International
Colombia leader in rift-healing visit to Caracas after 9-year pause
| By AFP | Javier Tovar and Barbara Agelvis |
Colombia’s Gustavo Petro met on Tuesday with his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolas Maduro, in the first talks at presidential level since the neighbors reestablished diplomatic ties after a three-year break.
The meeting in Caracas of the two leftist leaders marked a watershed warming between the once-estranged neighbors.
Petro, a former M-19 leftist insurgent who was sworn in as Colombia’s first leftist president in August, called for Venezuela to be brought back into a regional trade alliance and a human rights system.
“We want to invite Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru to accept the reintegration of Venezuela in the Andean Community as a member with full powers,” Petro said after meeting Maduro at the Miraflores Palace.
Venezuela left the regional trade bloc in 2006.
Petro also called for Venezuela to be pulled back into the human rights convention of the Organization of American States, a hemispheric alliance.
Maduro said he was “very receptive” to the idea.
Venezuela severed diplomatic relations in 2019 after increasingly strained ties with Petro’s predecessors Juan Manuel Santos and conservative Ivan Duque — who Maduro even accused of orchestrating plans to assassinate him.
The final straw came when Duque backed Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido — recognized by dozens of countries as the victor in 2018 elections claimed by Maduro.
It was the first visit by a Colombian president to Venezuela’s capital since 2013.
Visit could ‘normalize’ violations
Since Petro succeeded Duque in August, Colombia’s first ever left-wing president has moved to mend relations with Venezuela’s populist leftist government.
Caracas and Bogota formally reestablished diplomatic relations on August 29 by sending ambassadors to each other’s capitals.
Guaido on Tuesday criticized Petro’s decision “to visit the dictator Maduro… and to call him ‘president’.”
It was an “action that could dangerously normalize human rights violations… and the worst migration crisis in the world,” he wrote on Twitter.
More than seven million Venezuelans have left their country since 2014, according to the United Nations.
Some 2.5 million find themselves in Colombia, as part of an open-door policy followed under Duque, in support of Guaido.
Maduro, after the talks, called for “new steps toward a total opening” of the two neighbors’ shared 2,200-kilometer (1,370-mile) border, a frontier that has been infested with armed groups fighting over lucrative drug resources and routes.
In September, Colombia and Venezuela reopened the border to vehicles transporting goods — considered the first step toward resuming commercial relations worth about $7.2 billion in 2008 but only $400 million last year.
A string of recent leftist victories in South America meanwhile appear to have placed Maduro in a stronger position.
On Monday he said he had spoken to Brazil’s president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, to “resume the binational agenda of cooperation” all but paralyzed under the government of far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and the pressure it placed on global energy supplies — also brought about behind-the-scenes efforts by the United States to engineer at least a minimal warming with Venezuela, a major oil producer.
International
Pope Francis meets former Gaza hostages
Pope Francis met on Thursday at the Vatican with 16 Israelis who had been held hostage in Gaza for months by the Islamist group Hamas, according to the official Vatican news website.
The group consisted of ten women, four men, and two children, as reported by the same source. Several of the former hostages showed the Argentine pontiff banners or photos of their loved ones who remain in captivity.
Francis had previously met with the families of hostages in April this year and November 2023, but this was the first time he had met with individuals who had personally endured captivity.
Since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began, the pope has repeatedly called for the immediate release of Israeli hostages, while also condemning the suffering of the Palestinian population.
The war erupted on October 7, 2023, when Islamist militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,206 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures that include hostages who died in captivity.
Of the kidnapped, 97 are still being held in Gaza, but the Israeli military estimates that 34 of them have died.
The military offensive launched by Israel in response has killed at least 43,736 people in the Gaza Strip, mostly civilians, according to data from the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-governed territory.
International
Israeli airstrikes on Damascus kill 15 and injure 16, including women and children
Israeli forces carried out airstrikes on residential buildings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and its surroundings on Thursday, resulting in at least 15 deaths and 16 injuries, according to Syria’s Ministry of Defense and state television.
The ministry stated that around 3:20 p.m. local time (12:20 GMT), the Israeli military launched an aerial attack from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights, targeting several residential buildings in the Mazzeh neighborhood in western Damascus and the Qudsaya suburb to the northwest of the capital.
The airstrikes “resulted in the death of 15 people and injuries to 16 others, including women and children,” based on initial estimates, in addition to significant damage to private property and civilian buildings, the ministry added.
Meanwhile, state television reported Israeli airstrikes on three buildings in Mazzeh and another on a building in an educational complex located in a residential area of Qudsaya.
Following the strikes, loud explosions were heard throughout the city, and thick plumes of smoke could be seen rising from the targeted locations. Ambulances and emergency services rushed to the scene to attend to the victims.
International
Drug trafficker dies after boat collision with Guardia Civil Vessel in Sanlúca
Three people were on the boat that collided with a Guardia Civil vessel around midnight at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, near the Andalusian city of Cádiz, a spokesperson for the Civil Guard reported.
Two officers sustained “contusions,” the spokesperson explained.
The drug traffickers managed to bring the boat to shore, where one of them was “abandoned” severely injured. The other two fled.
The Civil Guard officers attempted to resuscitate the victim before transporting him to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, but he ultimately died early in the morning.
The other two suspects took advantage of the officers’ absence while they were taking the victim and returned to set their boat on fire.
The collision occurred very close to the site of another accident on September 1, where a drug trafficker died following a Guardia Civil pursuit.
The suspects’ boat traveled “400 meters” before crashing head-on and “at full speed” into the riverbank, where a hundred bundles of hashish were found.
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