Category: America

Fresh turmoil hit Haiti’s government on Wednesday as Prime Minister Ariel Henry replaced his justice minister and a senior official stepped down, saying he could not serve a premier under suspicion in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise.Amid a brewing political crisis, Henry replaced Justice Minister Rockfeller Vincent with Interior Minister Liszt Quitel, who will take charge of both portfolios, according to a statement in Haiti’s official gazette.The resignation of Renald Luberice, who served more than four years as secretary general of Haiti’s Council of Ministers, came after new evidence emerged linking Henry to the former justice ministry official who investigators say is one of the main suspects behind Moise’s killing.Prosecutors say phone records show the two spoke twice around 4 a.m. on July 7, just hours after Moise, 53, was shot dead when heavily armed assassins stormed his private residence.Henry has denied any involvement in the murder but he has not directly addressed the phone calls and on Tuesday he replaced Haiti’s chief prosecutor who had been seeking to charge him as a suspect and ban him from leaving the country.The premier last week dismissed attempts to interview him over Moise’s killing as politicking designed to distract him from the work at hand in the poorest country in the Americas where power struggles have for decades hampered development.In a letter shared on social media Wednesday, Luberice said he cannot serve someone who “does not intend to cooperate with justice, seeking, on the contrary, by all means, to obstruct it.”Henry on Wednesday replaced Luberice with Josue Pierre-Louis, a veteran technocrat who has since 2017 held the rank of government minister in his role as the General Coordinator of the Office of Management and Human Resources (OMRH), according to the gazette statement.Killing and crisisMore than 40 people, including 18 Colombians, have been detained so far as part of the investigation into Moise’s killing. The investigation has made little apparent progress to solve the mystery and has been riddled with irregularities.Several judicial officials went into hiding after saying they received death threats while the original judge assigned to the case recused himself.Moise named Henry, a neurosurgeon and political moderate, to the position of prime minister just days before he was assassinated in a bid to placate the political tensions that plagued his mandate and led to a major constitutional and political crisis.The country has just a handful of elected officials after failing two years ago to hold legislative or municipal elections amid a political gridlock. Moise had ruled by decree. But there is no constitutional framework for a government in a situation like the current one.As such, Henry needs a broad consensus in order to govern. On the weekend he announced an agreement between Haiti’s main political forces on a transition government aiming to lead next year to elections and a new constitutional referendum.But any sign of weakness could lead to a fresh power struggle.Senate President Joseph Lambert, who tried to claim the presidency in the days following Moise’s killing as the most senior elected official remaining, made a fresh swipe at the post on Tuesday evening.He called local media to cover his swearing in at parliament but a gunfight interrupted proceedings. The Senate in a statement blamed the shootings on gangs that were “hired by dark forces in order to thwart the work of the Senators.”Lambert has called for a news conference on Wednesday evening.His likely claim to power will be “another quagmire to this extra-constitutional scenario we find ourselves in,” said a Western diplomat based in Port-au-Prince. 
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Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry has fired and replaced the chief public prosecutor who was seeking charges against him as a suspect in the July assassination of President Jovenel Moise.Prosecutor Ben-Ford Claude had sent a letter to a judge Tuesday, alleging that phone records showed the prime minister spoke twice with Joseph Felix Badio, an official wanted by police in connection with Moise’s assassination, on the morning of July 7, hours after the president was gunned down at his home.Claude said he asked Prime Minister Henry to discuss the evidence. Claude also asked Haiti’s immigration authority to issue an order banning Henry from leaving the country.In a letter released Tuesday but dated the day before, the prime minister’s office  said the prosecutor was being dismissed for an undisclosed “administrative error.”  The office posted a tweet late Tuesday announcing that Frantz Louis Juste has been named to replace Claude as chief prosecutor.More than 40 suspects have been arrested in the investigation into Moise’s killing, including 18 former Colombian soldiers and two Americans of Haitian descent. Badio remains at large.Henry, a political moderate and neurosurgeon, was named prime minister by Moise days before his death in an effort to ease friction between rivals and create a new consensus.Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. 
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Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry on Tuesday replaced the chief public prosecutor who had been seeking charges against him as a suspect in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, plunging the country into a fresh political crisis.Moise was shot dead on July 7 when assassins stormed his private residence in the hills above Port-au-Prince. The 53-year-old had been governing by decree for more than a year after Haiti failed to hold legislative and municipal elections amid a political gridlock and had faced many calls to step down.His death has left Haiti in an even deeper constitutional and political crisis as it has only a handful of elected officials nationwide.Henry, a political moderate and neurosurgeon whom Moise named prime minister just days before his death in an attempt to reduce political tensions, has sought to forge a new consensus between different political factions.But allegations over his possible involvement in Moise’s killing are now overshadowing that.Prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude said last week that phone records showed Henry had twice communicated with a man believed to be the mastermind behind Moise’s killing on the night of the crime. FILE – A picture of the late Haitian President Jovenel Moise hangs on a wall before a news conference by interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, July 13, 2021.That suspect, a former justice ministry official whom Henry has publicly defended, is now on the run.Henry dismissed his request to discuss the matter as politicking and did not respond to the allegations.That prompted Claude to write on Tuesday to the judge overseeing the investigation into Moise’s slaying and ask him to charge Henry as a suspect.He also wrote to Haitian migration services ordering them not to let the prime minister leave the country “due to serious presumption relative to the assassination of the president.”Later on Tuesday, a letter from Henry to Claude dated September 13 emerged in which he said he was firing him for “grave administrative error,” without going into detail. In a separate letter dated September 14, he named Frantz Louis Juste to the post.It remains unclear whether the order actually is valid, as Haiti’s 1987 constitution mandates that the prosecutor can only be appointed or fired by the president, a position that remains vacant.Decades of political instability as well as natural catastrophes have plagued Haiti’s development. Its aid-dependent economy is the poorest in the Americas, more than a third of Haitians face acute food insecurity, and gangs have turned swathes of the capital into no-go areas.Claude had invited Henry on Friday to meet with him to discuss the phone calls with the suspect, noting that he could only summon the premier on presidential orders, but the country was without a president.Haiti’s Office of Citizen Protection demanded on Saturday that Henry step down and hand himself over to the justice system.Henry retorted on Twitter that “no distraction, invitation, summons, maneuver, menace or rearguard action” would distract him from his work.The prime minister announced on Saturday that Haiti’s main political forces had reached an agreement to establish a transition government until the holding of presidential elections and a referendum on whether to adopt a new constitution next year.The agreement establishes a Council of Ministers under Henry’s leadership.A constituent assembly made of 33 members appointed by institutions and civil society organizations will have three months to prepare the new constitution.Moise’s attempts at holding elections and a constitutional referendum were attacked for being too partisan. Critics called them veiled attempts at installing a dictatorship.His supporters said he was being punished for going after a corrupt ruling elite and seeking to end undue privileges. 
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Haiti’s chief prosecutor on Tuesday asked a judge to charge Prime Minister Ariel Henry in the slaying of the president and asked officials to bar him from leaving the country. The order filed by Port-au-Prince prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude came on the same day that he had requested Henry meet with him and explain why a key suspect in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise called him twice just hours after the killing. “There are enough compromising elements … to prosecute Henry and ask for his outright indictment,” Claude wrote in the order. A spokesman for Henry could not immediately be reached for comment. Claude said the calls were made at 4:03 and 4:20 a.m. on July 7, adding that evidence shows the suspect, Joseph Badio, was in the vicinity of Moise’s home at that time. Badio once worked for Haiti’s Ministry of Justice and at the government’s anticorruption unit until he was fired in May amid accusations of violating unspecified ethical rules. FILE – A picture of the late Haitian President Jovenel Moise hangs on a wall before a news conference by interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, July 13, 2021.In the two-page document, Claude said the calls lasted a total of seven minutes and that Henry was at the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince at that time. He also noted that a government official tweeted last month that Henry told him he never spoke with Badio. On Monday, Justice Minister Rockfeller Vincent ordered the chief of Haiti’s National Police to boost security for Claude because the prosecutor had received “important and disturbing” threats in the past five days. Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia, said there is clearly a fight within the government between Henry and those who supported Moise. “We have a very confusing situation, a power struggle at the moment, and we will see who will win it,” he said. “It’s not clear where we are going, and it’s not clear what the international community thinks about everything.” Henry has not specifically addressed the issue in public, although during a meeting with politicians and civil society leaders on Saturday, he said he is committed to helping stabilize Haiti. “Rest assured that no distraction, no summons or invitation, no maneuver, no threat, no rearguard combat, no aggression will distract me from my mission,” Henry said. “The real culprits, the intellectual authors and coauthor and sponsor of the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse will be found and brought to justice and punished for their crimes.” More than 40 suspects have been arrested in the case, including 18 former Colombian soldiers. Authorities are still looking for additional suspects, including Badio and a former Haitian senator. The investigation is ongoing despite court clerks having gone into hiding after saying they had been threatened with death if they didn’t change certain names and statements in their reports. In addition, a Haitian judge assigned to oversee the investigation stepped down last month citing personal reasons. He left after one of his assistants died in unclear circumstances. A new judge has been assigned. 
 
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A report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council blasts the Nicaraguan government’s harsh crackdown on opposition leaders in advance of November 7 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.Critics accuse Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega of systematically ridding himself of viable opposition candidates to secure a fourth consecutive term as President of the country.In her latest update to the Council, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michele Bachelet said increasing restrictions by Nicaraguan authorities on peoples’ right to vote are undermining free and fair elections. She said Nicaraguans should be able to exercise their right to vote without intimidation, violence, or administrative interference.Her report documents the arbitrary detention of 16 people between June 22 and September 6. They include political leaders, human rights defenders, businesspeople, journalists, as well as peasant and student leaders.She said these arrests are in addition to 20 other government opponents who have been detained since May 28. She spoke through an interpreter.“This group includes six men and one woman who have publicly stated that they were aspiring to the presidency…The large majority of these people remain deprived of their liberty and have been so for up to 90 days, being held incommunicado, some in isolation without any official confirmation as to their whereabouts from the authorities to their families,” she said.The Public Prosecutor’s Office says most of the people detained are accused of conspiracy to undermine national integrity and other crimes linked to the implementation of cooperation funds.U.N. rights chief Bachelet said attacks on freedom of expression and against the media and journalists have intensified. She said similar patterns of repression are being registered against human rights defenders, social and political leaders, among others. “Given this deteriorating situation in Nicaragua, it is essential that the government once again guarantee the full enjoyment of civil and political rights of all Nicaraguans, that they put an end to persecution of the opposition, press, and civil society, and that they immediately and unconditionally release the over 130 persons detained since April 2018, according to civil society sources,” said Bachelet.The Nicaraguan government has consistently brushed off U.N. and international criticism, claiming it is based on disinformation from North American and European countries seeking to maintain their colonial grip on the country. 
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Chilean scientists have announced the discovery of the first-ever southern hemisphere remains of a type of Jurassic-era “winged lizard” known as a pterosaur.Fossils of the dinosaur which lived some 160 million years ago in what is today the Atacama desert, were unearthed in 2009.They have now been confirmed to be of a rhamphorhynchine pterosaur — the first such creature to be found in Gondwana, the prehistoric supercontinent that later formed the southern hemisphere landmasses.Researcher Jhonatan Alarcon of the University of Chile said the creatures had a wingspan of up to 2 meters, a long tail, and pointed snout.”We show that the distribution of animals in this group was wider than known to date,” he added.The discovery was also “the oldest known pterosaur found in Chile,” the scientists reported in the scientific journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.      
 
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Abimael Guzmán, the leader of the brutal Shining Path insurgency in Peru who was captured in 1992, died on Saturday in a military hospital after an illness, the Peruvian government said.  Guzmán, 86, died after suffering from an infection, Justice Minister Aníbal Torres said.  Guzmán, a former philosophy professor, launched an insurgency against the state in 1980 and presided over numerous car bombings and assassinations in the years that followed. After his capture, he was sentenced in life in prison for terrorism and other crimes.  President Pedro Castillo tweeted that Guzmán was responsible for taking countless lives.  “Our position condemning terrorism is firm and unwavering. Only in democracy will we build a Peru of justice and development for our people,” Castillo said.  Guzmán preached a messianic vision of a classless Maoist utopia based on pure communism, considering himself the “Fourth Sword of Marxism” after Karl Marx, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Mao Zedong. He advocated a peasant revolution in which rebels would first gain control of the countryside and then advance to the cities. Guzmán’s movement declared armed struggle on the eve of Peru’s presidential elections in May 1980, the first democratic vote after 12 years of military rule. Prison built for himThroughout the 1980s, the man known to his followers as Presidente Gonzalo built up an organization that grew to 10,000 armed fighters before his capture inside a Lima safehouse by a special intelligence group of the Peruvian police backed by the United States. Since then, he was housed in a military prison on the shores of the Pacific that was built to hold him. By the time Guzmán called for peace talks a year after his arrest, guerrilla violence had claimed tens of thousands of lives in Peru, displaced at least 600,000 people and caused an estimated $22 billion in damage. A truth commission in 2003 blamed the Shining Path for more than half of nearly 70,000 estimated deaths and disappearances caused by various rebel groups and brutal government counterinsurgency efforts between 1980 and 2000. Yet it lived on in a political movement formed by Guzmán’s followers that sought amnesty for all “political prisoners,” including the Shining Path founder. The Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Right failed, however, to register as a political party in 2012 in the face of fierce opposition from Peruvians with bitter memories of the destruction brought by the Shining Path. In its songs and slogans, the Shining Path celebrated bloodletting, describing death as necessary to “irrigate” the revolution. Its militants bombed electrical towers, bridges and factories in the countryside, assassinated mayors and massacred villagers. In the insurgency’s later years, they targeted civilians in Lima with indiscriminate bombings. The Shining Path was severely weakened after Guzmán’s capture and his later calls for peace talks. Small bands of rebels have nevertheless remained active in remote valleys, producing cocaine and protecting drug runners. 
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A section of mountain on the outskirts of Mexico City gave way Friday, plunging rocks the size of small homes onto a densely populated neighborhood and leaving at least one person dead and 10 others missing.Firefighters scaled a three-story pile of rocks that appeared to be resting on houses in Tlalnepantla, which is part of Mexico state. The state surrounds the capital on three sides.As rescuers climbed the immense pile of debris, they occasionally raised their fists in the air, the familiar signal for silence to listen for people trapped below. Firefighters and volunteers formed bucket brigades to pass 19-liter containers of smaller debris away as they excavated.“In this moment our priority is focused on rescuing the people who unfortunately were surprised at the site of the incident,” said Tlalnepantla Mayor Raciel Pérez Cruz in a video message.Authorities had evacuated surrounding homes and asked people to avoid the area so rescuers could work.Rescuers carried a body on a stretcher covered with a sheet past AP journalists. The Mexico state Civil Defense agency said in a statement that at least 10 people were reported missing.Among the volunteers were 30-year-old construction worker Martin Carmona, 30, and his 14-year-old son. “They organized us in a chain to take out buckets of sand, stone and rubble,” Carmona said. “A coworker lives there. He has a wife and two young children under the debris.”Carmona and his son arrived to the pile before government rescuers and his friend was already there digging for his wife and kids.Neighbors began to complain that they need more help and organization.Carmona said rescuers heard children, but after two hours of removing debris, authorities told volunteers to leave the area. Only relatives stayed to help the rescuers.A boulder that plunged from a mountainside rests among homes in Tlalnepantla, on the outskirts of Mexico City, when a mountain gave way on Sept. 10, 2021.Search dogs clambered over the rubble with their handlers.Ana Luisa Borges, 39, said she lives just three houses down from those hit by the landslide.“It thundered horribly,” she said of the sound of the slide. “I grabbed my youngest son and ran out (of the house). Then came a very big cloud of dust.” Fortunately, her other four children were in school.“There are a number of houses there,” she said of the slide area. “There was a building, but they tell us there are people there and children. I saw one person come out with head injury.”Borges said they have been warned that another rock could come down and that she didn’t know where they were going to sleep tonight.“They’ve only told us that we have to leave (our homes),” she said.Tlalnepantla officials announced they were opening several shelters for displaced residents.The neighborhood is a heap of jumbled houses climbing the mountainside, many with corrugated tin roofs, separated in places by just a steep staircase.One massive boulder stopped against a two-story house barely its equal, knocking out the front wall and spilling the home’s contents into the street. A path of destruction traced uphill.Boulders that plunged from a mountainside rests among homes in Tlalnepantla, on the outskirts of Mexico City, when a mountain gave way on Sept. 10, 2021.Maximinio Andrade, who lives with his parents and siblings — 14 family members in all — near the slide walked down the steep street pushing a flat-screen television on a hand cart. He had not been home at the time of the landslide but feared thieves would enter now that the surrounding homes had been evacuated.“They’ve already started stealing from the destroyed homes,” he said.National Guard troops and rescue teams carrying lengths of rope made their way through narrow streets.Images from the area showed a segment of the steep, green side of the peak known as Chiquihuite sheared off above a field of giant rubble with closely packed homes remaining on either side.Mexico state Gov. Alfredo del Mazo said via Twitter that local, state and federal authorities were coordinating to secure the zone in case of more slides and to remove rubble to locate possible victims.The landslide follows days of heavy rain in central Mexico and a 7.0-magnitude earthquake Tuesday night near Acapulco that shook buildings 320 kilometers away in Mexico City.While visiting the scene later Friday, Del Mazo said authorities believe four homes were destroyed in the landslide and another 80 were evacuated as a precaution.“It’s likely the earthquake and the intense rain we have had in recent days have affected (the area) and for this came the landslide and the breakup of the mountain,” he said. 
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A protest by Brazilian truckers loyal to President Jair Bolsonaro largely fizzled out Friday, to the relief of industries that feared supply shortages.Brazil’s infrastructure minister said in a statement early Friday that there were protests along highways in three states, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Rondonia, but no roads were blocked. That compared with 16 states that had registered highway protests earlier in the week.The nation’s federal highway police said the protests “no longer present threats of partial or total blockades and are heading toward total demobilization.”Stirred up by Bolsonaro’s call to action against the Supreme Court at political rallies on Tuesday, the truck blockades gained steam on Wednesday. Earlier this week, the right-wing leader had accused the Supreme Court of preventing him from governing and called on Justice Alexandre de Moraes to step down.On Thursday, he sought to defuse the dispute and said he had told truckers to stand down, warning that if the protests continued past Sunday, it would bring about serious supply shortages.With scant rail infrastructure in Latin America’s largest country, the economy is heavily dependent on trucks and the protests threatened key export routes. A major truckers’ strike in 2018 brought activity to a standstill.Besides supporting Bolsonaro in his battle against the Supreme Court, truckers are unhappy about soaring diesel prices.Bolsonaro gained prominence in the 2018 presidential campaign with his early support for the truckers, and he has remained sympathetic to their complaints of high fuel prices.  
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The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Hurricane Larry is expected to hit Newfoundland, on Canada’s northeast coast, late Friday as a Category 1 hurricane. In its latest report, forecasters with the hurricane center say Larry is 745 kilometers southwest of Cape Race, Newfoundland, and has maximum sustained winds of about 130 kph. It was moving quickly to the north-northeast about 46 kph and is expected to move faster as the day goes on and reach southeastern Newfoundland Friday night. Southeastern Newfoundland is expected to see hurricane conditions late Friday, with periods of heavy rain, high winds and heavy surf that could cause coastal flooding.  Meteorologists with The Washington Post report European weather models show the remnants of Larry will be swallowed by the jet stream over the next two to three days and bring heavy snow to eastern Greenland on Sunday and Monday. Meanwhile, hurricane center forecasters are watching a tropical disturbance over the western Caribbean Sea and portions of Central America and the Yucatan Peninsula.   They forecast that system will move north-northwest into the Bay of Campeche and merge with a pre-existing system by Sunday, and a named tropical depression or storm is likely to form before the system moves onshore along the western Gulf of Mexico coast Sunday or Monday. The Washington Post meteorologists, again looking at European weather models, say that storm could bring as much as 12 centimeters of rain to the Houston, Texas, area between Sunday and Wednesday of next week.  
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Tropical Storm Olaf strengthened into a hurricane in the Pacific on Thursday as it churned toward the beach resorts of Los Cabos on Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, meteorologists said. Olaf was packing maximum winds of 145 kilometers per hour (90 mph), making it a Category 1 hurricane, the lowest on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. At 7 p.m. local time (0000 GMT Friday) the storm was about 72 km (45 miles) southeast of the seaside resort of Cabo San Lucas and moving northwest at 16 kph (10 mph), it reported. Mexico’s National Meteorological Service warned that Olaf was likely to make landfall as a Category 2 storm. A hurricane warning was in effect for a stretch of Baja California coastline from Los Barriles to Cabo San Lazaro. The storm was expected to move near or over the southern part of the peninsula on Thursday night and into Friday, forecasters said. “Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion,” the hurricane center said. A dangerous storm surge was expected to be accompanied by large, damaging waves near the coast, it added, warning that heavy rainfall may trigger “significant and life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides.” Authorities set up storm shelters, and schoolchildren in the state of Baja California Sur were told to stay home on Friday. Ports were closed for smaller boats, and 24 flights were canceled at the Los Cabos and La Paz airports. The hurricane comes at a time when Mexico is still recovering from a 7.1 magnitude earthquake and major flooding in parts of the country. 
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Organized crime, a struggling economy, and repression continue to drive many Central Americans from their homelands with increasing numbers opting to head for Spain, rather than the United States.  More than 120,000 Hondurans make up the largest group of Central Americans in Spain. Alfonso Beato in the northeastern Spanish city of Girona filed this report, narrated by Jonathan Spier.Camera:  Alfonso Beato Produced by:  Rod James 
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Haiti’s government published a draft new constitution Wednesday and again promoted the idea that such reform is needed as the country remains mired in crisis since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise.”A new constitution would not be a panacea to resolve all of our problems,” Prime Minister Ariel Henry said. “But if we manage to agree on this way of organizing governance in a more balanced and efficient way, it will be a point of departure for other agreements on the future of our country.”Haitian politicians and everyday people are deeply divided over how their poor and disaster-prone nation should be run right now, as it tries to recover from the killing of Moise in his residence on July 7.The government formed after the assassination, led by Henry, wants general elections to be held as soon as possible, while the opposition says there should be a transitional government for two years.Besides legislative elections — which actually should have been held in 2018 but were delayed — and presidential elections, the government wants to push through a constitutional reform that Moise had already begun.The new charter would strengthen the powers of the president, at the expense of parliament.It would do away with the position of prime minister and create a vice presidency, which would be filled at the same time as the president in a single round of voting.Such an arrangement is designed to help Haiti avoid the gridlock it is painfully used to in getting things done: now, every time there is a new government, parliament needs to approve the prime minister’s policy agenda, and this is always tied up in endless debate among lawmakers.Defenders of the new constitution say it would help battle the chronic problem of corruption by making it easier to hold trials in regular courts of government officials, cabinet ministers and the president once he or she leaves office.As it stands now, the rarely used procedure for trying such officials is for the lower house of parliament to bring charges and the senate to hold a trial.”Immunity is not synonymous with impunity,” said Mona Jean, a lawyer who sits on the committee that drafted the new constitution. “A government job must not be a source of illicit enrichment.”Henry did not specify how he thinks the new constitution should be voted on.Moise had proposed a referendum, scheduled by the electoral administration for Nov. 7, but the idea proved controversial, with critics saying it violates the current constitution.It was written in 1987 after the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship and forbids “any popular consultation aimed at modifying the constitution through a referendum.” 
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Four migrant defense groups in Mexico announced Wednesday that they had sought court injunctions to block what they called “massive” deportations, arguing the government was violating due process and Mexican and international law governing asylum.The groups said one legal action was filed September 3 in the southeastern state of Tabasco and another in Mexico City.The groups contend the government is acting illegally by expelling migrants “before dawn and at unestablished [border] points” and also by participating in chain expulsions of migrants first flown from the U.S. to southern Mexico and then carried over land by Mexican officials to the border with Guatemala. The migrants are not told of the possibility of seeking protection in Mexico, the groups said.The migrants expelled from the United States are removed under so-called Title 42 authority, a health provision enacted during the Trump administration with the justification of the COVID-19 pandemic but continued under the Biden administration.Flights, then busingMost recently, the U.S. has been flying non-Mexican migrants to airports in Mexico’s southern states of Chiapas and Tabasco. Mexican immigration authorities then bus them to the Guatemala border, even though many of them are not Guatemalan. In August, there were 34 such flights. U.N. agencies have expressed concern as well.The four organizations — Asylum Access, the Foundation for Justice, Without Borders and the Institute for Women in Migration — argue that the expulsions violate the ban on removing people with international protection needs and and that they don’t take into account the higher interest of children or the perspective of gender.In recent days, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has insisted Mexico respects the rights of migrants. The government has been criticized over sometimes violent clashes with migrants trying to walk north from the southern city of Tapachula.The president has said simply containing migrants in southern Mexico is not sustainable and sent a letter this week to U.S. President Joe Biden insisting the U.S. do more to address the root causes of migration in the region.
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A powerful 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck southern Mexico late Tuesday near the beach resort of Acapulco, in Guerrero state, leaving at least one person dead. Guerrero state governor Hector Astudillo told a local television a man was struck by a falling utility pole in the nearby city of Coyuca de Benitez. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.0 and was centered 17 kilometers northeast of the resort city of Acapulco, in Guerrero state. In a video message, Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said there were no reports of major damages in Guerrero, or elsewhere in the region, including Oaxaca, and Mexico City, where people were running into the streets when buildings began to sway. Mexico’s National Civil Defense said it was conducting reviews in 10 states, but had not received reports of victims nor serious damage.    One of the deadliest earthquakes to strike Mexico occurred off the Michoacán coast on September 19, 1985, killing 10,000 and causing catastrophic damage in the region, including Mexico City. Some information for this report came from the Associated Press. 
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At least 17 patients died after floods swept through a hospital in central Mexico, disrupting the power supply and oxygen therapy, authorities said Tuesday.   The facility in the town of Tula in Hidalgo state was inundated after a river overflowed following heavy rain, the government said on Twitter.   “In this honorable job there are good, very good, bad and very bad days; today is one of the latter days,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador tweeted. “I am very saddened by the death of 17 hospital patients,” he added.   The hospital was flooded in a matter of minutes, and a power cut disrupted oxygen treatment, said Zoe Robledo, general director of the Mexican Institute of Social Security, which operates the facility. The rest of the 56 patients were reported to have been taken to other hospitals.   According to Mexican media, the victims included COVID-19 patients who needed oxygen therapy to stay alive. Images showed medical personnel pushing patients’ stretchers through the water.   The government deployed the military as well as water and electricity board workers to deal with the fallout in Tula, which bore the brunt of heavy rains that have drenched swathes of Mexico. Two people died in Ecatepec, a suburb of Mexico City where flooding turned streets into rivers, officials said. “A lot of water has fallen throughout the Valley of Mexico (where the capital is located) and it will continue to rain,” Lopez Obrador warned. “People living in low-lying areas, for now, move to shelters or high places with family or friends,” he said. 
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Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro got a rousing reception from tens of thousands of people gathered in the capital Tuesday in an Independence Day show of support for the right-wing leader embroiled in a feud with the country’s Supreme Court. Bolsonaro, in an address inaudible to many in the crowd far from the loudspeakers, lashed out at the high court and said the nation can no longer accept what he characterized as political imprisonments — a reference to arrests ordered by Justice Alexandre de Moraes.  He warned that the court could “suffer what we don’t want.” The crowd began chanting, “Alexandre out!” His speech followed a helicopter flyover, with those on the ground seized with euphoria at the sight. They shouted, “Legend!” and “I authorize!” — a slogan widely understood as blanket approval of his methods. Some carried banners calling for military intervention to secure Bolsonaro’s hold on power. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro delivers a speech during a demonstration in his support in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on September 7, 2021, on Brazil’s Independence Day. – Fighting record-low poll numbers, a weakening economy and a judiciary he says is…Bolsonaro has called on the Senate to impeach de Moraes, who has jailed several of the president’s supporters for allegedly financing, organizing or inciting violence or disseminating false information. In Sao Paulo, where the president was scheduled to speak in the afternoon, Bolsonaro supporters crammed into the broad Avenue Paulista downtown for a significantly larger rally than the one in Brasilia, while in Rio de Janeiro, they gathered on the road alongside Copacabana Beach. All three cities also featured smaller protests against the president.  Bolsonaro spent almost two months calling on supporters to take part in rallies across the country on Independence Day that could show his continuing political appeal despite slumping poll ratings and a string of setbacks. Critics feared the demonstrations could take a violent turn. Some said they were afraid Bolsonaro could be preparing a tropical version of the January 6 riot in Washington, where supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol alleging he had been robbed of a reelection victory.  Like Trump, Bolsonaro was elected on a pledge to go after a corrupt, entrenched political class. He has also said he might reject the 2022 election results if he loses. Along Brasilia’s esplanade, there was a festive mood, with cold drinks and the scent of grilled meat.  At least 100 military police with riot shields stood in front of Congress, and several dozen formed two lines behind barricades on the road leading to the Supreme Court. At least twice, groups of demonstrators tried to get past the barriers, but officers repelled them with pepper spray.  About 10,000 officers were scattered around the area for the demonstrations, security officials said. Regina Pontes, 53, stood atop a flatbed that advanced toward the police barriers. She said the Brazilian people have every right to enter the area. “You can’t close the door to keep the owner out,” she said. The world’s second-highest COVID-19 death toll, a drumbeat of accusations of wrongdoing in the government’s handling of the pandemic, and surging inflation have weighed on Bolsonaro’s approval ratings. Polls show his nemesis, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, could trounce him in a runoff if he enters the race.  Tuesday’s demonstrations “may show that he has millions of people who are ready to stand up and be with him, even when Brazil’s economy is in a bad situation, inflation near 10%, the pandemic and all that,” said Thomas Traumann, a political analyst. “If Bolsonaro feels he has the support of millions of Brazilians, he will go further in his challenging of the Supreme Court,” Traumann added. Bolsonaro’s clash with the Supreme Court has raised fears among his critics, given his frequently expressed nostalgia for the nation’s past military dictatorship. On the eve of Tuesday’s protest, he signed a provisional measure sharply limiting social media platforms’ ability to remove content, restrict its spread or block accounts. A 69-year-old farmer from Minas Gerais state, Clever Greco, came to Brasilia with a group of more than 1,000 others. He said Brazil’s conservatives back Bolsonaro’s call for the removal of two Supreme Court justices by peaceful means. But Greco also likened his trip to deploying for war. “I don’t know what day I’ll go back. I’m prepared to give my blood, if needed,” Greco said. “We’re no longer asking; the people are ordering.”  The U.S. Embassy in Brasilia last week warned Americans to steer clear of the protests. “The risk (that) we see scenes of violence and an institutional crisis that’s unprecedented in Brazil’s recent history still remains and is considerable,” said Paulo Calmon, a political science professor at the University of Brasilia. 
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El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender Tuesday, but the rollout stumbled in its first hours and President Nayib Bukele said the digital wallet used for transactions was not functioning. For part of the morning, El Salvador’s president became tech support for a nation stepping into the world of cryptocurrency. Bukele marshaled his Twitter account — with more than 2.8 million followers — to walk users through what was happening.  Bukele explained that the digital wallet Chivo had been disconnected while server capacity was increased.  The president said it was a relatively simple problem. “We prefer to correct it before we connect it again,” Bukele said. He encouraged followers to download the app and leave comments about how it was going. Meanwhile, the value of Bitcoin plummeted early Tuesday, dropping from more than $52,000 per coin to $42,000, before recovering about half of that loss — an example of the volatility that worries many. Government employees open the customer service area of a Chivo digital wallet machine, which exchanges cash for Bitcoin cryptocurrency, at Las Americas Square in San Salvador, El Salvador, September 7, 2021.The government has promised to install 200 Chivo automatic tellers and 50 Bitcoin attention centers. The Associated Press visited one of the automatic tellers in San Salvador’s historic center, where attendants waited to help citizens, who initially didn’t show much interest.  Asked if he had downloaded the Chivo app, Emanuel Ceballos said he had not. “I don’t know if I’m going to do it. I still have doubts about using that currency.” José Martín Tenorio said he was interested in Bitcoin but had not downloaded the app, either. “I’m running to work. Maybe at home tonight.” In Santa Tecla, a San Salvador suburb, young attendants were waiting to assist people at a help center. Denis Rivera arrived with a friend because they had been trying to download the digital wallet app without success.  He said he didn’t understand why some people “have been scandalized” by Bitcoin. “We’ve been using debit and credit cards for years, and it’s the same electronic money,” he said. He was in favor of it and planned to use the $30 offered by the government as an incentive to try it out. “I’m going to see how efficient it is and practical it can be, and based on that, decide if I keep using it or not.”  Miguel Menjivar, left, sells bread on a street in San Salvador, El Salvador, before sunrise September 7, 2021, on the day all businesses have to accept payments in Bitcoin, except those lacking the technology to do so.José Luis Hernández, owner of a barbershop in the area, came looking for information. “I have a small business and I want to know how to use the application and how are the rates and all of that,” Hernández said. AP confirmed that at least three international fast food chain restaurants were accepting bitcoin payments through the Chivo digital wallet.  David Gerard, author of “Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain,” said Tuesday’s Bitcoin volatility likely had little to nothing to do with El Salvador. “My first guess was shenanigans, because it’s always shenanigans,” Gerard said via email. “Bitcoin basically doesn’t respond to market forces or regulatory announcements,” Gerard said. “That sort of price pattern, where it crashes hugely in minutes then goes back up again, is usually one of the big guys burning the margin traders.” Because Bitcoin is so thinly traded, it could also have been a big holder making a large sale to have cash, thus sending the market for a ride, Gerard said. Three face-to-face public opinion surveys performed recently showed that most Salvadorans did not agree with the government’s decision to make Bitcoin legal currency. Bitcoin joins the U.S. dollar as El Salvador’s official currencies. In June, the Legislative Assembly enacted the Bitcoin law, and the Central American Bank for Economic Integration is providing the government with technical assistance. The law says that Bitcoin can be used for any transaction, and any business with the technological capacity to do so must accept payment in the cryptocurrency. The government will back Bitcoin with a $150 million fund. To incentivize Salvadorans to use it, the government offered $30 worth of credit to those who use Chivo. Critics have warned that the currency’s lack of transparency could attract increased criminal activity to the country, and its wild swings in value could quickly wipe out users’ savings. Opposition groups marched in El Salvador to demand the derogation of the law that allows Bitcoin use.  Bukele has said the cryptocurrency — originally created to operate outside government-controlled financial systems — would help attract investment and save Salvadorans money when they transfer earnings in the United States back home to relatives in El Salvador. But its use would be voluntary. 
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Mexico’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Tuesday that penalizing abortion is unconstitutional, a major victory for advocates of women’s health and human rights, just as parts of the United States enact tougher laws against the practice.The court ruling in the majority Roman Catholic nation follows moves to decriminalize abortion at the state level, although most of the country still has tough laws in place against women terminating their pregnancy early.”This is a historic step for the rights of women,” said Supreme Court Justice Luis Maria Aguilar.A number of U.S. states have recently taken steps to restrict women’s access to abortion, particularly Texas, which last week enacted the strictest anti-abortion law in the country after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene.The Mexican ruling opens the door to the possibility for the release of women incarcerated for having had abortions. It also could lead to U.S. women in states such as Texas deciding to travel south of the border to terminate their pregnancies. In July, the state of Veracruz became just the fourth of Mexico’s 32 regions to decriminalize abortion.
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The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Tuesday that Hurricane Larry remains a large, powerful Category 3 storm that could threaten Bermuda later in the week.In its latest report, the hurricane center said Larry is still 1,340 kilometers southeast of Bermuda with maximum sustained winds of about 195 km/h and is moving toward the northwest. It is a large storm, with hurricane force winds extending outward up to 110 kms from the center, and tropical storm winds extending outward up to 295 kms.Larry is forecast to approach Bermuda during the next couple of days as a large and powerful hurricane, bringing a risk of strong winds, heavy rainfall and coastal flooding to the island by Thursday. Significant swells from Larry should reach the U.S. east coast and Canada’s Atlantic coast by midweek and continue affecting those shores through the end of the week.  The swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.A U.S. Air Force hurricane hunter aircraft was scheduled to fly into Larry’s well-formed eye early Tuesday, and the forecasters are waiting for that data before solidifying their long-range forecast.Meanwhile, forecasters are watching a tropical system of disorganized thunderstorms in the south-central Gulf of Mexico that is expected to move to the northeast toward the southeastern United States in the next 48 hours. The forecasters say there is a 30% chance of an organized storm forming in the next five days.Hurricane Ida, which came ashore August 29 in Louisiana as one of the most powerful storms in U.S. history, went from a tropical depression to a Category 3 hurricane in just over two days. The remnants of Ida killed more than 50 people when it moved through the northeastern U.S. last week.
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Christopher Columbus is getting kicked off Mexico City’s most iconic boulevard. Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum announced that the Columbus statue on the Paseo de la Reforma, often a focal point for Indigenous rights protests, would be replaced by a statue honoring Indigenous women. “To them we owe … the history of our country, of our fatherland,” she said. She made the announcement on Sunday, which was International Day of the Indigenous Woman. The Columbus statue, donated to the city many years ago, was a significant reference point on the 10-lane boulevard, and the surrounding traffic circle is — so far — named for it. That made it a favorite target of spray-paint-wielding protesters denouncing the European suppression of Mexico’s Indigenous civilizations. FILE – Workers clean the statue of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, surrounded by metal fencing during Columbus Day, in Mexico City, Mexico, October 12, 2020.It was removed last year supposedly for restoration, shortly before October 12, which Americans know as Columbus Day but Mexicans call “Dia de la Raza,” or “Day of the Race” — the anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the Americas in 1492. When the statue was removed last year, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador noted that “it is a date that is very controversial and lends itself to conflicting ideas and political conflicts.” This year is the 700th anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlan — what is now Mexico City — as well as the 500th anniversary of its fall to the Spanish conquistadores, and the 200th anniversary of Mexico’s final independence from Spain. Most Mexicans have some indigenous ancestry and are well aware that millions of Indigenous people died from violence and disease during and after the conquest. Sheinbaum said the new statue, “Tlali,” might be ready near the date of Dia de la Raza this year. The Columbus statue isn’t being discarded, but will be moved to a less prominent location in a small park in the Polanco neighborhood. Sheinbaum referred to Columbus “a great international personage.” 
 
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Mexican border agents and police broke up a caravan of hundreds of migrants Sunday who had set out from southernmost Mexico — the fourth such caravan officials have raided in recent days.The group of about 800 — largely Central Americans, Haitians, Venezuelans and Cubans — had spent then night at a basketball court near Huixtla, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) up the road from the border city of Tapachula where they had been kept awaiting processing by Mexican immigration officials.But shortly before dawn, immigration agents backed by police with anti-riot gear went into the crowd, pushing many into trucks.Hundreds of the migrants escaped running toward a river and hid in the vegetation.“They began to hit me all over,” a woman said amid tears, alleging that police also beat her hustband and pulled one of her daughters from her arms.“Until they give me my daughter, I’m not leaving,” she told an Associated Press camera crew. But immigration agents surrounded the woman, her husband nd other child and detained them.The group was at least the fourth to be broken up over the past week after heading out north in a caravan, frustrated by the slow pace of immigration processing and poor conditions in Tapachula, where they are unable to work legally.The government has insisted that excessive force against a Haitian migrant caught on camera the past weekend was an aberration and two immigration agents were suspended.Mexico has faced immigration pressures from the north, south and within its own borders in recent weeks as thousands of migrants have crossed its southern border, the United States has sent thousands more back from the north and a U.S. court has ordered the Biden administration to renew a policy of making asylum seekers wait in Mexico for long periods of time.President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Thursday the strategy of containing migrants in the south was untenable on its own and more investment is needed in the region to keep Central Americans from leaving their homes.Thousands of mostly Haitian migrants stuck in Tapachula have increasingly protested in recent weeks. Many have been waiting there for months, some up to a year, for asylum requests to be processed.Mexico’s refugee agency has been overwhelmed. So far this year, more than 77,000 people have applied for protected status in Mexico, 55,000 of those in Tapachula, where shelters are full.Unable to work legally and frustrated by the delay and poor conditions, hundreds have set out north.
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Hundreds of supporters of two Canadian men being held on what Ottawa says are specious charges marched 7,000 steps through the Canadian capital on Sunday to mark the pair’s 1,000th day of “unjust” detention in China. Similar events in support of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig were held elsewhere in Canada and across the world in cities including Brussels, New York, Washington, Seoul and Singapore. “These are unjust detentions,” Kovrig’s wife Vina Nadjibulla told AFP. “These marches are about solidarity with our Michaels, they’re about honoring their strength and resilience and also calling for action to finally break the stalemate, to bring them home and do everything possible to end this injustice,” Nadjibulla said at the start of the rally. The two men were arrested in December 2018 and accused of espionage in what Ottawa has said was retaliation for its detention on a US warrant of a prominent Chinese national, Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. A decision is expected in coming months on whether to send Meng to the United States to face fraud charges related to alleged violations of Iran sanctions by the Chinese tech giant.   Spavor, a businessman, and former diplomat Kovrig went on trial in March. Spavor was handed an 11-year jail sentence just as final arguments in Meng’s extradition trial got underway last month. No decision has been announced in Kovrig’s case.   The seemingly tit-for-tat arrests plunged Ottawa-Beijing relations into a deep freeze, with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calling the charges against the Michaels “trumped up.”   On Sunday US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned what he called “arbitrary detentions” by China. “We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Canada and the international community in calling for the PRC to release, immediately and unconditionally, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig,” Blinken said in a statement, referring to the People’s Republic of China. ‘A difficult milestone’ The Ottawa rally was attended by Canadian Foreign Minister Marc Garneau and several opposition MPs, as well as the US ambassador to Ottawa. “This is a difficult milestone,” Nadjibulla, holding back tears, told the crowd. “It’s been 1,000 days — the heartbreak, the pain, the injustice is real. The heaviness, I feel it, we all feel it.”   She said her husband had described his ordeal in letters from prison, adding, “One of the things that he does in his windowless, small cell every day is to pace 7,000 steps.” “He walks in circles, 7,000 steps, often holding a book, reading, reciting songs, prayers — five kilometers of courage and contemplation. And today, he will not be alone in that walk. We will accompany him, all of us,” she said. “He knows that this event is happening,” she added. “He knows that we’re with him. That gives him strength.”   Michael Spavor’s brother Paul told reporters his brother “spends a lot of his time reading, meditating, doing yoga.” “One thousand days is a long time,” he said. “Today is just another day, but it’s another day that goes by without our Michaels being back with us.”   
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Brazil’s World Cup qualifying match against Argentina was dramatically suspended shortly after it began Sunday as controversy over COVID-19 protocols erupted.The match at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena between the two giants of South American football came to a halt when a group of Brazilian public health officials came onto the pitch, triggering a melee involving team staff and players.Argentina’s players trudged off the pitch to the locker room as the furor raged. Argentina captain Lionel Messi later re-emerged from the tunnel without his team shirt on as confusion swept around the stadium.The stunning intervention came just hours after Brazil’s health authorities said four players in Argentina’s squad based in England should be placed in “immediate quarantine” for breaching COVID-19 protocols.According to Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA), Premier League players Giovani Lo Celso (Tottenham), Emiliano Martinez (Aston Villa), Emiliano Buendia (Aston Villa) and Cristian Romero (Tottenham) provided “false information” upon their entry to Brazil.Romero, Lo Celso and Martinez were all in the Argentina starting lineup that kicked off Sunday’s game, triggering the intervention onto the field of officials wearing ANVISA shirts.The four Premier League players were accused of failing to disclose that they had spent time in the United Kingdom in the 14 days prior to their arrival.”We got to this point because everything that ANVISA directed, from the first moment, was not fulfilled,” ANVISA director Antonio Barra Torres said on Brazilian television.”(The four players) were directed to remain isolated while awaiting deportation, but they did not comply. They went to the stadium and they entered the field, in a series of breaches,” the official added.A government order dating from June 23 prohibits the entry into Brazilian territory of any foreign person from the United Kingdom, India or South Africa, to prevent the spread of variants of the coronavirus.”ANVISA considers that this situation represents a serious health risk and recommends that the local health authorities (of Sao Paulo) order the immediate quarantine of the players, who are prohibited from taking part in any activity and from remaining on Brazilian territory,” the agency said in a statement earlier Sunday.ANVISA said Brazil’s Federal Police had been notified so that “the necessary measures are taken immediately.”Brazilian website Globoesporte said the Argentina Football Association (AFA) could request an exceptional authorization from authorities in Sao Paulo to allow the players to take the field against Brazil.The controversy comes after nine Brazilians based in the Premier League failed to travel to South America following objections from their clubs.
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Indigenous groups urged world leaders on Sunday to back a new target to protect 80% of the Amazon basin by 2025, saying bold action was needed to stop deforestation pushing the Earth’s largest rainforest beyond a point of no return.Amazonian delegates launched their campaign at a nine-day conference in Marseille, where several thousand officials, scientists and campaigners are laying the groundwork for United Nations talks on biodiversity in the Chinese city of Kunming next year.”We invite the global community to join us to reverse the destruction of our home and by doing so safeguard the future of the planet,” José Gregorio Diaz Mirabal, lead coordinator for COICA, which represents Indigenous groups in nine Amazon-basin nations, told Reuters.Just under 50% of the Amazon basin is currently under some form of official protection or indigenous stewardship, according to research published last year.But pressure from ranching, mining and oil exploration is growing. In Brazil, home to 60% of the biome, deforestation has surged since right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019, reaching a 12-year high last year and drawing an international outcry.The Amazon basin as a whole has lost 18% of its original forest cover while another 17% has been degraded, according to a landmark study released in July by the Science Panel for the Amazon, based on research by 200 scientists.If deforestation reaches 20%-25%, it could tip the Amazon into a death spiral in which it dries out and becomes savanna, according to Brazilian earth system scientist Carlos Nobre.The Marseille gathering is the latest “World Conservation Congress,” an event held every four years by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a forum convening governments, civil society and researchers.COICA wants the congress to endorse its “Amazonia80x2025” declaration to give the proposal a greater chance of gaining traction in Kunming, where governments are due to discuss targets to protect biodiversity over the next decade. 
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A top Venezuelan official signaled on Saturday that talks between the government and the opposition aimed at resolving the country’s long-standing political crisis have yielded “partial agreements.”The opposition is hoping to use the talks being held in Mexico City to secure guarantees of free and fair regional elections to be held in the fall, while the government of Nicolas Maduro wants to ease international sanctions on his economically crippled nation.”We have been working mainly on partial agreements, especially those related to serving the people of Venezuela,” parliament speaker Jorge Rodriguez, who was leading the government delegation, told reporters.But officials provided no information on the nature of the agreements and a source in the opposition delegation told AFP that “so far nothing has been agreed.”The talks, mediated by Norway and hosted by Mexico, aim to resolve the crisis that has marked Maduro’s eight-year rule.The negotiations have a seven-point agenda including easing sanctions, political rights and electoral guarantees — but not the departure of Maduro, accused by the opposition of fraudulent reelection in 2018.The government is “very attentive” to all the economic guarantees that have been “wrested, blocked, stolen, withdrawn from the people of Venezuela,” said Rodriguez, adding that Maduro seeks a partial if not total lifting of sanctions in exchange for concessions to the opposition.The main opposition alliance headed by Juan Guaido reversed course this week when it announced that it would end a three-year election boycott and take part in mayoral and gubernatorial polls in November.Speaking before the start of the negotiations, the head of the opposition delegation Gerardo Blyde expressed hope that the talks “will seek to alleviate the crisis, but the crisis comes from very serious basic problems, from a model which failed in Venezuela and which does not recognize the democratic order and the constitutional order.”He added that it’s “a process which is beginning, which is hard, complex.”Neither Maduro nor Guaido, who is considered president by about 60 countries, was due to personally attend the closed-door talks, which were scheduled to run until Monday.”We are in Mexico looking for a national salvation agreement to respond to the emergency, obtain the conditions for free and fair elections and the rescue of our democracy,” Guaido tweeted.Previous rounds of similar negotiations held in recent years have failed to resolve the crisis. 
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