CARACAS, Venezuela: President Nicolas Maduro’s government barely missed a beat Monday in announcing plans for its own huge concert to rival one being organized by a billionaire backer of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido.
Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez said the government will throw a concert Saturday and Sunday on Venezuela’s side of the border — opposite one in Colombia being spearheaded by Richard Branson, a British adventurer and founder of the Virgin Group.
Rodriguez did not announce the artists who are expected to perform, saying only that the concert would be massive.
“People from all over the world want to take part in this message of love, solidarity and denunciation against the aggression that they’re trying against the Venezuelan people,” Rodriguez said.
Branson told The Associated Press that he hopes the concert he is throwing will save lives by raising money for “much-needed medical help” for crisis-torn Venezuela, which is suffering from hyperinflation and widespread shortages of food and medicine.
He said he is aiming to raise $100 million for suffering Venezuelans and open the borders to emergency aid. Up to 300,000 people are expected to attend Friday’s concert featuring Spanish-French singer Manu Chao, Mexican band Mana, Spanish singer-songwriter Alejandro Sanz and Dominican artist Juan Luis Guerra.
Branson said that it is not funded by any government and that all the artists are performing for free. The plan is to raise donations from viewers watching the concert on a livestream over the Internet.
“Venezuela sadly has not become the utopia that the current administration of Venezuela or the past administration were hoping for, and that has resulted in a lot of people literally dying from lack of medical help,” Branson said in a telephone interview from Necker, his private island in the British Virgin Islands. “I think it will draw attention to the problem on a global basis.”
The concert is being held in Cucuta, a Colombian border city of some 700,000 people that has been swollen by hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who have fled hardships in their homeland. The city is the staging point for foreign humanitarian aid — much of it from the US government — that is being blocked from entering Venezuela by Maduro’s socialist administration.
Branson said he hopes that Venezuela’s armed forces, until now loyal to Maduro, will allow the aid to reach Venezuelans.
“We want to make it a joyous occasion,” Branson said in his first interview since he announced the concert on a brief video posted online last week. “And we’re hoping that sense prevails and that the military allows the bridge to be open so that much-needed supplies can be sent across.”
He said he opposes trying to carry the aid in by force, but clearly favors Guaido in his standoff with Maduro.
“I don’t personally feel that force should be used at all by either side,” he said.
“If they (Venezuelan troops) stop the aid coming through and there are pictures of hundreds of thousands of people wanting to come through from both sides, that will send out a potent message, a very powerful message to Venezuela, to everybody, that there is aid that is trying to get across, but the army is stopping it,” Branson said. “That hopefully will mean that Juan Guaido and his people will have a better chance to have another election where sense can prevail.”
Guaido, who heads Venezuela’s opposition-controlled congress, declared himself interim president Jan. 23 with the backing of the United States and most South American and European nations, which argue that Maduro’s re-election last May was fraudulent. Guaido has announced that humanitarian aid will enter Venezuela on Saturday, the day after Branson’s concert.
Branson said the initiative follows his involvement with Live Aid and years of work with “The Elders,” a group of elder statesmen and political leaders that he helped establish to avoid conflict and assist in humanitarian situations.
“I talked to Juan Guaido, and the team, the people around him, to see what could be most helpful,” Branson said. “And they said that the thing that Venezuela needed the most was medical help in particular, money to be raised to try to keep doctors and nurses in Venezuela, not leaving Venezuela, and just basic medical help.”
Meanwhile, Guaido said the move by Maduro’s government to put on a rival concert was “desperate.”
“They’re debating whether the aid should come in or not ... They don’t know what to do,” Guaido said Monday. “They’re now making up a concert. How many concerts are they going to stage?“
Venezuela’s information minister also said the government would distribute 20,000 boxes of subsidized food Saturday.
Maduro’s government has been providing people with deeply discounted boxes of cooking oil, flour and other items, while coming under accusations it is using food as a political tool.
Venezuela’s Maduro to throw concert rivaling Richard Branson
Venezuela’s Maduro to throw concert rivaling Richard Branson
- Maduro’s government has been providing people with deeply discounted boxes of cooking oil, flour and other items, while coming under accusations it is using food as a political tool
Pope Francis hurts his right arm after falling for the second time in just over a month
- Francis didn’t break his arm, but a sling was put on as a precaution
- On Dec. 7, the pope whacked his chin on his nightstand in an apparent fall
ROME: Pope Francis fell Thursday and hurt his right arm, the Vatican said, just weeks after another apparent fall resulted in a bad bruise on his chin.
Francis didn’t break his arm, but a sling was put on as a precaution, the Vatican spokesman said in a statement
On Dec. 7, the pope whacked his chin on his nightstand in an apparent fall that resulted in a bad bruise.
The 88-year-old pope, who has battled health problems including long bouts of bronchitis, often has to use a wheelchair because of bad knees. He uses a walker or cane when moving around his apartment in the Vatican’s Santa Marta hotel.
The Vatican said that Thursday’s fall also occurred at Santa Marta, and the pope was later seen in audiences with his right arm in a sling. At one of the meetings, Francis apologetically offered his left hand for a handshake when he greeted the head of the UN fund for agricultural development, Alvaro Lario.
“This morning, due to a fall at the Casa Santa Marta, Pope Francis suffered a contusion to his right forearm, without fracture. The arm was immobilized as a precautionary measure,” the statement said.
Speculation about Francis’ health is a constant in Vatican circles, especially after Pope Benedict XVI broke 600 years of tradition and resigned from the papacy in 2013. Benedict’s aides have attributed the decision to a nighttime fall that he suffered during a 2012 trip to Mexico, after which he determined he couldn’t keep up with the globe-trotting demands of the papacy.
Francis has said that he has no plans to resign anytime soon, even if Benedict “opened the door” to the possibility. In his autobiography “Hope” released this week, Francis said that he hadn’t considered resigning even when he had major intestinal surgery.
WHO appeals for $1.5 billion to tackle ‘unprecedented’ global health crisis
- The UN health agency estimated that health crises would leave 305 million people in need
- “WHO is seeking $1.5 billion to support our life-saving work for the emergencies,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said
GENEVA: The World Health Organization appealed Thursday for $1.5 billion for emergency operations this year, warning that conflict, climate change, epidemics and displacement had converged to create an “unprecedented global health crisis.”
The UN health agency estimated that health crises would leave 305 million people in need of urgent humanitarian assistance this year.
“WHO is seeking $1.5 billion to support our life-saving work for the emergencies we know about and to react swiftly to new crises,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said as he launched the appeal.
The agency’s emergency request, which was for the same amount as last year’s ask, outlined the critical priorities and resources needed to address 42 ongoing health emergencies.
“Conflicts, outbreaks, climate-related disasters and other health emergencies are no longer isolated or occasional — they are relentless, overlapping and intensifying,” Tedros said in a statement.
He pointed to the emergency health assistance provided in conflict zones ranging from the occupied Palestinian territories to the Democratic Republic of Congo to Sudan, as well as its work conducting vaccination campaigns, treating malnutrition and helping control outbreaks of diseases like cholera.
“Without adequate and sustainable funding, we face the impossible task of deciding who will receive care and who will not this year,” Tedros said at Thursday’s event.
“Your support helps to ensure that WHO remains a lifeline, bridging the gap between sickness and health, despair and hope, life and death for millions of people worldwide.”
Dozens of migrants may have drowned in attempt to cross to Spain, NGO says
- Moroccan authorities rescued 36 people on Wednesday from a boat that had left Mauritania
- Forty-four of those presumed to have drowned were from Pakistan, Walking Borders CEO Helena Maleno said on X
MADRID: As many as 50 migrants, many of them Pakistanis, may have drowned in the latest deadly wreck involving people trying to make the crossing from West Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands, migrant rights group Walking Borders said on Thursday.
Moroccan authorities rescued 36 people on Wednesday from a boat that had left Mauritania on Jan. 2 with 86 migrants, including 66 Pakistanis, on board, the group said.
Forty-four of those presumed to have drowned were from Pakistan, Walking Borders CEO Helena Maleno said on X.
“They spent 13 days of anguish on the crossing without anyone coming to rescue them,” she said.
The boat capsized off the coast of the disputed region of Western Sahara and several of the survivors, which included some Pakistanis, were taken to a camp near the port of Dakhla, Pakistan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a post on X.
Pakistan said the boat was carrying 80 passengers.
Asked about what warnings it had received from NGOs regarding a missing boat, Spain’s maritime rescue service said it had learned on Jan. 10 about a vessel that had left Nouakchott in Mauritania and was experiencing problems but it could not confirm if it was the same boat.
The service said it had carried out air searches without success and had warned nearby ships.
Walking Borders said it had alerted authorities from all countries involved six days ago about the missing boat. Alarm Phone, an NGO that provides an emergency phone line for migrants lost at sea, also said it had alerted Spain’s maritime rescue service on Jan. 12 about a boat in distress.
A record 10,457 migrants, or 30 people a day, died trying to reach Spain in 2024, most while attempting to cross the Atlantic route from West African countries such as Mauritania and Senegal to the Canary islands, according to Walking Borders.
Citing the Walking Borders’ post on X, the Canary Islands’ regional leader Fernando Clavijo expressed his sorrow for the victims of the latest wreck and urged Spain and Europe to act to prevent further tragedies.
“The Atlantic cannot continue to be the graveyard of Africa,” Clavijo said on X. “They cannot continue to turn their backs on this humanitarian drama.”
Albania approves luxury resort project linked to Jared Kushner’s company
- The committee said the project complied with legislation on strategic investment
- Last year, Kushner announced plans to build a tourist resort in Zvernec in southern Albania
TIRANA: Albania’s government has granted strategic investor status to a company linked to Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to build a luxury resort on an uninhabited Mediterranean island that was once a military outpost.
The Balkan country’s Strategic Investment Committee, headed by Prime Minister Edi Rama, on Dec. 30 accepted a proposal by Atlantic Incubation Partners LLC for the 45-hectare project on the small island of Sazan, involving a planned investment of 1.4 billion euros ($1.4 billion).
In the written decision, seen by Reuters on Thursday, the committee said the project complied with legislation on strategic investment and on the number of jobs required by the legislation, saying it would employ an estimated 1,000 people.
Under the law, the granting of strategic investment status allows companies to implement an investment project that is deemed strategic as part of a strategic sector of the economy such as tourism.
“The form of the state’s participation in this investment will be realized through the establishment of a joint legal entity,” the committee said, adding that it would include the state-run Albanian Investment Corporation.
Reuters could not immediately reach Atlantic Incubation Partners for comment.
Last year, Kushner announced plans to build a tourist resort in Zvernec in southern Albania as part of a wider investment by his Affinity Partners in the Balkans that also includes the project on Sazan, off the Albanian coast, and a project in a former army headquarters in the Serbian capital Belgrade.
Kushner, who served as a top aide to Trump during his father-in-law’s first term as US president, set up the investment firm in 2021. Trump is due to be inaugurated for a second term on Tuesday.
The projects could boost local economies by enticing visitors, but the company faces opposition from critics who say they will harm the environment or, in the case of Belgrade, threaten sites of cultural significance.
Pakistan ex-PM Khan’s party holds talks with government ahead of ruling in graft case
- The verdict in the graft case due on Friday is the largest that Khan faces in terms of financial impropriety
- The case is linked to the Al-Qadir Trust that Khan and his wife set up while he was in office
ISLAMABAD: The party of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday held formal reconciliatory talks with the government, aimed at cooling political instability in the 241-million South Asian nation, both sides said.
The talks come a day ahead of a crucial court ruling in a land corruption case against the 72-year-old former cricket star-turned-politician.
The verdict in the graft case due on Friday is the largest that Khan faces in terms of financial impropriety, involving possible bribes of land in return for a 190-million-British-pound favor to a real estate tycoon.
The case is linked to the Al-Qadir Trust that Khan and his wife set up while he was in office. Prosecutors say it was a front for Khan to receive land as a bribe from a real estate developer. Khan’s party says the land was not for personal gain but was a spiritual educational institution.
Khan’s removal from office in 2022 stoked the instability, which has worsened with his party leading violent protests to urge his release, and threatens an economic recovery under a $7 billion IMF bailout.
“We have presented our demands to the government,” Khan’s aide Omar Ayub, who is leading his side in the talks, told reporters. The government agreed to party leaders’ meeting with Khan in jail, which should be done without any monitoring, he said.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party’s demands mainly include setting up two judicial commissions to probe into the events which led to his arrest in August 2023, and the violent protest rallies, including one on May 9, 2023, when his supporters rampaged through military offices and installations.
Speaker of the parliament Ayaz Sadiq who is facilitating both the parties said he had received the PTI’s list of demands.
“We will respond to the demands within seven working days,” said Iran Siddique, lead negotiator from the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
