BRASILIA: Venezuela’s foreign minister hit out this week against both Peru and Brazil, calling Peru’s president a “servile dog of US imperialism,” and slamming Brazilian politicians for all being allegedly corrupt.
On March 6, Delcy Rodriguez told a seminar in Caracas that Peru’s President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski “goes round, poor thing, with my respect because he is an elderly man, (like) a good dog who wags its tail at the empire and asks for an intervention in Venezuela. He’s alone, going round like a crazy man, with no one paying attention.”
Kuczynski, who is 78 years old, was elected president last year after spending years in New York as a Wall Street banker. He became a naturalized US citizen during his time there, and renounced his American citizenship before being elected president of Peru. He is also a vocal critic of Venezuela and the Chavismo policies practiced by the current government of President Nicolas Maduro, which are a continuation of the leftist policies started by the late-President Hugo Chavez.
Rodriguez was reacting to a speech that Kuczynski gave recently on an official visit to the US in which he said Latin America was in general like a well-behaved dog sitting on the carpet except for Venezuela, which “was a big problem.” He was the first Latin American leader to meet with US President Donald Trump in the White House on Feb. 24.
Rodriguez next hit out at Brazil on the same day, saying that the country had become a global shame ever since Michel Temer took over the presidency last year. “Today we must say, lamentably, that Brazil is a global shame. Ever since they undertook a coup d’état against Dilma Rousseff, every day their politicians are involved in scandals,” reported the Veja newsweekly. She also said that Brazilian politicians were corrupt, “but they do not care as the imperialist Right wing extends the red carpet for them.”
On March 7, the new Brazilian minister of foreign affairs, Aloysio Nunes, hit back at Rodriguez at his swearing-in ceremony, saying that she was not important. “She doesn’t have much importance. In this country of hers, the most important people are the jail guards, and not the minister of foreign affairs,” Nunes said.
Rodriguez responded on social media by saying that Nunes had started out on the wrong foot with Venezuela, and sarcastically noted that she would send him the ABC of Diplomacy. She also said that Nunes should mirror his predecessor who left because of corruption accusations against him. She was referring to Jose Serra, a close ally of Nunes and a member of the same political party, who recently resigned and returned to the Senate claiming he was doing so for health reasons. Serra’s name has been mentioned in the Car Wash corruption investigation as allegedly having accepted millions of reais in illegal campaign donations when he ran for the presidency of Brazil in 2010. Serra denies it.
Nunes, who until this week was a leading senator of the right-leaning PSDB political party, has long been a tough critic of Venezuela’s jailing of opposition politicians. Last year in June he led a delegation of Brazilian senators on a surprise visit to Caracas to try and visit jailed Venezuelan opposition leaders. The Maduro government strongly objected to their visit as interference in its internal affairs and ordered police and military troops to block their exit from the airport. In the end, the Brazilian senators returned defeated to Brazil without having been able to visit the prisoners.
Venezuela’s lashing out at its neighbors has not surprised observers. “Given that Venezuela’s government behaves diplomatically as if it had little to lose, it is likely that the Venezuelan foreign minister decided to play chicken with Brazil,” said Guilherme Casarões, professor of international relations at ESPM and FGV in São Paulo, in an interview with Arab News. “They probably expect Brazil’s newly-appointed foreign minister, Aloysio Nunes, to lose his temper and try to hit back at Venezuela, forcing the countries into a diplomatic crises that may well serve the Maduro regime.”
Venezuela, which has the world’s largest known reserves of oil and earns 90 percent of its income from oil exports, has been struggling with an economy that has suffered much since the international price of oil plunged a few years ago. The change of governments in Argentina, Peru and Brazil, which were until recently headed by left-wing populists, has also left Venezuela feeling more isolated in the region. But Casarões believes that Maduro’s government faces bigger challenges than just being isolated.
“Maduro’s greatest challenge is the dire economic situation in Venezuela, not diplomatic isolation,” said Casarões. “He surely benefitted from the incumbent left-wing governments in the neighborhood, for they fostered Venezuela’s integration into the Mercosur, but the rollback of leftist presidents only helps expose the country’s reality even further. Moreover, even before Rousseff’s impeachment, the Brazilian government was already adopting a firm position against human rights violations in Venezuela, not to mention that bilateral trade flows have been in steep decline since at least 2012.”
Negotiations between the opposition and the Maduro regime have come to a standstill after even the Vatican was unable to achieve to breakthrough. Being the largest and richest country of the continent means that Brazil should have been the natural choice to help iron out a political deal in Venezuela, but that is no longer the case since Temer became president. Maduro was a close ally of the leftist Worker’s Party of Rousseff, but now that she is out of power, there has been no love lost between the Brazilian and Venezuelan governments.
“Brazil cannot play the role of honest broker while President Temer remains in office,” explained Casarões. “It would demoralize Venezuela’s charges of a coup d’état in Brazil, and it would hurt the interests of many supporters of the current Brazilian administration, who have voiced a strong anti-Venezuelan sentiment on ideological grounds. This is unfortunate because Brazil –alone or through regional organizations such as Mercosur and Unasur –has played a crucial role as the center of gravity of South America for the last three decades. And I don’t think that extra-continental actors have enough interest or legitimacy to mediate a smooth transition, or a national pact, in Venezuela.”
Venezuela isolated in war of words with neighbors
Venezuela isolated in war of words with neighbors
Trump defense nominee’s thin CV, tattoos under scrutiny
- Hegseth boasts degrees from elite US universities, including an undergraduate from Princeton and a master’s from Harvard
WASHINGTON: Facing questions about an alleged sexual assault and medieval-themed tattoos linked to extremist groups, Donald Trump’s defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth would struggle to be confirmed for the job under normal circumstances.
But these are not normal times in Washington.
Hegseth, a Fox News host, was picked by Trump on Tuesday in one of several nominations that wrong-footed even some in his remodeled Republican Party and threw down a challenge to the Senate.
To take up the position as head of the Pentagon to oversee 3.4 million employees, Hegseth will require confirmation from the upper house — and Trump is publicly pressuring lawmakers to show loyalty to his agenda.
Revelations in recent days about the 44-year-old have made his path to power more difficult, including that the thrice-married former soldier was investigated for sexual assault in California in 2017.
No charges were filed over an encounter in a Monterey hotel that saw an unnamed accuser lodge a police report, but the claim has led to questions about the vetting process for the former soldier.
“He was cleared,” his lawyer Timothy Parlatore told NBC News on Friday. “There’s not much more that I can say. It didn’t happen.”
His tattoos have also raised questions, leading to him being stood down by his Army National Guard unit when it was called up for the inauguration of President Joe Biden in 2020.
Speaking on a podcast with fellow veteran Shawn Ryan earlier this month, he revealed that one of his fellow soldiers had flagged him as a possible white nationalist because of his body art.
He claimed it was because of the medieval Jerusalem Cross on his chest, but he also has the words “Deus Vult” on his bicep — a phrase meaning “God wills it” that was used by anti-Muslim crusaders in the Middle Ages.
European medieval imagery and slogans have been widely adopted by white supremacists and neo-Nazis in recent years, but Hegseth says his tattoos simply reflect his faith.
“It’s a Christian symbol,” the author of a 2020 book entitled “American Crusade” said of the Jerusalem Cross.
His handling of medieval weaponry has gone viral in recent days after a video re-emerged of him taking part in a televised axe-throwing contest which saw him miss the target and strike a bystander, who narrowly escaped serious injury.
His CV includes combat experience in Afghanistan and Iraq and he rose to the rank of major in the National Guard — a lowly status compared to the generals and admirals he would oversee at the Pentagon.
Hegseth boasts degrees from elite US universities, including an undergraduate from Princeton and a master’s from Harvard.
Square-jawed and outspoken, he came to Trump’s attention on the “Fox & Friends Weekend” show that he co-hosts.
“You know the military better than anyone,” Trump told him during an appearance in early June, adding that he often thought about putting him in charge of the Pentagon.
A former Republican operative who vetted Hegseth when Trump was considering him for the more junior veterans affairs secretary in 2016 wrote this week that he remained unqualified and an “empty vessel.”
Lacking major experience in foreign affairs or congressional politics, his only civilian management credential included being CEO of a small non-profit, Justin Higgins, who has since switched to the Democrats, wrote for MSNBC.
“It’s not hard to imagine that he would do and say whatever Trump wants,” he added.
Hegseth’s main policy focus in his books and media appearances is tackling what he calls “woke shit” in the armed forces — and he has expressed support for purging the top brass.
He told Ryan on his podcast that his experiences taught him that “the bigotry we saw on the outside (of the army) should not be tolerated inside the military” but that progressive efforts to tackle racism and sexism had gone too far.
“The army that I enlisted in, that I swore an oath to in 2001 and was commissioned in in 2003 looks a lot different than the army of today because we’re focused on a lot of the wrong things,” he said.
India’s Modi launches diplomatic tour in Nigeria
- Aside from power politics, Modi’s visit will also seek to enhance economic cooperation, with a number of technical agreements to be signed
ABUJA: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Nigeria on Saturday as the giants of Asia and of Africa press for a greater role in world affairs.
Nigeria’s capital Abuja was the first stop in a tour that will take the Indian premier on to the G20 summit in Brazil, and to Guyana.
The visit was billed by New Delhi as a meeting of the largest democracy in the world and the largest in Africa, or “natural partners.”
“May this visit deepen the bilateral relationship between our nations,” Modi posted on social media on arrival.
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu posted that the visit would expand “the strategic partnership between both countries.”
Modi will talk with Tinubu at his official residence in Abuja on Sunday.
Photos posted on Modi’s account showed him welcomed by Nigerian officials and a cheering crowd from the country’s 60,000-strong Indian community.
The visit comes amid a revived push by both India and Nigeria for permanent representation on the United Nations Security Council.
The five permanent members of the top UN body — the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain — hold a powerful veto.
In recent years, supporters of a more “multipolar” world have pushed for more African, Asian and Latin American countries to be added to the group.
Nigeria’s 220-million-strong population is comfortably the largest in Africa, but in diplomatic strength it is rivalled by South Africa.
If UN members bow to the pressure to give increased representation to an African country, Abuja and Pretoria could end up competing for the place.
India is the world’s most populous nation, its 1.4 billion people representing a sixth of humanity, and a nuclear-armed power.
It has long sought a permanent UN Security Council seat.
India is also a member of the nine-strong BRICs group with Brazil, Russia, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates.
Nigeria is a BRICs “partner country” but has not been given full membership, with some observers accusing South Africa of holding them up.
Aside from power politics, Modi’s visit will also seek to enhance economic cooperation, with a number of technical agreements to be signed.
Africa has become a theater of competition between the United States, former colonial powers in Europe, Russia, Turkiye and especially China.
India too has made inroads, and ahead of the trip Modi’s office boasted that more than 200 Indian companies had invested $27 billion in Nigerian manufacturing, becoming major employers.
Nigeria is also a destination for Indian development funds, with $100 million in loans and training programs for local workers.
US health officials report 1st case of new form of mpox in a traveler
- Mpox is a rare disease caused by infection with a virus that’s in the same family as the one that causes smallpox
NEW YORK: Health officials said Saturday they have confirmed the first US case of a new form of mpox that was first seen in eastern Congo.
The person had traveled to eastern Africa and was treated in Northern California upon return, according to the California Department of Public Health. Symptoms are improving and the risk to the public is low.
The individual was isolating at home and health workers are reaching out to close contacts as a precaution, the state health department said.
Mpox is a rare disease caused by infection with a virus that’s in the same family as the one that causes smallpox. It is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals. Milder symptoms can include fever, chills and body aches. In more serious cases, people can develop lesions on the face, hands, chest and genitals.
Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of mpox in Africa that was spread through close contact including through sex. It was widely transmitted in eastern and central Africa. But in cases that were identified in travelers outside of the continent, spread has been very limited, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More than 3,100 confirmed cases have been reported just since late September, according to the World Health Organization. The vast majority of them have been in three African countries — Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Since then, cases of travelers with the new mpox form have been reported in Germany, India, Kenya, Sweden, Thailand, Zimbabwe, and the United Kingdom.
Health officials earlier this month said the situation in Congo appears to be stabilizing. The Africa CDC has estimated Congo needs at least 3 million mpox vaccines to stop the spread, and another 7 million vaccines for the rest of Africa. The spread is mostly through sexual transmission as well as through close contact among children, pregnant women and other vulnerable groups.
The current outbreak is different from the 2022 global outbreak of mpox where gay and bisexual men made up the vast majority of cases.
Migration agreement violates medical ethics, aid groups say
- Asylum-seekers should be considered at risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, humanitarian organizations say
ROME: More than a dozen humanitarian organizations that provide healthcare to migrants criticized Italy’s migration deal with Albania as violating the code of medical ethics and urged health workers not to cooperate with it.
The deal, the centerpiece of Premier Giorgia Meloni’s crackdown on human trafficking, calls for some male migrants rescued at sea to have their asylum cases processed while they are detained at two holding centers in Albania, a non-EU nation.
Italy, which has long demanded Europe shoulder more of the continent’s migration problem, has held up the deal with Albania as a model for the continent and a strong deterrent to would-be refugees setting out on smugglers’ boats from North Africa for a better life.
However, the five-year deal, budgeted to cost Italy €670 million ($730 million), has run into a series of obstacles and legal challenges that have prevented even a single migrant from being processed in Albania.
FASTFACT
The five-year deal, budgeted to cost Italy $730 million, has run into a series of obstacles and legal challenges that have prevented even a single migrant from being processed in Albania.
First, construction delays prevented the opening of the centers for several months. Then, after the first two batches of 20 men were brought to Albania this month, Italian courts issued rulings that resulted in them being taken to Italy anyway.
The matter is before the EU’s Court of Justice in Luxembourg, which has been asked to rule on whether the men come from countries deemed safe for return. All 20 hail from Bangladesh and Egypt.
On Friday, the nongovernmental organizations released a detailed analysis of the procedures to screen migrants first on Italian naval ships and then in the Albanian centers to determine if they are “vulnerable.” Only men deemed to be not “vulnerable” are to be sent to Albania.
The aid groups said there were no proper facilities or instruments to make such a determination. And regardless, practically everyone who has set off on the dangerous Mediterranean crossing has endured the physical, psychological, or sexual abuse that should disqualify them from Albanian detention, they said.
The migrants should be considered at risk of post-traumatic stress disorder or other severe physical and mental health consequences, they said.
“The Italy-Albania Protocol violates the code of medical ethics and human rights and puts the physical and psychological health of migrants at risk,” the statement said.
The groups criticized the international organizations cooperating with the project, identifying the International Organization of Migration and the Knights of Malta’s Italian rescue corps as being “complicit” in human rights violations.
The Knights of Malta strongly rejected the claim, denying their doctors and nurses were in any way taking part in the “selection” of migrants or where they disembark, and said none had participated in the transfer of migrants to Albania.
In a statement, the Knights said their medical teams had worked on Italian naval vessels rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean since 2008, providing necessary first aid.
They said that work continues today unchanged.
The Knights “are proud of what has been accomplished in more than 15 years with the coast guard saving human lives at sea and has no intention of stopping this activity which often is the difference between life and death,” the group said.
There was no immediate reply to an email sent to the IOM seeking comment.
The Italian government has said the rights of the migrants would be fully guaranteed in the Albanian centers.
The deal has been blessed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as an example of “out-of-box thinking” to tackle the migration issue.
However, human rights groups say it sets a dangerous precedent and violates Italy’s obligations under international law.
The UN refugee agency has agreed to supervise the first three months of the agreement, and one of its teams is conducting an “independent mission” on board the transfer ship to monitor the screening process.
The legal challenges have come despite the small number of people impacted.
Even though the centers were built to house as many as 3,000 migrants a month, just 20 were transferred in the first two separate ship passages, only to be sent to Italy after the Rome courts intervened.
The statement was signed by Doctors Without Borders, Emergency, Sea-Watch, SOS Mediterranee, and other aid groups.
Gabon votes on new constitution hailed by junta as ‘turning point’
- The junta on Saturday extended a night curfew by two hours, bringing it forward to midnight “during the whole electoral process,” according to a decree read on state television
LIBREVILLE: Gabon extended a night curfew as it held a referendum on a new constitution the ruling junta says will mark a new chapter after 55 years of dynastic rule in the African nation.
The estimated 860,000 registered voters have faced an onslaught of calls by authorities on TV, radio, and social media to make their ballot count — whether they choose a green one, meaning “yes,” or a red one for “no.”
With the campaign dominated by official propaganda by the junta that took power in August last year in a coup, local media say voter turnout will be a crucial factor.
Voting began late at several polling stations in the capital, Libreville, with papers still being handed out when the polls opened at 7 a.m. (0600 GMT).
The 2,835 polling stations nationwide are due to remain open until 6 p.m.
The junta on Saturday extended a night curfew by two hours, bringing it forward to midnight “during the whole electoral process,” according to a decree read on state television.
It did not specify when the extended curfew ending at 5 a.m. would remain.
The proposed constitution sets out a vision of a presidency with a maximum of two seven-year terms, no prime minister, and no dynastic transfer of power.
It would also require presidential candidates to be exclusively Gabonese — with at least one Gabon-born parent — and have a Gabonese spouse.
This would eliminate toppled ruler Ali Bongo Ondimba, married to a Frenchwoman, and his children.
His replacement, transitional President Brice Oligui Nguema, declared the referendum a “great step forward” as he cast his vote at a Libreville school.
“All Gabonese are coming to vote in a transparent fashion,” the junta chief told the press, having ditched his general’s uniform for a brown civilian jacket over light-wash jeans.
Oligui has vowed to hand power back to civilians after a two-year transition but has made no secret of his desire to win the presidential election scheduled for August 2025.
Billboards adorned with an image of the general and urging a “yes” vote are everywhere, the Union newspaper commented on Friday, prompting it to ask: “Referendum or presidential campaign?“
Queues of dozens of voters formed in front of the classrooms housing the polling stations at the Lycee Leon M’Ba in Libreville, under the watchful eye of the soldiers charged with ensuring the ballot’s security.
Nathalie Badzoko, a 33-year-old civil servant, said she voted “yes” and had faith in the junta but admitted she had “not read the whole text” and its 173 articles.
Louembe Tchizinga, a 45-year-old taxi driver casting his ballot, echoed her.
Opponents of the proposed text dismiss it as tailor-made for the strongman to remain in power.
“We are creating a dictator who designs the constitution for himself,” lawyer Marlene Fabienne Essola Efountame said.
Bongo ruled for 14 years until he was overthrown moments after being proclaimed the winner in a presidential election, which the army and opposition declared fraudulent.
He took office on the death of his father, Omar, who had ruled with an iron fist for more than 41 years.
The opposition and the military coup leaders accused Ali Bongo’s regime of widespread corruption, bad governance, and embezzlement.
The Interior Ministry says it has done all it can to ensure Saturday’s referendum is transparent, including by inviting international observers — who were not present in the August 2023 presidential election.
“We trust them, and this is a test,” said Mathurin Bengone, a 45-year-old civil servant at the Ministry of Health.
“If our vote isn’t respected, we won’t vote again.”
The ministry said provisional results will be released as soon as possible, with the final ones announced by the constitutional court.
Polls on the outcome have not been released.
However, nearly 87 percent of those asked said they think the country is “heading in the right direction,” according to an Afrobarometer survey among 1,200 respondents published mid-October.
The survey also suggested that unemployment topped the list of concerns, followed by health, roads, insecurity, and a rising cost of living.
More than 46 percent have “great confidence” in Oligui, who would be the favorite if a presidential election were to take place now.
