TOMMOROWS NEWS TODAY

More records tumble as China cold snap persists

Beijing (AFP) – More low temperature records tumbled across China on Thursday, as the country endures a persistent cold snap that has crowned a year of extreme weather.


Issued on: 21/12/2023 - 

The brutal cold follows a summer of record-smashing heat and devastating floods across the country's north © STR / AFP

The national weather office said in a social media post that more than 20 stations posted all-time December lows in the early hours of Thursday.

They included Hohhot, capital of the northern Inner Mongolia region, where a reading of -29.1 degrees Celsius (-20.4 Fahrenheit) broke a nearly 70-year record.

Authorities have issued an alert for low temperatures across a vast area of northern, eastern and southeastern China.

The brutal cold follows a summer of record-smashing heat and devastating floods across the country's north.

Experts warn that global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions makes extreme weather more likely.

More low temperature records tumbled across China on Thursday, as the country endures a persistent cold snap that has crowned a year of extreme weather.

The national weather office said in a social media post that more than 20 stations posted all-time December lows in the early hours of Thursday morning.

They included Hohhot, the capital of the northern Inner Mongolia region, where a reading of -29.1 degrees Celsius (-20.4 Fahrenheit) broke a nearly 70-year record.

Authorities have issued an alert for low temperatures across a vast area of northern, eastern and southeastern China.

The brutal cold follows a summer of record-smashing heat and devastating floods across the country's north.

Experts warn that global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions makes extreme weather more likely.

The weather office on Wednesday said five stations had logged all-time lows, including a bone-numbing -33.2C (-27.8F) in the northern city of Datong.

In northwestern Gansu province, where an earthquake on Monday killed more than 130 people, survivors have spent several freezing nights outdoors in makeshift tents.

© 2023 AFP

'Dying every two hours': Afghan women risk life to give birth

Khost (Afghanistan) (AFP) – Zubaida travelled from the rural outskirts of Khost in eastern Afghanistan to give birth at a maternity hospital specialising in complicated cases, fearing a fate all too common among pregnant Afghan women -- her death or her child's.


Issued on: 21/12/2023 

Afghan women sit beside their newborns at the Doctors Without Borders (MSF)-run maternity hospital in Khost 

© Kobra Akbari / AFP

She lay dazed, surrounded by the unfamiliar bustle of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF)-run hospital, exhausted from delivery the day before, but relieved.

Her still-weak newborn slept nearby in an iron crib with peeling paint, the child's eyes lined with khol to ward off evil.

"If I had given birth at home, there could have been complications for the baby and for me," said the woman, who doesn't know her age.

Not all of the women who make it to the hospital are so lucky.

"Sometimes we receive patients who come too late to save their lives" after delivering at home, said Therese Tuyisabingere, the head of midwifery at MSF in Khost, capital of Khost province.

The facility delivers 20,000 babies a year, nearly half those born in the province, and it only takes on high-risk and complicated pregnancies, many involving mothers who haven't had any check-ups.

Nearly half the babies born in Khost province each year are delivered at the Doctors Without Borders-run facility 

© Kobra Akbari / AFP

"This is a big challenge for us to save lives," said Tuyisabingere.

She and the some 100 midwives at the clinic are on the front lines of a battle to reduce the maternal mortality rate in Afghanistan, where having many children is a source of pride, but where every birth carries heavy risks -- with odds against women mounting.

Afghanistan is among the worst countries in the world for deaths in childbirth, "with one woman dying every two hours", UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said earlier this month.

The Afghan health ministry did not respond to repeated requests for comment on this story.

According to the latest World Health Organization figures, from 2017, 638 women die in Afghanistan for every 100,000 viable births, compared with 19 in the United States.

Nurses conduct an ultrasound test for a patient at the maternity hospital in Khost © Kobra Akbari / AFP

That figure, moreover, conceals the huge disparities between rural and urban areas.

Terje Watterdal, country director for the non-profit Norwegian Afghanistan Committee (NAC), said they saw 5,000 maternal deaths per 100,000 births in remote parts of Afghanistan.

"Men carry the women over their shoulders, and the women die over the mountain trying to reach a hospital," he said.

'Brain drain'

Before the return to power of the Taliban in August 2021 and the end of their insurgency, women would sometimes have to brave the frontlines to reach help, but now there are new challenges -- including a "brain drain" of expertise.

The most recent WHO figures, from 2017, showed 638 Afghan women died for every 100,000 viable births 

© Kobra Akbari / AFP

"A lot of gynaecologists have left the country," Watterdal said.

Moreover, Taliban authorities want to get rid of the mobile medical teams visiting women because "they cannot control the health messages they were giving", he said.

Under the Taliban government, women have been squeezed from public life and had access to education restricted, threatening the future of the female medical field in a country where many families avoid sending women to male doctors.

"Access to antenatal and postnatal care for a woman was (always) extremely complicated. It's even more complicated today," said Filipe Ribeiro, MSF director in Afghanistan.

This is due to measures taken by authorities as well as the failings of the healthcare system -- including structural support from foreign donors.

"What little there was has been put under even greater pressure," Ribeiro said.

The financial strain on families amid the country's economic crisis increases the risks, said Noor Khanum Ahmadzai, health coordinator for non-governmental organisation Terre des Hommes in Kabul.

Momina Kohistani (L), head midwife at the Norwegian Afghanistan Committee-run maternity hospital in Paktia province, speaks with fellow midwife Zainab Dawlatzai 

© Kobra Akbari / AFP

In a public hospital where the midwives are overworked and poorly paid, women have to bring their own medicine.

A delivery costs around 2,000 Afghanis ($29) -- a significant sum for many families.

Despite the risks, "women who used to go to the public sector now prefer to deliver at home, because they don't have money", said Ahmadzai.

An estimated 40 percent of Afghan women give birth at home, but that shoots up to 80 percent in remote areas -- often with the help of their mother-in-law or a local matriarch, but sometimes alone.
'Mother died in childbirth'

Islam Bibi, pregnant with triplets, went to the MSF facility in Khost in pain, and empty-handed.

Islam Bibi, mother of six children, gave birth to her newborn triplets at the MSF facility in Khost 

© Kobra Akbari / AFP

"I was sick, my husband didn't have any money. I was told, 'Go to this hospital, they do everything for free'," said the 38-year-old, one of hundreds of thousands of Afghans who fled Pakistan in recent months, fearing deportation.

Multiple births like Islam Bibi's are common, said Tania Allekotte, an MSF gynaecologist from Argentina.

"It is valued here to have many children and many women take a treatment to stimulate their fecundity. We often have twins here," she told AFP.

The average woman has six children in Afghanistan, but multiple pregnancies, repeated caesarean sections or miscarriages increase the risk of death.

There are some rays of hope.

Women in neighbouring Paktia province may have fewer risks now, thanks to a first-of-its-kind maternity centre opened recently by NAC in the small provincial capital Gardez -- a clinic run by women for women.

Provincial health director Khair Mohammad Mansoor addresses an all-male audience at the inauguration of the Norwegian Afghanistan Committee-run maternity hospital 

© Kobra Akbari / AFP

"This type of clinic doesn't exist in the majority of provinces," Khair Mohammad Mansoor, the Taliban-appointed provincial health director, told the all-male audience.

"We have created a system for them in which sharia law and all medical principles will be observed."

The NAC facility aims to help "many of our sisters who live in isolated areas", manager Nasrin Oryakhil said, with similar clinics planned for four other provinces in the coming months.

Its walls freshly painted and decorated with posters promoting vitamins and iron for pregnant women, the small clinic is set up for 10 deliveries a day, said head midwife Momina Kohistani.

Keeping mothers alive as they bring new life into the world is close to home for her.

"My mother died in childbirth," she murmured, tears rolling down her cheeks.

© 2023 AFP

Argentina's Milei orders major deregulation of economy

Buenos Aires (AFP) – Argentina's new leader Javier Milei on Wednesday unveiled a series of measures to deregulate the country's struggling economy, eliminating or changing more than 300 rules via presidential decree, including on rent and labor practices.


Issued on: 21/12/2023 

Argentine President Javier Milei (C) delivered his speech to the nation from the Casa Rosada presidential palace in Buenos Aires, flanked by his cabinet 

© Handout / Argentina's Presidency Press Office/AFP

"The goal is to start along the path to rebuilding the country... and start to undo the huge number of regulations that have held back and prevented economic growth," Milei said in a televised speech from the presidential palace, flanked by his cabinet.

Latin America's third-biggest economy is on its knees after decades of debt and financial mismanagement, with inflation surpassing 160 percent year-on-year and 40 percent of Argentines living in poverty.

Milei, who was elected last month and took office 10 days ago, has pledged to curb inflation, but warned that economic "shock" treatment is the only solution, and that the situation will get worse before it improves.

Among the changes announced on Wednesday are the elimination of a law regulating rent, as well as rules preventing the privatization of state enterprises.

Milei also announced a "modernization of labor law to facilitate the process of creating real jobs" and a series of other deregulatory measures affecting tourism, satellite internet services, pharmaceuticals, wine production and foreign trade.

Following the speech, thousands of people converged on the streets near the Congress to voice their discontent.

The decree was published in the government gazette at midnight. It must now be assessed by a joint committee of lawmakers from both chambers of the legislature within 10 days.

Constitutional law expert Emiliano Vitaliani told AFP that the decree could only be overturned if rejected by both the lower House and the Senate.

Argentine President Javier Milei has warned of spending cuts equivalent to five percent of gross domestic product in Latin America's third-biggest economy

 © Luis ROBAYO / AFP/File

Milei's far-right Libertad Avanza party only has 40 seats in the 257-member lower house and seven senators out of 72. But Milei's margin improves if the members of the center-right Together for Change coalition are taken into account.
'Shock' therapy for economy

For political analyst Lara Goyburu, Milei's moves are not surprising, given how he campaigned for the presidency. But she told AFP that his use of an emergency decree was unusual.

The 53-year-old libertarian and self-described "anarcho-capitalist" has said spending cuts equivalent to five percent of gross domestic product are needed.

Labor union members and other Argentines demonstrate in Buenos Aires against the new government of Javier Milei, who has ordered a series of controversial economic reforms 

© JUAN MABROMATA / AFP

Before Wednesday's announcement, his administration had already devalued Argentina's peso by more than 50 percent, and announced huge cuts in generous state subsidies of fuel and transport from January.

Milei has also announced a halt to all new public construction projects and a year-long suspension of state advertising.

Last week's measures to tackle inflation were welcomed by the International Monetary Fund, to which Argentina owes $44 billion.

"Over the last century, politicians took pains to expand the power of the state, to the detriment of ordinary Argentines," Milei said Wednesday.

"Our nation, which in the 1920s was the world's top power, has been involved in a series of crises over the last 100 years that all stem from the same cause: budget deficits."

Milei won a resounding election victory in November surfing a wave of fury over decades of recurrent economic crises, marked by debt, rampant money printing, inflation and fiscal deficit.

Argentines remain haunted by hyperinflation of up to 3,000 percent in 1989-1990 and a dramatic economic implosion in 2001.

Before Milei's speech, thousands of people protested against his government in Buenos Aires, waving banners and chanting slogans near the Casa Rosada presidential palace.

Argentine protesters congregate at Plaza de Mayo Square outside the presidential palace in Buenos Aires as part of the first demonstration against the new government of Javier Milei 

© LUIS ROBAYO / AFP

Their route through the city center was lined by military police and other security personnel, including police in full riot gear, in a large show of force that protest organizers criticized as an attempt at provocation.

"This reminds me of the dictatorship" of 1976 to 1983, said Eduardo Belliboni, leader of leftist movement Polo Obrero.

© 2023 AFP

Argentina’s Ruined Railways Will Force Milei to Confront Poverty




Patrick Gillespie
Wed, December 20, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Patricios, Argentina, looks like a railroad version of the Titanic. Rotting rail ties and shattered glass litter the gutted train warehouse. The town’s economic engine is long abandoned except for the manager’s former office, now a makeshift home for a family of 11. The community doesn’t have a single employer and there’s no sewer, natural gas or paved roads.

Deep in Buenos Aires province, the forgotten town off a muddy road lays bare the root problem facing Javier Milei as he begins his presidency in Argentina vowing to end decades of overspending.

Home to 5,000 residents a few generations back, Patricios cast fewer than 600 votes in the November election. Its decline mirrors that of Argentina itself.

Once Latin America’s best, the nation’s rail system crumbled with its economy over the decades, leaving in its wake hundreds of ghost towns like Patricios. But even though Argentina’s passenger network has shrunk to a little more than 5,000 kilometers (3,105 miles) today from 46,000 kilometers in 1945, state-run Trenes Argentinos employs more people than Amtrak in the US or Spain’s high-speed rail network, Renfe.

Towns like Patricios, where the majority depends on social security or welfare checks, illustrate Milei’s greatest challenge: managing a cratering economy that’s trying to prop up a bloated state. As the president himself warns, taming runaway spending will be painful, so town residents are bracing for the worst.

Argentina “is a train on an open track and there’s no station,” says Carlos Tomas Guiotto, the municipal representative, who calls Patricios a barometer for national trends. “We’ll either find the station or we’ll head out into the fields, fall into a ditch and end in disaster.”

Since 1950, Argentina has spent more time in recession than any other nation except the Democratic Republic of Congo. This year is no different, with the economy lurching into its sixth downturn in a decade.

The country’s $43 billion deal with the International Monetary Fund, its only remaining lifeline, is fraying because the previous government missed deficit targets, spending big before losing the election by a landslide. Trenes Argentinos is a microcosm of the bigger fiscal picture: The state set aside 338 billion pesos in aid for its railway services in this year’s budget, worth $2.2 billion at the time it was approved by congress.

Part of Milei’s chainsaw remedy is to privatize the train service, the biggest public employer, among an alphabet soup of other state-run enterprises. “The only possible solution is austerity — orderly austerity that falls with all its force on the state and not the private sector,” he said after his inauguration. “It's not going to be easy.”

But Argentina’s last attempt at railway privatization failed in the early 1990s as companies abandoned unprofitable lines constructed in the nation’s boom days a century ago. More stations shuttered, and service has improved only glacially in recent years.

The first batch of shock-therapy measures aim to reduce state spending by nearly 3% of gross domestic product. Milei is expected to unveil more detailed plans for belt-tightening and deregulation Wednesday in a midday televised address. And while Wall Street investors are cheering the cuts as long-overdue economic medicine — even if it means higher inflation initially as subsidies, government jobs and welfare are eliminated — those on the ground are increasingly anxious.

Maria Gastaminza breaks down as she describes her fears about Milei, partly fanned by the former government’s misinformation campaign. She’s endured a life of hardship, giving birth at 14 and single parenting most of the years since then. Now 42, Gastaminza inhabits the abandoned railway warehouse in Patricios, converting the old manager’s office and one bathroom into a home for nine of her 10 kids and her current partner, Carlos Rodriguez.

Several of her children receive a state subsidy to cover prescription medicine for celiac disease, thyroid problems and childhood arthritis. And her 12-year-old fears she won’t be able to go to school if Milei privatizes Argentina’s education system — a rumor spread by his opponents, which he denies.

“To be honest, I cried on election day when he won. I was hurting for my kids,” Gastaminza says. “Six of us take daily medications that costs 10,000 pesos for each one, and if I have to pay for everyone’s medication, we can’t keep taking it.”

Milei's spending cuts are coming at a particularly bad time for her town. After years of waiting for a gas pipeline to heat homes and service kitchens, the provincial government put up a billboard announcing it would be installed in a year's time. But Milei’s administration is halting all public works projects that haven't already begun.

Gastaminza, who herself receives a stipend for mothers with several children, says she’s ready to work. But in Patricios “there’s no jobs for women,” so she and the oldest children earn extra income by feeding calves that they sell when they’re ready for grazing. If need be, she says she’s willing to join Rodriguez on farms laying fence for cattle, a low-pay job in which her 14- and 18-year-old sons are already working in the biggest nearby town.

Fiscal austerity, however, spelled doom for Argentine leaders before Milei.

Mauricio Macri opted for gradual cuts during his presidency, which proved fatal for him in the 2019 election. And in 2022, President Alberto Fernandez’s economy minister abruptly resigned less than a year after being blasted by Vice President Cristina Kirchner as too austere. To cover its deficits, the former government printed more than 6 trillion pesos, which resulted in annual inflation that’s galloped past 160%.

Even by Latin American standards, Argentina is an outlier. Public spending is equivalent to 38% of GDP, more than the 35% regional average and well above the 24% seen in the country between 1993 and 2005, according to IMF data. Government jobs like the ones at Argentina’s train service have been the main driver of overspending since the mid 2000s, according to an analysis by economist Milagros Gismondi.

“There isn’t a real consciousness that you have to lower spending in Argentina,” says Gismondi, who was chief of staff at the economy ministry in 2019. “It’s not normal to operate with more train employees than in the United States,” she adds, and unless Argentines understand that’s not sustainable “we’ll continue from one crisis to another.”

Argentina’s state spending spree goes far beyond its railways, though. Governments have added nearly a million jobs to the public payroll since 2012, three times the gains seen in the private sector, labor ministry data show. Welfare has also ballooned. The number of social security recipients who haven’t contributed to the system spiked above 5 million in 2020 from just 172,000 in 2002, according to a report by Andres Schipani at CIAS, a university think tank.

Born out of excess more than a century ago, the train service was nationalized by President Juan Domingo Peron in 1948. The founder of the namesake pro-labor movement that dominated Argentine politics for decades branded the move “economic independence.” But in reality the companies operating the oversized network with a billowing payroll were on the brink of collapse, according to Jorge Waddell, a train historian and author of several books.

Whether democracies or dictatorships, Argentine governments of all stripes have proposed measures that never resolved the train system’s woes. Instead, many overhauls exacerbated spending, crushed service and saw the railway wither from a gluttonous operation to a skeleton of its former self.

Now it’s Milei’s turn and he’ll have to battle the same powerful labor groups that hobbled some of his predecessors. “The unions bring on much more personnel than before — trains today that carry 300 passengers have a staff of 15 or 16 employees,” Waddell said in an interview, noting trains carrying a thousand passengers in the 1980s were staffed by 10 workers or less. “No business can withstand this.”

Unsustainable spending on transit, however, may have already hit a dead end. Milei’s government plans to scrap subsidies in the Buenos Aires area that left the cost of commuter train rides at about 10 cents and subway fares at 6 cents.

Such artificially low prices sometimes provoke chaos. In November, Argentines camped out overnight, queuing for several blocks to buy the few tickets available from the capital to oceanside Mar Del Plata because service is so limited and fares start at less than $3 for the six-hour journey.

Other decisions defy logic. The government restarted service this year between Buenos Aires and the country’s wine capital, Mendoza, after a three-decade hiatus. A train fit for 400 passengers only had 60 people sign up for the grueling 29-hour journey.

In the town of Mechita, Argentina’s government was set to pay $864 million to Russia’s TMH International to build electric trains on a railway that wasn’t electrified. TMH sold its business this year, after global financial sanctions imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine doomed the transaction.

Back in Patricios, Osvaldo Curti is the town’s only remaining railway mechanic. Long retired and widowed, he proudly flaunts the trade certification that led him to work on once-bustling railroads across the country, including the iconic “Train to Heaven” that snakes through the Andes.

The 88-year-old, who lives on his pension and late wife’s social security, worries Argentina is losing something much harder to fix than a budget deficit: a strong work ethic. He sees youth in Patricios opting for welfare checks because they can cobble together other handouts that are either equal to or worth more than the minimum $146 monthly wage.

“You’re better off snoozing belly up,” Curti complains.

He also sees society fraying at his doorstep. Nature is reclaiming the deserted home across from his, and one Saturday in November a drunk refusing to return to a geriatric facility stooped there for hours. Curti called the municipal rep, Guiotto, who couldn’t offer any help beyond talking to the man’s family, who wouldn’t take him back.

“There’s so much abandonment,” Curti says, peering from his front yard. “There’s no future.”

©2023 Bloomberg L.P.

EU strikes budget reform deal after two-year wrangle

Brussels (AFP) – The EU agreed reforms Wednesday that will loosen budget rules to encourage investment while keeping debt and spending under control, after France and Germany bridged their differences.


Issued on: 20/12/2023

Germany's Lindner and France's Bruno Le Maire met in Paris the day before the deal was announced

 © JENS SCHLUETER / AFP

Finance ministers from the 27 members met by video link to hammer out the agreement -- after their French and German colleagues got together in Paris on Tuesday to clear the way for a compromise.

France's finance minister Bruno Le Maire hailed the deal. "Historic accord! After two years of intense negotiations we have new European budget rules," he said on social media.

Dutch minister Sigrid Kaag said the agreement would "encourage reforms, with room for investments and tailored to the specific situation of the member state in question".

She said "they work counter-cyclically so that potential economic growth is not cut short", adding that the rules would be better adhered to than in the past.

The fiscal straitjacket imposed on EU members -- limiting countries' debt to 60 percent of GDP and public deficits to 3 percent -- was loosened during the Covid pandemic to allow greater state spending.

Originally, this was meant to be temporary.

But it launched a two-year debate between countries led by Germany that wanted a return to rigorous controls, and others led by France that wanted more flexibility.

The latter wanted to allow spending to finance, for example, the transition to green energy or arms deliveries to Ukraine.
'A hard road'

While the compromise deal reconfirms the three-percent deficit target, it softens the rules for how quickly and a severely a country has to cut spending to get back within the parameters.

"It was a hard road," Spanish finance minister Nadia Calvino, whose country holds the EU presidency, said after the video conference.

"t was a difficult path to tread. And now we have finally reached safe harbour at a historic moment," she added.

"The rules are more realistic. They respond to the post-pandemic reality and they incorporate also the lessons learned from the great financial crisis."

Italy's Minister of Ecoomy and Finance Giancarlo Giorgetti hailed a "realistic" deal borne from "a spirit of inevitable compromise".

Time had been running out for a deal.

If no new plan had been agreed the original stability pact would have come back into force on January 1. Failure to agree new rules would also have damaged the EU's credibility on the markets.

Unions and environmental groups lobbying for more green investment were disappointed, however.

The European Trade Union Confederation called it "self-sabotage" that would hurt workers.

"This is still a fundamentally bad proposal that would push the European economy even further towards another recession," ETUC General Secretary Esther Lynch said.

Greenpeace accused EU finance ministers of "irresponsibly cutting Europe's ability to pay for the green transition.

"EU governments want to usher in austerity for people and nature without challenging the billions in public money subsidising fossil fuels, or taxing the richest in our societies," it said.

Adapted rules

Now that there is political agreement, the EU member states will seek endorsement from the European Parliament to pass binding legislation before European elections in June.

The draft text provides for rules more adapted to the particular situation of each country, allowing big spenders a slower route back to frugality.

Brussels is proposing member states present their own adjustment trajectory over a period of at least four years to ensure the sustainability of their debt.

Reform and investment efforts would be rewarded by the possibility of extending this budgetary adjustment period to seven years to make it less brutal.

The targets would be linked to evolution of expenditure, an indicator some consider more relevant than deficits, which can fluctuate according to the level of growth.

In order to satisfy Germany, any country with an excessive deficit will be forced to make a minimum effort to reduce it, which could be 0.5 percentage points per year.

Paris, however, won from Berlin a suspension of this clause between 2025 and 2027, during which the increase in the cost of debt linked to high interest rates will be taken into account

Berlin also wants a public deficit target of 1.5 percent of GDP assigned to the most indebted countries, to preserve a safety margin in relation to the three-percent ceiling.

To achieve that, an adjustment of at least 0.4 points of GDP per year will be required, which can be reduced to 0.25 points in the event of reforms and investments.

The debt will have to fall by one percentage point per year on average over four or up to seven years.

© 2023 AFP

US releases Maduro ally in exchange for 10 Americans held by Venezuela

The United States and Venezuela reached a deal Wednesday to swap 10 American prisoners for an ally of President Nicolas Maduro, as Washington eases pressure on the leftist Caracas government while it pushes for progress on democracy.

U$A USES NARCOTICS AS COVER FOR HOSTAGE TAKING

Issued on: 20/12/2023 - 21:05Modified: 20/12/2023 - 21:03
3 min

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a press conference on December 4, 2023 

© Federico Parra / AFP/File

By:   NEWS WIRES

President Joe Biden made the "extremely difficult decision" to free Alex Saab, the onetime confidant of the Venezuelan socialist leader who is accused by the United States of money laundering, US officials said.

Caracas is in return releasing 10 American citizens and 20 Venezuelan political prisoners -- and returning a fugitive dubbed "Fat Leonard" who was involved in the US Navy's worst ever corruption scandal.

"Today, ten Americans who have been detained in Venezuela have been released and are coming home," Biden said in a statement, adding that he was "glad their ordeal is finally over."

Biden's statement, which did not mention the release of Saab, said that the United States was "ensuring that the Venezuelan regime meets its commitments."

The White House named four of the freed Americans as Joseph Cristella, Eyvin Hernandez, Jerrel Kenemore and Savoi Wright.

The prisoner swap comes after the United States agreed in October to ease oil and gas sanctions against Maduro's government after it struck a deal with the opposition to hold an election.

'Difficult decision'

The deal to free Saab and the US prisoners was "essentially an exchange of 10 Americans and a fugitive from justice for one person returned to Venezuela," a senior US official said.

"The president had to make the extremely difficult decision to offer something that the Venezuelan counterparts actively sought and he made the decision to grant clemency to Alex Saab," the official said on condition of anonymity.

Saab, a Colombian national whom Maduro gave Venezuelan nationality and an ambassadorial title, was arrested in June 2020 on a stopover in Cape Verde and extradited to the United States four months later.

Saab and his business partner Alvaro Pulido are charged in the United States with running a network that exploited food aid destined for Venezuela, where millions have fled a destitute economy despite oil wealth.

The pair are alleged to have moved $350 million out of Venezuela into accounts they controlled in the United States and elsewhere.

Maduro reacted furiously to Saab's extradition, suspending talks with the US-backed opposition on ending the country's political and economic crisis.

'Fat Leonard'

Meanwhile Leonard Francis, the fugitive arrested and returned by Venezuela, was a military contractor known as "Fat Leonard" who escaped house arrest in California in September 2022.

Francis, a Malaysian national, pleaded guilty in 2015 to offering some $500,000 in bribes to Navy officers to steer official work to his shipyards, carrying out work on US vessels that prosecutors say he overcharged the Navy for to the tune of $35 million.

A prisoner exchange has long been in discussions between the rival governments as the United States switches strategy to engaging Maduro.

The United States, under Donald Trump, in 2019 declared Maduro to be illegitimate following wide allegations of election irregularities and launched a campaign through sanctions and pressure to remove him.

But Maduro withstood the pressure, holding on through support from a loyal political support base and the military as well as from Cuba, Russia and China.

Over the past year new left-leaning governments in Latin America, especially in Colombia, have also broken from the tough approach on Maduro once advocated by Washington.

The US dealings with Venezuela come despite separate concern over Maduro's escalation of a long-simmering territorial dispute with Guyana over the oil-rich Essequibo region, although tensions eased last week.

The United States frequently is willing to trade high-profile prisoners for detained Americans, whose cases generate public sympathy.

Biden said he remained "deeply focused" on securing the release of US citizens including hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, and reporter Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan, held by Moscow on espionage charges.

(AFP)

Guatemala's Arevalo to rule 'without fear' after bid to block presidency

Panama City (AFP) – Despite a fierce campaign from Guatemala's ruling class to block Bernardo Arevalo from taking office, the president-elect told AFP he is confident he will be sworn in next month, vowing to rule "without fear."


Issued on: 20/12/2023 

Bernardo Arevalo tells AFP he is confident he will take office as Guatemala's president in January 2024 

© Gerardo PESANTEZ / AFP

Arevalo, 65, won an August presidential election after firing up voters with a promise to fight corruption in the Central American nation, but his stance has made him a target of the country's elite.

The prosecutor's office this month tried to have the results of the election overturned over counting "anomalies," the latest in a long tug-of-war that Arevalo and international observers have dubbed an attempted coup.

His inauguration is set for January 14, and the Constitutional Court last week ordered Congress to "guarantee" the swearing-in.

"The slow-motion coup d'etat that had been taking place has been blocked," Arevalo told AFP during an interview while on a visit to Panama on Tuesday.

"What the prosecution has done is fabricate cases, acting on lies without any basis.

"That doesn't mean they won't keep trying, but they won't succeed. There is no doubt that we will take office," said the sociologist, the son of Guatemala's first democratically elected president who ruled over half a century ago.

Nevertheless, he is considered an outsider, and a threat to those in power who benefit from corruption in a country where 60 percent live below the poverty line, analysts say.
'Corrupt network'

Guatemala is ranked 30th out of 180 countries by Transparency International, which lists nations from most to least corrupt.

Carmen Aida Ibarra, of the social movement ProJusticia, said Arevalo has been seen as a threat to a "corrupt network" in which "mayors, lawmakers, businessmen" and other civil servants are involved in the awarding of public contracts.

Edie Cux, director of the NGO Citizen Action, said the corrupt elite were "themselves linked to organized crime," and were using the prosecutor's office as an "instrument."

Attorney General Consuelo Porras, senior prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche, and Judge Fredy Orellana have led efforts in recent months to have Arevalo's Semilla (Seed) party suspended and annul the election.

All three officials have been officially deemed as corrupt and undemocratic by the US Justice Department.

"We will ask for the resignation of the prosecutor (Porras). And there will be an election of judges next year," said Arevalo.

'Democracy is at stake'

Arevalo will take office with what he describes as an "extremely fragmented" Congress, with 16 parties sharing 160 seats.

He acknowledged there would be "difficulties, since these political-criminal elites, at least for a time, will continue to be entrenched in some branches of the State."

Under outgoing President Alejandro Giammattei, several prosecutors fighting graft have been arrested or forced into exile. He also cracked down on critical journalists.

Guatemalan President-elect Bernardo Arevalo told AFP he would set up a national anti-corruption commission to tackle graft, "a systemic problem that will require action in different areas of the State" 

© Gerardo PESANTEZ / AFP

Arevalo vowed to ensure "there are no exiles" and create a culture that "rejects and combats the normalization of corruption."

He told AFP he would set up a national anti-corruption commission to tackle graft, "a systemic problem that will require action in different areas of the State."

"It must be understood as a sustained and gradual struggle. We are not going to finish it, we will start it."

He said his victory had "awakened hope in Guatemalans of the possibility of change."

"But people know that it is not a task that can be solved overnight. We will start a process to recover public institutions," he added.

"Democracy is at stake."

© 2023 AFP

Ireland takes UK to European court over 'Troubles' amnesty law

Dublin (AFP) – Ireland announced legal action Wednesday against the UK government in the European Court of Human Rights over a law granting immunity to combatants in the Northern Ireland conflict.


Issued on: 20/12/2023 - 

The UK legislation proposes immunity from prosecution for British soldiers and security personnel from the time of 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland 

© THOPSON / AFP/File

The contentious legislation, passed by the UK parliament in September, creates a truth and recovery commission offering amnesty to British security personnel and paramilitaries if they cooperate with its enquiries.

It has been condemned by families of those who died during the three decades of violence over British rule in Northern Ireland, known as "the Troubles", that began in the late 1960s.

All Northern Irish political parties and the Irish government in Dublin oppose the legislation, while Europe's leading rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, has also expressed "serious concerns".

Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin said Ireland had consistently argued the legislation is "not compatible" with Britain's obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

"The decision by the British government... (to) pursue legislation unilaterally, without effective engagement with the legitimate concerns that we, and many others, raised left us with few options," he said.

"The British government removed the political option, and has left us only this legal avenue."

Martin added he had "used every opportunity to make my concerns known" and urged London to pause the legislation.

Taoiseach (prime minister) Leo Varadkar told reporters in Dublin that the court would be asked to carry out a judicial review of the legislation.

"We informed the British government of that this morning."

Contentious

Ireland will pursue the case in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which oversees the ECHR and is recognised by 46 states including Britain and Ireland.

Martin noted incorporating the convention into Northern Ireland law was a "specific and fundamental requirement" of the 1998 Good Friday peace accords.

Ireland's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said they had 'no option'

 © Adrian DENNIS / AFP

That largely ended the Troubles, which saw more than 3,500 people killed.

Around 1,200 deaths from that time remain under investigation, according to the UK government.

Its law -- formally called the UK Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 -- has been welcomed by groups representing British veterans from the period.

They argue former soldiers have been subjected to unfair prosecutions.

Last year British soldier David Holden received a three-year suspended sentence for killing a man at a checkpoint in 1988, shooting him in the back.

Last week, a judge in Northern Ireland said "Soldier F" -- the only British soldier charged over the 1972 Bloody Sunday killings of 13 civilians -- would stand trial for murder.

But Ireland's legal action will likely prove contentious in Britain, where the ECHR is increasingly attacked by right-wing elements within the ruling Conservatives.

They want Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to withdraw the country from the convention over protections it offers to refugees and asylum-seekers arriving in the UK.

The UK government's Northern Ireland Office said it "profoundly regrets" the Irish government's decision to "bring this unnecessary case against the UK".

"The decision comes at a particularly sensitive time in Northern Ireland," Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said in a statement.

"It did not need to be taken now, given the issues are already before the UK courts."

Heaton-Harris said the UK government would "continue robustly" to defend the legislation.

"The overriding purpose of the Legacy Act is to enable more victims and survivors to obtain more information faster than can be achieved under current legacy mechanisms," he said.

"We cannot afford further delay in the provision of effective legacy outcomes -- both for families and wider society."

© 2023 AFP

Polish state media bosses sacked, populists occupy TV buildings

Warsaw (AFP) – Poland's pro-EU government on Wednesday launched a reform of state media and sacked their management, as right-wing lawmakers staged a sit-in to protest the changes and public broadcasts were interrupted.


Issued on: 20/12/2023 - 

Police officers entered the headquarters of Polish public television 

© Wojtek Radwanski / AFP

The shakeup comes a week after Prime Minister Donald Tusk took power and after eight years of rule by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party.

PiS politicians denounced the media reshuffle as "illegal", while their ally, the country's president, called on the government to "respect Poland's legal order".

State-owned media under the PiS were regularly accused of biased reporting, transmitting government propaganda and launching verbal attacks on the opposition.

The culture ministry said in a statement the chairmen and boards of the state-owned television, radio, and news agency had been removed in a bid to restore the "impartiality" of public media.

Shortly after the announcement, state news channel TVP's regular broadcast was suspended, with only the television logo visible on TV screens.

The TVP Info news channel's website also went offline.

Opposition protests

On Tuesday, the new ruling bloc had adopted a resolution calling for the restoration of the "impartiality and reliability of the public media".

But PiS lawmakers largely boycotted the parliamentary vote, staging a sit-in in the state television buildings that continued through the night into Wednesday.

And on Wednesday, President Andrzej Duda weighed in.

"In connection with the culture ministry's actions today regarding public media, I call on Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the cabinet to respect Poland's legal order," he wrote on X.

Attached, was a letter to Tusk in which he said that "a parliament resolution does not have the force of law".

'What we are seeing is the first step towards a dictatorship,' Morawiecki told reporters 

© Wojtek Radwanski / AFP

Tusk immediately tweeted back, saying: "as I already informed you, today's actions are -- in accordance with your intention -- aimed at restoring legal order and common decency in public life.

"You can count on our iron determination on this matter," he added.

Following the changes in state media management, PiS chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski was seen entering the state television building.

Kaczynski is the party's most prominent politician and for eight years was widely regarded as Poland's de facto leader.

"There is no democracy without media pluralism or strong anti-government media, and in Poland these are the public media," he told reporters on Tuesday evening.

'Partisan discourse'

Kaczynski said PiS politicians could continue the protest on rotating shifts.

Former prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki, also present in the building, said "a forcible intrusion" of the new management was taking place in state-owned television.

"What we are seeing is the first step towards a dictatorship," Morawiecki told reporters.

On Wednesday, an AFP reporter also saw police enter the television building.

A former culture minister in the PiS government said the state media reshuffle was "illegal".

"This is clearly an attack on free media, it is a violation of the law," Piotr Glinski told AFP.

The PiS government was frequently criticised by the opposition and non-profits alike for trying to stifle independent media and limit freedom of expression.

Global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in 2020 said "partisan discourse and hate speech are still the rule within (Poland's) state-owned media, which have been transformed into government propaganda mouthpieces."

In the 2023 report, RSF also said the PiS government "has multiplied its attempts to change the editorial line of private media and control information on sensitive subjects."

© 2023 AFP

French health minister resigns over contentious immigration law


Issued on: 20/12/2023 - 

04:25

© FRANCE 24
Video by: Clovis CASALI

France's Health Minister Aurelien Rousseau resigned as the government of President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday sought to quell a party revolt over the passing of tough new immigration legislation backed by the far right. Following 18 months of wrangling over one of the flagship reforms of Macron's second term, the French parliament passed the controversial legislation endorsed by Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN) Tuesday. Expected to address the reform in a television interview on Wednesday evening, Macron "will need to explain why he thinks this law was so important to pass," FRANCE 24's Clovis Casali said.

Fiercely contested immigration law is a 'shield that we needed', Macron says

French President Emmanuel Macron defended the adoption of a controversial new law toughening immigration in a televised interview on Wednesday, facing down critics who say he conceded too much to the far right in getting the law passed.


Issued on: 20/12/2023
F

rench President Emmanuel Macron shown during an interview with the "C a vous" TV show filmed at the presidential palace on December 20, 2023. 

© Ludovic Marin, AFP

By: FRANCE 24

France has always welcomed and will continue to welcome foreigners, in particular asylum seekers and students, President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview with the "C à vous" television programme, his first public remarks since the contested immigration reform was voted into law shortly before midnight on Tuesday.

The law was the necessary result of a compromise, Macron said, noting that he doesn't agree with all aspects of the legislation. "Political life consists of crises, of agreements and of disagreements," he said.

The controversial new rules – including migration quotas, making it harder for immigrants' children to become French citizens and delaying migrants' access to welfare benefits – were added to the bill to win the support of right-wing lawmakers for its passage.

The bill also makes it easier to expel illegal migrants while back-peddling on plans to ease residency permits for workers in labour-deprived sectors.

These measures and others caused unease among Macron's more left-leaning lawmakers, and dozens either abstained or gave it the thumbs-down in Tuesday's vote.

Macron faced cracks within his ruling alliance after parliament passed the bill, including the resignation of his health minister, Aurélien Rousseau.

Although Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally party endorsed the bill in a move some media dubbed the "kiss of death", Macron insisted that he had not "betrayed" the voters who rallied behind him to keep Le Pen from power when he faced her during his 2022 re-election bid.

"It is a shield that we needed," Macron said of the law in his interview on Wednesday. The new legislation is “very clearly” aimed at discouraging illegal immigration.

This law "will allow us to fight against what nourishes the National Rally party", Macron said, notably fears over migration.

France has an "immigration problem", Macron acknowledged, while stressing that the country is not "overwhelmed by immigration".

(FRANCE 24 with Reuters and AFP)

UK teens found guilty of killing trans girl

Manchester (United Kingdom) (AFP) – Two British teenagers were found guilty Wednesday of the "disturbing" murder of a 16-year-old transgender girl who died in a "frenzied and ferocious" knife attack.

Issued on: 20/12/2023 - 

Murdered teenager Brianna Ghey's mother Esther said she was pleased her daughters' killers would spend a long time behind bars 

© Oli SCARFF / AFP

Brianna Ghey, who was born male but lived as a female, was stabbed 28 times in her head, neck, back and chest in Warrington, northwest England, in February.

Her body was discovered by dog walkers in a park.

During the trial, the court heard how the pair -- a boy and a girl now aged 16, who cannot be named because of their ages -- discussed killing Ghey in the days and weeks before she died.

The case drew international attention and shock in Britain, given the young age of the pair arrested.

A jury of seven men and five women convicted the two after a four-week trial at Manchester Crown Court.

"I will have to impose a life sentence," judge Amanda Yip warned the two defendants. A sentencing date has not yet been confirmed.

"What I have to decide is the minimum amount of time you will be required to serve before you might be considered for release," the judge added.

An application from the media to be allowed to publish the names of the defendants will be heard on Thursday morning.
Violence

The court heard how one of the accused, girl X, had downloaded an internet browser app that allowed her to enjoy watching videos of the torture and murder of real people, in "red rooms" on the "dark web".

The girl developed an interest in serial killers, making notes on their methods, and admitted enjoying "dark fantasies" about killing and torture, the court was told.

Brianna's murder led to vigils calling for better protection and support for trans teenagers 

© Niklas HALLE'N / AFP

The pair later drew up a "kill list" of four other youths they intended to harm, until Ghey had the "misfortune" to be befriended by girl X, who became "obsessed" with her, according to prosecutors.

Ghey had thousands of followers on the social media platform TikTok, but in reality was a withdrawn, shy and anxious teenager who struggled with depression and rarely left her home, the jury was told.

Deputy chief crown prosecutor Ursula Doyle said after the verdict that the case had been "one of the most distressing" cases she has ever dealt with.

"The planning, the violence and the age of the killers is beyond belief," she said.

Outside the court Ghey's mother, Esther Ghey remembered her daughter being "larger than life, funny, witty and fearless".

She said before the trial there were "moments" where she felt sorry for the defendants "because they had ruined their own lives as well as ours".

"Now we know the true nature and seeing neither display an ounce of remorse for what they have done to Brianna, I have lost all sympathy that I may have previously had for them," she said.

"I am glad they will spend many years in prison and away from society," she said.

© 2023 AFP