International
The Presidency of Ecuador tells the former minister to allegedly hide the energy crisis
The Presidency of Ecuador told the former Minister of Energy and Mines Andrea Arrobo and other high-level officials of that Ministry on Wednesday that they had allegedly hidden information about the country’s energy crisis, which has again suffered blackouts of several hours due to the impossibility of meeting the national demand for electricity.
After having commissioned the Minister of Energy and Mines from the Minister of Transport and Public Works, Roberto Luque, the Presidency of Ecuador said on Wednesday in a statement, without presenting any evidence, that “a preliminary investigation gave indications that high-level officials, including former Minister Andrea Arrobo, intentionally concealed crucial information for the functioning of the national energy system.”
The Presidency reported that “a complaint was filed with the Prosecutor’s Office for paralysis of the public service against 22 saboteurs who sought to harm all Ecuadorians, affecting their development and productivity.”
On Tuesday, the president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, had already spoken of an alleged sabotage without mentioning specific names, in a speech where he immediately asked for Arrobo’s resignation.
The former minister had publicly assured on Friday that the blackouts, which were already recorded at the end of December 2023, would not occur again in the short term despite the fact that the largest reservoir in the country was at the minimum level and that Colombia had cut off the export of electricity to Ecuador, since it also faces a critical situation and does not have surpluses.
“These first investigations indicate that warnings and alerts were suppressed and made to the Energy Crisis Committee, with the purpose that this serious situation is not known for timely decision-making,” the Presidency, in charge of President Daniel Noboa, said in a statement.
According to the presidential office, among the highlights are the critical conditions of the Mazar and Paute reservoirs, in the Andes mountain range, which register an operational storage level of 0% and 4%, respectively.
Likewise, the flow of the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric power plant, the highest power in the country with 1,500 megawatts, recorded a deficit of 40% compared to the historical average.
Blackouts have been recorded since Sunday in several areas of the country, including the capital Quito and Guayaquil, the two largest cities in Ecuador, just in the days before the referendum called by Noboa to vote on reforms in matters of security, justice and employment, which constitute some of the main lines of his administration.
These power supply cuts began to occur without prior notice from the Government and initially attributed to “emerging maintenance” within the electricity sector, where the production, transport and marketing of electricity is mainly in the hands of public companies.
That is why the Government has declared the electricity sector an emergency and has suspended the working day for Thursday and Friday, since it has already admitted that the blackouts will continue this week despite the fact that President Noboa had indicated on Tuesday in the province of Guayas that there were no more to be given this week.
In that sense, the minister in charge of Energy and Mines Roberto Luque said in a brief press appearance on Tuesday that there is no short-term solution, beyond the fact that torrential rains can occur in the areas of the main reservoirs of the country.
Thus, the Executive of Noboa has announced as compensation that its administration will subsidize 50% of the electricity service bills of April.
During these days, maintenance will be carried out in the power plants, which will involve energy rationing at certain immovable times.
International
Former President Alberto Fujimori, admitted to a hospital for probable tumor in the tongue
Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, 85, was admitted to a clinic in Lima and will be operated on for a probable tumor at the base of the tongue, his daughter Keiko Fujimori reported on Monday.
The former president (1990-2000), who received a humanitarian pardon in 2017 and was released at the end of last year, has received cancer treatment for an injury to the oral area in the past 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.
Last night, on behalf of his family, his daughter and former presidential candidate reported on his account on the social network X that his father was admitted to the Delgado Clinic in Lima to prepare him and perform a surgical intervention related to his tongue injury.
He added that the medical report literally specifies that Fujimori has “an Ambulatory Presumptive Diagnosis of malignant tumor at the base of the tongue with probable right cervical metastases.”
In this sense, the also leader of the Fuerza Popular party announced that they will carry out an examination under general anesthesia and biopsy in the operating room for their father.
“The objective of this intervention is to perform a biopsy that allows us to confirm the exact nature of that disease. The results of the biopsy will still take several days,” he said.
He stated that his father and his family trust that he will be able to “overcome and recover” and thanked the prayers of those who appreciate his father.
In recent weeks, the images shared on social networks show the former president walking through the streets of Lima with people in his care and receiving in a good mood the greetings of his supporters.
Likewise, Fujimori opened a YouTube channel where he reviews his management by the government and in the last of his deliveries, last Friday, he denied that he had transported drugs on the presidential plane, as it emerges from a judicial process that recently expelled his children, and asked his followers not to be “poononed” by his “enemies.”
International
Police enter La Sorbonne to expel dozens of pro-Palestinian students
The riot police entered the Sorbonne University of Paris, the most emblematic in France, to expel dozens of pro-Palestinian students who had settled in the main courtyard of the building next to the Pantheon to protest the Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip.
The police intervention, which took place without incidents and without the reporting of arrests, at least at first, happened after another blockade on Friday by about 200 university students from another prestigious university center, Sciences Po in Paris, also in protest against what they called “the genocide suffered by the Palestinian people.”
The Sorbonne, created in the 13th century, is an emblem of the university and French culture through which famous figures (Pierre and Marie Curie, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Louis Pasteur or Victor Hugo, among others) have passed as students or professors and was one of the main centers of the revolution of May 1968.
Jacques, a Sciences Po student who went to the Sorbonne on Monday in solidarity with the protest of his colleagues there, told EFE that the mobilization was a response “to the genocide that Israel is committing, with the complicity of (Joe) Biden and (Emmanuel) Macron.”
“We are going to close ranks against repression,” said the university student, alluding to police pressure in the pro-Palestinian demonstrations and the investigation for apology of open terrorism against a prominent left-wing leader, Mathilde Panot, for a controversial statement published after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The young man denied that there is a political manipulation of these mobilizations by Panot’s party, the Unsubmissive France (LFI), the main leftist formation in the Assembly.
“We are the young people who direct the protests. Whoever says otherwise is wrong. The majority are not affiliated with a specific party,” added Jacques, who promised to “continue with the mobilizations,” as at Columbia University, in the United States.
In addition to Panot, the Franco-Palestinian jurist Rima Hassan, a candidate for the European elections, has also been summoned by the police for advocacy of terrorism.
The controversial statement of the head of the LFI in the Assembly described the Hamas action of October 7 as “an offensive by Palestinian forces” and was paralleled with “the intensification of the Israeli occupation policy” in the Palestinian territories.
International
Desertions in the Russian Army in Ukraine are growing, according to Kiev’s military intelligence
The number of desertions is growing in the ranks of the Russian Army in occupied Ukraine, according to information published on Monday by Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR).
“The desertions increase among the armed formations of the southern military district of the Russian occupation army,” reads the GUR note. “In total, more than 18,000 Russian soldiers have voluntarily left their military units in this district,” the text adds.
The territories occupied by Russia in the Ukrainian regions of Crimea, Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporiyia and Kherson are included in the Southern Military District of Russia.
According to Kiev’s military intelligence, about 12,000 of these deserters belonged to the 8th Combined Arms Army of the Russian Armed Forces, which participates in hostilities in eastern Ukraine.
Information recently published by the Russian dissident media Mediazona estimated the total number of convictions for desertion handed down by Russian courts at 7,400, since the partial mobilization decreed by the Kremlin in September 2022.
They also alluded to the “record” number of Russians who evade military service and are asking for asylum in Western countries.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian General Staff today reported massive Russian casualties and losses in the last 24 hours, after a week of Russian advances in Donetsk that has led the Army to recognize that the situation has worsened on the east front.
According to the last military report, Russia suffered more than 1,300 casualties during the last day, a figure substantially higher than those reported in previous days.
In addition, Kiev claims to have destroyed 37 Russian artillery systems in the last 24 hours.
Today, the “most complicated situation” for Ukraine occurs in the areas of Pokrovsk and Kurajiv, northwest and southwest respectively of Avdivka, which was occupied by Russia last February.
Ukrainian troops in this area have delayed their defensive line in the face of constant Russian attacks.
The head of the Army, Oleksandr Sirski, has highlighted the intensity of the fighting in the Khasiv Yar area, a town located about ten kilometers west of the occupied Bajmut, which is, according to Kiev, a Russian priority objective.
Despite these advances, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, assured on Monday from Riyadh that the war against Ukraine launched two years ago by Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “strategic debacle” for Russia.
“The last thing I’m going to say about it is that if you take a step back and analyze it, I think this aggression by Russia has been a strategic debacle for Russia,” said the head of American diplomacy at the special session of the World Economic Forum (WEF), which ends today in Riyadh.
For Blinken, “as a whole, Russia is weaker economically. He is weaker militarily, given the destruction of so many of his forces. And it is weaker diplomatically in much of the world, not in everything, but in a large part.”
In this sense, the Secretary of State pointed to China as a country that is not supplying weapons and ammunition to Russia, but is providing “incalculable support” to its defense industry, through the sale of microelectronic products, machine tools and optics.
Blinken acknowledged that the increase in Russia’s production capacities is something that Europe is “deeply concerned about turning against it” once the war in Ukraine is over.
Former President Alberto Fujimori, admitted to a hospital for probable tumor in the tongue
Police enter La Sorbonne to expel dozens of pro-Palestinian students
Desertions in the Russian Army in Ukraine are growing, according to Kiev’s military intelligence
Tec de Monterrey honors one of its students for his contribution to nanotechnology in medicine
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