International

Mexico says top US diplomat to visit for security talks

AFP

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Mexico next week to discuss a new strategy to combat drugs and organized crime, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Wednesday.

The top US diplomat is expected in Mexico City on October 8, accompanied by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Ebrard told reporters.

At the top of the agenda is a memorandum of understanding “on what the priorities are, the security approach on which we can agree,” he said.

“Our priority is to reduce violence, homicides, all forms of violence that we have in Mexico,” he said.

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President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has urged the United States to end a security assistance program called the Merida Initiative and instead invest in economic development in Mexico and Central America.

“The Merida Initiative is over. Now we’re entering another stage,” Ebrard said, adding that the plan had only left “an increase in (drug) consumption, an increase in violence and an increase in arms trafficking.”

Launched in 2008, the Merida Initiative aimed to combat drug trafficking with US military equipment, technical support and training for security forces in Mexico and Central America, which received more than $3 billion in aid under the plan.

Ebrard said that the migration crisis that has seen tens of thousands of undocumented foreigners, mostly Haitians, arrive in Mexico in recent weeks heading for the United States was not expected to be discussed as it was a separate issue.

The situation facing the migrants on the border has provoked a major backlash for US President Joe Biden’s administration, which repatriated around 2,000 Haitians on expulsion flights.

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International

Chile declares state of catastrophe as wildfires rage in Ñuble and Biobío

Wildland firefighting crews are battling 19 forest fires across the country, 12 of them concentrated in the Ñuble and Biobío regions, located about 500 kilometers south of Santiago.

“In light of the severe fires currently underway, I have decided to declare a state of catastrophe in the regions of Ñuble and Biobío. All resources are now available,” the president announced in a post on X.

Authorities have not yet released an official report on possible casualties or damage to homes.

According to images broadcast by local television, the fires have reached populated areas, particularly in the municipalities of Penco and Lirquén, in the Biobío region, which together are home to nearly 60,000 people. Burned vehicles were also reported on several streets.

“The Penco area and the entire Lirquén sector are the most critical zones and where the largest number of evacuations have taken place. We estimate that around 20,000 people have been evacuated,” said Alicia Cebrián, director of the National Disaster Prevention and Response Service (Senapred), in an interview with Mega TV.

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In recent years, forest fires have had a severe impact on the country, especially in the central-southern regions.

On February 2, 2024, multiple wildfires broke out simultaneously around the city of Viña del Mar, located 110 kilometers northwest of Santiago. Those fires resulted in 138 deaths, according to updated figures from the public prosecutor’s office, and left approximately 16,000 people affected, based on official data.

International

Former South Korean President Yoon sentenced to five years in prison

Former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol was sentenced on Friday to five years in prison for obstruction of justice and other charges, concluding the first in a series of trials stemming from his failed attempt to impose martial law in December 2024.

The sentence is shorter than the 10-year prison term sought by prosecutors against the 65-year-old conservative former leader, whose move against Parliament triggered a major political crisis that ultimately led to his removal from office.

Yoon, a former prosecutor, is still facing seven additional trials. One of them, on charges of insurrection, could potentially result in the death penalty.

On Friday, the Seoul Central District Court ruled on one of the multiple secondary cases linked to the affair, which plunged the country into months of mass protests and political instability.

International

U.S. deportation flight returns venezuelans to Caracas after Maduro’s ouster

A new flight carrying 231 Venezuelans deported from the United States arrived on Friday at the airport serving Caracas, marking the first such arrival since the military operation that ousted and captured President Nicolás Maduro.

On January 3, U.S. forces bombed the Venezuelan capital during an incursion in which Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured. Both are now facing narcotrafficking charges in New York.

This was the first U.S.-flagged aircraft transporting migrants to land in Venezuela since the military action ordered by President Donald Trump, who has stated that he is now in charge of the country.

The aircraft departed from Phoenix, Arizona, and landed at Maiquetía International Airport, which serves the Venezuelan capital, at around 10:30 a.m. local time (14:30 GMT), according to AFP reporters on the ground.

The deportees arrived in Venezuela under a repatriation program that remained in place even during the height of the crisis between the two countries, when Maduro was still in power. U.S. planes carrying undocumented Venezuelan migrants continued to arrive throughout last year, despite the military deployment ordered by Trump.