International
Lula visits Shanghai on first stop of China trip
April 13 |
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was visiting the financial hub of Shanghai, China, on Thursday, on a trip to strengthen ties with the South American giant’s largest trading partner and rally political support for his efforts to mediate the conflict in Ukraine.
Lula arrived in China on Wednesday night and is scheduled to meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in Beijing on Friday before concluding his visit on Saturday.
The Brazilian government said the two sides were expected to sign at least 20 bilateral agreements during Lula’s trip, a reflection of improving relations after a bumpy period under his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.
Lula would also attend in Shanghai the official ceremony in which his close advisor and former Brazilian President Dilma Roussef will be sworn in as head of the New Development Bank, a Chinese-backed institution.
The organization is presented as an alternative to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, controlled mainly by the United States and its Western allies. The bank focuses on the group of developing countries known as BRICS, consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
The institution, established more than seven years ago, has approved 99 loan projects worth more than $34 billion, mainly for infrastructure projects, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
Much of that credit has gone to Brazil for projects such as a subway system in the country’s financial capital, Sao Paulo.
During his meeting with Xi, Lula is expected to discuss trade, investment, reindustrialization, energy transition, climate change and peace agreements, according to the Brazilian government.
China is Brazil’s largest export market, buying tens of billions of dollars worth of soybeans, beef, iron ore, poultry, pulp, sugar cane, cotton and oil every year.
Brazil is the largest recipient of Chinese investment in Latin America, according to Chinese state media, although Lula has taken a position against Chinese organizations buying Brazilian companies.
One of the agreements Lula will sign in China will be for the production of the sixth satellite built in a bi-national program, a device that will monitor biomes such as the Amazon rainforest.
Beijing recently lifted restrictions on Brazilian beef, imposed in February after the discovery of an unusual case of mad cow disease.
Politically, the visit by leftist Lula symbolizes Brazil’s return to international relations after succeeding Bolsonaro in January.
The often brusque conservative populist leader and members of his family provoked tensions with Chinese authorities on several occasions by talking about the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic or telecommunications firm Huawei. Bolsonaro admired conservative nationalists and showed little interest in international affairs or traveling abroad.
Lula, who will visit a Huawei research center in Shanghai on Thursday, traveled to Argentina and Uruguay in January and the United States in February, a sign of the importance he places on international affairs, experts say. He toured the world during his first presidency, especially in his second term, when he passed through dozens of countries, and has been to China on two previous occasions.
A key piece of Lula’s strategy abroad is his proposal that Brazil and other developing countries, including China, mediate to achieve peace in Ukraine. However, his proposal that Ukraine give up Crimea to facilitate peace has upset Kiev and its staunchest supporters.
China has also tried to play a role in ending the conflict, albeit in a very close way to Moscow. It has refused to condemn the invasion, criticized economic sanctions on Russia and accused the United States and NATO of provoking the conflict.
International
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
A 65-year-old Austrian citizen was arrested at a border checkpoint in Croatia after attempting to enter the country in his car with a deceased woman sitting as a passenger, police announced on Tuesday.
The man was detained in a routine check in late November in Gunja, a border area separating Bosnia from Croatia, the police told AFP. Suspicious because they saw “no consciousness or movement” from the passenger, Croatian officers called a doctor, who confirmed the death of the 83-year-old woman, also Austrian, according to her identification.
The woman’s relationship to the suspect is unknown. She had died in Bosnia, and the man intended to repatriate her body to Austria to “avoid the formalities related to transporting a corpse,” according to the police. Croatian media reported that the man was her legal guardian.
Once her death was confirmed, a funeral service took charge of the body.
International
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Colombian authorities arrested two nationals accused of the illegal trafficking of migrants to the United States and of endangering lives due to the disappearance of a boat with 40 people aboard, U.S. Department of Justice officials reported on Tuesday.
Hernando Manuel de la Cruz Rivera Orjuela, 52, and Luis Enrique Linero Pinto, 40, both Colombian citizens, were arrested on December 13 in Colombia at the request of the United States for their alleged involvement in a “transnational human trafficking operation,” the department said in a statement.
According to the charges, the detainees were transporting migrants to San Andrés Island in the Caribbean, where they would then be taken by boat to Nicaragua. The goal was to reach the United States through Central America and Mexico.
The accused are said to have advised the migrants on how to reach San Andrés Island, where they personally received them, arranged accommodations, and “took them to the boats that transported them to Nicaragua so they could enter the United States illegally,” the statement reads.
“These defendants put several migrants on the boat that disappeared off the coast of Nicaragua in 2023,” said Deputy Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, as cited in the statement.
Both men are “directly and personally responsible for the illicit trafficking of migrants on that vessel,” according to the indictment dated October 23.
International
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
Two soldiers were killed and five others were injured by the explosion of homemade landmines planted by a criminal group in a mountainous area of the Mexican state of Michoacán (west), the Secretary of Defense reported on Tuesday.
The attack occurred on Monday morning in the municipality of Cotija, a border area between Michoacán and the state of Jalisco, when the military was conducting a reconnaissance mission after receiving information about an armed camp in the area, explained Secretary General Ricardo Trevilla.
“At that moment, an improvised explosive device detonated. Unfortunately, two soldiers lost their lives, and five others were injured,” the military leader detailed. The affected soldiers were airlifted to hospitals in the region by a military helicopter, while the rest of the team continued with the reconnaissance of the area.
Trevilla stated that before the explosion, the military unit had located the dismembered bodies of three people, and upon continuing the mission, they confirmed the camp was abandoned.
Asked about the individuals responsible for placing the explosives, the general suggested they could be criminals linked to the local group Cárteles Unidos, which operates in Michoacán and uses these tactics in their territorial dispute with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the country.
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