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Maduro urges ‘normalizing’ ties with Colombia

AFP

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called Wednesday for the normalization of trade and diplomatic relations with Colombia, which have been nonexistent since 2019 when the government refused to recognize him as Venezuela’s leader.

“Colombia and Venezuela have to solve our problems in peace, we have to… normalize commercial, productive, economic relations,” Maduro said in a speech on state television. “We have to normalize consular relations, diplomatic relations.”

The leftist leader welcomed a proposal approved Tuesday by Colombia’s Senate to create a federal commission between the two countries to work on normalizing commercial and diplomatic ties.

But Maduro also said that Colombians in Venezuela do not have consular assistance because President Ivan Duque’s government “does not give them consular access.”

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Duque, however, said he would not recognize Maduro’s government.

“As long as I am the president of Colombia… we are not going to recognize him,” he said during a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“To recognize him would be giving up on the values that our country has historically defended. It would be a capitulation in the face of the misery that a whole people has had to live through because of the disgrace” of Maduro’s government, he said.

Almost two million Venezuelans have migrated to Colombia in recent years, fleeing a severe economic crisis in their home country.

Caracas had unilaterally closed its land borders with Colombia in February 2019 amid a power struggle between Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido — who claims to be his country’s interim leader.

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Guaido received support from around 60 countries, including the European Union, United States and Colombia.

Venezuela’s government had also broken off diplomatic ties with Colombia due to Bogota’s recognition of Guaido.

The neighbors share a border of some 2,200 kilometers (1,370 miles).

Bogota has repeatedly accused the Venezuelan government of harboring FARC and ELN fighters, a claim Caracas denies. 

Maduro, for his part, points the finger at Duque over alleged coup and assassination plots in his country.

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But Venezuela announced on October 4 it was reopening the borders between the two countries.

In the midst of what he called a “turning of the page,” Maduro invited Colombian businessmen to resume investments in his country, which is embroiled in its worst economic and social crisis in recent history, with hyperinflation and seven consecutive years of recession.

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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.

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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.

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International

Son of journalist José Rubén Zamora condemns father’s return to prison as “illegal”

Guatemalan court decides Wednesday whether to convict journalist José Rubén Zamora

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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