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Colombia: Petro announces departure of three ministers, including one critical of healthcare reform

Colombia: Petro announces departure of three ministers, including one critical of healthcare reform
Photo: Presidency of the Republic of Colombia

February 28 |

The President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, announced on Monday night the departure of three of his ministers, including Alejandro Gaviria, former head of the education portfolio, one of the strongest critics of the proposed health reform, which has generated controversy within and outside the administration.

During a speech from the Casa de Nariño, the President also announced the departure of the Minister of Sports, María Isabel Urrutia, and the Minister of Culture, Patricia Ariza.

“I thank the services rendered by Ministers Alejandro Gaviria, María Isabel Urrutia and Patricia Ariza, with their contributions they have contributed to enrich the debate and to initiate the changes for which the country voted. And I invite them to help us build this social pact from wherever they are”, said the President.

Ariza and Urrutia told local media that they were not notified by the president of their departure before the public announcement. According to Caracol Noticias, Gaviria was summoned by Petro in the afternoon to ask for his resignation.

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Aurora Vergara will replace Gaviria and Astrid Rodríguez will be in charge of the Sports portfolio, so that “with new energies” they can “culminate the process of reforms initiated”, stated the president.

The announcements are made in the framework of a health reform project that Petro’s government is working on and which was submitted to Congress by Minister Carolina Corcho in mid-February.

“This government of change will not give up on reforms to improve health, pensions and fair working conditions for all Colombians,” said the head of state during his speech.

“We will continue to seek consensus and agreements to consolidate and deepen our reforms. My cabinet and I, as President of the Republic, remain committed to achieve not only reforms, but reforms that substantially improve the lives of all Colombians”, he added.

On Monday morning, the Colombian president had confirmed the authenticity of a document presented by three ministers -among them, Gaviria-, with objections to the health reform and which, according to the leader of the left, “was discussed for hours and days”, by himself and “by the technical teams that were appointed for that purpose”.

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The fiscal impact, the need for a prior consultation, which will have to be debated as a statutory law – not as an ordinary law, as it is currently being processed – and the maintenance of a mixed health system with the participation of the Health Promoting Entities are the main concerns expressed by the ministers in the letter.

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International

China shows at the UN its “condemnation” of Israel for the “violation of Iran’s sovereignty”

The Chinese ambassador to the United Nations, Fu Cong, showed the “condemnation” of his country against the “violation of the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Iran” after the air attack launched by Israel against multiple targets in that country, the official newspaper Diario del Pueblo reports this Saturday.

That media echoes Fu’s speech to the UN Security Council on Friday, in which he demanded that Israel “immediately stop all its military actions.”

“China (…) opposes the expansion of conflicts, and is deeply concerned about the serious consequences that may arise from Israel’s actions. The intensification of regional tensions does not interest any of the parties involved,” said the Chinese emissary.

Beijing called on Tel Aviv and Tehran to “resolve their disputes through political and diplomatic means, and maintain peace and stability at the regional level jointly.”

In Fu’s view, the Israeli attack will have a “negative impact” on the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program: “China has always been committed to the peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue and consultations, and opposes the use of force, illegal unilateral sanctions and armed attacks on peaceful nuclear facilities.”

This Friday, China had already expressed its willingness to “play a constructive role” to curb the escalation of tensions and facilitate conciliation, in line with its traditional position of active neutrality in the region’s conflicts.

The Israeli attack, which according to Tehran caused dozens of deaths, including senior military commanders and at least six nuclear scientists, targeted key facilities such as the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Numerous civilian casualties were also reported.

Israel justified the offensive by claiming that the Iranian regime is secretly developing a program to manufacture nuclear weapons.

For his part, Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, promised a “severe response” and assured that the attack would reveal the “evil nature” of Israel.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres also expressed concern about the bombing, at a time when Iran and the US The United States is holding talks about the Iranian nuclear program.

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Donald Trump’s government pauses its program of indiscriminate raides against migrants

The government of US President Donald Trump has decided to pause its campaign of discretionary roundings against migrants in certain areas due to its apparent concern about the growing unpopularity of these methods, according to The New York Times newspaper on Friday.

According to an email to which the newspaper has had access and the confirmation of US officials, the Executive has ordered the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE) to pause the beatings that affect the agricultural industry and the hospitality industry.

The spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, confirmed in a statement that “the president’s instructions” will be obeyed and the portfolio will also continue to “work to get the worst illegal foreign criminals out of the streets of the United States.”

The decision points out that this campaign of discretionary arrests to try to deport large-scale immigrants is harming industries and electoral constituencies whose support Trump wants to retain for next year’s legislative elections.

The new instructions were transmitted to ICE in an email sent last Thursday asking that “all investigations/law enforcement operations be suspended in work centers in the agricultural sector (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and hotels.”

These new guidelines come in turn after more than a week of intense protests in Los Angeles against this immigration policy and that Trump himself admitted that the raids seem to be affecting the agricultural sector, which in states like California, where beatings have intensified, depend almost exclusively on immigrant labor.

Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has implemented an aggressive policy of hard hand against immigration and as a sample of his Cabinet officials recently held a meeting with the ICE leadership to order them to carry out 3,000 arrests a day, a mandate that seems to be behind the intensification of the raids.

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Trump says he knew “everything” about the attack on Iran and assures that the dialogue remains open

US President Donald Trump said on Friday that Washington “known everything” about the Israeli attack on Iran and that the dialogue on Tehran’s nuclear program “is not dead.”

“We knew everything and I tried to avoid Iran all this humiliation and death. I tried hard to avoid it because I would have loved to see an agreement,” Trump said in an interview with Reuters.

The US president insisted on what he wrote today about the attack on social networks, where he said he gave an ultimatum of 60 days to Tehran to reach an agreement.

“We knew practically everything. We knew enough to give Iran 60 days to reach an agreement and today it is already 61 days,” he explained in the interview, in which he said he did not know what the current situation of the Iranian nuclear program is after the attack launched by Israel, which also ended the lives of key military leaders of the Persian country.

Regarding the dialogue between the US and Iran about the nuclear program of the ayatollahs, Trump assured that “he is not dead”, that “an agreement is still possible” and also recalled that on Sunday a sixth round of dialogue is scheduled in Muscat (Oman) that they consider is now in the air.

“We have a meeting with them on Sunday. Now, I’m not sure if that meeting will take place, but we have a meeting with them on Sunday,” he said.

The United States and Iran have held five rounds of talks on the Iranian nuclear program since April, with Washington demanding that Tehran discard its capabilities both to manufacture an atomic bomb and to enrich uranium, something that the ayatollahs considered unacceptable.

Both Israel and Trump himself had warned of possible preventive attacks on the Persian country due to this refusal by Iran.

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