Venezuela: Artificial Deals

VENEZUELA

Artificial Deals

Venezuelan pro-government lawmakers returned to the opposition-controlled National Assembly Tuesday for the first time in two years, part of a deal between President Nicolas Maduro and small group of opposition delegates to open dialogue in the deeply divided country, Reuters reported.

“Let’s go to the debate, let’s go to the fight,” Maduro said in a televised speech.

Mainstream opposition parties that control the congress, however, did not support the deal with US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido calling the agreement a distraction and “artificial,” Al Jazeera reported.

Guaido said earlier this month that negotiations between the government and the opposition mediated by Norway have “been exhausted” after Maduro’s administration withdrew delegates following the tightening of US sanctions.

In January, the opposition leader invoked the constitution to assume a rival presidency: He has been backed by the United States and 50 other countries in his attempt to oust Maduro, who has overseen a crippling economic crisis and mass emigration from locals fleeing shortages of food, medicine and other essentials.

New Facts About The Amazon Fires

THE AMAZON

Burning Down the House

This summer, a lot of people feared the Amazon rainforest might burn to the ground, destroying an oxygen-generating ecological treasure sometimes called the “lungs of the world.”

Fears about the massive forest fires in Brazil turned out to be exaggerated, however, according to Forbes and others. For example, some of the viral images of the conflagrations turned out to be fake, wrote Mother Jones.

The revelations led Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing nationalist, to demand an apology from French President Emmanuel Macron, who had criticized Brazil’s management of the Amazon, as well as Bolsonaro’s antipathy to indigenous people who live in the jungle and his openness to agricultural interests that clear the land to make way for farms and ranches, the Guardian reported.

Still, Science magazine was skeptical of Brazilian Environment Minister Ricardo Salles, who blamed “dry weather, wind, and heat” for the fires. The publication was clear: deforestation was a major reason why fires in the region were growing more frequent and more intense.

In fact, the New York Times noted, the world arguably is on fire. Major infernos have gripped regions not only in South America but also in Africa, the Arctic and Indonesia as temperatures have risen worldwide due to climate change.

The Amazon sucks as much as 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually, or around 5 percent of total human-made emissions. If the jungles turn into savanna and fires continue to wipe out greenery in other regions, the planet could reach a “tipping point” that could change the atmosphere permanently in 20 to 30 years, Public Radio International reported.

In Indonesia, the fires have engulfed large swaths of the country in a “toxic haze,” wrote CNN. More than 21,000 square miles of Siberian forest burned in August, melting permafrost that holds massive carbon deposits, Salon reported.

Bolsonaro took actions to deal with the Amazon fires, including temporarily banning burnings to clear trees and sending troops to fight the fires. Scientific American reported that the land clearing continued, though.

The Brazilian president has said he would reject a $20 million international aid package to deal with the problem. That might seem nuts. But Vox pointed out that beef exports generated $6.7 billion in foreign revenue for Brazil last year. Farmers use most of the soy produced in farms on former jungle soil to feed cattle. In other words, it would take more than $20 million to upend Brazil’s economy.

When it comes to deforestation and climate change, half measures simply won’t do.

Nicaragua-Taking Off The Gloves

Taking Off the Gloves

A Nicaraguan opposition group claimed responsibility Sunday for a series of explosions that rocked the country over the weekend, signaling a change in tactics by those against the regime of President Daniel Ortega.

The little-known Nicaraguan Patriotic Alliance (APN) said it executed a “a series of actions of a military nature” and will continue to do so until Ortega is gone.

“All these actions are carried out and will continue to be carried out…until the dictatorship is broken,” the group said on Saturday, according to Reuters.

Although there were no casualties, the move marks a turning point: Until now, opponents of the regime have largely remained peaceful.

The Central American nation has been gripped by a political crisis since April 2018, when Ortega’s government announced a plan to cut welfare benefits.

Since then, more than 300 people have died in clashes between pro-government forces and protesters, and thousands have been forced into exile.

Letelier-Moffitt Assassination: State Department Officials Pushed for Pinochet’s Ouster | National Security Archive

Letelier-Moffitt Assassination: State Department Officials Pushed for Pinochet’s Ouster | National Security Archive

Ecuador: Divided We Stand

ECUADOR

Divided We Stand

Some Ecuadorian lawmakers criticized the national assembly on Wednesday for rejecting a reform bill that would decriminalize abortion in cases of rape.

“The debate over abortion for rape was not in vain. Today society knows that in Ecuador, raped women are criminalized,” lawmaker Wilma Andrade said, according to the Guardian.

The comments follow clashes between pro-choice activists and police outside the country’s national assembly after the proposed bill – which also permitted abortion in cases of incest and fetal malformation – fell five votes short of the 70 it needed to pass.

Activists argued that the decision amounts to a death sentence for those women forced to seek an illegal abortion: These resulted in 15.6 percent of all maternal deaths in 2014, according to the latest figures available.

Lawmakers have been debating reforming the draconian law for years, but the recent rejection underscored lingering divisions on the issue in the staunchly Catholic country.

The current law only allows for abortions in cases where the mother’s life is in danger, or if the pregnancy is the result of the rape of a mentally disabled woman.

Women who have the procedure face up to two years in prison.

Brasil: A New Front

BRAZIL

A New Front

Organized criminal networks are responsible for the deforestation of the Amazon and use violence and intimidation against those who try to stop them, according to a new Human Rights Watch report.

The 165-page report found that out of 300 murders in the Amazon in the past decade, only 14 were tried in court, Reuters reported.

“If the authorities had taken their complaints seriously, these people might be alive today,” Daniel Wilkinson, acting environment director of nonprofit group, told the news agency Tuesday.

Brazil’s Environment Minister Ricardo Salles responded that the government has fought against criminality, and is currently combating illegal fires and other environmental crimes that have plagued the rainforest in recent weeks.

The Amazon plays an important role in the fight against climate change, but the rainforest’s destruction has surged this year due to the fires.

Meanwhile, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has come under fire internationally for his policies that advocate opening the Amazon to development and the weakening of Brazil’s environmental enforcement agencies.

Guatemala-A Sad Last Hurrah

GUATEMALA

A Last, Sad Hurrah

Guatemalan police on Monday arrested former first lady and three-time presidential candidate Sandra Torres on charges of violating campaign finance rules following an investigation by a UN corruption commission that is being forced out after butting heads with the country’s political class.

Torres, who came in second during last month’s presidential election, was charged with “failing to register election financing, and unlawful association.”

Many in the country hailed the arrest – suspicions of corruption have dogged Torres for more than a decade.

She has denied all charges.

Her arrest comes one day before the closing of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) whose work has rocked Guatemala’s political class for 12 years: A CICIG investigation toppled President Otto Pérez Molina in 2015 and helped expose a complex multi-billion dollar corruption network, the Financial Times reported.

Her arrest and others announced this week are considered the final acts of the commission, Reuters reported.

Last year, outgoing president Jimmy Morales refused to renew its mandate and barred its chief, Iván Velásquez, from the country.

The new president-elect Alejandro Giammattei – who has also clashed with the commission – intends to replace the CICIG with a state commission, but hasn’t provided any specifics.