Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva reiterated his plea for reform at the UN saying the makeup of the UN Security Council is a legacy of colonialism. He also warned that the conflict in Gaza is expanding "dangerously" to Lebanon, adding to calls for a ceasefire. (Associated Press, AFP, Reuters)
Argentine President Javier Milei used his time at the UN podium yesterday to blast the international organization that has mutated from noble origins into a “multi-tentacled leviathan” that imposes a socialist agenda on its members. “His attitude encapsulated the way that the Argentine government is burning its bridges with the world community,” reports El País.
“I’m here to warn you that we are at the end of a cycle,” Milei said at the UN yesterday. “The collectivism and moral posturing of the woke agenda have collided with reality.” (Financial Times)
Colombian President Gustavo Petro spoke about the climate crisis and the ongoing conflict in Gaza, labeling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “war criminal.” (The City Paper)
Chilean President Gabriel Boric called for a ceasefire in Gaza and the immediate, unconditional release of Israeli hostages captured by Hamas. He also criticized Venezuela’s marred electoral process and said Chile is not in conditions to receive more migration. (La Tercera)
Neither Lula nor Petro, both of whom have led diplomatic efforts to achieve negotiations between Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the opposition, mentioned Venezuela in their speeches, notes AS/COA.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele focused on what he saw as a global decline in freedom, saying, “The free world is no longer free,” he defended his administration’s controversial ‘state of exception’ that has seen 80,000 citizens arrested over a period of two years. “Some people say that we are the country that has imprisoned thousands, but actually we’ve freed millions,” he said. (AS/COA)
Mexican senate passes National Guard militarization reform
Mexico’s Senate, dominated by ruling Morena party lawmakers and allies, approved a bill passing the civilian National Guard to the Armed Forces, another reform championed by outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, reports El País.
The move was strenuously rejected by human rights organizations and the United Nations, but supporters said the military would help the National Guard become a more effective security force, reports the Associated Press.
AMLO created the National Guard in 2019 as a civilian institution with policing duties, but now argued it will operate more efficiently under the command of the Defense Ministry rather than the Public Security Ministry, reports Bloomberg.
“Throughout his administration, Lopez Obrador has turned over duties which were long held by civilians to the military, including customs duties and airport operation,” reports Reuters.
More Mexico
The Senate also passed, unanimously, another portion of AMLO’s reform, recognizing the rights of afro-descendant and Indigenous Mexicans. (Animal Político)
The U.S. Treasury Department “sanctioned two Mexican businesses — an ice cream chain and a local pharmacy — for allegedly using proceeds of fentanyl trafficking to finance their operations tied to the Sinaloa cartel,” reports the Associated Press.
A newly declassified U.S. government memorandum, released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, states that U.S. agents were already suspicious in 1986 of the politician Manuel Bartlett Díaz of working with the traffickers who kidnapped and murdered DEA Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena in 1985. Bartlett was Mexico’s Interior Secretary when Camarena was killed, an office sometimes compared to vice president. He is currently director of Mexico’s state electricity company, the CFE, reports CrashOut.
Mexican president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum said the King of Spain was not invited to her swearing in next week because Felipe VI never responded to outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s 2019 call for a formal apology for the Conquest and colonial period. (El País)
Regional Relations
“The United States sanctioned several Venezuelan government officials for extorting money from political detainees, highlighting how President Nicolás Maduro administration relies on criminal rents to stay in power,” reports InSight Crime.
The BRICS bloc is alluring for developing nations keen for alternatives to U.S. dominated clubs. But the growing group of member nations faces an internal fissure between countries like Russia and China that want to position the bloc as anti-west, and other nations, notably Brazil and India, who “want to use BRICS to democratize and encourage the reform of the existing order, helping guide the world from the fading unipolarity of the post–Cold War era to a more genuine multipolarity in which countries can steer between U.S.-led and Chinese-led blocs. This battle between anti-Western states and nonaligned ones will shape the future of BRICS—with important consequences for the global order itself,” argue Alexander Gabuev and Oliver Stuenkel in Foreign Affairs.
Haiti
A Haitian rights organization is seeking the arrest of former U.S. President Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, and running mate JD Vance for false statements about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, which has led to a wave of bomb threats and other disruptions in public service in the small Midwestern town, reports the Miami Herald.
Migration
In northern Chile, “almost half of Antofagasta’s migrant population lives in 60 or so informal settlements, or campamentos, that Colombian, Bolivian, Peruvian, and Ecuadorian migrants built on the arid hillsides surrounding the city beginning in 2014… From a demographic standpoint, Antofagasta’s predominantly migrant settlements are among the most multinational, multiethnic, and multiracial spaces in Latin America. Despite internal ethnic and racial divisions, migrant leaders, most of them women, have represented them in public as spaces of pan-Latin American unity,” according to NACLA. (Via Americas Migration Brief.)
Bloomberg explores the US’ “broken asylum system, in which applications can take years to resolve and outcomes are often determined less by a case’s merits than by pure chance.” (Via Americas Migration Brief.)
Brazil
An attempt to arrest Brazilian music star Gusttavo Lima “cast a spotlight on how a sudden boom in unregulated online gambling has become a growing criminal headache and public health crisis for Brazil,” reports the Guardian. “Online gambling companies have grown exponentially since the Covid-19 pandemic, many of them with links to international companies and local criminal groups.”
Argentina
Milei has managed to retain popularity despite painful austerity measures, but a closely watch poll shows his support fell almost 15% this month, the steepest drop yet during his nine-month administration. (Reuters)
Uruguay
“The former chief of presidential security in Uruguay was released from prison after serving time on organized crime charges. But as he starts a new chapter, Uruguay continues to struggle with questions about criminal infiltration within the government,” reports InSight Crime.
Culture Corner
The increasing popularity of women’s soccer in Mexico “is challenging traditional notions of gender in a country captured by machismo with a new kind of female role model: the athlete influencer, the strong, skilled woman who posts more about her feats on the field than her fashion choices off it,” reports the Washington Post.