Falklands Oil Megaproject Breaks Free After 15 Years

Falklands Oil Megaproject Breaks Free After 15 Years By Natalia Katona, 1 days ago After 15 years of delay, redesign, and skepticism, the Sea Lion oil project has finally crossed the line from ambition to execution. On December 10, partners Navitas Petroleum (Israel) and Rockhopper Exploration (UK) took a long-awaited final investment decision (FID) on what will become the largest deepwater oil development in the South Atlantic outside Brazil. Few projects of comparable scale have taken so long to move from discovery to sanction, and fewer still have done so under such persistent political, legal and financial headwinds. With FID now secured, Sea Lion formally enters the development phase, planned to last 35 years or longer, with first oil targeted for 2028. Discovered in 2010 by Rockhopper Exploration, Sea Lion was the Falkland Islands’ first commercial oil find, but its remote location and legal difficulties made it vulnerable to shifts in capital investment. Premier Oil’s $1 billion entry in 2012 was meant to accelerate development, yet the post-2014 oil price slump and the retreat of listed companies from capital-intensive frontier projects left Sea Lion effectively frozen until the end of the decade. That changed with the arrival of Israel’s Navitas Petroleum in 2020. Initially a minority investor, Navitas became the project’s operator and majority owner in 2021 after Harbour Energy exited, restructuring both ownership and financing. The shift replaced public-market caution with private capital willing to absorb long-cycle risk — a change that ultimately unlocked the project and led to the FID. Related: Top Exporters Boosted Natural Gas Supply in October Sea Lion contains approximately 315 million barrels of recoverable crude oil, producing a sweet, low-sulphur grade with 28–29° degrees API and just 0.2% sulphur. Development has been designed in phases to manage capital intensity and reservoir performance. The sanctioned Phase 1 targets 170 million barrels of oil, with peak production of 50,000 b/d and 11 wells planned, while first oil is expected in 2028. Phase 2 is planned to recover a further 144 million barrels, with 12 additional wells to be drilled roughly three years after first oil to extend the production plateau. The entire field will be developed around a single redeployed Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel. Navitas’ role has been central to unlocking the project. By the time it entered, the project had become too capital-intensive and politically exposed for publicly listed companies constrained by balance-sheet discipline and shareholder scrutiny. Navitas Petroleum, by contrast, has built its strategy around long-cycle offshore developments, particularly FPSO-based projects, where bespoke financing, patience and tolerance for high geopolitical risk are essential. That approach was proven in Israel’s Leviathan gas field, where Navitas held a 7.5% stake through construction, saw first gas in 2019, and exited in 2021 via a sale to Mubadala Petroleum once the project had been de-risked. A similar pattern played out at the Shenandoah deepwater project in the Gulf of Mexico. There, Navitas acquired 49% and operatorship of a stalled development, restructured legacy debt and helped secure a $1 billion financing package in 2021 backed by Israeli banks and institutional investors. Shenandoah came onstream in early 2025 and is now generating cash flow, reinforcing Navitas’ ability to revive projects others could not advance. Sea Lion now follows Navitas’ established strategy. After the Israeli company joined the project, a funding agreement was put in place under which it covered 100% of Rockhopper’s project costs prior to sanction, effectively reviving an asset that had been financially frozen for years. Phase 1 is expected to cost around $1.8 billion to first oil and roughly $2.1 billion through completion once contingencies and financing costs are included. In contrast to Leviathan, however, Sea Lion represents a deeper commitment: with a 65% stake and operatorship, Navitas appears positioned not only to carry the project through de-risking, but to remain at the centre of the development well into its producing life. The project has been facing a series of impediments, and only time will show if the owners will be able to navigate through them. Firstly, the legal framework underpinning Sea Lion project’s exploration and production is one of its most notable peculiarities. Following the UK’s de facto military victory in the 1982 Falklands War over Argentina as well as the 2013 referendum in which 99.8% of the Falkland Islands’ population voted to remain a British Overseas Territory, the islands are administered de facto and de jure under UK law, with sovereignty recognised in practice by most countries. At the same time, the United Nations does not recognise sovereignty claims by either the UK or Argentina, lists the Falklands as a non-self-governing territory and continues to call on the two nations to negotiate. That unresolved status creates enduring political risk but has not prevented the Falkland Islands Government from issuing licences, regulating petroleum activity, and levying fiscal terms. Under the local framework, Sea Lion is subject to a royalty rate of 9% and corporate income tax of 26%, in line with the Falklands Islands Upstream Summary. Ironically, the UK is strangling its domestic oil and gas industry with a 78% profit tax rate, but entertains such a lenient tax regime in its overseas territories. This way, politically, the project remains contentious. Buenos Aires has consistently opposed Sea Lion from the earliest exploration phase through to the FID announcement, describing the licences under which drilling and development are conducted as ‘unlawful’, branding the project ‘unilateral and illegitimate’, and citing the UN resolutions related to the sovereignty dispute. Argentina’s reaction to FID followed this well-established pattern. However, Buenos Aires has limited ability to intervene in the project from either a military or legal standpoint. Vessels en route to the Falklands do not need to pass through Argentine territorial waters, meaning Argentina's only recourse is to withhold logistical support, hoping that the difficulties of transporting necessary equipment and workforce from the UK to the Falklands via air or sea would make the project as financially unpleasant as it can be. The second major hurdle lay in a series of engineering and permitting bottlenecks that only began to clear this year. Located more than 220 kilometres offshore and entirely without supporting infrastructure, Sea Lion can only be developed via an FPSO – a solution that is both capital-intensive and constrained by limited vessel availability. However, early 2025 saw a long-anticipated breakthrough, when a front-end engineering design contract was awarded for a redeployed FPSO, marking a clear shift from conceptual work to execution planning. Environmental permitting, long a chronic obstacle, also moved forward. An Environmental Impact Assessment submitted in 2024 progressed through review, and in November 2025, the Falkland Islands’ Department of Mineral Resources concluded that the Environmental Impact Statement submitted by Navitas in July 2025 – the third version since the first proposal – satisfied local legislation and required only minor amendments. With engineering, permitting, and financing aligned, the case for an FID finally became robust. With regulatory sanction secured and an FID in place, attention is already turning to what Sea Lion could unlock next. The most obvious candidate is the Darwin deepwater gas-condensate discovery offshore the Falkland Islands, drilled by Borders & Southern Petroleum in 2021 in around 2,000 metres of water and estimated to contain 460 million barrels of recoverable liquids. Darwin has so far remained stranded by depth, cost and lack of infrastructure, but Sea Lion’s success could alter the economics of further developments in the basin. Argentina, meanwhile, has been testing its own offshore potential. Buenos Aires granted exploration permits to YPF, Equinor and TGS, and Equinor drilled the ultra-deepwater Argerich-1 pilot well, which was ultimately declared dry. For now, most upstream investment in Argentina continues to flow from the Vaca Muerta shale rather than frontier offshore plays. Sea Lion does not resolve the sovereignty dispute over the Falkland Islands, nor does it eliminate political risk in the South Atlantic. What it does demonstrate is that with the right capital structure, operator profile and timing, even projects long dismissed as commercially unviable can be brought to sanction. If the development performs as planned, Sea Lion may not only anchor Falklands offshore production for decades but also reshape investor perceptions of one of the industry’s last major frontier basins. By Natalia Katona for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Trump’s Truth Social Merges With Nuclear Fusion Company in $6 Billion Deal Chinese Solar Firms Trim Losses as Beijing Tackles Overcapacity Global Oil Demand Surges Driven by Indian Market Rebound

Brasilian Senate Approves Bill To Reduce Bolsonaro's Sentence

Brazilian Senate Approves Bill to Reduce Bolsonaro’s Prison Sentence Brazil Brazil’s Senate approved a bill this week that could significantly reduce prison sentences for those convicted in the Jan. 8, 2023, insurrection, a move that would directly benefit former President Jair Bolsonaro, who has been sentenced to decades in prison for attempting a coup, the Associated Press reported. The Senate passed the legislation with 48 votes in favor and 25 against after fast-tracking the bill through the Constitution and Justice Committee. The lower house had already approved the bill, which will now go to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for his signature. The new bill will allow sentence reductions of up to two-thirds for crimes committed “in a crowd,” benefiting defendants convicted of storming public buildings during the 2023 riots, provided they did not finance or lead the actions. It would also impact Bolsonaro’s prison term – he was sentenced last month to more than 27 years for attempting a coup following his election loss to Lula in October 2022. While there is no consensus on how much time the conservative leader will face if the bill takes effect, his allies in Congress suggested that the period could be cut to two years. Bolsonaro’s lawyers have already appealed to the Supreme Court, claiming the sentence was excessive and that the penalties should not be added because they stemmed from a single episode. Following the Senate’s vote, officials in Lula’s administration said the president will veto the measure, stressing that “those convicted of attacking democracy must pay for their crimes” and calling the bill a “sign of disrespect for the Supreme Court’s decision and a serious setback to legislation that protects democracy.” Observers noted that if the president vetoes the bill, Congress can attempt to override him with a simple majority in a joint session, according to MercoPress. The bill is also expected to face a Supreme Court challenge. On Sunday, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Brazil to protest against the bill. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president’s eldest son, praised the proposal as the only path toward “national pacification,” adding there should be no debate about amnesty but about “annulling the farce that the entire process was.” He is expected to challenge Lula in the 2026 presidential election as the Liberal Party’s candidate.

Venezuela Rebukes Trump's Complete Blockade

Venezuela Rebukes Trump’s ‘Complete Blockade’ and Terrorist Designation Venezuela Venezuela denounced the United States’ decision to impose what President Donald Trump called a “total and complete blockade” of oil tankers as a violation of international law, a move that analysts called a major escalation with significant economic and humanitarian consequences for a country overwhelmingly dependent on oil exports, the Washington Post reported. On Tuesday, Trump announced the blockade on Truth Social, saying all sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela would be barred. He also declared the administration of President Nicolás Maduro a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) and accused officials of using oil revenues to finance “drug terrorism.” In response, the Venezuelan government described Trump’s remarks as “grotesque” and a set of “warmongering threats,” vowing to raise the issue at the United Nations. The announcement follows a series of US actions targeting Venezuela in recent months: Since September, the US military has carried out airstrikes on small boats it says were involved in drug trafficking, killing at least 95 people. The United States has also increased its naval presence in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean, including the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft-carrier strike group. Tensions escalated last week when US forces seized a previously sanctioned oil tanker after it left Venezuelan waters. On Tuesday, Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry sent a letter to the United Nations Security Council, calling the recent seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker an “act of state piracy.” Venezuela has accused Washington of seeking to seize control of the country’s natural resources. Meanwhile, Washington’s move would make Venezuela the first country ever to receive the FTO designation. Jeremy Paner, a former Treasury Department sanctions investigator, told the Post that this designation would extend US law extraterritorially, exposing any individual or company providing “any sort of assistance at all” to potential enforcement action. Meanwhile, legal analysts worried that the naval blockade could be deemed as an act of war, while also questioning how the wide-ranging blockade on sanctioned oil tankers would be enforced, the BBC added. They explained that roughly 80 percent of Venezuela’s oil is sold on the black market and that blocking sanctioned vessels could have a “massive impact” on government revenue. Because the country’s economy heavily relies on oil exports, the blockade could potentially lead to economic contraction, higher inflation, and currency devaluation. Others warned that cutting off oil revenue could sharply reduce food imports and trigger a severe humanitarian crisis. Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, but years of sanctions, mismanagement, and infrastructure decay have sharply reduced output, leaving China and US-licensed exports by Chevron as its main remaining customers. Share this story

Chile Elects Most Conservative President In Three Decades

Chile Elects Most Conservative President in Three Decades Chile Chile elected far-right José Antonio Kast as president Sunday, following an electoral campaign dominated by themes of security, immigration, and crime, in a victory marking the country’s sharpest rightward shift since the end of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship in 1990, the BBC reported. With almost all ballots counted, Kast, the leader of the Republican Party, won more than 58 percent of the vote in a runoff vote in which his opponent, Communist Party candidate Jeannette Jara, received just over 41 percent, NPR noted. Kast, considered a right-wing hardliner throughout his decades-long political career, was often seen as too extreme. He won over voters, analysts said, who have become increasingly worried about crime and immigration. While Chile is one of the safest countries in Latin America, violent crime has increased in recent years as organized crime groups have taken root, exploiting the country’s porous northern desert borders with coca-producing neighbors Peru and Bolivia. Kast has proposed building a border wall on Chile’s borders, deploying the military to crime-ridden areas, and mass deportations of illegal migrants in the country, many of whom are from Venezuela, according to France 24. The president-elect has also firmly opposed abortion in all cases and spoken against environmental protection policies. He proposed massive spending cuts and pledged a free-market approach to economics to shrink the state and deregulate certain industries, a stance likely to be welcomed by investors. However, his more radical ideas will likely face pushback from Congress. While right-wing parties gained seats in both legislative chambers in the general election in November, most of those gains came from more traditional parties. As a result, the Senate is evenly split between left- and right-wing parties, while the swing vote in the lower chamber rests with the populist People’s Party. The election, the first presidential election in the country since voting became mandatory, was also Kast’s third attempt at the presidency – the last time he lost to leftist President Gabriel Boric in 2021. He will be inaugurated on March 11. His victory is part of a recent regional trend in which voters are tilting right, for example, in Ecuador, El Salvador, Argentina, and Bolivia. Share this story

Brasil's Lower House Passes Bill To Lower Bolsonaro's Prison Sentence.

Brazil’s Lower House Passes Bill to Shorten Bolsonaro’s Coup Sentence Brazil Brazil’s lower house of Congress approved a bill Wednesday that could potentially reduce the prison sentence of former conservative President Jair Bolsonaro, who was recently sentenced to 27 years in jail for attempting a coup after losing the 2022 presidential elections, Reuters reported. The bill, passed in a 291-148 vote, would cut the sentence for individuals convicted of coup-related offenses. Lawmaker Paulinho da Força, who sponsored the bill, estimated the move would reduce Bolsonaro’s term by at least two years in prison. The proposed legislation would also shorten sentences for Bolsonaro’s allies convicted for coup-related charges, as well as for supporters prosecuted for storming the presidential palace, Supreme Court, and Congress in the capital, Brasilia, during the January 2023 riots. The vote was marked by a series of disruptions and scuffles among lawmakers, with one leftist legislator denouncing it as a “coup offensive,” the BBC added. Earlier drafts of the bill had proposed granting amnesty to those involved in the post-election protests, but da Força said he rejected such provisions. The bill will still need to be approved by the upper house, the Senate, and could be struck down by the Supreme Court. It comes three months after Bolsonaro was sentenced for plotting a coup after losing the election to his leftist rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The Supreme Court found he had proposed a coup to military leaders and that he knew of a plot to assassinate Lula. Bolsonaro and his supporters have rejected the investigation as a “witch hunt.” Observers said Wednesday’s vote marks the latest effort by Bolsonaro’s allies in Congress to exonerate him, a topic that remains divisive in Brazil: In September, lawmakers loyal to Bolsonaro backed away from a bill that would have granted him amnesty following nationwide protests.

Tens Of Thousands Of Women In Brasil Protest Against Gender Violence

Tens of Thousands of Women Protest in Brazil Against Gender-Based Violence Brazil Tens of thousands of women took to the streets across Brazil on Sunday to protest against gender-based violence as a record number of female victims and several recent high-profile cases have shocked the country, the Associated Press reported. Women of all ages rallied in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and other cities, demanding an end to feminicide, rape, and misogyny, asking men to join them in their struggle. Some men also took part in the demonstration. Demonstrators in Rio de Janeiro set up dozens of black crosses and carried stickers reading messages such as “machismo kills.” In São Paulo, protesters chanted “Stop killing us” and held signs reading “Enough of femicide,” Al Jazeera added. Among the recent cases that ignited the demonstrations was the murder of an administrative worker in a school in Rio de Janeiro, killed on Nov. 28 by a male colleague. The victim’s sister, who was demonstrating in Copacabana, told the AP that the murderer did not accept having female bosses. Another incident took place on Nov. 28, where a 31-year-old woman was run over by her ex-boyfriend and trapped beneath the car, which dragged her along the concrete for about half a mile, resulting in the woman losing both her legs. Brazil passed a law criminalizing feminicide in 2015, describing the crime as the death of a woman in the domestic sphere or as a result of contempt for women. Last year, 1,492 women were victims of femicide, the highest number since the law was introduced, according to a report by the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety, a think tank. The report also found that more than one in three women in Brazil experienced sexual or gender-based violence over the course of a year. Share this story

Argentina's Melt Down Offers A Global Warning

Argentina’s meltdown offers a global warning By Alexander Clark, 21 hours ago Argentina’s economic unraveling is not just a local tragedy, it is a live stress test of what happens when chronic fiscal excess, political fragmentation, and social exhaustion collide. I see in Argentina’s turmoil a warning for other democracies that are flirting with similar pressures, from unsustainable debt and inflation to populist backlashes against traditional parties. The country’s latest crisis, and the radical response it has produced, shows how quickly a middle-income democracy can slide from gradual decline into systemic shock. The choices Argentina is making now, and the pain its citizens are absorbing, offer a stark preview of what can await any society that postpones hard decisions until markets and voters both lose patience. Argentina’s long slide into crisis Argentina did not wake up one morning in meltdown; it arrived there after decades of stop‑start reforms, repeated debt blowups, and a political culture that treated inflation as a lesser evil than fiscal restraint. I read the current turmoil as the culmination of a long pattern in which governments financed expansive social promises and subsidies with money creation and borrowing, only to see inflation and currency collapse wipe out those gains. That cycle eroded trust in institutions and in the national currency itself, leaving households and firms constantly braced for the next shock. Reporting on Argentina’s recent history describes how successive administrations leaned on capital controls, price freezes, and multiple exchange rates to mask underlying imbalances rather than resolve them, a strategy that eventually drove inflation into triple digits and pushed poverty sharply higher. Analysts trace the latest crisis to a combination of chronic fiscal deficits, heavy reliance on central bank financing, and a loss of access to affordable external credit, all of which fed a downward spiral in the peso and forced the government into repeated negotiations with the International Monetary Fund over its sovereign debt and financing program. By the time voters turned to a radical outsider promising shock therapy, Argentina had already burned through much of the policy space that more gradual reform would have required. Milei’s shock therapy and its domestic fallout The election of Javier Milei, a libertarian economist who campaigned on chainsaw‑style cuts to the state, reflects how deeply Argentine voters had come to distrust the existing political class. I see his rise as a symptom of institutional fatigue: when mainstream parties fail to stabilize living standards, electorates become more willing to gamble on leaders who promise to rip up the old playbook. Milei’s program of rapid fiscal consolidation, deregulation, and a drastic reduction of subsidies is designed to break the inflationary dynamic, but it also concentrates economic pain in a short window, testing social cohesion. Accounts of Milei’s early months in office describe sweeping reductions in public spending, including cuts to energy and transport subsidies, sharp devaluations of the official exchange rate, and efforts to dismantle long‑standing price controls and labor regulations. These measures have been paired with an aggressive rhetorical campaign against what he calls the “caste” of entrenched political and union elites, a framing that has energized his base while alarming opponents who fear democratic norms could be weakened. As inflation initially surged in response to the devaluation and subsidy removal before showing signs of easing, Argentines faced rising utility bills, falling real wages, and a spike in social tension, with unions and social movements organizing large protests against the government’s austerity drive. The social cost of delayed adjustment What stands out to me in Argentina’s current ordeal is not only the severity of the adjustment, but how much of it reflects choices deferred rather than choices newly invented. When governments postpone structural reforms, the eventual correction tends to be harsher, because the economy has accumulated more distortions and the public has fewer buffers left. Argentina’s high poverty rate, fragile labor market, and frayed public services meant that when the latest round of cuts arrived, they landed on a society already stretched thin. Reports from the ground describe how inflation had already eroded real incomes for years, pushing a significant share of the population into informal work and leaving many families dependent on state transfers and subsidized services. As those supports are reduced or restructured, households face a double squeeze of higher prices and weaker safety nets, with food insecurity and social unrest becoming more visible in major cities. Economists who have tracked Argentina’s repeated crises note that earlier, more measured reforms to pensions, subsidies, and tax policy could have spread the burden over time, whereas today’s compressed shock is forcing abrupt changes in everything from public sector employment to energy pricing. The lesson is not that adjustment can be avoided, but that delaying it often shifts the cost onto those least able to absorb it. Why Argentina’s turmoil matters beyond its borders Argentina’s predicament resonates far beyond the Southern Cone because many other democracies are drifting toward similar fault lines, even if their starting conditions differ. I see three common threads: rising public debt, persistent inflation or its risk, and a widening gap between what voters expect from the state and what tax bases can sustainably fund. When those pressures build, the temptation to rely on financial repression, creative accounting, or central bank balance sheets grows, and with it the risk of a sudden loss of confidence that forces a rapid and painful correction. International institutions have warned that several emerging and advanced economies are carrying debt loads that leave them vulnerable to shifts in global interest rates and investor sentiment, particularly where fiscal deficits remain large and growth is weak. Analysts point to Argentina as a cautionary case of how repeated restructurings and reliance on official lenders can narrow policy options, especially when domestic politics make tax increases or spending cuts difficult to sustain. The country’s experience with capital controls, exchange‑rate gaps, and inflationary financing offers a concrete example of how efforts to shield citizens from short‑term pain can, over time, deepen the eventual crisis and undermine trust in both the currency and the broader economic model. What other democracies can learn For policymakers watching from abroad, Argentina’s meltdown is less an outlier than an extreme version of trends that are visible in milder form elsewhere. I draw two main lessons. First, credible medium‑term fiscal plans matter, not as technocratic ornaments but as anchors for public expectations and market confidence. Second, institutions that can resist short‑term political pressure, from independent central banks to professional civil services, are essential to prevent gradual slippage into crisis. Where those anchors weaken, the space opens for more radical figures to promise quick fixes that often require even more painful trade‑offs. Comparative research on fiscal crises shows that countries which move early to stabilize debt, broaden their tax base, and target subsidies more precisely tend to avoid the kind of runaway inflation and currency collapse that Argentina has endured. Analysts who track sovereign risk argue that transparent budgeting, realistic growth assumptions, and clear communication about the distribution of adjustment costs can reduce the likelihood of sudden stops in capital flows and the political backlash that follows. Argentina’s current turmoil, with its mix of harsh austerity, social protest, and institutional strain, illustrates what can happen when those safeguards erode and hard choices are forced into a compressed and volatile period, offering a stark reference point for any democracy tempted to treat fiscal and monetary discipline as problems that can always be solved later. More From TheDailyOverview Tennessee loses $2.6B megafactory and faces major layoffs Retired But Want To Work? Try These 18 Jobs for Seniors That Pay Weekly What to do with your pennies after the U.S. stops minting them Home Depot CEO warns of a troubling customer trend in stores 19

Covert Action In Chile: The Significance Of The Church Report 50 Years Later

Covert Action in Chile: The Significance of the Church Committee Report 50 Years Later Church and Kissinger collage Special Senate Report and Public Hearing Exposed CIA Regime Change Operations; Initiated Needed Debate Over Role of Covert Operations in a Democracy Archive Posts White House Documents on Ford Administration Efforts to Block Revelations of CIA Covert Operations in Chile Published: Dec 4, 2025 Briefing Book # 911 Edited by Peter Kornbluh For more information, contact: 202-994-7000 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com Subjects Covert Action Intelligence and Espionage Political Crimes and Abuse of Power Secrecy and FOIA Project Intelligence Frank Church U.S. Senator Frank Church, Democrat from Idaho, led the Senate committee that investigated CIA assassination plots and covert operations. Karl Inderfuth Karl F. Inderfurth, a lead investigator and drafter of the Committee case study on Chile. Gregory Treverton Gregory Treverton, a lead investigator and drafter of the Committee case study on Chile. Washington D.C. December 4, 2025 - Fifty years ago today, Senator Frank Church convened the first public congressional hearing ever held on CIA covert operations to overthrow a foreign government, focusing on the case of Chile. His Senate Select Committee was taking this “unusual step,” Church explained, “because the committee believes the American people must know and be able to judge what was undertaken by their government in Chile. The nature and extent of the American role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Chilean government,” noted the Idaho Democrat, “are matters for deep and continuing public concern. This record must be set straight.” Simultaneously, Church’s Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities released its groundbreaking and still relevant report, “Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973.” Based on access to Top Secret CIA operational records, the unprecedented 62-page case study revealed that “covert United States involvement in Chile in the decade between 1963 and 1973 was extensive and continuous,” with the intent of blocking Socialist leader Salvador Allende from being elected president and, after he was elected, destabilizing his ability to govern. In considering future guidelines for covert operations, the report concluded that, “Given the costs of covert action, it should be resorted to only to counter severe threats to the national security of the United States. It is far from clear that that was the case in Chile.” On the 50th anniversary of the hearing and the release of the report, the National Security Archive is posting a selection of previously declassified documents that record the efforts of the Ford administration to obstruct the Church Committee investigation and prevent an open hearing on the CIA’s role in overthrowing the Allende government. The congressional efforts 50 years ago fostered a full debate over the propriety of clandestine regime change efforts, and the Committee’s recommendations to tightly restrict such activities remain relevant today, as President Trump has authorized the CIA to engage in covert operations in Venezuela with the goal of deposing the government of Nicolas Maduro. Stonewalling the Committee The documents posted today reflect the Ford administration’s strategic stonewalling of the Senate committee as well as a special committee in the House led by Congressman Otis Pike (D-NY). When the congressional investigators sought State Department cables dating between 1964 and 1970, Kissinger instructed his aides to say “No,” according to a secret transcript of a July 14, 1975, staff meeting. “You shift it to the White House and let the White House refuse it—and I’ll see to it that the White House refuses it,” he instructed. For months, the White House, CIA and State Department delayed their response to multiple Church Committee requests claiming to be short staffed. In truth, as CIA director William Colby later admitted, “the White House told us not to cooperate. They just didn’t want to turn over documents.” Eventually, the CIA came to an agreement with the Church Committee to allow investigators to review Top Secret CIA documents, in return for advance access to the Committee’s reports. But the White House continued to claim “Executive privilege” over critical NSC and White House memos and meeting summaries. Revealing documents related to a pivotal November 6, 1970, NSC meeting three days after Salvador Allende’s inauguration were withheld, including the handwritten meeting notes of CIA Director Richard Helms, who recorded President Nixon’s statement during the NSC meeting (“If there is a way to bring A[llende] down, we should do it”) and Henry Kissinger’s detailed explanation to President Nixon about why the U.S. needed to undermine the Chilean president. Kissinger also concealed from the Committee the existence of his “telcons”—transcripts of his many phone conversations with Helms, Nixon and other U.S. officials that would have revealed his role as the chief architect of U.S. efforts to block Allende from taking office and successfully governing. The CIA withheld key records from the Committee that would have revealed payments of $35,000 in “hush money” to the assassins of the pro-Constitution commander of the Chilean armed forces, General Rene Schneider, to help them flee the country after the murder and assure a cover-up of the CIA’s role in the shocking political crime. Church committee members Senator Frank Church and the other Senators on the Senate Select Committee. As the Church Committee inquiry culminated in the fall of 1975, the Ford White House took further steps to obstruct its work and conceal the controversial covert history the Senate investigation had uncovered. On October 31, 1975, Ford sent a letter to the Church Committee members demanding that their pending report on “Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders” remain classified to protect U.S. national security; on November 1, Ford signed a Presidential decision memorandum (Document 2) to oppose Senator Church’s plan to hold an unprecedented public hearing on covert operations in Chile—the first of its kind. According to the Ford White House and the CIA, such a hearing would “establish a precedent that would be seized on by the Congress in the future to hold additional public hearings on covert action,” and “would have a shattering effect on the willingness of foreign political parties and individuals to cooperate with the U.S. in the future on such operations.” Facing an impasse with the Church Committee, on November 5, CIA director William Colby invited Church and Senator Charles Mathias (R-MD) to an “informal dinner” to work on some sort of cooperative compromise. Among other points, Colby pushed for the Committee to agree to work with the CIA to delete names of CIA agents, foreign officials, and organizations, and agree that, besides Chile, “no other covert action would be made the subject of a public hearing or public report.” The proposed compromise, according to a November 7, 1975, memo drafted by Colby’s special counsel, Mitchell Rogovin, “limits the exposure of covert action to one country,” Chile. Four other Church Committee case histories—on Congo, Indonesia, Laos and one other country that remains censored in the documents—would remain secret. Release of the Chile Report To its credit, the Church Committee managed to circumvent these concerted executive branch roadblocks. On November 20, 1975, the Committee released its detailed and sensational report on the CIA’s assassination plots against foreign leaders like Fidel Castro, Patrice Lumumba and Gen. Schneider in Chile; on December 4, Senator Church released the staff case study, “Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973,” lifting the shroud of secrecy on a decade-long effort to use clandestine operations to manipulate the politics of a small Latin American nation and foster “a coup climate” to impede Allende’s democratic election, his inauguration, and the ability of his government to succeed. The two-day hearing on Chile, according to Archive analyst Peter Kornbluh, “established a historic marker in congressional efforts to hold the CIA accountable to the principles and values of the American public.” The two lead investigators and drafters of the staff report on Chile, Gregory Treverton and Karl Inderfurth, both testified on the opening day of the hearing. Inderfurth’s presentation focused on the CIA’s operational efforts to influence Chile’s political trajectory between 1963 and 1973; Treverton focused on executive branch decision-making. During his testimony, Treverton read aloud, for the first time, President Nixon’s September 15, 1970, order to CIA director Richard Helms to prevent Allende’s inauguration by fomenting a preemptive coup. As part of its report, the Church Committee released Helms’ handwritten notes, which became the most iconic document on CIA covert operations in Chile. Handwriten Instruction from Nixon The Church Committee released the first known CIA document of a U.S. President ordering a coup against a democratically elected government. “In preparation for the public hearing on covert action in Chile,” recalled Treverton 50 years later, “we spent several long days in a secured space at CIA headquarters with our CIA colleagues, going through the report line-by-line. Our ostensible purpose was protecting sources and methods, and we did that, sometimes removing the names of honorable Chileans who had worked with the CIA. But we also argued about substance. In the end, what was striking to me, through the long days, was that we were establishing the principle that the highly classified CIA and other documents from which we worked were government documents, not just the Executive Branch’s. The Congress would have access to them more or less on its own terms – though of course protecting sources and methods. It was exciting through the fatigue. It seemed to me [to be] breaking new constitutional ground.” For Inderfurth, the evidence uncovered in the Church Committee’s groundbreaking investigation remains relevant to the current CIA covert operations President Trump has authorized in Venezuela. “Before proceeding,” he recommends, “the president and his aides should look at the Church Committee’s report on ‘Covert Action in Chile.’ Things did not work out well, most importantly for the Chileans who lived under the brutal dictatorship of General Pinochet for almost two decades. But also, for the reputation of the United States as a ‘beacon of democracy.’” The Documents 911 d 1 Document 1 White House, Memorandum for the President, “Background on Covert Operations in Chile,” Eyes Only, October 31, 1975 Oct 31, 1975 Source Gerald Ford Presidential Library As the Senate Select Committee led by Senator Frank Church moves to release its initial reports on CIA covert operations, the Ford White House gears up to oppose the Committee’s efforts. As President Ford considers his options, his counselor, Jack Marsh, advises him on various opinions of top U.S. officials, including Attorney General Edward Levi who “is of the view that you should weigh carefully a decision of this type where your position can be attacked by partisans as cover-up.” Marsh provides Ford with initial details about how the administration would attempt to impede the Church Committee plans for a public hearing on covert operations in Chile, including by preventing former CIA officials from testifying on classified operations in an open hearing. Marsh recommends “that you not agree to the participation of Administration witnesses in an open hearing.” 911 d 2 Document 2 White House, memorandum for the President, Senate Select Committee Plans for Open Hearing on Covert Activities in Chile, Secret, November 1, 1975 Nov 1, 1975 Source Gerald Ford Presidential Library In this “issue for decision” memo, drawn almost word-for-word from a memo from CIA Director William Colby for President Ford, his White House legal counsel Jack Marsh advises him on the pros and cons of opposing the first open hearing on CIA covert regime change efforts. “1. It would establish a precedent that would be seized on by the Congress in the future to hold additional open hearings on covert action. 2. It would have a shattering effect on the willingness of foreign political parties and individuals to cooperate with the U.S. in the future on such operations.” Marsh notes that Chilean political leaders assisted by the CIA over the years might be identified, such as former President Eduardo Frei, “whose election in 1964 we contributed to and whose tacit participation in coup plotting in 1970 may be divulged.” If, however, the White House and CIA cooperated with the Church Committee on the hearings, the White House could seek to protect its sources and assets in Chile and “avoid further charges of ‘cover-up’.” Ford checks the option to “oppose open hearings.” 911 d 3 Document 3 White House, [draft] Memorandum for the President, Senate Select Committee Publication of Chile Covert Action Report, ca. November 1975, 8 pp. (Pages misnumbered in original) Nov 1975 Source Gerald Ford Presidential Library This draft memo to President Ford elaborates on the dangers to CIA operations in Chile and elsewhere in the world if the Church Committee publishes its report on “Covert Action in Chile.” The staff study “is a detailed revelation with specifics,” Ford is advised. “It exposes intelligence sources and methods… It identifies political parties, government entities, media, private organizations and individuals with whom the United States collaborated in a clandestine, confidential relationship. It cites the amounts of money authorized, the recipients, the purposes and the results.” The memo concludes that to “allow the Committee to carry out its intentions to publish and to hold public hearings on covert actions in Chile is unthinkable.” 911 d 4 Document 4 NSC, Comments on Senate Select Committee Report on Chile, Secret, November 5, 1975 (includes cover memo to CIA Special Counsel Mitchell Rogovin) Nov 5, 1975 Source Gerald Ford Presidential Library NSC officials respond to an advance draft of the Church Committee report on Chile. “We have reviewed the Church Committee Staff Report on Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973 and concur most strongly in the CIA position that this material should not be published and should not be discussed in public session,” the memo, drafted by NSC aide Rob Roy Ratliff, advises. Public debate over the wisdom of covert operations in Chile and elsewhere, the NSC argues, would provide adversaries with ammunition “to destroy for all practical purposes any U.S. capability to conduct covert operations…” The memo concludes that “if we are going to fight against release of classified information which would damage our foreign policy and national security interests, this is the time.” 911 d 5 Document 5 CIA, [draft] Memorandum for the President, “Public Disclosure of Covert Action by the Senate Select Committee, November 7, 1975 Nov 7, 1975 Source Gerald Ford Presidential Library The CIA’s special counsel, Mitchell Rogovin, drafts a memo for the White House outlining a possible compromise with the Church Committee which CIA Director William Colby has worked out during “an informal dinner hosted by the DCI” on November 5 with Senators Frank Church and Charles Mathias (R-MD). Among other points, the Committee would agree to work with the CIA to delete names of CIA agents, foreign officials and organizations, and agree that, besides Chile, “no other covert action would be made the subject of a public hearing or public report.” The proposed compromise, Rogovin asserts, “limits the exposure of covert action to one country,” Chile. Indeed, four other Church Committee case histories—on Congo, Indonesia, Laos and [add country]—remain secret, a half century after they were written. 911 d 6 Document 6 U.S. Senate, Letter from Frank Church to CIA Director William Colby, November 14, 1975 Nov 14, 1975 Source Gerald Ford Presidential Library In this letter, Senator Church advises the CIA director that the Select Committee will hold a two-day hearing on covert operations in Chile on December 4 and 5, 1975. Colby is invited to testify and presents his argument for why the hearing is important: “The Committee is of the view that it is necessary to set the records straight and educate the public on vital questions concerning the use of covert action in a democratic society,” Church writes. “In all frankness, I must say that it is my view that it would be a disservice to the public and perhaps to the Central Intelligence Agency itself if you should forgo this opportunity to speak to these issues.” But Colby declines to participate in hearing. 911 d 7 Document 7 CIA, Note from CIA Directors office to White House Counselor to the President, November 18, 1975 Nov 18, 1975 Source Gerald Ford Presidential Library In this short note to White House counselor Jack Marsh, the CIA writes, “We believe that no CIA participation in open hearings on covert action should be our position.”

Operation Condor-50 Years Later

Operation Condor: A Network of Transnational Repression 50 Years Later IIC July 28, 1976 On 50th Anniversary of Condor Inauguration, National Security Archive Posts Declassified Documents on History of Condor’s Targeted Repression Published: Nov 26, 2025 Briefing Book # 910 Edited by Peter Kornbluh and John Dinges For further information, contact Peter Kornbluh: peter.kornbluh@gmail.com John Dinges: jcdinges@gmail.com Subjects Human Rights and Genocide Terrorism and Counterterrorism Torture Regions South America Events Argentine Dirty War, 1976-1983 Chile – Coup d’État, 1973 Operation Condor, 1975-1980 Project Southern Cone BOOKS The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents by John Dinges, The New Press (August 1, 2012) Los Anos del Condor book cover Los años del Cóndor (Updated and expanded 2021 Spanish edition) by John Dinges, DEBATE (June 1, 2021) book The Pinochet File by Peter Kornbluh, The New Press, Updated edition (September 11, 2013) book cover Pinochet desclasificado by Peter Kornbluh, Un Dia en La Vida/Editorial Catalonia (August, 2023) The Condor Trials: Transnational Repression and Human Rights in South America book cover The Condor Trials: Transnational Repression and Human Rights in South America by Francesca Lessa, Yale University Press (May 31, 2022) Washington, D.C., November 26, 2025 - On General Augusto Pinochet’s 60th birthday, November 25, 1975, four delegations of Southern Cone secret police chieftains gathered in Santiago, Chile, at the invitation of the Chilean intelligence service, DINA. Their meeting—held at the War College building on la Alameda, Santiago’s downtown thoroughfare—was called “to establish something similar to INTERPOL,” according to the confidential meeting agenda, “but dedicated to Subversion.” During the three-day meeting, the military officials from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay agreed to form “a system of collaboration” to identify, track, capture and eliminate leftist opponents of their regimes. As the conference concluded on November 28, a member of the Uruguayan delegation rose to toast the Chileans for convening the meeting and proposed naming the new organization after the host country’s national bird, the condor. According to secret minutes of the meeting, there was “unanimous approval.” Chilean records refer to Condor as “Sistema Condor.” CIA intelligence reports called it Operation Condor. It was, as John Dinges writes in his comprehensive history, The Condor Years, an agency of “cross-border repression, [whose] teams went far beyond the frontiers of the member countries to launch assassination missions and other criminal operations in the United States, Mexico and Europe.” His investigation documented 654 victims of kidnapping, torture and disappearance during Condor’s active operational period in the Southern Cone between 1976 and 1980. A subdivision of Condor codenamed “Teseo”—for Theseus, the heroic warrior king of Greek mythology—established an international death squad unit based in Buenos Aires that launched 21 operations in Europe and elsewhere against opponents of the military regimes. On the 50th anniversary of the secret inauguration of Operation Condor, the National Security Archive is posting a selection of documents that record the dark history of transnational repression under the Condor system. The selected records include: The only known DINA document on the inaugural meeting—the “Closing Statement of the First Inter-American Meeting of National Intelligence”—which summarized the agreement between the original five Condor nations. The first declassified CIA document to name “CONDOR” as a “cooperative arrangement” against subversion. The heavily censored CIA document, dated June 25, 1976, provides initial intelligence on the 2nd Condor meeting held from May 31 to June 2 in Santiago. It was the first in a flurry of CIA intelligence cables in the summer of 1976 on Condor’s evolution from an intelligence sharing collaboration to a transnational system of disappearance and assassination. “The subjects covered at the [2nd] meeting,” this CIA report noted, “were more sweeping than just the exchange of information on terrorism and subversion.” A CIA translation of the “Teseo” agreement—an extraordinary document that bureaucratically records the procedures, budgets, working hours, and operational rules for selecting, organizing and dispatching death squads to eliminate targeted enemies of the Southern Cone regimes. The “Teseo” operations base would be located “at Condor 1 (Argentina).” Each member country was expected to donate $10,000 to offset operational costs, and dues of $200 would be paid “prior to the 30th of each month” for maintenance expenses of the operations center. Expenses for agents on assassination missions abroad were estimated at $3,500 per person for ten days “with an additional $1000 first time out for clothing allowance.” A CIA report on how the Teseo unit will select targets “to liquidate” in Europe and who will know about these missions. The source of the CIA intelligence suggests that “in Chile, for instance, Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, chief of the Directorate of National Intelligence (DINA) the man who originated the entire Condor concept and has been the catalyst in bringing it into being, will coordinate details and target lists with Chilean President Augusto Pinochet Ugarte.” The first briefing paper for Secretary of State Henry Kissinger alerting him to the existence of Operation Condor and the political ramifications for the United States. In a lengthy August 3, 1973, report from his deputy Harry Shlaudeman, Kissinger is informed that the security forces of the Southern Cone “have established Operation Condor to find and kill terrorists…in their own countries and in Europe. Brazil is cooperating short of murder operations." Juan manuel mentioned CIA memoranda, written by the chief of the Western Hemisphere division, Ray Warren, sounding the alarm on Condor’s planned missions in Europe, and expressing concern that the CIA will be blamed for Condor’s assassinations abroad. One memo indicates that the CIA has taken steps to preempt the missions by alerting French counterparts that Condor operatives planned to murder specific individuals living in Paris. The completely unredacted FBI “Chilbom” report, written by FBI attaché Robert Scherrer one week after the car bomb assassination of former Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt in downtown Washington, D.C. It was this FBI report that resulted in the revelation of the existence of the Condor system in 1979, when its author, FBI attaché Robert Scherrer, testified at a trial of several Cuban exiles who assisted the Chilean secret police in assassinating Letelier and Moffitt. IIC June 25, 1976 The first Senate investigative report on Condor based on CIA documents and briefings written in early 1979 by Michael Glennon, a staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International Operations. The draft report was never officially published but was leaked to columnist Jack Anderson; a copy was eventually obtained by John Dinges and Saul Landau and used in their book, Assassination on Embassy Row. A declassified copy was released as part of the Obama-authorized Argentina Declassification Project in 2019. “These documents record the dark history of multilateral repression and state-sponsored terrorism in the Southern Cone—a history that defined those violent regimes of the past,” notes Peter Kornbluh, author of The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability. “Fifty years after Condor’s inauguration, these documents provide factual evidence of coordinated human rights atrocities that can never be denied, whitewashed or justified.” After many years of investigations and resulting trials, it is now clear that Condor may have backfired on its perpetrators, according to John Dinges, whose updated and expanded edition of The Condor Years was published in Spanish in 2021 as Los Años del Condor: Operaciones Internacionales de asesinato en el Cono Sur. “It is a kind of historic irony,” Dinges notes, “that the international crimes of the dictatorships spawned investigations, including one resulting in Pinochet’s arrest in London, that would eventually bring hundreds of the military perpetrators to justice. Moreover, because Condor’s most notorious crime was in Washington, D.C., the United States government unleashed the FBI to prosecute DINA and the Chilean regime.” Other documents on Condor discovered in the archives of member states such as Uruguay can be found on this special website https://plancondor.org/ established to record the history of Condor’s human rights atrocities and hold those who committed them accountable for their crimes. The Documents 910 d 1 Document 1 DINA, Summary, “Acta de Clausura de la Primera Reunion Interamericana de Inteligencia Nacional,” [Closing Statement of the First Inter-American Meeting of National Intelligence], Secret, November 28, 1975 [with English translation] Nov 28, 1975 Source Rettig Commission Files, as reproduced in The Pinochet File, by Peter Kornbluh This summary of Operation Condor’s inaugural meeting, hosted by the Chilean secret police, DINA, in Santiago, Chile, provides substantive detail on the mission, coordination, communications, intelligence sharing, joint operations and the Latin American intelligence officers involved in initiating a regional effort to suppress the left in the Southern Cone. It also identifies the origins of the name of this cross-border collaboration - Chile’s national bird, the condor. “This organization will be called CONDOR, by unanimous approval of a motion presented by the Uruguayan Delegation to honor the host country,” the document concludes. In January 1976, this founding document was signed by five high-ranking intelligence officers in the Southern Cone, representing the original Condor nations: Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia. Peru and Ecuador joined Condor in 1977. Brazil became a formal member in 1976; Peru and Ecuador joined Condor in 1978. 910 d 2 Document 2 CIA, Intelligence Information Cable, “Meeting of Intelligence Services of Argentina, [Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil] and Arrangement for Future Cooperation Among these Services,” Secret, June 25, 1976 Jun 25, 1976 Source Argentina Declassification Project This CIA report summarizing the second meeting of Southern Cone intelligence services in Santiago, Chile, from May 31 to June 2, 1976, is the first known declassified document to reference “Condor.” The report states that “Condor, the name given to this cooperative arrangement, will establish a basic computerized data bank” to centralize intelligence registries on operations against leftist enemies. The CIA also reports that, besides intelligence sharing, Chile “agreed to operate covertly” with the Argentines and Uruguayans to conduct operations “against the Revolutionary Coordinating Junta (JCR) and other terrorists.” Those operations to assassinate targets abroad would expand Condor’s reach outside of the Southern Cone to Europe and elsewhere. 910 d 3 Document 3 CIA, Intelligence Information Cable, “‘Condor,’ A Cooperative Program of the Intelligence Services of Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil to Counter Terrorism and Subversion; Basic Mission of ‘Condor’ teams being Sent to France,” Secret, July 21, 1976 Jul 21, 1976 Source Argentina Declassification Project This CIA cable describes a third Condor meeting, held in Buenos Aires on July 2, 1976, that focused on “mounting of operations in France.” “The basic mission of the teams being sent to operate in France,” the cable states, “will be to liquidate top-level terrorist leaders.” The CIA also reveals divisions within the Condor states about these operations but notes that “the bulk of the effort in France will probably be carried out by Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay.” Brazil’s contribution, the document suggests, “will be to supply communications equipment for the Condor net in Latin America.” 910 d 4 Document 4 CIA, Intelligence Information Cable, “Structure and Operational Plans of Condor, A Cooperative Program of the Intelligence Services of Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil to Counter Terrorism and Subversion; Selection of Targets for the ‘Condor’ Teams that will Operate in Europe,” Secret, July 28, 1976 Jul 28, 1976 Source Argentina Declassification Project This CIA report, drawn from the same source that provided information for the July 21, 1976, cable, is the first to provide details of Condor plans to “liquidate” targets in France. The report provides the first breakdown for the Condor bureaucratic “groupings,” including CONDORTEL for communications and CONDOREJE for operations. Not only leftists residing in Europe will be targeted, the source reports, but “some leaders of Amnesty International might be selected for the target list.” The document remains significantly redacted hiding considerable information about Condor’s planned operations. 910 d 5 Document 5 CIA memorandum, “Operation Condor – Regional Co-operation Among Latin American Intelligence Services Against Terrorism,” Secret, July 24, 1976 Jul 24, 1976 Source Argentina Declassification Project, April 2019 In this memo to the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, Raymond A. Warren, CIA Chief of the Latin America Division, raises concerns that the “Condor” countries are organizing assassination squads with the specific purpose “to liquidate key Latin American terrorist leaders” outside the Southern Cone region. This Condor program “poses new problems for the Agency,” he warns, and “every precaution must be taken to ensure that the Agency is not wrongfully accused of being party to this type of activity.” Warren asks his superiors “what action the Agency could effectively take to forestall illegal activity of this sort.” 910 d 6 Document 6 State Department, ARA Monthly Report (July) “The ‘Third World War’ and South America,” August 3, 1976 Aug 3, 1976 Source Department of State Argentina Declassification Project In early August 1976, this 14-page briefing memo for Henry Kissinger alerts him to the existence of Operation Condor. Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America, Harry Shlaudeman, advises Kissinger that the Southern Cone governments see themselves as engaged in a Third World War against terrorism and that they “have established Operation Condor to find and kill terrorists … in their own countries and in Europe.” “[T]hey are joining forces to eradicate ‘subversion’, a word which increasingly translates into non-violent dissent from the left and center left.” Their definition of subversion is so broad as to include “nearly anyone who opposes government policy.” Shlaudeman echoes the concerns of CIA officials that Condor death squads will create serious repercussions for the United States. “Internationally, the Latin generals look like our guys,” Shlaudeman notes. “We are especially identified with Chile. It cannot do us any good.” 910 d 7 Document 7 CIA, Intelligence Cable, “Further Developments in the Plans and Intentions of ‘Condor,’ a Cooperative Program of the Intelligence Services of Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil to Counter Terrorism and Subversion,” Secret, August 5, 1976 Aug 5, 1976 Source Argentina Declassification Project This CIA cable illuminates how Condor officials in Uruguay, Chile and the other member nations will secretly select targets “to liquidate” in Europe and who will know about these missions. The source of the CIA intelligence suggests that “in Chile, for instance, Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, chief of the Directorate of National Intelligence (DINA) the man who originated the entire Condor concept and has been the catalyst in bringing it into being, will coordinate details and target lists with Chilean President Augusto Pinochet Ugarte.” The CIA reports that “action operations in Europe are to be mounted by Condor teams of various Condor countries. These are to be mixed teams. Moreover, there is to be a single Condor target list, not separate lists by each country.” 910 d 8 Document 8 Joint CIA/Department of State memorandum, “Meeting at Department of State to Discuss Operation Condor,” Secret, August 13, 1976 Aug 13, 1976 Source Argentina Declassification Project, April 2019 This memo recounts a meeting between CIA and State Department officials—among them, Hewson Ryan, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs, James Gardner, head of the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), and the CIA’s deputy chief of the Latin America division. They discuss a draft of a diplomatic demarche to the Condor regimes most involved in international assassination planning—Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. The CIA signs off on the demarche. 910 d 9 Document 9 CIA memorandum, “Potential Political and Security Ramifications of Operation Condor,” Secret, August 17, 1976 Aug 17, 1976 Source Argentina Declassification Project, April 2019 The CIA’s Chief of the Latin America Division, Raymond A. Warren, once again raises alarms about planned Condor operations in France. In this memo, he reports that the CIA is so concerned that such operations will have “repercussions” for the CIA’s own liaisons with the Western European intelligence services that the Agency has taken steps “to preempt any political ramifications for the Agency” by alerting French authorities to the Condor assassination missions. Warren also informs his superiors that the State Department has sent a special demarche to Chile, Argentina and Uruguay to pressure those regimes to curtail international assassination operations. 910 d 10 Document 10 CIA, Cable, “Text of the [September 1976] Agreement by Condor Countries Regulating Their Subversive Targets,” [English translation of a Condor document titled “Teseo Regulacion, Centro de Operaciones,” originally dated September 1976], Secret, August 16, 1977 Aug 16, 1977 Source Argentina Declassification Project, April 2019 The CIA obtained the “text of the agreement by Condor countries regulating their operations against subversive targets”—a comprehensive planning paper on financing, staffing, logistics, training and selection of targets that reveals both the banal and dramatic details about the organizing and implementing of Condor’s “Teseo” death squad operations. The “Teseo” operations base would be located “at Condor 1 (Argentina).” Each member country was expected to donate $10,000 to offset operational costs, and dues of $200 would be paid “prior to the 30th of each month” for maintenance expenses of the operations center. Expenses for agents on assassination missions abroad were estimated at $3,500 per person for ten days, “with an additional $1000 first time out for clothing allowance.” Condor’s “Teseo” death squad program was named for Theseus, the mythological Greek warrior-king who killed the half-man, half-bull Minotaur. 910 d 11 Document 11 FBI cable, “[Condor: Chilbom]” Secret, September 28, 1976 Sep 28, 1976 Source Argentina Declassification Project, April 2019 The FBI’s legal attaché in Buenos Aires, Robert S. Scherrer, drafted this now famous “Chilbom” cable eight days after the car bomb assassination of former Chilean ambassador, Orlando Letelier, and his colleague, Ronni Karpen Moffitt, in Washington D.C. Scherrer’s sources pointed the finger of responsibility at General Augusto Pinochet and the Chilean secret police, DINA. This cable suggests the assassination may have been a “phase three” mission of Operation Condor. In 2019, this cable was declassified without any redactions, identifying Scherrer’s source as an official named Arturo Horacio Poire at Argentina’s presidential intelligence service, the Secretaria de Inteligencia del Estado (SIDE). 910 d 12 Document 12 Townley Papers, “Relato de Sucesos en la Muerte de Orlando Letelier el 21 de Septiembre, 1976 [Report of Events in the Death of Orlando Letelier, September 21, 1976],” March 14, 1978 Mar 14, 1978 Source Patricio Aylwin Presidential Archive at Alberto Hurtado University In his only confession to the Pinochet regime’s infamous act of international terrorism made prior to being detained by the FBI in Chile, DINA hit man Michael Townley recounts how he received orders from DINA deputy director Pedro Espinoza to assassinate the leading opponent of the dictatorship, Orlando Letelier, in Washington D.C. “The explicit orders were: Find Letelier’s home and workplace and contact the Cuban group [of violent exiles working with DINA] to eliminate him, or use SARIN gas, or orchestrate an accident, or in the end by whatever method—but the government of Chile wanted Letelier dead.” In an important admission, Townley records that the mission would draw on the “Red Condor”—the Condor network of Southern Cone secret police services. His account details how he traveled to Paraguay to obtain false passports and visas to travel to the U.S., enlisted a team of Cuban-exile terrorists to assist him in the mission, and later assassinated Letelier and his young associate, Ronni Moffitt, who was riding in the car with her husband when the bomb was detonated. 910 d 13 Document 13 U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on International Operations, Foreign Relations Committee, Report, “Staff Report on Activities of Certain Intelligence Agencies in the United States,” Top Secret/Sensitive, January 18, 1979 [Section on DINA and Operation Condor] Jan 19, 1979 Source Argentina Declassification Project Early public references of CIA knowledge of Operation Condor were provided by a Top Secret/Sensitive Senate staff report for the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International Operations in mid-January 1979. The scandal of the Korean intelligence service, KCIA, operating in Washington, generated a Senate investigation into other foreign intelligence services also conducting surveillance, secret lobbying, disinformation and other operations in the United States. Since the Chilean secret police had already been identified as responsible for the car-bomb assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt, a Senate staffer named Michael Glennon obtained permission from the Carter White House to obtain CIA briefings based on secret intelligence records regarding DINA operations in the United States and around the world. Drawing on those detailed files shared with him at the CIA’s headquarters—many of which remain classified to this day—Glennon reported that “Chile has been the center of Operation Condor” and that DINA had stationed agents in Chilean embassies not only in the other Condor countries but also in Spain for operations in Western Europe. CIA briefers informed Glennon that they had learned Condor was “planning to open a station in Miami” but the CIA had alerted the State Department and voiced objections to its Condor liaisons and “the Condor Miami Station was never opened.” Glennon had access to the memos of CIA Western Hemisphere chief Ray Warren on actions the Agency took to block Condor’s Teseo plots in Paris; the report cited efforts by the CIA to alert French and Portuguese authorities to Condor assassination missions in their countries. Glennon’s study also drew on a then-secret FBI report, written by FBI attaché Robert Scherrer one week after the assassination of Letelier and Moffitt, that provided extensive intelligence on “phase three” Condor death squad operations and suggested that it was “not beyond the realm of possibility that the recent assassination of Orlando Letelier in Washington D.C. may have been carried out as a third phase of Operation Condor.” The Senate report was never officially published as a committee print. A draft was obtained by syndicated investigative columnist Jack Anderson, who published an eight-part series based on its contents. Although there were earlier references to the Condor alliance in Robert Scherrer’s testimony in the Letelier assassination trial in early 1979, Anderson’s August 2, 1979, Washington Post column titled “Condor: South American Assassins,” provided a more detailed description of Operation Condor in the U.S. media and established that the CIA had knowledge of the Condor plots even before the assassination of Letelier. 910 d 14 Document 14 State Department, memorandum, “Meeting with Argentine Intelligence Service,” June 19, 1980 Jun 19, 1980 Source State Department Argentina Declassification Project In this unusual report, the Regional Security Officer, James Blystone, meets with a Battalion 601 Argentine intelligence source while a major Condor operation is unfolding in Peru. Peru joined Condor, along with Ecuador, in 1978; in June 1980, the Peruvian military government collaborated with Argentine operatives to kidnap and rendition four Montenero militants living in exile in Lima. Several of the targets were kidnapped in broad daylight in a public park, creating a major media spectacle. While the operation was unfolding, Blystone’s source tells him that, “The present situation is that the four Argentines will be held in Peru and then expelled to Bolivia where they will be expelled to Argentina. Once in Argentina they will be interrogated and then permanently disappeared.” The Lima rendition was one of the last recorded Condor operations.

Brasil's Notorious 'Catwoman' Was Humiliated By Her Previous Sentence

Brazil’s notorious ‘Catwoman’ was humiliated by her previous sentence. Now police reveal the insane lengths she went to just to steal again By Manodeep Mukherjee, 1 days ago Paola Carita Gobel, famously known in Brazil as the “Catwoman” and “Criminal Barbie,” was arrested this week in São Paulo after allegedly running an incredibly brazen scheme where she rented a luxury condo just so she could rob her neighbors, as per The Sun. The 32-year-old woman is facing her second major burglary accusation, and this time, the police claim she went to absolutely insane lengths to ensure she could get back to stealing high-end goods. Her latest arrest came after police discovered she had used a fake name and even produced a completely bogus rental contract to gain access to the upscale residential building. Police in São Paulo claim that once she’s inside, she pretends to be a legitimate resident. Then, she allegedly breaks into other luxury homes within the building to snatch money, expensive jewelry, high-end watches, designer perfumes, and designer handbags. This is at least the second time she’s been accused of burglary. Two years ago, Gobel was arrested for robbing luxury apartments across several states. She earned the “Catwoman” moniker because she reportedly always committed her crimes dressed completely in black. You can draw parallels from this with the shoplifter’s wheelchair masquerade that we reported on earlier. This ‘Catwoman’ stayed true to the moniker, with serious dedication to a criminal lifestyle The State Department of Criminal Investigations in São Paolo previously claimed Gobel even took a locksmith course just to ensure she could enter victims’ homes without a hitch. Even after police released CCTV footage of her previous crimes, reports indicated that numerous local men were still totally smitten by her attractiveness, which is just bizarre to me. When she was caught previously, she was only sentenced to community service and charged with a fine. For robbing multiple high-end apartments, she essentially got a slap on the wrist. I think that’s awful for the victims, and it clearly didn’t deter her in the slightest. She was only caught then because police put her under surveillance, and she went on the run—very much like the U.S.’s own ‘Slender Man’ knife attacker’s escape earlier this week. Police Chief Joao Prata previously commented on the difficulty of catching her. He stated at the time, “She is already known for stealing from high-end residences.” He added, “We’ve tried to arrest her before. Unfortunately, we couldn’t.” The recent raid didn’t just net Gobel. Three men were also arrested, and police found drugs and a stolen vehicle in the building’s garage. Gobel is currently facing a long list of serious charges. These include criminal association, vehicle identification tampering, intentional receipt of stolen goods, trespass, and using false identities. Right now, police are waiting on forensic analysis to unlock the phones belonging to her and the other suspects. It sounds like they’re trying to build a much stronger case this time around.

Peru: Expresident Sentenced To 14 Yeas For Corruption

Peru's ex-president jailed for 14 years for corruption By DPA, 10 hours ago A Peruvian court has sentenced former president Martín Vizcarra to 14 years in prison for corruption. A court in the capital Lima found it proven that Vizcarra, who was president from 2018 to 2020, accepted bribes from construction companies in 2014 during his time as governor of the province of Moquegua in connection with the awarding of public contracts. "This is not justice, this is revenge," Vizcarra wrote on the social media platform X after the verdict was announced. "But they will not break me. The answer lies in the ballot box." His brother Mario Vizcarra is running in next year's presidential election and wants to pardon the former president if he wins. Several former presidents already behind bars In Peru, almost all heads of state of the past 25 years have had problems with the justice system. In April, former president Ollanta Humala (2011-16) was sentenced to 15 years in prison for money laundering, and last year Alejandro Toledo (2001-06) was sentenced to 20 years and six months in prison for corruption. A criminal trial is currently under way of former president Pedro Castillo (2021-22) for an attempted coup d'état. Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-18) is under investigation for corruption. Former president Alan García (1985-90 and 2006-11) killed himself in 2019 when the police tried to arrest him on corruption charges.

Colombia Probes Allegations Of Government Infiltration By Drug Trafficking Guerillas

Colombia Probes Allegations of Government Infiltration by Drug Trafficking Guerrillas Colombia Colombia’s military launched an investigation this week into allegations that senior army and intelligence officials passed sensitive information to the leader of an armed drug-trafficking organization, a scandal that is deepening the country’s diplomatic rift with the United States, the Wall Street Journal reported. The probe followed an explosive Sunday report by Colombian broadcaster Noticias Caracol, which found that Alexander Díaz, commander of a dissident guerrilla group, allegedly maintained channels of communication with high-ranking Colombian officials: These include retired Gen. Juan Miguel Huertas, who is head of the army’s personnel command, and Wilmer Mejía, a senior official at the National Intelligence Directorate. The documents – seized after the army detained Díaz and six others at a July 2024 checkpoint near the city of Medellín – reportedly describe the group’s efforts to acquire weapons, evade military operations, and, in some cases, receive help from contacts inside state institutions. The Caracol report said dissidents discussed making financial contributions to President Gustavo Petro’s 2022 campaign. The dissidents also referenced the armed group’s role in major attacks, including Diaz’s alleged involvement in the June 7 assassination of presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay, according to the City Paper Bogota, an English-language newspaper based in Colombia. The report has prompted fierce reactions across Colombia and sparked fears that former guerrilla fighters involved in cocaine trafficking have penetrated state institutions in the Petro administration. Colombian analysts warned that the allegations could further erode trust in the security services, while some opposition politicians have accused Petro of “treason” and called for his prosecution. On Monday, Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez ordered a military investigation and insisted that “no illegal act will be tolerated.” Huertas has denied wrongdoing and pledged to cooperate. Petro has rejected the accusations as politically motivated, calling the claims against senior officers “false” and aimed at discrediting his administration. The allegations surfaced as relations between Bogotá and Washington continue to falter over record-high drug production. US President Donald Trump has imposed sanctions on Petro and accused Colombia of failing to curb soaring cocaine production. The Trump administration has also conducted strikes against alleged drug boats departing from Colombian and Venezuelan waters – operations that Petro has denounced as extrajudicial killings.

Cecilia Vicuna-An Incredible Chilean Artist

https://www.ft.com/content/5b631217-bbd1-4be9-bb2e-65905cee96d2?segmentId=6bf9295a-189d-71c6-18fb-d469f27d3523

Brasil's Ex-President Bolsonaro Exhausts All Appeal. He Is Beginning To Serve His 27-Year Sentence

Brazil's ex-president Bolsonaro exhausts appeals, will serve 27-year sentence By FRANCE 24, 20 hours ago ©Eraldo Peres, AP Brazil's Supreme Court on Tuesday formally concluded former President Jair Bolsonaro's coup-plotting case, preventing him from lodging any more appeals and clearing the way for the court to order him to begin serving a sentence of more than 27 years in prison, according to a court document. The court, which rejected an appeal from Bolsonaro earlier this month, said it does not yet have details regarding when the former president could begin serving the sentence. Bolsonaro, 70, was in September convicted by a panel of Supreme Court justices for attempting to overthrow Brazil’s democracy following his 2022 election defeat. Prosecutors said the coup plot included plans to kill Lula, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and de Moraes. Bolsonaro was also found guilty on charges of leading an armed criminal organisation and attempting the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law. He denies any wrongdoing. (FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)

Brasil's First Bullet Train Is On Its Way

Brazil's First Bullet Train Is On The Way, And Its Top Speed Is Staggering By Tom Clark, 1 days ago In the modern age of travel, people expect to get where they need to go fast. This includes traveling by train, especially bullet trains, which can reach incredible speeds. If you live in Brazil, you'll eventually be able to take the country's first ever bullet train, capable of maxing out at a blistering speed of 320 kilometers per hour, or 199 miles per hour. To put that speed in perspective, if you're traveling from Rio de Janeiro to São Paulo today, you'll be driving or taking the bus, and it's about a 6-hour ride. But Brazil's new train will take you the same distance in under two hours. The bullet train will be on par with those currently running in other countries, including France and Japan, which have some of the fastest high-speed trains in operation today. However, Brazil's train will be slower than the one tested in China in the fall of 2025. That high-speed train, a next generation model of the CR450, hit a top speed of 281 miles per hour. Spearheaded by the company TAV Brazil, the route from Rio de Janeiro to São Paulo will cover 417 kilometers, or around 219 miles, with stops along the way in Volta Redonda and São José dos Campos. The electrified trains will run on a dedicated railway, guided by the same high-tech signaling system currently used in countries like Spain. Required environmental and technical studies are being conducted and are set for completion in late 2026. Read more: 10 Of The Most Reliable Motorcycles Ever Built Brazil's first bullet train comes with controversy As of this writing, construction on Brazil's new bullet train project has not yet begun. But if everything proceeds on schedule, trains should be howling down the tracks sometime in 2032. Once the trains are operational, they should ease the burden on the country's congested highways and airports. While that's a plus for people traveling inside the country, the project isn't without controversy. First there's the cost, which is expected be around $11.3 billion in U.S. dollars. Though it is a privately funded effort, the money will come from fundraising. So if there's not enough money collected, then the project could hit a wall. Even if the money's there and the bullet train becomes a reality, high ticket prices could keep many Brazilians either on the highway or in the air. Early projections estimate that tickets could go as high as $94. The question of capacity is also unknown, as TAV Brazil, the company behind the project, hasn't released those numbers. The issue becomes even more complicated when looking at bullet trains in other countries like China, which has the most high-speed rail mileage in the world. China's system has faced enormous deficits and eventually required government money to keep going. It was so bad that revenue collected from people riding the train typically didn't go toward the principal debt, but the interest only. Whether or not Brazil's bullet trains will experience the same problems remains to be seen. Want the latest in tech and auto trends? Subscribe to our free newsletter for the latest headlines, expert guides, and how-to tips, one email at a time. You can also add us as a preferred search source on Google. Read the original article on SlashGear.

Survivors Describe Deadly Snowstorm In Chilean Patagonia

Survivors Describe Deadly Snowstorm in Chilean Patagonia Five tourists, from Mexico, Britain and Germany, died Monday on a popular hiking trail in the Torres del Paine National Park. Listen to this article · 5:56 min Learn more Share full article Three people are visible on a mountainous area. They are wearing visibility vests and other climbing and rescue equipment. There is snow on the rocks and there are trees in the background. A picture released by Chile’s Carabineros shows a rescue team at the end of their search and recovery operation for a group of tourists.Credit...Agence France-Presse, via Carabineros de Chile By Livia Albeck-Ripka and Pascale Bonnefoy Nov. 21, 2025 When the hikers left the campsite early Monday, it was drizzling, windy and just above freezing in Torres del Paine, a national park with towering granite peaks and glaciers in Chilean Patagonia. They had the most difficult stretch of their journey ahead. But they had no idea they would be hit by a blizzard with hurricane-force winds of 120 miles an hour, unable to see more than 10 feet in front of them. Within hours, more than two dozen were injured and five were missing. The next day, the authorities confirmed that all five of the missing — tourists from Mexico, Britain and Germany — had died. At a news conference on Thursday, Cristián Crisosto, the regional prosecutor for Magallanes, which includes the national park, said that he had opened an investigation and that the police were taking statements from park staff, from Vertice, the company that operates the campground, known as Los Perros, and from 69 people who were there on the day of the snowstorm. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Mr. Crisosto said all five had died of hypothermia, and 27 people were injured in the blizzard. Álvaro Elizalde, the Chilean interior minister, said the government was working with consulates to return the bodies of Cristina Calvillo Tovar and Julián García Pimentel from Mexico, Victoria Bond from Britain and Nadine Lichey and Andreas Von Pein from Germany. Chile’s National Forest Corporation said Wednesday that it deeply regretted the episode and was focused on relocating anyone who had been on the affected trail, the O Circuit, a challenging 85-mile loop that takes eight or nine days to complete. The five died on a stretch of the circuit known as the John Gardner Pass, the highest and most exposed section. The park authority said the circuit would be closed while it investigates. In an interview with local media on Wednesday, Mauricio Ruiz, the regional director of the park service in Magallanes, said there were no rangers in the park on Monday because they left the previous day to vote in the country’s presidential election. He described the region where the blizzard took place as “the most complex area of the mountain.” Rodrigo Illesca, the director of the park service, told the radio station ADN that he was not informed of the emergency until 6 p.m. on Monday. Dozens of hikers who were on the trail and at the campground on the day of the snowstorm sharply criticized the lack of warning and the emergency response, which they said was severely delayed and insufficient. Editors’ Picks The World’s Largest Afro Took Three People to Measure It I Was Deemed Unfit to Be a Mother Why ‘Surveillance Pricing’ Strikes a Nerve SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “We want to make it clear that this was a terrible, avoidable tragedy. Nobody should have been allowed, let alone encouraged, to go up the pass that day, as we were by Vertice staff,” the group said in a statement shared by one of the hikers. According to the group, the staff at the camp offered no safety guidance or help, even after dozens of hikers — forced to turn back because of the conditions — had returned to the campsite suffering from hypothermia, frostbite, abrasions and head injuries. “They just were not seeming to grasp what had happened, like at all,” said Dr. Megan Wingfield, one of the surviving hikers. Vertice, the company that operates the campground, said in a statement that it had contacted the authorities and provided logistical support to rescue teams. Dr. Wingfield, 34, said she and her husband, both anesthesiologists and avid hikers from Colorado, had arrived at the Los Perros campsite on Sunday evening, planning to hike the John Gardner Pass the next day. The hikers had no internet access at the site, she said, but asked the staff whether the rain and wind were typical for this time of year. She said the staff reassured her and others that the conditions were not unusual, and recommended hiking the pass between about 8 a.m. and noon. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Around 6:45 a.m. the next day, the couple left the campsite, Dr. Wingfield said, wearing warm layers, wind pants, raincoats, hiking boots and crampons, as well as gloves, hats and gaiters to keep their faces warm. Within a few hours, she said, the wind was so strong that she and others in the group could barely stand. Then, less than 700 feet from the top of the pass, three young men heading in the opposite direction, their facial hair encased in icicles, warned them it was too treacherous to go on. “We all sort of came to the conclusion, ‘OK, we’re not doing this,’” she said. The group turned around. Between gusts, the hikers could see about 10 feet ahead, and otherwise only two or three. They were forced to backtrack down a steep rocky slope that had turned into an “ice rink,” she said. Bodies slid in all directions. One man skidded nearly 50 feet, headfirst toward a pile of rocks, Dr. Wingfield said. “Thank God, his backpack hit the rocks before his head did,” she said. “He stood up and said, ‘Am I going to die today?’” The ice, she said, was streaked with blood. People screamed as they slid into one another. When a man who was diabetic collapsed, Dr. Wingfield and her husband wrapped him in an emergency shelter, gave him a packet of applesauce and pleaded with him to keep going. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Around 11:30 a.m., Dr. Wingfield and her husband had returned to the camp with dozens of others, many bleeding and bruised, and nearly all with mild hypothermia, she said. There were doctors in the group who worked to treat the injured, she added, but the staff offered no assistance, refused to call for help and would not open a room where the group could stay warm. Around 12:30 p.m., she said, the hikers organized a search-and-rescue effort for those who had not returned. Some were trying to determine who was missing and which authorities to call. A few recalled one of the hikers, who was later found dead, falling repeatedly. Just after 3:30 p.m., another hiker, Arab Ginnett, posted for help on social media. “We are snowed in and people are still out on the pass,” she wrote. “We need urgent help, climbers and rescuers are on the risk of dying based on our current situation,” she said. Livia Albeck-Ripka is a Times reporter based in Los Angeles, covering breaking news, California and other subjects. Share full article

Argentine Congress Report Accuses President Of Crypto Fraud

Argentine Congress Report Accuses President of Crypto Fraud Argentina An Argentine congressional commission this week found that President Javier Milei may have committed misconduct and engaged in “alleged fraud” by using his public office to promote a cryptocurrency project that later collapsed, MercoPress reported Wednesday. The House of Deputies’ Investigative Commission released a final report this week in which they alleged that Milei and his sister, Presidential Secretary Karina Milei, were “key players” in enabling what lawmakers allege was an international scam. The scandal began in mid-February, when Milei promoted the $LIBRA token on social media. The token initially surged in value but crashed within hours, causing losses of several million dollars for more than 114,000 digital wallets. Industry analysts described the operation as a “rug pull,” a scam in which developers boost a token’s value and then exit before it collapses, according to the Buenos Aires Times. Technical reports show that 80 percent of wallets lost money, while 36 individuals made profits of more than $1 million. The commission’s findings claimed that Milei breached Argentina’s public ethics law by using his presidential authority to promote a private venture and by bypassing technical and legal reviews. The report also found direct links between Milei and the project’s promoters, including US entrepreneur Hayden Davis and Argentines Mauricio Novelli and Manuel Terrones Godoy. Meanwhile, the commission said it will also file criminal complaints against a number of officials who allegedly obstructed the investigation, including Justice Minister Mariano Cúneo Libarona and Anti-Corruption Office head Alejandro Melik. Lawmakers wrote that these officials “systematically refused to cooperate” with the probe. Milei has denied promoting the project, claiming he merely “shared” it and “did not know the details.” He called himself a “fanatic techno optimist” who wants Argentina to become a “technology hub.” The commission has now submitted its report to Congress to determine whether Milei engaged in poor performance of his duties. However, no timeline for considering the question has been set, and observers said that after new pro-Milei lawmakers elected in October’s midterm vote take office on Dec. 10, it’s likely that no further action will be taken.

Peruvian Roulette: Peruvians Take To The Streets Against Another New Government That Feels all Too Familiar

Peruvian Roulette: Peruvians Take to the Streets Against Another New Government that Feels All Too Familiar Peru Ernesto, 43, used to love being a bus driver in the Peruvian capital of Lima. Now, he is scared of dying on the job for refusing to pay gangs. “Before, they’d rob you, take your cell phone, or your day’s earnings,” Ernesto told El País. “Now it’s like Russian roulette: Imagine I go out right now and it’s my turn, they shoot me and it’s all over.” “People are terrified,” he added. Driving a bus has become one of Peru’s most dangerous jobs, with drivers often murdered for refusing to pay protection money to gangs such as Peru’s Los Pulpos and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua. But most people being extorted have very little extra to give. “We’re being murdered for 5 soles ($1.50),” Julio Campos, a 57-year-old bus driver, told Le Monde. “Extortion has become institutionalized.” From January to September this year, the country had 20,705 complaints for extortion, though analysts believe the actual number of such crimes is far higher. Meanwhile, murders in Peru have surged: There were 2,082 homicides last year – half of them contract killings – up from a previous high of 676 total homicides in 2017. Fed up with crime, political chaos and the rising cost of living, Gen Z-led protests broke out in September, often turning violent. A month later, President Dina Boluarte, 63, already under investigation for corruption and facing single-digit approval ratings, was impeached for “permanent moral incapacity,” but mainly for failing to make a dent in the growing criminality taking over the country. The move came just hours after a shooting at a concert in Lima outraged the public. Boluarte was replaced by interim President José Jerí, a conservative politician best known for being elected as the Speaker of Congress despite being accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a Christmas party last year. He has become Peru’s eighth president in less than a decade. According to the Economist, one of Jerí’s first moves as interim president was to “unfollow adult content accounts on social media and delete his lecherous past posts,” with critics calling him “el presidente Pajero,” or “the wanker president.” Fresh protests broke out with Peruvians calling for Jerí to resign, but they were met by a harsh government crackdown in which one protester died and hundreds more were injured. In response to the unrest, Jerí declared a one-month state of emergency in Lima and the neighboring port of Callao. He’s also made a show of visiting prisons to promote a tough-on-crime image, wrote CNN’s Spanish edition. Still, youth groups have pledged to defy the state of emergency – which has sent soldiers onto the streets and restricted the freedoms of assembly and movement – and continue protesting. “We have the constitutional right to protest,” said Jorge Calmet, one of the Gen Z protest leaders. “That right cannot be taken away from us by a police commander, a congressman – and certainly not by someone who pretends to be president. We will march as many times as necessary.” Despite violent nationwide protests and a failed attempt by leftist lawmakers to impeach him, Jeri has refused to resign, the Financial Times noted. With approval ratings below 5 percent, the unpopular leader is seen as more of the same, analysts say. Still, “Even by the recent dismal standards of Peruvian politics, the ascension of Jose Jeri to be interim president marks a new low” for the country, World Politics Review wrote.  Meanwhile, analysts say that it wasn’t Boluarte’s failure to tackle rising crime that got her impeached but that lawmakers realized her usefulness to them was over – that support for her would hurt their 2026 election campaigns. In 2022, serving as vice president, Boluarte took over the top job following the ouster of far-left President Pedro Castillo, who was impeached for attempting to dissolve Congress to prevent his removal, the BBC explained. Without her own political party in Congress, she was only able to govern due to the support of an informal coalition of right-wing and centrist lawmakers. During her administration, these politicians effectively reshaped Peru’s institutions to protect themselves from corruption investigations, a move that included weakening law enforcement and the judicial system, thereby empowering criminal networks. Analysts say that’s why Boluarte’s impeachment should not be viewed as resolving a political problem. Rather, it actually deepened Peru’s crisis to bring the country to a breaking point. They add that the upcoming election – which has no clear frontrunner yet – could still serve up a reformist leader who could address crime and corruption and shore up Peru’s democracy. Or it may lead to a populist president who capitalizes on the widespread frustration with insecurity and inflation by promising strict order among an electorate that feels abandoned by its leaders. “Peru’s crisis is no longer just about corruption or governance – it is about the basic survival of the rule of law,” wrote Martin Cassinelli of the Atlantic Council. “The October protests should not be seen as another episode in the country’s cyclical instability but as a warning that the old model – political chaos insulated from economic collapse – has possibly reached its breaking point. Unless the next government restores both security and institutional credibility, Peru’s democracy risks becoming not merely ungovernable, but unrecognizable.”

Ecuadorians Reject Foreign Military Bases In Their Country

Ecuadorians Reject Foreign Military Bases in the Country Ecuador Ecuadoreans overwhelmingly rejected four constitutional proposals backed by President Daniel Noboa on Sunday, including the reversal of a ban on foreign military bases in the country passed by the legislature in 2008, the BBC reported. The result was a disappointment for Noboa, having campaigned for the reversal, claiming foreign troops would help fight organized crime and curb the rising violence that has swept the country in recent years, as it has emerged as one of the world’s drug-trafficking hotspots. It also dashed US hopes of expanding its presence in the eastern Pacific. Earlier this year, Noboa said that he wanted foreign militaries to join what he described as a “war” against narco-trafficking groups. Ecuador does not produce cocaine, but its huge ports and proximity to Colombia and Peru – where drugs are produced in large quantities – make the country an appealing and lucrative location for drug-trafficking gangs. According to Noboa, about 70 percent of the world’s cocaine transits through Ecuador. Noboa has also recently discussed increased regional security and migration co-operation with US officials and met with US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem last week to examine possible locations for US bases, MercoPress added. The US – which is currently striking alleged drug-smuggling boats in the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean – had hoped the referendum would allow it to re-establish a military base in Ecuador. The US was forced to close a facility on the country’s Pacific coast 16 years ago, when former President Rafael Correa decided not to renew its lease and pushed for the ban. Voters in Ecuador also rejected proposals to eliminate state funding for political parties, reduce the size of Congress, and establish a constitutional assembly to rewrite the country’s constitution. Noboa insisted that a new constitution would allow for tougher punishments for criminals and stronger measures to secure the borders. But critics contended that the proposed changes would not solve Ecuador’s security situation and accused Noboa of trying to obtain a custom-made constitution to govern without limits. They also warned that plans to shrink the size of Congress and reduce funding for political parties could result in a reduction in checks and balances on the government and weaker representation for Ecuadorans living in poorer areas. The government countered that the moves would trim state expenditures. A military crackdown on criminal gangs, including deploying armed soldiers on the streets, has been the hallmark of Noboa’s presidency. While his supporters think the approach has been successful, opponents accuse his government of authoritarianism. Share this story