International

Venezuelan opposition in Argentine embassy urges Brazil to expedite safe passage

Venezuelan opposition figures who are seeking asylum at the Argentine embassy in Caracas and have denounced harassment by Venezuelan security forces urged Brazil, which is guarding the embassy, to accelerate efforts to secure safe passage for them to leave the country.

Having spent nine months in asylum at the diplomatic mission and with less than a month before the planned presidential inauguration in Venezuela on January 10, Pedro Urruchurtu, who was the coordinator of International Relations for opposition leader María Corina Machado during the campaign, called on Brazil to “urgently intensify efforts and coordination with the region, understanding that this situation could clearly worsen.”

Brazil agreed to guard the Argentine embassy in August, after the Venezuelan government expelled Argentine diplomatic personnel following President Javier Milei’s statements that he would not recognize another “fraud” in Venezuela after the controversial July 28 elections.

The Venezuelan electoral body declared Nicolás Maduro the winner of the elections without presenting electoral records, while the opposition claims that their candidate, Edmundo González, who is in asylum in Spain, won with a significant lead based on more than 80% of the voting records they say they collected that day.

In a press conference via teleconference, Urruchurtu mentioned that Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva “is a democrat, who has expressed his concern about the situation in Venezuela,” and while the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasizes the importance of maintaining state-to-state relations, “this situation is an emergency.”

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Since late March, Urruchurtu, Magally Meda, Omar González, Claudia Macero, Humberto Villalobos, and Fernando Martínez Mottola, political leaders or campaign collaborators of Machado, entered the Argentine embassy in Caracas after the Venezuelan prosecutor’s office issued a detention order against them for alleged violent acts intended to destabilize Maduro’s government.

The opposition leader stated that it was not only the long duration of their stay at the embassy, but also that “we are experiencing an unprecedented siege in the last decade of the opposition’s struggle in Venezuela.”

“We will have been without electricity for three weeks, and we cannot go out to get water, medicine, or light,” said Meda, who added that the situation “has been very exhausting, especially in the early mornings when they show up with hoods on,” which she described as “psychological harassment.”

For his part, Omar González referred to the constant presence of armed men, whom he claimed they have seen aiming assault rifles with telescopic sights and laser pointers, hidden in the vegetation of nearby residences. They determined the type of weaponry through photographs, he said.

“We are six completely unarmed civilians,” Urruchurtu said.

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International

TikTok sale advances as Trump reveals deal is in place

U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed on Sunday that TikTok has secured a buyer, marking a key step for the popular video-sharing platform to continue operating in the United States.

“We have a buyer for TikTok. We’ll probably need China’s approval,” said the Republican leader during an interview with Sunday Morning Futures on Fox News. Without naming the company, Trump said it is a “very wealthy” tech firm, and the identity will likely be revealed within “two weeks.”

Under former President Joe Biden, Congress passed legislation requiring TikTok’s parent company, the Chinese firm ByteDance, to divest the app to a buyer from a “non-adversarial” country by January 20, the day Trump returned to the White House following his reelection.

Due to the lack of an agreement, TikTok temporarily ceased operations in the U.S. until Trump, on his first day back in office, signed an executive order granting a 75-day extension. He later issued another 75-day extension on April 4, and most recently extended the deadline an additional 90 days, until September 17.

Trump, who has publicly stated he has “a soft spot for TikTok,” believes the platform played a vital role in building his popularity among younger voters during the last election.

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International

Protests erupt over Florida’s ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ migrant jail in the Everglades

Hundreds of environmentalists, Indigenous leaders, and activists gathered on Saturday to protest against the planned opening of a migrant detention center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” which, according to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, could begin operating as early as Tuesday and hold up to 3,000 migrants.

The protest took place amid active construction at the site, located in the Everglades Natural Park—an ecologically sensitive wetlands region west of Miami. Demonstrators raised concerns about the environmental impact on an area that is home to 36 native species of plants and animals that are threatened or endangered.

Protest signs read messages such as: “This scam will cost us $450 million and destroy our precious Everglades,”“Continuing with ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ is criminal,” and “These are concentration camps on Indigenous land.”

The backlash intensified after a televised segment aired the night before on Fox and Friends, where DeSantis toured the facility—built on an abandoned airport—and suggested the detention center could start receiving migrants as early as Tuesday.

Internacionales

Jalisco’s grim discovery: drug cartel mass grave found in construction site

A mass grave was discovered in a residential area under construction in the municipality of Zapopan, part of the metropolitan area of Guadalajara, the capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco.

“After analyzing the recovered remains, they correspond to 34 individuals,” said a state official during a press conference. Jalisco has one of the highest numbers of missing persons in Mexico, largely due to the activity of drug cartels.

As of May 31, official data shows that Jalisco has recorded 15,683 missing persons, according to the state prosecutor’s office. Authorities attribute most of these cases to criminal organizations, which often bury or cremate their victims clandestinely.

“The construction company notified us at the end of February after discovering some remains,” explained the official, González, adding that excavation efforts have been ongoing since then.

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) operates in the region and was designated as a foreign terrorist organization earlier this year by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. Washington has accused CJNG and the Sinaloa cartel of being the main sources of fentanyl trafficking, a synthetic opioid responsible for tens of thousands of overdose deaths in the U.S.

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Mexico has accumulated more than 127,000 missing persons, most of them since 2006, when the federal government launched a heavily criticized military-led anti-drug offensive.