Monthly Archives: April 2021

2021-04-05: News Headlines

Ben Chacko (2021-04-05). Venezuela calls for debt restructuring in response to Covid pandemic. peoplesworld.org Venezuela is calling for a comprehensive restructuring of international debt in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Addressing the UN heads of state meeting on international debt, President Nicolas Maduro said that more than 130 million people had been plunged into poverty during the pandemic. A "profound revision of debt conditions" was needed to prevent …

teleSUR (2021-04-05). Venezuela Hardens Restrictions on its Colombia, Brazil Borders. telesurenglish.net Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday announced that his country will reinforce restrictions at border crossings with Colombia and Brazil due to the increase in COVID-19 infections in those neighboring nations. | RELATED: | "We will redouble the epidemiological controls in 2,200 kilometers of common borders," Maduro said and highlighted that Colombia faces a crisis due to President Ivan Duque's mishandling of the pandemic…

Paul Dobson (2021-04-05). Venezuela Appeals to UN for Landmine Clearance as Colombian Border Clashes Ease. venezuelanalysis.com Caracas has also created a special military zone and brigade to deal with the situation in Apure state, where 17 people have died.

Kester Kenn Klomegah (2021-04-05). Mozambique: Insurgency Causing Irreparable Havoc And Devastation. eurasiareview.com What has been referred to as Islamic attacks and insurgency is causing irreparable deep havoc and devastation in Cabo Delgado province of Mozambique. The insurgency that began in 2017 has unimaginable negative effects on settlements of the civilian population, and on business and industry operations. It has consistently received global condemnation from regional and international community. | International aid agency sources said between 6,000 and 10,000 people were still waiting to be evacuated to safety following the raid on Palma. Dozens of civilians were killed, including South Africans, in Palma where a m…

orinocotribune (2021-04-05). Alex Saab: 'I was Tortured and Pressured' to Sign Voluntary Extradition. orinocotribune.com In a recent interview with the Colombian news outlet El Espectador, Colombian-Venezuelan businessman and Venezuelan special envoy àÅlex Saab confessed to having been a victim of torture from the first day of his "kidnapping" in Cape Verde. He asserted that he was pressured "to sign voluntary extradition statements and give false testimony." Saab has been in detention in Cape Verde—first in prison and now under house arrest—since his arbitrary and irregular arrest in June 2020 in that country. | "I was kidnapped by Cape Verde in collusion with the United States," said the Venezuelan diplomat duri…

slorinoco (2021-04-05). Venezuela's Army Remains on High Alert Near Border with Colombia. orinocotribune.com The Strategic Operational Command of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces announced that it remains on high alert on the border between Venezuela and Colombia. | Due to the clashes registered in recent days between the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) and Colombian criminal groups, the Venezuelan Strategic Operational Command on Saturday reported that it maintains control of the towns of La Victoria and El Ripial, the primary theaters of the conflict. | "The armed groups who, with their intention of spreading terror among the people, flee with cowardice from Venezuelan justice, will not go far," read a…

Raul Antonio Capote (2021-04-05). Another Weapon in the Cultural War Against Cuba. orinocotribune.com By Raúl Antonio Capote — Apr 4, 2021 | CIA efforts to create publishing houses andliterary magazines to attract Cuban writers was intended to separate them from the country's institutions and steer them toward an anti-government stance. | Most of the CIA's covert operations in Latin America during the 1960s were directed against the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro. "No more Cubas", was the agency's slogan at the time. | The Agency created a division in New York City, called Foreign Publications Inc. (Foreign Publications Incorporated), to subsidize various anti-Cuban publications, many coming from Miami. T…

Thomas Knapp (2021-04-05). America Unchurched: A Sign of the Times. counterpunch.org For the first time in its more than eight decades of surveying Americans' religious attitudes and practices, Gallup reports, church members constituted only 47% of the US population in 2020 — down 23% since 1999, prior to which the percentage seldom dipped below 70%. Why the precipitous drop, and what might it portend for the

orinocotribune (2021-04-05). Venezuelan Minister for Defense: Venezuelans Displaced by Colombian Narco-Paramilitary Violence Pressured by Colombian Authorities to Remain in Arauquita. orinocotribune.com The Mayor of Páez municipality in Apure state (Venezuela), José María Romero, complained that a group of Venezuelans are being held in Arauquita, Colombia, and prevented from returning to La Victoria (Venezuela) in order to attempt to discredit reports about the tranquility and peace re-established in Venezuela. | "It is worrying to see how after almost 15 days, there is pressure from Colombia preventing people from returning," said the mayor in a video shared by Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López. "We have information that it was forbidden to leave the shelters until Tuesday." | "Mayor José María…

Liudmila Piña Herrera (2021-04-05). Cuba — Antes de volver al aula. globalizacion.ca El aprendizaje mediante las teleclases ha ocupado un lugar preponderante en la dinámica y el pensamiento de la familia cubana, desde que la COVID-19 comenzó a ser parte de nuestra realidad. Las opiniones acerca de la educación no han cesado,…

Mario Ramos (2021-04-05). Combate a incursión mercenaria en Venezuela. globalizacion.ca Una de las 'nuevas' estrategias gringas de guerra es crear condiciones que permitan la rápida intervención de un tercero, precisamente porque en la búsqueda de destruir los países y procesos que se oponen a ser vasallos de su hegemonía, no…

Lucia Eugenia Cordova (2021-04-05). Venezuela Touches New Peak with 1,786 COVID-19 Cases and 15 Deaths this Sunday. orinocotribune.com On Sunday, April 4, Venezuela marked the 385th day of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The country registered 1,786 new cases in the last 24 hours, of which 1,779 were cases of community transmission and 7 were imported, in addition to 15 deaths. This was communicated by Venezuelan Executive Vice President Delcy Rodríguez during the televised COVID-19 briefing by President Nicolás Maduro. "This is the day with the highest number of cases reported in Venezuela," said the president in his customary Sunday address. | With this update, Venezuela accumulated a total of 166,123 infections and 1,662 deaths resu…

teleSUR (2021-04-04). Venezuela Seeks UN Assistance to Deactivate Mines. telesurenglish.net Maduro made the announcement after delivering a report on the Covid19 situation in the country. He said he instructed foreign minister Jorge Arreaza to contact UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for the purpose. | RELATED: | Venezuela's National Boliviarian Army has been conducting operations on the border zone since unidentified armed units attacked National Guard posts, rural villages and public buildings in M…

orinocotribune (2021-04-04). Jorge Arreaza: Iván Duque is Not Used to Reading but to Lying. orinocotribune.com On Saturday, April 3, Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza Montserrat advised Colombian president Iván Duque to stop lying about the so-called "Cartel of the Suns" (Cartel de los Soles). He recommended that someone read to him about the rigorous investigation which has revealed that the United States and his own government supported and publicized that lie based on an unprecedented media plot. | "It is known that Iván Duque is not used to reading, but he is used to lying," Arreaza wrote on his Twitter account, @jaarreaza. "Perhaps someone can read to him this rigorous work by a Spanish researcher, wh…

orinocotribune (2021-04-04). Three Colombian Navy Platoons Deployed at Border with Venezuela to 'Reinforce Security'. orinocotribune.com Last Thursday, April 1, the government of Colombia deployed three platoons of the Colombian navy in the department of Arauca on the Colombia-Venezuela border, with the alleged mission of "guaranteeing border security and providing protection to the Colombian population." Incidentally, Arauca is the region from where Colombian narco-paramilitary gangs routinely violate Venezuelan sovereignty and security of the Venezuelan people. | According to a note published by Webinfomil last Thursday, this group, comprised of 90 soldiers, has as "main objective the defense of sovereignty, independence, integrity of the nation…

Peoples Dispatch (2021-04-04). Explained: How Intellectual Property Rights are blocking vaccine production. peoplesdispatch.org Estimates suggest that the mass of the population in wealthier countries are likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by mid of 2022. However, in poorer economies, mass immunization will take until 2024, if it happens at all. These countries will pay the cost of this delay in the form of 2.5 million avoidable deaths. | What is standing in the way of expanding production and carrying out mass vaccination campaigns across the world?

Party for Socialism, Liberation (2021-04-04). Friday 4/2: Virtual Forum: 60-year Blockade on Cuba & Unions Fight for Safe Schools. indybay.org bit.ly/education4thepeople…

Robert Norse (2021-04-04). Modified Injunction is Bad News for the Unhoused; Prepare to Resist Now, or Regret Later. indybay.org Judge Susan van Kuelen's March 30th modifications in the 1-20-21 Preliminary Injunction previously protecting the San Lorenzo Survival Campground was published April 1st. It allows a week or two relief, if that, before the unhoused population faces restored confinement or persecution.

Updated: 2021-04-06 02:37 | 22:37 EST | 18 | 0 | 6 | 12 | 0

2021-04-04: News Headlines

orinocotribune (2021-04-04). Jorge Arreaza: Iván Duque is Not Used to Reading but to Lying. orinocotribune.com On Saturday, April 3, Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza Montserrat advised Colombian president Iván Duque to stop lying about the so-called "Cartel of the Suns" (Cartel de los Soles). He recommended that someone read to him about the rigorous investigation which has revealed that the United States and his own government supported and publicized that lie based on an unprecedented media plot. | "It is known that Iván Duque is not used to reading, but he is used to lying," Arreaza wrote on his Twitter account, @jaarreaza. "Perhaps someone can read to him this rigorous work by a Spanish researcher, wh…

orinocotribune (2021-04-04). Three Colombian Navy Platoons Deployed at Border with Venezuela to 'Reinforce Security'. orinocotribune.com Last Thursday, April 1, the government of Colombia deployed three platoons of the Colombian navy in the department of Arauca on the Colombia-Venezuela border, with the alleged mission of "guaranteeing border security and providing protection to the Colombian population." Incidentally, Arauca is the region from where Colombian narco-paramilitary gangs routinely violate Venezuelan sovereignty and security of the Venezuelan people. | According to a note published by Webinfomil last Thursday, this group, comprised of 90 soldiers, has as "main objective the defense of sovereignty, independence, integrity of the nation…

Party for Socialism, Liberation (2021-04-04). Friday 4/2: Virtual Forum: 60-year Blockade on Cuba & Unions Fight for Safe Schools. indybay.org bit.ly/education4thepeople…

Robert Norse (2021-04-04). Modified Injunction is Bad News for the Unhoused; Prepare to Resist Now, or Regret Later. indybay.org Judge Susan van Kuelen's March 30th modifications in the 1-20-21 Preliminary Injunction previously protecting the San Lorenzo Survival Campground was published April 1st. It allows a week or two relief, if that, before the unhoused population faces restored confinement or persecution.

Peoples Dispatch (2021-04-04). Explained: How Intellectual Property Rights are blocking vaccine production. peoplesdispatch.org Estimates suggest that the mass of the population in wealthier countries are likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by mid of 2022. However, in poorer economies, mass immunization will take until 2024, if it happens at all. These countries will pay the cost of this delay in the form of 2.5 million avoidable deaths. | What is standing in the way of expanding production and carrying out mass vaccination campaigns across the world?

Arab News (2021-04-03). Why Myanmar's Massacres Shame The World — OpEd. eurasiareview.com By Yossi Mekelberg* | When representatives of all UN member states met in 2005 for the World Summit, billed at the time as the "largest gathering of world leaders in history," and passed a resolution that set out the parameters for the Responsibility to Protect populations (R2P) from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, there was an air of togetherness and optimism that the journey toward eradicating these horrific phenomena had begun. | In the intervening years, this hope has been dented time and time again when such atrocities have been committed by some of the very countries t…

Eurasia Review (2021-04-03). Deprivation Is 'Driving' Covid-19 Ethnic Disparities. eurasiareview.com Deprivation among society at large is 'driving' Covid-19 disparities among minority ethnic groups – predominantly South Asian and Black African or Caribbean populations – and could be considered the main cause of disproportionate infection rates, hospitalization and deaths experienced by these populations, according to new analysis from the University of Leicester. | The study, supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) comes a day after a government-commissioned review concluded race and racism have become less important factors in explaining soci…

Jose Manuel Blanco Diaz (2021-04-03). Fake News Warfare in Venezuela: Now an Alleged Morgue Collapse Due to COVID-19. orinocotribune.com Friday, April 2, social media networks in Venezuela were once again the center of a debate in which users revealed a case of fake news. The action began with photographs that were circulated depicting an alleged "COVID-19 death surge" in the Bello Monte morgue in Caracas. | The issue became a trending topic at a time when the country is going through a second wave of coronavirus infections. On the same day, for example, 1,254 new positive cases, and 13 deaths from the illness were reported. |

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida (2021-04-03). Violence Escalates on the Border Between Venezuela and Colombia. globalresearch.ca Once again, tensions are rising on the border between Venezuela and …

orinocotribune (2021-04-03). La Victoria and El Ripial Calm and Under Military Protection (Apure State). orinocotribune.com The commander of the Strategic Integral Defense Region (REDI) Los Llanos, General Alejandro Guevara Hernández, reported that the people of El Ripial, La Victoria and other areas of the Apure state are "calm and under the protection of the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB)." | He also informed that the inhabitants of these communities are receiving food, medicine and other necessary items from the social programs of the Venezuelan government. In addition, electrical services and water supply in the regions have already been restored. | La FANB continua desplegada garantizando la paz, la tranquilidad y en cons…

orinocotribune (2021-04-03). Latest Developments in Apure: Families Displaced in Border Clashes Return to Their Homes in El Ripial. orinocotribune.com Inhabitants of El Ripial town in Apure state, who were displaced due to clashes between the Venezuelan military and Colombian paramilitary gangs over the last few days, are returning home with support from the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB) deployment protecting the border zones. El Ripial is one of the localities from which the Venezuelan military has expelled Colombian armed narco-paramilitary gangs. This follows violent actions committed by the said criminal groups, reported from multiple locations close to the Colombia-Venezuela border in Apure. | Last week, facing violence from the Colombian narco-te…

Aidan O'Brien* (2021-04-03). US Values Vs Chinese Values: Empire Vs Bandung As Seen From Cape Verde — OpEd. eurasiareview.com In February the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinkin, made it a priority to phone Rui Figueiredo, the Foreign Affairs and Defense Minister of Cape Verde. They spoke about commerce and "security" (1). | Why? Why is the tiny African nation of Cape Verde (population 550,000) a US priority? In short: because the US is behind China in the latest "scramble for Africa". | To rectify its position, vis-à -vis China, in Africa (and elsewhere): "U.S. President Joe Biden pledged to put values at the heart of his administration's China policy. Since entering office, he has called on the world's democracies to gird for a n…

Eurasia Review (2021-04-03). African Elephants Only Occupy A Fraction Of Their Potential Range. eurasiareview.com Many wildlife species are threatened by shrinking habitat. But according to new research, the potential range of African elephants could be more than five times larger than its current extent. | Due to 2,000 years of human pressure, African elephants have suffered dramatic population declines, and their range has shrunk to just 17% of what it could be, say researchers who led the new study, in Current Biology. | The dramatic reduction in range is due to the killing of elephants for their ivory and the encroachment of humans into elephant habitat. Evidence for elephants being drastically reduced in certain regi…

Eurasia Review (2021-04-03). Adjusting Interactions Help Some California's Wild Bee Populations Survive. eurasiareview.com Across California's Central Valley, under stress from large-scale agriculture and climate change, native bee species that are flexible in their pollination behavior when around other wild bee populations appear best suited for survival in shrinking habitats. | That's the primary finding of a study published online in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. | A research team led by University of Oregon biologist Lauren C. Ponisio identified 1,150 network interactions involving 157 wild bee species and 152 plant species at 63 sites spread across three counties. The findings emerged from observations of adult bee…

MISES (2021-04-03). The World Of Salamanca — OpEd. eurasiareview.com By Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.* | The subject of the medieval period highlights the vast gulf that separates scholarly opinion from popular opinion. This is a grave frustration for scholars who have been working to change popular opinion for a hundred years. For most people, the medieval period brings to mind populations living by myths and crazy superstitions such as we might see in a Monty Python skit. Scholarly opinion, however, knows otherwise. The age between the 8th and 16th centuries was a time of amazing advance in every area of knowledge, such as architecture, music, biology, mathematics, astronomy, ind…

orinocotribune (2021-04-03). Venezuelan Minister for Defense: Colombia is Using PsyOps and Media Warfare to Undermine Venezuelan Army. orinocotribune.com This Friday, April 2, Venezuelan Minister for Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, denounced the use of psyops and media manipulation on the part of the Colombian government to defend its economic interests, create unrest among the Venezuelan population, manipulate public opinion at the international level and thus destabilize Venezuela. | On his Twitter account @vladimirpadrino, he wrote that "this conflict, in which the Republic makes legitimate use of its weapons to expel the groups that want to use our territory for bastard purposes, is accompanied by other weapons that seek various objectives: | 1 Defend the eco…

Yvonne Gilleece, Dagny Krankowska (2021-04-03). [Comment] ART in pregnant women living with HIV. thelancet.com More than half (51%) of the world's population of people living with HIV-1 are women.1 Each year, the incidence of new HIV-1 infections in women of reproductive age is high, with 5 ∑2 million women of reproductive age newly diagnosed between 2010 and 2015,2 and 1 ∑3 million pregnant women receiving HIV-1 treatment in 2018.3 Perinatal transmission of HIV-1 has fallen most substantially through increased access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) in pregnancy and during breastfeeding. UNAIDS has reported that new HIV-1 infections among children have halved from 310‚Äà000 in 2010 to 150‚&…

Ietza Bojorquez, Báltica Cabieses, Carlos Arósquipa, Juan Arroyo, Andrés Cubillos Novella, Michael Knipper, Miriam Orcutt, Ana Cristina Sedas, Karol Rojas (2021-04-03). [Comment] Migration and health in Latin America during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. thelancet.com COVID-19 has created a syndemic scenario that is deepening pre-existing structural inequalities for migrants in Latin American countries (LACs).1,2 LACs have been severely affected by COVID-19, and migrants are among the populations most impacted by the heightened humanitarian crisis across the region. Socioeconomic inequalities between migrants and local people have widened, and there are fears that progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will be reversed.

Editor2 (2021-04-03). Ukraine To Regain 'Occupied Territory' in Crimea and Sevastopol. orinocotribune.com In 2014, the Russian-speaking population living in the Donbas region set the Donetsk and Luhansk republics. Ukraine does not recognize that decision to date. | Over the last week, Ukraine has been moving military vehicles and troops to the front lines, a measure that increases its military tensions with Russia. | On March 24, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed the Decree 117/2021 approving the "strategy of disoccupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the Sevastopol city." | In practical terms, Ukraine's decision could trigger actions lea…

Updated: 2021-04-05 05:29 | 01:29 EST | 19 | 0 | 14 | 5 | 0