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By water or land, the security forces shield Rosario against drug trafficking

Whether by water or by land, the hardest core of the Argentine federal forces, which the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, promised a few days ago, is in Rosario equipped with state-of-the-art technology and armored vehicles to reinforce the fight against drug trafficking.

Drug violence, which has been present in the third largest city in Argentina for decades, has intensified in recent weeks with the random murder of citizens in retaliation for the measures of the governor of Santa Fe, Maximiliano Pullaro, to implement the ‘Bukele style’ in the prisons of his province.

Faced with the situation of insecurity, the Executive intervened with the creation of a crisis committee, which sent hundreds of troops from the Prefecture, Federal Police, Gendarmerie, Airport Police and even members of the Army and the Naval Navy to Rosario, working together within a unified command.

It is estimated that they reach a total of 2,000 uniformed personnel. Although sources from the Ministry of Security inform EFE that they are estimated figures and can be even more: in short, “how much should not be revealed.”

As a port city on the banks of the Paraná River, Rosario has the protection of the Argentine Naval Prefecture (PNA), which since last December patrols the waterway day and night with different boats, among which the ‘Toba’ coast guard stands out.

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One of the four fast attack boats of the Sheldag class, of Israeli origin, transferred to Argentina in 2018 to protect the water borders of the coast and north of the country, has two static machine guns of 7.62 caliber on the sides of the bridge and a heavy of 12.7 in the bow, with space for 12 prefects.

With 25 meters of length, 6 meters of sleeve and 1.25 meters of drage it can reach 75 kilometers of speed; in addition, it has a rubber Zodiac for coastal approaches or shipments to other ships.

The chief officer of the PNA Damián Centurión, captain of the ‘Toba’, explains to the EFE team embarked on the ship to accompany a patrol that the most frequent crime on the coasts is the smuggling of narcotics.

“Our job is to control and suppress illicit activities in water such as smuggling. Mainly, we take care of the control of the waterways. Our stay here is indefinite. We know that there is a lot to do in Rosario,” he says.

The ship has “endured punishment,” since in the middle of a confrontation it endured bullets of 9 and 22 millimeter caliber without being penetrated

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According to the captain, the ship has already “endured punishment”: in the middle of a confrontation, the naval aluminum withstored, without being penetrated, bullets of the caliber 9 and 22 millimeters.

They arrived in Rosario with the ‘Flag Plan’, installed shortly after Javier Milei assumed president, to strengthen security and, according to official data, the reduction in intentional homicides dropped to 47.83%.

In the first two months of 2024, the drug trafficker has carried out 24 murders, while the operatives managed to dismantle organized crime activities, in addition to seizing vehicles, weapons and mobile phones.

“At the moment, there was no worrying fact among our current patrol tasks that go from Rosario, Santa Fe, Arroyo Seco, San Lorenzo and wherever they require us. We are varying the schedules, but we are usually at night,” he adds.

For that work, the ‘Toba’ has thermal, night and daytime cameras with a range of 7 kilometers used to follow boats from a distance and automatically, thanks to its radar system.

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The arrival of federal forces included their tactical groups, prepared to deal with anti-terrorist and drug trafficking situations: the special group of federal operations (GEOF) arrived on the streets of Rosario, which uses the ‘Mengshi’ (Chinese word for ‘brave soldier’) type CSK131.

It is a light armored vehicle of the four donated by China to Argentina and put into operation in 2018 for the G20 Summit, it has space for six men and is used to accompany police searches.

This Asian version of the famous HMMWV (‘Humvee’) accompanies checkpoints and checkpoints in the so-called ‘saturation operations’ – as EFE could verify -, which work in an intimidating way by controlling vehicles and in the surveillance of the most dangerous neighborhoods.

These operations begin at 5:00 p.m. (20:00 GMT) until 7:00 a.m. (10:00 GMT) the following day with the intention of preventing and mapping the criminal structure.

The ‘Mengshi’ can reach 135 kilometers per hour, withstand all kinds of calibers of firearms and explosive splinters of low and medium power; it can even be equipped with a heavy machine gun and even grenade launcher.

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Although “narcoterrorism,” as the authorities call it, has long tentacles, the arrival of agents and heavy equipment for now shields Rosario against drug trafficking.

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International

The AP agency sues the Trump Government after being banned for writing Gulf of Mexico

The American press agency Associated Press (AP) announced this Friday that it has sued three members of the Donald Trump Administration after being banned from the Oval Office and the presidential plane Air Force One for not complying with the directive of calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.

“The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not to be retaliated for it by the Government. The Constitution does not allow the Government to control freedom of expression,” the media maintains.

In its style guide, AP decided to continue calling the Gulf of Mexico “by its original name”, still mentioning the new name chosen by Trump, since it is a body of water that shares a border with Mexico and Cuba.

The White House formally blocked AP’s access to the Oval Office and Air Force One on February 14. “We are very proud of this country and we want it to be the Gulf of America,” Trump said on Tuesday.

The agency’s lawsuit, of 18 pages and filed before a federal court in Washington DC, alleges that they have decided to take this step to claim their right to editorial independence and prevent the Executive from coercing journalists to use only a language approved by it.

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Trump signed the executive order to change the name to Gulf of America on January 20, the first day of his return to power. He later named February 9 as ‘ Gulf of America Day’.

The AP complaint is specifically directed against the president’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, his number two, Taylor Budowich, and the White House spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt.

This Thursday, more than thirty US media asked the Government to restore AP’s participation in presidential events and not to take into account “the editorial point of view” when limiting access to the White House.

Among the signatories are the television networks Fox News and Newsmax, with a conservative tinge, in addition to other large newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, The Wall Street Journal or The Atlantic.

AP highlighted when reporting on his complaint that this Friday Trump referred to that agency as “radical left-wing lunatics”: It is “a third-rate company with a first name,” he said about it, the main one in the country and founded in 1846.

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International

Buenos Aires advances legislative elections to May 18 and suspends the primaries

The Legislature of the city of Buenos Aires approved this Friday the suspension of the open, simultaneous and mandatory primary elections (PASO), a measure that, according to the deputy head of government, Clara Muzzio, “allows to save 20 billion pesos (about 18,894 million dollars)”, and advanced the legislative elections for May 18.

“The City Legislature suspended the PASO, a measure that saves $20 billion for neighbors,” Muzzio announced on Friday.

For his part, the mayor of the City, Jorge Macri, maintained that the PASO “were an expensive mechanism that only solved the problems of politicians, not of the people.”

The May 18 elections, which were originally scheduled for July, will be held through the Single Electronic Ballot system.

In that instance, the inhabitants of the city of Buenos Aires will elect their local legislators and, in October, they will have to return to the polls to define, together with the rest of the country, the composition of the chambers of Deputies and Senators.

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“The fact that the elections are in May allows each Buenos Aires to decide on their own city, without being tied to national discussions,” said the mayor.

The project was approved in the Buenos Aires legislature with 55 votes in favor, 3 against and one abstention, after an agreement between the main political forces.

The suspension of the primaries in the City of Buenos Aires occurs one day after the Argentine Parliament approved the same measure at the national level.

The original project sent by the national government sought the elimination of the primary system but finally, given the lack of support for that objective, the government chose to promote an initiative that suspends them for this year.

The primary election system was first implemented in Argentina to define the candidates for the 2011 general elections, based on a political reform approved by Parliament at the end of 2009, with the aim of democratizing political representation, transparency and electoral equity.

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According to the PASO system, to be qualified to compete in the general elections, candidates or lists of candidates must achieve at least 1.5% of the total votes in the primaries.

All parties are obliged to participate in the primaries, although they do not necessarily have to present more than one list of candidates to decide which one will lead to the general elections, an option for which the majority of the forces have opted in the last elections.

That is one of the reasons why the system has been questioned, among which are also its costs and the cumbersomeness of the organization.

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International

Trump threatens to impose tariffs on governments that apply digital fees to US companies

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, signed an executive order on Friday that threatens to impose tariffs on foreign governments that apply digital fees to US companies, including Spain, the United Kingdom and France.

The order states that “foreign governments have exercised a growing extraterritorial authority over US companies, particularly in the technology sector,” and directly cites the taxes on digital services that “several business partners” apply since 2019.

According to the text, the Trump Administration will impose tariffs on those governments that use taxes or regulations that are “discriminatory, disproportionate or designed to transfer significant funds or intellectual property from US companies to that government or its chosen domestic entities.”

Trump delegates to the US Trade Representative the possibility of “renewing investigations” on the so-called technology fees of Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Austria and Turkey, imposed in the first term of the Republican, and if so, “take all appropriate actions”, which would include the imposition of tariffs.

“US companies will no longer sustain failed foreign economies through fines and extortionational taxes,” says the White House document, which provides for a “process” for them to “report” these “disproportionate” measures to the Commercial Representative.

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He also instructs him to investigate together with the Secretaries of the Treasury and Commerce whether in the European Union or the United Kingdom the use of products or services of US companies is “required or encouraged” to “undermine freedom of expression”, political activity or, “otherwise, moderate content”.

It also suggests to the Representative, among other things, to hold “a panel” with its partners of the T-MEC (Canada and Mexico) on the tax on digital services in Canada, and identify ways to achieve a “permanent moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions”.

The order does not mention any specific company, but mainly affects large technology companies such as Apple, Google (subsidiary of Alphabet), Meta and Amazon, which have precisely starred in a resounded approach to President Trump since he won the elections in November.

In his first term (2017-2021), Trump ordered to investigate the digital fees to his companies abroad and threatened to apply tariffs to the six countries indicated today; taxes were imposed in the government of his successor, the Democrat Joe Biden, and subsequently suspended.

Trump signed another executive order aimed at restricting access to US technology, especially in the field of artificial intelligence, what he calls “foreign adversaries”, including Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Russia and China.

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The executive order does not specify in detail what measures will be taken to restrict the access of these “foreign adversaries” to US technology.

Under the label of “foreign adversaries”, the order identifies China, Hong Kong, Macau, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and the “regime of Venezuelan politician Nicolás Maduro”, according to the text.

Trump justifies his decision with the argument that “economic security is national security” and maintains that the country must protect its sensitive infrastructures and technologies, from artificial intelligence to semiconductors and advances in biotechnology.

The executive order focuses especially on China, pointing out that companies linked to Beijing have used investments in the US to access key technologies and that the Chinese government is taking advantage of US technology to modernize its military apparatus.

Since his return to the White House on January 20, Trump has announced several restrictions on trade with the aim of balancing the trade balance and pressuring countries such as Mexico and Canada to make concessions on immigration and efforts against drug trafficking.

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It has imposed a 10% tariff on China, which is in addition to the rates already applied during its first term (2017-2021).

Trump’s new restrictions come after his predecessor, Joe Biden, took steps to limit exports of semiconductors and artificial intelligence technology to China, which led Beijing to respond with export controls on graphite, a key material for electric vehicle batteries.

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