International
Chile president signs same-sex marriage law

AFP
Chilean President Sebastian Pinera on Thursday signed a law legalizing same-sex marriage, two days after Congress approved a bill opposed by one of the frontrunners in next week’s elections to replace him.
With the new law, Chile joined about 30 countries in the world, and just a handful in majority Catholic Latin America, where same-sex couples can legally tie the knot. In Chile, they can now also adopt children.
“Today the time has come for marriage equality in our country, the time has come to deepen the values of freedom and dignity,” Pinera said as he signed the historic bill at the seat of government in Santiago.
“The time has come to consecrate the freedom to love and to form a family, and the time has come to give full value to the dignity of all relationships of love and affection between two people,” he added.
Same-sex marriages can start taking place three months after the law’s publication in the official government gazette.
In Latin America, same-sex couples could until now get married only in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, as well as in 18 of Mexico’s 32 states.
Chile legalized same-sex civil unions in 2015 and has been awaiting the passage of the marriage bill since then-president Michelle Bachelet sent it to Congress in 2017.
In a surprise move, her conservative successor Pinera announced in June he would seek the urgent passage of the bill — supported by a majority of Chileans — through Congress.
This happened on Tuesday.
The issue deeply divides the two candidates headed for a presidential run-off on December 19.
Gabriel Boric, 35, who represents a leftist alliance that includes the Communist Party, supported the bill and voted “yes” in his capacity as lawmaker.
But 55-year-old far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast, who won 28 percent of first-round votes compared to Boric’s 26 percent, campaigned against it.
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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