International
Trump receives Netanyahu in a gesture of support, with Gaza and Saudi Arabia on the agenda
US President Donald Trump will receive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday at his first meeting with a foreign leader since his return to power, and with the future of Gaza and the possibility of a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia as key issues on the agenda.
The appointment represents international support for Netanyahu, especially after the arrest warrant of the International Criminal Court (ICC), whose jurisdiction Washington does not recognize and whose decision has strongly condemned.
Both leaders are expected to address a wide variety of issues, including the future of the Gaza Strip, the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and the growing tension with Iran, which attacked Israel twice with missiles and drones last year.
This Monday, in statements to the press at the White House, Trump was skeptical about the possibility of a lasting ceasefire in Gaza.
“I have no guarantees that peace will be maintained,” he said on the eve of his meeting with Netanyahu.
The meeting between Trump and Netanyahu will coincide with the beginning of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas for the second phase of the truce agreement, which provides for the release of all Israeli hostages in Gaza and the establishment of bases for the definitive end of the war.
Hamas, which has reaffirmed its control over Gaza since the beginning of the ceasefire on January 19, has warned that it will not release more hostages until the end of the war is agreed and the Israeli forces withdraw from the enclave.
Netanyahu, for his part, faces growing pressure within his government coalition with far-right ministers such as Bezalel Smotrich threatening to overthrow the Executive if, once the first phase of the truce is concluded, the fighting in the Strip does not resume.
Trump, for his part, has not given clear signals about what his strategy will be in the Gaza conflict. Although he is a strong ally of Israel, the Israeli press assures that it has already told Netanyahu that it does not want the country to resume fighting in the Strip.
Trump has promised to end the wars in the Middle East and, in addition, has attributed the merit of having facilitated the current ceasefire agreement, which in its first phase allowed the release of 13 Israelis and 5 Thais in exchange for more than 500 Palestinian prisoners.
However, his apparent intention to end the war does not imply improvements for the Gazati. On the contrary, since his return to power he has lifted sanctions against Israeli settlers accused of violence against Palestinians and has thawed a shipment of heavy bombs to Israel, paused by his predecessor, Joe Biden (2021-2025).
During his first term, Trump already made several decisions in favor of Israel, such as the transfer of the US embassy to Jerusalem, the recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and the negotiation of the Abraham Agreements, which allowed Israel to establish diplomatic relations with several Arab countries.
Beyond the truce in Gaza, Trump seeks to take advantage of the meeting to relaunch his aspiration to reach an agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a goal that he already pursued in his first term (2017-2021) and that the Biden Administration also tried unsuccessfully.
Saudi Arabia has shown interest in signing an agreement with Israel, but has made it a condition to receive strategic guarantees from the United States, such as a defense pact, and has made it clear that there will be no agreement without the creation of a Palestinian State.
The form that an eventual Palestinian state would take is still to be defined, especially due to the position of both Trump and Netanyahu with Israel.
In recent days, the US president has insisted that Jordan, Egypt and other Arab countries should accept more Palestinian refugees from Gaza, a proposal that has been flatly rejected by both several Arab nations.
Netanyahu, for his part, rejects any attempt to use the formula of the “two-state solution” to resolve the conflict.
Beyond the topics to be discussed, attention will be focused on the gestures between the two leaders and on the current state of their personal relationship.
During Trump’s first term, both maintained a close relationship, but later the former US president felt betrayed when Netanyahu congratulated Biden on his victory in the 2020 elections, in which Trump denounced an alleged electoral fraud without evidence.
Since then, Netanyahu has sought to rebuild the relationship with Trump. In July of last year, he traveled to the US president’s mansion in Florida to meet with him before the elections and, after his victory in November, he was one of the first leaders to congratulate him.
International
FAO: Latin America facing “very worrying” scenario due to high numbers of hunger and obesity
Latin America and the Caribbean face a “very worrying, but with positive elements” panorama, given the 41 million people who suffer from hunger and a third of the population dealing with obesity problems, said this Monday in Honduras the deputy director general and regional representative of the FAO for Latin America and the Caribbean, Mario Lubetkin.
“It is worrying because we still have 41 million people who go hungry, that is dramatic if we think that in Latin America there are people who do not eat,” Lubetkin stressed to EFE after participating in Honduras in the inauguration of a meeting of Ministers of Agriculture of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac).
However, Lubetkin stressed that in the last two years, hunger has decreased, which has allowed 4.5 million people to emerge from food poverty; which “forces” countries to strengthen their public policies to further reduce these figures.
Latin America and the Caribbean also face “bad food”, a problem that affects 140 million people, said the representative, who highlighted that the region has the capacity to produce food for 1.3 billion people.
Lubetkin said that following a healthy diet carries a daily cost of “$3.96” per person in Latin America and the Caribbean, after highlighting that the region has made progress in reducing hunger but records an increase in overweight.
“Almost a third of the region’s population is currently in the obesity scenario,” a problem that also affects “8% of children over 5 years of age,” he added.
In this sense, Lubetkin urged the region to look for “solutions” to eradicate both hunger and overweight and climate change, and warned that Latin America is beginning to fragment into three different realities, something that cannot be allowed.
“Not the whole region is in the same scenario and that is an alarm signal because today Latin America begins to divide into three Latin Americas, in other regions of the world there are subregions with different realities and we did not have that,” he explained.
Neither South America nor Central America can “allow there to be another subregion, to go backwards because it will affect us all,” the official insisted, after calling on the nations to “act together.”
Likewise, Lubetkin demanded greater investments to face climate change, strengthen the region’s agri-food systems and reduce food waste.
Faced with the seriousness of climate change, he said that it is necessary to implement “insurance” for producers that guarantees them the possibility of future production, even in adverse situations, he emphasized.
Finally, the FAO representative asked to create “new conditions” to improve food security in the region and assured that the value of food lost between harvest and sale exceeds “a quarter of all food production”.
International
Dozens of undocumented people, mostly from Latin America, are detained in Florida
Dozens of irregular migrants were arrested in Florida (USA) in recent days, including a member of the transnational criminal organization Tren de Aragua, as part of the operations ordered by US President Donald Trump against illegal immigration, the federal immigration authorities reported on Monday.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) said on Monday that between January 27 and 28, agents of this government agency carried out raids in Palm Beach County, in southern Florida and where Mar-a-Lago, the president’s residence, is based.
The operations resulted in the arrest of 32 people from Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Cuba and Nicaragua.
Many of these “illegal foreigners,” the federal agency added in a statement, have criminal records that includes drug possession, theft, prostitution, illegal re-entry, resistance to an officer, violation of probation, fraud, among others.
All of them are detained pending their expulsion or a hearing before an Immigration judge, ICE added.
Likewise, the Florida Highway Patrol reported this Monday in its X account of a joint operation with federal agents carried out in Tallahassee, capital of this southern state, which ended with the arrest of “alleged members of the Aragua Train” on suspicion of conspiracy to smuggle weapons, affiliation to criminal gangs and illegal entry into the United States.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said days ago that he signed an agreement for the state Highway Patrol to add its support to immigration operations carried out by the federal Department of Homeland Security.
International
Activities paralyzed in Haiti in the face of new threats from the barbecue gang leader
The metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince was paralyzed this Monday, due to the new threats of the leader of the coalition of ‘Vivre Ensemble’ (Live Together), Jimmy Chérizier ‘Barbecue’, about possible attacks on several neighborhoods of the capital of Haiti.
Today all schools closed their doors, several public and private institutions did not open, nor did public transport work at full capacity and small businesses marched at a low pace.
In the streets, fear and anxiety were evident on the faces of pedestrians on a day in which intense shootings were heard in several parts of the capital, including the center, which has been under the control of the gangs for almost a year, which has forced thousands of people to flee their homes and take refuge in camps and provincial cities.
Faced with this situation, the Haitian National Police (PNH) has been on maximum alert since yesterday afternoon, after the Ministry of Justice warned in a note of “threats of armed gangs.”
The director general of the Police, Rameau Normil, has instructed the central and departmental directors, the commanders of specialized units and the heads of police stations and sub-police stations to keep their troops on maximum alert and take all measures to counter any attack by armed gangs against the civilian population, according to the Facebook page of the police.
The police added that on Saturday night a “highly strategic” meeting was held to address the security situation.
He also stressed that he has strengthened security devices on several important roads to protect the lives and property of citizens.
In recent days, specialized police units such as the Temporary Anti-Band Unit, SWAT troops and the Search and Intervention Brigade, with the support of heavy equipment from the PNH, operated in several areas of central Port-au-Prince, which allowed road accesses to be cleared to “facilitate the entry of law enforcement during interventions and operations”.
In the interventions, according to the police, there were exchanges of gunfire with the gang members.
On the other hand, last Friday the Prime Minister of Haiti, Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, chaired a meeting of the Governing Council in which ministers and secretaries of state evaluated the progress of the major national projects, with special attention to insecurity in the country.
To combat violence, Fils-Aimé has promised the acquisition of equipment to reinforce the PNH and the Armed Forces, as well as further training of security forces and strategic coordination to carry out faster and more effective interventions.
According to data verified by the United Nations Office for Human Rights, at least 5,601 people died in Haiti in 2024 as a result of the actions of criminal gangs (a thousand more than the previous year), 2,212 people were injured and 1,494 were kidnapped.
In mid-January, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that the number of displaced people in Haiti has tripled in just one year and has exceeded one million people (1,041,000), of whom more than half are children.
FAO: Latin America facing “very worrying” scenario due to high numbers of hunger and obesity
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