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Argentina govt loses Congress majority, seeks opposition dialogue

AFP

Argentina’s center-left President Alberto Fernandez called for dialogue with the opposition after Sunday’s midterm parliamentary elections, with projections showing his governing coalition has lost control of Congress.

Ahead of the election, there was widespread discontent over the state of the economy, which has been in recession since 2018 and was hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Having already been in the minority in the Chamber of Deputies — the lower house — Fernandez’s Frente de Todos (Everyone’s Front) coalition looked set to drop from 41 to 35 seats in the 72-member Senate, based on projections with over 90 percent of votes counted.

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“If the numbers are confirmed, effectively we’ve lost the quorum in the Senate,” a government source told AFP.

This would be the first time since Argentina’s return to democracy in 1983 that Peronism — a leftist movement based on former president Juan Peron that now covers a broad spectrum of political leanings — would not have a majority in the Senate.

Fernandez will now likely be forced to make concessions to the opposition during the last two years of his mandate in order to pass laws or make key appointments, including to the judiciary.

“We need to prioritize national agreements if we want to resolve the challenges we face,” said Fernandez, adding that he would approach opposition groups to try to find common ground.

“An opposition that is responsible and open to dialogue is a patriotic opposition.”

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Nearly half the seats in the Chamber of Deputies were up for grabs, as well as a third of Senate seats, in Sunday’s vote.

Interior Minister Wado de Pedro said turnout in the compulsory election was between 71 and 72 percent.

– ‘Difficulty ahead’ –

Fernandez had been on the defensive since the Frente suffered a bruising defeat in September’s primaries, picking up just 33 percent of the vote compared with 37 percent for the main opposition group Juntos por el Cambio (Together for Change), led by Fernandez’s predecessor Mauricio Macri.

“These next two years are going to be difficult,” Macri said Sunday, while assuring voters that his coalition would “act with great responsibility.”

Fernandez “will have to negotiate law by law,” said Raul Aragon, political scientist at the National University of La Matanza.

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He predicted the opposition would be open to talks though.

“It won’t serve them to not engage in dialogue, and appear anti-democratic” before the presidential elections in 2023, Aragon said.  

Since the primaries, the government had been in damage limitation mode, announcing last month a deal with the private sector to freeze prices on more than 1,500 basic goods following street protests demanding greater food subsidies.

It has also increased the minimum wage and family allowances.

The government’s supporters have been forced to keep a low profile during the long pandemic lockdowns.

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But pro-government trade unions and social organizations recently announced they would march in support of Fernandez on Wednesday, regardless of the election results.

– IMF debt looms –

Argentina’s GDP dropped 9.9 percent last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The country has one of the world’s highest inflation rates, at 40 percent so far this year, and a poverty rate of 42 percent for a population of 45 million.

“I fear for the economy,” pastry worker Oscar Navarro told AFP on Sunday, without revealing his vote.

“Salaries are not sufficient. Whoever wins, it will take a long time for the country to recover.”

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The government is also in the midst of a tricky renegotiation with the International Monetary Fund over the repayment of a $44 billion debt, originally secured by the Macri government in 2018.

“In this new stage, we will deepen our efforts to secure a sustainable deal with the IMF,” said Fernandez.

He said the country needed to get past the “uncertainties that come with unsustainable debt,” while creating jobs and reducing inflation.

If Fernandez does not manage to reach a new repayment schedule, Argentina will have to repay $19 billion in 2022 and as much again in 2023.

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International

‘No to animal abuse’, the clamor of a march of dogs and humans in Bolivia

Hundreds of police and activists raised their voices against animal abuse in a march in the Bolivian city of La Paz in which they were accompanied by dogs of different breeds and sizes, including a troop of canine agents and newly recruited puppies.

The march called by animal organizations and by the Bolivian Police, through the unit of the Forest Police and Environmental Preservation (Pofoma), whose national director, Colonel Raúl Rodríguez, explained to EFE that the objective of the activity was to “eradicate violence, mistreatment, cruelty and biocide” against animals.

“With this march the Bolivian Police is giving this message to our population that not to violence, not to mistreatment, not to cruelty, nor to biocide against our domestic and wild animals because they are living beings and as such, they have rights, they are animals that have no voice, but they do have rights,” Rodríguez said.

The police chief emphasized that animals “are living beings” that only ask for and require “a lot of affection.”

He also reminded those who own wild animals as pets, that this is “completely prohibited” by current regulations.

“The Bolivian Police already has the legal instruments to be able to proceed to the arrest and referral to the hands of Justice so that they cannot traffic in these animals,” he said.

He also mentioned that the country has rules such as Law 700, ‘For the defense of animals against acts of cruelty and mistreatment’, in force since 2015. Which included the criminal figure of the biocide to punish the murder of an animal with penalties of two to five years in prison.

According to Rodríguez, in 2023 Pofoma treated about 1,400 cases of animal abuse and so far this year there are already 600.

The director specified that eleven people have been sentenced to between three and seven years in prison for these crimes. In turn, about 70 cases are under investigation.

The mobilization traveled through the main streets of the historic center of La Paz. It was led by a troop of canine agents, most of them anti-drugs, who were well uniformed with vests.

Some k-9 agents, such as Vito, a black Labrador, stopped to greet affectionately. Also to receive affection from the people who came to see the march.

Among the most applauded were the new recruits, puppies of German and Belgian shepherds who were in the arms of human agents.

Behind them were groups of ‘civilian’ humans and dogs, such as Oslo, a chow chow puppy that carried a red handkerchief around his neck, and Tony, a huge San Bernardo who caught the attention of the public.

The march was nourished by animal groups and dog clubs of the sausage, pequinese and cocker spaniel breeds, among others. In addition to several police units, such as firefighters, who carried “disguised” cars with snouts and ears.

There was no shortage of boots of ‘Paquito’, the dog that is the mascot of the Bolivian Police, and an enthusiastic group of uniformed policemen with caps that had dog ears and makeup of snouts and whiskers on their faces, who were dancing coordinated choreographies.

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International

Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, diagnosed with a new malignant tumor

The doctors of former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, 85, have detected a new malignant tumor, which is why he will start a new treatment, the former governor reported.

“The results confirm a new tumor diagnosed as malignant,” Fujimori (1990-2000) published on his X social network account.

He accompanied the message of a short video that assured that he will give “a new battle” against cancer.

“Just now that I have regained my freedom, it is my turn to fight a new battle. The results confirm a new tumor diagnosed as malignant, so I’m going to start a treatment with my family,” he said.

In it, he recalled that the first time he was diagnosed with leukoplakia in his tongue was 27 years ago, when he was president, and that then, when he was imprisoned, he was again done “several surgeries.”

“In total, I have had six surgeries in the same place. This is how I have been fighting cancer for more than 27 years,” he said.

On April 30, Fujimori underwent an operation to rule out a tumor at the base of the tongue, as detailed at the time by his daughter Keiko Fujimori.

The surgery was performed “after overcoming (Fujimori) an atrial fibrillation crisis.”

The former president (1990-2000), released at the end of last year thanks to a humanitarian pardon received in 2017, underwent cancer treatment in the past for an injury in the oral area and has had recurrent medical attention for the same reason.

Precisely, his medical record was the reason for former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to grant him the pardon before he served 25 years of sentence for crimes against humanity.

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International

Petro calls former President Duque a “terrorist” for the “murder” of young people in protests

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, called his predecessor, Iván Duque, a “terrorist” this Friday, for the “murder” of young people during the social outcuse of 2021, in which, according to social organizations, more than 80 people died violently, most of them from police abuses.

“When 60 young people killed by the State die, burned, tortured, when thousands of young people were arrested, the question is then: who was the terrorist? Who should be described as a terrorist?” Petro asked himself at a government act in the city of Cali, capital of the department of Valle del Cauca (southwest).

He then added: “The president of the republic today has to say that the terrorist was not the popular youth, that the terrorist was the State of Colombia and particularly the Government of the (…) Mr. Duque. The 60 killed in Cali by you were not terrorists, the terrorist was you.”

Cali, and especially popular neighborhoods such as Siloé or Puerto Resistencia, were the epicenter of the protests that took place between April and June 2021 against the Government of then-President Duque (2018-2022), which began because of the discomfort at the possible approval of a tax reform.

The social outsting was 83 dead, more than half, allegedly at the hands of the Police. In total, according to the Ministry of Defense, there were more than 14,000 concentrations, marches and blockades since April 28, 2021.

The ruler explained that there are differences in the financing of the presidential campaigns and charged against his predecessor, former President Iván Duque (2018-2022), from whom he said he received financing with illicit money from the deceased drug trafficker José Guillermo Hernández, known as ‘Ñeñe Hernández’.

“There is a big difference between a campaign, that of Duque, between the money of the drug trafficking of Mr. ‘Ñeñe Hernández’, murdered later (in Brazil), or that in another campaign the money of the Spanish owner of Colsanitas prohibited by the Constitution and by law, to a group of organized workers deliver the little they have so that a left-wing party can become in power in Colombia,” he said.

 

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