International
Latin American leaders hold summit with Brazil back in the fold
January 24 | By AFP | Philippe Bernes-Lasserre / Mauricio Rabuffetti |
Fifteen Latin American heads of state and government meet Tuesday in Buenos Aires for a regional summit welcoming back Brazil as President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva looks to rebuild bridges after his far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro pulled out of the grouping.
The 77-year-old Lula, in Argentina for the first international trip of his third term, will participate in the seventh Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) summit, bringing together 33 states from the region.
Lula was one of the founders of CELAC, during the first “pink wave” on the continent in the first decade of the century.
And now he brings Brazil back into the fold after Bolsonaro had suspended the country’s participation in the grouping.
Host Argentina this week hailed a “new climate in Latin America”, with the region ushering in a new wave of left or center-left governments since 2018, including Mexico, Argentina, Honduras, Chile, Colombia and Brazil.
A forum for consultation and cooperation, CELAC is not a regional integration mechanism with binding opinions.
And for all the importance underlined on Monday by Argentine President Alberto Fernandez and Lula of “the need to integrate Latin America,” CELAC is struggling to unite members over successive regional crises, like Peru.
“Latin America is bankrupt from the institutional point of view (…) it has not succeeded in integrating collectively into the world,” Ignacio Bartesaghi, an expert in international relations at the Catholic University of Uruguay, told AFP.
At the very least, CELAC “remains a vast and diverse space of Latin American countries from which minimal agendas or common interests for the region can be established”, agreed Bernabe Malacalza, researcher in international relations at the Argentine national research center CONICET.
“There is not even certain basic consensus in Latin America, as on the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship,” Bartesaghi stressed.
“There are (at CELAC) presidents who do not even recognize each other,” he noted.
Like Paraguay’s Mario Abdo Benitez, whose country broke diplomatic relations with Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuela in 2019.
Lula meanwhile has pledged to reopen the embassies.
‘Rebuild Mercosur!’
Maduro at last minute called off his trip, citing “a risk of aggression” from “the neo-fascist right,” a possible reference to some Argentine opposition politicians calling for him to be arrested on arrival.
Other significant absentees in Buenos Aires include Mexico’s leftwing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, leader of the second largest economy in Latin America and host in 2021 of the last CELAC summit.
CELAC however remains the interlocutor of choice for China, or the EU to negotiate cooperation agendas with the region.
But even here, “The impossibility of holding an EU-CELAC summit since the last one in 2015 (in Brussels) illustrates (…), the absence of a solid biregional political dialogue,” Malacalza said.
In this sense, the return of Lula could give a boost to certain sub-regional issues, such as the free-trade agreement between the EU and the Mercosur group which comprises Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.
The deal was finalized in 2019 but never ratified, due in particular to concerns about Bolsonaro’s environmental policy.
Lula has indicated a willingness to resume contacts.
“We are going to rebuild Mercosur!” Lula said Monday evening, referring to the customs union which has been torn in recent months over a free trade treaty with China.
“We will recreate Unasur!” he continued, referring to the moribund Union of South American Nations created in 2008 on the initiative of himself and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.
Latin America is only the initial phase of the Brazilian president’s international push, with Lula heading to Washington in February and to China “after March.”
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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