International

US, Brazil planning Biden-Lula meeting in Washington

Foto: Evaristo Sa / AFP

| By AFP |

Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and US officials said Friday he is planning a trip to meet with President Joe Biden at the White House before taking office on January 1.

“I can confirm that we are planning for a visit,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters. “We look forward to welcoming President Lula here at the appropriate time.”

Kirby said Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, would travel to Brazil Monday to meet with the incoming Lula team, as well as with outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration.

Veteran leftist Lula defeated far-right incumbent Bolsonaro in a hard-fought election in October, returning to power after two presidential terms from 2003 to 2011.

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Lula said he and Sullivan would “hold talks and discuss the date” for a visit to Washington — probably after December 12, the day his victory is formally ratified by Brazil’s electoral tribunal, he told a news conference in Brasilia.

US-Brazilian relations have chilled since Biden defeated former president Donald Trump, Bolsonaro’s political role model, in the 2020 US election.

But ties look set to warm under Lula.

Biden was one of the first world leaders to congratulate him on his election win.

“I think we have a lot to say to each other,” Lula said.

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“The United States is facing the same problems with democracy as Brazil. The damage Trump did to American democracy is the same as what Bolsonaro did to Brazil.”

Diplomatic issues on the table will include “US-Brazilian relations, Brazil’s role in the new geopolitics (and) the unnecessary Ukraine war,” Lula said.

The Biden administration will also likely be keen to discuss climate policy, after four years of surging deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon under agribusiness ally Bolsonaro.

Lula vowed last month at the UN climate conference in Egypt — which Bolsonaro skipped — to fight for zero deforestation in Brazil’s 60-percent share of the world’s biggest rainforest, a key resource in the fight to curb climate change.

The incoming president said he would also begin naming his cabinet ministers after December 12 — with markets particularly anxious over his pick for finance minister, amid concerns about how his government will pay for his promised social spending.

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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”

Guatemalan court decides Wednesday whether to convict journalist José Rubén Zamora

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.”