International
Latin America reacts to the resignation of Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy
The resignation from Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy has generated reactions in Latin America in different political sectors, from the left with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, as well as on the right with allies of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to be its president. And although my intention has been to seek re-election, I think the best thing for my party and for the country is that I retire and concentrate solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the rest of my term,” Biden, 81, said through a letter to the nation.
The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, said on Sunday that his US counterpart, Joe Biden, “has made the most sensible and correct decision” by leaving the race for re-election in the North American country.
“He has made the most sensible and correct decision, prioritized his family, his health, and realized that, at that age and with weakened health, he could not take the reins of his country and even less a presidential candidacy. It was a responsible attitude, President Biden,” Maduro said during an event held in the state of Barinas (west).
However, in his announcement, the US president does not mention his family or his health, and as an explanation of his decision he affirms the best thing for his country is that he retire and “focus only on fulfilling” his “duties as president during the rest” of the mandate.
Maduro also said he met his American counterpart, with whose Government he has maintained a “permanent dialogue” that, he said, is still active, with “dialogue commissions,” although he did not offer more details about the talks between the two countries, without diplomatic relations since 2019.
“I’m just telling you, President Biden, be calm with your conscience, because you made a wise and correct decision, and from Venezuela I, president of the republic, wish you health and long life, President Biden,” added the Chavista leader.
The Government of Panama said on Sunday that it “respects” the decision of US President Joe Biden to renounce the race for re-election in the elections on November 5, in which he was going to face former President Donald Trump.
“It is a personal decision of President Biden thinking about his country, his people and the Democratic Party. It’s time to respect her. We, as an allied country of the United States, are prepared to work with the administration that will be elected in November. We do not have any concern about what will happen in the next (US) elections,” said Panamanian Foreign Minister Javier Martínez-Acha, after being asked by journalists at a sporting event.
After a few hard weeks with growing criticism for the suitability of his candidacy, US President Joe Biden decided to abandon the race for re-election “for the interest” of the Democratic Party and his country, and offered his support to the vice president, Kamala Harris, who confirmed her intention to “get and win” the candidacy for the November 5 elections.
A few minutes later, Harris herself accepted responsibility and stated that she intends to “get and win” the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Presidency, although in the first hours of this historic Biden decision only a few voices offered explicit support.
Some ministers of the Government of the Brazilian President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, praised on Sunday the decision of the President of the United States, Joe Biden, to give up his candidacy for the November elections.
“Politics is not personalism, but service in favor of ideas and values. Biden shows a huge demonstration of political greatness by understanding that Democrats need something new to face the extremist conservatism that threatens the world,” said the head of Planning, Simone Tebet, on her social networks.
Tebet, one of those in charge of tracing the economic strategy of the Brazilian Executive, also asked the Democrats to “have the same altruism and wisdom” as Biden when choosing his replacement “to face extremism,” that everything points to Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Minister of Agrarian Development, Paulo Teixeira, said, also on his social networks, that Biden’s resignation to continue in the presidential race is “a great decision to defeat the American extreme right,” which embodies, in his opinion, the former governor and Republican candidate Donald Trump.
For his part, the Minister of Transport, José Renan Filho, indicated that it is “a gesture of greatness” of the US president, who has been forced to withdraw from his candidacy after the strong pressure of the heavyweights of his party because of his state of health.
The Brazilian minister said that Biden has shown “no attachment” to the presidential candidacy “at a critical moment” and praised his management as U.S. president on issues such as employment, environmental protection and his country’s economic growth.
“This new fact will turn the election upside down,” he said.
Lula, for the moment, has not yet spoken publicly.
Allies of former far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro took advantage of the decision of the US president, Joe Biden, to resign from re-election, to criticize this Sunday the Brazilian head of state, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the progressive forces.
“Biden is out! When is the ‘Brazilian Biden’ going to leave?” exclaimed, in apparent allusion to Lula, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, one of the sons of former President Jair Bolsonaro and, like his father, aligned with the Republican candidate Donald Trump.
Senator Ciro Nogueira, a next ally of Bolsonaro and who was minister of the Presidency during his term (2019-2022), interpreted the news as “a victory of those who were gagged by a narrative that Trump was the absolute evil and Biden, the indisputable good.”
“Biden’s resignation (re-election) is an alert: they can lie once, twice, three times, but no one can prevent the truth from coming to light. It is the victory of the truth over the false and manipulative narratives of the left,” he said.
He also insinuated that former President Trump is a “political persecuted” for the various criminal cases he faces in the U.S. Justice.
“Biden leaves the campaign and enters the limbo of those who abused democracy on his behalf. A big day!” he concluded.
For her part, federal deputy Carla Zambelli, a relevant figure of the Brazilian far right, pointed out that Biden’s withdrawal from re-election has caused “the American left” to enter a state of “total despair.”
Jair Bolsonaro has not yet spoken publicly, nor has the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, so far.
International
Armed clashes in northwestern Pakistan leave at least 35 dead and 50 injured
Armed clashes between Sunni and Shii groups in the Kurram tribal district, in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), in northwestern Pakistan, left at least 35 dead and 50 injured, the police confirmed to EFE on Saturday.
The violence that broke out last night comes two days after an ambush by an unidentified armed group to a passenger convoy in this same district, which killed 42 people, most of them Shiites, when they were traveling on a road escorted by security forces.
“Armed Shiites attacked Sunni houses and shops in the towns of Bagan and Bacha Kot, in which 35 people on both sides died and more than 50 were injured,” Mujahid Ullah, a Kurram police control officer, told EFE.
In the attack, “1,036 houses and 315 stores, mostly Sunnis, have been set on fire since the assault began around 6:00 p.m.” on Friday, he added.
Sectarian violence
Pakistan has a history of sectarian violence, but the latest clashes are claiming the highest number of victims in recent years. The Shiite Muslim minority represents about 15% of Pakistan’s 240 million inhabitants, a Sunni majority.
“In this situation it is difficult for the police to arrest someone involved in the violence,” said today the police officer who estimates that the death toll could increase, since shootings continue in some areas.
Verified images shared on social media show markets, houses and government buildings destroyed by fire.
The attack is apparently a reaction to the one recorded on Thursday to passenger vans that resulted in 42 deaths, including women and children.
The Thall-Sada-Parachinar highway, where Thursday’s ambush took place, has remained closed as authorities struggle to reinforce an unstable peace. Both sides attack each other with heavy and automatic weapons.
“The elderly and government officials have gathered at Kurram’s headquarters, to calm the situation,” Ullah revealed, adding that educational institutions in the district are closed due to growing tension.
No Internet or telephony
Internet and mobile phone services are also suspended throughout the district.
The Kurram district of KP is located on the border with Afghanistan, where a major land dispute that began in 2007 continued for several years and ended in 2011 with the help of a jirga of tribal elders.
According to the KP Department of the Interior, there are land disputes in eight places in the district that date back to the partition of Pakistan and India in 1947. Land disputes often turn into deadly sectarian violence.
International
Cristina Fernández demands the restitution of the pensions that the Milei Government took away from her
Former Argentine president Cristina Fernández (2007-2015) demanded that the National Administration of Social Security (Anses) return the pensions she received for having occupied the Head of State and for being the widow of the former president Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) and that were taken away by decision of the Government of Javier Milei.
Official sources consulted by EFE indicated this Saturday that the administrative claim presented by the former president will be answered “according to the procedural deadlines,” something that will be done by the Legal Affairs area of ANSES, the state agency that administers the pension system in Argentina.
Through a resolution published on November 15 in the Official Gazette, ANSES revoked the lifetime pension benefits that Fernández received for having been head of state and as a widow of another former president, a measure that on the day before had been announced by the Government of Milei itself.
Why did they withdraw Cristina Fernández’s pensions?
The resolution recalls that on November 13, an impeachment court confirmed a sentence for Fernández to six years in prison and perpetual disqualification from holding public office in a trial for irregularities in the concession of road works during his government and that of Kirchner.
ANSES alleged that lifetime pensions for former presidents “become legally incompatible for those who have committed a crime in the exercise of the same public function for which they have acceded to said allocation of privilege and to the detriment of the National State.”
After this measure became effective, Cristina Fernández questioned it on the grounds that pensions for former presidents are not granted for good performance, but for the “merit” of having obtained the election as heads of state by the popular vote.
He also claimed that the alleged “bad performance” of a president can only be judged by the Argentine Parliament through the constitutional process of impeachment during the exercise of the mandate.
In statements to radio La Red, Facundo Fernández Pastor, the former president’s lawyer, pointed out that if the administrative claim before the ANSES does not succeed, Fernández will go to court.
International
Possible lack of final agreement overspeaks Baku summit negotiations
Baku can go down in history as another failed climate summit, adding to the list of COPs that ended in failure; with a bad agreement, as in Copenhagen (2009) or without agreement, as in the summit in The Hague (2000).
This is raised in the conversations that negotiators, observers and journalists have this Saturday in the corridors of COP29, after the 24 hours of extension of a summit that was supposed to end on Friday afternoon and in full “chaos” after dozens of countries left the room where the draft of the potential agreement was being negotiated.
The analysts and observers consulted, as well as the negotiating teams, agree to underline the “especially chaotic” end of this summit, from which a not too encouraging outcome is expected: either a “bad agreement” – that does not meet the needs of the Global South to face the climate challenge – or, directly, without agreement.
Pessimism invaded the spaces of the summit that hosts these days the capital of Azerbaijan, and in which about 200 states have been negotiating for two weeks how to finance climate action, especially in those low-income countries and vulnerable to the impacts of global warming.
Everyone mentions the ghost of the failed summits in The Hague and Copenhagen, cases that they would like to avoid, because they fear that going through another failure like this would further undermine the already weaken confidence in multilateralism.
Some developing countries leave the trading room
In addition, small island states and some Africans left the negotiation room where they met the presidency’s latest proposal for the agreement on climate financing that finalizes COP29, where they said they did not feel heard.
Political representatives of the negotiating group that brings together the least developed countries, as well as that of the small island states claimed to have come to the climate summit in Baku to close “a fair agreement” on climate financing, but they have felt “hurt” by not being consulted.
“There is an agreement to be closed and we are not being consulted. We are here to negotiate, but we are leaving because at the moment we do not feel that we are being heard,” said the head of the negotiating group of the island countries, Cedric Schuste, in statements to the media.
“We do everything we can to build bridges with literally everyone. It is not easy, neither in financing nor in mitigation,” stressed the European Commissioner for Climate Action, Wopke Hoekstra, to emphasize that “it is fair to ask that we be constructive.”
Some Latin American and Caribbean states, which are trying to build bridges between the least developed and rich countries, expressed their refusal to admit that this Baku summit is closed without an agreement.
“We cannot leave Baku or Copenhagen,” said Panama’s special climate envoy, Juan Carlos Monterrey, in reference to the climate summit held in the Danish capital in 2009, a meeting that the international climate community considered a failure, by not reaching any agreement.
“We are already at a point of not only building bridges, but walking on those bridges,” Monterrey said, after detailing that the countries had left the consultation mainly because of their discrepancies regarding the total amount that rich countries suggest mobilizing to pay for the climate transition and adaptation to the inevitable impacts of global warming.
“The great struggle is the figure,” said Monterrey, since developing countries at this point support that the goal is 300 billion dollars per year by 2035, and developing and emerging economies ask for 500 billion dollars annually and by 2030.
Lack of transparency in the process
Panama’s main negotiator, Ana Aguilar, also criticized the lack of transparency in the process, something she blamed on the Azerbaijani presidency of the summit, which according to her has had more meetings with some parties than with others, and has been three days without favoring negotiations more than bilaterally.
“We have a problem,” said Colombian Minister Susana Muhamad, who claimed that there is still a long distance between the amount that rich countries propose to mobilize and that requested by those that developing countries.
The proposal of the presidency of the COP29, as reflected in a negotiating text made public on Friday, was that the awealing countries pay 250 billion dollars a year by 2035 to the states of the Global South, to help them pay for action against climate change, a phenomenon to which they hardly contribute but of which they are the main victims.
Now there is talk of 300 billion dollars, while the largest group of developing countries demands at least 500 billion.
The dispute is especially in the quantum, Muhamad said, but also “in some of the requirements that I think we can achieve through negotiation,” he said.
“The problem is that it has been published very late, it was published yesterday. The deadline is very short, so we have some countries, those that have less financial capacity, that do not feel satisfied,” explained Muhamad, who added that “we need them to be able to move and deliberate.”
The Colombian minister said that she will encourage rich countries “to take a step forward” and, she added, “it is very important that they do so so that we can move forward and carry out this negotiation.”
Armed clashes in northwestern Pakistan leave at least 35 dead and 50 injured
Cristina Fernández demands the restitution of the pensions that the Milei Government took away from her
Possible lack of final agreement overspeaks Baku summit negotiations
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