International
The former Chancellor of Peru asks the US and Europe to freeze assets of “corrupt jers of Venezuela”
The former foreign minister of Peru Javier González-Olaechea assured that “the United States is the country that has the most instruments to surround the summit” of the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and even revealed that he had delivered to the North American country “a list of 57 corrupt bosses” with the aim of freezing their assets abroad.
“I say it for the first time: I have provided you with the list of the 57 main corrupt leaders of Venezuela,” González-Olaechea said in an interview with EFE in Quito, after being decorated on Tuesday by the Government of Ecuador for strengthening relations between the two countries.
“They have current accounts abroad, some in the United States, others in some European countries. They should intervene. They should dry them up,” said González-Olaechea, in whose period as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Peru he advocated within the Organization of American States (OAS) for the recognition of anti-Chavista candidate Edmundo González Urrutia as elected president of Venezuela.
González-Olaechea’s statements
The former Peruvian foreign minister made these statements minutes before the United States Government recognized González Urrutia as president-elect, after elections in July where most of the international community does not recognize the official results of the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela that gave Maduro the triumph and asks for the dissemination of the electoral minutes, in which the opposition claims to have won easily.
He insisted that the banks that keep those funds “should not endorse or use those ill-held money, rather exploit them.”
González-Olaechea, who left the Government of President Dina Boluarte in September, also recalled that “there are multiple calls to the members of the Armed Forces themselves to put themselves on the right side of history,” because the military take an oath in defense of the Constitution and “the Venezuelan order has been absolutely upset, falsified and instrumentalized.”
“The first call is to the Armed Forces themselves, not to participate in the corrupt party. That they think of their children and their families, because when they have to continue repressing and end up being slaughtered a daughter, a son or a nephew (of a member) of the Bolivarian Forces, they will face divine justice and their own family,” he said.
Presidential project
Recently, González-Olaechea announced his intention to be elected as a presidential candidate of the Popular Christian Party (PPC) for the next elections in Peru.
“I am an aspirant who wants a radical cycle change to bury everything that hurts us and all the institutions that, in quotes, say they are defenders of human rights and that do nothing but profit from them,” said the former foreign chaill.
“I will do everything possible to lead that proposal for a change of cycle that, basically, is a new current also beyond America. In many countries there are clear signs of boredom of the total state of impunity, of attacking the rights of families and of practically burying religious beliefs and moral values,” he added.
For González-Olaechea, “lies and political persecution against those of us who love and defend freedom above any other consideration have been instrumentalized.”
Defense of freedom is not enough
The Peruvian politician said that “it’s not just about defending freedom, because “that freedom has to be translated into a responsible, honest and transparent exercise of power to serve the large majorities in solving the problems that afflict them such as insecurity, lack of food, lack of opportunities and queues in hospitals.”
Regarding the fact that almost all the heads of state that Peru has had in the last 40 years have ended up investigated or imprisoned, González-Olaechea replied that he faces his political project “with an incorruptible will.”
“I can guarantee in the honor of my family that no one can impute an act of corruption to me,” González-Olaechea said.
Nor does he fear the fact that he can be linked to the Boluarte Government, whose popularity according to various surveys does not exceed 5%, since he argued that he sought as foreign minister “not to be a notary of reality, but an agent of change” and a “worthy representative of Peru abroad.”
When asked if as president he would take the step of leaving the San José Pact as he had suggested as chancellor, González-Olaechea replied that he would decide when the time comes. “Sometimes I think it’s better to fight from the inside, knowing the monster a little, and sometimes I think it’s better to fight from the outside,” he said.
International
Petro compares US deportations with trains sent to Nazi concentration camps
The President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, compared on Wednesday the deportation of illegal immigrants from the United States with the sending of tens of thousands of people to concentration camps in Europe during World War II by Nazi Germany.
“From the episode with Trump (…) there are a series of lessons that must be learned, from them and from us. From them, I suppose, they don’t have to get handcuffs from people who want to get out of their own country,” the president said.
And he added that “There will be a political discussion there, for example, if they are not repeating the same mistake of the Germans in 1943 because they used trains and railways to carry entire wagons full of Jews, socialists and communists to the concentration camp.”
The crisis began after Petro disallowed, through a message on the social network X and not through diplomatic channels, the entry into the country of two planes sent by the United States with deported Colombians, claiming that, by coming handcuffed, they were not receiving “dignified treatment.”
In response to that refusal, Trump ordered the imposition of 25% tariffs on all Colombian products, in addition to other travel and immigration sanctions, and Petro responded with a similar measure, which caused panic throughout the country since the US is Colombia’s main trading partner and strategic ally in political and security matters.
For that reason, between yesterday and today, three flights of the Colombian Aerospace Force (FAC) have already arrived in Bogotá, bringing 306 Colombians, of which, according to Petro this Wednesday, 42 are minors.
“Where here is Mr. Trump going to tell 42 Colombian children that they are criminals?” the president wondered.
He added: “In the same way he told 42 children, he will tell hundreds of thousands, who are criminals, that’s what they thought in 1943.”
The president also said that in the United States “everyone who is Latin American, indigenous, black, will be treated as a criminal.”
“It’s called collectivizing crime, it was invented by (Adolf) Hitler,” he concluded.
Petro also assured on Wednesday that his country will have difficulties in its foreign relations due to global changes that, he said, lead to the emergence of “monsters”.
“In the case of Colombia’s foreign relations, we see neither more nor less that what there will be are difficulties. It is a world that enters a phase of profound changes,” said the president when taking office to his new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Laura Sarabia.
Pointing out that the world is in a phase of change, Petro quoted the Italian philosopher and politician Antonio Gramsci to say that while the new does not fully appear or the old is extinguished, “the monsters appear.”
“And monsters is what we are going to have, hopefully not within Colombian society but I’m afraid so are you too,” he said.
Petro assured that those who fight “for a better world” must “put on their boots” and form “an army of life, a united humanity, a united Latin America, a group that knows how to defend democracy and freedom.”
At that point he referred to Sarabia, his right hand, and who at 30 years of age is the youngest chancellor that Colombia has ever had, to indicate that she has to carry the voice of the country in that fight.
International
The White House rescums its order to freeze federal aid and loans
The White House rescinded on Wednesday the order promulgated on the eve of immediately freezing all federal subsidies and loans, a measure that had already been temporarily blocked by a judge.
“The Office of Administration and Budget (WBO) memorandum M-25-13 is terminated,” this office said in a new memorandum addressed to “heads of departments and executive agencies.”
The order to freeze aid and loans had created some chaos and confusion in its implementation, even causing the fall of the federal payment portals of the public health insurance program Medicaid.
The Government had justified the measure by arguing the need to ensure that all funds comply with the recent executive orders signed by Trump, which include restrictions on the rights of transgender people and cuts in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.
Trump’s pause put at risk the disbursement of billions of dollars for various programs, including student loans, and could have a negative impact on health research, food assistance and funding of support organizations for veterans and people with disabilities.
The measure could also affect aid for areas devastated by fires in California and floods in North Carolina, regions that Trump visited last week and where he had promised federal support.
Hours after publishing the order, a federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked its implementation for a week.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt had said on Wednesday morning that the Trump administration was “prepared to fight this battle in court.”
For his part, the leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, warned that Trump “will try to find another way” to do it, but he welcomed the decision to terminate the order: “The Americans defended themselves and Donald Trump backed down,” he said.
International
Trump signs a law against migrants with minor crimes, the first since his return to power
US President Donald Trump signed his first law on Wednesday since he returned to power, a measure that allows immigration authorities to arrest migrants for robbery and other minor crimes before they have been convicted.
Trump initialed the law, the first since the beginning of his second term on January 20, in the East Room of the White House, before a hundred guests, including relatives of Laken Riley, a young woman murdered by an undocumented migrant whose death inspired the legislation.
“The United States will never forget Laken Riley,” said Trump, who said that the migrant who murdered her, from Venezuela, should have been deported.
“Instead of being expelled, as should have happened, he was released in the United States, like millions of other people, many of them very dangerous, but you see what we are doing: we are getting them out of here,” he stressed.
During his speech, Trump told the story of Laken Riley, whose name the law bears. Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was murdered in the state of Georgia in February 2024 by an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant, José Ibarra.
Ibarra resided irregularly in the United States and had been arrested for a minor crime of shoplifting, but was allowed to stay in the country while his immigration case was in process. The migrant found guilty of Riley’s murder at the end of 2024 and is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
His death fueled the debate on immigration in the final stretch of the November 2024 elections, in which the Democratic candidate and then vice president, Kamala Harris, lost to Trump, who had promised the largest deportations in the history of the country.
The initiative, approved on January 22 by the House of Representatives, by a Republican majority, with the almost unanimous support of that bench – except for one legislator who did not vote – and the support of 46 Democratic congressmen.
The law also received the approval of the Senate, where the Republicans have a majority, with the support of 12 Democratic senators, despite the opposition of activists for the rights of immigrants, traditionally aligned with the Democratic Party.
These groups denounced the measure for considering it too radical, to the point that it could trigger massive raids against people accused of minor crimes, such as shoplifting.
Civil rights and immigrant organizations also warned that the law eliminates due process for those accused of non-violent crimes.
The arrests contemplated in the new legislation include petty thefts in supermarkets or stores and detainees will be placed in the custody of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The text will also authorize the attorneys general of the states of the country to intervene in the immigration policy decisions of the federal government. Among the new powers, they will be allowed to force the State Department to no longer grant visas to citizens of countries that do not accept deportations from the United States.
According to US media estimates, the government would need to spend more than 3 billion dollars and increase the capacity to detain migrants to more than 60,000 beds in order to enforce that law.
Trump put migration at the focus of his campaign and has pressured government agencies to impose a minimum daily arrests quota per agent and raise the total number of arrests to between 1,200 and 1,500 per day.
The US president suggested that the approval of this law is just the beginning. At a conference of Republican legislators at his hotel in Doral, near Florida, he highlighted on Monday that he shows the potential of bills that will help them take vigorous measures “against criminal foreigners and fully restore the rule of law in the country.”
Petro compares US deportations with trains sent to Nazi concentration camps
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