International
Nicolás Maduro plans to talk to Lula, López Obrador and Petro to address the post-election crisis
The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, said on Friday that he foresees a conversation with the leaders of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and Colombia, Gustavo Petro, to address the crisis unleashed after the July 28 elections, whose result – which ratified the victory of the Chavista leader – is reported as fraudulent by the majority opposition.
“A conversation is pending with the 3 presidents, let’s hope it will take place,” said the president at the exit of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), where he appeared before the magistrates of the Electoral Chamber – controlled by judges related to Chavismo – as part of the judicial review of the election result, which Maduro himself requested.
He assured that, in recent days, without specifying when, this call was going to be made but it was canceled at the last minute due to problems with the agenda of one or some of the interlocutors, whose foreign ministries published yesterday a joint statement in which they asked the National Electoral Council (CNE) to publish the disaggregated results that certify Maduro’s victory.
“I deeply respect these three presidents and I will communicate with them at the right time,” continued the head of state, who assured that he was available “on the phone 24 hours a day” to talk to these leaders, considered their political allies in the region.
He insisted that he respects the sovereignty of each of these countries, so he will not comment on his governments, and that when the time comes he will explain in detail to his presidents the “difficult to understand situation” that Venezuela is going through.
“Everything that circulates in the media in those countries is manipulation, (but we) are experts in defeating that, we have the power to overcome the lie,” he added.
The CNE denounced having suffered a cyber attack on its system on voting day, which did not prevent Maduro’s proclamation without providing evidence, while the opposition presented thousands of voting minutes on a website that would give the overwhelming victory to its candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia.
The complaint of fraud and the post-election protests – some turned into acts of violence that result in 24 civilians killed, according to the NGO Provea – are seen by the Executive as a “cyber coup d’état”, so it ordered extreme police and military control.
The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, said that the “only negotiation” with the opposition leader María Corina Machado is that she “delivers to Justice,” after the former deputy and the standard-bearer of the largest opposition coalition, Edmundo González Urrutia, offered rapprochements after insisting that the president did not win the presidential elections, as officially announced.
“The only one who has to negotiate in this country with Machado is the attorney general. Let him surrender to Justice and show his face, and answer for the crimes he committed. It is really the only negotiation that fits here,” said Maduro, who points out the former deputy and González Urrutia as responsible for generating “violence” during the post-election demonstrations in rejection of the official result that grants the triumph to Maduro.
Likewise, the president assured that he will convene a “political dialogue,” without specifying when, with the “38 political parties that are registered with the National Electoral Council (CNE)” from which he hopes that “instances for future understanding” will arise.
Last Wednesday, Machado said that Maduro must “understand that his best option” is to “enter into a negotiation,” while ratifying an “absolute willingness” by the majority opposition, Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), to negotiate a transition, as several countries have done, including Panama, which offered political asylum to the president to solve the post-election crisis.
International
At least two members of the Gulf Clan die in a Colombian Army operation
At least two members of a Gulf Clan group, accused of the murder of social leader Jaime Gallego, died this Sunday in an operation carried out by the Colombian Army in a rural area of the municipality of Anorí, in the department of Antioquia (northwest).
The Seventh Division of the Army detailed in a statement that during the operation two members of the Gulf Clan, the main criminal gang in the country, were killed, as well as “war material, stewardship, communications, explosives and ammunition” was seized.
“This is a sustained operation that seeks to hit the Jorge Mario Valle Structure of the GAO (organized armed group) Clan del Golfo, responsible for the murder of social leader Jaime Gallego. Currently, this military operation is in development,” the information added.
Gallego, a defender of human rights and traditional miners of Antioquia, who had been missing for a week, was murdered, according to social organizations on Sunday.
“With deep pain and indignation we have learned that the social leader and defender of human rights Jaime Gallego, known as ‘Mongo’, was cowardly murdered,” said the Corporation for Peace and Social Development (Corpades) in its X account.
Gallego had been missing since March 3 when he was last seen along with his escort Didier Berrío, of the National Protection Unit (UNP), whose whereabouts are “unknown.”
The social leader was found “lifeless at 2:00 in the morning on the sidewalk (hamlet) El Jabón, in the municipality of Vegachí, with gunshots,” the information added.
According to the Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (Indepaz), with the death of Gallego, 33 social leaders have been murdered so far this year in Colombia.
Gallego was the founder of the Mesa Minera of the municipalities of Segovia and Remedios (Antioquia), where there are disputes between different illegal armed groups over gold deposits, and in 2023 he was a candidate for mayor of Segovia for the Historical Pact, party of President Gustavo Petro.
Last August, Petro authorized the opening of a “socio-legal conversation space” with the Gulf Clan, heir to the paramilitary United Self-Defense of Colombia (AUC) and the country’s main criminal gang.
The objective of this space is to set the terms of submission to justice according to the precepts allowed by law, but the process has not yet begun.
Unlike other negotiating tables installed such as those that the Government has with the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN), with a faction of the FARC dissidents of the Central General Staff (EMC) and with a split group of the Second Marquetalia, it is a space for socio-legal conversations.
This happens because the Government does not recognize the Gulf Clan, self-proclaimed Gaitanista Army of Colombia (EGC), political status.
International
Sheinbaum: Mexico will collaborate so that fentanyl does not reach the US and that there is dialogue
The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, led this Sunday a public assembly in the Zócalo of Mexico City, attended by thousands of people, in which she assured that her country will continue to collaborate to prevent drugs, and especially fentanyl, from reaching the United States.
In addition, she said she was convinced that “the relationship between Mexico and the United States must be good, of respect and that dialogue will always prevail.”
“I tell the American people that we have and will not have any intention of harming them and that we are determined to collaborate with them in all areas. Especially given the concern they have about the serious problem of synthetic drug consumption,” he said.
“For humanitarian reasons, Mexico will continue to collaborate to prevent fentanyl from reaching young Americans (…) Not only do we not want that drug to reach young people in the United States, but it does not reach anywhere in the world or young Mexicans,” he added.
He said that “it is essential to attend to the consumption of narcotics from the root of the addiction.”
Sheinbaum specified that, according to the United States Customs and Border Protection, between October 2024 and January 2025 the crossing of fentanyl from Mexico to the United States decreased by 50% and from January to February 2025 by another 41%.
He also pointed out that just as there is a strategy to prevent the crossing of drugs to the United States, “we have proposed to the Government of the United States that it must be implemented so that high-powered weapons stop arriving in our country.”
In what she called an “Informative Assembly”, the Mexican president explained to her thousands of supporters, governors of the country’s states, businessmen and politicians, the agreement reached last Thursday with her American counterpart, Donald Trump, to pause for a month the threat of tariffs on Mexican products.
“We must thank the willingness of the president of the United States to dialogue with Mexico. There are some people who are not interested in a good relationship between our peoples and governments, but I am sure that with information and respectful dialogue we can always achieve a relationship of respect. So far it has been like this,” he said.
He said that being neighboring countries “we have the responsibility to collaborate and coordinate,” Sheinbaum recalled that last Tuesday, March 4, Trump imposed taxes of 25% on exports from Mexico to the United States, but after a call on Thursday, the measure was postponed to April 2.
“We are optimistic because that day, April 2, the United States Government has announced that it will impose reciprocal tariffs on all countries of the world, if any country charges you for its exports, the United States will do it too, that’s what they have said,” he explained.
“Nothing more than Mexico is not in that area, because for 30 years we have signed two trade treaties, with which it is established that we do not have tariffs with them, nor do they with us, that is, reciprocal tariffs would not have to be applied because there are practically no tariffs from Mexico to the United States.”
The trade agreements to which Sheinbaum referred are the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the current Treaty between Mexico, the United States and Canada (T-MEC).
He recalled that since the signing of the T-MEC “it was conceived that this was the only option to successfully face the competition that means the economic and commercial advance of Asian countries.”
“Our proposal has even been that we not only integrate North America, but also from now on the economic and commercial integration of the entire continent, becoming the most powerful region in the world without exclusions, with prosperity and with respect for freedom, independence and sovereignty of all peoples and nations,” said Sheinbaum.
The Mexican president said that we must “always have dialogue as the option and so far it has given results (…) we are not extremists, but we are very clear that there are inalienable principles. We cannot give in to our sovereignty.”
He recalled that Mexico and the United States share a border of 3,180 kilometers (…) we cooperate in commercial, economic, friendship and we have families on both sides of the border. Our peoples contribute culturally on both sides of the border.”
He said that about 38 million Mexicans live in the United States, of which two-thirds are born in the United States.
He also pointed out that Mexico has developed a strategy to address the migratory phenomenon “without violating human rights starting with the right to life” and that the most humane way to address this phenomenon is by promoting development to prevent people from migrating out of necessity.
International
Noem appoints new Immigration Service leaders with a view to accelerating deportations
The secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of the United States, Kristi Noem, appointed this Sunday the two new leaders of the Immigration and Customs Service (ICE) with a view to accelerating the deportations of undocumented immigrants.
Noem appointed “a new leadership of ICE to deliver the results that President (Donald) Trump and the American people legitimately demand: Todd Lyons will be the interim director of ICE and Madison Sheahan the deputy director of ICE,” according to a statement.
The DHS secretary said she had Trump’s “support” and assured that Lyons and Sheahan are “working horses, strong executors and responsible leaders who will lead the men and women of ICE to get the mandate of the American people to pursue, arrest and deport illegal foreigners.”
At the end of February, the Trump Administration dismissed the previous interim director, Caleb Vitello, whom the president himself elected, due to the growing frustration at a slow pace of deportations, and two other senior officials were also dismissed previously.
Noem also said in her statement that during the last four years ICE employees have been “prevented” from doing their job and pointed out that the service “needs a culture of accountability that it has been deprived of under the Biden Administration.”
The comments come after reports in US media that the DHS is subjecting some employees to the polygraph to determine who is behind the leaks of information about federal raids and operations against undocumented immigrants.
Noem and Trump’s so-called “border czar”, Tom Homan, have blamed the lower than projected numbers of arrests on this type of leaks about when and in which cities immigration raids were going to occur.
According to his biographies, Haynes was until now the associate executive director of ICE, in charge of the pursuit and deportation operations, while Sheahan, Noem’s collaborator when she was governor, was secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fishing.
At least two members of the Gulf Clan die in a Colombian Army operation
Sheinbaum: Mexico will collaborate so that fentanyl does not reach the US and that there is dialogue
Noem appoints new Immigration Service leaders with a view to accelerating deportations
Tec de Monterrey honors one of its students for his contribution to nanotechnology in medicine
Defense Minister commends salvadoran soldier for Central American Cross Country victory
Ecuador prison riot leaves at least 43 dead
-
Central America4 days agoGuatemalan court’s ruling against Zamora labeled as an assault on press freedom by IAPA
-
Central America3 days agoGuatemalan surgeon sentenced after patient’s death and gruesome cover-up
-
Central America3 days agoGuatemalan suspect wanted for human smuggling network that transported 20,000 migrants
-
International2 days agoHearing suspended in Guatemala on revocation of José Rubén Zamora’s house arrest
-
International4 days agoChile’s President Boric reiterates support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, condemns Russia’s aggression
-
Central America1 day agoFormer First Lady of Honduras Seeks Presidential Nomination Amidst Controversy
-
International1 day agoVenezuela Refuses to Repatriate Citizens Amid Tensions Over Chevron’s Departure
-
International4 days agoChile and Germany reaffirm commitment to multilateralism amid global challenges
-
International3 days agoProsecutor orders investigation into potential ties between Milei and Libra crypto collapse
-
International4 days agoVenezuelan government marks 12th anniversary of Hugo Chávez’s death with vows of loyalty
-
International2 days agoEgypt asks Trump for a “positive interaction” with his plan to rebuild Gaza
-
International2 days agoTrump withdraws 400 million federal funds from Columbia University for anti-Semitism
-
International3 days agoU.S. and Mexico intensify border security measures amid ongoing migration crisis
-
International4 days agoU.S. introduces visa restrictions targeting officials responsible for facilitating illegal immigration
-
International2 days agoHamas asks Trump to also meet with the released Palestinian prisoners
-
International2 days agoTrump says it is more difficult to deal with Ukraine than with Russia
-
International2 days agoTrump says there may be a nuclear agreement with Iran “very, very soon”
-
International4 days agoPedro Castillo faces trial for rebellion without a defense lawyer
-
International2 days agoCuba, crisis and dollarization: without foreign exchange there is no country
-
International2 days agoGuyana asks the ICJ to require Caracas to stop the elections and any action to annex its territory
-
International2 days agoSafe abortion and without stigma, one of the biggest claims of Mexican women this March 8
-
International1 hour agoAt least two members of the Gulf Clan die in a Colombian Army operation
-
International2 days agoColombian Defense Minister denounces the kidnapping of 29 uniformed men in the southwest of the country
-
International2 days agoSaudi Arabia will host a meeting between the US and Ukraine next week
-
International2 days agoColombia’s Defense Minister denounces the kidnapping of 29 uniformed officers in the southwest of the country
-
International1 hour agoNoem appoints new Immigration Service leaders with a view to accelerating deportations
-
International1 hour agoEvo Morales reinforces his security in the Tropic with foreigners and hopes that more will arrive
-
International1 hour agoSheinbaum: Mexico will collaborate so that fentanyl does not reach the US and that there is dialogue
-
International1 hour agoThere is discontent in Honduras over several irregularities in the primary and internal elections
-
International1 hour agoRomanian electoral authorities reject presidential candidacy of pro-Russian Georgescu