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

[Plain Jane]

January's thread is here:

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

December's thread is here: https://www.timebomb2000.com/xf/index.php?threads/latin-america-and-the-islands-politics-economics-military-december-2020.590334/#post-8220448 Main Coronavirus thread from page 1327 here...

www.timebomb2000.com

Main Coronavirus thread beginning page 1331 here:

CORONA - Main Coronavirus thread

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGcNblrLGNE 15:27 min 242 - Will COVID-19 Vaccination Be Required for the Workplace? •Jan 28, 2021 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Once vaccines are more widely available, employers may start requiring their workers to be vaccinated...

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Bolsonaro allies win in Congress and slow impeachment drive

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has helped elect two allies to the top jobs in both houses of Congress, a success that is expected to help help him blunt a campaign by protesters who have been calling for the conservative leader to be impeached.

apnews.com

Bolsonaro allies win in Congress and slow impeachment drive
By DÉBORA ÁLVARES and MAURICIO SAVARESEtoday



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Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro, accompanied by Defense Minister Fernando Azevedo, left, arrives to attend a ceremony to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Air Force, at the Air Base headquarters in Brasilia, Brazil, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — President Jair Bolsonaro helped elect two allies to the top jobs in both houses of Brazil’s Congress, a success that is expected to help him blunt a campaign by protesters who have been calling for the conservative leader to be impeached.

Deputy Arthur Lira of the center-right Progressive party was elected by his colleagues Monday to be speaker in the Chamber of Deputies, while Sen. Rodrigo Pacheco of the center-right Democrats party was chosen as the Senate president.

Any impeachment move would have to start in the lower house, where outgoing Speaker Rodrigo Maia has been a critic of the president though also rejecting calls for an impeachment effort. Maia’s candidate to be his success, Luiz Felipe Baleia Rossi, got 145 votes in the lower house dispute while Lira got 302.

In the Senate, Pacheco also had the support of opposition parties despite Bolsonaro’s explicit support.
Neither Lira nor Pacheco mentioned Bolsonaro in their victory speeches, and both promised to lead an independent legislature.

In accepting the leadership of the lower house, Lira said, “Neutrality should mark this presidency, the respect to the customs, to the minority and the majority.”

Still, the Brazilian president published a picture of himself with Lira on his social media channels.
Opponents of Bolsonaro, who is midway through a four-year term, have been staging street demonstrations to demand his ouster over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has caused more deaths in Brazil than any other nation except the United States.

Beatriz Rey, a political scientist at the Center for Latin American & Latino Studies at American University in Washington, said the two wins reduce Bolsonaro’s risk of being impeached, although they don’t nullify it.

“Bolsonaro has won, but it is not clear whether he will get unconditional support,” Rey said. “He has no coalition in Congress and that is why he is so active in this election. But he can still lose control if he has an issue with spending, if his Cabinet reshuffle doesn’t work. The president needs the support of these center-right parties.”

Bolsonaro abandoned his own party shortly after being elected president, and he has struggled to find support for his policies in a complicated congressional landscape of many parties.

Bolsonaro’s approval ratings have dipped into the low 30% range — a situation that analysts have attributed to the delayed rollout of Brazil’s coronavirus vaccination program and to the end of cash handouts to the nation’s poor.

His relative weakness has boosted the bargaining power of a centrist group of lawmakers, said Márcio Coimbra, coordinator of post-graduate studies in institutional and government relations at Mackenzie Presbyterian University.

Coimbra said the price of their backing may start with the doling out of government positions — the sort of back-scratching politics that Bolsonaro had vowed to avoid when he ran for president on an anti-corruption platform.

A report in Monday’s edition of the newspaper Estado de S.Paulo said Bolsonaro’s administration paid more than $92 million in funds earmarked for special projects backed by individual lawmakers in January, a record figure for that month. Analysts linked the amounts to the congressional leadership elections, a move typical of Brazilian presidents that Bolsonaro had promised to end.

Centrist party officials reportedly have designs on ministries such as health, mining and regional development, according to Bolsonaro aides and influential lawmakers who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The victory of Lira will give the impression of an alliance, of solidity of the relationship with Congress to Bolsonaro,” said Thiago de Aragao, director of strategy at political risk consultancy Arko Advice. “But in fact, it will be something that still requires negotiation every single every day, and negotiation on every single issue to be voted.”
___
Associated Press writer Débora Alvares reported this story in Brasilia and AP writer Mauricio Savarese reported from Sao Paulo. AP writer David Biller in Petropolis, Brazil, contributed to this report.

 

[Plain Jane]

Dozen state police charged in the massacre of 19 in Mexico

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — A dozen state police officers were being questioned Wednesday following their arrests in connection with the killings of 19 people, including Guatemalan migrants, whose bodies were found shot and burned near the U.S. border late in January.

apnews.com

Dozen state police charged in the massacre of 19 in Mexico
today



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Ricardo Garcia and daughter Angela sit next to an altar adorned with photographs of his older daughter Santa Garcia, in his home in Comitancillo, Guatemala, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2021. He believes his daughter Santa is one of the charred corpses found in a northern Mexico border state on Saturday. The country's Foreign Ministry said it was collecting DNA samples from a dozen relatives to see if there was a match with any of the bodies. (AP Photo/Oliver de Ros)

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — A dozen state police officers have been arrested for allegedly killing 19 people, including Guatemalan migrants, whose bodies were found shot and burned near the U.S. border late in January, Mexican authorities announced Tuesday.
Tamaulipas state Attorney General Irving Barrios Mojica said all 12 officers were in custody and face charges of homicide, abuse of authority and making false statements.

The killings revived memories of the gruesome 2010 massacre of 72 migrants near the town of San Fernando in the same gang-ridden state. But those killings were done by a drug cartel, while it is likely many people will find it more shocking that the Jan. 22 slayings allegedly were carried out by law enforcement.

“In the aforementioned acts of Jan. 22, at least 12 state police officers participated,” Barrios Mojica said.

The attorney general did not say what motive the officers might have had, though corrupt local and state police in Mexico are often in the pay of drug cartels.

Cartels in Mexico often charge migrant smugglers for crossing their territory, and kidnap or kill migrants whose smugglers have not paid or paid a rival gang.

The bodies were found piled in a charred pickup truck in Camargo, across the Rio Grande from Texas, in an area that has been bloodied for years by turf battles between the remnants of the Gulf cartel and the old Zetas cartel.

Authorities have said four of the dead have been identified so far — two Guatemalans and two Mexicans. Their names have not been released by officials, but relatives of one of the dead Mexicans said he worked as an immigrant trafficker.

Of the 19 bodies examined by experts, 16 were found to be males, one was confirmed as female and the two others were so badly burned their gender had not yet been determined.
The forensic results confirmed the fears of families in a rural Indigenous farming community in Guatemala who have said they lost contact with 13 migrants as they travelled toward the United States.

The truck holding the bodies had 113 bullet impacts, but authorities were confused by the fact that almost no spent shell casings were found at the scene.

Initially, that led investigators to speculate the shootings may have taken place elsewhere, and the truck driven to the spot where it was set on fire.

But Barrios Mojica said the state police officers charged in the killings knew their shell casing might give them away, so probably picked them up.

“There is growing force behind the hypothesis that the crime scene was altered, due to the absence of casings,” he said.

In describing the hours that led up to the killings, Barrios Mojica said the truck carrying the victims was apparently part of a larger convoy of vehicles transporting migrants from Guatemala and El Salvador to smuggle them across the U.S. border. He said the trucks also carried armed men to provide protection.

Barrios Mojica did not rule out that the reason for the killings may have been a dispute between drug gangs, which fight over territory and the right to charge migrant smugglers for passing through “their” territory.

The massacre is the latest chapter in Tamaulipas’ history of police corruption. Most towns and cities in the state saw their municipal police forces dissolved years ago, because officers were often in the pay of the cartels. A more professional state police force was supposed to be the answer, a belief that came crashing down with the arrests announced Tuesday.
A repeat of the 2010 massacre has long been one of the Mexican government’s worst nightmares.

In August 2010, Zetas cartel members stopped two tractor-trailers carrying dozens of mostly Central American migrants and took them to a ranch in the Tamaulipas town of San Fernando. After the migrants refused to work for the cartel, they were blindfolded, tied up on the floor and shot dead.

In 2019, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said, “We do not want a repeat of horrendous, regrettable acts like San Fernando.”

Relatives of migrants from Guatemala’s province of San Marcos are so convinced that 13 of the 19 charred corpses were their loved ones that some of the families already erected traditional altars to the dead, with flowers and photographs.

Some of the relatives in Guatemala told of receiving calls from the migrant smuggler who took the group of 10 males and three female north, telling them their family members were dead. Relatives said they lost contact with them around around Jan. 21.
Myanmar's military junta plans probe of lastyear's election

 

[Plain Jane]

Ecuador to pick new president amid deepening economic crisis

Voters in Ecuador are heading to the polls to pick a new president amid a deepening economic crisis exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

apnews.com

Click to copy
Ecuador to pick new president amid deepening economic crisis
By REGINA GARCIA CANO and GONZALO SOLANOyesterday



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Supporters of presidential candidate Yaku Perez, representing the Indigenous party Pachakutik, take part in a campaign rally in Quito, Ecuador, Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2021. Voters in Ecuador are heading to the polls to pick a new president amid a deepening economic crisis exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. More than a dozen candidates have entered the race election scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 7. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Evidence of the crisis in Ecuador is everywhere: shuttered restaurants, soaring oxygen tank prices and countless “for sale” and “for rent” signs hanging from buildings. The South American country’s beleaguered economy and the coronavirus pandemic are pushing millions to despair.

“There used to be a restaurant in my retail space, but the country’s crisis caused the tenants to leave, and right now, few people have money to eat out every day,” said Fausto Viteri, who is trying to lease or sell his commercial property in a once-vibrant neighborhood in Ecuador’s capital city of Quito. “Very few of those who come by dare to enter the businesses that have survived around here.”

Now, how soon Viteri and fellow landlords start making money off their properties again may very well depend on who gets elected president on Sunday. Democratic institutions came under stress during Rafael Correa’s 10-year presidency, which ended in 2017, and the policies enacted by the successor of President Lenín Moreno will dictate how quickly this oil-rich country climbs out of the crisis.

More than a dozen candidates have entered the presidential race, making a runoff election on April 11 virtually certain. Two of them have led the polls in recent months, but most have little to no name recognition at the national level and are taking advantage of the publicly funded election system to run their campaigns.

One of the two main contenders is Andrés Arauz, who was picked by Correa — still a powerful political force despite his conviction on corruption charges. Arauz has proposed making the wealthy pay more taxes and strengthen consumer protection mechanisms, public banking and local credit and savings organizations. He has said he will not comply with agreements with the International Monetary Fund.

The other leading candidate is banker Guillermo Lasso, who favors free market policies and Ecuador’s rapprochement with international organizations. He has promised to create more jobs and attract international banks. He also wants to boost the oil, mining and energy sectors through the participation of private entities to replace state financing.

In a distant third place in the polls comes Yaku Pérez, representing an Indigenous party.
The nation of about 17.4 million people on South America’s west coast began experiencing an economic slowdown largely driven by the drop in oil prices in 2015.

“Ecuador is one of the most unstable countries in Latin America. There’s a recession, deep political instability, (and) in October 2019, there was a massive Indigenous uprising,” said Grace M. Jaramillo, an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia whose research includes Latin America. “It’s a country at a crossroads. There’s deep political polarization that has plagued the country since the end of the Rafael Correa administration, and ever since, the political parties have been divided between whoever supports Correa — they call it “Correismo’ — and whoever supports a transition that leads to something different, more plural, less authoritarian.”

Correa became president in 2007. He was an ally of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, was accused of increasing authoritarianism while in office and declared Ecuador would default on more than $3 billion worth of bonds. He managed to slash the price of the outstanding bonds, but by the end of his tenure the country was already in a recession.

Moreno, who has said he was uninterested in seeking re-election, was Correa’s vice president. Correa was sentenced in absentia in April to eight years in prison for his role in an elaborate scheme that demanded millions of dollars from businessmen in exchange for the contracts of large infrastructure projects between 2012 and 2016. Authorities have said the money obtained by Correa and other officials during his administration was used to finance political campaigns and party events.

Jaramillo said the top two challenges for Ecuador’s next president go hand in hand: A proper vaccination campaign of the majority of the population will be necessary to start the country’s economic recovery. The pandemic paralyzed 70% of businesses last year and left 600,000 unemployed, bringing the country’s unemployment rate to almost 68%.

Ecuador adopted the U.S. dollar as its currency two decades ago as it faced the threat of hyperinflation and a crisis that forced the closure of more than half the country’s 42 banks.
The new president will have to address an economy that has contracted between 10% and 12%, a debt that is equivalent to about 60% of the gross domestic product and a poverty rate of around 35%. Against all odds, officials reached a successful agreement in August to restructure $17.4 billion of the country’s external debt after obtaining a financial program with the IMF for $6.5 billion.

“It is crucial for the next government to maintain the same trend of betting on economic growth and debt control and that it does not lean towards populist measures that translate into expansive spending that pushes the country back towards a more significant fiscal gap, increasing the risk of default and limiting access to international credit,” analysts with Torino Economics wrote in a note to investors last month.

The country has recorded more than 251,000 cases and over 14,900 deaths of COVID-19 as of Wednesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University in the United States. It began vaccinating health care workers against the coronavirus on Jan. 21, but for small business owners, the uncertainties created by the pandemic and the upcoming elections can’t end soon enough.

“In recent years, we have been surviving, and since last year, fighting not to disappear,” said Mauricio Bermeo, who owns a small steel products company. “But now with the elections, we are only facing despair because the country’s economy is getting worse and worse, there is no work, there is no money, and the candidates do not talk about how they are going to solve these problems.”
___
Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City.

 

[Plain Jane]

Ecuador's plantation workers pin hopes on historic slavery ruling

Susana Quinonez was born and raised on an abaca tree plantation along Ecuador's western coast where back-breaking work and extreme poverty were what passed for a normal childhood.

www.reuters.com

FEBRUARY 5, 202112:09 AMUPDATED 4 HOURS AGO

Ecuador's plantation workers pin hopes on historic slavery ruling
By Anastasia Moloney
6 MIN READ

BOGOTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Susana Quinonez was born and raised on an abaca tree plantation along Ecuador’s western coast where back-breaking work and extreme poverty were what passed for a normal childhood.

For 16 years, Afro-Ecuadorian Quinonez labored on the estate, stripping abaca fibre from the stalks of banana trees, removing the pulp then washing and drying the yarn for export to the United States and Europe to use in paper, cars, and teabags.

She recalled rising at dawn to cook by candelight on a wood-fired stove. Dodging snakes, Quinonez would navigate narrow dirt paths carved between endless rows of trees, to work 12-hour shifts before returning to her bare, cramped concrete hut.

The cost of equipment, be it machetes or gloves, as well as medicine and healthcare, was deducted from their pay, she said, with cut fingers and legs a common hazard and wages barely enough to cover the cost of food.

“We were enslaved there. We were mistreated,” 60-year-old Quinonez, who was aged eight when she began working on the estate in the province of Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Quinonez now wants that wrong righted and her testimony - along with that of 122 other ex-laborers from the Japanese-owned Furukawa Plantaciones C.A. company - went before a local judge last month who ruled their workers’ rights had been violated.

The company, that is still operating about 30 plantations covering more than 2,300 hectares in three provinces in Ecuador, did not respond to requests for comment.


But Marcelo Almeida, ex-head of Furukawa in Ecuador, told local investigative media outlet Revista Plan V in 2019 that he was unaware of any violations on the plantation and workers and employees were up-to-date with social benefits and labor rights.

The case, however, is being hailed as a legal milestone in the South American country where hundreds of Afro-Ecuadorian families lived in slave-like conditions for more than 50 years, according to Ecuador’s Ombudsman Freddy Carrion.

For in an oral ruling, the judge said that the workers had suffered racial discrimination and were victims of servitude - a form of modern-day slavery - opening the way to compensation, said the plaintiffs’ lawyers.

“This is the first of its kind case that recognizes modern-day slavery involving agriculture in Ecuador,” said Alejandra Zambrano, one of the workers’ lawyers.

Zambrano, who visited the plantation with the judge presiding over the case in July 2020, said she saw dire living conditions with workers’ home having no toilets, children working, and dangers in the workplace.

Labor ministry inspections in 2019 and reports by Ecuador’s ombudsman in the same year also logged persistent problems.


PUBLIC APOLOGY
Ecuador is the world’s second largest exporter of the durable abaca fibre, mainly exported to Europe, Japan and the United States, and is used in a variety of products, including rope, car interiors, and currency notes.

Exports of the fibre bring Ecuador on average about $17 million a year, according to central bank data.

Yet the workers have little to show for it and are seeking redress for the labor and the pain, as well as deeds to land they say has been theirs down the generations.

The judge ordered Furukawa to compensate laborers and for the company and several government ministries to issue an apology in local media and on their websites, listing all 123 workers by name, Zambrano said.

The full terms and amount due will only be known once the judge issues a written ruling, expected within weeks, Zambrano said, adding that the case would likely move to a higher court.

Ecuador’s labor ministry has already appealed the decision.

Lawyers for the laborers said many lived and worked in dire conditions without even the most basic protective equipment.


According to testimonials, workers often cut themselves and some even lost limbs in machine accidents.

Ecuador’s labor ministry said in a 2019 report that it had found “child labor”, “inhumane working conditions”, “labor risks” and “work accidents” following inspections of the site.
Ecuador’s vice minister of labor, Sharian Moreno, said she could not comment on the judge’s ruling as the case was ongoing.

She confirmed that the labor ministry carried out inspections from 2017 to 2020, handing down fines totaling more than $150,000, including for child labor.

Ecuador’s ombudsman’s office also raised the alarm about human rights violations in reports in 2018 and 2019 and said the court ruling may prove a long-awaited game changer.

“The judge’s decision is a historic milestone,” Ombudsman Carrion told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“Both the state of Ecuador and the company are responsible, and are compelled, to provide reparations for the victims.”

The judge’s decision is not definitive, Carrion said, voicing hope that a provincial court will uphold it.

SEEKING JUSTICE
But Almeida, formerly of Furukawa, said the company, founded in Ecuador in 1963 with some 200 employees, rented out land to contract workers.

He said it was the renters, and not the company, who were responsible for the upkeep of housing, while the company had improved its workers’ living conditions and repaired homes in parts of the plantation.

Repeated requests to the company for more comment went unanswered.

Mayra Valdez, a plaintiff born on the Furukawa estate who started work aged eight cooking and cleaning, said she hoped any reparations would include the deeds to lands she says belong to workers who have worked there for generations.

“For us, justice is not just that (the company) acknowledge the compensation and money owed to us, as the judge said, but also that they give us back our lands,” said Valdez.
“We want the state to recognize all the rights that we were denied. (The company) treated us like their slaves.”

Reporting by Anastasia Moloney; Editing by Lyndsay Griffiths. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit news.trust.org
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

 

[Plain Jane]

Pushed by China, Guyana cancels Taiwanese investment office

Guyana’s government has cancelled permission for Taiwan to open a trade and investment office in the South American country after coming under pressure from China.

apnews.com

Pushed by China, Guyana cancels Taiwanese investment office
By BERT WILKINSONyesterday

In this image made from video, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Joanne Ou points at a map of Guyana at a weekly press conference, Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021, in Taipei, Taiwan. Taiwan has established a trade office in the South American country of Guyana, a diplomatic win for the island which has continued to lose allies in an aggressive poaching campaign from China in recent years. (AP Photo)

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — Under pressure from mainland China, Guyana’s government has cancelled permission for Taiwan to open a trade and investment office in the South American country.

The cancellation came Thursday after Foreign Minister Hugh Todd met with the ambassador of China, which insists that Taiwan is legally a part of its territory and not an independent nation.

The government issued a statement clarifying “that it continues to adhere to the One China policy and its diplomatic relations remain intact with the People’s Republic of China. The government has not established any diplomatic ties or relations with Taiwan and as a result of the miscommunication of the agreement signed, this agreement has since been terminated,.”

Todd told The Associated Press on Friday that government had initially not seen anything wrong in allowing the Taiwanese to set up an office to push trade and investment in Guyana, which has in the past 14 months become one of the world’s newest oil exporting nations.

“The idea was to allow them to establish an office to facilitate trade and investment only — and I say only — for trade. For us this was just a market opportunity for the two private sectors to conduct business but there are some geopolitics involved here,” Todd said.
The agreement to establish the office was signed on Jan. 11 without any official announcement and the office became active on Jan. 15. Few took note until the U.S. Embassy in Guyana congratulated both sides for the achievement.

Todd said he met a Chinese delegation led by acting Ambassador Chen Xilai on Thursday. He did not divulge any details, but the cancellation followed immediately after.

Guyana is the headquarter nation of the 15-member Caribbean Community. Back in 1972, it had encouraged neighbors Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Jamaica to end China’s isolation in the region by establishing diplomatic relations as a group, with most of the bloc following after. The group largely maintains a One China policy.

 

[Plain Jane]

Cuban government opens up economy – DW – 02/07/2021

Cuba has increased the number of industries that will be free from state involvement. It is one of the biggest economic reforms for the country in years.

www.dw.com

Cuban government opens up economy
Cuba has increased the number of industries that will be free from state involvement. It is one of the biggest economic reforms for the country in years.




Cuba's non-state sector is composed mainly of small private businesses run by artisans, taxi drivers and tradesmen

The Cuban government said on Saturday that it would allow private businesses to operate in most sectors of the country, in the biggest reform to its state-controlled economy for years.
The measure, which was unveiled last August by Labor Minister Marta Elena Feito, was approved by the Council of Ministers, according to the daily Granma, the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party.

Private activity was previously limited to a list of sectors set by the state. The list of authorized industries has now been expanded from 127 to more than 2,000.

Cuban government officials told the AFP news agency the state would focus on industries considered strategic such as media, health and defense.

Apart from hundreds of thousands of small farms, Cuba's non-state sector is composed mainly of small private businesses run by artisans, taxi drivers and tradesmen.

Economic crisis
Reform-minded Cuban economists have long called for the role of small business to be expanded to help jump-start the economy and to create jobs.

The economy has stagnated for years and contracted by 11% last year, due to a combination of the coronavirus pandemic that devastated tourism and tough U.S. sanctions.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel said last year that the country faced an international and local crisis and would implement a series of reforms to increase exports, cut imports and stimulate domestic demand. Cubans have been dealing with a scarcity of basic goods and endless lines to obtain them.


Watch video01:48
Cubans wrestle with complex currency reform
Some 60 years of hostility between the US and Cuba were eased in 2015 when then US President Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro agreed to normalize relations.

The move allowed US citizens to visit the island and empowering local businesses.

But Obama's efforts were rolled back by his successor, President Donald Trump. Hawkish Cuban-Americans saw Obama's historic opening as appeasement of Castro's communist regime.

US President Joe Biden, who served as Barack Obama's vice-president, says he wants To improve US-Cuban relations.
jf/aw (AFP, Reuters)

 

[Plain Jane]

Biden ends Trump asylum deals with El Savador, Guatemala and Honduras

The Biden administration said on Saturday it was immediately suspending Trump-era asylum agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, part of a bid to undo his Republican predecessor's hardline…

www.france24.com

Biden ends Trump asylum deals with El Savador, Guatemala and Honduras
Issued on: 07/02/2021 - 07:20

U.S. President Joe Biden gives a thumbs up while boarding Air Force One as he departs Washington for travel to Wilmington, Delaware at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., February 5, 2021. © REUTERS - Joshua Roberts
Text by:NEWS WIRES
3 min
The Biden administration said on Saturday it was immediately suspending Trump-era asylum agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, part of a bid to undo his Republican predecessor's hardline immigration policies.


In a statement, State Department Secretary Antony Blinken said the United States had "suspended and initiated the process to terminate the Asylum Cooperative Agreements with the Governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras as the first concrete steps on the path to greater partnership and collaboration in the region laid out by President Biden."

The so-called "safe third country" agreements, inked in 2019 by the Trump administration and the Central American nations, force asylum seekers from the region to first seek refuge in those countries before applying in the United States.

Part of a controversial bid by Trump to crack down on illegal immigrants from Central America who make up a large part of migrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border, the policies were never implemented with El Salvador and Honduras, the State Department said on Saturday.


Transfers under the U.S.-Guatemala agreement have been paused since mid-March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, the statement added.

The moves announced Saturday came after Biden unveiled a host of measures last week aimed at revamping the U.S. immigration system, including a task force to reunite families separated at the United States-Mexico border and another to increase an annual cap on refugees.

One of the orders called for Blinken to "promptly consider" whether to notify the governments of the three countries that the United States intended to suspend and terminate the safe third country deals. It also called on the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General to determine whether to rescind a rule implementing the agreements.
(REUTERS)

 

[Plain Jane]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

Haiti's President Says "Attempted Coup D'Etat" Foiled; 23 Arrested

BY TYLER DURDEN
SUNDAY, FEB 07, 2021 - 16:35
AFP News Agency reports Haitian authorities arrested more than 20 people accused of trying to murder President Jovenel Moise and overthrow the government.

The "attempted coup d'etat", according to justice minister Rockefeller Vincent, included some high-ranking officials. Authorities said they arrested a top judge and national police officers, along with seizing a cache of weapons.

Moise thanked his head of security for foiling the coup d'etat. He said, "the goal of these people was to make an attempt on my life - that plan was aborted."

Moise alleged the plot to overthrow the government began late last year but did not provide further details or the names of the people who were arrested. The president has been governing the Caribbean country for more than one year without checks and balances on his power.
Haitian President Jovenel Moise
On Friday, US Department spokesman Ned Price requested that the Haitian Parliament conduct "free and fair legislative elections so that lawmakers may resume its rightful role."
Moise's presidential term ends on Sunday, but the president refuses to leave office before 2022, claiming that an "interim government" occupied his first year in office, which is why he is extending his presidential term from five years to six years.

"The Haitian people deserve the opportunity to elect their leaders and restore Haiti's democratic institutions," Price added.

Moise's political uncertainty is fueling what could spark opposition street demonstrations in the coming days.

 

[Plain Jane]

Divided Ecuador heads to presidential runoff ballot in April

Ecuador is headed to a runoff presidential election in April with its deep political divisions evident after the first round of voting.

apnews.com

Click to copy
Divided Ecuador heads to presidential runoff ballot in April
By GONZALO SOLANO and REGINA GARCIA CANOtoday



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A woman votes during general elections in Cangahua, Ecuador, Sunday, Feb. 7, 2021. Amidst the new coronavirus pandemic Ecuadoreans went to the polls in a first round presidential and legislative election. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)
QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuador is headed to a runoff presidential election in April with its deep political divisions evident after the first round of voting, which saw a young leftist backed by a convicted-but-popular former president lead the field of 16 candidates while the second slot remained undecided between a conservative former banker and an Indigenous leader.

The top candidate in Sunday’s ballot was Andrés Arauz, who is supported by former President Rafael Correa, a major influence in the troubled Andean nation despite a corruption conviction.

That gave Arauz a spot in the April 11 runoff. But long after polls closed it was not clear if Arauz would face Guillermo Lasso, in his third run for the presidency after a long career in business, banking and government, or Yaku Pérez, an Indigenous rights and environmental activist.

Pérez’s challenge for second place surprised some observers because he had trailed Arauz and Lasso in pre-election polls.

April’s winner will succeed President Lenín Moreno. He also was initially a protege of Correa but he turned on his predecessor, who had governed Ecuador for a decade and whose criminal conviction blocked him from seeking the vice presidency this year.

“What you are seeing here is really fractured politics,” said Marc Becker, a history professor with a focus on Latin America at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri.

Becker said Pérez’s unexpected strong showing reflected a rising interest in mining and environmental concerns among Ecuadorians, but added that he felt conditions favor Arauz for the runoff.

“I’m assuming at this point that Arauz is going to be elected, and it is a big unknown how he will end up governing,” Becker said, referring to Correa’s influence. “Four years ago, people thought the same thing would happen to Moreno, and Moreno, of course, broke away to the right and ended up not governing as Correa’s puppet.”

Gustavo Isch, an analyst and professor at the Universidad Andina, took a different view.
He said Sunday’s winner was Correa, not Arauz, because the candidate on the ballot did not propose anything new during his campaign. “Arauz’s offer is, ‘Let’s go back to what we had with Correa,’” Isch said.

He feels Pérez will have the edge over Arauz if he makes it into the runoff election.

Arauz got 31.5% of the votes, while Pérez had 20.04% and Lasso had 19.97%, according to an official quick count from the Electoral Council of Ecuador late Sunday. To win outright, a candidate needed 50% of the votes, or to have at least 40% with a 10-point lead over the closest opponent.

Arauz, a former culture minister who attended the University of Michigan, has proposed making the wealthy pay more taxes and strengthening consumer protection mechanisms, public banking and local credit and savings organizations. Arauz, 36, said he would not comply with agreements with the International Monetary Fund.

Arauz could not cast his vote in the capital, Quito, because he was registered to do so in Mexico, where he lived until shortly before his nomination, and he did not change his electoral address.

Perez, 51, is a lawyer and one of the country’s most visible Indigenous leaders. He became governor of an Ecuadorian province in 2019, but he resigned a year later to seek the presidency. During the campaign, the widower and father of two traveled about 1,243 miles (2,000 kilometers) on a bamboo bicycle.

Pérez’s showing comes more than a year after an indigenous uprising in Ecuador against the increase in fuel prices. The civil unrest lasted 11 days.

Lasso, 65, was making a third run for the presidency after a long career in business, banking and government. He favors free-market policies and Ecuador’s rapprochement with international organizations. He promised to create more jobs and attract international banks. He also wants to boost the oil, mining and energy sectors through the participation of private entities to replace state financing.

In Ecuador, voting is mandatory. Skipping a trip to the polls comes with a $40 fine.

The coronavirus pandemic prompted government officials to require voters to wear masks, bring their own bottle of hand sanitizer and pencil, keep a 5-foot (1.5-meter) distance from others and avoid all personal contact in the polling places. The only time voters were allowed to lower their masks was during the identification process.

Long lines formed at polling places, especially in big cities, where some voters had to wait hours to cast their ballots.

“I don’t care who wins the elections. We are used to thinking that the messiah is coming to solve our lives and no candidate has solved anything for me,” said one voter, Ramiro Loza. “During the quarantine, my income was reduced by 80%, and the politicians did not feed me.”

Correa, a leftist who is still only 57, governed from 2007 to 2017 as an ally of Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, both now deceased. He remains popular among millions of Ecuadorians after overseeing a period of economic growth driven by an oil boom and loans from China that allowed him to expand social programs, build roads, schools and other projects. But he increasingly cracked down on opponents, the press and businesses during his latter stage in office and feuded with Indigenous groups over development projects.

Correa’s appeal also has been tarnished by a corruption conviction he says was a trumped up product of political vengeance. He was sentenced in absentia in April to eight years in prison for his role in a scheme to extract millions of dollars from businessmen in exchange for infrastructure projects — money allegedly used for political purposes.
___
Associated Press writer Gonzalo Solano reported this story Quito and AP writer Regina Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City.

 

[Plain Jane]

Colombia to offer protection to Venezuelan immigrants – DW – 02/09/2021

The migrants will receive a 10-year protection status after which they can apply for a residence visa. The decision affects about 950,000 undocumented Venezuelans.

www.dw.com

Colombia to grant temporary status to one million undocumented migrants from Venezuela
The migrants will receive a 10-year protection status after which they can apply for a residence visa. The decision affects about 950,000 undocumented Venezuelans.




Colombia's president Ivan Duque

Colombia's president Ivan Duque announced on Monday that the country would grant temporary protection status to around one million undocumented migrants from Venezuela. About 950,000 undocumented Venezuelans are expected to benefit from the move.

"We've published the decision of our country to create a temporary protected status in Colombia that allows us to normalize these migrants in our country," said Duque.
The president made the announcement after a meeting with Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for refugees.

The decision to grant temporary status was taken at a meeting between Duque and UN's Filippo Grandi

The migrants will receive a 10-year protection status after which they can apply for a residence visa. "This bold humanitarian gesture serves as an example for the region and the rest of the world," said Grandi.

"It is a life-changing gesture for the 1.7 million displaced Venezuelans who will now benefit from added protection, security and stability while they are away from home."

Access to basic services
Under the new status, the migrants will receive basic services such as access to the national health system and COVID-19 vaccination. Those migrants who don't opt for the protected status will be subject to deportation.

The registration process will document the place of residence and socioeconomic conditions of undocumented migrants along with an inclusion in the "biometric register".

According to UN estimates, 34% of 5.4 million Venezuelans who have fled their country owing to an economic crisis and political turmoil since 2015 are in Colombia.

The Colombian president's decision follows criticism in December when he said that undocumented Venezuelans would not be included in Colombia's coronavirus immunization process. Duque later clarified and said that Colombia required international help for the migration crisis.
am/aw (dpa, AFP)

 

[Plain Jane]

Haiti's president tries to oust judges close to opposition amid political gridlock

Haiti's President Jovenel Moise tried Tuesday to force out three judges who were proposed as potential interim national leader to replace him in the latest twist of the country's political crisis.

www.france24.com

Haiti's president tries to oust judges close to opposition amid political gridlock
Issued on: 10/02/2021 - 05:55

Police officers detain a man during protests against Haiti's President Jovenel Moise, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti February 8, 2021. © REUTERS/Jeanty Junior Augustin
Text by:NEWS WIRES
2 min
Haiti's President Jovenel Moise tried Tuesday to force out three judges who were proposed as potential interim national leader to replace him in the latest twist of the country's political crisis.

Moise says his term in office lasts until February 2022 -- but the opposition argues it should have ended last weekend, in a standoff over disputed elections.

Officials loyal to Moise claimed Sunday they had foiled an attempt to murder him and overthrow the government in a coup.

"Yvickel Dieujuste Dabrezil, Wendelle Coq Thelot and Joseph Mecene Jean-Louis, judges at the court of appeal, are retired," announced a special overnight edition of the Haitian official journal.

The decree appeared to be contrary to the constitution and Haitian law.
Jean-Louis said earlier this week he accepted the role of interim leader to oversee a transition of power from Moise's government.

The United States has until now backed Moise's stance and he appears to have retained control of the Caribbean island nation, which has a long history of instability and deep poverty worsened by natural disasters.

But in a statement on Twitter, the US embassy in Port-au-Prince said it was "deeply concerned about any actions that risk damaging Haiti's democratic institutions."

"The executive order is now being widely scrutinised to determine whether it conforms to Haiti's Constitution and laws," the statement added.

The dispute over when the president's term ends stems from Moise's original election. He was voted into office in a poll subsequently canceled after allegations of fraud, and then elected again a year later, in 2016.
(AFP)

 

[Plain Jane]

Haitian police fire tear gas on protesters in renewed clashes over disputed elections

Haitian police fired tear gas on hundreds of protesters who were marching against President Jovenel Moise in Port-au-Prince Wednesday, and attacked journalists covering the demonstration, in the latest…

www.france24.com

Haitian police fire tear gas on protesters in renewed clashes over disputed elections
Issued on: 10/02/2021 - 23:26Modified: 10/02/2021 - 23:24

Tear gas is fired by police during a march in Port-au-Prince on February 10, 2021, to protest against the government of President Jovenel Moise Valerie Baeriswyl AFP
Text by:NEWS WIRES
3 min
Haitian police fired tear gas on hundreds of protesters who were marching against President Jovenel Moise in Port-au-Prince Wednesday, and attacked journalists covering the demonstration, in the latest clashes to mark the country’s political crisis.


Port-au-Prince (AFP)
The protesters accuse Moise of illegally extending his term in office.
He says it lasts until February 2022 – but the opposition argues it should have ended last weekend, in a standoff over disputed elections.


Police moved to violently clear the demonstration, and on several occasions were seen directly targeting clearly identified members of the press, including AFP journalists.

“Their job is to shoot the activists, throwing gas on all the press,” said protester Senat Andre Dufot.

“We all noticed that they put a tear gas canister in the back of the pickup of the TV Pacific car,” he said, referring to a Haitian media outlet vehicle, while clutching a copy of the country’s constitution in his hand.

In a statement, the Association of Haitian Journalists then called on the Haitian National Police authorities to “conduct an investigation to identify the perpetrators of these abuses so that they can be held accountable for their actions.”

Officials loyal to Moise claimed Sunday they had foiled an attempt to murder him and overthrow the government in a coup. Police arrested 23 people, including Haitian Supreme Court judge Yvickel Dieujuste Dabresil, accusing them of an “attempted coup.”

And on Tuesday, Moise tried to force out three judges, including Dabresil, who were proposed as potential interim national leaders to replace him.

Dabresil was released Wednesday from prison on the outskirts of the Haitian capital but remains under judicial supervision, according to his lawyers. However, human rights activist Marie-Yolene Gilles of the Je Klere Foundation later said the judge remained in prison.

“When there are opponents fighting, the best way to eliminate them was to accuse them of fomenting a coup,” another protester, Ebens Cadet, said Wednesday.

The decree appeared to be contrary to the constitution and Haitian law.

The United States had backed Moise’s stance, and he appears to have retained control of the Caribbean island nation.

But in a statement on Twitter posted Tuesday, the US embassy in Port-au-Prince said it was “deeply concerned about any actions that risk damaging Haiti’s democratic institutions.”
The dispute over when the president’s term ends stems from Moise’s original election. He was voted into office in a poll subsequently canceled after allegations of fraud, and then elected again a year later, in 2016.
(AFP)

 

[Plain Jane]

Mexico president warns against false claims of open US doors

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Thursday many migrants believe the “doors are open” to the United States following the election of President Joe Biden.

apnews.com

Mexico president warns against false claims of open US doors
yesterday

Central American migrants rest at La 72 shelter in Tenosique, Tabasco state, Mexico, Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2021. When Guatemalan authorities blocked a migrant caravan last month drawing international attention the flow of migrants might have seemed to slow down, but a growing number of small groups continue to flow daily from Central America into Mexico. (AP Photo/Isabel Mateos)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Thursday many migrants believe the “doors are open” to the United States following the election of President Joe Biden.

López Obrador said that wasn’t true, and urged migrants not to believe traffickers who tell them they could get legal status immediately. He noted that he welcomed Biden’s policy proposal, but that it would take time to be approved and implemented.

“Now, for example, that there is a U.S. immigration policy to regularize the situation of migrants, Mexicans and our Central American brothers, people think that now the doors are open, that President Biden is going to immediately regularize all migrants,” López Obrador said.

“It is not true that everyone can go now to the United States and they will be regularized, that has not been defined yet,” he said. “Our brother migrants should have this information so that they won’t be deceived by human traffickers, who paint a rosy picture.”

In Washington, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday a “vast majority” of migrants continue to be turned away at the U.S. southern border. Psaki added that Biden is committed to moving away from the Trump administration’s immigration policies but it’s going to take time.

“The President is committed to putting in place, in partnership with our Department of Homeland Security, a moral and humane process for processing people at the border but that capacity is limited,” Psaki said. “Right now, and it means we’re just not equipped to process people at the pace that we would like to do.”

She added that the administration is concerned about migrants arriving at the border. “We don’t want people to put themselves at danger at a time where it is not the right time to come,” she said.

López Obrador also cited the recent massacre of 19 people, including at least 14 Guatemalan migrants, as justification for his policy of stopping Central American migrants at Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala.

López Obrador said the massacre showed that it was too dangerous to allow migrants to travel through drug cartel turf in northern Mexico.

“This was always our argument, that we need to protect migrants, watch out for them,” he said. “If they enter (Mexico) and spread out, we cannot keep an eye on them or protect them, and they wind up in the hands of organized crime, they are in danger.”

Twelve members of an elite police force in the northern border state of Tamaulipas have been charged in the Jan. 22 killing of the 14 Guatemalans and at least two suspected Mexican migrant traffickers. They were killed, their bodies piled in a pickup truck and burned so badly that three corpses have still not been identified.

Under pressure from former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018 and 2019, López Obrador posted thousands of immigration, military and National Guard agents at Mexico’s border with Guatemala to stop caravans of Central American migrants from entering the country.

Rights activists say Mexico’s policy has exposed migrants to additional dangers, including excessive use of force by law enforcement forces, extortion by criminal gangs and violations of their human rights.

 

[Plain Jane]

Ecuador to recount votes from presidential election after Perez claims fraud

Ecuador's election authority said on Friday it will conduct a recount in most of the country to ensure the transparency of Sunday's presidential elections, after one of the candidates made accusations of electoral fraud.

www.reuters.com

FEBRUARY 12, 20217:59 PMUPDATED 9 HOURS AGO

Ecuador to recount votes from presidential election after Perez claims fraud
By Reuters Staff
2 MIN READ

QUITO (Reuters) - Ecuador’s election authority said on Friday it will conduct a recount in most of the country to ensure the transparency of Sunday’s presidential elections, after one of the candidates made accusations of electoral fraud.

Left-wing economist Andres Arauz won Sunday’s vote and moved on to the April 11 runoff vote. With less than 1% of votes left to count, Guillermo Lasso holds a narrow lead over indigenous activist Yaku Perez in the race for runner-up.

Perez demanded a full recount after saying the vote had been manipulated, without presenting evidence of fraud. He argued that the data in the minutes of various electoral boards are inconsistent with data entered into the vote-counting system.

National Elections Council President Diana Atamaint said that a recount will be carried out in the province of Guayas, home to the largest city Guayaquil and where Perez had strongly questioned the outcome. In addition, 50% of the vote 16 other provinces will be reviewed.

“Once the review process is finished, the final announcement of the results will be made,” Atamaint said in a press statement. “We are firmly going to defend the electoral process that we prepared with great affection, responsibility but above all with transparency.”

Perez and Lasso agreed to the recount in a meeting that included observers from the Organization of American States.

The statement did not say how long the process would take.

The official vote count shows Perez with 19.38% of the votes and Lasso with 19.74%, with 147 poll statements left to review. Arauz won the first round with 32.7%.

“We are convinced that now, with transparency, we will recover many votes,” said Perez, after the meeting at the electoral council. “It was worth the fight.”

Perez has visited various state agencies of the Andean country to denounce manipulation of the vote results, while his followers have held vigils in Quito and Guayaquil.

Reporting by Alexandra Valencia; Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Daniel Wallis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

 

[Zagdid]

Venezuela receives more airlifts of refinery materials from Iran | Reuters

FEBRUARY 12, 202111:43 AM UPDATED A DAY AGO

Venezuela receives more airlifts of refinery materials from Iran
By Reuters Staff 3 MIN READ

(Reuters) - Venezuela has begun to receive a second round of airlifts of materials from ally Iran to help its troubled oil refineries to produce fuel, according to three people familiar with the matter and publicly-available flight-tracking data.

The shipment of catalysts to the 955,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Paraguana Refining Complex (CRP) in western Venezuela comes after Iran sent more than a dozen flights to the area last year to help restart the 310,000 bpd Cardon refinery and alleviate acute gasoline shortages in the OPEC nation.

Iran has also sent three flotillas of vessels carrying fuel to Venezuela, whose oil industry has collapsed after years of underinvestment and mismanagement, as the two U.S. adversaries boosted economic ties in an effort to stay afloat despite escalating sanctions from Washington.


The United States in January 2019 sanctioned state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela as part of a push to oust President Nicolas Maduro, accused of rights violations and rigging his 2018 re-election. Washington has heavy sanctions on Iran to try to get Tehran to abandon its nuclear program.

On Feb. 11, an Airbus plane belonging to Venezuelan state-run airline Conviasa arrived at the Las Piedras airport on the Paraguana peninsula after taking off from Tehran on Feb. 10, with a stopover in Belgrade, according to air traffic monitoring website flightradar24.com.

The plane was carrying catalysts intended for PDVSA, said the three people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. More than a dozen further similar flights are expected, the people said.

Neither PDVSA nor Venezuela’s information ministry immediately responded to requests for comment.

Currently, Cardon is the only one of Venezuela’s refineries producing gasoline, with its naphtha reformer and catalytic cracking units producing around 60,000 bpd, one of the people said. The nearby 645,000 bpd Amuay refinery is producing naphtha to serve as a feedstock for Cardon’s gasoline units.

The catalysts are expected to help restart gasoline production at Amuay, whose catalytic cracker has been offline since late 2019, in anticipation of planned maintenance at Cardon, the person said.

Reporting by Mircely Guanipa in Maracay, Venezuela and Luc Cohen in New York;

 

[Plain Jane]

18 bags of hacked-up body parts found in Mexico

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Prosecutors in the western Mexico state of Jalisco say that police have found 18 plastic bags full of hacked-up body parts on the outskirts of the city of Guadalajara.

apnews.com

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18 bags of hacked-up body parts found in Mexico
February 12, 2021


MEXICO CITY (AP) — Prosecutors in the western Mexico state of Jalisco say that police have found 18 plastic bags full of hacked-up body parts on the outskirts of the city of Guadalajara.
Police found one human limb near a highway overpass, which led them to the heap of taped-up bags in a gully nearby, the agency said late Thursday. The severed limbs are being examined to determine how many corpses the parts belonged to.

In November, authorities recovered 113 bodies and additional human remains from a secret grave in the town of El Salto, just outside Guadalajara. A total of 189 corpses were discovered in the town throughout 2020.

The state is home to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of Mexico’s most violent and powerful. More bodies have been found in secret graves there than in any other state in recent years. The cartel has been fighting a breakaway faction in and around Guadalajara for years.

More than 80,000 people are listed as missing since Mexico’s drug war began in 2006.

 

[Plain Jane]

Peru's foreign minister resigns over coronavirus vaccine scandal

Peruvian Foreign Minister Elizabeth Astete said on Sunday night that she resigned after acknowledging she received a dose of the coronavirus vaccine from China's Sinopharm, outside of clinical trials and before the national immunization program began.

www.reuters.com

FEBRUARY 14, 20219:58 PMUPDATED 7 HOURS AGO

Peru's foreign minister resigns over coronavirus vaccine scandal
By Reuters Staff
2 MIN READ

LIMA (Reuters) - Peruvian Foreign Minister Elizabeth Astete said on Sunday night that she resigned after acknowledging she received a dose of the coronavirus vaccine from China’s Sinopharm, outside of clinical trials and before the national immunization program began.

Just a day earlier, President Francisco Sagasti said he accepted the resignation of Health Minister Pilar Mazzetti due to a scandal over former President Martin Vizcarra having also received an early vaccination.

Vizcarra, who was ousted by Congress in November over corruption allegations, has said he did not jump the line to receive the vaccination, but rather that he got it as part of a trial. Local media questioned that explanation.

Astete, who had held her post since November, said she was inoculated on Jan. 22 after receiving an offer from the Peruvian university Cayetano Heredia, in charge of the trials, to receive the Sinopharm Group Co Ltd vaccine from a “remnant lot” of the tests.

“I am aware of the serious mistake I made, which is why I decided not to receive the second dose,” she said through Twitter. “For the reasons stated, I have presented my letter of resignation to the president.”

The government announced in early January an agreement with Sinopharm to purchase up to 38 million doses of the vaccine.

The first batch of 300,000 vaccines arrived a week ago and the immunization program against COVID-19 began on Tuesday with the application of doses to healthcare workers who are the most exposed to the disease. Sagasti was one of the first to receive the Sinopharm vaccine as part of the campaign.

Some 43,491 people in Peru have died of COVID-19, according to official data. The country is facing a second wave of infections, with saturated hospitals and a shortage of medical equipment.

Reporting by Marco Aquino; Writing by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Peter Cooney
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

 

[Plain Jane]

Texas freeze leaves millions in north Mexico without power

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Freezing weather in Texas led to a chain of events that left almost 5 million customers in northern Mexico without power Monday as a shortage of natural gas disrupted electricity production.

apnews.com

Click to copy
Texas freeze leaves millions in north Mexico without power
yesterday


MEXICO CITY (AP) — Freezing weather in Texas led to a chain of events that left almost 5 million customers in northern Mexico without power Monday as a shortage of natural gas disrupted electricity production.

Mexico’s government-owned utility, the Federal Electricity Commission, said its operations were left short as the winter storm in Texas froze natural gas pipelines. It said some private power plants also began shutting down Sunday night. Private plants supply about 80% of power in northern Mexico.

Mexico uses gas to generate about 60% of its power, compared to about 40% in the United States. Mexico built pipelines to take advantage of cheap natural gas from the U.S., often obtained by fracking in Texas, but Mexico does not allow fracking in its own territory.

The utility said U.S. electricity demand also rose as temperatures plunged across the border, leading to much higher prices. It said gas prices had risen from about $3 per million BTUs to as much as $600 in recent days.

The commission said that by midday Monday it had restored power to about 65% of the 4.8 million customers affected by the blackout, mainly in the northern border states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. A smaller number of users were also affected in Durango and Zacatecas.

The commission said it was seeking to make up for the shortfall by bringing on line more electricity from hydroelectric and coal-fired plants as well as gas supplied by tanker ships.
The utility’s director of fuel purchasing, Miguel Reyes Hernández, suggested that what happened in Texas was a perfect storm of factors that choked off imports of gas that Mexico uses to run many of its power plants.

“Electricity demand in the United States rose by a little over 20% in just four days,” Reyes Hernández said. “The increase was due precisely to the drop in temperatures, and obviously the use of heating in the United States meant an increase in natural gas demand on the one hand, and precisely because of the low temperatures, there was a decrease in renewable energy.”

He said U.S. wind turbines “had their blades frozen ... and there was freezing in many pipelines and even at wells.”

It was the latest embarrassing failure for the Federal Electricity Commission, the government utility that has become a pet project for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who wants to reduce the role of private power generation.

In January, the utility acknowledged it had presented a falsified report on a Dec. 28 blackout, which it had blamed on a purported brush fire beneath transmission lines that caused the two-hour power failure affecting one-fourth of Mexico’s customers.

López Obrador has not only defended the state-owned company, but he is seeking to eliminate competition from cleaner, privately built generating plants and renewable energy.

In January, he proposed a bill that would put cleaner, natural gas and renewable private plants — many built with foreign investment — last in line for electricity purchases. The private and renewable energy plants were encouraged by López Obrador’s predecessors in order to reduce carbon emissions.

López Obrador sought in an executive order in 2020 to shore up the government utility by limiting permits to bring other companies’ power plants online, including some wind and solar facilities. The president contends green-energy incentives give those plants an unfair advantage over the state utility.

With electricity use down overall during the pandemic, the state utility faces declining revenue and increasing stocks of fuel oil it has to burn in power plants. It has also come under pressure to buy coal from domestic mines.

 

[Plain Jane]

Questions abound as Ecuador heads to presidential runoff

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuador is headed toward a presidential runoff that so far has brought disappointing results for nearly all involved at a time when the country, battered by a sour economy even before the pandemic, has been struggling for direction.

apnews.com

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Questions abound as Ecuador heads to presidential runoff
By REGINA GARCIA CANOtoday



1 of 4
Presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso, representing the Creating Opportunities party or CREO, sitting across from rival Yaku Perez, with the Pachakutik political party, attends an event outside the National Electoral Committee office in which they are both asking for a ballot recount of Sunday's election, in Quito, Ecuador, Friday, Feb. 12, 2021. It remains undecided which of the two has the votes to advance to the run-off race in April to face frontrunner Andres Arauz. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Ecuador is headed toward a presidential runoff that so far has brought disappointing results for nearly all involved at a time when the country, battered by a sour economy even before the pandemic, has been struggling for direction.

The leftist faction that has won the past four general elections is the clear favorite heading into the April 11 ballot, but its candidate, Andrés Arauz, barely managed to get about 33% of the votes in the election’s first round Feb. 7.

A conservative who lost the last two presidential contests, Guillermo Lasso, emerged with a little under 20% of the votes, giving him a perilously fragile edge to get the other spot on the runoff ballot.


Yaku Pérez, a challenger from an environmentalist-Indigenous movement, made an unexpectedly strong showing, but so far has fallen just short of Lasso in the fight for the second runoff spot. That has prompted allegations of fraud from Pérez’s backers, who are part of a movement that led major challenges to a series of governments, toppling presidents at least twice in recent decades.

Electoral authorities on Tuesday were still trying to decide the scope and rules for a partial recount of first-round votes to determine if Pérez or Lasso will face off with Arauz in April. Ecuador’s Electoral Council has until Wednesday — 10 days after the first round — to process ballots to determine who will advance to the runoff.

No matter who wins, “The outlook is very dark from this point on,” said Grace M. Jaramillo of the University of British Colombia, who formerly led the department of international relations at a leading university in Ecuador. “Under the three different scenarios, Ecuador is going to face a very difficult time in the following four years. It’s very pessimistic with Arauz, Yaku or Lasso.”

Arauz is backed by ex-President Rafael Correa, a former ally of Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez who remains heavily influential despite a corruption conviction that has left him watching from afar in Belgium, beyond the reach of Ecuadoran prosecutors.
Arauz has proposed making the wealthy pay more taxes, strengthening consumer protections, public banking and local credit and savings organizations, and backing away from agreements with the International Monetary Fund.

Correa became president in 2007 and was reelected twice with solid margins. He oversaw strong growth and declining poverty for much of his mandate, but was accused of increasing authoritarianism and repression of indigenous groups and the press.

His chosen successor, Lenin Moreno, won in 2017, but veered away from Correa toward more market-friendly policies that have stumbled at a time of high debts and low prices for Ecuador’s oil. He feuded bitterly with his former mentor and chose not to seek reelection.

Correa’s version of leftist politics often collided with that of Indigenous and environmental movements alarmed by oil and mineral developments. Pérez’s Pachakutik party and other movements have mobilized protests, some that turned into major clashes, against a series of governments from right and left.

“They are completely against any candidate who is with Rafael Correa,” Jaramillo said of the Indigenous groups and their left-leaning backers. “It’s a vote against somebody, not a vote in favor of somebody.”

Indigenous communities led protests in October 2019 that forced Moreno’s government to back down on a move to end fuel subsidies.

Lasso is again running for the presidency after a long career in business, banking and government. He favors free-market policies and Ecuador’s rapprochement with international organizations.

Correa was sentenced in absentia in April to eight years in prison for his role in what prosecutors described as an elaborate scheme that demanded millions of dollars from businessmen in exchange for the contracts of large infrastructure projects between 2012 and 2016. He calls the allegations trumped-up charges for political ends.

On Friday, Pérez and Lasso agreed to seek a full recount in the coastal province of Guayas, where the conservative candidate has strong support, and to ask for verification of 50% of votes in 16 other provinces. But Lasso appeared to backtrack on his support for some of those recounts.

Marlon Santi, Pachakutik’s national coordinator, vowed to use “all the nececessary (legal) resources and means” to support Perez.

“We are not going to allow them to steal our victory and our right to participate in the second electoral round and achieve victory against the candidate who represents the return of corruption and authoritarianism,” Santi said.

 

[Plain Jane]

Migrants on the move again in Mexico and Central America

TENOSIQUE, Mexico (AP) — In the first Mexican shelter reached by migrants after trekking through the Guatemalan jungle, some 150 migrants are sleeping in its dormitories and another 150 lie on thin mattresses spread across the floor of its chapel.

apnews.com

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Migrants on the move again in Mexico and Central America
By ISABEL MATEOS and MARÍA VERZAtoday



1 of 12
Central American migrants rest at "The 72" shelter in Tenosique, Tabasco state, Mexico, Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2021. Only six weeks into the year, the shelter has hosted nearly 1,500 migrants compared to 3,000 all of last year, even though it has halved its dormitory capacity due to the new cornavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Isabel Mateos)

TENOSIQUE, Mexico (AP) — In the first Mexican shelter reached by migrants after trekking through the Guatemalan jungle, some 150 migrants are sleeping in its dormitories and another 150 lie on thin mattresses spread across the floor of its chapel.

Only six weeks into the year, the shelter known as “The 72” has hosted nearly 1,500 migrants, compared to 3,000 all of last year. It has halved its dormitory space due to the pandemic. That wasn’t a problem last year because few migrants arrived, but this year it’s been overwhelmed.

“We have a tremendous flow and there isn’t capacity,” said Gabriel Romero, the priest who runs the shelter in Tenosique, a town in southern Tabasco state. “The situation could get out of control. We need a dialogue with all of the authorities before this becomes chaos.” In particular, he would like the government to assist with migrants who camp outside while they are full.

Latin America’s migrants — from the Caribbean, South America and Central America — are on the move again. After a year of pandemic-induced paralysis, those in daily contact with migrants believe the flow north could return to the high levels seen in late 2018 and early 2019. The difference is that it would happen during a pandemic.

The protective health measures imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19, including drastically reduced bedspace at shelters along the route, mean fewer safe spaces for migrants in transit.

“The flow is increasing and the problem is there’s less capacity than before to meet their needs” because of the pandemic, said Sergio Martin, head of the nongovernment aid group Doctors Without Borders in Mexico.

Some shelters remain closed by local health authorities and almost all have had to reduce the number of migrants they can assist. Applications for visas, asylum or any other official paperwork are delayed by the government’s reduced capacity due to the pandemic to process them.

“This is not a post-COVID migration; it is a migration in the middle of the pandemic, making it all the more vulnerable,” said Ruben Figueroa, an activist with the Mesoamerican Migrant Movement.

Some migrants have expressed hope of a friendlier reception from the new U.S. administration or started moving when some borders were reopened. Others are being driven by two major hurricanes that ravaged Central America in November and desperation deepened by the economic impact of the pandemic.

Olga Rodríguez, 27, had been walking for a month since leaving Honduras with her husband and four children, aged 3 to 8, after Hurricane Eta flooded the street vendors’ house. They arrived in Mexico and applied for asylum, but told it would take six months. Forced to sleep in the street, they changed plans.


“The children suffered cold, we got wet and I told my husband if we’re going to be in the cold and rain, better we walk,” she said from Coatzacoalcos. Now their goal is the United States.

President Joe Biden’s administration has taken steps toward rolling back some of the harshest policies of ex-President Donald Trump, but a policy remains allowing U.S. border officials to immediately send back almost anyone due to the pandemic. The U.S. government is concerned that the more hopeful message could set off a rush for the border and says it will take time to implement new policies.

The number of people apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border in January was more than double that of the same month last year and 20,000 above January 2019. This week families have been seen crossing from Ciudad Juarez and turning themselves over to Border Patrol in hopes to applying for asylum.

“Wait in your country, or if you’re in Mexico, wait” until you can be sure you can cross legally, Roberta Jacobson, the White House’s lead advisor on the border, said recently.

Last week, the Biden administration announced that it would slowly start processing the approximately 25,000 asylum seekers who were forced to wait out their process in Mexico under Trump. That was scheduled to begin Friday at three border crossings.

Mexico has so far said it will continue enforcing an “orderly” migration, which in practice has meant trying to contain migrants in the south since Trump threatened tariffs on all Mexican imports in 2019.

On Tuesday, Mexico’s National Immigration Institute said in a statement that authorities had made 50 raids on freight train lines since Jan. 25 in southern and central Mexico, detaining nearly 1,200 migrants.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador warned migrants recently to not be fooled by traffickers who promise that the U.S. will open its doors.

Isabel Chávez, one of the nuns who work at the migrant shelter in Palenque, some 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Tenosique, said they had to reduce the number of days migrants could stay there to a maximum of two because of the “avalanche” of migrants who arrived in January. There would be as many as 220 migrants there compared to the 100 they would see before the pandemic began in March 2020, she said.

In Tapachula, the largest Mexican city near its border with Guatemala and home to Mexico’s biggest detention center, there are signs of the increase as well. “There are more people applying for refuge and the increase in migrants is evident in the city’s public spaces,” said Enrique Vidal Olascoaga, lawyer for the nongovernmental organization Fray Matías de Córdova, which helps migrants with legal procedures.

César Augusto Cañaveral, the director of the Good Shepherd shelter in Tapachula, lamented having to close the doors of the shelter after it filled in late January.

“Now we take food out to the street and some sleep outside,” but that has concerned the shelter’s neighbors, who worry about the risk of COVID-19 infections. “This is going to be more complicated than (the wave of migrants in) 2018, because the cherry on top is COVID-19,” he said.

Now, more than 1,300 miles to the southeast, some 1,500 migrants spread across various camps in Panama have their sights set on getting to Tapachula, either as a temporary stopover en route to the U.S. border or to begin the asylum process in Mexico.

Panama reopened its border in late January and ever since, groups have been walking out of the dense Darien jungle that divides Panama and Colombia. The government has been shuttling them to other camps closer to the Costa Rica border to make space for new arrivals.

Last week, Guatemalan immigration officials warned that a new migrant caravan could be forming in coming days in Honduras. In January, Guatemalan authorities blocked the year’s first caravan, sending nearly 5,000 Hondurans back to their country over a 10-day span.

But while Guatemala was focused on the caravan, other migrants were moving north as always in small, discreet groups. It was during the caravan last month that shelters in southern Mexico began seeing their numbers increase with mostly Honduran migrants.

Small groups of migrants are more vulnerable to criminals who kidnap and extort them, said the activist Figueroa.

Most invisible are those paying smugglers who stuff them into trailers like the one that Mexican authorities stopped in Veracruz this week. Inside were 233 migrants, mostly from Guatemala.

In late January, 19 bodies, shot and burned, were found inside a pickup truck near the Mexico-Texas border. Most were believed to be Guatemalan migrants. A dozen state police officers were arrested in connection with the case.

“We foresee an increase in violence,” said Sergio Martin of Doctors Without Borders, noting that despite the pandemic migrants continue to be pushed into moving clandestinely.
Just down the border from where the bodies were found, the Rev. Francisco Gallardo, director of the migrant shelter in Matamoros, said he had recently made arrangements for two pregnant women to deliver their babies in the Mexican city.

“Two families with two women eight months pregnant just crossed the river” into the U.S., he said, referring to the Rio Grande that divides the two countries. “They already had their smuggler and decided to risk it.”

Back in southern Mexico, migrant Edilberto Aguilar continued walking. “This is a chain,” said the 33-year-old Honduran. “One day we arrive and tomorrow others arrive. This never ends.”
__
AP writers Juan Zamorano in Panama City and Sonia Pérez D. in Guatemala City contributed to this report.

 

[Plain Jane]

Mexico finds clandestine burial pits in north, Gulf coast

Investigators in Mexico have found at least a half-dozen bodies buried in shallow pits in the northern state of Sonora, while in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, experts and police uncovered at least three burial pits in a tropical mangrove island.

apnews.com

Click to copy
Mexico finds clandestine burial pits in north, Gulf coast
By FÉLIX MÁRQUEZtoday



1 of 9
A Mexican Army soldier stands next to a flag marking the site of a clandestine grave in Puquita, a tropical mangrove island near Alvarado in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, Mexico, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021. Investigators from the National Search Commission found three pits with human remains and plastic bags inside. The number of bodies there has not yet been determined. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

VERACRUZ, Mexico (AP) — At least a half-dozen bodies have been found buried in shallow pits in the scrubland of the northern Mexico state of Sonora, while in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, experts and police uncovered at least three burial pits in a tropical mangrove island, authorities said Thursday.

Prosecutors in Sonora said a volunteer search team first found the clandestine burial site in the town of Cajeme, which police and experts then excavated. Two corpses and four sets of skeletal remains were recovered from the pits, which were near a formal graveyard.

In Veracruz, investigators from the National Search Commission found three pits with human remains and plastic bags inside. The number of bodies there has not yet been determined.

Veracruz has been the scene of some of the largest clandestine burial pits in recent years. The sites are often used by drug gangs to dispose of the bodies of rivals or kidnapping victims.
Volunteer search groups usually made up of relatives of missing people have played major roles in finding burial pits in Mexico.

Lucia Diaz, an activist whose Colectivo Solecito group has led police to other Veracruz burial grounds in the past, said she was surprised that criminals had taken the trouble to use the isolated mangrove swamp to get rid of bodies.

“This is a state where we really have (burial) pits everywhere,” Diaz said. “What does surprise us is that they had gone so far as to seek out difficult, remote places that make searches more difficult and cause greater decomposition to the bodies.”

Diaz said that because the site is so watery and alkaline, it may be hard to get DNA samples to identify the bodies.

In November, authorities in the western state of Jalisco recovered 113 bodies and additional human remains from a secret grave in the town of El Salto, just outside Guadalajara. A total of 189 corpses were discovered in the town throughout 2020.

More than 80,000 people are listed as missing since Mexico’s drug war began in 2006.

 

[Plain Jane]

Colombian military accused of 6,400 extrajudicial killings

Colombia's military carried out at least 6,400 extrajudicial killings and presented them as combat deaths between 2002 and 2008, a number significantly higher than previously estimated, a special court…

www.france24.com

Colombian military accused of 6,400 extrajudicial killings
Issued on: 19/02/2021 - 17:11

A member of the Mothers of False Positives (Mafapo) draws the face of a missing relative-victim of extrajudicial killings by the Colombian Army at a workshop in Bogota on November 6, 2019. © Juan Barreto, AFP
Text by:NEWS WIRES
3 min
Colombia's military carried out at least 6,400 extrajudicial killings and presented them as combat deaths between 2002 and 2008, a number significantly higher than previously estimated, a special court said Thursday.


The court, called the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, is investigating crimes and atrocities committed during half a century of armed conflict between government troops and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Marxist rebels who laid down their weapons following a historic 2016 peace accord.

The tribunal, set up under the peace deal, described the killings as "illegitimate deaths presented as combat fatalities," which are known in military circles as "false positives."

Until last year, the public prosecutor's office had acknowledged 2,249 executions of civilians between 1988 and 2014 -- the majority of which were carried out between 2006 and 2008, during the presidency of Alvaro Uribe, the political mentor of current President Ivan Duque.

Although the military high command has always denied there was a systematic policy of declaring "false positives," some soldiers and officials have told the court that they were put under pressure by superiors to inflate the success of their military operations against rebels.
General Mario Montoya, who was the army commander at the time, is the highest ranking military figure to have testified before the court.

Despite witnesses blaming him for the killings, Montoya denies ordering the execution of civilians.

There are 2,140 military personnel currently under investigation over extrajudicial killings, which is less than one percent of the total number of troops operating in the army at that time, Montoya's lawyer Andres Garzon told AFP in 2020.

"That shows there was never a directive to the army to commit such atrocious acts," he said.

'Complicity'
The court is looking into the worst rights abuses committed by guerrillas, paramilitaries and soldiers during the conflict.

Those who confess responsibility and compensate the victims can avoid prison time, but those who don't face up to 20 years in jail.

The court, though, has yet to convict anyone since it was set up in 2018.

It said most of the killings took place in the northwestern Antioquia department where soldiers and right-wing paramilitaries fought with left-wing rebels.

It said the IV Brigade of the army, which operated in the region, "could be responsible for 73 percent of the deaths identified in the department between 2000 and 2013."

Some remains of victims have been found in a cemetery in Antioquia thanks to statements made by members of the security forces, but the court said those "haven't been investigated."

According to Tania Parra, a lawyer representing soldiers who have confessed, Thursday's report shows there was "complicity" by authorities "to hide" the murders.

But she told AFP that while many investigations are opened, "either there's no result or .. they're cleared."

At least 20 of the 219 security forces personnel who have testified before the court are receiving protection after facing threats.
(AFP)

 

[Plain Jane]

Cuban anti-Communist anthem featuring Gente de Zona goes viral, sparks state fury

A group of Miami-based Cuban musicians including reggaeton duo Gente de Zona launched an impassioned anti-Communist anthem this week that has gone viral, sparking a furious state response.

www.reuters.com

FEBRUARY 20, 202112:41 PMUPDATED 19 HOURS AGO

Cuban anti-Communist anthem featuring Gente de Zona goes viral, sparks state fury
By Sarah Marsh, Rodrigo Gutierrez
4 MIN READ

HAVANA (Reuters) - A group of Miami-based Cuban musicians including reggaeton duo Gente de Zona launched an impassioned anti-Communist anthem this week that has gone viral, sparking a furious state response.

Gente de Zona, Yotuel of hip-hop band Orishas fame and singer-songwriter Descemer Bueno collaborated on the song with two rappers in Cuba, Maykel Osorbo and El Funky, who are part of a dissident artists’ collective that sparked an unusual protest against repression outside the culture ministry last November.

“Homeland and Life” repurposes the old slogan “Patria o Muerte” (“Homeland or Death”) emblazoned on walls across the Caribbean country ever since Fidel Castro’s 1959 leftist revolution and expresses frustration with being required to make sacrifices in the name of ideology for 62 years.

The lyrics refer to ideological intolerance, the partial dollarization of the economy, food shortages and the exodus of young Cubans who see no future on the island. The government blames its economic woes largely on crippling U.S. sanctions.

The video here featuring the five artists - all Black men - has racked up 1 million views on YouTube in three days, sparking lively discussions on social media, while many in Cuba - where internet service is costly - are sharing it on USB sticks.

“No more lies, my people calls for freedom, no more doctrines” sings Alexander Delgado, one half of GdZ, chanting “It’s over” in the refrain.

The Miami-based artists had until recently managed the tightrope of achieving capitalist success abroad without breaking with the Communist-run island. GdZ even called for applause for Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel at a Havana concert in 2018 although that sparked calls for a boycott from some in the exile community.


BACKLASH
Cuban state media and officials including the president have launched a barrage of attacks, Twitter hashtags and memes on “Homeland and Life,” branding it unpatriotic and without artistic merit. They say the artists behind it are opportunistically trying to placate their Miami public.

“It makes fun of one of the slogans held aloft by our people in the face of continuous U.S. aggressions,” said Havana-based TV anchor Froilan Arencibia.

Ana Dopico, the Cuban-born director of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at New York University, said the rejection of that revolutionary cry was unprecedented in recent Cuban popular music.

“It shocks us all out of the depressing menace of death that comes with our understanding of nation,” she said.


The song reflects a surge in overt anti-Cuban-government sentiment among more contemporary generations of Cuban migrants, said Michael Bustamante, an assistant professor of Latin American history at Florida International University.

But it has also resonated with people on the island, especially youths who have become increasingly vocal about their frustrations since the advent of mobile internet two years ago, with some emblazoning their Facebook Profile photos with the banner “Homeland and Life.”

“I follow Fidel’s ideals but lately things have been happening that I don’t really agree with,” said Havana resident Loraine Martinez, who enjoyed the song.

This is not the first time that the songs of Cuban musicians on the island and abroad have become stand-ins for political causes, said Bustamante. But the Cuban government’s response was unusually forceful, he said, reflecting its anxiety and what he called “misplaced priorities.”

“If they are worried about popular frustration, the way to fix that is to focus on bread-and-butter reforms, not this kind of reflexive ideological performativity,” he said.

Reporting by Sarah Marsh, Rodrigo Gutierrez and Reuters TV; Editing by Matthew Lewis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

 

[Plain Jane]

Six killed in Mexican air force plane accident in Veracruz

Six members of Mexico's military died in an accident on Sunday morning involving a Mexican air force plane in the southeastern state of Veracruz, the country's Defense Ministry said.

www.reuters.com

FEBRUARY 21, 20214:41 PMUPDATED 12 HOURS AGO

Six killed in Mexican air force plane accident in Veracruz
By Reuters Staff
1 MIN READ

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Six members of Mexico’s military died in an accident on Sunday morning involving a Mexican air force plane in the southeastern state of Veracruz, the country’s Defense Ministry said.

The accident occurred as the Learjet 45 aircraft was taking off around 9:45 a.m. from an airport in the municipality of Emiliano Zapata, the ministry said in a statement.

The six victims have not been identified, and the military will carry out an investigation, the ministry added. It was not clear how many were aboard the plane.

Reporting by Miguel Angel Gutierrez; Writing by Laura Gottesdiener; Editing by Peter Cooney
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

 

[Plain Jane]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

US Arrests Beauty Queen Wife Of El Chapo On Drug Charges, Accused Of Plotting Two Prison Escapes

BY TYLER DURDEN
MONDAY, FEB 22, 2021 - 21:55
Emma Coronel Aispuro, a former US beauty queen and wife of the world's most notorious living drug kingpin – Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, the former leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel who is currently serving a life sentence - was arrested on Monday in the US over her alleged involvement in international drug trafficking, the US Justice Department reported on Monday.

Coronel, 31, a dual US-Mexican citizen and a regular attendee at her husband’s trial two years ago, was arrested at Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia "on charges related to her alleged involvement in international drug trafficking" is expected to appear in a federal court in Washington on Tuesday. It was unclear why Coronel was in the Washington area.


Her arrest came two years after a trial in Brooklyn where Guzman, now 63, was convicted of trafficking tons of drugs into the United States as Sinaloa’s leader. Prosecutors at the trial said Guzman amassed power through murders and wars with rival cartels. He was sentenced in July 2019 to life in prison plus 30 years, which the sentencing judge said reflected Guzman’s “overwhelmingly evil” actions. Guzman was sent to ADX Florence in Colorado, the nation’s most secure "Supermax" prison.

Coronel and Guzman have been married since 2007, when they wed in an ostentatious
ceremony in a village in Durango state. At the time, Coronel was an 18-year-old beauty queen.
Coronel was charged on Monday in a one-count complaint with conspiring to distribute one kilogram or more of heroin, five kilograms or more of cocaine, 500 grams of more of meth and a whopping 1,000 kilograms or more of cannabis for unlawful importation into the United States. The DOJ also accused Coronel of conspiring to aid her husband in his July 2015 escape from the Altiplano prison in Mexico, when he dug a mile-long tunnel from his cell.

She was also allegedly among those behind another of Guzman’s escape attempts from the same jail after his recapture by Mexican authorities in January 2016. The plot failed to materialize after prison officials uncovered an entrance to yet another would-be underground tunnel outside of the facility. Then, with his hopes for reaching freedom dashed, the Sinaloa Cartel co-founder asked the authorities to fastrack his extraction to the States, complaining of dire conditions in the Mexican prison.

El Chapo was eventually handed over to the US in January 2017, where he is currently serving a life sentence plus 30 years, after being convicted on 10 charges related to large-scale drug trafficking and conspiracy to commit murder.

Before her arrest, Coronel capitalized on Guzman’s notoriety, launching a clothing line named after her husband, ‘El Chapo Guzman,’ and became a reality star after she was featured on Season 2 on VH1's 'Cartel Crew’ series.

U.S. and Mexican efforts to fight drug trafficking became strained in October when the DOJ brought drug charges against former Mexican Defense Minister Salvador Cienfuegos. However one month later the Justice Department unexpectedly dropped that case the following month and let Cienfuegos return to Mexico, a move Mexico said would restore trust in the countries’ strained security ties. Cienfuegos was exonerated two months later when Mexico dropped its own case.

Tomas Guevara, an investigator in security issues at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, said Coronel’s arrest might be part of a “pressure strategy” to prompt cooperation from Guzman.

According to Reuters, a Mexican official familiar with Coronel’s case, who asked not to be identified, said her arrest appeared to be solely a U.S. initiative, and that Coronel was not wanted in Mexico.

 

[Plain Jane]

Ecuador: Violence kills dozens of inmates at three prisons – DW – 02/23/2021

Police in Ecuador say riots in three prisons have killed more than 60 inmates. The simultaneous outbreaks of violence have been attributed to organized crime.

www.dw.com

Ecuador: Violence kills dozens of inmates at three prisons
Police in Ecuador say riots in three prisons have killed more than 60 inmates. The simultaneous outbreaks of violence have been attributed to organized crime.




A centralized command post was said to now be investigating "concerted action by criminal organizations"

Ecuadorian police on Tuesday said at least 62 people had been killed in prison mutinies in three separate facilities.

News of the violence comes as Ecuador struggles to deal with prison overcrowding and frequent violence between gangs.

What do we know?
The unrest happened at facilities in the port city of Guayaquil in the southwest, and at Cuenca and Latacunga in the Andes.

Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno wrote on Twitter that criminal organizations were behind the violence.

"The police and Interior Ministry are working to regain control of the prisons," Moreno wrote.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Patricio Pazmino tweeted that a centralized command post was now investigating "concerted action by criminal organizations to generate violence in penitentiary centers."

Police who brought the situation under control in Guayaquil seized firearms, machetes, knives, and mobile phones from prisoners' cells, according to the prosecutor's office.

Recent rise in prison riots
Riots sparked by gang rivalry in Ecuadorean jails left 11 prisoners dead in December. A 90-day state of emergency that Moreno ordered in the jails to bring "mafia" groups under control was lifted in November.

Inmate violence left 51 people dead in 2020, according to police figures.
To reduce prisoner numbers amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Ecuadorean government commuted sentences for minor offenses to non-custodial penalties.

 

[Plain Jane]

Honduran president says U.S. probe of his alleged drug ties could scuttle cooperation with Washington

(This Feb. 24 story has been refiled to correct typographical error in fifth paragraph to make name of drug cartel "Los Cachiros" instead of "Los Cahiros")

www.reuters.com

FEBRUARY 24, 20217:43 PMUPDATED 9 HOURS AGO

Honduran president says U.S. probe of his alleged drug ties could scuttle cooperation with Washington
By Gustavo Palencia
3 MIN READ

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez said on Wednesday that allegations by U.S. prosecutors of his involvement with organized crime could affect cooperation with Washington in fighting drug trafficking.

U.S. prosecutors, in a federal court filing in New York on Feb. 5, said Hernandez used Honduran law enforcement here and military officials to protect drug traffickers as part of a plan “to use drug trafficking to help assert power and control in Honduras.”

U.S. prosecutors have said Hernandez accepted a million-dollar bribe here from Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who was convicted in 2019 and is serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison.

Hernandez has denied the allegations and he has not been charged with a crime.

Hernandez, while speaking to the Honduran Congress on Wednesday, said that members of the “Los Cahiros” cartel falsely accused him in an effort to seek shorter prison sentences. He warned U.S. officials that believing these allegations could compromise joint security efforts between Washington and Tegucigalpa.

“If certain offices in the United States make the mistake of rewarding drug traffickers who give false testimony, instead of increasing their penalties ... then the battle that we have jointly waged with our allies against drug trafficking may become unsustainable because there will be loss of trust,” Hernandez said.

He added that if Washington takes the accusations against him seriously, “it will mean that sooner or later effective cooperation systems will inevitably collapse.”

Hernandez, who has been in power since 2014, is a close U.S. ally in Central America. Yet, the accusations against him pose a challenge for the Biden administration, which has promised to invest $4 billion into Central America to address the root causes of migration from the region.

Earlier this week, a group of Democratic senators introduced legislation to impose sanctions on Hernandez for corruption and human rights abuses and to suspend U.S. security assistance for the Honduran police and military.

Reporting by Gustavo Palencia, writing by Laura Gottesdiener; editing by Grant McCool
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

 

[Plain Jane]

Expulsion of EU delegation's chief in Venezuela further isolates Maduro: U.S

Venezuela's decision to ask the head of the European Union's delegation in Caracas to leave the country further isolates Nicolas Maduro's government, the State Department said on Thursday.

www.reuters.com

FEBRUARY 25, 20217:10 PMUPDATED 10 HOURS AGO
Expulsion of EU delegation's chief in Venezuela further isolates Maduro: U.S
By Reuters Staff
2 MIN READ

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Venezuela’s decision to ask the head of the European Union’s delegation in Caracas to leave the country further isolates Nicolas Maduro’s government, the State Department said on Thursday.

“The Maduro regime has removed one of the international champions standing up for democracy in Venezuela and human rights of the Venezuelan people,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said.

“This action will only further isolate the Maduro regime and the world remains united in calling for a return to democracy in Venezuela,” he added.

The European Union later on Wednesday declared Venezuela’s envoy to Brussels persona non grata.

It said in a statement that the Maduro government’s expulsion of its ambassador was “wholly unwarranted and contrary to the EU’s objective of developing relations and building partnerships in third countries.”

Claudia Salerno, Venezuela’s representative to the EU, responded on Twitter by saying: “The independence and sovereignty of our Fatherland cannot be negotiated. Venezuela must be respected.”

Reporting by Simon Lewis; Additional reporting by Daphne Psaledakis, Mohammad Zargham and Idrees Ali; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

 

[Plain Jane]

25 die, 400 prisoners escape in Haiti jailbreak – DW – 02/27/2021

Police shot dead the leader of one of the country's most feared gangs after he was broken out of jail. Dozens more were killed in the violence.

www.dw.com

Haiti jailbreak: 25 die, 400 prisoners escape
Police shot dead the leader of one of the country's most feared gangs after he was broken out of jail. Dozens more were killed in the violence.




Thursday's breakout was one of the deadliest in the Caribbean island's history

More than 400 inmates escaped from a prison in Haiti on Thursday, authorities announced on Friday. Some 25 people were also killed in the incident, including the director of the prison.

Police also killed Arnel Joseph, the leader of one of the country's most powerful gangs, following his escape from the Croix-des-Bouquets prison in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. He was shot by police at a checkpoint after pulling a gun, a police spokesman said.

The jailbreak was the deadliest in a decade. Among the casualties were six inmates, one police officer and the head of the prison, Paul Hector Joseph, Secretary of State for Communication Frantz Exantus announced on Friday. Civilians were also killed in the ensuing violence.

Gunmen storm the prison
Authorities said they had recaptured 60 of the convicts, but more than 200 were still on the run.
Some 300 out of 899 inmates managed to escape the same prison in 2014 after armed attackers on the outside collaborated with accomplices on the inside.
Some suspected that the recent breakout was aimed at freeing Arnel Joseph.

The prison's inmates included those being held for violent crimes as well as government opponents accused of planning a coup

Before Thursday's jailbreak, there were around 1,500 people locked up in the facility, according to the Haiti Press Network news agency. Witnesses told the Associated Press that they had seen gunmen shooting at prison guards before the breakout.

Haiti's deteriorating situation
Haiti's President Jovenel Moise condemned the breakout on Twitter, saying: "We condemn the Croix-des-Bouquets jailbreak and urge the population to remain calm. The [National Police] is instructed to take all measures to bring the situation under control."

The country was plunged into political turmoil in early February when Moise had scores of opponents arrested under accusations of attempting to launch a coup. Some of those were being detained in the Croix-des-Bouquets prison alongside gang members.
Protests against Moise's government have since become an almost daily affair.

Political unrest has also been blamed for the rise in gang violence, such as kidnappings and murders, which have turned parts of the capital into no-go areas.

Rights activists have accused the government of using gangs for their own political goals.

 

[Plain Jane]

11 killed in shooting attack in Mexico's Jalisco state

Ten men and a boy are dead and a woman and another boy are being treated for bullet wounds after a shooting attack on a home in western Mexico.

apnews.com

Click to copy
11 killed in shooting attack in Mexico’s Jalisco state
today


MEXICO CITY (AP) — Ten men and a boy were killed and a woman and another boy were wounded in a shooting attack on a home in western Mexico Saturday.

Prosecutors in the state of Jalisco said the bullet-ridden bodies of the 10 men were found by police on the sidewalk in front of the home. The body of a boy was found inside, and a woman and another boy were located at a local hospital.

The prosecutors’ office said the attack was carried out by unidentified assailants traveling in an SUV.

The state is home to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of Mexico’s most violent and powerful. More bodies have been found in clandestine burial pits in Jalisco there than in any other state in recent years. The cartel has been fighting a breakaway faction in and around Guadalajara.

Earlier this month, police found 18 plastic bags full of hacked-up body parts on the outskirts of Guadalajara, the state capital.

In November, Jalisco authorities recovered 113 bodies and additional human remains from a secret grave in the town of El Salto, just outside Guadalajara. A total of 189 corpses were discovered in the town throughout 2020.