International
UN concerned about ‘xenophobia’ against migrants in Chile

AFP
The United Nations expressed concern Monday at “violence and xenophobia” meted out to undocumented migrants in Chile over the weekend by locals fed up with their presence in the country.
Some 3,000 protesters took to the streets of the northern port city of Iquique on Saturday, some burning the belongings of rough-sleeping migrants who had been occupying a public square for months.
In a tweet, the UN mission in Chile urged the “authorities and the population to act within the framework of respect for human rights and international humanitarian rights.”
The world body expressed its willingness to provide technical assistance and to “collaborate in the efforts of national and local authorities.”
The Iquique protesters waved Chilean flags and chanted slogans against the migrants, mainly Venezuelans fleeing dire economic conditions in their country by crossing the Andes mountains and Atacama desert.
Eduardo Stein, the UN Refugee Agency and UN Migration Agency’s representative for Venezuelan migrants, expressed his “sadness and dismay” at what he described as acts of “hate, intolerance and xenophobia.”
Chile’s Interior Minister Rodrigo Delgado also denounced the protest but insisted “we will continue with evictions of all public spaces” as well as “the plan of expulsion” of undocumented migrants.
The demonstration took place a day after police evacuated a migrant camp that had existed for a year on the town square. Most of the migrants, poor and undocumented, are surviving on odd jobs and sleeping in tents.
Chile is Latin America’s wealthiest country per capita.
Venezuela, meanwhile, is in an unprecedented economic and political crisis that has led millions of people to leave their country, rich in oil resources but mismanaged and rife with dysfunction.
Venezuela’s national currency, the bolivar, has lost 73 percent of its value to the dollar so far this year. Inflation is about 3,000 percent.
According to the Jesuit Migrant Service, 23,673 undocumented people entered Chile, a country of 19 million, from January to July — almost 7,000 more than in the whole of 2020.
International
Trump urges Putin to reach peace deal

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his desire for Russian President Vladimir Putin to “reach a deal” to end the war in Ukraine, while also reaffirming his willingness to impose sanctions on Russia.
“I want to see him reach an agreement to prevent Russian, Ukrainian, and other people from dying,” Trump stated during a press conference in the Oval Office at the White House.
“I think he will. I don’t want to have to impose secondary tariffs on Russian oil,” the Republican leader added, recalling that he had already taken similar measures against Venezuela by sanctioning buyers of the South American country’s crude oil.
Trump also reiterated his frustration over Ukraine’s resistance to an agreement that would allow the United States to exploit natural resources in the country—a condition he set in negotiations to end the war.
International
Deportation flight lands in Venezuela; government denies criminal gang links

A flight carrying 175 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States arrived in Caracas on Sunday. This marks the third group to return since repatriation flights resumed a week ago, and among them is an alleged member of a criminal organization, according to Venezuelan authorities.
Unlike previous flights operated by the Venezuelan state airline Conviasa, this time, an aircraft from the U.S. airline Eastern landed at Maiquetía Airport, on the outskirts of Caracas, shortly after 2:00 p.m. with the deportees.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who welcomed the returnees at the airport, stated that the 175 repatriated individuals were coming back “after being subjected, like all Venezuelans, to persecution” and dismissed claims that they belonged to the criminal organization El Tren de Aragua.
However, Cabello confirmed that “for the first time in these flights we have been carrying out, someone of significance wanted by Venezuelan justice has arrived, and he is not from El Tren de Aragua.” Instead, he belongs to a gang operating in the state of Trujillo. The minister did not disclose the individual’s identity or provide details on where he would be taken.
International
Son of journalist José Rubén Zamora condemns father’s return to prison as “illegal”

The son of renowned journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, José Carlos Zamora, has denounced as “illegal” the court order that sent his father back to a Guatemalan prison on March 3, after already spending 819 days behind barsover a highly irregular money laundering case.
“My father’s return to prison was based on an arbitrary and illegal ruling. It is also alarming that the judge who had granted him house arrest received threats,” José Carlos Zamora told EFE in an interview on Saturday.
The 67-year-old journalist was sent back to prison inside the Mariscal Zavala military barracks on March 3, when Judge Erick García upheld a Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the house arrest granted to him in October. Zamora had already spent 819 days in prison over an alleged money laundering case.
His son condemned the situation as “unacceptable”, stating that the judge handling the case “cannot do his job in accordance with the law due to threats against his life.”
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