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Peru’s embattled president names fifth PM in 16 months

| By AFP |

Peruvian President Pedro Castillo on Friday appointed the culture minister as the country’s prime minister after her predecessor resigned over a row with parliament.

Betssy Chavez, a 33-year-old lawyer who also did a stint as labor minister, was sworn in as the fifth prime minister since the beleaguered Castillo took office 16 months ago. 

The pair reshuffled the cabinet after former premier Anibal Torres quit on Thursday amid an ongoing clash between the leftist Castillo and the conservative-controlled parliament.

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Castillo, in power since July 2021, has already faced two impeachment attempts in parliament and is under investigation in six corruption cases, including accusations against his family and political entourage.

“For the respect to the rule of law and the restitution of the balance and separation of powers, I do swear”, said Chavez when she took her oath before Castillo, an allusion to the confrontation between the president and parliament.

Chavez herself is facing a preliminary investigation by Peru’s prosecutor’s office into allegations of misuse of power and hiring close associates for public positions.

She must request a parliamentary vote of confidence within 30 days before formally taking office.

The new cabinet includes 12 ministers whose portfolios have been confirmed, with Cesar Landa taking over foreign affairs, the interior ministry going to Willy Huerta, Daniel Barragan taking defense and Kurt Burneo handling the economy. 

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All but Burneo were sworn in at a Friday night ceremony at the Government Palace in Lima. The new minister of economy and finance took part via videoconference as he is isolating after testing positive for Covid-19.

Earlier this month, thousands marched in the capital to demand the removal of former rural school teacher Castillo, who unexpectedly took power from Peru’s traditional political elite. 

Castillo has denounced the charges against him as politically motivated and enjoys immunity until the end of his term in July 2026.

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Venezuelan opponent María Corina Machado ratifies that she will continue on the electoral route

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado ratified on Tuesday that she will remain on the electoral route for the presidential elections of July 28, without explaining how she will do so, given the impossibility of the Platform of Democratic Unity (PUD) to register the historian Corina Yoris within the deadline established by the National Electoral Council (CNE).

“No one here takes us off the electoral route, it is they (Chavism) who want to close it, those who want to take us out and they are not going to make it,” said Machado, who ceded the candidacy to Yoris in the face of the disqualification that prevents him from competing for public positions in these and other elections until 2036.

The PUD denounced on Monday that it could not apply for Yoris’ candidacy, and rejected that the CNE did not explain the reasons.

On the candidacy of the governor of the state Zulia, Manuel Rosales, Machado avoided responding at the press conference and insisted on various occasions that his candidate and that of the PUD is still Corina Yoris, despite the fact that he could not register in the CNE system.

“At this moment, the country is processing a huge disappointment, people feel violated in all the effort (of the primaries) of October 22 and what I want to say is that our struggle continues, we are not going to leave an electoral route where Venezuelans can choose freely, for whoever they want, not for whoever the regime imposes,” he said.

The former deputy said that what happened on the last day of candidate registration, in which Rosales and former opposition electoral rector Enrique Márquez were nominated, “accelerates the transition” in the country.

The opposition party Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT), led by Rosales, said on Tuesday that it is committed to the electoral route, “still in the worst conditions,” and rejected the option of abstention.

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Putin asks the Prosecutor’s Office that the jihadist terrorists of the Moscow attack receive a “fair punishment”

Russian President Vladimir Putin today asked the Prosecutor’s Office to impose a “fair punishment” on the terrorists who perpetrated on Friday the attack on the Crocus City Hall concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow, in which 139 people were killed.

“I am confident that prosecutors within the framework of their powers, including when presenting state accusations during the judicial process, will do everything necessary for criminals to receive a fair punishment as required by Russian legislation,” Putin said when addressing members of the Russian Prosecutor’s Office.

Putin reminded those present that, “as a result of the bloody attack in the Moscow region,” “children, adolescents and women” died, among others.

“The criminals who committed that massacre have been arrested. Investigators are scrupulously establishing the circumstances surrounding this barbaric crime,” he stressed.

For his part, the Attorney General, Igor Krasnov, admitted that the attack committed in the Crocus City Hall “is a new challenge for the entire system of security services” and called on the prosecutors present to take “all measures to prevent the repetition of the tragedy.”

In addition, he also urged to activate the work to minimize the extremist and terrorist threat, and recalled the recent explosions of violence in the Muslim-majority republics of Dagestan and Bashkiria.

Putin suggested on Monday the existence of a black Ukrainian hand in the attack, despite the fact that the attack was immediately claimed by the Islamic State.

“And the Nazis, as is well known, have never had reservations about using the dirtiest and most inhumane means to achieve their objectives,” he said during a meeting with members of the Government and the security forces that was broadcast live on television.

Putin refused to accept the hypothesis presented by Western intelligence services that the attack is the work of the Islamic State of the Province of the Province of Khorasan (ISPK).

“We know through whom that crime was committed against Russia and its people. We are interested in who commissioned it,” he said.

The Basmanni Court of Moscow today decreed two-month preventive detention for an eighth suspect involved in the terrorist attack.

This is Alisher Kasimov, 32, a Russian citizen of Kyrgysy origin who, according to the investigation, rented his apartment to the alleged perpetrators of the massacre.

According to the latest official data, the attack in the city of Krasnogorsk, about 20 kilometers northwest of the center of Moscow, has left at least 139 dead and 182 injured.

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Petro threatens to break relations with Israel if it does not comply with the UN resolution

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, threatened on Tuesday to break diplomatic relations with Israel if that country does not comply with the resolution to cease-fire in Gaza requested on Monday by the UN Security Council.

“If Israel does not comply with the United Nations resolution of a ceasefire, we will break diplomatic relations with Israel,” the president, a defender of the cause of Palestine, said in his account of X.

This message comes a day after the president called on the international community to break off relations with Israel if the truce that, for the first time, demanded by the UN Security Council for the Gaza war, in which more than 32,000 people have already died in almost six months, is not established.

“A ceasefire resolution in Gaza is finally coming out of the United Nations Council unanimously (sic)” – despite the abstention of the United States in the vote on the resolution -, Petro said on Monday.

It is not the first time that the president has spoken of freezing Colombia’s relations with Israel since the outst of the war, about which the head of state regularly opines publicly. Already in October of last year he threatened to suspend them although for the moment these warnings have not materialized.

These threats have raised the tension between the two countries, which have even summoned their diplomatic representatives and led several disagreements over the position of President Petro who has accused the Israeli State of “genocide.”

In fact, last February Petro announced that Colombia suspended “all purchases of weapons from Israel” in response to the attack it launched during the distribution of food and humanitarian aid in Gaza City, where more than a hundred people died and another 700 were injured.

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