INTL Latin America and the Islands: Politics, Economics, Military - December 2023

[Plain Jane]

November's thread:

INTL - Latin America and the Islands: Politics, Economics, Military - November 2024

October's thread: https://www.timebomb2000.com/xf/index.php?threads/latin-america-and-the-islands-politics-economics-military-october-2023.638618/#post-9925556 https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/not-crisis-its-invasion-massive-migrant-caravan-prepares-storm-us-border Not A Crisis. It's An...

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A new study says about half of Nicaragua's population wants to emigrate

A new study says that about half of Nicaragua's population of 6.2 million want to leave their homeland because of a mix of economic decline and repression from President Daniel Ortega's government.

apnews.com

A new study says about half of Nicaragua’s population wants to emigrate​

FILE - Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega poses for a photo during the ALBA Summit at the Palace of the Revolution in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021. A new study released Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023 says that about half of Nicaragua’s population of 6.2 million want to leave their homeland because of a mix of economic decline and repression from President Daniel Ortega’s government. The study said that 23% considered themselves “very prepared” to emigrate. (Adalberto Roque, Pool Photo via AP, file)
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BY GABRIELA SELSER
Updated 4:44 PM EST, November 30, 2023
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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Lawyer Isabel Lazo’s jobs are being systematically canceled by Nicaragua’s increasingly repressive government.

Lazo worked at a university before the government of President Daniel Ortega closed it. She now is employed at a nongovernmental organization that she fears will soon be shuttered too.

Nicaragua’s poisonous mix of economic decline and repression has led to about half of the country’s population of 6.2 million saying they want to leave their homeland, according to a new study, and 23% saying they had contemplated the possibility deeply enough to consider themselves “very prepared” to emigrate.

“A large proportion of them have already taken concrete steps to try to get out,” said Elizabeth Zechmeister, the director of the AmericasBarometer study “The Pulse of Democracy in the Americas.”

The study, which was released on Wednesday, shows that the number of Nicaraguans wanting to leave rose from 35% five years ago to almost half today, and that about 32% of people in 26 Latin American countries surveyed say they want to migrate.



Lazo, 42, and her husband Guillermo Lazo, 52, a systems engineer, both taught at the University of Northern Nicaragua until the Ortega government shut it down in April. It was one of 26 universities that closed because Ortega accused them of being centers of revolt, or failing to register or pay special taxes to the government, which has feuded with the Roman Catholic church, as well.

The couple lives in the northern city of Somoto, where Isabel Lazo now works for a European-backed NGO. Ortega’s government has outlawed or closed more than 3,000 civic groups and NGOs.

In May, the government ordered the Nicaraguan Red Cross shut down, accusing it of “attacks on peace and stability” during anti-government demonstrations in 2018. The local Red Cross says it just helped treat injured protesters.

Lazo said Thursday she is worried that it’s only a matter of time for the group where she now works.

“This will be ending soon,” she said dispiritedly, The couple is now awaiting a decision on a U.S. application for “humanitarian parole,” a program under which up to 30,000 people are being allowed each month to enter the U.S. from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Until then, there are few prospects for them, even though they are among Nicaragua’s educated elite.

“We were left without jobs from one day to the next,” Lazo said. “And even though we have graduate degrees and master’s degrees, we haven’t found decent jobs. You can kill yourself studying here and it’s worth nothing.”

Thousands have already fled into exile since Nicaraguan security forces violently put down mass anti-government protests in 2018. Ortega says the protests were an attempted coup with foreign backing, aiming for his overthrow.

Rosemary Miranda is another educated Nicaraguan who wants to leave. A psychologist, she graduated from the Jesuit-run University of Central America, also closed and confiscated by the government.

Miranda, 24, works for a microfinancing firm at an office in Managua, the capital, but the $402 per month she earns there doesn’t even cover the cost of commuting, meals and clothing.

“In this country, the majority of people work just to eat. They can’t buy clothing or shoes without waiting a month between purchases,” Miranda said.

She has wanted to emigrate for some time, but she helps her family by giving them some of what little money she earns. With the purchasing power of wages falling, she is now rethinking her decision to stay.

“The situation here is very difficult. Every month the price of food, electricity, water and transportation rises,” she said. “What have I gotten in return for studying so much and graduating?”

 

[Plain Jane]

Venezuelans approve a referendum to claim sovereignty over a swathe of neighboring Guyana

It remains unclear how Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro will enforce the results of the vote.

apnews.com

Venezuelans approve a referendum to claim sovereignty over a swathe of neighboring Guyana​

REGINA GARCIA CANO AND JORGE RUEDA
Updated 11:38 PM EST, December 3, 2023
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CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelans on Sunday approved a referendum called by the government of President Nicolás Maduro to claim sovereignty over an oil- and mineral-rich area of neighboring Guyana it argues was stolen when the border was drawn more than a century ago.

It remains unclear how Maduro will enforce the results of the vote. But Guyana considers the referendum a step toward annexation, and the vote has its residents on edge.

The National Electoral Council claimed to have counted more than 10.5 million votes even though few voters could be seen at polling sites throughout the voting period for the five-question referendum. The council, however, did not explain whether the number of votes was equivalent to each voter or if it was the sum of each individual answer.

Venezuelan voters were asked whether they support establishing a state in the disputed territory, known as Essequibo, granting citizenship to current and future area residents and rejecting the jurisdiction of the United Nations’ top court in settling the disagreement between the South American countries.

“It has been a total success for our country, for our democracy,” Maduro told supporters gathered in Caracas, the capital, after results were announced. He claimed the referendum had “very important level of participation.”


Yet long lines typical of electoral events did not form outside voting centers in Caracas throughout Sunday, even after the country’s top electoral authority, Elvis Amoroso, announced the 12-hour voting period would be extended by two hours.

If the participation figure offered by Amoroso refers to voters, it would mean more people voted in the referendum than they did for Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s mentor and predecessor, when he was re-elected in the 2012 presidential contest. But if it is equivalent to each individual answer marked by voters, turnout could drop to as low as 2.1 million voters.

“I came to vote because Essequibo is ours, and I hope that whatever they are going to do, they think about it thoroughly and remember to never put peace at risk,” merchant Juan Carlos Rodríguez, 37, said after voting at a center in Caracas where only a handful of people were in line.

The International Court of Justice on Friday ordered Venezuela not to take any action that would alter Guyana’s control over Essequibo, but the judges did not specifically ban officials from carrying out Sunday’s five-question referendum. Guyana had asked the court to order Venezuela to halt parts of the vote.

Although the practical and legal implications of the referendum remain unclear, in comments explaining Friday’s verdict, international court president Joan E. Donoghue said statements from Venezuela’s government suggest it “is taking steps with a view toward acquiring control over and administering the territory in dispute.”

“Furthermore, Venezuelan military officials announced that Venezuela is taking concrete measures to build an airstrip to serve as a ‘logistical support point for the integral development of the Essequibo,’” she said.

The 61,600-square-mile (159,500-square-kilometer) territory accounts for two-thirds of Guyana and also borders Brazil, whose Defense Ministry earlier this week in a statement said it has “intensified its defense actions” and boosted its military presence in the region as a result of the dispute.

Essequibo is larger than Greece and rich in minerals. It also gives access to an area of the Atlantic where energy giant ExxonMobil discovered oil in commercial quantities in 2015, drawing the attention of Maduro’s government.

Venezuela’s government promoted the referendum for weeks, framing participation as an act of patriotism and often conflating it with a show of support for Maduro. The country has always considered Essequibo as its own because the region was within its boundaries during the Spanish colonial period, and it has long disputed the border decided by international arbitrators in 1899 when Guyana was still a British colony.

That boundary was decided by arbitrators from Britain, Russia and the United States. The U.S. represented Venezuela on the panel in part because the Venezuelan government had broken off diplomatic relations with Britain.

Venezuelan officials contend that Americans and Europeans conspired to cheat their country out of the land and argue that a 1966 agreement to resolve the dispute effectively nullified the original arbitration.

Guyana, the only English-speaking country in South America, maintains the initial accord is legal and binding and asked the International Court of Justice in 2018 to rule it as such, but a decision is years away.

Voters on Sunday had to answer whether they “agree to reject by all means, in accordance with the law,” the 1899 boundary and whether they support the 1966 agreement “as the only valid legal instrument” to reach a solution.

Maduro threw the full weight of his government into the effort. Essequibo-themed music, nationally televised history lessons, murals, rallies and social media content helped the government to divert people’s attention from pressing matters, including increasing pressure from the U.S. government on Maduro to release political prisoners and wrongfully detained Americans as well as to guarantee free and fair conditions in next year’s presidential election.

In a tour of Caracas voting centers by The Associated Press, lines of about 30 people could be seen at some of them, while at others, voters did not have to wait at all to cast their ballots. That contrasts with other electoral processes when hundreds of people gathered outside voting centers from the start.

The activity also paled in comparison with the hours-long lines that formed outside polls during the presidential primary held by a faction of the opposition in October without assistance from the National Electoral Council.

More than 2.4 million people participated in the primary, a number that government officials declared mathematically impossible given the number of available voting centers and the time it takes a person to cast a paper ballot. State media attributed the lack of wait times Sunday to the fast speed at which people were casting their electronic ballots.

Maduro told supporters celebrating the results that it only took him 15 seconds to vote early Sunday.

Ángela Albornoz, a grassroots organizer for the ruling party, told the AP she estimated that between 23% and 24% of the voters assigned to her voting center cast ballots Sunday. Albornoz, 62, said that figure was below her expectations for an event meant to bring together all Venezuelans “regardless of politics.”

Guyana President Mohamed Irfaan Ali on Sunday told Guyanese his government is working continuously to ensure the country’s borders “remain intact” and said people have “nothing to fear over the next number of hours, days, months ahead.”

“I want to advise Venezuela that this is an opportunity for them to show maturity, an opportunity for them to show responsibility, and we call upon them once more join us in ... allowing the rule of law to work and to determine the outcome of this controversy,” Ali said.

___​

Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City. Associated Press photographer Matias Delacroix contributed to this report.

******

See this thread also:

WAR - Brazilian Army on High Alert Amid Potential Venezuelan Invasion of Guyana

Brazilian Army on High Alert Amid Potential Venezuelan Invasion of Guyana Saboor Bayat :: makes note to ask santa for bigger world map, more thumbtacks, and another 20 gallons of chalkboard paint so as to keep up :: Brazilian Army on High Alert Amid Potential...

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[Plain Jane]

Argentina's outgoing government rejects EU-Mercosur trade deal, but incoming administration backs it

Argentina’s outgoing government says it will not support the signing of a long-delayed trade deal between the European Union and the South American bloc Mercosur during a summit this week in Brazil even though the incoming Argentine government has expressed support for the deal.

apnews.com

Argentina’s outgoing government rejects EU-Mercosur trade deal, but incoming administration backs it​

FILE - European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, left, and Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez, exchange folders during a meeting at the government house in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, June 13, 2023. Argentina’s outgoing government said Monday, Dec. 4, that it won’t support the signing of a long-delayed trade deal between the European Union and the South American bloc Mercosur during a summit this week in Brazil even though the incoming Argentine government has expressed support for the deal. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko, File)
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Updated 5:46 PM EST, December 4, 2023

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina’s outgoing government said Monday it won’t support the signing of a long-delayed trade deal between the European Union and the South American bloc Mercosur during a summit this week in Brazil even thought the incoming Argentine government has expressed support for the deal.

Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero said the agreement as currently written would restrict Argentinian exports. “It is a bad agreement that has a negative impact on manufacturing and agricultural exports,” Cafiero said in an interview with a local radio station, excerpts of which were later released by the Argentine Foreign Ministry.

Argentina’s position goes against that of neighbor Brazil, which holds the presidency of Mercosur, and Spain, which holds the presidency of the EU. Both have expressed a desire to move forward with the trade treaty during the summit Thursday in Rio de Janeiro.

The Argentine opposition may be short-lived, though. The incoming administration of Argentina’s President-elect Javier Milei has already made clear it supports the agreement. Milei takes office Sunday.

“We have no objections; it is frankly desirable that it goes through,” incoming Foreign Minister Diana Mondino said at a conference for the Industrial Organization of Argentina, a manufacturing trade group. “Much better to have it than not to have it.”



Mondino said she realized there are objections to the agreement from certain sectors but expressed hope that Fernández would push to sign the agreement this week.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday in Berlin, expressed hope that there could still be a breakthrough on the deal this week. “I’m not giving up,” Lula said.

A basic agreement between the sides was reached in 2019 that was supposed to be the first step in sealing the agreement. But it was never implemented amid fierce resistance on both sides of the Atlantic, including demands for protection of the rainforest in South America and concern over an influx of cheap goods in some European countries.

Argentina has warned the country’s manufacturing sector would be negatively affected.


“Throughout our administration, we always proposed that the discussion on the agreement should be reopened because it did not reflect a balance where both blocs would benefit,” Cafiero said.

Argentina won’t be the only obstacle though. Paraguay, which is taking over the rotating presidency of the Mercosur this week, appears to be leaning against the deal. Paraguay President Santiago Peña told local media Monday that some European nations are placing overly strict environmental requirements on the deal.

“We are already looking in another direction,” Peña said. “Environmental issues are what dominate the commercial discussion, and we believe that stems from a lack of understanding about our model for development,” Peña said, adding that European nations are “trying to impose measures that we think are not suitable for our own development.”

 

[Plain Jane]

Peruvian constitutional court orders release of former President Alberto Fujimori

Peru’s constitutional court has ordered an immediate humanitarian release for imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori.

apnews.com

Peruvian constitutional court orders release of former President Alberto Fujimori​

Updated 6:28 PM EST, December 5, 2023
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LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru’s constitutional court ordered an immediate humanitarian release Tuesday for imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori, 85, who was serving a 25-year sentence in connection with the death squad slayings of 25 Peruvians in the 1990s.

The court ruled in favor of a 2017 pardon that had granted the former leader a release on humanitarian grounds but that later was annulled.

In a resolution seen by The Associated Press, the court told the state prisons agency to immediately release Fujimori “on the same day.”

Fujimori was sentenced in 2009 to 25 years in prison on charges of human rights abuses. He had been accused of being the mastermind behind the slayings of 25 Peruvians by a military death squad during his administration from 1990 to 2000, while the government fought the Shining Path communist rebels.

Fujimori’s 2017 pardon granted by then-President Pablo Kuczynski was annulled under pressure from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and its status was the subject of legal wrangling since then.

The constitutional court previously had ordered a lower court in the southern city of Ica to release Fujimori, but that court declined to do so, arguing in ruling last Friday that it lacked the authority. It returned the matter instead to the constitutional court.

 

[Plain Jane]

Hopes for a Mercosur-EU trade deal fade yet again as leaders meet in Brazil

The heads of state from South America’s Mercosur trade bloc are in Rio de Janeiro for a meeting that is expected to disappoint members hoping to finalize a deal with the European Union.

apnews.com

Hopes for a Mercosur-EU trade deal fade yet again as leaders meet in Brazil​

MAURICIO SAVARESE AND DANIEL POLITI
Updated 6:08 PM EST, December 7, 2023
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SAO PAULO (AP) — The heads of state from South America’s Mercosur trade bloc gathered Thursday in Rio de Janeiro for a meeting all but certain to once again disappoint members hoping to finalize a long-delayed trade deal with the European Union.

Negotiations with the EU were set to be the main topic, and host Brazil had aimed for a swift conclusion to finalize a deal. However, the outgoing government of Argentina, the bloc’s second-biggest economy, has already said it opposes the agreement, although President-elect Javier Milei, who will be sworn in on Sunday and is a libertarian populist, has expressed support.

A joint statement of Mercosur and the EU said that both sides “are engaged in constructive discussions with a view to finalizing the pending issues” towards an agreement. The wording suggested that a deal wasn’t imminent.


“Considerable progress has been made in the past months,” the document says. “Both parties hope to promptly achieve an agreement which corresponds to the strategic nature of the ties binding both parties and the crucial contribution they can offer to address the global challenges in areas such as sustainable development, reduction of inequality and multilateralism.”

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is an advocate of the agreement that has been in the works for two decades. His main partners so far have been Spain, which holds the presidency of the EU, and Germany.



Paraguay and Uruguay are also a part of the bloc and the membership of Bolivia, which has been in the process of joining, was formalized on Thursday afternoon.

“I have as my motto ‘never, ever give up,’ because nothing exists that is impossible to realize, even this attempt for an agreement with the EU that has lasted 23 years, but we have to keep trying,” Lula said in his opening statement to the other heads of state.

A Mercosur-EU trade agreement would mean the integration of a market of more than 700 million people, about a fourth of the world’s gross domestic product and about $100 billion in bilateral trade of goods and services a year. It would also cut customs duties and ease access for agricultural exporters to the EU market, and for European manufacturers to Mercosur countries.

“When I was a negotiator in 2010, we thought this would be finished in two years,” Welber Barral, who represented the Brazilian side at the time, told The Associated Press. The Rio meeting is yet another missed opportunity, he said. “This delay is very bad for everyone. If this deal fails, there could be a blame game that doesn’t help anyone.”

The two blocs reached a basic agreement in 2019 that was supposed to be the first step toward sealing full consensus. But it was never implemented amid fierce resistance on both sides of the Atlantic, including demands for environmental protection in South America and concern in some European countries, particularly France, over an influx of cheap goods.

Lula said he had spoken with most European presidents as well as many of their negotiators, and that he made a personal appeal to French President Emmanuel Macron to “stop being so protectionist.”

Hesitance from Argentina’s current government, which has warned that its manufacturing and agricultural exports would be negatively affected, also stalled the deal’s advance.

Milei has harshly criticized Mercosur in the past, repeatedly calling for its elimination before the Nov. 19 election, but he has refrained from any such harsh statements since. In fact, his incoming administration has signaled it wants the deal completed.

“We have no objections; it is frankly desirable that it goes through,” incoming Foreign Minister Diana Mondino said Nov. 30 at a conference for the Industrial Organization of Argentina, a manufacturing trade group. “Much better to have it than not to have it.”

Mondino said that she realized there are objections from certain sectors. A spokesperson for Milei’s transition team declined an AP request for comment about what modifications might be required to ensure his administration’s endorsement.

Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou has expressed support for the agreement in the past and recently expressed guarded optimism that progress could be made.

However, it’s unlikely an agreement will be finalized even next year, after Milei takes office, because of an upcoming European Parliament election in June, said Barral, the former Brazilian negotiator who now works at Brasilia-based BMJ, a government relations and international trade consultancy.

“Even if this deal were approved today, there would be a legal review, translation to all languages in the EU, approval by every congress, ratification and only then would the agreement be valid,” said Barral. “An optimistic view would be getting this finished within five years.”

Argentina isn’t the only South American roadblock, either. Paraguay, which takes over Mercosur’s rotating presidency from Brazil this week, appears to have given up on its prospects.

Paraguayan President Santiago Peña told local media Monday that some European nations are demanding overly strict environmental requirements.

Lula “has made a superhuman effort,” Peña said Monday in an interview with local television station GEN. “The problem is that, on the other side, there is no interest.”

He noted European negotiators aren’t willing to recognize compliance authorities in Mercosur countries and instead want to carry out their own evaluations. That, said Peña, would be a violation of sovereignty and, as such, a condition that sabotages potential progress.

“We are already looking in another direction,” Peña said, noting that Mercosur countries will sign a free trade agreement with Singapore this week, which Uruguay’s president celebrated as a sign that Mercosur isn’t “stagnant” despite its frustration with the EU.

The total volume of trade between Mercosur and Singapore reached $10 billion in 2022. The island is Brazil’s second biggest market for exports in Asia, behind China.

“The Mercosur-Singapore deal should make these solid economic ties even more dynamic,” the leaders of the South American trade bloc said in a statement.

Mercosur is also pursuing deals with Canada and South Korea, and analysts say it’s considering another with Indonesia.

Lula addressed Peña directly in his opening speech.

“When you assume the presidency, don’t ever give up, man. Don’t give up. Insist, fight, converse,” Lula said.

Mercosur’s struggle to reach consensus at a time some had expected long-overdue progress belies the fact it will never be an economic union on par with the EU, according to James Bosworth, founder of Hxagon, an Arlington, Virginia-based political risk analysis firm focused on emerging markets.

“Most of the debates are political rather than economic, and rarely have the countries within the group aligned on free trade policy,” Bosworth told the AP. “The EU has little reason to believe they can get a deal with the Mercosur countries that everyone can support.”

Lacalle Pou has criticized Mercosur in the past, saying it’s too closed off and warned that Uruguay could move forward with unilateral negotiations — although this would violate Mercosur rules. Brazil, too, has been exploring possibilities on its own.

“Free trade among the countries of the Southern Cone makes sense, but the rules that force the Mercosur countries to negotiate as a bloc are hampering every country in some way,” Bosworth added.

Mercosur leaders recognized in a joint-statement that the trade bloc “still faces difficulties for trade and integration, which should not be ignored.”

___​

Daniel Politi reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

 

[Plain Jane]

Brazil's Lula takes heat on oil plans at UN climate talks, a turnaround after hero status last year

At last year's climate talks, then Brazilian President-elect Inacio Lula da Silva was received as a hero with chants of “Lula! Lula! Lula!”

apnews.com

Brazil’s Lula takes heat on oil plans at UN climate talks, a turnaround after hero status last year​

BY PETER PRENGAMAN AND FABIANO MAISONNAVE
Updated 12:44 PM EST, December 9, 2023
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Fresh off election victory, a year ago Brazilian President-elect Inacio Lula da Silva was the star of the annual U.N. climate talks.

Lula promised to crack down on deforestation and turn Brazil into an environmental leader, a complete turnaround after President Jair Bolsonaro rolled back regulations and encouraged land-grabbing in the Amazon.

“Lula! Lula! Lula!” many onlookers screamed during Lula’s many events at COP27 in Egypt.

What a difference a year makes.

Just as Lula addressed world leaders at COP28 in Dubai, it was announced that Brazil would join OPEC+, a group of big oil-exporting countries, including Russia. At one event during the conference, Lula tried to explain the decision by saying that, once on the inside, the South American nation would push other oil-producing countries to transition to green energy—a curious explanation given that state-run oil company Petrobras is focused on further oil exploration. Lula later clarified that Brazil would be an OPEC observer, not a full member.



In his speech to world leaders, Lula implored delegates to go beyond “eloquent but empty words.” In a subsequent session with Environment Minister Marina Silva, Lula teared up when he talked about the need to protect forests.

Instead of chants of adulation, Brazil received a Fossil of the Day award from Climate Action Network International, a non-award given to countries whose actions support fossil fuels, the main cause of climate change.

Natalie Unterstell, president of Talanoa, a Brazilian think tank focused on climate, said Lula’s approach to the environment was focused on curbing deforestation, Brazil’s largest source of carbon emissions, which his administration has managed to slow by half since taking office in January. That approach served him well during his first terms, between 2003 and 2010, but that is no longer enough, she said.

"Lula can’t be a climate leader without a real energy transition policy,” she said. “It’s time for him to update his programming software.”

Lula has had a long and complicated relationship with oil. When huge reserves were discovered off Brazilian shores in 2006, Lula said: “This discovery ... proves that God is Brazilian.” Indeed, as the Brazil became a major oil-producer over the next decade, the money helped Lula, and then successor President Dilma Rousseff, fund major social programs that lifted tens of millions of people from poverty.

Today, Brazil is the world’s ninth largest producer, with 3% of global output, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Oil has become so important that it’s now Brazil’s second export product after soy, producing 3.67 million barrels a day. By far, China is the country’s largest buyer.

At a climate conference focused on reducing planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, which oil and gas products let off when burned, environmentalists have been quick to note the contradiction.

Meanwhile, Petrobras is doubling down on oil. On Dec. 13, a day after the climate conference is scheduled to end, the country is going to allow companies to bid on 33 areas with blocks for oil exploration, according to Brazil’s National Agency of Oil, Natural Gas and Biofuels, including some in the Amazon rainforest. It’s part of a push to offer more than 900 blocks in December.

In a written response to the AP, the National Agency of Oil, Natural Gas and Biofuels declined to comment on demands for energy transition, arguing that, as a regulatory agency, it “does not create public policies but rather implements the policies formulated by the government.”

The increased exploration, which eventually leads to more production, threatens to cancel out or even surpass gains from Brazil’s efforts to stop net deforestation by 2030, according to the Greenhouse Gas Emission Estimation System, an initiative by the Climate Observatory, a network of environmental nonprofit groups.

“The damage (of the exploration) goes against any positioning of Brazil as a climate leader,” said David Tsai, projects coordinator at the Institute for Energy and the Environment, which is part of Climate Observatory.

While Lula fumbled during the few days he spent at COP28, his Colombian counterpart, leftist Gustavo Petro, seemed to be taking the mantle of environmental leadership in Latin America. In contrast to Brazil’s alignment with OPEC, Petro joined an alliance of nations supporting a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. “This is not economic suicide,” he said in Dubai. “It’s about preventing humanity’s self-destruction.”

The leaders’ differing visions were on display in August during the Amazonian summit in Belem. Lula and other leaders vetoed Petro’s proposal to ban oil production in the world’s largest rainforest. Similar to the ongoing climate talks, oil was the most contentious topic during the meeting held in Belem. At the time, Lula faced protests by Indigenous groups and environmentalists against Petrobras’ plans to explore for oil near the mouth of the Amazon River.

Petrobras did not respond to AP’s written request for comment on its plans for the mouth of Amazon and on energy transition. Lula’s office also did not respond to a request for comment.

Environmentalists say they hope Lula can be convinced to change policies by 2025, when Brazil is expected to host COP30 in Belem. Whatever the next years bring, at the moment the administration is marching ahead.

“We will not be ashamed of Petrobras,” Brazil’s minister of mines and energy, Alexandre Silveira told daily newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo in an interview this week. “We will not be ashamed of also having the potential of fossil fuels in Brazil. They need to be explored because Brazil is a country in which social injustices and prevalent.”

___​

Maisonnave reported from Brasilia, Brazil.

 

[Plain Jane]

In inaugural speech, Argentina's Javier Milei prepares nation for painful shock adjustment

In his inaugural speech, Javier Milei said the country doesn’t have time to consider alternatives and sought to prepare the public for a shock adjustment with drastic spending cuts.

apnews.com

In inaugural speech, Argentina’s Javier Milei prepares nation for painful shock adjustment​

(Video at the link)


Economist Javier Milei assumes Argentina’s presidency on Sunday.
Photos
22
BY DAVID BILLER AND DÉBORA REY
Updated 5:38 PM EST, December 10, 2023
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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — It wasn’t the most uplifting of inaugural addresses. Rather, Argentina’s newly empowered President Javier Milei presented figures to lay bare the scope of the nation’s economic “emergency,” and sought to prepare the public for a shock adjustment with drastic public spending cuts.
Milei said in his address to thousands of supporters in the capital, Buenos Aires, that the country doesn’t have time to consider other alternatives.

“We don’t have margin for sterile discussions. Our country demands action, and immediate action,” he said. “The political class left the country at the brink of its biggest crisis in history. We don’t desire the hard decisions that will need to be made in coming weeks, but lamentably they didn’t leave us any option.”


South America’s second largest economy is suffering 143% annual inflation, the currency has plunged and four in 10 Argentines are impoverished. The nation has a yawning fiscal deficit, a trade deficit of $43 billion, plus a daunting $45 billion debt to the International Monetary Fund, with $10.6 billion due to the multilateral and private creditors by April.
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“There’s no money,” is Milei’s common refrain. He repeated it Sunday to explain why a gradualist approach to the situation, which would require financing, was not an option.


But he promised the adjustment would almost entirely affect the state rather than the private sector, and that it represented the first step toward regaining prosperity.

“We know that in the short term the situation will worsen, but soon we will see the fruits of our effort, having created the base for solid and sustainable growth,” he said.

Milei, a 53-yearold economist, rose to fame on television with profanity-laden tirades against what he called the political caste. He parlayed his popularity into a congressional seat and then, just as swiftly, into a presidential run. The overwhelming victory of the self-declared “anarcho-capitalist” in the August primaries sent shock waves through the political landscape and upended the race.

Argentines disillusioned with the economic status quo proved receptive to an outsider’s outlandish ideas to remedy their woes and transform the nation. He won the election’s Nov. 19 second round decisively — and sent packing the Peronist political force that dominated Argentina for decades. Still, he is likely to encounter fierce opposition from the Peronist movement’s lawmakers and the unions it controls, whose members have said they refuse to lose wages.

Earlier on Sunday, Milei was sworn in inside the National Congress building, and outgoing President Alberto Fernández placed the presidential sash upon him. Some of the assembled lawmakers chanted “Liberty!”

Afterward, he broke tradition by delivering his inaugural address not to assembled lawmakers but to his supporters gathered outside — with his back turned to the legislature. He blamed the outgoing government for putting Argentina on the path toward hyperinflation while the economy stagnated, saying the political class “has ruined our lives.”

“In the last 12 years, GDP per capita fell 15% in a context in which we accumulated 5,000% inflation. As such, for more than a decade we have lived in stagflation. This is the last rough patch before starting the reconstruction of Argentina,” he said. “It won’t be easy; 100 years of failure aren’t undone in a day. But it begins in a day, and today is that day.”


Given the general bleakness of Milei’s message, the crowd listened attentively and cheered only occasionally. Many waved Argentine flags and, to a lesser extent, the yellow Gadsden flag that is often associated with the U.S. libertarian right and which Milei and his supporters have adopted.

“Economically, we are just like every Argentine, trying to make it to the end of the month,” said Wenceslao Aguirre, one of Milei’s supporters. “It’s been a very complicated situation. We hope this will change once and for all.”

As Milei takes office, the nation wonders which version of him will govern: the chainsaw-wielding, anti-establishment crusader from the campaign trail, or the more moderate president-elect who emerged in recent weeks.

FILE - Supporters of presidential candidate Javier Milei gather outside his campaign headquarters after his opponent conceded defeat in the presidential runoff election, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Nov. 19, 2023. Milei will be inaugurated as the new president of Argentina on Sunday, Dec. 10. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
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As a candidate, Milei pledged to purge the political establishment of corruption, eliminate the Central Bank he has accused of printing money and fueling inflation, and replace the rapidly depreciating peso with the U.S. dollar.

But after winning, he tapped Luis Caputo, a former Central Bank president, to be his economy minister and one of Caputo’s allies to helm the bank, appearing to have put his much-touted plans for dollarization on hold.

Milei had cast himself as a willing warrior against the creep of global socialism, much like former U.S. President Donald Trump, whom he openly admires. But when Milei traveled to the U.S. last week, he didn’t visit Mar-a-Lago; rather, he took lunch with another former U.S. leader, Bill Clinton.

He also dispatched a diplomat with a long history of work in climate negotiations to the ongoing COP28 conference in Dubai, Argentine newspaper La Nacion reported, despite having insistently rejected humanity’s involvement in global warming. And he backtracked on plans to scrap the nation’s health ministry.

Argentina’s incoming President Javier Milei receives the presidential cane from outgoing President Alberto Fernandez at the Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, Dec. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
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And during his inaugural address, he directed some comments to the political class, saying that he has no intention to “persecute anyone or settle old vendettas,” and that any politician or union leader who wants to support his project will be “received with open arms.”

His moderation may stem from pragmatism, given the scope of the immense challenge before him, his political inexperience and need to sew up alliances with other parties to implement his agenda in Congress, where his party is a distant third in number of seats held.
He chose Patricia Bullrich, a longtime politician and first-round adversary from the coalition with the second most seats, to be his security minister, as well as her running mate, Luis Petri, as his defense minister.

Still, there are signs that Milei has not given up his radical plans to dismantle the state. Already he has said he will eliminate multiple ministries, including those of culture, environment, women, and science and technology. He wants to meld the ministries of social development, labor and education together under a single ministry of human capital.

Following his inaugural address, Milei traveled in a convertible to the presidential palace. Later on Sunday he is scheduled to swear in his ministers and meet with foreign dignitaries.

Prominent far-right figures will be among them: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán; the head of Spain’s Vox party, Santiago Abascal; former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Bolsonaro-allied lawmakers, including his son.

Milei reportedly sent a letter inviting Brazil’s current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, after calling the leftist “obviously” corrupt last month during a televised interview and asserting that, if he became president, the two would not meet.

Lula dispatched his foreign minister to attend Milei’s inauguration.
Also joining was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who made his first visit to Latin America as Kyiv continues to court support among developing nations for its 21-month-old fight against Russia’s invading forces. Zelenskyy and Milei shared a close exchange just before the inaugural address and held a bilateral meeting later in the day.

___​

Biller reported from Rio de Janeiro. AP writer Almudena Calatrava contributed from Buenos Aires.

 

[Plain Jane]

Drug lords go on killing spree to hunt down corrupt officers who stole shipment in Mexico's Tijuana

A recent killing spree in the Mexican border city of Tijuana could have been lifted from a TV script: enraged drug lords hunting down corrupt police officers who stole a drug shipment.

apnews.com

• Drug lords go on killing spree to hunt down corrupt officers who stole shipment in Mexico’s Tijuana

BY MARK STEVENSON
Updated 10:02 AM EST, December 10, 2023
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MEXICO CITY (AP) — A recent killing spree in the Mexican border city of Tijuana could have been lifted from a TV script: enraged drug lords hunting down corrupt police officers who stole a drug shipment.

Two of the officers suspected of the theft have been killed, prosecutors say. But so have at least three other officers, according to the city’s former police chief, suggesting the cartel believed to have owned the drugs may have launched a generalized retribution.

It is the latest blow for Tijuana which has the most homicides of any city in Mexico, with about double the number of the place that comes second — the border city of Ciudad Juarez. Tijuana, situated in the border state of Baja California and with a population of over 2.1 million, has for several years seen around 2,000 murders annually. By comparison, Houston, Texas, which has about the same population, saw 435 killings in 2022.


According to prosecutors, in mid-November, a half-dozen local and state police officers in Tijuana allegedly hatched a plot to steal a large shipment of drugs from a warehouse where traffickers were storing it.
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The U.S. government has thanked Mexico for arresting a hyper violent, alleged Sinaloa cartel security chief this week.

Video emerged last week of the officers’ pickup truck pulling out of the building with big, plastic-wrapped bales of cocaine filling the truck bed.


State Prosecutor Maria Elena Andrade confirmed this week that three state detectives were under investigation in the case, along with a similar number of Tijuana municipal police.

Alberto Capella, the former head of Tijuana’s police force from 2007 to 2008 and again from 2011 to 2013, told The Associated Press that the cache of drugs appeared to have belonged to the Sinaloa cartel, specifically the wing controlled by drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, probably the most powerful gang in town.

Apparently, the cartel knew almost immediately who had pulled off the heist.

On Nov. 18, just hours after the theft, gunmen sprayed the federal prosecutors’ office in Tijuana with at least 30 rounds, pockmarking the building’s façade. Within an hour, one of the municipal police officers allegedly involved in the heist was gunned down on a street in Tijuana.

FILE - A view of Tijuana, Mexico, May 12, 2023, which has the most homicides of any city in Mexico (AP Photo/Carlos A. Moreno, File)
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On Nov. 24, gunmen targeted the state prosecutors’ office with a barrage of gunfire; nobody was injured.

On Nov. 27, a state detective under investigation for the theft was gunned down in his car while filling it with gas at a station in Tijuana. It seemed the officer saw the attack coming, and was able to start his car and advance a few feet before hitting a column and collapsing dead at the wheel. The attackers fled on a motorcycle.

An employee of the state prosecutors’ office — who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk publicly about the case — confirmed this week that two of the officers under investigation in the scandal had been shot and killed in broad daylight on the city’s streets, in apparent gangland revenge.

The employee said the second officer declined an offer for a spot in the state witness protection program in return for testifying in the case.

Capella, the former police chief, said at least three other police officers have been killed since the heist, suggesting the cartel may have launched a generalized retribution for the theft.

Tijuana is no stranger to violence or corruption.

When he took over the police department, Capella recalls, he had to fire about a quarter of the force’s officers and he survived an assassination attempt. But police stealing a cartel’s whole drug shipment is a new low.

“This is very worrisome,” Capella said. “Tijuana has never seen anything of this scale and that’s saying a lot.”

The roots of Tijuana’s current round of violence date back to 2017, when murders practically doubled, rising from 919 in 2016 to 1,782 in 2017. Observers say turf battles between the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa cartels, and other groups — like remnants of the old Arellano Felix gang — are largely to blame.

And so pervasive is the violence in Tijuana that anyone, from singers to journalists, can fall victim to the killings. In January 2022, two journalists were shot to death in two separate attacks in one week.

On Nov. 20, the Tijuana city council voted to ban performances of drug ballads known as “narco corridos,” which glorify traffickers.
“If they come to sing other kinds of songs, they are welcome,” said Mayor Montserrat Caballero, threatening those who performed the ballads with fines of up to $57,000.

That followed the cancellation of a concert in October by well-known narco corrido singer Peso Pluma. His organization called off the performance “for everyone’s safety” after hand-lettered banners appeared in the city signed by the Jalisco cartel, which may have been angered by songs praising rivals.

FILE - Tijuana Mayor Montserrat Caballero speaks during an interview in her office in Tijuana, Mexico, Aug. 24, 2023. Caballero rose to fame in 2022, after gangs carjacked and burned at least 15 vehicles throughout the city, when she made a direct public appeal to cartels to stop targeting civilians. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)
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“Don’t even think about performing on Oct. 14 because that will be your last performance,” according to the banner. “You show up and we will destroy you.”

In June, Caballero, the mayor, announced she had decided to live at an army base for her own safety after receiving threats she didn’t specify, but which everyone assumed came from cartels.

Caballero rose to fame in 2022 when she made a direct public appeal to cartels to stop targeting civilians after gangs carjacked and burned at least 15 vehicles throughout the city.

In the broadcast at the time, she said: “Today we are saying to the organized crime groups that are committing these crimes that Tijuana is going to remain open and take care of its citizens.” She then asked “organized crime,” the term used in Mexico for drug cartels, to ”settle their debts with those who didn’t pay what they owe, not with families and hard-working citizens.”

But it is not just government officials or police who are running scared; Tijuana is a hub for everyone from businessmen and tourists to immigrants seeking to reach the United States. The city’s persistent violence problem threatens all.

 

[Plain Jane]

"There Is No More Money": Milei Announces 54% Devaluation Of Argentina Peso As "Shock Therapy" Plan Begins | ZeroHedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

"There Is No More Money": Milei Announces 54% Devaluation Of Argentina Peso As "Shock Therapy" Plan Begins​

BY TYLER DURDEN
TUESDAY, DEC 12, 2023 - 09:05 PM
How does a modern country climb out of an insurmountable debt hole, especially if it is already in debt to the IMF and a technical default is not an option (especially since said country has already defaulted nine times).Well, in the case of Argentina which check all of the above boxes, and it has already tried hyperinflation multiple times (like right now for example), the only other option is currency devaluation. Which is precisely what the country's new president, Javier Milei, announced as the first step of his shock therapy to rescue the insolvent south American nation.

As Bloomberg reports, the new administration weakened the official exchange rate to 800 pesos per dollar, a 54% devaluation, Economy Minister Luis Caputo said in a televised address after the close of local markets on Tuesday. That compares with a 366.5-per-dollar level before the address.


“There is no more money,” Caputo said repeatedly in the recorded video, adding that Argentina needs to solve its “addiction” to fiscal deficits. If only domestic, US addicts to fiscal deficits were watching.

Other measures announced including halving the number of ministries, cutting transfers to provinces and suspending public works. The government will also reduce subsidies on transport and energy sectors, among others. At the same time, Argentina will boost certain social welfare programs, which in a few years time will surely grow to become the biggest fiscal addiction in the country under whoever is president then.

The dramatic first steps follow a somber inauguration speech on Sunday, when Milei warned that Argentines will have to endure months of pain while he works to pull the country from the economic crisis inherited from his predecessor. The devaluation is a necessary step since hyperinflation alone won't fix the country's debt problem: inflation is already running at more than 140% annually, and prices are expected to jump between 20% and 40% in the months to come, the president said.

The government had closed Argentina’s export registry Monday, a technical step that often foreshadows a currency devaluation or major policy change. The central bank also announced Monday the official currency market would operate with limited transactions — a restriction it said it will lift on Wednesday.

To be sure, nobody was surprised by the announcement, as a devaluation was long seen as inevitable. In the run-up to Milei’s inauguration, markets were signaling a currency drop of about 27% in the first week of the new government, while investment banks like JPMorgan and local private advisory firms suggested it could weaken about 44% . Grocers had already increased prices and banks were offering sharply weaker retail exchange rates hours before the Tuesday announcement. The question now is how many more times the currency will be devalued, and if Venezuela is any indication of what to expect, the answer is "lots."

Argentina's previously administrations had for years slowed the peso’s decline in the official market through currency controls and import restrictions in an attempt to protect dwindling reserves.

That hodgepodge of capital controls has spurred at least a dozen exchange rates, hampering business and restricting investment in South America’s second-largest economy. On the campaign trail, Milei pledged to scrap the currency altogether, replacing it with the US dollar, however it now appears that that will be one of the many campaign promises he renegs on.

On Dec. 7, the prior administration had let the peso slip by about 5%, while simultaneously limiting the amount of greenbacks banks could hold in order to prevent them from hoarding dollars. The government had been burning reserves to keep the currency largely steady at 350 per dollar since the August primary vote, when Milei’s surprise showing sent markets into a tailspin. In parallel markets, that rate is about 1,000.

Since being spooked by his emergence in the August primary, investors have changed tack on the firebrand libertarian, cheering on his first steps as president-elect — namely, his decision to pick Wall Street veterans for some of the main cabinet positions while distancing himself from more radical proposals including dollarizing the economy and shuttering the central bank. In many ways, so far Milei is signaling that life under the libertarian will be "more of the same" only this time it will be even more painful (but at least the people have been warned). In any case, as he begins his four-year term, the rally will be put to the test.

And speaking of regime continuity, economy minister Caputo previously served as finance chief in the administration of Mauricio Macri, when he negotiated a $16.5 billion deal with holdout bondholders, allowing Argentina to return to international capital markets (if only for a very brief period of time). During the currency run in 2018, Macri tapped him to take over at the central bank, but he only served for a few months before unexpectedly stepping down amid tensions with the International Monetary Fund.

Finally, for those who are wondering who is really calling the shots in Argentina, Caputo has tapped longtime colleague Santiago Bausili, a Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan veteran, to run Argentina’s central bank.

Like we said, more of the same.

 

[Melodi]

Much as the author of the OP may not like it (and may even be correct about the addiction potential) if they don't increase welfare support, then there will be a return to children starving to death and GRANDMOTHERS turning to prostitution to feed the grandkids. Those women were mainly formally middle class. They did not grow up with such a model.

Even if this guy is a Globalist and Banker Shill, he knows what will happen if things become that dire again. The outcome of people used to having three meals a day, forced into dire, life-threatening poverty that goes on too long, is The French Revolution.

With occasional exceptions, historically, most revolutions that end in a bloodbath of the elite are started and motivated by people who were living better. People who have been poor peasants for hundreds of years tend to kind of accept it as the way the world is. People had enough to eat and sometimes money for recreation (in 18th-century Paris, that would have been bread every day, meat once a week, and some money for small luxuries like coffee and tobacco). Then, in a matter of months, they found themselves with no food at all and no money either. The ultimate result was Madame Guillotine.

Even the nastiest Global Elites and Banksters know this deep down. So they try to appease the masses by taking measures that barely keep them alive, but for which those Elites hope they will be grateful. They don't realize that forcing people to beg, "Please, Sir, May I have some more?" won't work forever.

 

[Plain Jane]

Brazil’s Congress overrides president's veto to reinstate legislation threatening Indigenous rights

Brazil’s Congress has overturned a veto by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva so it can reinstate legislation that undoes protections of Indigenous peoples’ land rights.

apnews.com

Brazil’s Congress overrides president’s veto to reinstate legislation threatening Indigenous rights​

Indigenous leader Cacique Raoni and incoming President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva stand side by side at the Planalto Palace after Lula’s swearing-in ceremony, in Brasilia, Brazil, Jan. 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
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BY MAURICIO SAVARESE
Updated 6:14 PM EST, December 14, 2023

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s Congress on Thursday overturned a veto by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva so it can reinstate legislation that undoes protections of Indigenous peoples’ land rights. The decision sets up a new battle between lawmakers and the country’s top court on the matter.

Both federal deputies and senators voted by a wide margin to support a bill that argues the date Brazil’s Constitution was promulgated — Oct. 5, 1988 — is the deadline by which Indigenous peoples had to be physically occupying or fighting legally to reoccupy territory in order to claim land allotments.

In September, Brazil’s Supreme Court decided on a 9-2 vote that such a theory was unconstitutional. Brazilian lawmakers reacted by using a fast-track process to pass a bill that addressed that part of the original legislation, and it will be valid until the court examines the issue again.

The override of Lula’s veto was a victory for congressional supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro — who joined several members of Lula’s coalition in voting to reverse the president’s action -- and his allies in agribusiness.

Supporters of the bill argued it was needed to provide legal security to landowners and accused Indigenous leaders of pushing for an unlimited expansion of their territories.

Indigenous rights groups say the concept of the deadline is unfair because it does not account for expulsions and forced displacements of Indigenous populations, particularly during Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship.

Rights group Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, known by the Portuguese acronym Apib, said in its social medial channels that it would take the case back to Brazil’s Supreme Court. Leftist lawmakers said the same.

“The defeated are those who are not fighting. Congress approved the deadline bill and other crimes against Indigenous peoples,” Apib said. “We will continue to challenge this.”

Shortly after the vote in Congress, about 300 people protested in front of the Supreme Court building.

 

[Plain Jane]

Chileans to vote on conservative constitution draft a year after rejecting leftist charter

The vote comes over a year after Chileans resoundingly rejected a proposed constitution written by a left-leaning convention.

apnews.com

Chileans to vote on conservative constitution draft a year after rejecting leftist charter​

MARÍA VERZA AND PATRICIA LUNA
Updated 12:05 AM EST, December 17, 2023
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SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Chileans are voting Sunday on whether to approve a new constitution that will replace the country’s dictatorship-era charter.

The vote comes over a year after Chileans resoundingly rejected a proposed constitution written by a left-leaning convention and one that many characterized as one of the world’s most progressive charters.

The new document, largely written by conservative councilors, is more conservative than the one it seeks to replace because it would deepen free-market principles, reduce state intervention and might limit some women’s rights.

If the new charter is rejected, the Pinochet-era constitution — which was amended over the years —- will remain in effect.

One of the most controversial articles in the proposed new draft says that “the law protects the life of the unborn,” with a slight change in wording from the current document that some have warned could make abortion fully illegal in the South American country. Chilean law currently allows the interruption of pregnancies for three reasons: rape, an unviable fetus and risk to the life of the mother.



Another article in the proposed document that has sparked controversy says prisoners who suffer a terminal illness and aren’t deemed to be a danger to society at large can be granted house arrest. Members of the left-wing opposition have said the measure could end up benefiting those who have been convicted of crimes against humanity during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

The new proposed document, which says Chile is a social and democratic state that “promotes the progressive development of social rights” through state and private institutions, is also being opposed by many local leaders who say it scraps tax on houses that are primary residences, a vital source of state revenue that is paid by the wealthiest.

It also would establish new law enforcement institutions and says non-documented immigrants should be expelled “as soon as possible.”

The process to write a new constitution began after 2019 street protests, when thousands of people complained about inequality in one of Latin America’s most politically stable and economically strongest countries.

But in 2022, 62% of voters rejected the proposed constitution that would have characterized Chile as a plurinational state, established autonomous Indigenous territories and prioritized the environment and gender parity.

One of the most recent polls, by the local firm Cadem in late November, indicated 46% of those surveyed said they would vote against the new constitution, while 38% were in favor. The difference was much closer than three months ago when the “no” vote was 20 points ahead of the “yes” side.

In Santiago, the capital, talk before the vote often turned to security rather than the proposed charter. State statistics show an uptick in robberies and other violent crimes, a development that tends to benefit conservative forces.

There appeared to be little enthusiasm for Sunday’s vote. Most citizens are exhausted after 10 elections of various types in less than two and a half years but voting is compulsory in Chile.

Malen Riveros, 19, a law student at the University of Chile, said the fervor that was ignited by the 2019 street protests has been lost and for her, the choice on Sunday was between the bad or the worse.

“The hopes were lost with the passing of time,” Riveros said. “People have already forgotten why we went into the streets.”

 

[Plain Jane]

Chileans eschew extremes in quest for new constitution and end up with the old one

Chileans closed an exhausting constitutional cycle by separating themselves from the extremes. They have voted to stick with the same constitution, a holdover from the dictatorship, that they had wanted to rewrite four years ago.

apnews.com

Chileans eschew extremes in quest for new constitution and end up with the old one​

1 of 4 |
A person exits the voting booth with a ballot on the draft of a new constitution in Santiago, Chile, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2023. For the second time in as many years, Chileans vote in a referendum on whether to replace the current constitution which dates back to the military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. (AP Photo/Matias Basualdo)
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BY MARÍA VERZA AND PATRICIA LUNA
Updated 5:08 PM EST, December 18, 2023
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SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Despite a boom in conservative populism in various parts of the world, Chileans closed an exhausting constitutional cycle by separating themselves from the extremes.

They voted Sunday to stick with the same constitution, a holdover from the dictatorship, that they had wanted to rewrite four years ago. The decision sent a clear message to the country’s politicians: get to work on the country’s most pressing collective needs within the existing legal framework.

Voters rejected a more conservative proposed constitution drafted by the right with 55.7% of the votes.

Barely a year earlier, 62% of Chilean voters had resoundingly rejected a proposed constitution from the other end of the ideological spectrum. Drafted by leftist sectors and supported by President Gabriel Boric, it was considered one of the most progressive constitutional initiatives in the world.

No one took to the streets to celebrate Sunday’s result. Chile will continue to be ruled by a constitution born of the military regime of dictator Augusto Pinochet, which has been reformed on some 70 occasions.


Analysts saw lost opportunities in which Chileans opted twice for drafting political agendas more so than a durable legal framework with room for diverse democratic options.

Marcelo Mella, a political science professor at the University of Santiago, said there were attempts to leave their own ideological mark and in the end everyone paid the price.

The first proposal “went too far, too fast on issues like plurinationality or unlimited right to abortion,” said Javier Couso, a Chilean constitutional scholar and professor at the University of Utrecht in Holland.

The second, on the other hand, went to the other extreme and opened the door to limiting abortion and intensifying free market policies, reducing the role of the state and its social policies. That would have been the opposite of what thousands of demonstrators demanded in 2019, launching the extended exercise to come up with a new constitution.

Couso said one lesson was that politicians tried to exacerbate a polarization that didn’t really exist among the people, who voted for moderation.

So Chile keeps a constitution from the dictatorship that is “legally valid, but repudiated by the citizenry,” Couso said, adding that the country could try again some day —if there is the necessary political maturity and leadership.

But that does not appear near at this moment.

As soon as the results were known, Boric said he would take up again his proposals on pension reform and laws to redistribute wealth, which have been stalled in Congress. On Monday, his administration was already talking about the need to arrive at broad accords, which will be difficult in a divided legislature.

The president spoke Monday about the need to take up issues related to safety and visited one of the capital’s poorest neighborhoods to speak with residents.

Chileans, however, aren’t interested in more words. They want results.

“I don’t know what’s going on, there’s no action, no greater punishments, we see guys in jail and then the next day they’re out again,” said Johanna Anríquez, a 38-year-old public servant who voted with Boric against the new constitution, but remains critical of his administration.

Boric’s administration this year steered an additional $1.5 billion to security and plans to raise the budget another 5.7% in 2024. But it hasn’t been able to reach agreements with opposition lawmakers on security-related reforms.

He has also taken executive action to send more police to poor neighborhoods, but Chileans continue to feel less safe. Crime rates have risen dramatically, even though they remain well below other Latin American countries.

Sociologist and psychologist Kathya Araujo, who wrote various books about the 2019 popular demonstrations in Chile, says it’s uncertain that Chileans will be able to stage protests similar to those, at least in the short term.

“They thought they had to change, that they were going to change society, that (writing a new constitution) was the place for the revolution,” she said. And because of that, after losing they began to break apart.

Many woke up Monday thinking the social struggle of the past several years had amounted to nothing.

“We’re the same, there’s nothing more to do,” Santiago resident Gustavo Fernández said Monday. “With everything that was done … for nothing.”

 

[Plain Jane]

"He's Starting A Revolution": Does Milei’s Win Signal A Global Anti-Communist Turning Point? | ZeroHedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

"He's Starting A Revolution": Does Milei’s Win Signal A Global Anti-Communist Turning Point?​

BY TYLER DURDEN
TUESDAY, DEC 19, 2023 - 11:25 PM
Authored by Marcos Schotgues via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Javier Milei's landmark election as president of Argentina might prove a turning point in the dominance of leftist governments in Latin America. Some are hoping it goes beyond.
(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images, Freepik, Shutterstock)

"He's starting a revolution that begins here, is going to go through America, all the way to the north and then on to Europe," Lilia Lemoine, a newly elected congresswoman in Argentina and long-time Milei ally, told The Epoch Times at President Milei's inauguration on Dec. 10.

President Milei, a libertarian and self-described "anarcho-capitalist," has bucked the left-wing grip that, by the beginning of 2023, has held all nations in the Americas except Uruguay, Paraguay, El Salvador, and Ecuador.

"Just like the fall of the Berlin Wall marks the end of a tragic era for this world, this election marks the turning point of our history," President Milei said in his inaugural address.

Brazilian lawmaker Cristiano Caporezzo called Milei's election "absolutely historic."

"It marks a very strategic moment for Latin America, a right-wing 'reconquering' of the continent," Mr. Caporezzo told The Epoch Times.

"Milei's arrival in Argentina will give the Chilean elections some strength. More countries in Latin-America will start walking towards conservatism."

Colombian Senator María Fernanda Cabal also attended President Milei's inauguration in Buenos Aires on Dec. 10.


"He today gave us hope, in Latin America, also in the U.S. and worldwide," she told The Epoch Times.

"What we see is that Javier Milei has opened the door and all these governments that have been ruling, societies that have been suffering with all these activists that go against the nature of human beings … currently, everything is going to turn right," Ms. Cabal said.

"We hope that Trump wins. We hope that Jose Antonio Kast in Chile wins, and we hope that we can save Colombia too."

Ernesto Araújo, former minister of foreign relations of Brazil, now a strategic aid for international affairs at Spain-based think tank Fundación Disenso told The Epoch Times he sees a global shift towards conservatism.

Argentina's newly sworn-in President Javier Milei addresses supporters from the balcony of the government house in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Dec. 10, 2023. (Matilde Campodonico/AP Photo)
"This can be a true 'reconquest' of freedom worldwide, which might be starting here in Argentina. I like to think big, and I think this might indeed be the case," Mr. Araújo said.

"If [the Milei administration's proposals] work out, people might realize that the ideas of freedom work. That they work in a big country."

In his first week in office, President Milei slashed nine government ministries, took steps towards strengthening trade partnerships, and prepared to crack down on protests that may arise from upcoming drastic economic measures.

He has promised to reduce government spending, eliminate Argentina’s Central Bank, and potentially adopt the U.S. dollar as an official currency. During his campaign, he pledged to replace the public education system with a voucher-based alternative, and move the public health care model to an insurance-based system.

"This new social contract [people voted for] offers us a different country, a country in which the State does not direct our lives, but rather safeguards our rights, a country in which people are held accountable for their actions," President Milei said during his inaugural speech.

Hermann Tertsch, a Spanish member of the European Parliament, celebrated President Milei's victory at the latter's inauguration in Buenos Aires on Dec. 10.

"I believe this victory—of the truth—in Argentina is a historical victory, and a victory of enormous repercussions," said Mr. Tertsch told The Epoch Times.

"It's so important, and it has implications for all of the Americas, and for all of the West, an extremely important turnaround."

The recent win in The Netherlands by conservative Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom, has buoyed conservatives in the region. Mr. Wilders won the election, but must form a majority coalition with other political parties in order to become Prime Minister.

Dutch politician Geert Wilders delivers a speech at a meeting of European nationalists in Koblenz, Germany, on Jan. 21, 2017. (Michael Probst/AP Photo, File)
"We can, for the first time in the history of the European Parliament, make right wing politics," Mr. Terstch said.

"We can stop the monstrosities of the 2030 Agenda, of the green pact, of all their permanent meddling into the livelihood [of people], the liquidation of subsistence that the current European Commission is pushing. This can change. We can change the Commission. And then we'll see a difference in Europe."

The 2030 Agenda is the United Nations plan to achieve 17 "sustainable development goals" by the year 2030. The goals include "gender equality," "responsible consumption and production," and climate action.

"The green pact" referred to by Mr. Tertsch is the "European Green Deal," a framework in which European Union countries have committed to achieving "climate neutrality" by 2050.

"We have yielded so much in 50 years, 60 years, that we can yield no more. Now we can only reconquer. And we are in a full reconquest campaign," Mr. Terstch said.

But conservative and libertarian politics are up against some determined and well-coordinated forces.

"[This] is not just about the economy, this is not just about Argentina's runaway inflation, it's not about the fact there's no growth," Mr. Araújo said.

"It is also about the matter of narco-trafficking, of organized crime. It is the problem of Latin-American organized crime being connected with worldwide organized crime. It is the problem of the China-Russia-Iran totalitarian bloc."

Socialist administrations across Latin America, particularly the Venezuelan regime, have facilitated or engaged in international drug trafficking and coordinated with Iran, China, and Russia against United States interests and regional security for years.

In 2020 the U.S. Department of Justice charged Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and 14 other current and former officials in a "narco-terrorism" conspiracy to "flood" the United States with narcotics.

In February 2023, Irani military ships sanctioned for terrorism docked in Brazil and in June a defense deal between Iran and Bolivia bound the two nations closer together.

Latin American socialist regimes have enabled Iran-backed terrorist groups to operate broadly in South America for years.

The Chinese communist regime has been spreading its influence widely in Latin America for years with trade deals, an expanding military presence, and ties to radical leftists groups in the region.

The São Paulo Forum is the hub for leftist groups and political administrations.

Attendees shout slogans during the opening of the Sao Paulo Forum, next to a banner with portraits of Latin American leftist presidents, in San Salvador, El Salvador, on Jan. 12, 2007. (Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images)
Created in 1990 by Brazil's President Lula da Silva and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, it united narco-terrorist communist guerrilla groups such as Colombia's FARC and political parties often in power, including Mexico's MORENA and Brazil's Workers Party.

The group's stated goal is to move the region further left.

The São Paulo Forum inherited a framework of cooperation among left-wing parties that have been coalescing for more than a century with organizations such as the Third Communist International.

The Heritage Foundation's Mike Gonzales has called the São Paulo Forum "the world’s largest and most impactful Marxist international organization."

The group's leaders often flaunt anti-American rhetoric and either are authoritarian or condone authoritarianism.

The Chinese Communist Party has cooperated increasingly with São Paulo Forum parties, some of which are now in power.

In March 2022, ahead of elections in Brazil and in Colombia, the Chinese Communist Party and the São Paulo Forum held a series of conversations. During a talk, CCP official Sun Yanfeng, affiliated to the China Institute of Contemporary International relations and to the China's Ministry of State Security, said he rooted for leftist victories in both countries.

 

[Plain Jane]

Two Former Green Berets Among Americans Freed In Rare Venezuela Deal | ZeroHedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

Two Former Green Berets Among Americans Freed In Rare Venezuela Deal​

BY TYLER DURDEN
WEDNESDAY, DEC 20, 2023 - 02:30 PM
Major deal-making between Washington and the government of President Nicolas Maduro, long under US sanctions, has clearly been progressing. It follows on the heels of intensified Biden admin efforts to free up Venezuela oil as an alternative energy source amid the Russia-Ukraine war, having recently lifted oil-focused sanctions on a temporary basis months ago.

The Biden administration has just conducted what amounts to a rare prisoner swap with Venezuela. The US agreed to release a "close ally" of President Maduro in exchange for jailed Americans, the Associated Press reports Wednesday.
The pair of former Green Berets was captured in May 2020 along with six Venezuelan nationals in a boat carrying weapons off the coast.

That high profile Maduro ally is Alex Saab, who has been in US detention since his arrest in 2020 for money laundering. He was freed on Wednesday. There are reports that in exchange, some ten or more Americans who've been held in Venezuelan prisons have been released and are expected to return home to US soil.

Venezuela has long claimed that Saab should have diplomatic immunity. US prosecutors have alleged he stole $350 million by skimming from Venezuelan government contracts. He was caught by an Interpol notice and flown to the United States:

The Colombian-born businessman was on his way to Iran when he was detained on an Interpol "red notice" while his plane refuelled in Cape Verde in 2020.
The Venezuelan government described him as an "envoy" and argued that he had been travelling to Iran to buy medical supplies during the Covid-19 pandemic.
But Cape Verde ruled that he did not have diplomatic status and extradited him to the US, where he was charged with money laundering and bribery.

Among the group of Americans freed are two Green Berets who took part in a tactical beach landing as part of a bizarre failed attempt to work with locals to topple the Maduro government in 2020.

Former Green Berets Luke Denman and Airan Berry had at that time of their arrest been paraded for weeks in front of state TV cameras, with Maduro blaming the Trump administration for running covert ops to destabilizing his government. They were later sentenced to 20 years in prison each for their role in the failed assault.

Maduro and Alex Saab, right.
A shady Florida-based private security firm had been part of that fiasco, which proved a deep embarrassment to the US side:

On May 4th, 2020, Denman and Berry landed with a group of former soldiers and mercenaries in the fishing village of Chuao. The operation failed, with eight dead and dozens captured. Former Green Beret Jordan Goudreau, owner of private security firm Silvercorp USA, said he organized the attack under promise of payment from the “interim government”.

At that time, Juan Guaido was head of Venezuela's political opposition and was strangely declared 'Interim President' by the US and some other countries, but without any recognition inside Venezuela or much of the rest of the globe (outside close US allies).

This prisoner release deal appears part of the quiet long-running conversations which saw the Biden administration greatly loosen sanctions on Caracas starting Oct. 18 of this year.

 

[Plain Jane]

More on this prisoner swap...

US, Venezuela swap prisoners: Maduro ally for 10 Americans, plus fugitive contractor 'Fat Leonard'

The Biden administration has released close ally of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in swap for jailed Americans.

apnews.com

US, Venezuela swap prisoners: Maduro ally for 10 Americans, plus fugitive contractor ‘Fat Leonard’​

BY JOSHUA GOODMAN, ERIC TUCKER AND REGINA GARCIA CANO
Updated 4:47 AM EST, December 21, 2023
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MIAMI (AP) — The United States freed a close ally of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in exchange for the release of 10 Americans imprisoned in the South American country and the return of a fugitive defense contractor known as “Fat Leonard” who is at the center of a massive Pentagon bribery scandal, the Biden administration announced Wednesday.

The American detainees were back on U.S. soil late Wednesday, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said. Six of them arrived at Kelly Airfield Annex in San Antonio.

Savoi Wright, a Californian who had been arrested in Venezuela in October, said, “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, free at last” after disembarking the plane.

The deal represents the Biden administration’s boldest move yet to improve relations with the major oil-producing nation and extract concessions from the self-proclaimed socialist leader. The largest release of American prisoners in Venezuela’s history comes weeks after the White House agreed to suspend some sanctions, following a commitment by Maduro to work toward free and fair conditions for the 2024 presidential election.

Maduro celebrated the return of Alex Saab as a “triumph for truth” over what he called a U.S.-led campaign of lies, threats and torture against someone he considers a Venezuelan diplomat illegally arrested on a U.S. warrant.



“President Biden, we won’t be anyone’s colony,” a defiant Maduro said with Saab at his side for a hero’s welcome at the presidential palace.

The release of Saab, long regarded by Washington as a bagman for Maduro, is a significant concession to the Venezuelan leader. Former President Donald Trump’s administration held out Saab as a trophy, spending millions of dollars pursuing the Colombian-born businessman, at one point even deploying a Navy warship to the coast of West Africa following his arrest in Cape Verde to ward off a possible escape.

U.S. officials said Biden’s decision to grant him clemency was difficult but essential in order to bring home jailed Americans, a core administrative objective that in recent years has resulted in the release of criminals once seen as untradeable.

“These individuals have lost far too much precious time with their loved ones, and their families have suffered every day in their absence. I am grateful that their ordeal is finally over,” President Joe Biden said in a statement.

The agreement also resulted in the return to U.S. custody of Leonard Glenn Francis, the Malaysian owner of a ship-servicing company who is the central character in one of the largest bribery scandals in Pentagon history.

But the exchange angered many in the Venezuelan opposition who have criticized the White House for standing by as Maduro has repeatedly outmaneuvered Washington after the Trump administration’s campaign to topple him failed.

Eyvin Hernandez, a Los Angeles County public defender arrested almost two years ago along the Colombia-Venezuela border, was one of the U.S. detainees. After arriving in Texas Wednesday night, he thanked Biden “because I know he made a difficult decision that will have a lot of pressure on him on Capitol Hill. But he got us home and we’re with our families. And so we’re incredibly grateful, all of us.”

Hernandez added, “Honestly, all you think about when you’re in prison is how you didn’t appreciate being free while you were free.”

Wright told reporters: “I didn’t know if I would ever make it out. And it’s really scary to be in a place where you’re used to having freedoms and you’re locked into a cell. ... It’s a very challenging situation.”

In October, the White House eased sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry following promises by Maduro that he would level the playing field for the 2024 election, when he’s looking to add six years to his decade-long, crisis-ridden rule. A Nov. 30 deadline has passed and so far Maduro has failed to reverse a ban blocking his chief opponent, María Corina Machado, from running for office.

Biden told reporters earlier in the day that, so far, Maduro appeared to be “keeping his commitment on a free election.” Republicans, echoing the sentiment of many in the U.S.-backed opposition, said Saab’s release would only embolden Maduro to continue down an authoritarian path.

“Disgraceful decision,” Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

The White House went to lengths to assure it won’t hesitate to snap back sanctions if Venezuela’s government fails to fulfill electoral commitments hammered out during negotiations with the opposition. A $15 million reward seeking Maduro’s arrest to face drug trafficking charges in New York also remains in effect, it said.

The agreement also requires Maduro’s government to release 20 political prisoners, in addition to a close ally of Machado, along with the suspension of arrest warrants of three other Venezuelans.

The U.S. has conducted several swaps with Venezuela over the past few years, including one in October 2022 for seven Americans, including five oil executives at Houston-based Citgo, in exchange for the release of two nephews of Maduro’s wife jailed in the U.S. on narcotics charges. Like that earlier exchange, Wednesday’s swap took place on an airstrip in the Caribbean island nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Saab, who turns 52 on Thursday, hugged his wife and two young children as he descended the staircase of a private jet at the Simon Bolivar International Airport.

It was a stark reversal from the scene on another tarmac, in Cape Verde, where he was arrested in 2020 during a fuel stop en route to Iran to negotiate oil deals on behalf of Maduro’s government. The U.S. charges were conspiracy to commit money laundering tied to a bribery scheme that allegedly siphoned off $350 million through state contracts to build affordable housing. Saab was also sanctioned for allegedly running a scheme that stole hundreds of millions in dollars from food-import contracts at a time of widespread hunger mainly due to shortages in the South American country.

After his arrest, Maduro’s government said Saab was a special envoy on a humanitarian mission and was entitled to diplomatic immunity from criminal prosecution under international law.

“Life is a miracle,” Saab said, standing alongside Maduro at the neoclassical presidential palace in Caracas. “I’m proud to serve the Venezuelan people and this government, a loyal government, which, like me, never gives up. We will always triumph.”

Absent from Maduro’s chest-thumping was any mention of Saab’s secret meetings with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. In a closed-door court hearing last year, Saab’s lawyers said that he was for years helping that agency untangle corruption in Maduro’s inner circle and had agreed to forfeit millions of dollars in illegal proceeds from corrupt state contracts.

But the value of the information he shared with the Americans is unknown; some have suggested it may have all been a Maduro-authorized ruse to collect intelligence on the U.S. law enforcement activities in Venezuela. Whatever the case, Saab skipped out on a May 2019 surrender date and shortly afterward was charged by federal prosecutors in Miami.


The deal is the latest concession by the Biden administration in the name of bringing home Americans jailed overseas, including a high-profile prisoner exchange last December when the U.S. government — over the objections of some Republicans in Congress and criticism from some law enforcement officials — traded Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout for WNBA star Brittney Griner.

The swaps have raised concerns that the U.S. is incentivizing hostage-taking abroad and producing a false equivalence between Americans who are wrongfully detained abroad and foreigners who have been properly prosecuted and convicted in U.S courts.

“What happened to the separation of powers?” said Juan Cruz, who oversaw the White House’s relations with Latin America while working at the National Security Council from 2017-19. “Normally you would have to wait a defendant to be found guilty in order to be able to pardon him for a swap. This is an especially bad precedent with a Trump 2.0 potentially around the corner. It invites winking and nodding from the executive.”

But Biden administration officials say securing the freedom of wrongfully detained Americans and hostages abroad requires difficult dealmaking.

Making this deal more palatable to the White House was Venezuela’s willingness to return Francis.

Nicknamed “Fat Leonard” for his bulging 6-foot-3 frame, Francis was arrested in a San Diego hotel nearly a decade ago as part of a federal sting operation. Investigators say he bilked the U.S. military out of more than $35 million by buying off dozens of top-ranking Navy officers with booze, sex, lavish parties and other gifts.

Three weeks before he faced sentencing in September 2022, Francis made an escape as stunning and brazen as the case itself as he snipped off his ankle monitor and disappeared. He was arrested by Venezuelan police attempting to board a flight from Caracas and has been in custody since.

 

[Plain Jane]

Thousands join migrant caravan in Mexico ahead of Secretary of State Blinken's visit to the capital

A sprawling caravan of migrants from Central America, Venezuela, Cuba and other countries is trekking through Mexico.

apnews.com

Thousands join migrant caravan in Mexico ahead of Secretary of State Blinken’s visit to the capital​

EDGAR H. CLEMENTE
Updated 2:16 PM EST, December 24, 2023
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UPDATE: Migrant caravan in southern Mexico marks Christmas Day by trudging onward
TAPACHULA, Mexico (AP) — A sprawling caravan of migrants from Central America, Venezuela, Cuba and other countries trekked through Mexico on Sunday, heading toward the U.S. border. The procession came just days before Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in Mexico City to hammer out new agreements to control the surge of migrants seeking entry into the United States.

The caravan, estimated at around 6,000 people, many of them families with young children, is the largest in more than a year, a clear indication that joint efforts by the Biden administration and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government to deter migration are falling short.

The Christmas Eve caravan departed from the city of Tapachula, near the country’s southern border with Guatemala. Security forces looked on in what appeared to be a repeat of past tactics when authorities waited for the marchers to tire out and then offered them a form of temporary legal status that is used by many to continue their journey northward.

“We’ve been waiting here for three or four months without an answer,” said Cristian Rivera, traveling alone, having left his wife and child in his native Honduras. “Hopefully with this march there will be a change and we can get the permission we need to head north.”



López Obrador in May agreed to take in migrants from countries such as Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba turned away by the U.S. for not following rules that provided new legal pathways to asylum and other forms of migration.

But that deal, aimed at curbing a post-pandemic jump in migration, appears to be insufficient as the number of migrants once again surges, disrupting bilateral trade and stoking anti-migrant sentiment among conservative voters in the U.S.

This month, as many as 10,000 migrants were arrested per day at the U.S. southwest border. Meanwhile, U.S. Customs and Border Protection had to suspend cross-border rail traffic in the Texas cities of Eagle Pass and El Paso as migrants were riding atop freight trains.


Arrests for illegal crossing topped 2 million in each of the U.S. government’s last two fiscal years, reflecting technological changes that have made it easier for migrants to leave home to escape poverty, natural disasters, political repression and organized crime.

On Friday, López Obrador said he was willing to work again with the U.S. to address concerns about migration. But he also urged the Biden administration to ease sanctions on leftist governments in Cuba and Venezuela — where about 20% of 617,865 migrants encountered nationwide in October and November hail from — and send more aid to developing countries in Latin America and beyond.

“That is what we are going to discuss, it is not just contention,” López Obrador said at a press briefing Friday following a phone conversation the day before with President Joe Biden to pave the way for the high level U.S. delegation.

The U.S. delegation, which will meet the Mexican president on Wednesday, will also include Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and White House homeland security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall.

Mexico’s ability to assist the U.S. may be limited, however. In December, the government halted a program to repatriate and transfer migrants inside Mexico due to a lack of funds. So far this year, Mexico has detected more than 680,000 migrants living illegally in the country, while the number of foreigners seeking asylum in the country has reached a record 137,000.

Sunday’s caravan was the largest since June 2022, when a similarly sized group departed as Biden hosted leaders in Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas. Another march departed Mexico in October, coinciding with a summit organized by López Obrador to discuss the migration crisis with regional leaders. A month later, 3,000 migrants blocked for more than 30 hours the main border crossing with Guatemala.

 

[Plain Jane]

Mexico says a drug cartel kidnapped 14 people from towns where angry residents killed 10 gunmen

Officials in central Mexico say a drug cartel has kidnapped 14 local residents in apparent retaliation for an uprising by angry farmers who killed 10 cartel gunmen earlier this month.

apnews.com

Mexico says a drug cartel kidnapped 14 people from towns where angry residents killed 10 gunmen​

Updated 9:49 AM EST, December 28, 2023
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MEXICO CITY (AP) — A drug cartel in central Mexico has kidnapped 14 local residents, including four children, in apparent retaliation for an uprising by angry farmers earlier this month that killed 10 cartel gunmen, officials said.

Farmers in the village of Texcaltitlan and a neighboring hamlet had apparently grown tired of cartel extortions. Armed only with sickles and hunting rifles, they chased down suspected gang members amid bursts of automatic gunfire on Dec. 8, hacking, shooting and burning them. Four villagers also died in the clash.

Prosecutors said late Wednesday that the cartel then abducted 14 people, including four children between the ages of 1 1/2 and 14. The abducted adults include three policemen who were seized at a cartel roadblock, and a wounded villager the gang snatched from a hospital soon after the clash.

It was unclear if there was an intentional symbolic meaning in the fact that 14 gunmen were killed by the farmers in the clash and that 14 people were kidnapped.

José Luis Cervantes, the head prosecutor for the State of Mexico, located west of the country’s capital, Mexico City, said no ransom demand had been received. Previously, state officials had denied anyone was kidnapped, and said they were simply “missing.”

But residents of the village and a nearby hamlet said the Familia Michoacana drug cartel was demanding they hand over the leaders of the uprising, in exchange for releasing the kidnapped children and adults.

Cervantes said none of the villagers would face charges for the Dec. 8 clash, because the confrontation had been classified as “legitimate self defense” because the farmers were defending their properties.

Gunmen from the Familia Michoacana cartel, which has long dominated the area, had showed up in the village earlier, demanding local farmers pay a per-acre (hectare) extortion fee from farmers.

The bloodshed occurred in the hamlet of Texcaltitlan, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southwest of the capital. A video of the clash that emerged appears to show the gunmen wore military-style uniforms, some with helmets. Villagers apparently set their bodies and vehicles on fire.

Drug cartels in Mexico have been known to extort money from almost any legal or illegal business that they can, sometimes attacking or burning ranches, farms or stores that refuse to pay.

The Familia Michoacana is known for its brazen ambushes of police, as well as the the 2022 massacre of 20 townspeople in the town of Totolapan in neighboring state of Guerrero. The attack killed the town’s mayor, his father and 18 other men.

 

[Plain Jane]

Argentina formally announces it won't join the BRICS alliance in Milei's latest policy shift

Argentina has formally announced it won't join the BRICS bloc of developing economies. Friday's announcement is just the latest in a dramatic shift in economic policy triggered by Argentina’s new far-right President Javier Milei.

apnews.com

Argentina formally announces it won’t join the BRICS alliance in Milei’s latest policy shift​

President-elect Javier Milei waves during a joint session of Congress to officially declare him and his running mate winners of the presidential runoff election, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
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Updated 1:34 PM EST, December 29, 2023

BUENOS AIRES (AP) — Argentina formally announced Friday that it won’t join the BRICS bloc of developing economies, the latest in a dramatic shift in foreign and economic policy by Argentina’s new far-right populist President Javier Milei.

In a letter addressed to the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — all members of the alliance — Milei said the moment was not “opportune” for Argentina to join as a full member. The letter was dated a week ago, Dec. 22, but released by the Argentine government on Friday, the last working day of 2023.

Argentina was among six countries invited in August to join the bloc made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa to make an 11-nation bloc. Argentina was set to join Jan. 1, 2024.

The move comes as Argentina has been left reeling by deepening economic crisis.

Milei’s predecessor, former center-left president Alberto Fernandez, endorsed joining the alliance as an opportunity to reach new markets. The BRICS currently account for about 40% of the world’s population and more than a quarter of the world’s GDP.


But economic turmoil left many in Argentina eager for change, ushering chainsaw-wielding political outsider Milei into the presidency.

Milei, who defines himself as an “anarcho-capitalist” — a current within liberalism that aspires to eliminate the state — has implemented a series of measures to deregulate the economy, which in recent decades has been marked by strong state interventionism.

In foreign policy, he has proclaimed full alignment with the “free nations of the West,” especially the United States and Israel.

Throughout the campaign for the presidency, Milei also disparaged countries ruled “by communism” and announced that he would not maintain diplomatic relations with them despite growing Chinese investment in South America.

However, in the letter addressed to his counterpart Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva in neighboring Brazil and the rest of the leaders of full BRICS members — Xi Jinping of China, Narenda Mondi of India, Vladimir Putin of Russia and Matamela Ramaphosa of South Africa — Milei proposed to “intensify bilateral ties” and increase “trade and investment flows.”

Milei also expressed his readiness to hold meetings with each of the five leaders.