International
Lula defends opening peace negotiations in the war in Ukraine during a summit with Russia
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defended “avoiding an escalation and starting peace negotiations” in the war in Ukraine during his participation, by videoconference, in the BRICS summit, which holds its plenary session this Wednesday in the Russian city of Kazan.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva also said that “the time has come to move forward” in the creation of an alternative payment system that allows emerging countries not to use the dollar in their exchanges.
“Avoiding an escalation and starting peace negotiations is also crucial in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia,” Lula said in the final words of his speech.
Middle East and Ukraine, at the summit
The Brazilian ruler, who together with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, promotes a peace initiative that Ukraine has already rejected, made that brief reference to the conflict on European soil after talking about the war that Israel is fighting against the Palestinian armed group Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbula.
“When we face two wars with the potential to become global, it is essential to rescue our ability to work together for common objectives,” stressed the Brazilian leader.
Lula canceled his trip to Russia on medical recommendation, after suffering a fall on Saturday at his residence, which caused a small cut on the back of his neck that required five stitches.
Xi Jinping asks for de-escalation
Chinese President Xi Jinping called for an early de-escalation in Ukraine and the cessation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
“It is necessary to contribute to a prompt de-escalation in Ukraine (…) and achieve a cessation of hostilities and murders in Gaza and Lebanon as soon as possible,” Xi said during his speech at the summit.
Jinping held a meeting in the Russian city of Kazan with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in which he asked that China and India “resolve their conflicts and differences,” in the first formal meeting that both have in four years.
Xi indicated that both China and India “are ancient civilizations, large developing countries and important members of the Global South,” according to a statement published by the Chinese state network CCTV.
Iranian president calls for a ceasefire in Palestine and Lebanon
For his part, the President of Iran, Masud Pezeshkian, “demanded” “an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Palestine and Lebanon,” on the first occasion that an Iranian president participates in a plenary session of the BRICS summit.
In addition, the Iranian president called for “the complete withdrawal of the troops of the occupying regime (Israel) from the occupied areas and immediate aid to the population of Gaza and to the displaced in Lebanon.”
Condemns Israeli bombing of Lebanon
The countries of the BRICS group condemned in the final declaration of the Kazan summit the Israeli bombings against the territory of Lebanon and against humanitarian centers in the Gaza Strip.
“We condemn the death of civilians and the enormous damage caused to civilian infrastructure as a result of Israeli attacks on civilian areas in Lebanon,” says the document released at the end of the meeting of the nine members of the BRICS in the Russian city of Kazan, a text that also condemns the Israeli attacks against centers, activities and humanitarian personnel in Gaza.
The BRICS call for an “immediate” end to hostilities in both Gaza and Lebanon.
“We highlight the need to preserve the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon and create conditions for a political-diplomatic solution in order to maintain peace and stability in the Middle East,” the text says.
The joint statement warns that “a further escalation of the conflict in the Gaza Strip threatens with increased tensions, extremism and extremely harmful consequences at the regional and global level.”
The BRICS summit
The Kazan summit is the first to be held by the emerging economies group after its expansion from five to nine members last January.
“Now, in a limited format, we propose to consider the most relevant aspects of the global agenda, to exchange views on the issue of cooperation between the BRICS States at the international level, including the resolution of acute regional conflicts,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin, at the opening of the meeting.
Once the meeting is concluded in a small format, the BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Ethiopia – will sit down at a table with representatives of about twenty States invited to the event, including Turkey, Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
At the end of the summit, BRICS leaders will approve a joint statement on a number of global issues, including conflict in Ukraine.
What is the BRICS group
The BRICS group, founded in 2006 and held its first summit in 2009, integrates countries with a third of the world economy and more than 40% of the population.
Analysts point out that with this summit Putin tries to show the world that Russia is not as isolated as the West intends, while paving the way for the forging of a new world majority that challenges the hegemony of the United States.
Putin and Maduro will meet today on the sidelines of the summit
Vladimir Putin will also meet with his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro, who arrived this Tuesday in the Russian city of Kazan to participate in the XVI Summit of the BRICS emerging economy group to which the country intends to join, the Kremlin reported.
The Kremlin’s advisor for International Affairs, Yuri Ushakov, added that Putin and Maduro will talk about “bilateral affairs and cooperation within the framework of the BRICS.”
International
85% of Haiti’s capital has fallen into the power of gangs, according to UN reports
The power of criminal gangs in Haiti continues to grow and at the moment they control about 85% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, according to “certain estimates” that this Monday were cited in the UN Security Council by Miroslav Jenca, Undersecretary General for Europe, Asia and the Americas in the UN Political Affairs Department.
The gangs have begun to attack the places of “relative security” that remained in the capital, such as the Petionville neighborhood, where UN offices, embassies and foreign personnel are located. There, an attack recorded last Tuesday left “dozens dead,” he said.
In response, spontaneous groups of neighbors have begun to organize armed patrols, to set up unofficial road controls “and to take justice into their hands,” Jenca lamented.
The number of displaced people reaches 700,000
In the vast areas where gangs have control, the security and human rights of their inhabitants are in danger, and especially those of women, since gang members resort to all forms of violence, often sexual violence, to subjugate neighbors.
This situation has caused 700,000 Haitians to flee their homes and are now in a situation of “internally displaced people.”
Despite this, neighboring countries continue to deport Haitians (170,000 so far), mainly from the Dominican Republic, although Jenca did not cite this country.
What is the situation of the Multinational Mission to contain gangs in Haiti?
The Multinational Security Mission that was supposed to train the Haitian police has so far received only 400 agents of the 2,500 that it must gather, mainly due to lack of funds, and the prospects are so pessimistic that the Government of Haiti has already asked that the MMS be transformed into a classic mission of “blue helmets”.
However, this will not be easy because so far Russia and China oppose the deployment of a peace mission in Haiti arguing that the last mission of this type left the country among very serious accusations of sexual abuse and having caused and spread in 2010 a cholera epidemic that was fatal for the country, leaving thousands dead.
International
One-week preventive detention for Princess Mette-Marit’s son of Norway for rape
An Oslo court issued this Wednesday preventive detention of one week with a ban on visits for Marius Borg Høiby, son of Princess Mette-Marit of Norway, for two cases of rape of two different women.
Høiby, 27 years old and the result of a previous relationship with the princess, had been arrested on Monday night for the third time since August for an alleged rape, but the Prosecutor’s Office revealed today at the end of the hearing, held behind closed doors, that another case had been discovered during the investigation.
The young man, who is not part of the Royal House, is also being investigated for injuries and damages against three of his ex-girlfriends and for threats to a man.
Prison for two cases of rape in Norway
The hearing began at 14:00 local time (13:00 GMT) and ended two hours later, but Judge Anne-Lene Åvangen Hødnebø did not issue her opinion until after 22:00.
According to public television NRK, the police used as evidence recordings found on Høiby’s phone.
In both cases it is sexual intercourse without penetration, reported the Prosecutor’s Office, which had requested two weeks in prison.
“The reason we asked for two weeks is that we discovered another violation last night. It is a case of sexual relationship without intercourse with a woman unable to resist the act. We are investigating two rape cases,” prosecutor Andreas Kruszewski said at the end of the hearing.
HØiby’s lawyer, Øyvind Bratlien, stated that his defendant denies the accusations and described the allegations as a “catastrophic” error of judgment.
Three arrests since August
Høiby was arrested on Monday night when he was driving with his ex-girlfriend, the protagonist of the incident that led to the first arrest and which he is forbidden to contact.
His home in Skaugum, on the same property where Crown Princes Haakon and Mette-Marit reside, was searched by police officers.
According to Norwegian media, the first alleged rape occurred at the young woman’s home in March of this year; the other, in her residence in Skaugum a few weeks ago.
It is the third arrest of Høiby, who was arrested a few hours ago in early August after an incident in his ex-girlfriend’s apartment and was accused of injuries, damage and threats, in a case that was later expanded and that also includes two of his previous partners and another person.
Høiby admitted a few days after his arrest in August in a statement part of the accusations and admitted to having problems with alcohol and other drugs and suffering from mental problems.
The Royal House is reluctant to talk about the case
The Norwegian Royal House has been reluctant to comment on the case of the young Marius Borg Høiby, which has generated a lot of media attention in this Nordic country, and only Prince Haakon has made statements.
“I think Marius faces serious accusations. The judicial system must do its job,” Haakon said today from Jamaica, where he attended an event organized by the UN.
The heir to the Norwegian throne said that as “parents” they have tried to get the young man to receive “help.”
Høiby is the result of a previous relationship of Mette-Marit and has no official commitments to the Royal House, although he attends some celebrations such as the birthdays of his stepbrothers and has always maintained the relationship with both Haakon and Kings Harald V and Sonia.
International
The next attorney general Matt Gaetz manages to stop the report on his sex scandal
The Ethics Committee of the US House of Representatives did not make public this Wednesday due to lack of agreement the report of its investigation into Matt Gaetz, nominated by President-elect Donald Trump, to be the next attorney general and investigated for inappropriate sexual behavior and drug use.
The president of that commission, Republican Michael Guest, told the press at the end of the nearly two-hour meeting at the Capitol that there was no consensus among the members when making that document public.
That body was going to put its decision to a vote last Friday, but Gaetz’s resignation from his seat two days earlier, after being appointed by Trump, delayed that scrutiny and effectively ended the investigations into him.
Although with the departure of the Florida representative of Congress, the commission was left without jurisdiction to investigate him, the publication of the conclusions of his investigation opened in 2021 for alleged inappropriate sexual conduct, irregular use of campaign funds, acceptance of bribes and drug use was still in the air.
Committee interviews
The committee interviewed two women who testified that Gaetz, nominated for attorney general, paid them for having sex at a party in Florida, where prostitution is illegal.
According to the women’s lawyer to the NBC News channel, Joel Leppard, one of them also testified that she saw Gaetz having sex with a minor, although he said that he did not think he knew that he was 17 years old at the time.
Gaetz has denied those accusations and Trump’s transition team considers them unfounded and recalls that the Department of Justice closed a parallel investigation without charges.
Review of the report
Several senators, both Republicans and Democrats, had said that they wanted to review that report before the Judicial Committee of the Upper House examines Gaetz’s nomination next year and then the plenary of that hemicycle validates or stops it.
The authorization of the positions of the future cabinet depends on the Senate, but until then Gaetz has the support of Trump, who has stated that he does not question his own decision, and also of the future vice president, JD Vance, who accompanied him to Congress this Wednesday.
Report on Gaetz next attorney general has had leaks
However, although the House Committee on the House of Representatives stopped the dissemination of the report, there have already been leaks in the national press.
The lawyer of the two women indicated that they provided that committee with numerous photos related to the time they spent with the Republican, who according to that lawyer paid 6,000 dollars to one and 4,000 to another to sleep with them.
The leader of the House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson, had wanted to stay out of the committee’s decision, but at the same time he did not consider it appropriate for it to disseminate his investigation: “That would open Pandora’s box and I don’t think it’s something healthy for the institution,” he said.
85% of Haiti’s capital has fallen into the power of gangs, according to UN reports
One-week preventive detention for Princess Mette-Marit’s son of Norway for rape
The next attorney general Matt Gaetz manages to stop the report on his sex scandal
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