INTL Latin America and the Islands: Politics, Economics, Military- January 2022

[Plain Jane]

December's thread:

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

November's thread: https://www.timebomb2000.com/xf/index.php?threads/latin-america-and-the-islands-politics-economics-military-november-2021.610078/ Main Coronavirus thread beginning page1455: https://www.timebomb2000.com/xf/index.php?threads/main-coronavirus-thread.566780/page-1455...

timebomb2000.com

Main Coronavirus thread beginning page 1486:

CORONA - Main Coronavirus thread

https://thefederalist.com/2021/12/31/cdc-now-treats-unvaccinated-the-same-as-un-boosted-just-as-desantis-predicted/ CDC Now Treats Unvaccinated The Same As Un-Boosted, Just As DeSantis Predicted BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD DECEMBER 31, 2021 IMAGE CREDITGAGE SKIDMORE/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS The CDC is...

www.timebomb2000.com

Should kids be vaccinated? Brazil turns to online survey

Leaders around the world are relying on public health specialists to inform their decisions about whether and when to vaccinate their nation’s kids, but Brazil government is instead asking the public for guidance.

apnews.com

Should kids be vaccinated? Brazil turns to online survey
By DÉBORA ÁLVARES, MAURICIO SAVARESE and MARCELO SILVA DE SOUSAyesterday



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FILE - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro poses for photos with the mascot of his nation's vaccination campaign, named "Ze Gotinha," or Joseph Droplet, during a ceremony to present the National Vaccination Plan Against COVID-19 at Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Dec. 16, 2020. Brazil's government started taking an online public survey on Dec. 24, 2021 to inform their decisions about whether and how to vaccinate children against the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)
BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — As world leaders rely on public health specialists to inform their decisions about whether and how to vaccinate children against the coronavirus, Brazil’s government is asking the online public for guidance.

In recent weeks, President Jair Bolsonaro has staked out a position against immunizing kids aged between 5 and 11, and his administration took the unusual step of creating a platform that could validate a stance that is widely opposed by experts. Since his government on Dec. 23 unveiled its online questionnaire on the issue, the president’s supporters have been highly engaged on messaging apps trying to pressure parents to swing the results.

One widely shared post Wednesday on the Telegram group ‘Bolsonaro Army,’ which has about 37,000 members, said the vaccine is experimental and suggested that receiving shots could be more harmful than getting infected, although several studies have shown the opposite is true. It also included a link to the government’s survey, which other people were posting along with instructions to relay to friends and family.

The rally for resistance resembles online behavior observed earlier this month, which catapulted Bolsonaro to the top of the heap in TIME magazine’s readers poll for Person of the Year, David Nemer, an expert on Brazil’s far-right groups on messaging apps, told The Associated Press. Bolsonaro garnered about one-quarter of the more than 9 million votes — nearly triple that of the runner-up, former U.S. President Donald Trump. The magazine’s editors instead chose Elon Musk as 2021 Person of the Year.

This time, however, online efforts are aimed at something far more significant than bestowing an honorific on the president. The survey, which concludes Jan. 2, stands to shape vaccination policy in Latin America’s most populous nation, home to 20 million kids aged 5 to 11. Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga has said they will soon be eligible for vaccination, but survey results will help determine guidelines including whether shots could only be administered with parental consent and a doctor’s prescription.

“This is a tool of democracy, it widens the discussion on the topic and it will bring more ease for parents so they can take their children to immunize against COVID-19,” Queiroga said Wednesday.

Health experts, for their part, are aghast. Some Brazilian states’ health secretariats have already pledged to ignore any health ministry guidelines on childhood vaccination if based on the public consultation.

Gonzalo Vecina, founder and director of Brazil’s health regulator between 1999 and 2003, says public consultation on vaccines is “unprecedented”.

“Bolsonaro is against the vaccine and his employee, the health minister, believes that health is a matter of public opinion. It is a spurious and nonsensical approach,” Vecina told the AP. “If only deniers send their opinion in the public consultation, is the government going to say that the vaccine doesn’t have to be used?”

Denialism from the top in Brazil is a bit of deja vu. Even as COVID-19 exploded, driving the nation’s death toll to the second highest in the world, Bolsonaro spent months sowing doubts about vaccines and was obstinate in his refusal to get a shot. He has cited the fact he contracted the coronavirus in 2020 to claim, incorrectly, that he is already immune, and routinely characterizes vaccination as an issue of personal choice rather than a means for ensuring the common good.

So when Brazil’s health regulator authorized use of Pfizer’s shot for children on Dec. 16, Bolsonaro was stunned.

“Kids are something very serious,” he said the same night in his weekly live broadcast on social media. “We don’t know about possible adverse future effects. It’s unbelievable — I’m sorry — what the agency did. Unbelievable.”

A study released Thursday by U.S. health authorities confirmed that serious side effects from the Pfizer vaccine in children ages 5 to 11 are rare. The findings were based on approximately 8 million doses dispensed to youngsters in that age group.

Bolsonaro added that he would name and expose the public servants who issued the approval, prompting a union representing health agency workers to express concern about online abuse or even physical attacks.

Despite fervent support among his base, Bolsonaro’s anti-vaccine stance hasn’t gained as much traction in Brazil — which has a proud history of inoculation campaigns — as in the U.S. More than two-thirds of Brazilians are fully vaccinated, as compared to 63% in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University’s vaccination tracker, though American children have been eligible for shots since early November.

In neighboring Argentina, the government has allowed kids 12 years and older to be vaccinated since August, and more recently began giving shots to children as young as 3. In the face of subsequent criticism, the nation’s health ministry cited the recommendation of the nation’s association of pediatricians. In Chile, two-thirds of kids aged between 3 and 17 have already received both their shots, after the nation’s health regulator analyzed an immunization study of 100 million children.

For the time being, Mexico isn’t vaccinating children except those 12 years or older with illnesses that put them at greater risk. Mexico’s point man for the pandemic, Hugo López-Gatell, said Tuesday the World Health Organization hasn’t recommended vaccinating children aged 5 to 11, and that countries with ample vaccine coverage, like Mexico, shouldn’t vaccinate kids until developing nations with limited coverage can raise their adult vaccination rates.

In Brazil, Mauro Paulino, general director of prominent pollster Datafolha, said one problem with the Bolsonaro government’s survey is the way questions are framed, repeatedly asking interviewees, “Do you agree that...?” Such failure to present questions neutrally can induce responses.

“Datafolha always gives the two possible alternatives: whether the interviewee agrees or disagrees with the statement,” he said. “Both sides of the question are necessary.”

Bolsonaro told supporters on Tuesday that pressure to inoculate kids stems from the “vaccine lobby” — a veiled reference to pharmaceutical companies. Many Bolsonaro supporters the next day were sharing a post from the Telegram group “Doctors for life,” which has more than 60,000 followers and frequently echoes the president’s unscientific COVID-19 advice.

One Telegram post with more than 200,000 shares said no child should be a guinea pig for the pharmaceutical industry. Tens of millions of doses have been administered to children around the world, with rare serious side effects. While few children die from COVID-19, vaccinating them can minimize the virus’ spread in society.

Bolsonaro also said this week he won’t allow the vaccination of his 11-year-old daughter. Meantime, his wife and politician sons received their shots, along with at least 16 of his 22 ministers — including Health Minister Queiroga.

Politicians from the party Bolsonaro joined to run for re-election in 2022 have advocated not only for vaccination, but also requiring proof of vaccination to enter certain places — another supposed infringement on personal liberties Bolsonaro opposes.

His chaotic management of the pandemic since its onset has been roundly criticized, and a Senate investigative committee recommended he face criminal charges.

But the president and his die-hard supporters on Telegram and WhatsApp aren’t backing down. Many interpreted his comments regarding his daughter in particular as a directive to reject the immunization of kids.

“There are a lot of messages about the dangers of vaccines, studies that aren’t true,” said Nemer, the expert on far-right groups, and an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Virginia. “They’re bringing a lot of disinformation about vaccinating kids to motivate the base.”

Pro-Bolsonaro messaging app groups brought the topic back hours before the New Year arrived after the president once more attacked child vaccination in a six-minute national address on television.

“We defend that vaccines for kids between ages 5 and 11 are only given with the consent of parents and a medical prescription. Liberty must be respected,” Bolsonaro said.

Many Brazilians went to their balconies to bang on their pots in protest against the president.
_____
Associated Press writer Debora Alvares reported this story in Brasilia, AP writer Mauricio Savarese reported from Sao Paulo and AP writer Marcelo Silva de Sousa reported from Rio de Janeiro. AP writers Eva Vergara in Santiago, Chile, Debora Rey in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed to this report.

 

[Plain Jane]

Jamaica to deport Colombian wanted in Haiti president assassination

A former Colombian military member implicated in last year's assassination of Haiti President Jovenel Moise will be deported from Jamaica to his home country on Jan. 3, Jamaica's attorney general said on Saturday.

www.reuters.com

2:11 PM ESTLast Updated 15 hours ago
AmericasJamaica to deport Colombian wanted in Haiti president assassination

By Kate Chappell


2 minute read

A picture of the late Haitian President Jovenel Moise hangs on a wall before a news conference by interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph at his house, almost a week after his assassination, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti July 13, 2021. REUTERS/Ricardo Arduengo

KINGSTON, Jan 1 (Reuters) - A former Colombian military member implicated in last year's assassination of Haiti President Jovenel Moise will be deported from Jamaica to his home country on Jan. 3, Jamaica's attorney general said on Saturday.

Mario Antonio Palacios, 43, is accused by Haitian authorities of forming part of a mercenary group that assassinated Moise in July during an assault on his private residence, during which his wife was also injured.

Palacios was arrested in Jamaica last October and convicted for illegally entering the country from the Dominican Republic.

Jamaica's government had issued a deportation order for illegally entering the country. But the island nation has no formal extradition treaty with Haiti, where Palacios is wanted, a local police spokesman said.

"The information supplied did not link him to the assassination and essentially indicated that he was a suspect for attempted armed robbery, without any detail," Marlene Malahoo Forte said in a statement to Reuters.

"Our attempts to get further and better particulars from the Haitian government were unsuccessful."

Lawyers for Palacios have asked for his immediate release from Kingston's Horizon Adult Remand Centre, arguing that his detention is unlawful, she said.

Neither Palacio's lawyers nor Haiti government officials immediately responded to requests for comment.

Reporting by Kate Chappell in Kingston Additional reporting by Gessika Thomas in Port-au-Prince Editing by Marguerita Choy
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

 

[marsh]

China unveils plan to 'take over' Latin America

Chinese Communist Party officials have unveiled an “action plan for cooperation” with Latin American countries that amounts to a “comprehensive” plan to influence the region and threaten U.S. interests, following a new summit with the nearest neighbors of the United States.

www.washingtonexaminer.com

PATRIOTISM & UNITY
China unveils plan to 'take over' Latin America

JANUARY 02, 2022 06:30 AM
BY JOEL GEHRKE

Chinese Communist Party officials have unveiled an “action plan for cooperation” with Latin American countries that amounts to a “comprehensive” plan to cultivate influence and threaten American interests, following a new summit with the nearest neighbors of the United States.

“The Chinese don’t say, ‘We want to take over Latin America,’ but they clearly set out a multidimensional engagement strategy, which, if successful, would significantly expand their leverage and produce enormous intelligence concerns for the United States,” U.S. Army War College research professor Evan Ellis, a former member of the State Department policy planning staff, told the Washington Examiner.

Chinese officials outlined their ambitions following a summit with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. This intergovernmental forum was launched in 2011 under the auspices of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who wanted a venue to rival the Organization of American States and challenge U.S. influence in Latin America, and it now stands to furnish Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping with a platform to gather a coalition of leftist and authoritarian leaders congenial to Beijing’s interests.

“The Chinese Communist Party and government are actively looking to strengthen their ties throughout the Western Hemisphere, in particular with anti-American elements,” Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a senior Senate Intelligence Select Committee Republican, said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.

“Beijing is seeking to surpass the United States in every sector, and we must take this threat seriously.”

China’s exploitation of ideological fault lines in Latin America was thrown into sharp relief earlier this month, when Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, just weeks after the OAS General Assembly rebuked him for overseeing elections that “were not free, fair, or transparent and have no democratic legitimacy,” opted to close the Taiwanese Embassy in favor of a new relationship with Beijing.

“The Ortega-Murillo regime has announced it has severed diplomatic relations and ended official contact with Taiwan, but the sham election on Nov. 7 did not provide it with any mandate to remove Nicaragua from the family of American democracies,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a Dec. 9 response.

“Without the mandate that comes with a free and fair election, Ortega's actions cannot reflect the will of the Nicaraguan people, who continue to struggle for democracy and the ability to exercise their human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

Rubio, who also leads the GOP side of the Senate foreign relations subcommittee for the Western Hemisphere, was unsatisfied with that response and President Joe Biden’s broader approach to Latin America.

“The Ortega-Murillo regime sees the CCP as a better ideological ally than the U.S. because Ortega’s long list of crimes and human rights violations are of no concern to the genocidal regime in Beijing,” he wrote in an op-ed published Tuesday. “Ortega also wants continued Chinese funding for the construction of an Atlantic-to-Pacific canal through Nicaragua, which People’s Liberation Army warships can then use to access the Caribbean.”

Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Denis Moncada has expressed interest , according to Chinese state media, in joining China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the overseas infrastructure investment that U.S. officials regard as a predatory lending scheme to buy an empire . Some economic projects in the region already have caught the attention of U.S. national security officials, especially as then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s global campaign to warn allies that Chinese telecommunications infrastructure represented an espionage threat.

“The region is ripe for investment, for engagement, with a partner of China's size in different sectors,” Heritage Foundation research assistant Mateo Haydar said. “And [China is] capitalizing on that in ways that I think we're failing to recognize and at a speed that I think we’re failing to respond to.”

Chinese officials offered a more elaborate preview of their ambitions for the region just a few days before Nicaragua cut ties with Taipei. The China-CELAC summit on Dec. 3 culminated in the adoption of a plan not only to tighten economic ties but to enhance “political and security cooperation” while deepening China’s involvement in high-tech spheres — from cyberspace and artificial intelligence to “space science, satellite data sharing, satellite applications, construction of ground infrastructure,” and even nuclear energy.

“There are absolutely ambitions for China to become the dominant influence in Latin America,” Haydar added. “The challenge is comprehensive, and there's absolutely a security and military interest there. ... That threat is growing, and it’s a different kind of threat than what we saw with the Soviet threat.”

 

[Plain Jane]

Colombia: Over 20 killed amid rebel clashes in border region – DW – 01/04/2022

Clashes between rival rebel groups have killed more than 20 people, including civilians. President Ivan Duque has pointed the finger at neighboring Venezuela.

www.dw.com

Colombia: Over 20 killed amid rebel clashes at Venezuelan border
Clashes between rival rebel groups have killed more than 20 people, including civilians. President Ivan Duque has pointed the finger at neighboring Venezuela.




Colombia's president has claimed that rebels active in Colombia are given protection by neighboring Venezuela

Fighting between rival rebel groups in the border region between Colombia and Venezuela left at least 23 people dead, officials reported on Monday.

The clashes were believed to have been between militants from the National Liberation Army (ELN) and remnants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) who refused to lay down arms in the 2016 peace deal.

Colombian President Ivan Duque said that civilians who had been caught up in the fighting were "likely" among the deceased.

Duque blames Venezuela
"I've mobilized two battalions to support the task of getting the regions under control in the next 72 hours," Duque said.

Violence was reported in the areas of Tame, Fortul, Saravena and Arauquita.

"These groups [the ELN and FARC] have been operating at ease in Venezuelan territory with the consent and protection of the dictatorial regime," the president added.

Colombia frequently accuses its neighbor of harboring rebel forces. The two countries ended diplomatic ties shortly after Duque became president.

Watch video01:37
Venezuela reopens border to Colombia
Civilians caught up in violence
One Colombian official said that a dozen families had to flee the fighting, while local authorities reported that others were trapped in the crossfire.

Jose Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director for Human Rights Watch, called the situation on the border "very serious."

Violence in the country has increased despite the deal signed between the former Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC that saw 13,000 rebels lay down their arms.

There are thought to be some 5,000 remaining FARC guerrillas as well as 2,500 active ELN members.

Various groups, including paramilitaries and drug gangs, are also fighting over the gains from drug trafficking and illegal mining.


Watch video01:57
Colombian coca farmers release 180 soldiers from hostage
ab/fb (EFE, AFP)

 

[Plain Jane]

US charges suspect in assassination of Haitian president – DW – 01/04/2022

Interpol had issued a red alert for the Colombian man in connection with the killing of President Jovenel Moise. Charges include conspiring to kidnap and conspiring to kill outside the US.

www.dw.com

US charges suspect in assassination of Haitian president
Interpol had issued a red alert for the Colombian man in connection with the killing of President Jovenel Moise. Charges include conspiring to kidnap and conspiring to kill outside the US.




Haiti's President Jovenel Moise was killed on July 7

A Colombian national wanted in connection with the killing of Haiti's President Jovenel Moise has been charged by a US court. Mario P. was detained by US authorities and appeared in a federal court in Miami on Tuesday, where he was charged with providing material support resulting in death and conspiracy to kidnap and conspiracy to kill outside of the US.

Haitian authorities have so far arrested 45 people in connection with Moise's killing but have yet to formally charge anyone.

What do we know about the suspect?
Mario P. was arrested in Jamaica in October, and had been scheduled to fly to Colombia on Monday. However, according to Colombia's Director of police Jorge Luis Vargas, he was informed of the Interpol provisional arrest warrant, and that he was being extradited to the US.

The suspect is believed to have been part of the group involved in the killing of Moise at his residence in July 2021.

He is understood to be a former member of the Colombian military.



Watch video02:18
Key suspect in Haiti president's killing arrested: police
Moise's assassination in July 2021
Gunmen raided Moise's private residence in the pre-dawn attack on July 7, 2021. The president was shot multiple times and his wife was critically injured.

The attackers managed to flee the scene but were tracked down by police and apprehended following a gunfight.

Haitian police arrested most of the 26 Colombians who are suspected of being part of the attack.

Officials claim Moise was killed by a 28-member hit squad composed of the 26 Colombians mentioned, and two Americans of Haitian descent.

According to Colombia's Defense Minister Diego Molano, the Colombians suspected of being involved in Moise's assassination are former members of the armed forces, who had gone to Haiti to work as bodyguards.

The Pentagon said a small number of those detained had received training with the US military while serving as members of Colombia's military.


Watch video01:16
Assassination of President Jovenel Moise deepens crisis in Haiti
Haiti in crisis
Over the weekend, current Prime Minister Ariel Henry was the target of a failed assassination attempt.

Henry's office accused "bandits and terrorists" of making an attempt on his life at an event commemmorating independence Saturday.

Haiti has descended further into turmoil since the Moise's killing. Criminal gangs have grown in power and have been kidnapping hundreds of people in return for ransom payments.
Last year 17 US and Canadian missionaries were kidnapped by the so-called "400 Mawozo" gang. The last of the hostages was released in December.
kb/rt (AP, Reuters)

Editor's note: DW follows the German press code, which stresses the importance of protecting the privacy of suspected criminals or victims and obliges us to refrain from revealing full names in such cases.

 

[Plain Jane]

Mexican governor denies drug links after photo with capos

The governor of Mexico's Morelos state is denying any links to drug traffickers after a 3-year-old photo surfaced showing him posing with three men identified as local drug gang leaders.

apnews.com

Mexican governor denies drug links after photo with capos
yesterday

FILE - Mexican soccer star Cuauhtemoc Blanco casts his vote during mid-term elections in Cuernavaca, Mexico, June 7, 2015. Blanco, the governor of Mexico’s Morelos state, denied on Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2022, any links to drug traffickers after a 3-year-old photo surfaced showing him posing with three men identified as local drug gang leaders. (AP Photo/Tony Rivera, File)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The governor of Mexico’s Morelos state has denied any links to drug traffickers after a 3-year-old photo surfaced showing him posing with three men identified as local drug gang leaders.

Former Mexican national soccer team star Cuauhtemoc Blanco won the governorship of Morelos, just south of Mexico City, in 2018 after retiring from soccer. A photo from October of that same year shows him smiling and locking arms with three men, one of whom is under arrest and another who was killed in prison.

The third man is allegedly still alive and leading a gang called the “Tlahuica Commando” that may have been involved in the 2019 killing of a community activist.

The newspaper El Sol de Mexico says the photo was found on the telephone of another drug suspect.

Blanco said Tuesday he had “nothing to hide,” and put it down to the dangers of being a former soccer star who would never deny a fan a photo op.

“I have taken a lot of photos as a soccer player,” Blanco said. He recalled a time when he was seen in a photo along with a son of imprisoned drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, noting “I didn’t even know who he was, but because I’m such a good guy, I take photos with everyone.”
https://apnews.com/article/soccer-sports-europe-barcelona-la-liga-3896f1bafc634ed8a08f5a266f76c91d
Asked by reporters when and where the photo published this week was taken — it appears to be indoors, in an office or dining room — Blanco said “I don’t know, I swear, I don’t even remember.”

“I take a lot of photos (with people), and I am not going to be asking them, ‘hey, who are you and what do you do for a living?’” Blanco said. “I am going to continue taking photos,” Blanco said defiantly. “Perhaps more will come out.”

Blanco previously served as mayor of the state capital, Cuernavaca. During his professional soccer career he was known for his pugnacious, combative style.

Morelos, known for its balmy climate, was once a quiet weekend getaway for Mexico City residents. But in the last two decades it has been hit by kidnappings, extortion and drug gang killings.

Blanco has been criticized for naming former soccer associates to state posts.

 

[Zagdid]

Panama hands over Colombian suspect in Haitian president's assassination to US - The Shillong Times

Panama City, Jan 5 : Panamanian authorities have handed over to US officials a former Colombian military officer implicated in the July 7 assassination of then Haitian president Jovenel Moise in Port-au-Prince, according to the Panamanian National Immigration Service. Mario Antonio Palacios, who...

theshillongtimes.com

Panama hands over Colombian suspect in Haitian president’s assassination to US
INTERNATIONAL
Last updated Jan 6, 2022

Panama City, Jan 5 : Panamanian authorities have handed over to US officials a former Colombian military officer implicated in the July 7 assassination of then Haitian president Jovenel Moise in Port-au-Prince, according to the Panamanian National Immigration Service.

Mario Antonio Palacios, who was handed over to the US officials on Tuesday, was detained on Monday night at the Tocumen International Airport in Panama City, after his deportation flight from Jamaica to Colombia made a stopover. His arrest obeyed an Interpol warrant apparently requested by the US.

Sources said that upon arriving in Panama, the suspect indicated his willingness to surrender to the authorities to be sent to the US, Xinhua news agency reported.

Palacios was arrested in October in Jamaica, where he reportedly entered illegally from the Dominican Republic. (IANS)

 

[Plain Jane]

Arrests after 10 bodies found near Mexican town hall – DW – 01/07/2022

Mexican authorities have arrested two suspects after a sports utility vehicle filled with 10 dead bodies was left outside the state governor's office in Zacatecas.

www.dw.com

Mexico: Arrests after 10 bodies found outside town hall
Mexican authorities have arrested two suspects after a sports utility vehicle filled with 10 dead bodies was left outside the state governor's office in Zacatecas.




Police work at the scene as they remove a vehicle with bodies left outside the Government Palace in Zacatecas

Mexican authorities on Thursday said 10 corpses had been found in a sports utility vehicle outside the governor's office in the central state of Zacatecas.

The state is gripped by a turf war between the notorious Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels, with an upsurge of violence in recent years. Both syndicates are believed to be fighting for control of drug smuggling routes to the United States.

How were the bodies found?
According to the federal Public Safety Department, a man drove the truck into the plaza, then left the car and walked away down an alley. State officials said the car had been driven suspiciously in the area.

Zacatecas state governor David Monreal said the find had been made early in the morning and that the bodies showed signs of having been beaten.

"They came to leave them here in front of the palace," he said in a video, referring to his offices in a centuries-old building in the state capital, also called Zacatecas.

The Plaza de Armas square was lit up with a Christmas tree and holiday decorations at the time.

Promise of end to violence
The governor later tweeted that the alleged perpetrators had been arrested, without identifying them.

He said security had proved a major challenge in Zacatecas and he promised to deal with the violence.

"Bit by bit we will recover our peace. What we received was a cursed inheritance," he said.

According to the federal Public Safety Department, a man drove the truck into the plaza, then left the car and walked away down an alley.

Watch video01:46
Families join search for nearly 100,000 missing in Mexico
Zacatecas has become one of the most violent regions of the country as rival gangs vie for control. The state registered 1,050 murders in 2021, about 260 more than in 2020.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has struggled to significantly reduce homicides in Mexico. The first 11 months of 2021 saw 31,615 killings recorded — a decline of just 3.6% from the 32,814 in 2020.

rc/jsi (AFP, AP, Reuters)

 

[Plain Jane]

Police: 2 Haitian journalists killed by gang near capital

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Two Haitian journalists were killed by gang members while reporting in a conflictive area south of Port-au-Prince, police said Friday, as a surge in violence continues to shake the Caribbean nation.

apnews.com

Click to copy
Police: 2 Haitian journalists killed by gang near capital
yesterday



1 of 3
Police carry away the bodies of slain journalists in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Friday, Jan. 7, 2022. At least two journalists were killed by gangs on Jan. 6, according to Godson Lebrun, President of AHML, the Haitian Online Media Association. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Two Haitian journalists were killed by gang members while reporting in a conflictive area south of Port-au-Prince, police said Friday, as a surge in violence continues to shake the Caribbean nation.

One of the journalist’s employers and some media reports said the men had been shot then burned alive, but police did not confirm this. A police statement said only that the bodies had “large-caliber bullet wounds.”

Radio Ecoute FM said journalist John Wesley Amady was killed by “armed bandits” Thursday in Laboule while he was reporting on security issues in the gang-plagued area.

“We condemn with the utmost rigor this criminal and barbaric act, which constitutes a serious attack on the rights to life in general, and those of journalists in particular to exercise their profession freely in the country,” said the station’s general manager, Francky Attis.

Police released a statement confirming the deaths of Amady, 30, and Wilguens Louissaint, 22. Initial reports were that three journalists went to the scene and two were killed, while the third escaped.

“The Almighty Gangs struck again in Haiti at the start of 2022,” said Godson Lebrun, president of the Haitian Online Media Association. “I bow to the remains of these fellow journalists who were killed just because they wanted to INFORM. I demand an investigation and may justice be granted!”

In New York, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, “This is just one more example of what journalists the world over face and sadly, we may expect the impunity with which they are murdered for just trying to tell the truth.”

Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry condemned the killings of Amady John Wesley and Wilguens. “On behalf of the government, I offer my condolences to the family and friends of the victims, as well as to the press in general,” he said.

Henry has vowed to crack down on gangs that authorities blame for a spike in kidnappings and for blockages at gas distribution terminals that caused a severe fuel shortage in recent months. The insecurity has prompted the U.S. and Canada to urge their citizens to leave Haiti.
Only days ago, Henry was forced to flee the northern city of Gonaïves following a shootout between his security guards and an armed group that had warned him not to set foot in the city.

The July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise left a power vacuum that has deepened the violence and a growing humanitarian crisis in the impoverished Caribbean nation.

 

[Plain Jane]

9 bodies found piled onto road on Mexico's Gulf coast

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Nine bodies were found heaped on a roadside in Mexico's Gulf coast state of Veracruz, authorities said Friday.

apnews.com

Click to copy
9 bodies found piled onto road on Mexico’s Gulf coast
yesterday


MEXICO CITY (AP) — Nine bodies were found heaped on a roadside in Mexico’s Gulf coast state of Veracruz, authorities said Friday.

The state public safety department called the killings “a reaction to the results of work being done to fight crime.”

Veracruz Gov. Cuitláhuac Garcia said a total of nine bodies were found at the scene and suggested the crime involved gangs.

“We are not going to allow any acts of revenge between criminal groups,” Garcia said.
He also said past Veracruz administrations had agreements with the drug gangs that operate in the state.

“We are going to take resounding action against all the criminal groups that before had agreements with past state administrations,” Garcia said, adding that gangs “are a little angry” that such agreements no longer exist.


Local media reported a handwritten message found at the scene threatened authorities and was signed by “the four letters,” commonly a reference to the Jalisco Cartel. There are four letters in the initials of the cartel’s formal name, Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

The bodies were found in the township of Isla, near the crime-plagued port of Coatzacoalcos.
The grisly discovery came one day after assailants left the bodies of eight men and two women in front of the governor’s office in the north-central Mexican state of Zacatecas. The bodies were found crammed into a pickup truck left before dawn Thursday near a Christmas tree in the main plaza of the state capital, also named Zacatecas.

Francisco Murillo, the Zacatecas chief prosecutor, said seven of the 10 bodies had been autopsied and all died of “asphyxiation by strangulation.” Six had injuries suggesting they had their feet and hands bound. One showed possible signs of torture.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been unable to significantly reduce homicides in Mexico. There were 31,615 killings in the first 11 months of 2021, a decline of just 3.6% from the 32,814 in 2020.

 

[Plain Jane]

Several dead as cliff collapses on boats in Brazil – DW – 01/09/2022

At least eight people are reported to be dead, while two others are still missing. Officials have suggested that heavy rains were the cause of the accident.

www.dw.com

Brazil: Several dead as cliff collapses on boats
At least seven people are reported dead, while three others are still missing. Officials suggest that heavy rains were the cause of the accident.




Parts of a cliff face fell onto boaters on Brazil's Furnas Lake

A slab of rock broke off from a cliff and fell onto boaters at a lake in southeastern Brazil, killing at least seven, authorities said on Saturday.

Three people are missing. Officials said at least 32 people had been injured but most had been released from hospital by Saturday evening.

Divers and helicopters were deployed to search for the missing

A number of people had broken bones and one person was in serious condition with head and facial injuries.

Firefighters had initially reported 20 missing, but this was later revised as many of those unaccounted for had made their own way to hospitals.

Video images showed a group of small boats drifting near a waterfall below a cliff on Furnas Lake when a piece of rock broke off, hitting at least two of the vessels.

Another video on social media shows the minute before the incident, with people warning that "many stones are falling" and advising other boats to move away from the rocks.

Where did the accident occur?
Authorities said the incident occurred between the towns of Sao Jose da Barra and Capitolio, located in Brazil's southeastern Minas Gerais state. The boats had left from the town of Capitolio.

Furnas Lake was originally formed along with the creation of a hydroelectric dam and is a major tourist attraction in the area.

Tourists come to see the rock walls, caverns and waterfalls surrounding the Furnas Lake's waters.

Why did the accident happen?
Officials suggested that the rock could have come loose due to recent heavy rains that caused flooding in the state and displaced 17,000 people.

Pedro Aihara, spokesperson for the Minas Gerais State Fire Department, told Brazilian broadcaster GloboNews that the rocks in this area are "more susceptible to the effects of wind and rain" and "show less resistance."
sdi/nm (AP, AFP, Reuters, Lusa)

 

[Plain Jane]

Opposition wins revote for governor in heartland of Chavismo

Twice in less than two months, Venezuela’s opposition has prevailed in the gubernatorial race in the home state of the late President Hugo Chávez, with the results giving hope to that faction while shocking the ruling party.

apnews.com

Opposition wins revote for governor in heartland of Chavismo
By REGINA GARCIA CANO and JUAN PABLO ARRAEZtoday



1 of 12
Opposition candidate Sergio Garrido celebrates after ruling party candidate Jorge Arreaza admitted on social media his defeat in a governor election re-run in Barinas, Venezuela, Sunday, Jan. 9, 2022. Voters in the home state of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chávez chose Garrido for governor in a special election called after the contender representing that faction in November's regular contest was retroactively disqualified as he was ahead in the vote count (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

BARINAS, Venezuela (AP) — Twice in less than two months, Venezuela’s opposition has prevailed in the gubernatorial race in the home state of the late President Hugo Chávez, shocking the ruling socialist party he founded.

Voters in the state of Barinas on Sunday picked a candidate from the U.S.-backed opposition in a closely watched special election that was called after the contender representing that bloc in November’s regular contest was retroactively disqualified as he was ahead in the vote count.

Sergio Garrido got 55.4% of the vote, according to electoral authorities, defeating former foreign minister Jorge Arreaza, whose campaign drew ruling party heavy hitters in an all-out effort to keep the bastion of Chavismo under their control. The candidates campaigned for roughly five weeks after Venezuela’s highest court disqualified opposition candidate Freddy Superlano and the special contest was scheduled.


“This town of Barinas accepted the challenge democratically, and today, we managed to be the iconic state of all Venezuela,” Garrido said. ”... Today, the people of Barinas demonstrated that in unity and with the strength of all of you, they achieved it, they managed to overcome obstacles, we managed to overcome adversity.”

Superlano was disqualified Nov. 29 while he was ahead by less than a percentage point over incumbent Gov. Argenis Chávez, one of Hugo Chávez’s brothers. Superlano’s wife, who was chosen as his successor, was disqualified, too. So was her substitute.

Argenis Chávez resigned as governor following Superlano’s disqualification and did not enter the race in the special election, leaving the governor’s ballot free of a Chavez family member for the first time in more than two decades. The ruling party then chose Arreaza as its candidate.

In picking Arreaza, President Nicolas Maduro said the ruling party needed a new candidate “to go to the rescue.” The party rallied its base, urging unity, and even ended a gasoline rationing system that Barinas residents loathed. But it was enough for many people angry over a lack of basic services like gas, water and electricity, deficient health care services and hunger from food scarcity.

Arreaza conceded the contest Sunday evening before any results were announced by electoral officials.

“The information we received from our (ruling party) structures indicates that, although we increased in voting, we have not achieved the objective,” Arreaza tweeted. “I heartily thank our heroic militancy. We will continue to protect the people of Barinas from all areas.”

Before dawn Sunday, government leaders and ruling-party supporters had gathered in a rally, chanting, “Chávez lives, and in Barinas, the homeland continues!”
The significance of the election was not lost on voters.

“I feel in high spirits to participate again so we can finally move forward from this issue that began on Nov. 21,” Luisa Contreras, 70, said before entering a voting center.

Vote counts for the ruling party have been declining since 2017 across the country. About 6.5 million people voted for pro-government candidates during that year’s regional elections. On Nov. 21, that number dropped to about 3.7 million.

Venezuela’s high court, which is one of many government bodies seen as loyal to Maduro’s government, disqualified Superlano even though he had been given a presidential pardon that had made the candidate and other members of the opposition eligible to run in November’s regional elections.

The moves in Barinas raised further doubts about the fairness of Venezuela’s electoral system following the first vote in years in which most major political parties took part.

“Beautiful Barinas, where it started, ends,” opposition leader Juan Guaido tweeted Sunday night, referring to the cradle of Chavismo. “United we will defend the will of a powerful majority that will not surrender, nor will it, until we see democracy again in Venezuela.”

November’s regional elections were monitored by over 130 observers from the European Union, the U.N. and the U.S.-based Carter Center.

A preliminary report from European Union observers concluded the contests were held under better conditions than other Venezuelan ballots in recent years but were still marred by “structural deficiencies,” including the disqualification of opposition contenders.

The EU team did not comment on the situation in Barinas, but a report from the Carter Center criticized the court’s intervention.

“There was also a general atmosphere of political repression, and more than 250 people are being held as political prisoners,” the center said. “The tribunal’s recent decision to suspend the tabulation of votes for the governorship of Barinas is another example of its interference in the electoral process.”
___
Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City.

 

[Plain Jane]

US sanctions Nicaraguan officials ahead of inauguration – DW – 01/10/2022

Top officials with Nicaragua's military and telecommunications and mining sectors are among those targeted. The US said the measures are in response to President Daniel Ortega's "subjugation of democracy."

www.dw.com

US, EU sanction Nicaraguan officials ahead of 'sham' inauguration
Top officials with Nicaragua's military and telecommunications and mining sectors are among those targeted. The US said the measures are in response to President Daniel Ortega's "subjugation of democracy."




Rosario Murillo(l) and Daniel Ortega are accused of leading Nicaragua towards dictatorship

The US Department of the Treasury on Monday announced that it was imposing sanctions on six Nicaraguan officials connected with the regime of President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo.

The US announced the sanctions on Ortega and Murillo's inauguration day, following what the US described as "fraudulent elections orchestrated by their regime" in November.

The measures were taken in conjunction with the European Union, which also adopted sanctions on Monday, targeting two adult children of Ortega's, as well as Nicaragua's police force and electoral body.

Ortega's son and daughter, both working as presidential advisers, were among seven people targeted by Brussels for "serious human rights violations" and "undermining democracy," a European Council statement said.

"In concert with democracies in the international community, the United States will continue to call out the Ortega-Murillo regime's ongoing abuses and will deploy diplomatic and economic tools to support the restoration of democracy and respect for human rights in Nicaragua," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

Shorty after the election, the US banned Ortega and Murillo, who is also his wife, from entering the country.

Why are Nicaraguan officials being sanctioned?
In November, US President Joe Biden called Nicaragua's presidential election a "pantomime" after Ortega won a fourth consecutive term.

In the months prior to the election, regional and international observers had expressed concern over a clampdown on Ortega's political opponents,journalists and business leaders.

On election day in November, observers from the EU and Organization of American States were barred from scrutinizing the election process, and journalists were also not permitted entry into Nicaragua.

Watch video02:05
Nicaragua cracks down on business ahead of elections
Those being targeted by US sanctions include the army chief of staff, the Nicaraguan defense minister, and the heads of telecommunications provider TELCOR and the state-owned mining company, ENIMINAS.

"The Ortega-Murillo regime continues its subjugation of democracy through effectuating sham elections, silencing peaceful opposition and holding hundreds of people as political prisoners," said the Treasury Department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Brian Nelson.

The Treasury Department said all interests and property of the people named would be blocked in the United States. The US State Department said it is also taking steps to impose visa restrictions on 116 people accused of undermining democracy in Nicaragua, Blinken said.

This move would target some mayors, prosecutors, and police, prison and military officials, barring them from entering the US.

"The United States and our partners are sending a clear message to President Ortega, Vice President Murillo, and their inner circle that we continue to stand with the Nicaraguan people in their calls for the immediate release of these political prisoners and a return to democracy," a Treasury Department statement said.

The EU sanctions consist of a ban on travel to the European Union and a freeze on any assets under member countries' jurisdictions.
kb/wmr (AFP, Reuters)

 

[Plain Jane]

Argentina protests Iranian suspect at Nicaragua event

The presence of a senior Iranian official at the investiture of Nicaragua’s president has angered Argentina, which alleges the official was involved in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.

apnews.com

Argentina protests Iranian suspect at Nicaragua event
yesterday

FILE - Mohsen Rezaei waves to reporters after registering as a presidential candidate, in Tehran, Iran, May 10, 2013. Argentina’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022, that the appearance of Rezaei, at the investiture of Nicaragua’s president on Monday was “an affront to Argentine justice and to the victims of the brutal terrorist attack″. Rezaei, a former leader of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, is wanted by Argentina on an Interpol “Red Notice” alleging he was involved in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — The presence of a senior Iranian official at the investiture of Nicaragua’s president has angered Argentina, which alleges the official was involved in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.

Argentina’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that the appearance of Mohsen Rezaei, the Iranian vice president for economic affairs, at the Nicaraguan ceremony on Monday was “an affront to Argentine justice and to the victims of the brutal terrorist attack″ in the Argentine capital.

Rezaei, a former leader of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, is wanted by Argentina on an Interpol “Red Notice” because of the attack. He and the Iranian government deny orchestrating it.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega was sworn in for a fourth consecutive term following elections considered rigged and on a day marked by sanctions from the United States and the European Union against members of his government.


Iran is also under U.S. sanctions over its nuclear program and other issues.

The Argentine government came under criticism from the country’s opposition because Argentina’s ambassador, Daniel Capitanich, attended the inauguration of a president deemed to have trampled on human rights — and, additionally, for being at the same event with Rezaei.

The Argentine government was not only ″being partners with dictators and human rights violators in our region,″ but also acting as ″accomplices″ to an alleged organizer of the 1994 attack in Buenos Aires, said Fulvio Pompeo, secretary of international relations of the opposition PRO party.

Rezaei is among several Iranians sought by Argentina in the bombing. Argentine prosecutors allege that senior Iranian officials entrusted the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah to carry it out.

 

[joannita]

I am receiving pleas from a close friend in the area of Tuxtla Gutierez in Chiapas, specifically Oxchuk and San Cristobol, asking me to warn people to not travel to those areas because tourist buses are being stopped and the passengers are being held for ransom.

 

[Plain Jane]

Bolsonaro attacks Supreme Court ahead of election – DW – 01/12/2022

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has accused two Supreme Court Justices of bias against him ahead of upcoming elections. Former leftist leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is expected to deny him a second term.

www.dw.com

Brazil: Bolsonaro attacks Supreme Court ahead of election
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has accused two Supreme Court Justices of bias against him ahead of upcoming elections. Former leftist leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is expected to deny him a second term.




Bolsonaro came to power on an anti-corruption, anti-crime platform

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday accused two Supreme Court Justices, Luis Roberto Barroso and Alexandre de Moraes, of being biased against him.

What did the Brazilian president say?
"Barroso and Alexandre de Moraes want Lula to be president," Bolsonaro said in a TV interview, referring to former left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

"OK, they might not want to vote for me, but do they want to return the office to the man who robbed the nation for eight years?" he added.

Da Silva, commonly known as Lula, previously served as president from 2003 to 2010. He is expected to run against Bolsonaro in October's presidential elections.

Recent polling shows Lula would handily defeat Bolsonaro in the election. A Banco Genial/Quaest Pesquisas survey released Wednesday found Lula would get 54% of the vote in the decisive second round of the election, with Bolsonaro garnering 30%.

Bolsonaro has railed against the country's electronic ballot system ahead of the election, calling it rigged against him. There are concerns that he may not concede if he loses the race.


Watch video00:54
Brazil's Bolsonaro hospitalized with abdominal pains
Why are Brazilian voters expected to oust Bolsonaro?
Inflation is one of the major issues that could cost Bolsonaro a second term. Official data released Tuesday found Brazil's inflation rate exceeded 10%, the highest figure in six years.
The Banco Genial/Quaest Pesquisas poll found 73% of those surveyed believe Bolsonaro has done a bad job fighting rising prices.

The Brazilian president has also been criticized for his handling of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, with Brazil having one of the highest domestic death tolls from the virus.

Bolsonaro has railed against vaccines and lockdown policies to curb the spread of infection.
The country's indigenous and Afro-Brazilian communities have been particularly hard-hit by the virus. On Tuesday, Bolsonaro approved a decree to create a committee to fight the virus among indigenous peoples in Brazil.

Despite Bolsonaro's skepticism of vaccines, almost 70% of the Brazilian population is fully vaccinated.



Watch video02:11
Brazil's Indigenous activists fight for rainforest
The Brazilian's president willingness to open up the Amazon Rainforest to commercial interests has also drawn criticism both at home and abroad.

Bolsonaro, who took office in January 2019, has expressed admiration for the country's former military dictatorship. He has also made numerous derogatory comments towards women and LGBTQ people.
wd/sms (AP, Reuters)

 

[Plain Jane]

Russia's talk of troops in Latin America called 'bluster'

A senior Russian diplomat has refused to rule out a Russian military deployment to Cuba and Venezuela if tensions with the United States over Ukraine and NATO's expansion in Eastern Europe mount.

apnews.com

Russia’s talk of troops in Latin America called ‘bluster’
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV and MATTHEW LEEtoday



1 of 7
US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, left, and Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov attend security talks at the United States Mission in Geneva, Switzerland, Monday, Jan. 10, 2022. (Denis Balibouse/Pool via AP)

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia raised the stakes Thursday in its dispute with the West over Ukraine and NATO’s expansion when a top diplomat refused to rule out a military deployment to Cuba and Venezuela if tensions with the United States escalate.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said he could “neither confirm nor exclude” the possibility of Russia sending military assets to Latin America if the U.S. and its allies don’t curtail their military activities on Russia’s doorstep.

“It all depends on the action by our U.S. counterparts,” the minister said in an interview with Russian television network RTVI, citing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warning that Moscow could take unspecified “military-technical measures” if the U.S. and its allies fail to heed its demands.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan dismissed the statements about a possible Russian deployment to Cuba and Venezuela as “bluster in the public commentary.”


Ryabkov led a Russian delegation in talks with the U.S. on Monday. The negotiations in Geneva and a related NATO-Russia meeting in Brussels took place in response to a significant Russian troop buildup near Ukraine that the West fears might be a prelude to an invasion.

Russia, which annexed Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula in 2014, has denied having plans to attack the neighboring country. The Kremlin reacted to the suggestion by accusing NATO of threatening its territory and demanding that the military alliance never embrace Ukraine or any other ex-Soviet nations as new members.

Washington and its allies firmly rejected the demand this week as a nonstarter, but the NATO and Russian delegations agreed to leave the door open to further talks on arms control and other issues intended to reduce the potential for hostilities.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, Sullivan said that “allied unity and transatlantic solidarity were on full display and they remain on full display” during this week’s talks with Russia, which he described as “frank and direct.”

“We stuck to our core premise of reciprocity,” the national security adviser said. “We were firm in our principles and clear about those areas where we can make progress and those areas that are non-starter.”

Sullivan noted that no further talks have been scheduled, but “we’re prepared to continue with diplomacy to advance security and stability in the Euro-Atlantic.”

“We’re equally prepared if Russia chooses a different path,” he added. “We continue to coordinate intensively with partners on severe economic measures in response to a further Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

Asked about Ryabkov keeping the door open to basing troops and equipment in Latin America, Sullivan responded: “I’m not going to respond to bluster in the public commentary.”

He noted that the issue wasn’t raised during this week’s talks and added that “if Russia were to move in that direction, we would deal with it decisively.”


Ryabkov last month compared the current tensions over Ukraine with the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis — when the Soviet Union deployed missiles to Cuba and the U.S. imposed a naval blockade of the island.

That crisis ended after U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed that Moscow would withdraw its missiles in exchange for Washington’s pledge not to invade Cuba and the removal of U.S. missiles from Turkey.

Putin, in seeking to curtail the West’s military activity in Eastern Europe, has argued that NATO could use Ukrainian territory to deploy missiles capable of reaching Moscow in just five minutes. He warned that Russia could gain a similar capability by deploying warships armed with the latest Zircon hypersonic cruise missile in neutral waters.

Soon after his first election in 2000, Putin ordered the closure of a Soviet-built military surveillance facility in Cuba as he sought to improve ties with Washington. Moscow has intensified contacts with Cuba in recent years as tensions with the U.S. and its allies mounted.
In December 2018, Russia briefly dispatched a pair of its nuclear-capable Tu-160 bombers to Venezuela in a show of support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro amid Western pressure.

Ryabkov said a refusal by the U.S. and its allies to consider the key Russian demand for guarantees against the alliance’s expansion to Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations makes it hard to discuss the confidence-building steps that Washington says it’s ready to negotiate.

“The U.S. wants to conduct a dialogue on some elements of the security situation ... to ease the tensions and then continue the process of geopolitical and military development of the new territories, coming closer to Moscow,” he said. “We have nowhere to retreat.”

Ryabkov described U.S. and NATO military deployments and drills near Russia’s territory as extremely destabilizing. He said U.S. nuclear-capable strategic bombers flew just 15 kilometers (9 miles) from Russia’s border.

“We are constantly facing a provocative military pressure intended to test our strength,” he said, adding that he wondered how Americans would react “if our bombers fly within 15 kilometers off some U.S. bases on the East or the West Coast.”

The high-stakes diplomacy took place as an estimated 100,000 Russian troops with tanks and other heavy weapons are massed near Ukraine’s eastern border. On Thursday, Sullivan reiterated concerns that Moscow may be laying the groundwork for invading Ukraine by fabricating allegations that Kyiv is preparing to act against Russia.

He said the U.S. would be making public some of the reasons for that assessment in the coming days.

Earlier Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rebuffed the West’s calls for a troop pullback from areas near Ukraine.

“It’s hardly possible for NATO to dictate to us where we should move our armed forces on Russian territory,” he said.

Peskov said this week’s talks produced “some positive elements and nuances,” but he characterized them as unsuccessful overall.

“The talks were initiated to receive specific answers to concrete principal issues that were raised, and disagreements remained on those principal issues, which is bad,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters.

He warned of a complete rupture in U.S.-Russia relations if proposed sanctions targeting Putin and other top civilian and military leaders are adopted. The measures, proposed by Senate Democrats, would also target leading leading Russian financial institutions if Moscow sends troops into Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov likewise denounced the proposed sanctions as a reflection of U.S. “arrogance,” adding that Moscow expects a written response to its demands from the U.S. and NATO next week in order to mull further steps.

Tensions revolving around Ukraine and Russia’s demands on the West again appeared on the table at a Thursday meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Vienna.
Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau, who assumed the position of the OSCE’s chairman-in-office, noted in his opening speech that “the risk of war in the OSCE area is now greater than ever before in the last 30 years.”

Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula after the ouster of Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly leader and in 2014 also threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. More than 14,000 people have been killed in nearly eight years of fighting between the Russia-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces.

Asked whether he’s worried about possible confrontation, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said “it is absolutely essential that the dialogue that is taking place find a way allowing for de-escalation of tension ... to avoid any kind of confrontation that will be a disaster for Europe and for the world.”
___
Lee reported from Washington. Emily Schultheis in Vienna, Lorne Cook in Brussels, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nastions and Colleen Long in Washington contributed to this report.

 

[Plain Jane]

Guatemala's Giammattei seeks jail terms of up to 30 years for people smugglers

Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei presented an initiative to Congress on Friday to drastically increase jail terms for people smugglers, with sentences of up to 30 years for the worst offenders.

www.france24.com

Guatemala's Giammattei seeks jail terms of up to 30 years for people smugglers
Issued on: 15/01/2022 - 08:47

Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei speaks at a new facility to receive deported Guatemalans at La Aurora Air Force base during its inauguration ceremony also attended by US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas in Guatemala City, on July 7, 2021. © Moises Castillo, AP/File
Text by:NEWS WIRES
1 min
Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei presented an initiative to Congress on Friday to drastically increase jail terms for people smugglers, with sentences of up to 30 years for the worst offenders.


For many years Guatemala has been a key transit country for impoverished Central American migrants – including Guatemalans – who make the treacherous journey across Mexico to the United States in search of a better life.

But Guatemala's government has sought to crack down on people-smuggling gangs after dozens of migrants died in high-profile incidents either through overcrowding in transport vehicles or at the hands of criminal groups.

Giammattei proposed raising the sentences for smugglers, known as "coyotes", to between 10 and 30 years from the 2 to 5 years currently set out under Guatemalan law.

"I reaffirm my government's commitment to toughen prison sentences against coyotes and traffickers " Giammattei said in a speech to Congress, adding that the United States should also extradite people smugglers.

The proposal states that if smugglers transport minors, pregnant women or migrants are subjected to inhumane treatment, the penalties could be even higher.

Giammattei's announcement comes weeks after 55 mostly Guatemalan migrants died when the overcrowded truck ferrying them through southern Mexico overturned.

The Guatemalan president called for the reform to be passed as a matter of national urgency. But the changes must first be debated and obtain the approval of at least two-thirds of the 160 members of Congress.

The bill is seen to have a good chance of passing as the ruling party could get the necessary votes through alliances and the support it has from other benches.

Guatemalan migration authorities said on Friday that they were also keeping an eye on another possible caravan of migrants that would leave Honduras at the weekend and try to cross Guatemala.
(REUTERS)

 

[Plain Jane]

Migrant caravan from Honduras stopped in Guatemala

Several hundred migrants who had departed from the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula in hopes of reaching the United States entered Guatemalan territory where they were intercepted by authorities who began talks on returning them to their homelands.

apnews.com

Migrant caravan from Honduras stopped in Guatemala
By CLAUDIO ESCALÓNtoday



1 of 7
Honduran police check documents of migrants who are part of a caravan hoping to reach the United States, in Corinto, Honduras, Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Delmer Martinez)

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (AP) — Several hundred migrants who had departed from the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula Saturday in hopes of reaching the United States entered Guatemalan territory where they were intercepted by authorities who began talks on returning them to their homelands.

Some 300 migrants, mainly Hondurans and Nicaraguans, arrived in Corinto, Honduras Saturday afternoon and crossed into the Guatemalan border province of Izabal, where they were met by hundreds of anti-riot agents from the national police and army.

The Guatemalan Migration Institute said it was in talks with the migrants on returning them to their countries of origin. Those who wish to remain in Guatemala must present their personal identification document, vaccination card and a negative test for the coronavirus.

“People are being returned, everything in order, humanely,” said institute general director Carlos Emilio Morales. “We are protecting our borders; we are protecting the health of all Guatemalans.”

Guatemala’s government said 36 people were deported to Honduras because they did not meet the requirements and a group of 10 who met immigration and health requirements were allowed to continue.

The migrants had begun their journey toward the U.S. from San Pedro Sula shortly after dawn Saturday, walking to the Guatemalan border in hopes that travelling in a group would be safer or cheaper than trying to hire smugglers or trying on their own. They were joined by a second smaller group.

Fabricio Ordoñez, a young Honduran laborer, said he had joined the group in hopes of “giving a new life to my family.”

“The dream is to be in the United States to be able to do many things in Honduras,” he said, adding he was pessimistic that left-leaning President-elect Xiomara Castro, who takes office on Jan. 27, would be able to quickly solve the Central American nation’s economic and social problems after 12 years of conservative administrations plagued by scandal.

“They have looted everything,” he said. “It is going to be very hard for this government to improve things.”

Nicaraguan marcher Ubaldo López expressed hope that local officials would not try to hinder this group, as they have in the past.

“We know this is a very hard road and we ask God and the Honduran government to please accompany us to the border with Guatemala and not put more roadblocks,” he said.

He said he hoped that Guatemala and Mexico also would allow the group to pass and that the U.S. government “will open the doors to us” — despite repeated recent examples of regional governments, often under U.S. pressure, trying to halt such caravans.

The caravan, which is the first to be registered this year, originally had about 600 members but divided into several groups to try to evade the control of the Guatemalan authorities and go through the different border crossings and illegal routes.

Large numbers of migrants, many from Central America and Haiti, have reached the U.S. border over the past year, creating a headache for the administration of President Joe Biden.

In December, 56 migrants died when a truck carrying more than a hundred foreigners overturned on a highway in southern Mexico.

The U.S. Border Patrol has said it had more than 1.6 million encounters with migrants along the Mexican border between September 2020 and the same month in 2021 — more than four times the total of the previous fiscal year.

Biden has backed proposals for $7 billion in aid to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras in hopes improved economic conditions will slow migration.

At the end of last year, the U.S. government reactivated an immigration policy that forced asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their hearings. Mexico’s foreign ministry confirmed the reactivation of the U.S. program and said it would temporarily not return migrants to their countries of origin for humanitarian reasons.

The government of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has indicated that Washington has accepted its humanitarian concerns with the program, including the need for “greater resources for shelters and international organizations, protection for vulnerable groups, consideration of local security conditions” as well as vaccines and anti-COVID-19 measures from migrants.

 

[joannita]

US edition

• ‘They want to make an example’: Cuba protesters hit with severe sentences
  
  
  
  ‘They want to make an example’: Cuba protesters hit with severe sentences
  Six months after demonstrations, courts have quietly started imposing harsh charges such as sedition
  
  
  
  Protesters in Havana, Cuba, on 11 July 2021. Photograph: Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters
  
  Ed Augustin in Havana
  Sat 15 Jan 2022 05.00 EST
  
  
  
  One Sunday last summer, 18-year-old Eloy Cardoso left his mother’s house on the outskirts of Havana to collect an Atari game console from a friend.
  He’d stayed at home the previous day, while the largest anti-government demonstrations since the revolution had ripped through Cuba.
  
  
  
  Thousands march in Cuba in rare mass protests amid economic crisis
  Read more
  The authorities had managed to quell the protests in most of the country overnight, but not in La Güinera: unrest was still raging in the humble and normally calm neighbourhood, and Eloy walked out into a bloody brawl.
  Shops were smashed and looted, party supporters wielded clubs, police wrestled with youths, and one man was shot dead. Amid the tumult, Cardoso began to throw stones at the police.
  He was arrested a few days later, and at a closed trial earlier this week he was sentenced to seven years in prison.
  The trial is one of scores currently playing out across the island, as, six months after the demonstrations, Cuban courts have quietly started imposing draconian sentences on the protesters who – sometimes peacefully, sometimes less so – flooded the streets last summer.
  Though the state has a history of issuing stiff sentences to organised political dissidents, the punishments now being meted out are unusually severe.
  “They want to make an example of him,” said Cardoso’s mother, Servillia Pedroso, 35, holding back tears.
  
  
  
  Eloy Cardoso’s mother, Servillia Pedroso, left, and Migdalia Gutiérrez, whose son, Brunelvil, has been sentenced to 15 years. Photograph: Ed Augustin/The Guardian
  Because her son is at college, police initially told her he would get a “second chance” charging him with “public disorder” and telling him he would get away with a fine.
  But in October, the charge was upgraded to sedition: in other words, inciting others to rebel against state authority.
  Since December, more 50 people in La Güinera have been sentenced for sedition, according to the civil society organisation Justicia 11J. Most are poor, young males.
  Justicia 11J said more than 700 people were still being detained following July’s protests, with 158 of those accused of or already sentenced for sedition. Earlier this week one man in the eastern province of Holguín was sentenced to 30 years.
  Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International, said detainees have faced summary proceedings without guarantees of due process or a fair trial.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “Prosecutors have pushed for disproportionately long sentences against people who were arrested in the protests. In addition, many people stand accused of vague crimes that are inconsistent with international standards, such as ‘contempt’ which has been consistently used in Cuba to punish those who criticise the government,” she said.
  “The state is trying to send the message that there are dire consequences to rebelling against the government,” said William LeoGrande, professor of government at American University in Washington.
  “The fact that the government feels under and is under unprecedented threat – not just from increased US sanctions but from the pandemic and the global economic situation – makes it less willing to tolerate any type of dissidence.”
  Trump-era sanctions contributed to the food and medicine shortages people were protesting against. The sanctions also slowed vaccine production, aggravating a Covid surge that was sweeping through the island at the time, and contributing to the fury. But many protesters also wanted freedom from Communist rule.
  
  
  Why have Cuba’s simmering tensions boiled over on to the streets?
  Read more
  Economic complaints are a constant in La Güinera: it’s hard to afford shoes and medicine. A schoolbag costs 2,500 pesos – more than half a teacher’s monthly salary.
  “I’m sure that if it wasn’t for the economy, none of this would have happened – but the economy never improves,” said Yusniel Hernández, 36, a teacher turned taxi driver, who said a dozen friends had been incarcerated for throwing stones and assaulting police officers.
  Analysts say the government is using exemplary sentencing to snuff out any further protests because it is bracing for further economic hardship. As sanctions have hardened, a longstanding siege mentality among the leadership seems to have ossified in recent years. The fact that the Biden administration reversed its policy of normalisation with the island after July may be another contributing factor.
  
  But the pain from the crackdown is palpable.
  “None of these kids were activists, they don’t belong to any organisation,” said Migdalia Gutiérrez, 44, whose son, Brunelvil, 33, has been sentenced to 15 years.
  “If someone has nothing to do with politics, and you are accusing them of political stuff, then you are making them political prisoners,” she added.
  
  
  
  María Luisa Fleitas Bravo. Photograph: Ed Augustin/The Guardian
  Advertisement
  
  Her nextdoor neighbour, María Luisa Fleitas Bravo, 58, lives in poverty. The roof of her kitchen, living room and second bedroom collapsed when Hurricane Irma struck in 2017. The state provided her with the breeze-blocks she needed to rebuild, but four years later the cement still hasn’t arrived.
  Her rotting wood ceiling is covered with plastic sheets secured by clothes pegs, but it still leaks when it rains.
  Her unemployed 33-year-old son, Rolando, was sentenced to 21 years for attacking a police officer during the protests (a charge he denies).
  Pedroso has been running a small online campaign to free her son. But shortly after she and seven other local mothers made a video demanding justice , she received a visit from the police, who informed her that the video was being shared on Facebook for “counterrevolutionary” ends.
  She has since been questioned by state security, and told that if she takes to the street to protest for her son’s release, she could be charged with public disorder.
  Pedroso, a housewife, had applied for a job at Havana’s international airport, to work in immigration. The job was all but in the bag, she said, until she was asked about her son during a final check-up interview.
  That was September. She hasn’t heard back since.
  “Nobody who has a child accused of anything can work in the airport,” she said, before adding, with a touch of gallows humour: “In fact, yes: they can be accused of murder, but not of counterrevolution.”
  
  
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[joannita]

Cuba: Prosecutors Hold Mass Trial for Protesters Including Children, Psychiatric Patient

Cuban communist authorities held a trial culminating on Friday for 21 protesters who took to the streets on July 11 to protest against communism.

www.breitbart.com

Cuba: Prosecutors Hold Mass Trial for Protesters Including Children, Psychiatric Patient
33

YAMIL LAGE/AFP via Getty Images
FRANCES MARTEL15 Jan 202284
8:00
Cuban communist authorities held a trial culminating on Friday for 21 protesters who took to the streets on July 11 to protest against communism, prosecuting children and adults with mental health issues along with healthy adults in one mass trial.
A prosecutorial indictment from Holguín, eastern Cuba, obtained by Breitbart News and verified by sources familiar with the proceedings, documented a mass trial for 21 people ranging in age from 16 to 59. The individuals were all allegedly present during the same protest on July 11 and all face the charge of “sedition.” Yet the detailed “crimes” in question vary widely, from allegations of punching and stoning police officers to filming a protest to simply being present during what the prosecutor in charge described as a “tumult” meant to incite “counterrevolutionary” thinking.


The document, a 31-page indictment, confirms prior reports from November, when families of the accused received notice of the charges against their loved ones. The U.S.-based Martí Noticias confirmed the charges at the time, but omitted much of the detail in the accusations present in the document obtained by Breitbart News. Cuban human rights activists have also confirmed that the individuals in question were arrested for participating in anti-communist protests, and that the families of the minors tried alongside adults charged with much more severe crimes, were told of the trial this week.
The mass arrests of children on July 11 and during the crackdowns that followed have defined police repression in Cuba following the event. The NGO Cuban Prisoners Defenders confirmed that month that the regime was holding “summary trials” where as many as 30 people were being rapidly sentenced for crimes in the same trial and with little defense, a human rights violation. International pressure forced the regime to free some of the implicated children, who testified to abuses such as rape threats and being tossed into jails with adults.

The Holguín indictment lists four children – Yeral Michel Palacios Roman, 17; Ernesto Abelardo Martínez Pérez, 17; Ayan Idalberto Jover Cardoza, 17; and Keyla Roxana Mulet Calderón, 16 – among the 21 defendants who are part of the same proceedings. Two of the boys, Palacios and Martínez, are listed as members of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), the Communist Party’s civilian spy networks. All four, however, are facing 15 years in prison.
At press time on Friday, the court dismissed the “sedition” charges against the children but not against the adults. It remains unclear if the children will face lesser charges.
Among the 21 are also four 18-year-olds, all facing 18 years in prison.
At least one of the adults – William Manuel Leyva Pupo, 20, facing 18 years in prison, reportedly has a history of mental illness, which did not result in his case being separated from the rest.


The Holguín prosecutor, Fernando Sera Planas, accused all 21 people of being part of a widespread conspiracy to surround government agency headquarters around the city and “create a majority that would transmit the idea of a state of generalized nonconformity” among the Cuban population. The prosecutor creates the image of a violent mob meant to “disavow the authority of Cuban state institutions with the purpose of altering the socialist social order enshrined in the constitution of the Republic of Cuba.”
Nearly every city in Cuba experienced protests on July 11, all clearly calling for an end to the repressive 62-year regime; the vast majority of them were peaceful. The mob scene described by the indictment is at odds with the few images and eyewitness reports of the day that escaped communist censorship.

“From the crowd of people, without being able to determine who, counterrevolutionary slogans were shouted that fomented disturbances, as some profoundly lacerated patriotic feelings,” the prosecutor contended, admitting that Cuba sent violent state agents out to suppress the crowd in response to “counterrevolutionary slogans,” not to violence, and that police failed to conclusively determine who was doing much of the agitating.


Zoila Rodriguez Marzo shows on January 10, 2022, at her home in Havana, a photo on her mobile phone of her son Exeynt Beirut (C), her daughter Katia Beirut (L) and the father of her children, Fredy Beirut (R), the first detained in Guantanamo since July 11 and the other two detained after the anti-government protests in La Guinera since July 12, 2021. (YAMIL LAGE/AFP via Getty Images)
The indictment goes on to claim that several of the individuals facing shorter sentences, including the minors, simply came to add to the already-existing crowd and support the cause. Eight of the 21 have been tied to the sedition charge for “informing the results of their acts through social media and making believe that they had created a situation of greater danger to the stability of the aforementioned political and government institutions” – in other words, for social media posts.
These individuals are being processed in the same trial as others charged with, among other crimes, throwing rocks at police officers; punching a state security officer in the throat, and ripping cement tiles off the floor to break them into piece and attack police with them.

Maykel Rodriguez del Campo, 34, is facing 28 years in prison. The prosecutor alleges del Campo shouted “Kill the communist!” amid the chaos.
Four others facing charges – Jorge Luis Martinez García, 18; Marcos Antonio Pintueles Marrero, 18; and Yoel Ricardo Sanchez Borjas, 18, all of whom are facing 18 years in prison; and Yosvanis Rosell García Caso, 32, who is facing 30 years in prison – stand accused of assaulting police officers, but the prosecutor admits “the victims could not identify their attackers.” The four allegedly appear visible in video footage taken at the scene. Several of the people in this trial are facing over a decade in prison for taking video footage at the scene.


The prosecution’s argument also ironically serves as evidence that the communist state agents – not the protesters – instigated the violence. The prosecutor recounts, citing eyewitness testimony, that about 40 communists “armed with sticks and red and black armbands” surrounded the Communist Party headquarters in Holguín to intimidate the protesters and get them to stop.
As the trial began this week, the relatives of the defendants made public statements condemning the accusations, noting that many of the eyewitnesses were police officers and that, aside from their testimony, little evidence justifies the outrageous sentences requested.

“The witnesses were two police officers. One accused him of throwing rocks and another of threatening to kill him, something that is incredible because my brother is a good person and incapable of something like this,” Elaine Rodríguez, Maykel Rodriguez del Campo’s sister, told CiberCuba this week. “No one saw him throwing rocks.”
Yosvanis García Caso snuck audio out of prison this week announcing a hunger strike when the inevitable guilty verdict comes down.
“Everything they are doing is arbitrary and they are violating all our rights, I have not committed any crimes and I will stand firm until the final consequences,” García said, using a term commonly used by Cuban political prisoners to mean they will engage in a hunger strike until death.
Idelsys Pupo, the mother of William Manuel Leyva Pupo, denounced this week that her son had been tortured in prison.
“The second chief of the prison, along with other guards, beat my son, they choked him and threw him against electric cables,” Pupo said, according to the Spanish online newspaper Diario de Cuba. Her son suffers from an unspecified psychiatric condition and contracted Chinese coronavirus in prison, loved ones have asserted.
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.

 

[Housecarl]

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dnyuz.com

Mass Trials in Cuba Deepen Its Harshest Crackdown in Decades
January 14, 2022
in News

Detained protesters in Cuba could get up to 30 years in prison as they face the largest and most punitive mass trials on the island since the early years of the revolution.

Prosecutors this week put on trial more than 60 citizens charged with crimes, including sedition, for taking part in demonstrations against the country’s economic crisis over the summer, said human rights activists and relatives of those detained.

Those being prosecuted include at least five minors as young as 16. They are among the more than 620 detainees who have faced or are slated to face trial for joining the biggest outburst of popular discontent against the Communist government since it took power in 1959.

The severity of the charges is part of a concerted effort by the government to deter further public expressions of discontent, activists said. The crackdown also dashed lingering hopes of a gradual liberalization under President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who in 2018 replaced Fidel Castro’s brother Raúl to become Cuba’s first leader from outside the Castro family since 1959.

“What reigns here is an empire of fear,” said Daniel Triana, a Cuban actor and activist who was briefly detained after the protests. “The repression here doesn’t kill directly, but forces you to choose between prison and exile.”

For six decades, Cuba has lived under a punishing U.S. trade embargo. The Cuban government has long blamed the country’s crumbling economy solely on Washington, deflecting attention from the effects of Havana’s own mismanagement and strict limits on private enterprise.

Cuba exploded into unexpected protest on July 11, when thousands of people, many from the country’s poorest neighborhoods, marched through cities and towns to denounce spiraling inflation, power outages and worsening food and medicine shortages.

The scenes of mass discontent — shared widely over social media — shattered the idea promoted by the Cuban leadership that popular support for the governing Communist Party endured, despite economic hardship.

After being initially caught by surprise, the government responded with the biggest crackdown in decades, sending military units to crush the protests. More than 1,300 demonstrators were detained, according to the human rights organization Cubalex and to Justice J11, an umbrella organization of Cuban civil society groups that monitors the aftermath of the summer’s unrest.

The Cuban government did not respond to requests for comment sent through the foreign media office.

The scale of the government’s reaction shocked longtime opposition figures and Cuba observers.
Cuba’s leaders had always reacted swiftly to any public discontent, jailing protesters and harassing dissidents. But previous crackdowns tended to focus on the relatively small groups of political activists.

In contrast, the mass trials that began in December are, for the first time in decades, targeting people who largely had no connection to politics before they stepped out of their homes to join the crowds calling for change, said historians and activists.

“This is something completely new,” said Martha Beatriz Roque, a prominent Cuban dissident who was convicted of sedition in 2003, along with 74 other activists, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Their sentences were eventually commuted, and most were allowed to go into exile.

“There’s not a single drop of compassion left, and that’s what marks the difference” with the past, she said by telephone from her home in Havana.

Yosvany García, a 33-year-old welder, had never participated in protests or run into problems with the law, said his wife, Mailin Rodríguez. On July 11, he came home for lunch, as usual, from his workshop in the provincial capital of Holguín.

But on his way back to work, he ran into a crowd that was demanding political change, said Ms. Rodríguez. Driven by a surge of indignation at the unbearable cost of living, Mr. García joined the march, she said.

He was beaten by the police who broke up the rally later that day, but came home to his wife that night. Four days later, he was cornered by the police near his home and taken to jail.

On Wednesday, Mr. García was charged with sedition along with 20 other protesters, including five teenagers aged 17 and 16, the minimum age of criminal responsibility in Cuba. All are facing penalties of at least five years in prison; Mr. García is facing a 30-year sentence.

Rowland Castillo was 17 years old in July, when he was detained for joining the protest in a working-class suburb of the capital, Havana. A provincial champion in wrestling, one of Cuba’s most popular sports, Mr. Castillo attended a state sports academy and had never participated in political activities, according to his mother, Yudinela Castro.

She said she only realized he had joined the protest when police came to arrest him several days later. Prosecutors are seeking a 23-year sentence against him for sedition.

Ms. Castro said that after her son’s arrest she was fired from the state food market where she worked. She now lives on donations from neighbors and well-wishers in an abandoned community first-aid clinic with her 2-year-old grandson — Mr. Castillo’s son — as she tries to recover from cancer.

“Through him I came to realize the evil that happens in this country,” she said, referring to her jailed son. “He didn’t do anything, apart from go out and ask for freedom.”

At first, the ascension of Mr. Díaz-Canel, 61, to the presidency in 2018 raised hopes of gradual change in some quarters.

He was not part of the old guard that rose to power with the Castros. In office, he tried streamlining Cuba’s convoluted currency system and introduced reforms to expand the private sector in an attempt to ameliorate a crippling economic crisis caused by the pandemic, sanctions imposed by the Trump administration and dwindling aid from the island’s Socialist ally, Venezuela.

But Mr. Díaz-Canel, born after the revolution, could not evoke the Castro brothers’ anti-imperialist struggles to paper over the ever-declining standards of living. When the protests broke out, he reacted with force.

“They don’t have any intention of changing,” said Salomé García, an activist with Justice J11, the rights group, “of allowing Cuban society any participation in determining its destiny.”

The post Mass Trials in Cuba Deepen Its Harshest Crackdown in Decades appeared first on New York Times.

 

[Plain Jane]

Jamaica arrests ex-Haiti senator sought in leader's slaying

Haiti’s National Police says Jamaican authorities have arrested a former senator who is a prominent suspect in the July 7 killing of President Jovenel Moïse.

apnews.com

Jamaica arrests ex-Haiti senator sought in leader’s slaying
By HAROLD ISAAC and DÁNICA COTOJanuary 15, 2022

FILE - A person holds a photo of the late Haitian President Jovenel Moise during his memorial ceremony at the National Pantheon Museum in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, July 20, 2021. Haiti's National Police said Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022, that former Sen. John Joel Joseph, sought in the July 7 killing of Moise, has been arrested in Jamaica. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haiti’s National Police said Saturday that a former senator who is a prominent suspect in the July 7 killing of President Jovenel Moïse has been arrested in Jamaica.

Police spokesman Gary Desrosiers told The Associated Press that John Joël Joseph was in custody. No further information was immediately available.

Meanwhile, Jamaica Police Superintendent Stephanie Lindsay told the AP that other people were arrested along with Joseph and that authorities were trying to determine whether they are family members. She said they were arrested before dawn on Saturday and declined to share other details.

“For more than one reason, we’re not sharing more information,” she said.

Joseph is a Haitian politician and opponent of the Tet Kale party that Moïse belonged to.
“One more suspect has been apprehended. One more opportunity to shed light on my husband’s murder,” tweeted Martine Moïse, who was injured in the shooting. “In Haiti or elsewhere, the tracking of the wanted must continue so that all the sponsors and perpetrators of this heinous crime are punished.”

A still-unreleased police report obtained by the AP quoted various sources as saying Joseph had several links to the attack, with at least one identifying him among the leaders of it.

The sources said Joseph paid in cash for rental cars used by the attackers and had met with other suspects ahead of the killing, including Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a Haitian businessman and evangelical pastor who had expressed desire to lead his country. Associates have suggested that Sanon was duped by the true masterminds of the assassination. He was arrested shortly after the killing.

The report also stated that the former senator introduced other suspects to Joseph Badio, an alleged leader of of the plot who previously worked for Haiti’s Ministry of Justice and the government’s anti-corruption unit until he was fired.

It said phone records show James Solages, a Haitian-American arrested in the case, had a WhatsApp conversation with Joseph regarding preparations for the mission. And it said that Solage told authorities that Joseph, Badio and Rodolphe Jaar — a Haitian citizen and former U.S. government informant arrested Jan. 7 in the Dominican Republic — were among those appointed leaders of the operation.

Badio remains a fugitive, while Dominican officials say Jaar was arrested there at the request of U.S. authorities.

Among those celebrating the arrest was Claude Joseph, Haiti’s former minister of foreign affairs who briefly served as interim prime minister following Moïse’s killing.

“The arrest of John Joel Joseph shows that there will be no hiding place for those who are directly or indirectly involved in the assassination,” he wrote, saying that the international effort he initiated continues to bear fruit.

The 122-page police report said authorities visited at least three homes from July 10 to July 21 in efforts to track down John Joël Joseph, finding nothing except for four 12-gauge rifles, ammunition and firearms accessories in the first house that was under his name.

It’s not immediately clear where the former Haitian senator arrested in Jamaica will be taken.
Claude Joseph, the former interim prime minister, said there is no extradition treaty between Haiti and Jamaica, but since the suspect is Haitian, he could be sent back to his native country.

John Joël Joseph is the second suspect to be arrested in Jamaica. In late October, Jamaican authorities arrested former Colombian soldier Mario Antonio Palacios Palacios, whom U.S. officials had interviewed while he was in hiding.

Palacios was recently extradited to the U.S. and was awaiting a court hearing after being charged with conspiracy to commit murder or kidnapping outside the United States and with providing material support resulting in death, knowing or intending that such material support would be used to prepare for or carry out the conspiracy to kill or kidnap.
More than 40 people, including 18 former Colombian soldiers, have been arrested in the killing of Moïse, who was shot several times at his private residence in an attack that also injured his wife, Martine Moïse.

Colombian government officials have said that the majority of former soldiers were duped and did not know about the real mission. The soldiers, who remain in prison in Haiti, have accused authorities of torture, while the Colombian government recently said the country’s consul in Haiti was threatened after trying to provide humanitarian assistance.
___
Dánica Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Associated Press reporter Evens Sanon in Port-au-Prince, Haiti contributed.

 

[Plain Jane]

Taiwan pays $900,000 for ally Guatemala to lobby Washington

Guatemala has hired for $900,000 a major supporter of former President Donald Trump to seek influence with U.S. officials in an unusual lobbying contract paid for by its ally Taiwan.

apnews.com

Taiwan pays $900,000 for ally Guatemala to lobby Washington
By JOSHUA GOODMAN2 hours ago

FILE - Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei meets U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas at the Presidential House offices in Guatemala City, Tuesday, July 6, 2021.

Guatemala has hired on Jan. 13, 2022, for $900,000 a major supporter of former President Donald Trump to seek influence with U.S. officials in an unusual lobbying contract paid for by its ally Taiwan, foreign lobby records show. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo, File)

MIAMI (AP) — Guatemala has hired for $900,000 a major supporter of former President Donald Trump to seek influence with U.S. officials in an unusual lobbying contract paid for by its ally Taiwan, foreign lobby records show.

Ballard Partners registered as a foreign agent with the U.S. Justice Department on Jan. 13, according to filings made public over the weekend. The contract, dated Jan. 12, was signed by Alfonso Quinonez, Guatemala’s ambassador to the U.S., and Brian Ballard, president of the namesake lobbying firm and a longtime Trump ally.

It’s not clear how hiring Ballard, who years before Trump ran for the White House worked for him as a lobbyist in Florida, will be able to help Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei draw closer to the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden, which has repeatedly expressed concerns about corruption in the Central American nation.

On Sunday, the U.S. State Department blasted Giammattei’s government for seeking to lift the immunity from prosecution of a judge who has won high honors in Washington for exposing bribery in Guatemala.
https://apnews.com/article/martin-luther-king-jr-day-fd2a76d5bae88e107592b52f2e7f898b
“This action against an internationally recognized independent judge weakens a vital pillar of Guatemala’s democracy and judicial system,” spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.

In its registration, Ballard only said it would provide “strategic consulting and advocacy services” related to Guatemala’s interactions with the U.S. government and U.S. officials.

Justin Sayfie, a partner in Ballard’s Washington office, declined to comment further. But he said the request for Taiwan to assume responsibility for payment was not the firm’s idea.

“It’s unusual for one government to be paying the fees for lobbying for another government,” said Robert Kelner, an attorney specializing in compliance with foreign lobbying laws for Covington & Burling. “It’s not illegal. But it does raise a question of whether the government that pays also needs to be listed by the lobbying firm as a foreign principal.”

Guatemala in a statement thanked Taiwan for “the support that allows us to strengthen our positioning in the U.S.” It said the one year contract with Ballard, for which it is paying $75,000 a month, will focus on strategic communication, investor outreach and promoting tourism.

Guatemala is one of only 13 mostly small, developing countries that still have full diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which split from mainland Communist-run China amid civil war in 1949.
Responding to questions from The Associated Press, Taiwanese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Joanne Ou on Tuesday said the arrangement followed the principle of “mutual assistance and mutual benefit to promote pragmatic diplomacy,” based on the needs of governments friendly to Taiwan.

Ou said the assistance complied with U.S. law and was endorsed by both Guatemala’s government and its political opposition.

“In the future, the two countries will continue to promote various programs beneficial to their nations and peoples on the basis of the existing good cooperation,” Ou said in an emailed statement.

Taiwan in the past has donated fleets of buses, agricultural equipment and other high-profile gifts to its allies. But it’s been unable to compete with China, which considers Taiwan a breakaway territory and has aggressively worked to isolate it on the world stage.

Recently, Beijing secured diplomatic recognition from Guatemala’s neighbors Nicaragua and El Salvador. Honduras’ new president, Xiomara Castro, as a candidate also threatened to open ties to Beijing but but has since backtracked on the idea.

Giammattei, a law and order conservative, managed to bypass criticism in Washington and forge a productive relationship with the Trump administration by yielding to the White House’s pressure to embrace an asylum agreement negotiated by his predecessor that he opposed when he ran for the presidency in 2019.

But he’s struggled to build close ties to the Biden administration, which has sought to undo Trump’s immigration policies and taken a harsher look at corruption and rule of law issues in the so-called “Norther Triangle” nations of Central America.

Biden didn’t invite Giammattei to his Democracy summit last year and in June Vice President Kamala Harris, in a visit to Guatemala, described having a very frank conversation with the Guatemalan leader about the importance of maintaining an independent judiciary.

The shift toward a less independent justice system began before Giammattei took office but has continued on his watch.

Ballard will manage the account along with two associates with extensive ties to the Republican Party: Jose Diaz, a former Florida state representative who is a managing partner of Ballard’s office in Miami; and Sayfie, a one time adviser to former Florida Governor Jeb Bush who also headed the president’s commission on White House Fellowships during the Trump administration. A third associate representing Guatemala, John O’Hanlon, is a longtime Democrat.

Ballard amassed dozens of foreign and domestic lobbying clients during the Trump presidency — including Qatar, the Dominican Republic and Zimbabwe — when he was described by Politico as “The Most Powerful Lobbyist in Trump’s Washington.”

More recently, it has added a number of influential Democratic fundraisers and named former Congressman Robert Wexler, a Florida Democrat, as managing partner of its Washington office to bolster its credentials with the Biden White House.

Despite losing diplomatic allies to China, Taiwan has maintained robust ties with the U.S. and most other major nations. European politicians have visited the island in defiance of threats of retaliation from Beijing, and Taiwan has extended economic aid to Lithuania after China imposed an import ban on the Baltic nation for allowing Taiwan to open a representative office there under its own name.
___
AP writer Sonia Perez D. contributed to this report from Guatemala City.
Follow Goodman: @APJoshGoodman

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[Plain Jane]

Judge approves plan to end Puerto Rico bankruptcy – DW – 01/19/2022

A US federal judge signed a plan to end Puerto Rico's nearly five-year-long bankruptcy battle. The process was unprecedented in US history and complicated further after the island was hit by several deadly hurricanes.

www.dw.com

Puerto Rico: Judge approves plan to resolve bankruptcy battle
A US federal judge signed a plan to end Puerto Rico's nearly five-year-long bankruptcy battle. The process was unprecedented in US history and complicated further after the island was hit by several deadly hurricanes.




The approval is a first step in a long road to tackling Puerto Rico's economic crisis

Puerto Rico's long bankruptcy battle is coming to end after a federal judge on Tuesday approved a plan to restructure the US territory's public debt.

The plan was approved after exhaustive bargaining efforts, fiery hearings and multiple delays caused by deadly hurricanes and earthquakes that have hit the island in recent years. The coronavirus pandemic has also intensified the US territory's economic crisis.

What is in the deal?
The plan — the largest municipal debt restructuring in US history — would slash the territory's debt by nearly 80% and save it more than $50 billion (€44.1 billion) in debt service payments, the federal board that has supervised Puerto Rico's accounts since 2016 said on Twitter.

Judge Laura Taylor Swain signed off on the fiscal adjustment project on Tuesday, after the plans were approved by the island's authorities in October last year.

The plan also does not include previously proposed pension cuts, which caused heated debate and were strongly opposed by Puerto Rico's governor and lawmakers.

How have officials reacted?
The case and legal process was unprecedented in the United States — highlighting the legal difficulties faced by US territories which are legally classed differently than US states. The island also had three times as much debt as the city of Detroit, which filed for bankruptcy in 2013.

"There has never been a public restructuring like this anywhere in America or in the world,'' said David Skeel, the chairman of the federal board appointed to oversee Puerto Rico's accounts.

"This was an astonishingly complex and large and important bankruptcy,'' Skeel added.

Puerto Rico's economic recovery has also been hampered by repeated natural disasters, including deadly hurricanes and earthquakes

Puerto Rico's governor, Pedro Pierluisi, said the judicial decision "represents a great step for the economic recovery" of the island.

"We are facing a transcendental moment in which the Government of Puerto Rico is on its way to ending the bankruptcy process," he said in a tweet.

The long road to bankruptcy
Puerto Rico has seen stringent austerity policies since 2005, implemented by successive governments to try to reduce its debt.

The island's government declared in 2015 that it was unable to pay a debt of more than $70 billion that it had accumulated through decades of mismanagement, corruption and excessive borrowing.

The US Congress then created a law called Promesa that enabled Puerto Rico's government to file a bankruptcy petition in May 2017.
dvv/rs (AFP, AP)

 

[Plain Jane]

Suspect in Haiti president’s assassination extradited to US

MIAMI (AP) — U.S. authorities said Wednesday that a businessman accused in the July 7 killing of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was extradited to face criminal charges in Miami after he was detained in the Dominican Republic.

apnews.com

Suspect in Haiti president’s assassination extradited to US
By GISELA SALOMÓNtoday

FILE - A person holds a photo of late Haitian President Jovenel Moise during his memorial ceremony at the National Pantheon Museum in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, July 20, 2021. Authorities in the Dominican Republic said Monday, Jan. 10, 2022, that they have arrested a key suspect in the killing of President Moise with help from the U.S. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)

MIAMI (AP) — U.S. authorities said Wednesday that a businessman accused in the July 7 killing of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was extradited to face criminal charges in Miami after he was detained in the Dominican Republic.

“We can confirm Rodolphe Jaar is in U.S. custody in the Southern District of Florida,” said Nicole Navas, spokesperson at the Department of Justice. “He will be presented with criminal charges tomorrow at his initial appearance” at the federal court, she said in a written statement sent to The Associated Press.

Jaar, who was convicted of drug-trafficking charges a decade ago and once served as an informant for the U.S. government, was extradited from the Dominican Republic, where he was detained earlier this month.

Jaar is the second foreigner extradited to the United States to face charges related to the assassination of the Haitian president. Earlier in January, U.S. authorities arrested a former Colombian soldier, Mario Antonio Palacios Palacios, after he fled from Haiti to Jamaica. A Jamaican judge ordered him deported to Colombia, but he was detained in Panama during a layover by U.S. authorities who had been in touch with him while he was still in hiding.


The arrests come more than six months after the squad allegedly made up of former Colombian soldiers, Haitian police officers and others went to the president’s residence to carry out his assassination. More than 40 people have been arrested in the case.

A criminal complaint and affidavit charging Jaar in the conspiracy case has not been unsealed.
Palacios was the the first person to be formally charged in Moïse’s assassination. In a criminal complaint drafted by the FBI, he is charged of conspiracy to commit murder or kidnapping outside the United States, and providing material support resulting in death, knowing that such support would be used to carry out a plot to kill the Haitian president.

 

[Plain Jane]

Two Mexican journalists killed in just two weeks – DW – 01/20/2022

In Mexico, the year has begun with two murders of journalists in just two weeks. Investigators though claim the deaths are not related to the victims' work and the president refuses to address the issue.

www.dw.com

Two Mexican journalists killed in just two weeks
In Mexico, the year has begun with two murders of journalists in just two weeks. Investigators though claim the deaths are not related to the victims' work and the president refuses to address the issue.




Margarito Martínez Esquivel was shot dead in front of his home

The photojournalist Margarito Martinez Esquivel, 49, first received threats on Facebook a good month ago. He was falsely accused of running a number of obscure sites spreading gossip about the drug underworld in his hometown Tijuana. He was a courageous, experienced journalist who was familiar with the security situation in Mexico, the world of drug trafficking and the danger of such accusations.

Martinez Esquivel immediately contacted his colleagues on the journalist network #YoSiSiSoyPeriodista, which published a statement on December 13, 2021, saying that he had nothing to do with these sites. They also referred the case to the Mechanism to Protect Human Right Defenders and Journalists, a state agency established in 2012 after pressure from international human rights organizations and journalists as the drugs war escalated.


Watch video12:36
Mortal danger for Mexico's reporters
Riddled with bullets
On January 17, Martinez Esquivel left his home in Tijuana at about midday. He was getting into his car when shots were fired. When his wife Elena and 16-year-old daughter came out onto the street, his body was already riddled with bullets. The popular journalist was known well beyond the borders of Mexico City and his murder has shaken the country. He had spent the past two decades working for big national papers such as the weekly Zeta and La Jornada, as well as international outlets such as the BBC and the Los Angeles Times.

Investigators have blamed a neighborhood dispute

Pedro Cardenas from Articulo 19, an independent organization which campaigns for freedom of expression in Mexico and Central America said that it was "still too early to say anything about the circumstances of the murder and the possible failures of the protective mechanism."

Martinez Esquivel is the second journalist to have been murdered this year. On January 10, Jose Luis Gamboa, who ran the website Inforegio de Veracruz was stabbed fatally - officially, the authorities say that he might have been the victim of a mugging. While Martinez Esquivel might have died as the result of a dispute among neighbors. Investigators are known for spreading such hypotheses in the first hours after a murder - an approach that human rights organizations are increasingly critical of.

"It is a worrying practice because it can steer an investigation in the wrong direction from the start," said Cardenas. "We call on the authorities to apply the standard protocol, which includes investigating the victims' journalistic work as a possible motive for murder." Miguel Mora, the head of the State of Baja California Human Rights Commission, said it was "imperative that the case [of Martinez Esquivel] be expedited because any attack on journalists is an attack on freedom of expression and society's right to information."

Second-most dangerous country for journalists
According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 32 journalists have been murdered in Mexico since 2018, when current President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) took office. On Tuesday, broadcast journalist Adriana Flores complained at the president's morning briefing about the danger and risks incurred by journalists throughout the country and asked what guarantees the government could provide to protect freedom of the press.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says his government will not tolerate impunity

The president did not answer directly. "Our opponents take advantage of everything to attack us but in reality they are not seriously concerned about the loss of life," he said, adding that his government would not tolerate impunity. The issue of protecting journalists in danger would be addressed at a later date in a special report about certain aspects of internal security.
According to UNESCO, Mexico is the country with the second-most journalist deaths after Syria. Over 85% of the murders since 2006 have gone unpunished.

 

[Plain Jane]

2 Canadians killed, 1 wounded in Mexico resort shooting
today


MEXICO CITY (AP) — Two Canadians were killed Friday and one more wounded in a shooting at a hotel along Mexico’s Caribbean coast, state authorities said.

Quintana Roo state security chief Lucio Hernández said via Twitter that authorities were searching for a Hotel Xcaret guest in the shooting. He shared a photo of a man walking with a handgun.

The Xcaret resort is south of Playa del Carmen.

Authorities said all three victims were taken to a hospital, but two died.

The Quintana Roo state prosecutor’s office said via Twitter that the suspect in the shooting was also apparently a guest and Canadian police informed them he was a known felon with a long record related to robbery, drug and weapons offenses. The office said both of the dead also had criminal records.

It is just the latest brazen act of violence along Mexico’s famed Mayan Riviera, the crown jewel of its tourism industry.

In November, a shootout on the beach of Puerto Morelos left two suspected drug dealers dead. Authorities said there were some 15 gunmen from a gang that apparently disputed control of drug sales there.

In late October, farther south in the laidback destination of Tulum, two tourists — one a California travel blogger born in India and the other German — were caught in the apparent crossfire of rival drug dealers and killed.

Following those events, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sent nearly 1,500 members of the National Guard to reinforce security in the area.

 

[Plain Jane]

Peru declares 'environmental emergency' after oil spill – DW – 01/23/2022

Dead seals, fish and birds have washed up on Peru's shore covered in oil after the spill. A refinery blamed waves caused by the eruption of a volcano in Tonga.

www.dw.com

Peru declares 'environmental emergency' after oil spill
Dead seals, fish and birds have washed up on Peru's shore covered in oil after the spill. A refinery blamed waves caused by the eruption of a volcano in Tonga.




The spill has polluted 2,384 cubic meters of sand

The Peruvian government on Saturday declared a 90-day "environmental emergency" in damaged coastal territories, after an oil spill that saw 6,000 barrels of crude oil pour into the sea.

Peruvian authorities say that this measure will allow for "sustainable management of the affected areas," through "restoration and remediation" work.

Emergency crews in white biosafety suits are using shovels to remove the oily sand, which is then transported to toxic waste dumps.

How did the spill happen?
The oil spill came out of a tanker belonging to the Spanish energy firm Repsol. The incident occurred at the La Pampilla refinery, some 30 kilometers (around 19 miles) north of the Peruvian capital of Lima in the Ventanilla district of the port city of Callao.

According to the refinery, the spill was caused by freak waves, which resulted from the eruption of a volcano in Tonga.

Emergency crews in white biosafety suits are currently working to clean up Peru's beaches

The Italian-flagged "Mare Doricum" tanker was transporting 965,000 barrels of crude oil when it was hit.

Currents spread the oil to distances more than 40 kilometers from the refinery, tarring some 21 beaches, according to Peru's Health Ministry. The ministry recommends avoiding these areas, which it classifies as "unhealthy."

What damage has the spill caused?
The spill has caused the death of marine wildlife and raised concerns around the livelihood of local fishermen and the economic consequences from the loss of tourism.

The spill has caused the death of local birds and other wildlife

Repsol said that 2,384 cubic meters (84,190 cubic feet) of sand had been affected by the spill. The company said that it had organized more than 1,350 people for the cleanup efforts, and planned to add another 224.

On Wednesday, Peru demanded that Repsol compensate for the damage caused by the spill.
Peruvian legal authorities said that they were investigating the spill as a potential environmental pollution crime.

Repsol said it was not responsible for the spill as Peruvian maritime authorities did not issue warnings about a possible increase in waves.
sdi/fb (AP, AFP, LUSA, EFE)

 

[Plain Jane]

Fake ambulance with 28 migrants aboard found in Mexico

Mexican authorities have detected many strange schemes to smuggle Central American migrants to the U.S. border.

apnews.com

Fake ambulance with 28 migrants aboard found in Mexico
yesterday


MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican authorities have detected many strange schemes to smuggle Central American migrants to the U.S. border, but on Saturday they said they found a new one: a fake ambulance loaded with 28 Nicaraguans, including nine unaccompanied children.
Mexico’s Interior Department said the vehicle had been painted with fake logos from a government hospital network. The vehicle was stopped in the Pacific coast state of Oaxaca.
The National Migration Institute said the driver had tried to pass himself off as a health care worker and was detained.

Migrants found in such circumstances are usually returned to their home countries, unless they are the victims of a crime.

Immigrant traffickers in Mexico general try to smuggle migrants in buses or freight trucks. The trucks are often painted with the logos of well-known companies to try to avoid scrutiny.
© copyright 2022 The Associated Press.All rights reserved.

 

[Plain Jane]

Honduran Congress splits, threatens new president's plans

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Honduran President-elect Xiomara Castro faced a growing crisis on Sunday as dueling sessions of the newly elected Congress elected different sets of leaders, threatening Castro's ability to carry out promised reforms.

apnews.com

Honduran Congress splits, threatens new president’s plans
By MARLON GONZÁLEZyesterday



1 of 5
Supporters of Liberty and Refoundation Party gather in support of Honduras' President-elect Xiomara Castro in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Saturday, Jan. 22, 2022. Castro has seen her prospects of a successful administration take a hit even before she's been inaugurated, as a battle for leadership of the newly elected Congress devolved into shouting and shoving among her own allies on Friday. (AP Photo/Elmer Martinez)

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Honduran President-elect Xiomara Castro faced a growing crisis on Sunday as dueling sessions of the newly elected Congress elected different sets of leaders, threatening Castro’s ability to carry out promised reforms.

The president is to be inaugurated on Thursday and U.S. officials have hoped she could help battle poverty and insecurity in a country that is a major source of uncontrolled migration.

But a sizable bloc of deputies from her own Liberty and Refoundation party rebelled against her attempt to build a legislative majority by promising leadership of Congress to the allied party of her vice president. That split threatens to give control of the legislature back to National and Liberal Parties that had traded the presidency for generations.

With the conflict growing, hundreds of Castro’s supporters surrounded the legislative building overnight and the protests led one group of deputies to meet at a country club near the capital on Sunday. There they confirmed the election of a dissident to lead Congress.


While Jorge Cálix promised to back Castro’s policies, most of his support came from the conservative National Party of outgoing President Juan Orlando Hernández — who has been accused by U.S. federal prosecutors of involvement with drug smugglers.

Another group met at the Congress building in Tegucigalpa and elected Castro’s favored candidate, Luís Redondo. She quickly tweeted recognition of his selection and invited him to the inauguration.

Both groups claimed to have a majority.

The standoff also threatens her alliance with the Salvation Party of Vice President Salvador Nasralla — Redondo is a member of it — and raised suspicions that the outgoing government is trying to scuttle her administration before it can start.

Political analyst Josué Murillo said the dissident legislators “are really pursuing their own private interests, whether it be a personal ego thing or an unbridled appetite for power,” and said the divided Congress could prove to be “a stone in the shoe” for Castro’s administration.
On Friday night Castro announced her party, known as Libre, was expelling 18 rebellious legislators. “These traitors who are singing like mermaids and say they are defending the will of the people, that’s a lie, it is not true,” Castro wrote.

The National Party quickly tried to take advantage, issuing a statement offering to take them in — something that would immediately give it the biggest delegation in Congress if it occurs.
The conflict alarmed U.S. diplomats in Honduras, who tweeted “a call on the political actors to maintain calm, establish dialogue, abstain from violence and provocative rhetoric.”

Castro’s party, known as Libre, won 50 seats in the 128-seat Congress in November elections, so it needs allied parties — as well as all of its own votes — to pass legislation.

Political analyst and former presidential candidate Olban Valladares said the dispute could be the result of interference from the outgoing Hernández administration and made it doubtful that Castro would be able to count on the full support of her party to resolve Honduras’ problems.

Former President Manuel Zelaya, Castro’s husband, said via Twitter that the selection of Cálix would not be recognized and traitors would be expelled.

 

[Plain Jane]

2 killed, dozens injured as 2 quakes shake southwest Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Two moderate earthquakes shook southwest Haiti on Monday, killing two people, injuring dozens of students and damaging hundreds of homes as it created panic in a region that was rocked by a powerful tremor that killed more than 2,000 last summer.

apnews.com

https://apnews.com/article/caribbea...earthquakes-cfeb56cbe2cd4894c2b9927ca85d4c9e#


Click to copy
2 killed, dozens injured as 2 quakes shake southwest Haiti
By EVENS SANONyesterday


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Two moderate earthquakes shook southwest Haiti on Monday, killing two people, injuring dozens of students and damaging hundreds of homes as it created panic in a region that was rocked by a powerful tremor that killed more than 2,000 last summer.

A magnitude 5.3 quake at 8:16 a.m. (1316 GMT) was followed by a magnitude 5.1 quake nearly an hour later. Both were centered on Haiti’s southern peninsula, west of the capital, Port-au-Prince, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It said both occurred about 10 kilometers (6 miles) below the surface.

Haiti’s civil protection agency said at least two people died and dozens of schoolchildren were injured, adding that 50 people between the ages of 15 and 23 were in a state of shock and taken to the hospital. Officials said 191 homes were destroyed and 591 were damaged in one region.

Yves Bossé, an elected official for the southern department of Nippes, told The Associated Press that one person died when the earthquake caused a landslide at a sand mine. He said homes were cracked and businesses shut down for the day.

“People are scared to go back into their homes,” he said.

Sylvera Guillame, director of Haiti’s civil protection agency for the country’s southern region, told AP that schools in the area closed and sent children home as a precaution.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry offered his condolences to the victims and said his administration would fully support those affected.

A magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck southwest Haiti on Aug. 14, killing more than 2,200 people and damaging or destroying some 137,500 homes.

 

[Plain Jane]

IMF urges El Salvador to drop Bitcoin as legal tender

The International Monetary Fund wants El Salvador to drop the highly volatile cryptocurrency Bitcoin as legal tender and strictly regulate the electronic wallet the government has pushed adoption of across the country.

apnews.com

IMF urges El Salvador to drop Bitcoin as legal tender
yesterday

FILE - "We accept Bitcoin" is announced at a barber shop in Santa Tecla, El Salvador, Sept. 4, 2021. The IMF urged the government of El Salvador on Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022 to eliminate Bitcoin as legal tender. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez, File)

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — The International Monetary Fund wants El Salvador to drop the highly volatile cryptocurrency Bitcoin as legal tender and strictly regulate the electronic wallet the government has pushed adoption of across the country.

The global lender’s board “urged the authorities to narrow the scope of the Bitcoin law by removing Bitcoin’s legal tender status,” the IMF said in a statement Tuesday.

“The adoption of a cryptocurrency as legal tender, however, entails large risks for financial and market integrity, financial stability and consumer protection,” the IMF statement said.

President Nayib Bukele led the push to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar. El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly made the country the first to do so in June.

After nearly doubling in value late last year, Bitcoin has plunged and on Tuesday was slightly below where it was when the congress voted June 9. The bitcoin law went into effect in September.

From the start there were concerns that a digital currency created to be beyond the control of governments would attract criminal activity. Bukele promoted the adoption as way for thousand of Salvadorans to avoid money transfer fees when relatives living outside the country sent home remittances.
Oregon man pleads guilty to distributing pot on dark web
El Salvador’s law called for all businesses — with the technological ability — to accept Bitcoin as payment. The rollout was glitchy, but seems to have smoothed out.

Bukele became a darling of the cryptocurrency’s promoters and has since spoken of building a Bitcoin city and issuing Bitcoin-backed bonds, something else some IMF directors expressed concern over.

Bukele’s office said it did not immediately have a comment on the IMF’s statement.

El Salvador’s Treasury Minister Alejandro Zelaya, however, noted the IMF’s agreement that boosting financial inclusion was important and that an e-wallet could help, to which he added via Twitter: “It appears to work for financial inclusion, but you mustn’t do it. The future waits for no one. #Bitcoin.”

The IMF did commend Bukele’s government on its management of the COVID-19 pandemic. The country is currently experiencing a surge in infections, but it was aggressive in vaccinating the population and kept a relatively low death toll.

It also noted that the economy was projected to grow 10% in 2021 after contracting 7.9% the year before.

The board did see other problems on the horizon, however, if the government doesn’t tighten up its spending.

“Persistent fiscal deficits and high debt service are leading to large and increasing financing needs,” the statement said. “Under current policies, public debt is expected to rise to about 96 percent of GDP in 2026 on an unsustainable path.”

 

[Plain Jane]

Honduras' new president sworn in amid congressional impasse

Xiomara Castro has been sworn in as Honduras’ first female president amid a sea of waving flags in the national stadium.

apnews.com

Honduras’ next president to be sworn in amid uncertainty
By SONIA PÉREZ D.today



1 of 7
Vendor Oscar Prado hawks flags promoting President-elect Xiomara Castro outside the National Stadium in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022. Castro, Honduras' first female president, is scheduled to be sworn in on Thursday, Jan. 27. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Xiomara Castro is scheduled to be sworn in Thursday as Honduras’ first female president, facing high expectations to turn around the deeply troubled country amid uncertainty about whether an unfolding legislative crisis will allow her the support she needs.

Relatively smooth elections and a healthy margin of victory Nov. 28 came as a relief, but political maneuvering in the run-up to Castro’s inauguration has muddled the outlook and distracted from what was to be a hopeful new beginning after the two terms of President Juan Orlando Hernández.

In the days when Castro was supposed to be rolling out her Cabinet selections, Honduras has been engulfed by a dispute over who will lead the newly elected Congress. Two congressional leadership teams have been selected — neither legitimately according to experts — and their standoff threatens legislative paralysis at a time that Castro desperately needs to quickly get to work addressing Honduras’ problems.

Elected lawmakers from Castro’s own Liberty and Refoundation Party backed one of their own to be the new legislative body’s president Friday rather than support Castro’s choice, which had been agreed with her vice president to win his party’s support. Neither group backed down leading to surreal simultaneous legislative sessions Tuesday.

Luis Ruiz, a 52-year-old Castro supporter and fruit vendor near the Congress, said the political disagreement threatened to divide the country. “She (Castro) has to resolve this situation through dialogue,” Ruiz said. “She hasn’t taken power and she’s already having problems, she must show her leadership.”

High unemployment, persistent violence, corruption as well as troubled health care and educational systems are just some of the pressing challenges awaiting Castro.

The United States government, seeing an opportunity to gain an ally in a region with few friends, has strongly backed Castro and stands ready to provide support. In a possible sign of tensions in the region, presidents from neighbors El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua were not scheduled to attend.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who was given the task of finding ways to address the root causes of Central American migration, leads the U.S. delegation at Thursday’s inauguration ceremony.

Washington sees areas for cooperation on Castro’s priorities of battling corruption and increasing economic opportunities in her country, two areas that could affect decisions by Hondurans on whether to stay or try to migrate to the United States.

“Honduras has been a very difficult partner for the United States, especially during the administration of Juan Orlando Hernandez for a number of reasons, including the consistent swirl of illegal activity around him and his family,” said Jason Marczak, senior director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council.


“The anti-corruption agenda being front and center and her (Castro’s) pledges is music to the ears of the Biden-Harris administration, given its focus on rooting out corruption not only in Central America but its global efforts on corruption,” he said.

Castro has said she plans to formally invite the United Nations to set up an anti-corruption mission in Honduras.

Harris was scheduled to meet privately with Castro shortly after her inauguration. Castro and Harris spoke by phone Dec. 10.

In a call with reporters Wednesday, senior Biden administration officials said Harris expected to expand on that conversation about ways to deepen the bilateral relationship. “The topics will include expanding economic opportunity, combating corruption, and humanely managing migration,” a senior administration said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Castro, 62, won on her third bid for the presidency. She was previously first lady during the presidency of her husband, Manuel Zelaya, which was cut short by a military coup in 2009.

Many voters this time said they were motivated above all by the possibility of removing Hernández’s National Party from power. Hernández was first elected in 2013 and a friendly Supreme Court allowed him to overcome a constitutional ban on re-election and run again in 2017 in an election plagued by irregularities.

Federal prosecutors in New York have repeatedly spoken of Hernández’s purported ties to drug trafficking, alleging his political rise was funded in part by drug profits. Hernández has not been formally charged and has repeatedly denied the accusations.

 

[Plain Jane]

Russian roar on Ukraine rings hollow to Latin America allies

Russia has been threatening to expand military ties with allies Venezuela and Cuba amid rising tensions with the U.S. over Ukraine.

apnews.com

https://apnews.com/article/russia-u...bean-moscow-4c5c1a7ee35198415532f6ca12cd40e3#

Russian roar on Ukraine rings hollow to Latin America allies
By JOSHUA GOODMANyesterday



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FILE - Russian Navy Admiral Gorshkov frigate arrives at the port of Havana, Cuba, June 24, 2019. When the Admiral Gorshkov sailed into Havana in 2019 shortly after entering into service, it was billed as Russia's most advanced battleship, the largest built in two decades, armed with cruise missiles, air defense systems and other weapons. But it was tailed on the goodwill tour by a Russian rescue tugboat — a sign to many that Moscow had little faith in the warship's reliability. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa, File)

MIAMI (AP) — It was a classic Russian power play with echoes of Cold War gamesmanship.
Shortly after entering into service in 2019, Russia’s most advanced warship made a goodwill tour of the Caribbean, armed with cruise missiles, air defense systems and other weapons.

But when the Admiral Gorshkov sailed into the port of Havana, it was closely tailed by a Russian rescue tugboat — a sign to many that Moscow doubted the vessel’s reliability and the visit was nothing more than a feeble effort to project power.

Russia is once again rattling its saber amid rising tensions over Ukraine, hinting that the U.S. refusal to heed its demands could spur closer military cooperation with allies in Latin America. In recent days, several senior Russian officials have warned Moscow could deploy troops or military assets to Cuba and Venezuela if the U.S. and NATO insist on meddling on Russia’s doorstep.


U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan quickly dismissed Russia’s tit-for-tat threats. On the heels of its massive troop buildup on its border with Ukraine, Russia’s ability to mobilize troops in the Western Hemisphere, thousands of miles away, is limited at best, experts contend.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-crisis-live-updates-1b213930aeced003b990adb474ef722b
“This is pure misdirection and it’s not fooling anyone,” said Kevin Whitaker, a former U.S. ambassador to Colombia who also served as a diplomat in Venezuela, Nicaragua and as head of the Office of Cuban Affairs in Washington. “It’s not real power projection. It’s a showpiece and nothing more.”

But even if talk of troop deployments is mostly bluster, Russia’s strategic buildup in Latin America is real, posing national security threats in what generations of U.S. policy makers have referred to as “Washington’s backyard.”

In the past decade, as the U.S. influence in the region has waned, Moscow — and to a lesser extent other far-flung adversaries like China and Iran — have quietly cemented ties with authoritarian governments in Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela through a mix of weapons sales, financing deals and intense diplomatic engagement.

Moscow helped Venezuela design a cryptocurrency, forgave a $35 million Cuba debt and runs a high-tech anti-narcotics compound in Nicaragua that many believe is a covert beachhead for spying across the region.

Time and again, Russia has shown a willingness to leverage its sizable military whenever it has felt threatened by the U.S.

In 2008, Moscow sent a pair of Tu-160 nuclear-capable bombers to Venezuela amid tensions with the U.S. over Russia’s brief war with Georgia, a deployment followed that year by the arrival of the “Peter the Great” warship.

Russia sent more Tu-160s in 2018 as relations with the West plunged to post-Cold War lows over Ukraine, and the military even hinted it was considering setting up an air base on tiny La Orchilla Island, so small that landing military aircraft there would have been nearly impossible.
Even in countries friendlier to the U.S., like Mexico and Colombia, Russia has been accused of spying or engaging in disinformation campaigns to shape elections. A senior Colombian military official recently traveled to Washington to brief U.S. officials on Russian attempts to penetrate the communications of the country’s top military command, a person familiar with the visit told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.

On social media, the Spanish-language arm of the Russian state-controlled RT television network has more than 18 million followers on Facebook, 10 times as many as the Spanish-language affiliate of Voice of America, according to the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a think tank that tracks the rise of authoritarianism around the world. It also outperforms most other Spanish-language media on the platform, though it’s still dwarfed by CNN en Espanol.

It’s all a far cry from the height of the Cold War, when Nikita Khrushchev in 1962 briefly placed nuclear missiles in Cuba, the Kremlin maintained a listening post less than 100 miles from Florida and the Sandinista government that was fighting a U.S.-backed right-wing insurgency in Nicaragua was building an air base to accommodate Soviet fighter jets.

Nicaragua’s Punta Huete airfield is today semi-abandoned and President Vladimir Putin closed the spy station in Cuba two decades ago. With the collapse of its communist sponsor in the early 1990s, Cuba spiraled into a depression marked by widespread hunger known as the “Special Period.”

But Russia’s more limited support has bought it friends. Recently Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega named a consul in the Crimean peninsula Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. It’s also allowed Putin to restore some of Russia’s former glory in a region that has long resented Washington’s far longer history of meddling.

As Putin now looks to repel NATO from what he calls Russia’s “near abroad” in Ukraine, he’s likely to take at least a symbolic poke at the U.S. in its own sphere of influence, said Evan Ellis, a researcher at the U.S. Army War College who specializes in Russian and Chinese influence in Latin America.

“I’m sure Putin will do something to project toughness on the cheap as he always does,” Ellis said. “But he’s not going to do anything that costs him a lot of money or get him into deeper trouble down the line like deploying nukes. He knows there are limits.”

Russia’s closest ally is Venezuela, which has spent billions over the past two decades of socialist rule building up its air defense with Russia’s help — everything from Sukhoi fighter jets and attack helicopters to sophisticated radar and shoulder-mounted rocket launchers.

Such an arsenal gives Nicolás Maduro an ability to inflict serious damage in the event of any conflict with neighboring Colombia, the top U.S. ally in the region, said Gen. Manuel Cristopher Figuera, who was the Venezuelan president’s spy chief until fleeing to the U.S. in 2019 after a failed putsch against his former boss.

“It’s not an ideological relationship. It’s a commercial one, but it provides Maduro with a certain amount of protection,” said Figuera, who received training in Cuba and from Putin ally Belarus.
As the U.S. and its allies have taken steps to isolate the governments of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela — what Donald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton called the “troika of tyranny”— Putin has tried to fill the void.

In recent days, he’s spoken to Maduro, Ortega and Cuba’s Miguel Díaz Canel to explore ways to deepen strategic cooperation. He’s also sent a planeload of medical supplies to Cuba to help it fight the coronavirus pandemic.

But the leaders, although expressing gratitude for Russia’s continued aid, have so far remained silent on Ukraine — a sign they may be reluctant to be drawn into another geopolitical tussle.
“One of the fundamental legacies for Latin America from the Cold War is that they don’t want to be treated as a pawn in someone else’s game,” said Whitaker, the former ambassador to Colombia. “What Russia is doing shows enormous disrespect for the sovereignty of governments that are supposedly their allies.”

It’s something even Putin loyalists are starting to acknowledge.

“Cuba and Venezuela are the countries that are close to us, they are our partners,” Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, said in an interview with Russian media.
“But we can’t just deploy things there,” added Medvedev, who served as Russian president in 2008-2012 when Putin had to shift into the premier’s post because of term limits. “There can’t be any talk about setting up a base there as happened during the Soviet times.”
—
AP writers Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Andrea Rodriguez in Havana and Frank Bajak in Boston contributed to this report.
Follow Goodman: @APJoshGoodman

 

[Plain Jane]

Peru bans Repsol director from leaving country – DW – 01/29/2022

New estimates show that the oil spill was almost twice as big as previously thought. Repsol is facing a potential $34.5 million fine.

www.dw.com

Peru bans Repsol director from leaving country after oil spill
New estimates show that the oil spill was almost twice as big as previously thought. Repsol is facing a potential $34.5 million fine.




Peru declared an environmental emergency and said 21 of its beaches had been contaminated

A Peruvian judge on Friday banned Repsol's Peru director and three other executives from leaving the country for 18 months while the government investigates an oil spill that occurred on January 15.

Peru authorities are investigating the Spanish firm Repsol following the oil spill, which was reported after surging waves caused by the eruption of an underwater volcano near Tonga.

Oil spill twice as big as previously thought
Environment Minister Ruben Ramirez told reporters that Peru had a "figure so far of 11,900" barrels, almost twice the 6,000 reported earlier.

Repsol's estimate puts the spill at 10,396.

Last week, Peru declared an environmental emergency and announced that 21 of its beaches had been contaminated by the spill.

The spill occurred when an Italian-flagged tanker was unloading oil at the La Pamilla refinery, 30 kilometers north of the Peruvian capital Lima.

Repsol said the tanker was hit by freak waves caused by a tsunami after an underwater volcano erupted in Tonga.

Prosecutors said the oil slick has been dragged by ocean currents about 140 kilometers north of the refinery, adding that this has caused the death of an undetermined number of fish and seabirds.


Watch video02:37
Peru demands compensation for oil-affected businesses
What are the charges against the Repsol execs?
Judge Romualdo Aguedo imposed the ban after considering there's a "potential risk" that Repsol's Peru director and three executives would leave the country.

Repsol has said that it's cooperating with the authorities in the investigation and working on cleaning affected beaches.

Peru has demanded compensation from Repsol, which faces a potential $34.5 million (€31 million) fine, Peru's Environment Ministry said.

Repsol's Peru director is accused of the crime of "environmental pollution to the detriment of the state," and the three executives are accused of being "accomplices."

On Friday, Peru's judicial authority authorized the seizure of the Italian-flagged tanker involved in the spill after a request was filed by the environmental branch of the Peruvian fiscal authority.

Repsol has said that the exact number of barrels spilled can only be confirmed after ascertaining the volume of oil still remaining in the tanks of the ship.
sdi/ (AP, AFP, Efe, Lusa)

 

[Plain Jane]

Mexican villagers on cartel frontline clash with soldiers

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Inhabitants of a town on the front line of a turf war between rival drug cartels in Mexico said soldiers fired on them during a clash Saturday in the western state of Michoacan.

apnews.com

https://apnews.com/article/mexico-caribbean-drug-cartels-29f65dbc79553ae6d14c87fcb3982777#

Mexican villagers on cartel frontline clash with soldiers
today


MEXICO CITY (AP) — Inhabitants of a town on the front line of a turf war between rival drug cartels in Mexico said soldiers fired on them during a clash Saturday in the western state of Michoacan.

State police denied the government was responsible for the violence. José Alfredo Ortega, the head of state police, said soldiers were retreating when they came under fire from another direction, and that later someone detonated an explosive device.

The clash occurred in an area where the Jalisco cartel is fighting a bloody turf war with gangs from Michoacan. The two sides have used trenches, sharpshooters, bombs dropped by drones and homemade armored cars against each other. Increasingly, civilians have found themselves on the front lines of the fighting.

The incident involved protesters from a Jalisco-dominated town, Lomas Blancas. They are angry because they claim government policy favors the Michoacan-based Viagras cartel.

Soldiers are in a difficult position in Michoacan; the government strategy has been to repel attempts by the Jalisco cartel to gain territory in Michoacan, but do little or nothing about the Viagras, who set up roadblocks to extort money from inhabitants.

Soldiers have apparently been ordered just to keep rival cartels apart, but that angers townspeople in Jalisco-dominated towns like Loma Blanca, because soldiers don’t prevent the Viagras from operating.
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The protesters provided video of parts of the clash, showing demonstrators and soldiers engaged in shoving, shouting and rock throwing on both sides. In the video, detonations can be heard, but those may have been tear gas cannisters or warning shots.

Ortega said that from a nearby hill, “up there, criminals were firing shots.” A statement by his department said two soldiers were wounded and two suspects arrested.

But protest organizer José Francisco Helizondo said several protesters were wounded by some kind of live fire.

Videos of one of the men appears to show shrapnel or shotgun pellets in his leg. Ortega said somebody detonated an explosive device, which he believed may have caused the injuries.

Mexico’s Defense Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The area’s produce — limes and cattle heading out, or supplies heading in — have been forced to pay a war tax to the Viagras.

The protesters, who have faced off with soldiers before, are demanding the army open the roads and act with equal force against both cartels.

 

[Plain Jane]

Brazil: Heavy rain kills 18 in Sao Paulo state – DW – 01/31/2022

At least nine people were wounded and around 500 families had to abandon their residences in Brazil's southern Sao Paulo state. The torrential rainfall is expected to continue until Tuesday.

www.dw.com

Brazil: Heavy rain kills 18 in Sao Paulo state
At least nine people were wounded and around 500 families had to abandon their residences in Brazil's southern Sao Paulo state. The torrential rainfall is expected to continue until Tuesday.




Sao Paulo municipality Franco da Rocha registered flooding caused by torrential rains

Torrential rains in Brazil's southern Sao Paulo state left at least 18 people dead, authorities said Sunday.

At least nine people were wounded, and around 500 families had to abandon their residences. Several roads and highways were blocked.

Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria used a helicopter to survey damaged areas and announced he was releasing 15 million reais ($2.7 million, €2.5 million) to help the 10 most affected cities and 645 municipalities in the state.

Sao Paulo is Brazil's most populous state, home to around 46 million out of a total Brazilian population of just over 212 million.

What damage was reported?
At least 11 Sao Paulo municipalities registered landslides, flooding, overflowing rivers and falling trees, as well as damage to infrastructure, according to the state's fire department.
11 of the victims died on Sunday after landslides buried several homes in cities in the interior of the state, local press said.

A police station and viaduct in the municipality of Franco da Rocha were buried by a landslide.

Amid the storm, the city of Sao Paulo suspended vaccinations against COVID-19 as a security precaution.

A landslide destroyed houses in Franco da Rocha

Heavy rain to continue until Tuesday
Weather services warned that heavy rain could continue to fall throughout the state until Tuesday, and advised people to remain vigilant.
Brazil has been hit by a number of weather-related disasters since the rainy season began in October.

In the northern Bahia state, 24 people died and another 19 died in the southern Minas Gerais state. In Bahia, two dams broke as a result of flooding, and in Minas Gerais, thousands have been displaced.
sdi/wd (AP, AFP, Lusa)

 

[packyderms_wife]

It's flooding there again per BBC news on PBS just a few minutes ago.

São Paulo: Dozens killed as deadly storms hit Brazilian coast

Torrential rains plunge entire neighbourhoods under water and trigger landslides in São Paulo state.

www.bbc.com

São Paulo: Dozens killed as deadly storms hit Brazilian coast​

Watch: Streets submerged and cars pulled into the earth in Ilhabela, an archipelago off the Brazilian coast
By Phelan Chatterjee
BBC News

At least 36 people have been killed in flooding and landslides in Brazil's São Paulo state, officials say.

Dozens of people are missing and while the number of dead is expected to rise, rescue workers say they hope to pull some of those trapped in flooded homes out of the mud alive.

Video showed neighbourhoods under water, inundated motorways and debris left after houses were swept away.
Carnival celebrations have been cancelled in a number of cities.

In the coastal town of São Sebastião, 627mm of rain fell in 24 hours, twice the expected amount for the month.

The town's mayor, Felipe August, said the situation there was chaotic: "We have not yet gauged the scale of the damage. We are trying to rescue the victims."

Some 50 houses had collapsed and were washed away, Mr Augusto added, saying that the situation remained "extremely critical".

The state government reported at least 35 deaths in São Sebastião and in Ubatuba, some 80km (50 miles) north-east, a seven-year-old girl was killed when a boulder weighing two tonnes hit her home.

Hundreds have been displaced and evacuated.

"Unfortunately, we are going to have many more deaths," a civil defence official told newspaper Folha de São Paulo.

State Governor Tarcísio de Freitas said he had released the equivalent of $1.5m (£1.2m) in funding to aid in disaster relief.

Carnival events were cancelled across parts of the coastline, which is a popular destination for wealthy tourists looking to avoid huge streetside festivities in the big cities.

The festival usually lasts for five days in the run-up to the Christian festival of Lent and the colourful celebrations are synonymous with Brazil.

Latin America's largest port in Santos was also shut as wind speeds exceeded 55km/h (34mph) and waves rose to over a metre, local media reported.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was spending the carnival weekend in the north-eastern state of Bahia, will visit the affected areas later on Monday.

In a post on Twitter, he sent his condolences to those who had lost loved ones and promised to bring authorities together to provide healthcare and rescue teams.

"We are going to bring together all levels of government and, with the solidarity of society, treat the wounded, look for the missing, restore highways, power connections and telecommunications in the region," President Lula wrote.

More heavy rain is expected in the area, threatening to make conditions even worse for emergency teams.

Extreme weather events such as the floods are expected to become more common as the impacts of climate change take hold.

Last year, torrential rain in the south-eastern city of Petropolis killed more than 230 people.