World News Random, Random

[ti-amie]

I'm shocked I tell you. SHOCKED! Who could've seen this coming?
/s

Headline Bot
@headlines_bot@m.ai6yr.org
PBS: Protests have kicked off in Argentina against the austerity and deregulation measures announced by newly elected President Javier Milei, whose government has also warned against blocking streets.#news #PBS https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/thousan

https://m.ai6yr.org/@headlines_bot/111614907487291784

[Suliso]

Sure, but that's a wrong question to ask. The tough one is - will these policies help economically in the long term (5+ years)?

[ponchi101]

I am currently in Argentina.
MOST people are in agreement that these measures needed to be implemented. And, most important, THEY WERE PRECISELY WHAT MILEI SAID HE WOULD DO, during his campaign. So, there is no surprise in this.
As Suliso says, the question is whether these new regulations will help. Because what Milei is doing is bringing down all the rules and regulations that had been imposed during all the left-wing governments. He is not implementing new laws, he is erasing old ones.
The few people I have been talking to are cautiously optimistic. With a capital C.

[Suliso]

Argentina needs to go back to exporting goods and services. Only the private sector can provide that and if they're allowed more free reign there will be more money for things which fall in the public sector (roads, education etc). Not straight away of course... Also clearly a country can't be completely with no regulations (safety, environmental, financial etc.), but from what I've been reading there is way too much now.

I was in Argentina recently. All that official and black market dollar rate is nonsense... There is some potential to do better. Agriculture and tourism for sure. Hopefully some manufacturing too.

@ponch: how do you like BA?

[ponchi101]

...

@ponch: how do you like BA?

I have always enjoyed BA.
But I am here because my life has been upended in the most extreme way. FOR THE BETTER.
I will write about it soon. But let's just say, I may be moving to BA next year. Permanently.

[Suliso]

Congratulations already then! BA seems a good place to be. There is still some grandness about it.

[ti-amie]

Milei’s controversial mega-decree officially takes effect
The executive order, which radically reshapes the country’s economy, will be enforced for a minimum of two months

BUENOS AIRES HERALD

President Javier Milei’s controversial executive order reshaping Argentina socially, economically, and politically went into effect on Friday.

Last week, Milei released an 86-page document known as a decree of necessity and urgency (DNU, by its Spanish acronym) that contained 366 articles. The DNU declared a financial, fiscal, and administrative “emergency” in Argentina while mandating widescale deregulation, the repeal of hundreds of laws protecting Argentine workers, and limitations on benefits such as severance pay and maternity leave.

While DNUs are constitutionally required to go through Congress, they are binding until they’re overturned. DNUs only require a simple majority in one of the congressional chambers to become law, although the judiciary has the authority to reject them as well.

Before Congress can consider a DNU, it must first pass through the Bicameral Legislative Procedure Comission, a group of eight senators and eight deputies in charge of analyzing whether the executive branch’s order qualifies as a decree of “necessity” and “urgency.” The body must then submit an opinion with the signatures of an absolute majority to both chambers within 10 days.

The commission’s members include the senators Juan Carlos Pagotto (La Libertad Avanza), María Teresa González (Union por la Patria), Mariano Recalde (UxP), Anabel Fernández Sagasti (UxP), Silvia Sapag (UxP), Luis Juez (Propuesta Republicana), Víctor Zimmerman (Unión Cívica Radical), Carlos Espínola (Unidad Federal), and Juan Carlos Romero (Cambio Federal), as well as deputies Oscar Zago (LLA), Lisandro Almirón (LLA), Máximo Kirchner, Ramiro Gutiérrez (UxP), Hernán Lombardi (PRO), Francisco Monti (UCR), and Nicolás Massot (Cambio Federal).

Another hurdle awaits Milei’s order after the commission’s ruling: Because his administration has called for extraordinary congressional sessions, the DNU can’t be voted on in a plenary session of either chamber of Congress until March 1. In the interim, however, its measures will be enforced, meaning that Argentines will experience the order’s more than 300 reforms for a minimum of two months.

On Wednesday, Milei introduced a 351-page bill with the aim of “[freeing] the productive forces of the nation from the shackles of the oppressive state in order to once again become a world power.” The legislation would give the president the power to bypass Congress in order to legislate and sweeping authority to privatize public companies.

The announcement was met with nationwide cacerolazos, and Argentina’s trade union federation, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT, by its Spanish acronym), has since called for a national strike on January 24.

https://buenosairesherald.com/politics/ ... kes-effect

[ti-amie]

Belarusian president signs law granting him lifelong immunity from prosecution
Alexander Lukashenko’s law also bars exiled opposition leaders from standing in presidential elections

Associated Press
Thu 4 Jan 2024 13.32 EST
The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, has signed a new law granting him lifelong immunity from criminal prosecution and preventing opposition leaders living in exile from running in future presidential elections.

The law theoretically applies to any former president and members of his or her family. In reality, it is only relevant to the 69-year-old Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for almost 30 years.

The new measure appears aimed at further shoring up Lukashenko’s power and eliminating potential challengers in the country’s next presidential election, which is due to take place in 2025.

The law significantly tightens requirements for presidential candidates and makes it impossible to elect opposition leaders who have fled to neighbouring countries in recent years. Only citizens of Belarus who have permanently resided in the country for at least 20 years and have never had a residence permit in another country are eligible to run.

Belarus was rocked by mass protests during Lukashenko’s controversial re-election in August 2020 for a sixth term, which the opposition and the west condemned as fraudulent. At that time, Belarusian authorities detained more than 35,000 people, many of whom were tortured in custody or left the country.

Lukashenko has also been accused of involvement in the illegal transfer of children from Russian-occupied towns in Ukraine to Belarus.

According to the text of the new law, Lukashenko, were he to leave power, “cannot be held accountable for actions committed in connection with exercising his presidential powers”.

The law also says the president and members of his family will be provided with lifelong state protection, medical care, and life and health insurance. After resigning, the president would also become a permanent lifelong member of the upper house of parliament.

The opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled to neighbouring Lithuania in 2020, said the new law was Lukashenko’s response to his “fear of an inevitable future”, suggesting Lukashenko must be concerned about what would happen to him when he left power.

“Lukashenko, who ruined the fates of thousands of Belarusians, will be punished according to international law, and no immunity will protect him against this, it’s only a matter of time,” Tsikhanouskaya said.

The country’s political opposition is seeking an investigation into the disappearances of opposition politicians and the removal of Ukrainian children from Ukraine.

“We will ensure that the dictator is brought to justice,” Tsikhanouskaya said, emphasising that there were still about 1,500 political prisoners behind bars in Belarus, including the Nobel peace prize laureate Ales Bialiatski.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... rosecution

[skatingfan]

That's never worked before, but good luck.

[Owendonovan]

Belarusian president signs law granting him lifelong immunity from prosecution
Alexander Lukashenko’s law also bars exiled opposition leaders from standing in presidential elections

Associated Press
Thu 4 Jan 2024 13.32 EST
The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, has signed a new law granting him lifelong immunity from criminal prosecution and preventing opposition leaders living in exile from running in future presidential elections.

The law theoretically applies to any former president and members of his or her family. In reality, it is only relevant to the 69-year-old Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for almost 30 years.

The new measure appears aimed at further shoring up Lukashenko’s power and eliminating potential challengers in the country’s next presidential election, which is due to take place in 2025.

The law significantly tightens requirements for presidential candidates and makes it impossible to elect opposition leaders who have fled to neighbouring countries in recent years. Only citizens of Belarus who have permanently resided in the country for at least 20 years and have never had a residence permit in another country are eligible to run.

Belarus was rocked by mass protests during Lukashenko’s controversial re-election in August 2020 for a sixth term, which the opposition and the west condemned as fraudulent. At that time, Belarusian authorities detained more than 35,000 people, many of whom were tortured in custody or left the country.

Lukashenko has also been accused of involvement in the illegal transfer of children from Russian-occupied towns in Ukraine to Belarus.

According to the text of the new law, Lukashenko, were he to leave power, “cannot be held accountable for actions committed in connection with exercising his presidential powers”.

The law also says the president and members of his family will be provided with lifelong state protection, medical care, and life and health insurance. After resigning, the president would also become a permanent lifelong member of the upper house of parliament.

The opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled to neighbouring Lithuania in 2020, said the new law was Lukashenko’s response to his “fear of an inevitable future”, suggesting Lukashenko must be concerned about what would happen to him when he left power.

“Lukashenko, who ruined the fates of thousands of Belarusians, will be punished according to international law, and no immunity will protect him against this, it’s only a matter of time,” Tsikhanouskaya said.

The country’s political opposition is seeking an investigation into the disappearances of opposition politicians and the removal of Ukrainian children from Ukraine.

“We will ensure that the dictator is brought to justice,” Tsikhanouskaya said, emphasising that there were still about 1,500 political prisoners behind bars in Belarus, including the Nobel peace prize laureate Ales Bialiatski.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... rosecution

Except from Putin, he doesn't get that immunity.

[ponchi101]

That's never worked before, but good luck.

It does, if you never leave power.
And if you do, make sure the puppet has no ideas of his own.

[ti-amie]

Ecuadoreans Split on Presidents’ Drastic New Measure to Combat Drug Gangs
Vowing to bring peace back to a shattered country, the President Daniel Noboa has deployed the military to take on what he calls “terrorist” groups.


The police detained men that they said were part of an armed group that temporarily took over a television channel on Wednesday in Guayaquil, Ecuador.Credit...Carlos Duran Araujo/EPA, via Shutterstock

By Annie Correal and Genevieve Glatsky
Annie Correal and Genevieve Glatsky reported from Bogotá, Colombia.

Jan. 10, 2024
Updated 5:28 p.m. ET

A sense of dread took hold in Ecuador on Wednesday, with the streets empty, schools closed and many people afraid to leave their homes after the disappearance of two gang leaders on Monday set off prison riots, police kidnappings and the on-air storming of a TV station.

Even for a country accustomed to violence, the events that have rocked Ecuador this week were shocking.

“I feel like the world I knew before is gone,” said María Ortega, a schoolteacher in Guayaquil, a sprawling coastal city. “You can know how things start, but not how they’ll end.”

It began with violence erupting in prisons across the South American country as soldiers surged into a penal compound in Guayaquil, after the disappearance of a powerful gang leader, Adolfo Macías, from his cell. Inmates at various prisons took prison guards captive, and dozens of detainees escaped, including another prominent gang leader.

The violence soon spilled over into cities and towns, where drug gangs run rampant. Explosions were reported, police officers were kidnapped, hospitals were seized and cars set on fire. People scrambled to get home, jumping on the back of trucks as bus service stopped in Guayaquil, and the police and armed people exchanged gunfire, including near a school.

By the end of a bloody day, at least 11 people had died throughout the country, according to the authorities, including a well-known musician, Diego Gallardo, 31, who was in his car on the way to pick up his son from school in Guayaquil when he was hit by a stray bullet.

The unrest peaked on Tuesday afternoon, when armed men briefly took over TC Televisión in Guayaquil during a live broadcast, taking anchors and staff hostage and demanding to deliver a message to the government not to interfere “with the mafias.”

Not long after, the country’s president, Daniel Noboa, declared an “internal armed conflict” and directed the military to “neutralize” the country’s two dozen gangs, which the government labeled “terrorist organizations.”

Mr. Noboa framed the declaration as a watershed moment.

“We are fighting for the peace of the nation,” the president said on Wednesday in a radio speech to the nation, “fighting also against terrorist groups that today are made up of 20,000 people. They want me to call them groups of organized crime because it is easier. When they are terrorists, and when we live in a state of conflict, of war, other laws apply.”

In Ecuador, the presidential declaration was widely seen as a turning point in the crisis that has subsumed the once-peaceful nation over the past two years, as the country of nearly 18 million has been dominated by an increasingly powerful narco-trafficking industry.

International drug cartels from as far as Albania have joined forces with local prison and street gangs, unleashing a wave of violence unlike anything in the country’s recent history. Homicide rates have soared to record levels.

Mr. Noboa signaled the start of a new fight to push back against the gangs and to bring peace back to Ecuador.

“We are not going to let society die slowly,” he said.


An image released by the government shows President Daniel Noboa, who has directed the military to “neutralize” the country’s gangs, during an appearance on a radio show on Wednesday.Credit...Ecuadorean presidency, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The commander of Ecuador’s armed forces, Jaime Vela Erazo, said criminal groups, which he called terrorists, had become military targets. He made clear the government’s intention to apply a heavy hand.

“We will not back down or negotiate,’’ he said in a statement. “Good, justice and order cannot ask for permission or bow their heads to terrorists.”

Around the country, many were divided over what the government’s move might mean, with some expressing support and calling it a much-needed step to crack down on gang violence, and others viewing it as a slippery slope to a militarized state that targets innocent civilians.

“The declaration of internal conflict worries me enormously,” said Katherine Casanova, a 28-year-old social worker who said her family had recently been attacked by armed men near Guayaquil. “Although in the midst of pain I want to cling to something that makes me feel a modicum of security, I fear the repercussions of declaring an internal conflict, of militarizing. It will probably be my people who, once more, are among the dead.”

Mr. Noboa’s declaration came on the heels of a proposed referendum that would lengthen sentences for crimes like murder and arms trafficking, target money launderers and create a special court system to protect judges.

Many have compared Mr. Noboa’s proposed referendum and enhanced security moves to President Nayib Bukele’s autocratic campaign in El Salvador against drug gangs — a comparison Mr. Noboa has made himself.

The government’s measures are “much more aggressive” than previous steps to quell gang violence, said Fernando Carrión of the Latin American Faculty for Social Sciences, a regional research and analysis group, who studies violence and drug trafficking.

“The population looks favorably on this decision,” he said, but added that tackling such large and entrenched gangs would be challenging.

Drawing the military into the conflict, experts said, could lead to prolonged violence and bloodshed, as it did in Colombia, where Plan Colombia, a U.S.-backed policy that took hold some 20 years ago, has been criticized for treating much of the population as internal enemies.

“The situation could be prolonged and get worse and reach a historic point,” said Glaeldys González, a fellow at the International Crisis Group focusing on Ecuador.

“What I see as more worrisome,’’ she added, “is the president’s declaration of an internal armed conflict — the question is how that is going to translate into practice.’’

“Who will be classified as a ‘terrorist’ or a member of a ‘terrorist group’?’’ Ms. González said. “It’s an open question, and the armed forces seem to have discretion over who are the targets.”

On Wednesday, even as the streets grew mostly quiet, the country’s prisons had not yet been secured, with nearly 140 guards and staff still held hostage, according to the prison authorities.


An empty street in Quito on Wednesday. Many people, fearful of more violence, stayed indoors.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

As gangs have proliferated, the country’s crumbling prisons have served as their headquarters and recruiting centers. About one-fourth of the country’s 36 prisons are believed to be controlled by gangs.

Mr. Macías, the leader of a group called Los Choneros, disappeared on Sunday from the Guayaquil prison that his gang mostly controls. Fabricio Colón Pico, the leader of another gang, Los Lobos, went missing early Tuesday from a prison in the central city of Riobamba. Both men were still at large on Wednesday.

On the streets, people were divided over the government’s vow to confront the gangs and retake control of prisons that have been incubators of so much of the country’s upheaval.

“I’m scared, I’m anxious,” said María José Chancay, a music producer in Guayaquil, whose friend, Mr. Gallardo, died while caught in crossfire on Tuesday. “I feel that the measures taken by the authorities are not going to do any good and are going to bring more violence.’’

But others said the government needed to take a firm hand if the country was going to stop the bloodshed. Videos posted on Wednesday and shared on social media showed shoppers in a grocery store in Guayaquil clapping and cheering as a procession of soldiers entered.

“I have mixed feelings” about the security measures said Ms. Ortega, the schoolteacher. “I must admit that even though it is terrifying, I am relieved. And I feel horrible for thinking and feeling that.”

José María León Cabrera contributed reporting from Quito, Ecuador, and Thalíe Ponce from Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Annie Correal reports from the U.S. and Latin America for The Times. More about Annie Correal

A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 11, 2024 of the New York edition with the headline: Ecuador Buckles Under Gang Violence, and Fear. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/10/worl ... rison.html

[ti-amie]

Andrew Tate loses appeal against ruling that stops him leaving Romania
Bucharest court upholds restriction on online influencer, who is charged with human trafficking and rape

Associated Press in Bucharest
Tue 30 Jan 2024 19.55 CET

A Romanian court has rejected an appeal by the online influencer Andrew Tate to ease judicial control measures imposed while the legal case continues in which he is charged with human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.

The Bucharest court of appeal’s decision on Tuesday upheld a ruling by another court on 18 January that extended by 60 days the geographical restrictions against Tate, 37, stipulating that he cannot leave the country.

Tate, a British-American former kickboxer, lost his appeal more than a year after he was first arrested near Bucharest along with his brother, Tristan, and two Romanian women. Romanian prosecutors formally indicted all four in June last year and they have denied the allegations.

The case is still being discussed in the preliminary chamber stages, a process in which the defendants can challenge prosecutors’ evidence and case file. No trial dates have been set.

Andrew Tate, who has 8.7 million followers on the social media platform X, has repeatedly claimed that prosecutors have no evidence against him and that there is a political conspiracy to silence him. He was previously banned from various prominent social media platforms for expressing misogynistic views and for hate speech.

After their arrest, the Tate brothers were held for three months in police detention before being moved to house arrest. They were later restricted to the areas of Bucharest municipality and nearby Ilfov county.

Earlier in January, Tate won an appeal challenging the seizure of his assets by Romanian authorities, which were confiscated in the weeks after he was arrested. It is not clear when the next court hearing on his asset seizures will be.

Romanian authorities had seized 15 luxury cars, 14 designer watches and cash in several currencies worth an estimated €3.6m (about £3m). Romania’s anti-organised crime agency said at the time that the assets could be used to fund investigations and for compensation for victims if authorities could prove they were gained through illicit activities.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/j ... ng-romania

[ti-amie]

BBC News Top Stories
@bbcnewsfeed@mastodonapp.uk
Chile wildfires: Nineteen killed as homes destroyed

More than two hundred residents have been reported missing in the coastal tourist city of Viña del Mar.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-68194716

(c) #BBC #News #World

[dryrunguy]

I guess I'll put this here. The NY Times is reporting that Aleksei Navalny has died in prison, according to Russian state media.