International
Honduras elections: the top three candidates
AFP
Thirteen candidates will contest Honduras’s razor-tight presidential election on Sunday to see who will succeed scandal-tainted Juan Orlando Hernandez.
Here are short profiles of the top three challengers.
– Left –
Xiomara Castro was never meant to run for president, but she is the front runner to become her country’s first female leader.
As the wife of Manuel Zelaya, she was first lady in 2009 when her husband was deposed in a coup supported by the military, business elites and the political right.
She made her name leading mass street protests against the coup and there began her own rise to presidential hopeful.
Tough but softly spoken, her popularity stems from her defense of the poor.
But in a deeply conservative and macho country, she faces the twin difficulties of opponents branding her a communist and a puppet for her husband.
“The shadow of Zelaya weighs heavily on her, and in Honduran society it can be assumed that Zelaya is the power behind the throne,” sociologist Eugenio Castro told AFP.
The ruling party has also tried to discredit her proposals to legalize abortion and same-sex marriage — touchy issues in much of Central America.
Often seen wearing denim jeans, and always with a white cowboy hat, the 62-year-old insists she stands for a “Honduran-style democratic socialism” and has tried to distance herself from the leftist models in Cuba and Venezuela that scare many voters.
Already an unsuccessful candidate in 2013, when she narrowly lost to Hernandez, Castro has some heavyweight backing this time — not least in Salvador Nasralla, a television host who lost out to Hernandez in 2017 amidst accusations of fraud.
Castro was born into a middle-class Catholic family and married Zelaya aged just 16. The couple have four children.
Zelaya says the children have a mix of Spanish, Basque, indigenous, Arab and Senegalese blood.
– Right –
Tall, slim and always seen in jeans, a long-sleeved blue shirt and farming boots, Nasry Asfura likes to present himself as a rural worker allergic to offices.
The 63-year-old of Palestinian descent, the current mayor of Tegucigalpa, is the candidate for the ruling right-wing National Party (PN).
With that comes the benefit of the political machinery that has kept the PN in power for a dozen years, but also the stigma of being linked to drug trafficking and corruption.
“I have never spent a single day sat in my office in the town hall, every day I go out into the streets to serve and see where there are problems,” he said, vowing to generate jobs if elected.
He is credited with improving the traffic congestion in Tegucigalpa by building many bridges, tunnels and roundabouts in the capital during his two four-year terms as mayor.
The father of three is a graduate in civil engineering and created a construction company that became one of the biggest in the country.
Although styled as the law-and-order candidate, Asfura has not escaped the accusations of corruption blighting many Honduran politicians.
“He has been accused not just in Honduras, (but also) the Pandora Papers and in Costa Rica. That’s not a good sign,” said Eugenio Sosa, a professor of sociology at the National University.
Asfura was accused in October 2020 by the public prosecutor of embezzling $700,000, while he was linked in the Pandora Papers to influence peddling in Costa Rica.
And while he has not been linked himself to drug trafficking, “he’s been compromised by protecting Hernandez,” said Sosa.
– Center –
The centrist candidate, Yani Rosenthal, is a convicted drug trafficker.
He spent three years in a US jail after admitting laundering drug trafficking money. He was released in August 2020, just in time to run for president.
He is the son of the late Jaime Rosenthal, one of the richest people in Honduras — and prison time was tough on someone used to a silver spoon.
“I learned to wash myself from the waist up in the sink and from the waist down in the toilet,” said the 56-year-old.
Despite his criminal record, in March he won the primaries to be the center-right Liberal Party’s candidate.
The law graduate has his work cut out as his beaten rival, Luis Zelaya, refused to support him and is instead backing Castro.
He has presented himself as the centrist candidate against “left-wing extremism” and PN corruption.
“We don’t want a radical leftist path, nor a corrupt right-wing one, we want a liberal path down the center,” he said.
He claims to be the only candidate able to present “viable” economic solutions and has vowed to give every adult a $60 monthly voucher.
A father of four, he was minister of the presidency for two years under Zelaya and says he has a track record of creating jobs.
International
Suspect Armed With Shotgun and Knives Detained at White House Correspondents Dinner
U.S. authorities confirmed Saturday that the suspect who stormed into the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner while President Donald Trump was attending acted alone, adding that there is no ongoing threat to the public following the incident, which left one Secret Service agent injured.
Acting Metropolitan Police Department chief Jeff Carroll said during a press conference that the suspect was carrying “a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives” when he attempted to pass through a Secret Service security checkpoint inside the hotel lobby at approximately 8:36 p.m. local time.
“At this point, everything indicates that this was a lone actor, a lone gunman,” Carroll stated, adding that investigators have found no preliminary evidence suggesting the involvement of additional suspects.
During the exchange of gunfire inside the hotel corridors, the suspect was not struck by bullets but was subdued by law enforcement officers and later transported to a hospital for medical evaluation.
A member of the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division was shot during the incident, though the bullet was stopped by the officer’s ballistic vest, preventing serious injuries. The agent was taken to a hospital and is reportedly “in good spirits,” according to Carroll.
The shooting prompted the immediate evacuation of President Trump, Melania Trump, and several senior officials attending the event after multiple gunshots were heard outside the hotel’s main ballroom.
International
U.S. allows Venezuela to fund Maduro and Cilia Flores’ legal defense
Until now, the U.S. administration had blocked the Venezuelan government from covering the legal fees of Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who is also jailed and facing drug trafficking charges, due to international sanctions imposed on Venezuela.
The couple’s legal team had relied on that argument in an attempt to have the indictment dismissed, claiming that preventing a defendant from accessing counsel of their choice violates rights guaranteed under the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
However, the U.S. Treasury Department will now allow “defense attorneys to receive payments from the Government of Venezuela under certain conditions,” New York prosecutor Jay Clayton wrote in a letter dated Friday to Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who is overseeing the case.
According to the letter, the funds must have become available after March 5, 2026, and cannot come from Venezuelan oil sales regulated in the United States.
Since Maduro’s removal from power in early January, former Vice President Delcy Rodríguez has served as Venezuela’s interim leader.
The United States effectively controls Venezuelan crude exports, with revenues deposited into special accounts supervised by Washington.
Court documents filed on Friday show that the defense acknowledged the sanctions exemption and, for now, withdrew its motion seeking dismissal of the charges.
International
U.S. Sanctions Network Linked to Fentanyl Trafficking Across India, Guatemala and Mexico
The United States Department of State announced sanctions on Thursday against 23 individuals and companies allegedly linked to an international fentanyl production and smuggling network operating in India, Guatemala and Mexico.
According to the State Department, the network supplied precursor chemicals to the Sinaloa Cartel, which the United States has designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
Washington declared fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, a weapon of mass destruction last year due to its role in the ongoing overdose crisis in the United States.
“By targeting the entire supply chain — from chemical suppliers in Asia to logistical intermediaries in Central America and cartel-linked networks in Mexico — the Trump Administration is dismantling networks that destabilize governance across our hemisphere and threaten U.S. security,” the State Department said.
In a separate statement, the Office of Foreign Assets Control detailed sanctions against three Indian chemical and pharmaceutical companies: Sutaria, Agrat and SR Chemicals, along with a sales executive accused of supplying precursor chemicals to contacts in Guatemala and Mexico.
In Guatemala, authorities sanctioned J and C Import and Central Logística de Servicios, as well as intermediary Jaime Augusto Barrientos.
The OFAC also designated several intermediaries and import companies operating in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.
As part of the investigation, U.S. authorities identified Ramiro Baltazar Félix as a member of Los Mayos, a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, and Alejandro Reynoso, accused of operating clandestine drug laboratories in Guadalajara.
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