International

Pablo Neruda’s nephew says lab report reveals poisoning

February 15 |

The nephew of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, Rodolfo Reyes, said Monday that the forensic report on the cause of death of the Nobel Prize in Literature indicates that he would have been poisoned with a botulinum bacterium in September 1973, a few hours before a flight that would have taken him to exile in Mexico.

This conclusion would dismantle the official thesis that he died of metastatic prostate cancer.

The affirmation of Reyes, who besides being a nephew is a lawyer in the judicial case of Neruda’s death, is known a couple of days before a group of forensic experts from Canada, Chile and Denmark deliver a report that will establish if the poet was poisoned or if he died of cancer, which is the official explanation that was delivered in September 1973, 12 days after the military coup that overthrew President Salvador Allende.

The results of the forensic expertise were to be released at the beginning of February, but the convocation was suspended due to connection problems of the specialists.

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Reyes, interviewed by AP, said that the forensic report from laboratories in Canada and Denmark indicates the presence in Neruda’s remains of “a large amount of Clostridium botulinum, which is incompatible with human life”, a fact that the relative first confirmed to the Spanish news agency EFE.

The botulinum toxin is produced by a bacterium that can cause problems to the nervous system and even death.

According to Reyes, as a lawyer in the court case, he had access to the results of the tests of the laboratories in Canada and Denmark, which were made after the same forensic group indicated in 2017 that other experts had already pointed to the presence of the toxin in the bone remains and in a molar of the poet.

Reyes stated that the laboratory reports ratified that “there was no external contamination, that the Clostridium botulinum was endogenous”, that is, internal, and that it would have been given to the poet “while he was alive”.

He added that the only reports missing in the case investigated by Judge Paola Plaza are those elaborated by a couple of experts from each of the laboratories, which would be received tomorrow or the day after.

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The first to affirm that the poet was poisoned was his driver, Manuel Araya, who has reiterated to AP that while Neruda was hospitalized in the private clinic, an alleged doctor gave him an injection in his stomach while he and the poet’s wife, Matilde Urrutia, were carrying out some of the poet’s errands in Isla Negra, 110 kilometers northwest of the Chilean capital. He said that the version was given to him by a nurse.

Urrutia and Araya hospitalized him while waiting for the plane to take him to his exile in Mexico. In a telephone conversation with AP, the Mexican ambassador at the time, Gonzalo Martínez Corbalá, said that on Saturday, September 22, he went to pick him up at the clinic to take him to the airport, but the poet postponed the trip to Monday and died on Sunday.

The conversation with Martínez was in 2017, shortly before his passing.

Neruda was a lifelong militant of the Communist Party, which after several years accepted the driver’s complaint and in 2011 filed a lawsuit to investigate what killed him.

The Nobel’s remains were exhumed in April 2013 and, seven months later, the same experts indicated that no “relevant chemical agents” were found that could be related to his death.

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However, at that time the Chilean forensic institute lacked the latest technology to detect a poisoning that could have occurred 40 years earlier.

In 2017, they announced the presence of the toxin and requested genetic tests to “confirm or exclude the action of third parties in the poet’s death.”

International

White House says Cuba policy unchanged despite sanctioned fuel shipment

The White House said Monday that it has not changed its policy toward Cuba, despite allowing a sanctioned Russian oil tanker to deliver fuel to the island on humanitarian grounds.

U.S. officials emphasized that the decision was made as an exception and does not signal a broader shift in policy.

The administration added that similar decisions would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, depending on humanitarian considerations.

The clarification comes amid ongoing restrictions related to U.S. sanctions policy, which continue to limit trade and financial flows involving Cuba.

International

Spain to grant citizenship to Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López

The Spanish government is expected to grant citizenship this Tuesday to Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lópezthrough an extraordinary procedure known as “carta de naturaleza.”

The decision will be approved by royal decree, an exceptional legal mechanism used in special cases that require expedited resolution due to specific circumstances.

López has been living in Madrid since 2020, after leaving Venezuela following a prolonged political and legal conflict with the government of Nicolás Maduro.

According to government sources, López currently does not have a valid Venezuelan passport and faces difficulties in having his nationality fully recognized in his home country.

As a result, he applied for Spanish citizenship via a fast-track process at the end of 2025, after previously attempting to obtain it through regular procedures.

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The Spanish government justified the move based on López’s international relevance and foreign policy considerations.

López is the leader of the Voluntad Popular party and co-founder of the World Liberty Congress, an initiative launched in 2022 alongside figures such as Garry Kasparov and Masih Alinejad.

International

ICE to remain at airports amid DHS shutdown, Homan says

The U.S. “border czar,” Tom Homan, said Sunday that agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will remain deployed at airports until operations return to “100% normal,” as the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) continues.

“We will maintain ICE presence until airports feel they are fully back to normal operations,” Homan said during an interview on Face the Nation on CBS.

Homan justified the deployment on security grounds, noting that the measure was ordered by President Donald Trumpamid widespread absenteeism among agents of the Transportation Security Administration, who have gone without pay for over six weeks due to the DHS shutdown.

According to acting TSA administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill, at least 460 TSA agents have resigned during the shutdown, while daily absenteeism has averaged 11%, exceeding 50% at some airports.

Homan warned that if TSA staffing levels do not recover after the shutdown, ICE agents will continue filling the gap. “ICE is there to support our TSA brothers and sisters. We will remain as long as needed to ensure airport security,” he said.

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The DHS shutdown reached 44 days on Sunday, making it the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. The impasse stems from disagreements between Democrats and Republicans over ICE funding.

A recent bipartisan Senate proposal to fund DHS without including ICE failed after being blocked by House Republicans, who insist on full funding for the agency.

Amid the deadlock, Trump signed an executive order directing Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to immediately pay TSA agents to address what he called an “emergency situation” and restore order at airports, with payments expected to begin Monday.