International
Venezuela’s Maduro to resume talks with opposition Friday
| By AFP | Esteban Rojas with Lina Vanegas en Bogota |
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government will resume talks with the opposition Friday after more than a year in a bid to resolve a political crisis that has gripped the country since a contested 2018 election.
Formal negotiations between the two sides last took place in October 2021 in Mexico, and international efforts have mounted in recent months to get the talks back on track.
The opposition is seeking free and fair presidential elections, next due in 2024, while Caracas wants the international community to recognize Maduro as the rightful president and lift sanctions.
“Dialogue between Maduro’s government and the Venezuelan opposition will resume on the 25th and 26th of November,” Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro wrote on Twitter.
Venezuela opposition leader Juan Guaido’s office, however, tweeted that “information about a possible agreement and restart of the negotiations will be announced by official sources,” or by “the facilitating country, Norway.”
“Speculation hinders the possibility of a deal,” the office said.
While Colombia’s Petro did not specify where the talks would take place, a Venezuelan opposition source close to the negotiations told AFP the delegations would meet in Mexico City on Friday.
Venezuela was already facing a severe economic crisis and a brutal government crackdown on protests when a contested presidential election in 2018 plunged it into a political impasse.
Maduro declared himself the victor of the poll, which was widely seen as fraudulent, prompting massive protests.
Meanwhile, almost 60 countries, including the United States, recognized opposition leader Guaido as Venezuela’s acting president.
The US and the European Union imposed painful sanctions on Venezuela, worsening an economy that has seen roaring inflation in recent years, prompting millions to flee the country.
One measure prevented Venezuela from trading its crude oil — which accounted for 96 percent of the country’s revenues — on the US market.
Ukraine war sparks new impetus
After two prior negotiation efforts failed, the most recent round of talks between the government and opposition started in August 2021 in Mexico.
However, Maduro suspended the negotiations two months later in retaliation for the extradition to the United States by Cape Verde of Alex Saab, a Colombian national accused of acting as a money launderer for the Venezuelan socialist leader.
Earlier this month, negotiators for both sides met in Paris under the mediation of French President Emmanuel Macron.
International efforts to resolve the Venezuelan crisis have gained strength since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the pressure it has placed on global energy supplies.
US President Joe Biden’s administration announced in May it would ease some sanctions as energy prices surged due to the war.
At the same time, Guaido’s influence has ebbed, and he has lost key allies both at home and in the region, where many countries have since elected leftist presidents.
Colombia’s Petro has become a new actor in the talks since becoming his country’s first leftist president in August.
He has worked to improve his country’s relationship with Venezuela, resuming diplomatic ties for the first time since 2019, when former president Ivan Duque refused to recognize Maduro’s election.
Venezuela is now also hosting peace talks between the Colombian government and the last official rebel group in the country, the National Liberation Army.
International
Details of medical transfer of leader Milagro Sala revealed
September 29 |
Argentine media published Friday details of the upcoming transfer of social leader Milagro Sala, who is serving house arrest in Jujuy, to a hospital in the province of La Plata to undergo medical treatment that would save her life.
Since December 2022 Sala had been demanding to undergo surgery to treat the thrombosis that keeps her in a delicate state, but this intervention can only be performed in four clinics in her country, none of which are located in Jujuy.
This Thursday, the criminal enforcement judge of that province, Carlos Cattán, signed the permission for Sala’s transfer to the Italian Hospital of La Plata. The magistrate entrusted her lawyers with her transfer and security, said her lawyer Alejandra Cejas.
The indigenous leader will travel between October 3 and 5, accompanied by her medical and legal team. She will do so aboard a medical plane because her health would not tolerate a road trip. She will travel without anklets or prison staff custody.
In La Plata, she will be in charge of the criminal enforcement judge with jurisdiction in the area of the Hospital Italiano and her police custody will be assumed by the Patronato de Liberados de la Provincia de Buenos Aires.
He will remain at the Hospital Italiano for about three weeks, where he will have between one and three stents placed to treat the thrombosis and the obstruction in the vena cava of his left leg. He will then undergo another 20-30 days of postoperative care, in a place not far from the health institution.
According to Ceja, Judge Cattan based his decision on the right to health and the humanitarian issue, thus weighing the right to life above any other right. In the opinion of the jurist, the Prosecutor’s Office, which until this moment had emphatically opposed to Sala receiving this treatment, ran out of arguments to sustain such position.
She asserted that the governor of Jujuy, Gerardo Morales, the architect of the unjust convictions of Sala, could not prevent Cattán’s ruling because at this moment he does not have the same influence over the justice system that he had before the popular protests that began in that province last June, when he enacted a reform in the local Magna Carta that provoked intense protests and was later declared unconstitutional.
Ceja affirmed that Morales “is a repressor: if he has to kill you, he kills you”, but “he lost the elections and today he is denounced as a criminal against humanity”.
Sala is considered a referent of the indigenous struggle in Argentina and the first political prisoner of Macrismo. According to local media following the struggle for her freedom, she has been unjustly detained for seven years and 254 days.
International
Venezuelan Ministry of Health renews agreement with PAHO
September 29 |
The Venezuelan Minister of Health, Magaly Gutiérrez Viña, renewed the cooperation agreement with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the Andean Health Organization – Hipólito Unanue Agreement in order to improve the health conditions of the population of the Andean sub-region.
The agreement took place this Wednesday at the 75th session of the Regional Committee of the World Health Organization for the Americas, held in Washington, D.C., and which runs from September 25 to 29.
During the meeting, the minister declared that Venezuela ratifies “the commitment to integration” and the “alliance with the signing of the renewal of the Cooperation Agreement of the Andean Region together with the Pan American Health Organization”.
This with a view to consolidating “the integration process” and “to continue advancing in training, international cooperation for development, so that the countries can exercise effective authority over their policies”.
In his speech, Mr. Gutiérrez Viña highlighted the damage caused by the blockade and the economic sanctions imposed by the United States on his country, and added that these measures prevent access to medical supplies and treatments for the Venezuelan people.
In general, the participants in the conclave agreed to work on a regional policy with a view to strengthening care for cancer patients, promoting early childhood development, healthy aging, as well as the treatment of non-communicable diseases and mental health, in addition to the implications of climate change on health.
The director of PAHO, Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, said that it is time to “align agendas and promote synergies and convergences”.
International
EU and Latin America in cooperation against crime and drug trafficking
September 29 |
The interior ministers of the European Union and fourteen Latin American countries, including Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico and Argentina, pledged yesterday in Brussels to strengthen collaboration and cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking and transnational organized crime, in particular through a permanent channel for communication between the two regions to facilitate the exchange of data and establish a schedule of regular meetings.
“Individual responses against organized crime are ineffective. We can only be effective from international cooperation,” including beyond the European Union, defended the acting Minister of the Interior and EU Presidency-in-turn, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, at a press conference in Brussels.
The EU bloc took advantage of the monthly meeting of European interior ministers to receive the Latin American Committee for Internal Security (CLASI) in the European capital and “seal a bi-regional strategic partnership”.
In the joint statement issued after the meeting, the ministers expressed their commitment to “intensify cooperation to address the global drug situation affecting both regions”, for which they called for “increased exchange of information and intelligence”, “joint operations involving financial investigations and the promotion of development-oriented drug policy measures, including alternative development”.
Police cooperation priorities also include the fight against child sexual abuse, cybercrime, environmental and financial crime, illegal trade in cultural property, including money laundering, as well as corruption and the illicit profits it generates.
In the joint declaration, the ministers of internal security pledged to “join efforts to generate timely responses” in the fight against crime and drug trafficking.
Europe reiterated that “the rule of law and respect for human rights are of vital importance to our cooperation” as well as the application of criminal justice.
Final report submitted to Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate former deputies who diverted funds through front NGOs
Details of medical transfer of leader Milagro Sala revealed
Venezuelan Ministry of Health renews agreement with PAHO
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