Wazobia9ja For All: World News
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    Showing posts with label World News. Show all posts

    Sunday, January 28, 2018

    Government and opposition of Venezuela return to a dialogue table in R. Dominicana

    January 28, 2018 0
    Government and opposition of Venezuela return to a dialogue table in R. Dominicana






    The Dominican President, Danilo Medina, announced on Thursday the new date of the meeting after noting that the dialogue "is the best solution for Venezuela and its people."
     In a statement, the Dominican Foreign Minister, Miguel Vargas, ratified the resumption of the dialogue, to which both parties have confirmed their attendance, while he informed that representatives of Chile and Nicaragua, countries accompanying those talks, already arrived in the country, and that in the other participating delegations will arrive the next hours.
     "The only purpose of the Dominican Government is that the parties reach a definitive agreement in favor of the people of Venezuela," Vargas said, and stressed "that this objective is shared by the other partners of the dialogue and the international community, in general."
     These conversations started last December in Santo Domingo under the auspices of Medina and the former president of the Spanish Government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and with the accompaniment of Chile, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
     The dialogue to find a way out of the serious political and economic crisis of the South American country also had the support of Mexico, which this week withdrew after the unilateral convocation of presidential elections by the Venezuelan government.
     Just yesterday, the opposition Democratic Unity Table (MUD) reported that it will attend the meeting tomorrow to "demand the electoral guarantees that allow fair elections and thus promote a change for our people."
     According to the MUD, the government "has deepened its position of boycott at the negotiating table by proceeding to the illegalization" of opposition parties and by decreeing unilaterally that the presidential elections, one of the topics of the dialogue, will be held in the first four-month period. and not at the end of the year as it usually happens in the Caribbean country.
     The National Constituent Assembly (ANC) of Venezuela, formed only by pro-government and not recognized by the opposition and numerous governments, decided to advance the presidential elections and demanded that five opposition parties, including the MUD, revalidate their payrolls to participate in the elections. elections.
     The Voluntad Popular party (VP), of the opposition under house arrest Leopoldo López, decided not to attend this day after the last decisions of the ANC.
     The parties had planned to meet again in Santo Domingo on January 18 but the opposition did not attend the meeting, so the dialogue was postponed to a new date.
     One of the reasons invoked by the opposition to not participate in the meeting were statements by the Interior Minister of Venezuela, Néstor Reverol, who assured two days before having obtained from the anti-Chavez negotiators information that led to the whereabouts of the former police inspector. Óscar Pérez, who died during a police action.
     The central aspects for the opposition in this dialogue are to achieve electoral guarantees for the presidential elections this year, the opening of a humanitarian channel that allows the shipment of medicines and food, the release of the prisoners they consider "political prisoners" and the restitution of the constitutional powers from which Parliament was stripped.
     In as much, the oficialismo demands the lifting of the economic sanctions that weigh on some of its civil employees and the recognition of the Constituent Assembly, a plenipotentiary organ integrated only by pro-government and not recognized by numerous Governments.
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    Colombia condemns car bomb attack in border area with Ecuador

    January 28, 2018 0
    Colombia condemns car bomb attack in border area with Ecuador

    The explosion, recorded in the coastal province of Esmeraldas, left 28 people slightly injured.  The president of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, ordered the transfer of 600 security personnel to the area of ​​the attack.





    The Colombian government condemned the explosion of a crash in Ecuador, which caused 28 minor injuries, and expressed solidarity with the injured and victims of what he described as a "reprehensible act".
     "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on behalf of the Government of Colombia, condemns the terrorist attack perpetrated with a car bomb against the Police Station in San Lorenzo, Ecuador, at dawn on Saturday," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
     The Ecuadorian Minister of the Interior, César Navas, estimated at 28 the slight wounds after the explosion registered in the exterior of a police building, a fact to which the head of State, Lenin Moreno, referred to as a "terrorist act linked to gangs of drug traffickers "
     He explained that the car bomb explosion occurred around 1:45 am on Saturday in the coastal province of Esmeraldas, in northwest Ecuador and bordering Colombia.
     Navas also stressed that there were no fatal victims of the explosion and said they have the support of the Colombian authorities to advance the investigations and "determine the perpetrators, the alleged perpetrators of this act of terror."
     The Colombian government reiterated its willingness to collaborate with Ecuador in the fight against organized crime.
     The president of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, ordered the transfer of 600 security personnel to the province of Esmeraldas, bordering Colombia, where an attack with a car bomb occurred.
     The governor decreed the state of emergency, for sixty days, in the cantons of San Lorenzo and Eloy Alfaro to reinforce the safety of its inhabitants.
     In a statement, the Secom, which does not specify to which institution belong the 600 troops that will be sent to Esmeraldas, highlights that the Government strongly condemned the explosion of the "car bomb", recorded early Saturday morning in front of a police facility, in the canton of San Lorenzo.
     He considered "this terrorist attack, implemented by gangs of drug traffickers and organized crime, does not compromise its policy of fighting this transnational scourge" in its different facets, such as drug trafficking and money laundering.
     He recalled that the state of emergency in the cantons of San Lorenzo and Eloy Alfaro establishes security zones and suspends the rights to the inviolability of domicile, transit, association and assembly.
     "Facts like these are raised by the strong and successful work that has been done in the area in the direct fight against organized crime," Interior Minister César Navas said.
     "Ecuador is a country of peace and its authorities are committed to maintaining Ecuador as a country of peace," said Navas, who recalled that in recent days more than seven and a half tons of chemical precursors have been seized (used in the preparation of drugs) almost a ton of drugs and that there are seven people detained linked to drug trafficking.
     Navas pointed out that the different state bodies work in collaboration with their counterparts in Colombia, in order to determine the causes of this "act of terror".
     He recalled that the neighboring country is in a process of internal pacification in which "residual" groups subsist that have chosen not to follow that path and "are forming criminal bands that are dedicated to drug trafficking."
     He stressed that the presence of the Ecuadorian State in the border area, now affected, "would have generated reprisals or attempts of intimidation on the part of these groups," Secom reported.
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    Saturday, January 27, 2018

    Despite crisis, Venezuelan opposition will go to dialogue with the government of Maduro

    January 27, 2018 0
    Despite crisis, Venezuelan opposition will go to dialogue with the government of Maduro


    The Venezuelan opposition informed on Saturday that it will attend tomorrow the resumption of the process of political dialogue with the Government of Nicolás Maduro in the Dominican Republic and said that he hopes that this meeting will be final in the search for a peaceful solution to the crisis the country is experiencing since years ago Read also: Santos asked not to recognize the presidential elections in Venezuela

    "The opposition negotiating delegation will assist the Dominican Republic on January 29 to demand electoral guarantees that allow fair elections and thus bring about a change for our people," said a communiqué from the antichavistic alliance Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD).

    News in development ...
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    Juan Orlando Hernández starts second term in Honduras amid protests

    January 27, 2018 0
    Juan Orlando Hernández starts second term in Honduras amid protests

    While his followers cheered him at the National Stadium, his opponents concentrated in the capital city of Miraflores, where they were cleared by the police with tear gas when they tried to march to the place of the investiture.


    The president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, assumed a second consecutive mandate on Saturday amid protests by the opposition , which continues to claim that there was fraud in the controversial elections in November.

    Hernandez received the presidential band in a session of the Congress in the National Stadium of the capital, full of supporters and strongly sheltered due to the opposition demonstrations in Tegucigalpa.

    "I promise to fulfill and enforce the Constitution and the laws," said the president, a 49-year-old lawyer, when he was sworn in again as head of the government of Honduras , an impoverished country hit by violence.

    While his followers cheered him at the National Stadium, his opponents concentrated in the capital city of Miraflores, where they were cleared by the police with tear gas when they tried to march to the place of the investiture.

    The National Stadium was surrounded by several security rings with police and military located 500 meters around the sports venue. In his speech, Hernández committed himself to improve security and invest more in health, education and employment , while calling his adversaries to a dialogue to overcome the polarization left by the electoral process.

    "In front of the Honduran people, I am committed to developing a process of reconciliation among all Hondurans, as it should be," he said. "I am aware that there are differences, we have to sit down and talk ... without barriers, we have to unite the country," the president added.

    Opposition on the street

    Hernández is recognized among the population for economic stabilization under his rule and for reducing the high rates of criminal violence. But at the same time he faces criticism: he is accused of having authoritarian tendencies because of his iron grip on the state apparatus , and also because of several corruption scandals that shook his first term of office.

    Before Hernandez was invested, a group of protesters stopped and stoned a bus with supporters of the president who were heading to the National Stadium. No injuries were reported and the ruling party fled the scene.

    In other parts of the capital road blocks were registered, which were lifted by the authorities. In the Miraflores neighborhood, where the opposition was concentrated, ex-candidate Salvador Nasralla, Hernández's main rival in the November elections, announced that the protests will continue .

    "The protests do not end today, this is going to be permanent," said Nasralla, a popular 64-year-old television host nominated to the presidency by the leftist Alliance Against Opposition to the Dictatorship.

    Nasralla, who lost the presidency by a few points, supported Hernandez's invitation to the dialogue, but clarified that it should be done with a mediator who guarantees that what is agreed in the talks will be fulfilled.

    On Friday night, the opposition leader led a caravan through the streets of Tegucigalpa with hundreds of vehicles that traveled until the early hours of several capital neighborhoods. The demonstration had moments of tension when security agents threw tear gas against the caravan .

    Reelection questioned

    "We come to tell JOH (by the initials of Hernández) that we do not recognize him as our president," said a young girl in the caravan, who identified herself as Silvany, who wore a white ribbon of the opposition alliance on her head. ousted former president Manuel Zelaya.

    The November election aroused suspicions of irregularities and allegations of fraud because in a first count Nasralla appeared at the front with 57% of the votes counted, but days later Hernandez took advantage after a series of interruptions in the computation system of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal ( TSE) .

    The TSE finally proclaimed Hernández the winner three weeks after the vote and amid continued opposition protests. Human rights organizations say that some 30 people died in police actions to clear road blocks that were staged by opposition supporters that day.

    The president had managed to run for a second consecutive term thanks to a ruling by the Supreme Court of Justice, as the Honduran Constitution prohibits presidential re-election.
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    The dangers of mixing masculinity and missiles

    January 27, 2018 0
    The dangers of mixing masculinity and missiles


    President Trump makes the work of a feminist security analyst very simple. With this type, it is not necessary to subtly disentangle the subtexts.

    The first week of January something seemed to resonate among people across the political spectrum, even among those who do not usually see the world through the lens of the genre: when Trump tweeted "I also have a nuclear button, but it's much bigger and more powerful than his, and mine does work! ", the boast of nuclear might directed at Kim Jong-un of North Korea sounded a lot like, in effect, a comparison of the size of the penises.

    It's sad. But significant? Among the majority of the commentators, the response was an exasperated rejection of Trump's tweet as "a youthful act", although only another one of the impulsive, reckless, dangerous and unpresidential of a president as there is no other. However, it seems to me that the president not only boasts too much about his "nuclear button", but that many commentators are still unaware of the point. It is not just an unimportant show, besides embarrassing.


    Ideas about masculinity and femininity are important in international politics, in national security and in strategic thinking about nuclear weapons. Trump - with his fragile ego and his particular obsessive concern with the reputation of his manhood - may have brought these dynamics to the surface, but they have always been present, though in less vulgar and strident ways.

    I started thinking about this issue more than three decades ago, when I was working among civilian nuclear strategists, war planners, weapons scientists and weapons controllers. What struck me was how far they were from human realities behind the weapons they were discussing. This distancing occurred partly through a professional discourse, which was characterized by a surprisingly abstract and euphemistic language and, in part, by means of a series of bustling sexual metaphors.

    The human bodies they evoked were not those of the victims; Instead, they were conversations about vertical erector launchers, push-to-weight relationships, soft bedding, deep penetration, and the comparative advantage of prolonged attacks versus spasm attacks-or what a military adviser to the National Security Council called "freeing 70s." to 80 percent of our megatonaje in an orgasmic attack "-.

    However, it quickly became clear that the role of gender in national security discourse was deeper than not so subtle metaphors. It was even more disturbing how it shaped what could be said, or even thought, within the confines of these spaces dominated by men. "What are you, a weakling?" Was an insult that was hurled at anyone who urged to avoid a response to a provocation or attack. The discussion about whether political leaders "had the guts to go to war" suggested that the desire to resolve a conflict through nonmilitary measures could imply that you were not totally male. During the missile crisis with Cuba, when Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze underestimated some of the more cautious decisions made by President John F. Kennedy calling him "effeminate", he made it clear that anyone who allowed himself to be governed by the fear of unleashing a nuclear war was a coward.

    The open questioning of masculinity remains only the most superficial level in which ideas about gender in strategic thinking are developed. They also work in deeper and more subtle ways. The culturally generalized associations are rooted in professional discourse. Those of masculinity with equanimity, distance, abstraction, hardness and risk taking; those of femininity with emotions, empathy, bodily vulnerability, fear and caution.

    In addition, there work so that some types of ideas seem obviously "realistic," hard and rational, and others are patently inadmissible, obviously inappropriate (a physicist told me that he and his colleagues were once modeling a limited nuclear attack when suddenly expressed their consternation that they were talking so casually about "only 30 million" immediate deaths. "It was terrible, I felt like a woman," he said.

    In other words, integrated ideas about gender in nuclear strategic discourse go beyond the questions related to the button being more than just a button. They act as a brake on a more holistic, and therefore truly realistic, thinking about nuclear weapons and the holocaust that would result from their use.

    Read also: The Despair of Diplomats in the Trump Era

    Traditional national security analysts have been reluctant to think seriously-or in the slightest-about the ways in which ideas about gender shape national security. So, if Trump's disparagement of Kim's manhood somehow does not end up bringing us closer to a war with North Korea, then maybe in a way he's done us a favor. There is no doubt that, although the literal button or the size of Trump's or Kim's penis does not matter at all, his need for the world to believe that they are masculine men does matter.

    What we must remember is that in this aspect Trump is no exception. Yes, the fear of being perceived as unmanly may be closer to the surface in Trump. And perhaps that is why their statements and actions are not helped by cognitive ability and the period of concentration or empathy and the ability to imagine the impact of actions on others or intelligence or prudence.

    However, it is not about individual men or women. Ideas about masculinity and femininity already distort the way we think about international politics and national security. And they matter. They had it before Trump, they have it now and they will have it after Trump, if the president is controlled in some way and that "after" exists. Most analysts of national security, from the academy and even the executive, to the mass media, have ignored this reality for too long, to the danger of all of us.

    * Carol Cohn is the director of the Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights at the University of Massachusetts in Boston.
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    Shooting at a nightclub in northeastern Brazil leaves 14 dead

    January 27, 2018 0
    Shooting at a nightclub in northeastern Brazil leaves 14 dead



    The shooting occurred when a group of heavily armed men arrived aboard three vehicles and broke into the Forro do Gago club, in the neighborhood of Cajazeiras, in the center of Fortaleza


    A shooting at a nightclub in Fortaleza, in northeastern Brazil, left at least 14 people dead early Saturday, local authorities announced.

    "We can confirm 14 deaths, knowing that some people are still in serious condition in the hospital ," André Costa, secretary of security for the state of Ceara, whose capital is Fortaleza, said at a press conference, without specifying the exact number of wounded. .

    A spokesman for the Institut José Frota, the city's main hospital, told AFP that six people were admitted to the emergency room, including a 12-year-old boy. According to the site of the regional newspaper Diario do Nordeste, which quotes an anonymous police source, the hypothesis is that the attack responded to a settling of accounts between drug traffickers .

    "We are not yet in a position to confirm that it is a confrontation between fractions, the investigation is still ongoing, " said the Secretary of Security.

    The shooting occurred around 01:30 (local time), when a group of heavily armed men arrived aboard three vehicles and broke into the Forro do Gago club , in the Cajazeiras neighborhood, in downtown Fortaleza.

    "It's a brutal scene, a massacre, never seen in Ceara," said a policeman who preferred to remain anonymous to the G1 site. On January 7, the war between drug traffickers left four dead on the outskirts of Fortaleza. In 2017, the state of Ceara registered a record of 5,114 homicides, 50% more than in 2016 .

    At the national level, Brazil also registered a record in 2016, with 61,619 murders, which is equivalent to seven homicides per hour .
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    The OAS expresses its rejection of the attack on the police station in Barranquilla

    January 27, 2018 0
    The OAS expresses its rejection of the attack on the police station in Barranquilla


    Through a communiqué, the organization rejected the attack and expressed its solidarity with the families of the victims and the early recovery of the wounded.

    The Organization of American States expressed its "strong rejection" of the attack on a police station in the San José neighborhood, in the city of Barranquilla, in the north of the country, in which at least four police officers lost their lives .

    (In context: Reward of $ 50 million to find the people responsible for the attack on a police station )

    "Energetic rejection of the attack at the San José Police Station in Barranquilla, our solidarity with the families of the victims, and our desire to recover quickly the wounded ," the organization said in a statement released through social networks.

    The attack, which was caused by an explosive placed in one of the walls of the police station , occurred around 06.40 when the police were in training in the courtyard for the change of shift, explained General Mariano Botero, commander of the Police Metropolitan of Barranquilla.

    The authorities have reported the arrest of a suspect , who was captured in the vicinity of the place, who was confiscated a notebook and a communications radio that could have served to perpetrate an attack in which in addition 42 people were injured.

    (You might be interested: The political world reacts to the attack on police in Barranquilla )

    At this time it is being investigated whether the attack could be related to an attack that occurred almost simultaneously in a place near the city against a transport truck , which did not take anything, but left a vigilante murdered and two more wounded.
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