settlement that would include payments of several hundred thousand dollars to each family sparked outrage among Biden administration critics in Congress and elsewhere.

Gelernt said no explanation was given. “It’s hard to understand DOJ’s decision other than it was influenced by political considerations,” he said.

The Justice Department suggested in a statement that settlements were still possible despite its withdrawal from the talks.
https://apnews.com/article/afghanis...k-new-future-02613cb26351c9249c27ee20f5d1681f

“While the parties have been unable to reach a global settlement agreement at this time, we remain committed to engaging with the plaintiffs and to bringing justice to the victims of this abhorrent policy,” it said.

About 5,500 children were forcibly removed from their parents in 2018 under President Donald Trump as his administration sought to stop an increase in people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border with criminal prosecutions, even if the migrants were presenting themselves to authorities to seek asylum as permitted under the law.

The parents of hundreds of children have still not been located.

Trump halted the practice in June 2018 amid widespread outrage, including from many Republicans, just six days before a judge ordered an end to the program in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU.

The settlement talks with the ACLU and attorneys for hundreds of other plaintiffs had proceeded quietly until The Wall Street Journal reported in October that the Justice Department was considering paying about $450,000 to each person affected by the policy. The Associated Press later confirmed the figure had been under consideration.

The suits filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act are intended in part to help compensate families for the psychological damage of the separation, but critics argue it would reward people for illegally crossing the border.

“Little children were deliberately abused by our government, yet the Biden administration is now going to defend the practice in court,” Gelernt said. “That is shameful.”

The American Immigration Council, which filed suit on behalf of a group of mothers and children who were separated while seeking asylum, said it would continue to pursue its case. “We are committed to doing everything we can to bring these families justice,” said Kate Melloy Goettel, the organization’s director of litigation.

Biden has found himself in a tough spot politically on immigration. His administration has reversed some Trump actions aimed at stemming illegal border crossings as well as legal immigration while confronting a sharp rise in the number of people seeking to enter the U.S. along the southwest border.

Asked about the amount on Nov. 3, Biden appeared to misunderstand the question and said a payment of about $450,000 per person was “not going to happen.” He later said he supported a settlement, without specifying an amount.

The ACLU attorney said the Biden administration could find itself in an awkward spot because its lawsuit and one other name as defendants not just the U.S. government but senior Trump administration officials, including former senior adviser Stephen Miller and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, as well.

“Not only is the Biden administration going to be in court defending this practice for the United States, but it is also going to be standing up in court to defend the actions of individual Trump officials who devised the policy,” Gelernt said.

 

[Plain Jane]

13 killed, including children, in Guatemala land dispute – DW – 12/19/2021

A territorial dispute between neighboring municipalities has claimed the lives of 13 people. Police said the deceased "are children, men and women."

www.dw.com

Guatemala: 13 killed including children in land dispute
A territorial dispute between neighboring municipalities has claimed the lives of 13 people. Police said the deceased "are children, men and women."




A territorial dispute between two municipalities has left 13 people dead in Guatemala

Police in Guatemala said on Saturday that 13 people have been killed in the village of Chiquix, 155 kilometers (96 miles) east of Guatemala City, in an apparent land dispute.
The victims include women and children.

It was not immediately clear how the victims died, but police described the killings as "intolerable and incomprehensible fratricide."

According to a police statement released on Twitter, a police officer was among those killed while two others were injured.

"From the first moment, the necessary police officers have been appointed to find those responsible for these crimes and make evaluations of new strategies to try to stop more unfortunate events," the statement read.

Historic land dispute
A dispute between two municipalities that has run for more than 100 years appears to be the cause of the attack.

Residents of Nahuala and Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan have been involved in violent confrontations in the past that have also turned deadly.

In May 2020 President Alejandro Giammattei declared a state of siege following an escalation of violence in the area.

"These differences have persisted for more than a hundred years, and throughout history have claimed the lives of many, many villagers involved in the supposed defense of their lands," Giammattei said at the time.

Guetamalan police said that different specialized units have been involved in maintaining security and engagement with the communities with equal measures being provided for both. The police statement condemned the attack, calling it "inhumane."

Watch video03:50
Violence against women rife in Guatemala
kb/aw (AFP, AP, EFE, Reuters)

 

[Plain Jane]

Chile celebrates leftist Boric's election victory – DW – 12/19/2021

Gabriel Boric, who rose to prominence during anti-government protests, has defeated the right-wing populist Jose Antonio Kast. Tens of thousands of Boric supporters have celebrated his win on the streets of Santiago.

www.dw.com

Chileans take to the streets to celebrate leftist Boric's election victory
Gabriel Boric, who rose to prominence during anti-government protests, has defeated the right-wing populist Jose Antonio Kast. Tens of thousands of Boric supporters have celebrated his win on the streets of Santiago.




Boric rose to prominence during anti-government protests in 2019

Chilean far-right presidential candidate Jose Antonio Kast conceded defeat to leftist Gabriel Boric late Sunday.

"I just spoke with Gabriel Boric and congratulated him on his great success," Kast tweeted. "From today he is the elected President of Chile and deserves all our respect and constructive collaboration. Chile is always first."

"We are united," Boric tweeted shortly after his election victory was confirmed. "We are hope. We are more when we are together. We continue!"

"I am going to be a president of all Chileans, whether you voted for me or not," Boric, who will take office in March, said in a call with outgoing President Sebastian Pinera on Sunday night. "I am going to do my best to get on top of this tremendous challenge."

Boric had garnered 56% of the votes with almost 99% of polling stations reporting, with Kast at 44%.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Santiago to celebrate Boric's victory

Who were the two candidates?
Voters were choosing between Boric, 35, a millennial former student protest leader who has vowed to raise taxes on the "super rich" and Kast, 55, a devout Catholic and father of nine who has repeatedly defended the country's former dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Kast's brother, Miguel, was one of Pinochet's top advisers. His candidacy was haunted by revelations that his German father was a member of the Nazis.

Why was there a runoff?
In the first round, both Boric and Kast drew less than 30% of the vote with Kast ahead of Boric by 2%, forcing the runoff. Boric, however, held the capital Santiago with a comfortable lead.

Both candidates are outside the centrist middle, which has ruled Chile since the country returned to democracy in 1990 after the years of military rule under Pinochet.

Boric, Chile's youngest-ever president-elect, attracted supporters from all parts of society

How did Chileans feel before the vote?
The last opinion polls taken before the vote showed Boric ahead with his lead widening, though most polls showed a tight race.

Lucrecia Cornejo, a 72-year-old seamstress, told Reuters news agency as she stood in line to cast her ballot for Boric: "I want real change." She hoped Boric could do something about inequities in education, pensions and health care.

Dental student Florencia Vergara, 25, told Reuters she supports Kast as a "lesser evil."
"I like his proposals on economic issues, although I don't agree with all his political ideals," she said.

Boric vows to oppose controversial mining project
Chile has a population of 19 million and is the world's largest producer of copper.
With his election victory confirmed, Boric said on Sunday he will oppose mining initiatives that

"destroy" the natural environment, including the controversial Dominga iron, copper and gold mining project which is worth $2.5 billion (€2.2 billion).


Watch video28:31
Lithium sparks new Andes gold rush
ar, sdi/wd, jsi (AFP, AP, Reuters)

 

[Plain Jane]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Peso Hits Record Lows As Leftist Boric Wins Chile Presidency In "Worst Scenario Markets Could Have Envisioned"

BY TYLER DURDEN
MONDAY, DEC 20, 2021 - 02:26 PM
Leftist Gabriel Boric, a former student protest leader, won the final round of Chile’s presidential election by a wide margin as the copper-rich Latin American country took a decisive shift to the left after several years of civil unrest. Boric secured 56% of the vote in Sunday’s runoff, well ahead of José Antonio Kast, his ultra-conservative rival, on 44%. The victory, Bloomberg notes, is likely to spook markets that fear interventionist policies. Boric, 35, will take office in March as one of the youngest presidents in the world and with an ambitious agenda.

“I am going to be the president of all Chileans, whether you voted for me or not,” said Boric. The 35-year-old president-elect, who will take office on March 11, said he would strive for unity after a bitter contest between extremes of the political spectrum.
Gabriel Boric during an election night rally in Santiago, on Dec. 19

Boric, who is unmarried, bearded and tattooed, first gained prominence a decade ago when he led nationwide demonstrations calling for free and high-quality education. He ran successfully for lower house deputy in 2013 and was re-elected to a second term in a landslide vote. He is the first leader to come from outside the centrist political mainstream that has largely ruled Chile since its return to democracy in 1990. He is also the youngest Chilean president in more than two centuries and the first to secure a second-round victory after losing the first round.

His win in a runoff paves the way not only for a generational shift but also for the biggest economic changes in decades for one of Latin America’s richest countries, a global financial market favorite. It was a highly polarized campaign that only moderated in the final stretch as both contenders wooed centrists. He will face enormous challenges including a divided congress, sharp economic slowdown, the writing of a new constitution and the lingering threat of social unrest.

“We cannot continue to allow the poor to pay for the inequalities of Chile,” Boric told thousands of cheering supporters in a fiery victory speech which also acknowledged all he needs to do to build alliances. “We will reach out and build bridges so our citizens can live a better life.”

He repeated something he told President Sebastian Pinera in a conversation between them broadcast after results were announced: “The agreements need to be among all Chileans and not made behind closed doors.” They will meet Monday to begin the transition. Kast quickly conceded and spoke to Boric on Sunday evening.

During his victory speech, Boric, who is part of a broad leftwing coalition that includes the Chilean Communist party, said he would oppose mining initiatives that “destroy” the environment. That included the contentious $2.5Bn Dominga mining project that was approved this year.

“We are a generation that emerged in public life demanding our rights be respected as rights, and not treated like consumer goods or a business,” he said. He has also pledged to enact higher taxes, greater public spending, the scrapping of private pension schemes and student debt, as well as other reforms intended to empower women, indigenous groups and minorities.

Boric wants to dismantle some pillars of Chile’s economy such as its private pension funds, which form the bedrock of the local capital markets. He backs higher taxes on both the rich and the nation’s crucial mining industry -- Chile is the world’s biggest copper producer -- while also promising to keep government debt in-check.


* * *

Boric's victory was greeted with joy (for now, although check back in a few months): streets across the nation of 19 million were filled with honking cars and waving banners in celebration of the changing of the guard. Turnout was about 56% of registered voters, nearly 10 percentage points higher than the first round last month.

Supporters of Gabriel Boric celebrate following results from the runoff presidential election in Santiago, on Dec. 19.
Boric’s early focus on outreach has an undeniable logic: as he seeks a set of radical shifts including raising taxes on the rich and mining industry, dismantling the country’s private pensions system and boosting social services, he needs to build a coalition with centrists and hard leftists who have clashed for decades.

“He will face a divided parliament, so passage of legislation will be difficult and will require strong negotiating skills and pragmatism,” noted Jennifer Pribble, professor of political science at the University of Richmond.


Boric describes himself as a moderate socialist who shuns the hard left models of Cuba and Venezuela. Still, Kast and his supporters warned of Boric’s alliance with the communist party as a risk. Meanwhile, Boric’s supporters saw Kast as a dangerous throwback to the right-wing dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet due to an emphasis on public order and conservative social mores.

As Bloomberg notes, Boric's emphasis on social justice dovetailed with a period of unrest that exploded over a transit fare hike in 2019 and quickly ballooned into a broader movement demanding better health care, public transport and pensions. During the campaign, Boric often vowed that, “if Chile was the birthplace of neo-liberalism, it will also be its grave.”

Boric wants to dismantle some pillars of Chile’s economy such as its private pension funds, which form the bedrock of the local capital markets. He backs higher taxes on both the rich and the nation’s crucial mining industry -- Chile is the world’s biggest copper producer -- while also promising to keep government debt in-check.

In March, Boric will take the helm of a nation that’s facing unprecedented political upheaval. Social unrest kicked off the process of drafting a new constitution, now being done by a left-leaning assembly, which will be put to a national referendum in 2022.

Regionally, Chile’s election follows the triumph of Pedro Castillo in Peru earlier this year, and stands to add momentum to leftist candidates in Colombia and Brazil, which will hold presidential elections next year. Similarly to Chile, both of those countries are facing increasingly polarized politics.

“Chile’s president-elect could become the face of Latin America’s new left, inspiring other candidates in the region,” said Oliver Stuenkel, professor of international relations at Fundacao Getulio Vargas in Sao Paulo.


Meanwhile, traders were not impressied: "This is the worst scenario that the markets could have envisioned,” said Klaus Kaempfe, portfolio solutions director at Credicorp Capital in Santiago. “They were waiting for a much tighter vote showing a desire for dialogue.”

Boric will have to contend with economic growth that will come to a halt, slowing from a record high near 12% this year to a rate closer to 2%, according to the central bank. Policy makers are also raising interest rates quickly to tame soaring inflation and, while Chile still has relatively sound fiscal accounts, the debt-to-GDP ratio has increased quickly amid pandemic spending. Chilean companies and individuals have moved money abroad at a historic clip over the past few years, weighing on the currency.

The Chilean peso sank on Monday, dropping 1.9% after tumbling more than 3% at the open as traders adjust positions for the uncertainty that lies ahead.



As Bloomberg notes, Boric’s potential push for higher taxes, greener industries and greater equality are seen leading to more uncertainty among traders, and more bearish bets. CLP lacks a significant dollar resistance level until 880/USD, last seen in March 2020. The Colombian peso was also down 0.7%, testing major dollar resistance are near 4,005/USD as a decline in oil prices outweighed the boost provided by a hawkish central bank decision.


And by the close, CLP had plunged to a new record low against the dollar...



On Friday, Colombia’s central bank raised the benchmark rate by 50 basis point to 3% as expected; surprise was that three officials voted for a 75bps rate increase, showing a tilt toward a more hawkish stance. In October, five officials opted for an increase of 50bps and two for 25 basis points. The currency would likely have seen a positive market reaction if it wasn’t for oil’s 4.3% decline in the U.S. after Senator Joe Manchin blindsided the White House on Sunday by rejecting Biden’s $1.75 trillion economic plan, leaving Democrats with few options for reviving it.

 

[Plain Jane]

American missionaries describe daring escape from Haitian kidnappers

Twelve North American gang hostages held for months in Haiti orchestrated their own escape last week, hiking for miles under cover of darkness carrying young children, their church organization said…

www.france24.com

American missionaries describe daring escape from Haitian kidnappers
Issued on: 21/12/2021 - 04:15

The Christian Aid Ministries compound. The organisation announced the release of three missionaries who were kidnapped along with others in October, in Titanyen, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on December 6, 2021. © Ralph Tedy Erol, Reuters
Text by:NEWS WIRES
2 min
Twelve North American gang hostages held for months in Haiti orchestrated their own escape last week, hiking for miles under cover of darkness carrying young children, their church organization said Monday.


Christian Aid Ministries (CAM), which had provided little information on the 16 Americans and one Canadian who were kidnapped in mid-October, on Monday detailed the hostages' ordeal and the mid-December escape of the final 12 hostages, a group that included a 10-month-old, a three-year-old and two teenagers, along with eight adults.

"They walked for possibly as much as 10 miles... traveling through woods and thickets, working through thorns and briars" under cover of darkness to safety, said Weston Showalter, spokesman for the Ohio-based missionary group, in a streamed press conference.

"Two hours were through fierce brambles. We were in gang territory the whole hike," Showalter quoted one of the escapees as saying.


The group broke out of the blocked door and slipped past guards on December 15, after several stalled attempts at planning an escape.

Showalter said they packed water in their clothes, wrapped the baby in blankets and carried the other two young children as they traipsed through difficult terrain, noting the children kept quiet despite being scratched by briars.

Five other hostages had been freed separately in November and in early December before Haitian police and CAM confirmed the final 12 hostages were free on December 16.

The group said it had raised funds for ransoms to continue negotiations but added they could not provide further details. It remained unclear if ransoms were paid.

The group was kidnapped as they were returning from an orphanage in an area east of the capital Port-au-Prince. The kidnappers, one of Haiti's most powerful gangs known as "400 Mawozo," had originally demanded a ransom of one million dollars per hostage, sources told AFP.

Previously confined to the poorer districts of the capital, gangs have recently extended their reach and increased the number of kidnappings in Haiti, as the country struggles with a prolonged social, political and economic crisis.

Showalter said that the gang members did not physically harm the hostages, though they threatened them, and added the group was fed and provided with hygiene products and fans to battle the Caribbean heat, though the contaminated water provided for bathing caused sores and they endured hunger, close quarters and sleepless nights.

After two months in captivity and having walked through the night to escape, at dawn on December 16 the former hostages found someone to help them call for aid and that day were transported to the US state of Florida.
"They were finally free," Showalter said.
(AFP)

 

[Plain Jane]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

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Freed Missionaries Tell How They Escaped Haitian Kidnappers

BY TYLER DURDEN
TUESDAY, DEC 21, 2021 - 06:20 PM
Authored by Beth Brelje via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Escaping captors in the middle of the night, 12 Christian Aid Ministries missionaries hiked silently through the moonlit Haitian jungle, pausing at times to pray for the direction that led to freedom.
Christian Aid Ministries hostages after they escaped captivity and before they left Haiti. (Courtesy Christian Aid Ministries)

For roughly 10 miles, they pressed forward, through thick, thorny brush: a married couple, 10-month-old baby, 3-year-old, 14-year-old girl, 15-year-old boy, four single men, and two single women.

Until now, details of their Oct. 16 kidnapping by the 400 Mawozo gang and their Dec. 15 escape could not be told, for security reasons. Even now, Christian Aid Ministries, is not releasing their names. The missionaries are from Amish, Mennonite, and other Anabaptist communities in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Ontario, Canada.

Originally, 17 missionaries were abducted while on a trip visiting an orphanage. The 400 Mawozo gang demanded $17 million and threatened to kill the hostages unless they got $1 million per person. In time they released five hostages.
First of 17 American missionary hostages to be freed in Haiti. (Courtesy Christian Aid Ministries)
Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries spokesman Weston Showalter, held a Monday press conference with details of the experience and photos of the former hostages. Details are from his speech, as told by the missionaries.

The 17 took a van to visit the orphanage, 90 minutes from mission headquarters. They arrived at 10 a.m. and stayed until about 1 p.m., using that time to interview children and look over the facility.

Shortly into their drive back, they saw a roadblock. While attempting to turn the van around, they were overtaken by kidnappers who chased them in a pickup truck. The kidnappers blocked their way, surrounded their vehicle, and took control.

The driver was removed and the others wondered if they would see him again. “As the kidnappers took over their van and drove wildly to get them to a secluded area, our workers prayed out loud and sang the song, ‘The Angel of the Lord Encampeth Round About Them,’” Showalter said.

The hostages were taken to a small house, where all 17 were placed in a small room, approximately 10 feet by 12 feet. Here they were reunited with the driver who had been taken on the road.

“They spent the first night almost sleepless with nearly no space for all of them to lie down. In this small room, there were several mattresses. Some sat up, some stood, some laid down, and everyone endured heat, mosquitoes, and uncertainty,” Showalter said. Soon their days fell into a pattern of worship in the morning with singing and praying, sometimes until noon. They were allowed to go outside during the day.

They prayed at 1 p.m. daily to be freed.

The kidnappers fed them but they faced hunger. Some foods provided included Haitian breakfast spaghetti, a half hard-boiled egg per person, corn mush, scrambled eggs, rice and beans with fish sauce, and sometimes vegetable paste. On Thanksgiving they got a traditional Haitian stew.

They were moved several times and in one location they had coconuts.

“Although they received food each day, they were often still hungry after eating what was given to them,” Showalter said. “They provided large amounts of baby food for the small children, for which we are so thankful. Babies are precious and even the guards enjoyed talking to little Laura. As you will notice in the pictures, the little children seemed to get sufficient food.”
Baby Laura, 10-months old. Freed from kidnappers in Haiti. (Courtesy Christian Aid Ministries)
The kidnapped were given basic hygiene items such as toothbrushes and toilet paper, although the supply was limited at times.

They had limited clean drinking water and bathed in severely contaminated water that caused serious sores on many missionaries. Many suffered numerous bug bites that developed into serious sores from the contaminated water.

They tried to soothe their sores by boiling water and adding ashes to it, then soaking their feet in this mixture.

In the evenings, they talked, sang, and prayed.

“In times when they faced fear and danger during the night, they prayed that God would wake believers around the world and nudge them to pray for them. And that truly did happen. On this side, we hear of people who were awakened at night with a sense of urgency to pray.”

The hostages set up an around-the-clock prayer schedule, each praying for a half-hour during the day and an hour at night. One hostage prayed in his time slot, then passed the watch to the next hostage to continue prayer.

“The hostages were able to develop a sense of relationship with the hostage-takers. Our staff encouraged them to find another way to provide for themselves by working the land and using the resources that God has given,” Showalter said.

“They assured the hostage-takers of their love for their souls. They pointed them to Jesus. The hostages spoke to the gang leader on several occasions, boldly reminding him of God, and warning him of God’s eventual judgment if he and the gang members continue in their ways.”

Various hostages wanted to attempt an escape, but it took them a while to all agree on when and how. Ultimately, they unified around a plan and prayed for God to give them a sign.

“On several occasions, they planned to escape, but they had decided if specific things didn’t happen, they would accept that as God’s direction to wait,” Showalter said. “Twice when they planned to escape, God gave clear signs that this was not the right time. On both occasions, on the very minute they had discussed, the exact thing took place they had requested as a sign. God was at work, but the timing was not right.”

They decided to attempt their escape the night of Wednesday, Dec. 15.

During the night, they put on their shoes and packed pouches of water in their clothes. They stacked their mattresses in a corner and prepared to leave.

“When they sensed the timing was right, they found a way to open the door that was closed and blocked, filed silently to the path they had chosen to follow, and quickly left the place they were held, despite the fact that numerous guards were close by,” Showalter said.

“In the distance, they could see a mountain feature they recognized. They had identified this landmark before and knew this was the direction to go. They also followed the sure guidance of the stars as they journeyed through the night, traveling northwest toward safety.”

Night turned to day and after hours of walking, they found someone who helped them make a phone call for help. Later that day, the Coast Guard flew them to Florida.

“As we rejoice, we also remember that many others are still waiting and praying for the release of their loved ones who are being held hostage,” Showalter said.

“Many Haitian people continued to be kidnapped. Their families struggle under the demands and threats of hostage-takers. Even if they are released they find themselves facing ongoing difficulties. We admire the resilience of the many Haitians who face difficulties with faith that God is with them.

“The hostages desire that God be glorified for the way He cared for them during their time in captivity and arranged for their deliverance,” Showalter said and emphasized the Bible verse John 8:36, “If the son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”

“Freedom is not a place. Our staff members who were held hostage would confirm that. They say that despite the difficulties, they experienced freedom, even as they were being held, facing uncertainty. In their minds and in ours, the hostage-takers are the true hostages. God invites all of us, including the kidnappers, to seek and find freedom, through Jesus, from the bondage of sin.”

 

[Plain Jane]

Cuba records runaway inflation of over 70% – DW – 12/22/2021

The island country’s economy has suffered due to reduced tourism and US sanctions. Cuba ended it's dual-currency system earlier this year, also contributing to price fluctuations.

www.dw.com

Cuba records runaway inflation of over 70%
The island country’s economy has suffered due to reduced tourism and US sanctions. Cuba ended it's dual-currency system earlier this year, also contributing to price fluctuations.




Cuba will have an inflation rate of over 70% by the end of 2021

Cuba will have an inflation rate of over 70% by the end of 2021, Economy Minister Alejandro Gil said on Tuesday.

Cuba's economy shrank 10.9% in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic devastated the country's tourism sector. This was further aggravated by new sanctions imposed by the United States during the presidency of Donald Trump.

The coronavirus pandemic devastated Cuba's tourism sector
Officials expect Cuba to recoup 2% in 2021.

What did Gil say?
Gil said "restoring the peso's value and role in the economy" would be vital to reaching 4% growth next year.

"In 2022, we will gradually advance in eliminating inflation," he said.

The US dollar has soared on Cuba's black market to around 75 pesos, far beyond the official exchange rate of 24 pesos. The peso collapsed this year after Cuba discontinued the convertible peso and its dual-currency system.

Previously, the Cuban peso had been for domestic use and the value of the convertible peso was tied to that of the US dollar.

Reuters cited independent economists charged with investigating as estimating that the real rate of inflation could be anywhere between 100% and 500%. Pavel Vidal, a former economist of Cuba's central bank, told Reuters that the true inflation had largely been occurring in private and informal markets that aren't properly accounted for by government statistics.

Gil said Cub could not import cheap goods because it did not have the hard currency to do so

Cuban economic indicators come from government data and are not audited by international organizations. Cuba is not part of the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

What will Cuba's economic policy be in 2022?
Gil said hiking salaries would only increase the inflationary spiral and Cuba could not import cheap goods because it did not have the hard currency to do so.

He said that measures adopted this year to increase growth and domestic production would keep prices down. These include granting greater autonomy to state businesses and the legalization of small and medium-sized private businesses.
sdi/msh (AFP, EFE, Reuters)

 

[Plain Jane]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

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China Using Loans In Latin America To Push Political, Military Objectives

BY TYLER DURDEN
THURSDAY, DEC 23, 2021 - 02:00 AM
Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Argentina’s socialist government is scrambling to stem its hemorrhaging currency rates, economic recession, and hyperinflation, while negotiations continue with China over swaps and debt relief.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping (R) accompanies Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro to view an honor guard during a welcoming ceremony outside the Great Hall of People in Beijing on Sept. 22, 2013. (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

The nation has an established track record of defaulting on loans, even before China agreed to grant an additional $19 million to the Argentine government in 2020.

China and Latin America relations analyst Fernando Menendez told The Epoch Times that while Beijing’s loans in the region may look risky from a traditional standpoint, in the end, they still come out on top.

“Because if the repayment doesn’t work out, they can just seize assets,” Menendez says.

A large part of Argentina’s economic woes stem from a lack of consistency in macroeconomic policies, according to Institute of the Americas member and University College of London professor, Nestor Castaneda.

Economist Martin Rapetti says the by-product of these policies is evident in the gross domestic product per capita, which is the same today in Argentina as it was during the Peronist regime in 1974. However, there is one notable difference now: income inequality is much higher.

“While China’s fiscal resuscitation of Argentina persists, we see a discernible pattern emerge throughout Latin America, particularly where socialist governments prevail.”

Expanding Its Reach

A November 2021 United States Congressional briefing outlines concerns over China’s expanded influence in the region through lending and investments.

The report states China is deepening its strategic political and military relationships with Latin American nations, noting that cooperation with authoritarian regimes, like that of Nicolas Maduro, has facilitated noticeable “democratic backsliding” in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela.

In Venezuela, China’s loans top out at $60 billion, the largest amount it has given to a foreign nation, yet the country remains mired in one of the deepest economic recessions in history.

Earlier this year, the US International Development Finance Corporation stepped in and agreed to help Ecuador repay billions of dollars in Chinese loans with the provision of excluding China from its telecommunication network.

Ecuador’s debt to China originated from the former democratic socialist president, Rafael Correa, whose administration defaulted on its loans back in 2008.


Menendez points out China lending money to economically short-sighted governments, with the potential to acquire assets offered by the beleaguered nations, was a masterful chess maneuver.

“With all of those oil fields in Venezuela and their inability to pay back Chinese loans, you should ask who owns those nowadays,” he says.

Venezuela also has the largest proven oil reserves in the world.

A common denominator between the different governments in Latin America and their relationship with Chinese loans is restricted access to other credit markets for debt relief.

When this situation arises in developing countries, it creates a pattern of borrowing that ends in economic dependency, according to the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

Argentina has defaulted nine times on loans to foreign creditors, five of those instances since 1980.


The key difference between China and other foreign lenders is Beijing is more reluctant to restructure when overextended governments show up with empty pockets.

Winning Friends And Votes
Potential acquisitions and lending aside, the U.S. government is more concerned about the political and military footholds China is gaining through these deals.

One noteworthy example is the establishment of a People’s Liberation Army run space station in the Patagonia region of southern Argentina in 2015.

The construction of similar potential “dual use” projects in Latin America grants China the ability to increase its future military presence, according to the U.S. Congress.


More than securing assets, Menendez says China is winning friends and votes in its favor.

He explained through China’s sizeable loans and investments, Latin American countries will likely favor them in situations requiring votes on policies, like with the United Nations.

And one of these investments is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Started in 2013 as a series of investment projects of varying scope in developing countries, the initiative is sold as a means to strengthen global relations through the creation of what it calls “trade corridors.”

While it looks good on paper, possible risks of the initiative in countries with less stable infrastructure include unsustainable debt, environmental degradation, and an overall lack of transparency with the projects, according to a World Bank assessment.

In 2017, Panama became the first Latin American country to join the BRI, only a few months after it changed diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China.

Eighteen of the 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean will likely join the initiative in the next few years.

Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico have expanded their economic relations with China, but have yet to fully embrace the BRI.

Head of the Latin America and Caribbean division of the International Trade Center, Claudia Uribe, says, “China is pushing the idea that co-operating in the area of infrastructure means diminishing logistics costs, and in this way, it is selling the BRI model.”

“There are no free rides, but strategic interests,” Uribe adds.

According to scientific data from Nature journal, the other major Latin American debtors to China are Brazil ($28.2 billion), Argentina ($17.1 billion), and Ecuador ($18.4 billion).

 

[Plain Jane]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

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Haitians Sue Biden Admin Over "Racist Treatment" In Del Rio Border Encampment

BY TYLER DURDEN
THURSDAY, DEC 23, 2021 - 08:10 PM
Authored by Charlotte Cuthbertson via The Epoch Times,
Several Haitians who crossed into the United States illegally are suing the Biden administration over “racist treatment” of the approximately 15,000 Haitians who gathered in a primitive encampment in Del Rio, Texas, in September.


The Haitian Bridge Alliance, a nonprofit based in California, joined 11 Haitians in filing the suit on Dec. 20, the group announced on Twitter.

The lawsuit alleges the Biden administration mistreated the Haitians with “calculated indifference.”

“They were denied food, water, and medical care. They were physically and verbally abused. And they were summarily expelled without an opportunity to request asylum and without consideration of the danger they would face in Haiti or Mexico,” the lawsuit charges.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) didn’t respond to requests for comment by The Epoch Times.

The lawsuit alleges that the Biden administration has been using the Title 42 health directive against Haitians and other illegal immigrants.

Title 42 was put in place in March 2020 to help curb the COVID-19 pandemic by stopping nonessential border travel.

“Consistent with the United States’ long history of anti-Haitian and anti-Black immigration policies, the Biden administration has used the Title 42 process as a cudgel to deny thousands of Haitians an opportunity to access the U.S. asylum process,” the lawsuit states.

Thousands of illegal immigrants, primarily Haitian nationals, started streaming across the Rio Grande—which divides Texas and Mexico—and gathering under an international bridge in Del Rio, Texas, in early September.

The conditions quickly became crowded and squalid as law enforcement struggled to handle the overwhelming influx.

At its height, the area held around 15,000 mostly Haitian illegal immigrants who were waiting to be processed by Border Patrol and were walking back and forth across the river to Mexico for supplies.

Illegal immigrants take supplies back and forth between Acuña, Mexico, and the United States (far side) across the Rio Grande, the international boundary with Mexico, in Acuña, Mexico, on Sept. 20, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

All of the Haitians that The Epoch Times spoke to at the time had been living in Chile or Brazil for years before deciding to come to the United States.

They all said it wasn’t an option for them to return to Haiti and that they were determined to get into the United States one way or another.

Many had destroyed their visas and documentation from other resident countries before they crossed into the United States, as evidenced by the discarded identification documents on the Mexican side of the river. Some said they believed it would be more difficult to deport them if they discarded their papers.

The camp was cleared by Sept. 24, with the majority of the Haitians being released into the United States to await a future court date. None were tested for COVID-19.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Sept. 24 that approximately 2,000 Haitians had been deported to Haiti on 17 repatriation flights.

Mayorkas said that since Sept. 9, when the Haitian crisis began to escalate, Border Patrol had encountered nearly 30,000 illegal immigrants in Del Rio.

Of those, approximately 12,400 were released with a court date or a notice to check in at a federal immigration office within 60 days.

Some 8,000 returned to Mexico voluntarily. Another 5,000 were being processed to determine whether they should be expelled or let go with a notice.

Border Patrol drops van loads of Haitians who crossed the U.S. border illegally at local NGO Border Humanitarian Coalition to catch a bus to San Antonio or Houston, in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 22, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

The lawsuit alleges that at least 99 expulsion flights to Haiti carrying more than 10,000 asylum seekers have occurred since mid-September. Customs and Border Protection didn’t respond to a request to confirm those numbers.

One Haitian couple highlighted in the lawsuit said they came to the United States with their 1-year-old after living in Chile for several years.

“They never received an opportunity to seek asylum or explain why they feared returning to Haiti,” the lawsuit states. The couple also allege they were shackled while being transported back to Haiti.

DHS began to restrain illegal immigrants bound for deportation while transporting them after a group of Haitians overtook a bus and tried to flee.

On Sept. 20, when a busload of Haitians realized they were going to be deported, they started fighting with Border Patrol agents, forced the bus to stop, and fled.

Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) officers responded to the scene and eventually detained all the individuals.

“When the migrants found out they were going to be sent back to Haiti, they took the bus over and they fled,” said Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, at a press conference in Del Rio on Sept. 22.
“If it wasn’t for the men and women in uniform, DPS, we do not know what would have happened.”

The Haitian couple in the lawsuit was returned to Haiti, and the mother and child have since traveled to Chile, while the father remains in Haiti, according to the lawsuit. “They plan to return to the United States to seek asylum,” it states.

Thousands of illegal immigrants, mostly Haitians, live in a primitive, makeshift camp under the international bridge that spans the Rio Grande between the U.S. and Mexico while waiting to be detained and processed by Border Patrol, in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 21, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

The lawsuit highlights also the Border Patrol horse patrol unit that sparked furor after several photographs and video footage showed agents grabbing people who illegally crossed from Mexico.

White House officials decried the images and promised an investigation, while other critics claimed that Border Patrol agents were “whipping” the Haitians with their reins, which Border Patrol said is a technique to keep people from being trampled by the horse.

The inspector general for the DHS subsequently refused to take up the investigation.

The lawsuit charges senior White House and Homeland Security officials with developing a “Haitian deterrence policy,” which was “deliberately indifferent to humanitarian concerns, and focused on expelling Haitian asylum seekers as quickly as possible.”

On a policy level, the Biden administration has been lenient on illegal immigrants, including through policy changes that allow most to be released into the United States.

Mayorkas announced on May 22 an extension for Haitians currently eligible under the temporary protected status (TPS) program that was put in place after the 2010 earthquake.
That allowed Haitians who were already in the United States before the earthquake to stay, as their country was deemed unsafe to return to. TPS holders get work permits and are shielded from deportation.

The original 2010 designation for Haitians was extended several times until the Trump administration announced in January 2018 that it would end effective July 22, 2019. Subsequent lawsuits allowed the designation to remain in effect.

On Aug. 3, Mayorkas dramatically increased the number of Haitians eligible for the program by announcing that all Haitians who had made it into the United States by July 29 this year would now be eligible to apply for TPS.

Thousands of illegal immigrants amass in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 16, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

It’s difficult to know whether Haitians who have gained residency in another country, such as Chile or Brazil, are eligible for asylum in the United States.

Asylum-seekers need to prove that they have suffered past persecution or have a well-founded fear of future persecution in their home country because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.

But persecution is generally considered state-sanctioned or condoned, which means the government of the alien’s home country is the sponsor of the persecution. For example, in North Korea, the regime itself persecutes Christians.

Most claims of asylum in the United States are ultimately rejected, including roughly 90 percent of claims from Central Americans.

A backlog of more than 1.3 million cases, with approximately 610,000 pending asylum applications, is being handled by a corps of immigration judges that numbered 539 as of April. Most asylum-seekers must wait years before their claims are adjudicated.

The lawsuit is seeking an end to the use of Title 42 and the “Haitian deterrence policy” for the defendants and Haitian nationals in general.

It’s also asking for the deported Haitians to be brought back to the United States to pursue asylum claims, as well as “further relief as the court deems just, equitable, and proper.”
14,079202

 

[Plain Jane]

Mexico grapples with missing persons crisis – DW – 12/24/2021

A senior government human rights official said 52,000 unidentified bodies have been buried in mass graves, with tens of thousands still missing. The government will create a national center tasked with identification.

www.dw.com

Mexico grapples with crisis of 95,000 missing persons
A senior government human rights official said 52,000 unidentified bodies have been buried in mass graves, with tens of thousands still missing. The government will create a national center tasked with identification.




Alejandro Encinas, a senior government human rights official, said there were 9,400 unidentified bodies in cold storage rooms

The Mexican government pledged this Thursday to open a National Center for Human Identification tasked with its missing person crisis.

Mexico has registered 95,000 missing persons and 52,000 unidentified bodies buried in mass graves, according to government figures.

Alejandro Encinas, the assistant Interior Ministry secretary in charge of human rights, said that there were 9,400 unidentified bodies in cold storage rooms in the country.

"The creation of a national center for human identification [is aimed toward] dealing with deficiencies in this field, establishing mechanisms for mass identification," Encinas said.
Encinas added that there is a "forensic crisis that has lead to a situation where we don't have the ability to guarantee the identification of people and return to their families."

'A humanitarian crisis'
The figures were part of a report presented by Encinas on what the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has done in the area of human rights up to the middle of his six-year term.

In the report, Encinas said the Mexican government recognizes ongoing human rights violations in the country, but added that that the situation has worsened due to failures by authorities.

90% of crimes against journalists go unpunished

Among the actions that Encinas announced Thursday was an 88% increase in beneficiaries of Mexico's protection program. Mexico currently has an initiative to protect 495 journalists and 2,011 human rights defenders across the country.

Official figures show that 96 activists and 47 journalists and media workers have been killed in Mexico since December 2018, when Lopez Obrador took office.

Encinas said that 90% of crimes against journalists go unpunished.
sdi/fb, wd (EFE, AP)

 

[Plain Jane]

Rights court hits Argentina, Guatemala, Ecuador governments

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — Two past right-wing governments in Latin America and one from the left have been found guilty by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which on Tuesday said the countries' current governments shouid make reparations.

apnews.com

Rights court hits Argentina, Guatemala, Ecuador governments
December 22, 2021


SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — Two past right-wing governments in Latin America and one from the left have been found guilty by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which on Tuesday said the countries’ current governments shouid make reparations.

The military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983 was found guilty in the forced disappearance of a couple and of taking their children. Guatemala’s right-wing government of the 1980s was found guilty of a massacre. And the recent left-wing government of Ecuador’s Rafael Correa was castigated for violating the rights of journalists.

The court, based in Costa Rica, determined that Argentina’s military government systematically took and hid the children of suspected leftists who had been arrested and presumably killed during Operation Condor, which involved several allied right-wing governments in the region.

It said the government should make reparations to the son and daughter of Mario Roger Julien Cáceres and Victoria Lucía Grisonas Andrijauskaite, saying it had unjustifiably delayed efforts to clarify the couple’s disappearance. It said the government should renew efforts to clarify the case and find the bodies.

The Guatemala case involved an army massacre of at least 38 men, women and children in the village of Los Josefinos on April 30, 1982 — a moment when troops were conducting a scorched-earth campaign to wipe out any support for leftist rebels. Other villagers fled, some seeking refuge abroad.

The court said criminal investigations into the massacre didn’t start until nearly 14 years after the events.

The court said Guatemala should pay indemnities and court costs and speed up legal proceedings, as well as building a monument in the area where victims were buried in a mass grave and create an audiovisual documentary of the massacre.

The government of former Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa was found guilty of violating the right to free expression and other rights for prosecuting a journalist who had criticized him and executives of the newspaper that employed him.

Journalist Emilio Palacio Urrutia and executives Nicolás Pérez Lapentti, César Enrique Pérez Barriga and Carlos Eduardo Pérez Barriga were convicted of defaming Correa in a 2011 article published by the newspaper El Universo. They were sentenced to prison and fined. Palacios wound up fleeing the country.

The court found that the article was the sort of opinion piece that should enjoy proetection as a part of “democratic debate.”

The court said the convictions should be annulled and that the country shoul find non-criminal avenues to protect the honor of officials.

 

[Plain Jane]

5 killed in Christmas morning gunfire in northeast Brazil

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Five people were killed and six others were wounded by gunfire while celebrating Christmas on a soccer field in the northeastern city of Fortaleza early Saturday, according to the Ceara state Public Security Secretariat.

apnews.com

5 killed in Christmas morning gunfire in northeast Brazil
yesterday


BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Five people were killed and six others were wounded by gunfire while celebrating Christmas on a soccer field in the northeastern city of Fortaleza early Saturday, according to the Ceara state Public Security Secretariat.

According to the agency’s press office, three people have been arrested. Local news media say the crime may have been motivated by a feud between criminal factions.

Authorities said only two of the victims had been identified: One is 21 and the other 26 years old and both had a police record for crimes including criminal association, illegal firearms, receiving stolen goods, and disturbing the peace.

 

[Plain Jane]

Dams give way as heavy rain swamps Brazil – DW – 12/26/2021

Authorities have issued flash flood warnings after two dams broke in the northeastern state of Bahia. City authorities in the towns of Jussiape and Itambe have warned residents to find safety.

www.dw.com

Brazil: Two dams give way as heavy rain swamps the northeast
Authorities have issued flash flood warnings after two dams broke in the northeastern state of Bahia. City authorities in the towns of Jussiape and Itambe have warned residents to find safety.




Rescue teams have been using dinghies to reach residents who have been trapped by flooding in Bahia state in north east Brazil

Brazilian authorities issued warnings of flash floods after two dams in the northeast of the country burst on Sunday.

At least 35,000 people have been driven from their homes, with almost 19,600 having been displaced and around 16,000 forced to seek shelter, according to the civil protection agency Sudec active in the northeastern state of Bahia.

The Igua dam which is situated on the Verruga River in the state of Bahia collapsed on Saturday night, forcing the evacuation of residents of the town of Itambe.

"A dam with a high volume of water has broken and a strong flash flood is expected to affect the municipality of Itambe in a few moments. All residents should evacuate from the banks of the river Verruga urgently,'' city authorities posted on social media.


Then on Sunday morning, a second dam broke in Jussiape, leading to authorities to renew calls to move to safety. State Governor Rui Costa has been overseeing relief efforts and said the task at had is to get people to safety.

Emergency efforts under way
In Vitoria da Conquista, situated close to the collapsed Igua dam, Mayor Sheila Lemos said all residents located near the dam had been evacuated.

While there have been no immediate reports of deaths or injuries, the flood waters have damaged infrastructure in the area, including roads and bridges.

Federal and state authorities have joined forces to help cope with the the floods. Equipment and aircraft along with supplies have been made available.

Bahia state officals say 18 people have died as a result of flooding

Rescue teams have been reaching trapped residents in dinghies and have also been delivering supplies.

Emergency teams rescued residents who had been trapped in the city of Itabuna, after parts of the downtown area were flooded with water.

"It's crazy by the bridge, there are waves almost 2 meters high," shopkeeper Luiz Constancia told Reuters news agency.

Thousands forced from their homes
Heavy rain has been lashing the region, causing rivers to burst their banks and towns to be flooded. Thousands of people have been displaced in Bahia state as a result.

According to the Bahia state government, flooding has killed 18 people while 72 cities have been affected since November.

December rainfall figures are already six times greater than the average in the state capital of Salvador, weather officials said.
kb/rs (AP, Reuters)

 

[Plain Jane]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Cocaine, Guns, & Gushers: Colombia's Oil Industry Struggles To Reactivate

BY TYLER DURDEN
MONDAY, DEC 27, 2021 - 07:00 PM
Authored by Matthew Smith via OilPrice.com,

• Rising security risk and rural violence, which is mostly fueled by the vast profits generated by the cocaine trade, is a key deterrent to attracting onshore oil investment in Colombia.
• According to the UN, Colombia’s cocaine production during 2020 increased by 8% compared to a year earlier, despite a 7% decrease in the volume of land used for coca cropping.
• Despite the risks associated with operating in onshore Colombia, the Andean country’s 2021 bid round found some success.

Despite the groundbreaking 2016 peace deal between the Colombian government and the largest guerilla group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC – Spanish initials) there are fears that conflict is escalating once again. Colombia, which is Latin America’s third-largest petroleum producer and the world’s largest manufacturer of cocaine for nearly a century, has been caught in a simmering low-intensity asymmetric conflict that reached boiling point during the 1980s.

The primary flashpoint for the civil conflict, which currently engulfs Colombia and failed to end with the 2016 FARC peace accord was the April 1948 assassination of Liberal Party leader Jorge Gaitan in Bogota. That sparked the Bogotazo, days of violent rioting that swept across Bogota resulting in up to 3,000 deaths, which eventually evolved into a vicious 10-year civil war between the Colombian Liberal and Conservative parties known as La Violencia.

While that brutal struggle ended in a 1958 power-sharing agreement between Colombia’s leading political parties, it sowed the seeds for the current low-intensity multiparty asymmetric conflict. In 1964 the Colombian Communist Party formed the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC – Spanish initials) after a military attack on the community of Marquetalia, a Communist peasant enclave established during the of La Violencia. That event saw the communist FARC emerge as the most powerful left-wing anti-government armed group during the conflict. The guerillas eventually cut ties with the Colombian Communist Party and increasingly relied upon kidnapping, extortion, and cocaine trafficking to fund their operations. Prior to these events, which cast Colombia into what appears to be a never-ending low-intensity asymmetric multiparty civil conflict, oil was discovered in 1918 at the La Cira-Infantas field in the Middle Magdalena Basin near the city of Barrancabermeja.

Even after additional petroleum discoveries in the Middle Magdalena Basin, it was not until the giant Caño Limon, Cusiana, and Cupiagua oilfields were discovered between 1983 and 1993 that Colombia embarked on becoming a major oil producer. Those mega discoveries and a notable increase in foreign energy investment, as well as petroleum production, occurred despite violence surging because of the tremendous influx of profits from the booming cocaine trade.

Even the tremendous escalation of violence, homicides, kidnappings, and attacks on energy infrastructure which escalated in the late-1980s, lasting well into the early 21st century, had little material impact on Colombia’s hydrocarbon sector. By 1991 Colombia was pumping over 400,000 barrels per day, more than double its output in 1985, despite becoming the world’s murder capital with a homicide rate of 84 intentional killings per 100,000 people. That was more than eight times greater than the U.S. which reported 9.8 homicides per 100,000 head of population, 7-times higher than neighboring Venezuela’s murder rate of 12 and 8-times larger than Ecuador’s 11 homicides per 100,000 people.

Heightened insecurity and violence remained a persistent problem in Colombia, even after the collapse of the Medellin and Cali cartels, as the FARC and National Liberation Army ELN (Spanish initials) ramped-up operations as vast revenue flowed in from the drug trade. By 2000, after President Andres Pastrana’s peace negotiations with the FARC had failed, the leftist guerillas controlled a 42,000 square mile territory in southeastern Colombia and kidnappings had surged to a record high of 3,500 for the year. Even those events failed to have any material impact on Colombia’s oil boom. A combination of soaring oil prices and rapidly improving internal security during the early 2000s, because of Plan Colombia and President Alvaro Uribe’s military campaign against the FARC, saw foreign energy investment and hence crude oil production growth.

During 2003 when Brent averaged $28.83 per barrel, a 15% increase over 2002, Colombia pumped an average of 550,000 barrels of crude oil per day. When Brent had soared to over $140 per barrel during 2008, annual petroleum production averaged 600,000 barrels daily and kept growing to peak at a yearly record of just over 1 million barrels per day by 2013. Since 2016 Colombia’s petroleum output has been in terminal decline impacted at first by the late-2014 oil price crash, sharply rising violence, and finally because of the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. Even the 2017 demobilization of the largest leftist guerilla group the FARC, after a 2016 peace agreement was struck with the government of President Juan Manuel Santos, has done little if anything to arrest Colombia’s production decline. That in part can be blamed on current President Ivan Duque’s reluctance to fully implement the peace deal, contributing to an increase in violence and civil unrest in regional Colombia.

During 2020, the crisis-driven Andean nation only pumped on average 781,300 barrels of crude oil per day as the COVID-19 pandemic, related national quarantine lockdown and sharply weaker oil prices impacted investment as well as production. More worrying, is that despite the pandemic lockdown ending by September 2020 and energy investment increasing, average petroleum output only reached 734,231 barrels per day for the first 10 months of 2021 which is 6% less than the full year 2020. That disappointing decline occurred because of heightened civil unrest with anti-government protests sweeping across Colombia during late- April 2021 lasting into May and early-June 2021. Falling crude oil output can also be attributed to rising insecurity in regional areas, where petroleum industry operations are concentrated, fueled by a marked uptick in violence related to the activities of illegal armed groups and cocaine production.

It is the cocaine trade that is an enduring problem for Colombia. The tremendous profits that the trade generates are responsible for fueling what is a near-perpetual low-level asymmetric conflict where only the illegal armed actors change as the various groups fragment and reform. Estimates vary, but Colombia’s government believes the civil conflict has claimed up to 260,000 lives and displaced at least 9 million people. According to the UN Colombia’s cocaine production during 2020 increased by 8% compared to a year earlier, despite a 7% decrease in the volume of land used for coca cropping and an 18% increase in seizures. The scale of massive profits generated by cocaine is highlighted by former finance minister Juan Carlos Echeverry’s estimate (Spanish) that the drug trade generates $8 to $12 billion annually, which is equivalent to 5 to 4% of Colombia’s gross domestic product. Using Echeverry’s numbers the cocaine trade is contributing the same amount, if not more, to Colombia’s GDP than the oil industry which based on DANE data (Spanish) for the first 3 quarters of 2021 was responsible for 3% of GDP.

Rising security risk and rural violence, which is mostly fueled by the vast profits generated by the cocaine trade, is a key deterrent to attracting onshore oil investment in Colombia. A combination of security risks and mature assets saw Occidental Petroleum, in October 2020, sell its Colombian onshore petroleum assets in an $825 million deal, although the company retained its offshore exploration blocks. Despite the risks associated with operating in onshore Colombia, the Andean country’s 2021 bid round found some success. Seven companies made offers for 30 of the 53 blocks (Spanish) on offer with initial investment expected to exceed $148 million. Five of the offers came from national oil company Ecopetrol or its subsidiaries and 21 from intermediate energy companies with existing operational presence in Colombia, Parex Resources, Frontera Energy, and Canacol Energy. This indicates that Colombia is struggling to attract foreign onshore energy investment because of the heightened security risks coupled with high breakeven prices and elevated carbon content of the sour heavy crude oil produced.

 

[Plain Jane]

Nicaragua seizes former Taiwan embassy to give it to China

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — The Nicaraguan government has seized the former embassy and diplomatic offices of Taiwan, saying they belong to China.

apnews.com

Nicaragua seizes former Taiwan embassy to give it to China
yesterday

The President of Nicaragua Daniel Ortega attends the closing ceremony of the XX ALBA Summit, at the Convention Palace in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021. (AP Photo/Ismael Francisco)

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — The Nicaraguan government has seized the former embassy and diplomatic offices of Taiwan, saying they belong to China.

President Daniel Ortega’s government broke off relations with Taiwan this month, saying it would recognize only the mainland government.

Before departing, Taiwanese diplomats attempted to donate the properties to the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Managua.

But Ortega’s government said late Sunday that any such donation would be invalid and that the building in an upscale Managua neighborhood belongs to China.

The Attorney General’s Office said in a statement that the attempted donation was a “manuever and subterfuge to take what doesn’t belong to them.”

Taiwan’s Foreign Relations Ministry condemned the “gravely illegal actions of the Ortega regime,” saying the Nicaraguan government had violated standard procedures by giving Taiwanese diplomats just two weeks to get out of the country.


It said Taiwan “also condemns the arbitrary obstruction by the Nicaraguan government of the symbolic sale of its property to the Nicaraguan Catholic church.”

Msgr. Carlos Avilés, vicar of the archdiocese of Managua, told the La Prensa newspaper that a Taiwanese diplomat had offered the church the property, saying, “I told him there was no problem, but the transfer was still in the legal process.”

The Central American country said in early December it would officially recognize only China, which claims self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory.

“There is only one China,” the Nicaraguan government said in a statement announcing the change. “The People’s Republic of China is the only legitimate government that represents all China, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of the Chinese territory.”

The move increased Taiwan’s diplomatic isolation on the international stage, even as the island has stepped up official exchanges with countries such as Lithuania and Slovakia, which do not formally recognize Taiwan as a country. Now, Taiwan has 14 formal diplomatic allies remaining.

China has been poaching Taiwan’s diplomatic allies over the past few years, reducing the number of countries that recognize the democratic island as a sovereign nation. China is against Taiwan representing itself in global forums or in diplomacy. The Solomon Islands chose to recognize China in 2019, cutting diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

Taiwan depicts itself as a defender of democracy, while Ortega was reelected in November in what the White House called a “pantomime election.”

“The arbitrary imprisonment of nearly 40 opposition figures since May, including seven potential presidential candidates, and the blocking of political parties from participation rigged the outcome well before election day,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement in November.

Nicaragua established diplomatic relations with Taiwan in the 1990s, when President Violeta Chamorro assumed power after defeating Ortega’s Sandinista movement at the polls. Ortega, who was elected back to to power in 2007, had maintained ies with Taipei until now.
https://apnews.com/direct/?prx_t=8j...v_oc=300&ntv_gsscm=560*7;576*24;575*7;&ntv_fr

 

[Plain Jane]

This flooding is getting worse.

Severe Brazil flooding spreads in Bahia and beyond

A total of 116 cities in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia were in a state of emergency from flooding as of Tuesday due to heavy rains that have been pounding the region since the end of November.

apnews.com

Severe Brazil flooding spreads in Bahia and beyond
By DÉBORA ÁLVARESyesterday



1 of 12
Residents clean out their flooded homes in Itapetinga, Bahia state, Brazil, Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2021. Two dams broke Sunday in northeastern Brazil, threatening worse flooding in a rain-drenched region that has already seen thousands of forced to flee their homes. (AP Photo/Raphael Muller)

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — A total of 116 cities in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia were in a state of emergency because of flooding on Tuesday due to heavy rains that have been pounding the region since the end of November.

Cities in at least five other states in Brazil’s north and southeast have also been flooded in recent days.

In Bahia, flooding has affected more than 470,000 people. In at least 50 cities, water surged into homes and businesses, and people were forced to abandon their belongings. Official data from the state government say 34,163 people have been made homeless and almost 43,000 are displaced. There have been a total of 21 deaths and 358 people injured since the beginning of the month.

This is the heaviest period of rainfall for Bahia in the last 32 years, according to the website of the National Center for Monitoring and Alerts of Natural Disasters, a government agency. In southern Bahia, it rained more than five times the normal amount for this time of the year.

In an interview with local radio stations Tuesday morning, Bahia Gov. Rui Costa compared the situation to a “bombardment.” He also said that coronavirus vaccines were lost in the floods of some cities.https://apnews.com/article/floods-environment-and-nature-california-3ce1c3db4123469128ab112f26d015ee

“Some municipal health offices and medicine depots were completely under water,” he said.

On Tuesday, the population of at least four municipalities in Bahia received warnings to leave their homes because of the increased flow of the Pardo River due to the opening of the Machado Mineiro dam’s sluice gates in neighboring Minas Gerais state, according to the state government’s advisory office.

A woman cleans her house that was flooded in Itapetinga, Bahia state. (AP Photo/Raphael Muller)

Bahia’s Civil Defense superintendent, Col. Miguel Filho, told The Associated Press that there are still flooded and isolated cities, and rains are still ongoing.

“Our first response is to help, then to shelter, to care for the population in the shelters by giving humanitarian aid, with sheets, blankets, food,” he said.

He added that at least five dams in Bahia are at risk of bursting. Bridges and federal and state roads in the state were destroyed and have been provisionally rebuilt to allow food and other items to be brought to people in need.

“We still don’t have a complete list of all the damage caused, the amount of structures that will need to be replaced,” Gov. Costa said. “It isn’t possible to stipulate a timeframe for recovery, because we don’t have that dimension. We’re guaranteeing accessibility, the detour, the temporary structure so that people can come and go.”

The above-average rainfall is due to the La Nina atmospheric phenomenon, which increases precipitation in some areas of Brazil, including Bahia, the government’s science ministry said in a statement last week.

Carlos Nobre, a prominent climatologist, explained to the Associated Press that the intensity of rains observed in Bahia are due to global warming. “We have to expect that these kinds of phenomena become more and more common. It’s how the planet responds. The evaporation of the oceans is greater and, with more water vapor in the atmosphere, there are more conditions for more intense rains, as we saw in Europe and China months ago,” said the expert, who also mentioned other climatic phenomena that are becoming more intense and frequent, such as droughts, hurricanes and fires.

The federal government has authorized emergency spending totaling 80 million reais ($14.2 million) for Bahia alone. Additional funds will be directed to other regions also affected by the rains in recent weeks, and which are still suffering the consequences.

In Tocantins state, which is adjacent to Bahia in Brazil’s northern region, 22 municipalities were affected by the rains by early Tuesday afternoon. The executive director of the state’s civil defense authority, Maj, Alex Matos, told the AP this number is expected to grow in the coming hours.

“We’re predicting an increase in the volume of the Araguaia River, which will fill the Tocantins River even more,” he said.

 

[Plain Jane]

Mexico says cruise ships with coronavirus cases can dock

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican government said Tuesday it will allow cruise ships carrying people infected with the coronavirus to dock.

apnews.com

Mexico says cruise ships with coronavirus cases can dock
yesterday


MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican government said Tuesday it will allow cruise ships carrying people infected with the coronavirus to dock.

The announcement came after two Mexican ports refused to allowed passengers ashore because their ships had coronavirus cases.

The Health Department said passengers or crew who show no symptoms will be allowed to come ashore normally, while those with symptoms or a positive virus test will be quarantined or given medical care.

The department said a cruise ship that was prevented from docking at one Pacific coast port will be allowed to dock farther north, at the port of Guaymas. That was an apparent reference to a ship that was supposed to dock at Puerto Vallarta a few days ago but was not allowed to do so.

Early in the pandemic, some cruise ships wandered the seas for weeks seeking a port that would allow them to dock with coronavirus cases aboard.

Mexico is one of the few countries in the world that has instituted no travel restrictions, no testing requirements and no mandatory face mask wearing for visitors. The government argues such measures would be counterproductive for the economy, for which tourism revenues account for about 8.5% of GDP.

Mexico has also paid a high price in the pandemic. The country has had about 460,000 deaths related to COVID-19, based on government reviews of death certificates over the last two years.

 

[Plain Jane]

Gun attack in Mexico kills 8 at two homes, including baby

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A shooting attack in north-central Mexico killed eight people at two homes including a baby boy, authorities said Wednesday.

apnews.com

Gun attack in Mexico kills 8 at two homes, including baby
December 29, 2021


MEXICO CITY (AP) — A shooting attack in north-central Mexico killed eight people at two homes including a baby boy, authorities said Wednesday.

They said the assailants apparently targeted four men who were at one home, killing them and a woman.

Local media said the house on the outskirts of the city of Silao may have been used by drug addicts.

Another man wounded in the attack on the home late Tuesday died of his wound Wednesday. Guanajuato state prosecutors said three other people were wounded and were in serious condition at local hospitals.

At a nearby house, police found a 16-year-old girl and a 16-month-old boy dead of gunshot wounds. It was unclear if they also were targeted or had simply been hit by stray bullets from the first shooting, officials said.

The killings shocked people in Guanajuato, the state with the highest number of homicides in Mexico.

“What happened today in Silao hurts us deeply and as the government of Guanajuato, we will continue to work together to give no quarter to those cowards who take other peoples’ lives,” Libia García, the state interior secretary, wrote in her Twitter account. “Justice will be done for the victims.”