The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, canceled this Sunday for “medical guidance” his trip to Russia to attend the BRICS leadership after suffering a “domestic accident” in which he hit his head, government and hospital sources reported.
The Brazilian Presidency said in a statement that it was decided to cancel the trip due to a “temporary impediment for long-term flights,” but that Lula will participate by videoconference in the meeting, which is held between October 22 and 24 in the Russian city of Kazan.
The president, who is 78 years old, was injured on Saturday on the back of his head, which led him to be admitted to the Sírio-Libanês Hospital in Brasilia, according to a medical report that does not go into more details.
Despite not going to the summit, the Government clarified that Lula will comply next week with a “normal” work schedule in the capital.
The meeting in Kazan, hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin, is scheduled to receive more than 30 heads of state and government.
The BRICS, whose original members were Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, are in full expansion, after including four other countries this year: Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Ethiopia.
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During the meeting, the leaders of the member countries must define what will be the criteria for other nations to be part of the bloc as partners.
Brazil wants two of the criteria to be, for example, not supporting economic sanctions applied without authorization from the UN and defending the reform of the Security Council, according to diplomatic sources in the country.
Trump gains ground over Harris and the elections are emerging as the closest of the century
The Republican candidate for the White House, former President Donald Trump, has gained ground in the polls of his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the selections of November 5 are emerging as the closest of the last century in the United States.
Harris’ candidacy, who replaced President Joe Biden after he threw in the towel in July, initially aroused great enthusiasm that was transferred to the polls, but Trump has managed to pulverize that advantage when there are 16 days left until the elections.
According to the latest forecast of the FiveThiryEight portal based on the average of polls published nationally and in key states, Trump achieves a slight advantage over Harris and has a 52% chance of winning the November 5 elections.
Despite the fact that the Democrat leads the intention to vote at the national level, the Republican is more favored by the Electoral College, the system by which the states grant a certain number of electoral votes to the winning candidate.
Two weeks ago, the forecast of the same portal gave Harris a 58% chance to defeat Trump.
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The difference between Harris and Trump
Although the Republican has gained ground in recent weeks, the situation is so tight that the chances of victory of each of the two candidates are practically equivalent to throwing a coin into the air.
The difference between Harris and Trump is less than two percentage points in the seven decisive states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) so that a small statistical error could alter the result.
In addition, at the national level, the vice president only takes two points ahead of the former president, a narrower difference than the margin between Biden and Trump on any of the days of the 2020 campaign.
After those elections, the Republican refused to accept his defeat and promoted the vote count in some key states and several litigations that were dismissed in court.
In 2000, the election result was up in the air until the Supreme Court gave the victory to Republican George W. Busch on the Democrat Al Gore in Florida, which was then a hinge state.
But according to the FiveThirtyEight portal, to find elections as close as what the polls draw, we have to go back to 1876, when the Republican Rutherford Hayes beat the Democrat Samuel Tilden by a single electoral vote: 185 against 184.
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Every vote counts
In such a tight scenario, every vote counts and the two candidates are doubling their presence in the seven decisive states, where in some cases the early vote has already begun with a high turnout.
The rhetoric and the crossfire between the two has also intensified with attacks and insults.
Trump suggested this week that he would be willing to deploy the military against the “internal enemies” of the United States, in an apparent reference to his political rivals, while Harris described his rival as “fascist” and “deranted.”
The vice president has decided to raise the tone against Trump in an attempt to revitalize her campaign, to which former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have also joined, and former first lady Michelle Obama to give her a new impetus.
The Republican is this Sunday in Pennsylvania, where he is expected to visit a McDonald’s and accuse Harris of having invented that he worked for that fast food chain as a young man.
For her part, the Democratic candidate, who turns 60 today, is in Georgia before traveling to Pennsylvania, where tomorrow she will campaign with Liz Cheney, a former Republican congressman facing Trump.
Thousands of Georgians march in Tbilisi in favor of the country’s European future
Thousands of Georgians marched today in Tbilisi in favor of the European future of the country six days before parliamentary elections, which President Salomé Zurabishvili sees as an election between the EU and Russia.
Under the slogan “Georgia chooses the EU” the supporters of rapprochement with Europe met in five points of the capital from where they marched in a column towards the Plaza de la Libertad, where they sang the anthems of the Caucasian country and the EU.
The action, called by non-governmental organizations and opposition parties, was also attended by the Georgian president.
From the largest opposition party, the United National Movement (UNM), they warned the Government that the people “will not give up their European future.”
European future
“This action is the last warning to the honorary president of the ruling Georgian Dream, Bidzina Ivanishvili, that the Georgian people will not give up their European future,” said MNU President Tinatin Bokuchava.
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Meanwhile, Zurabishvili asked the attendees to demonstrate the will to “return to the country freedom, independence and a European future.”
Participants in the demonstration said that it is a “rehearsal of the electoral victory of the opposition,” while the Georgian Dream, which has ruled Georgia since 2012, assures that it will obtain about 60 percent of the support, after which it will re-establish relations with the West.
Relations with the Kremlin
The Caucasian country has significantly improved its relations with the Kremlin coinciding with the war in Ukraine, which has dramatically worsened its ties with the United States and the European Union.
After the Georgian Parliament passed the Foreign Influence Transparency Act in May of this year, which the Georgian opposition considers similar to the one approved in Russia to suppress civil society, the European Union, the United States and the United Kingdom froze cooperation programs with Georgia.
In addition, Brussels and Washington also criticized the Georgian Parliament last September for approving another document that prohibits, as in Russia, information regarding homosexuality.
Migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela are left in limbo in Mexico due to US measures.
Migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Haiti and Cuba are in limbo on the border of Mexico after the decision of the President of the United States, Joe Biden, not to extend temporary permits for these nationalities and the promise of the former president (2017-2021) and Republican candidate, Donald Trump, to eliminate the ‘humanitarian parole’.
The immigration restrictions, imposed as the US presidential elections approach on November 5, affect Ciudad Juárez, the epicenter of the humanitarian migration crisis in Mexico.
In the face of the elections and the change in migration policy, “there are still many people who are surely expectant, attentive to the international political dynamic,” said Jesús Enrique Valenzuela, general coordinator of the State Population Council (COESPO).
“Even, we must say, this type of situation that occurs both in Mexico and in the United States and that, in some way, could affect migration policy, because of course they somehow impact the flow of people,” he told EFE.
Without permission to migrate
The Biden Government announced on October 4 that it will not allow people from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela who arrived in the country with a program known as ‘humanitarian speech’ to extend the migration benefit for more than two years.
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More than half a million people of these four nationalities have entered the country under the program, which began in October 2022 for Venezuelans and extended to the other three nationalities in February 2023.
The decision, announced less than a month before the November 5 elections, came amid criticism from Trump, who said in September that, if he returned to the White House, he would end up with the benefit.
This has left migrants who are stranded in Mexico “very worried”, such as Nicaraguan Lionel Martín Olivas.
“I left my country because I am politically persecuted and in that fact I would no longer be able to return to my country and, if they do not let me into the United States either, then it hurts me a lot because it would be in the air, I would not know what to do anymore. And, like everything, one is thinking about reaching the United States to get ahead,” he said.
Humanitarian permits for migrants
Humanitarian permits, implemented by the current Administration, allowed migrants from these countries to apply for temporary protection in the United States due to the crises in their home nations, but Trump maintained that this measure is “an invitation to uncontrolled immigration.”
Migrants who left these countries in the hope of seeking asylum in the United States now feel that their journey was in vain.
“It seems unfair to me because one spends so much work to get here and one is applying, that is, to pass legally. One is no longer going through the wall or anything like that and it seems unfair to me that you want to close the application to so many people that we want to pass legally,” said Darlenis, originally from Venezuela.
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The Government of Mexico reported 200,289 Venezuelans “in an irregular migration situation” in the first half of 2024, 215% more than reported in the same period of the previous year, so Venezuela is the main country of origin of irregular migrants in Mexico, where they represent more than one in four.
Migration is one of the pillars of Trump’s campaign, who has also promised to reinstate other more restrictive policies, such as the construction of the border wall and the re-establishment of the ‘Stay in Mexico’ program, which forces asylum seekers to wait in this country.
