International
Millions of Venezuelans abroad will not be able to vote for government obstacles
Venezuela currently has a population of approximately 29.4 million people, of which 21.4 million can theoretically vote in the presidential elections on July 28, both inside and outside the country.
However, due to the various requirements imposed by the Government for electoral registration abroad, only 69,211 Venezuelans abroad are authorized to pay – less than in the previous Venezuelan elections, which were 110,000 -, which represents a small fraction of the approximately eight million Venezuelans who, according to UN data, have emigrated, a figure that the Executive of Nicolás Maduro reduces to two million.
And even if there were no obstacles, not all Venezuelans who are abroad could vote because a large part of them are minors and others, fundamentally those who emigrated many years ago, lack interest in these elections.
Of the eight million Venezuelans who live outside their country, about five million are of legal age and should be able to vote in the elections, but only 69,000 are authorized to do so, explains Estefanía Parra Anselmi, international coordinator of Voluntad Popular and member of the command that groups the opponents who reside in Spain, to EFE.
About three million Venezuelans currently live in Colombia, making it the country that has welcomed the most citizens of that nationality.
This population arrived looking for better horizons due to the political, social and economic crisis in Venezuela.
According to the Interagency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), there are 2.9 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants in Colombia, which places this country as the regional epicenter of the Venezuelan exodus.
A good part of this population expects that the elections of July 28 will generate a change in their country, although many will not be able to vote due to difficulties in registering and the high cost of obtaining documents such as the valid passport, which allows you to vote abroad.
Spain is the European country that welcomes the most Venezuelan migrants, including many opposition leaders who left Venezuela in recent years.
Among them are Dinorah Figuera, Antonio Ledezma, Diego Arria and Leopoldo López, who are part of the Spanish campaign command of María Corina Machado.
These opponents have worked in favor of the candidacy of Edmundo González Urrutia and hope to defeat Maduro at the polls.
However, they fear that Maduro will not accept the results or manipulate them, since they consider his regime as one that resorts to cheating and fraud.
Therefore, they have asked European governments to take measures to prevent fraud.
Parliamentarians from European and Latin American countries will travel to Venezuela to be present in the presidential elections, and the opposition abroad has called for several demonstrations in support of their candidate.
Venezuelans in Brazil will face difficulties voting, since they could only register at the Embassy in Brasilia and the Consulate General of São Paulo, the only places where they will be able to vote on July 28.
Of the seven consulates that Venezuela had in Brazil, five were closed between 2019 and 2022 during the Government of Jair Bolsonaro, and did not reopen after the normalization of relations.
About 125,000 Venezuelans covered by Operation Reception live in Brazil, and it is estimated that in the last six years another 400,000 have entered, although many have continued to other countries. There are no clear figures on how many Venezuelans remain in Brazil in a position to vote.
About 1.5 million Venezuelans live in Peru, of which about 900,000 are of voting age.
Despite this, according to figures from the National Electoral Council (CNE) only 589 are authorized to vote.
Most have not been able to register due to the obstacles imposed by the authorities, which require permanent residence, a valid passport and identity card.
On July 28, the Venezuelan Consulate in Buenos Aires will open its doors to vote on a day that will include a migrant fair and the reception of Argentine leaders who collaborated in the search for freedom in Venezuela.
Elisa Trotta, a human rights activist, explains that the accompaniment seeks to support Venezuelan voters in Argentina.
In Argentina, 2,638 Venezuelans will vote, a small figure compared to the nearly 250,000 Venezuelan residents in the country.
Trotta affirms that this vote has a special symbolism and that the authorized will do so to express their desire for political change.
In Italy it is difficult to establish the number of resident Venezuelans because the majority have dual nationality.
According to the Venezuelan Embassy in Italy, there are 13,548 Venezuelans in the country, but the figures of the opposition command of María Corina Machado estimate between 300,000 and 350,000 Italian-Venezuelans.
The requirements imposed by the consulates have made it difficult for many to vote.
María Claudia López, president of the Italian-Venezuelan association and the opposition campaign, denounces that the consulates have asked for requirements that are impossible to meet, preventing many from voting.
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.
International
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.
International
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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