[RD] News Thread of the Americas

[Takhisis]

Why do I feel like offering someone an egg?

 

[Broken_Erika]

Miss Nicaragua: Pageant director quits after treason claims​

The director of the Miss Nicaragua beauty pageant, Karen Celebertti, has stepped down 10 days after she was charged with treason.

Police have accused Ms Celebertti of rigging the contest in favour of anti-government beauty queens.

The accusations were made days after Miss Nicaragua, Sheynnis Palacios, won the Miss Universe title.

After her win, photos of Ms Palacios at a 2018 anti-government protest emerged, triggering the government's anger.

Thousands of Nicaraguans took to the streets to celebrate Ms Palacios's unexpected success at Miss Universe - the first time Nicaragua has won the pageant.

Many waved the nation's official blue-and-white national flag, which has become associated with the anti-government protests which swept through the country in 2018 before being brutally repressed.

The government of President Daniel Ortega - who has been in power since 2007 - initially released a statement welcoming Sheynnis Palacios's victory with "pride and joy". But it quickly turned against her and those linked to the pageant when the photos of her waving the national flag at a 2018 anti-government demonstration went viral.

Ms Palacios has not returned to Nicaragua since being crowned Miss Universe and opposition media reported that Ms Celebertti and her daughter were denied entry to Nicaragua, forcing them to fly to Mexico.

Local media also say that police arrested Ms Celebertti's husband and son, who co-own the local Miss Universe franchise. All three have been accused of treason.

A police statement said they had taken part "in the terrorist actions of the failed coup attempt", a reference to the 2018 anti-government protests.

The statement claims that the family "remained in communication with exponents of treason to the homeland, preparing to use their franchises and platforms allegedly devoted to 'innocent' beauty contests in a conspiracy to turn the contests into traps and political ambushes, financed by foreign agents."

It adds that they "must serve their sentence according to Nicaraguan law", even though no trial has so far been held.

In a statement published on X, formerly known as Twitter, Ms Celebertti insisted that there had never been any politics involved in the beauty pageants she had organised.

Miguel Mendoza, a veteran Nicaraguan journalist who was among 222 critics of the government deported to the United States earlier this year, said that he hoped Ms Celebertti's resignation would lead to the release of her husband and son.

Anti-government protests have been illegal in Nicaragua since 2018.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-67690990

 

[Takhisis]

Operation chainsaw begins. By finally devaluating the official over-the-counter exchage rate to 800-1 to the US dollar (up from 365 until a few days ago, and now there's been a long weekend/bank holiday), the new government seems to hope to actually capitalise on exports (criminally undervalued).

There's also quite a few other shock measures coming in.

KABLOOIE.

 

[Takhisis]

So, on day one of the Shock Therapy™ era, we know the new inflation rate: 12.8% in November alone, adding up to a total of 148.2%. Year-on-year that makes for 160% or more.

Inflation for December is estimated to be 20-30%. Yyyyyay??

(a lot of December's was repressed inflation: literally, people under threat by the unelected executive to keep prices down or else)

 

[Takhisis]

Meanwhile, environmental catastrophes continue to ensue:

‘This river is doomed’: Peru’s gold rush threatens waterways and the people who depend on them​

Indigenous communities lead fight to stop illicit mining in Loreto that is poisoning the water and destroying its forests

Loreto used to be considered a peaceful region in Peru, but not any more. José Manuyama Ahuite was born at the confluence of the Ucayali and Tapiche rivers in Requena, 100 miles (160km) south of Iquitos, a port city and the gateway to the Indigenous peoples of the northern Amazon. He moved to the town in 2004, before the miners brought pollution to the Nanay River and destruction to surrounding forests.
“The river forms part of our spirit and culture. If the river dies, so does our human dignity,” he says. “Now this river is doomed. The colour of the water is changing, and the same devastation in other mining areas is beginning to be reproduced here in the Nanay.”

Spoiler :

As president of the Water Defence Committee in Iquitos, created to address threats to the region’s rivers, he says their goal is to end pollution in the Nanay. “Many leaders and neighbours who live in the basin live threatened and afraid in their own communities,” Manuyama says. “We hope we don’t go through the same thing.”

In recent years, illegal mining has expanded rapidly throughout Peru’s Loreto region as miners have become emboldened by the absence of authorities and rising gold prices. The activity has affected the quality of water, bringing the threat of pollution and disease to more than 170,000 Indigenous inhabitants across the Peruvian Amazon.

Illegal mining is damaging Peru’s rivers​

Dredgers have been found in several rivers across the region, including the Marañón, Napo, Putumayo and Nanay rivers, says Abel Chiroque Becerra, head of Loreto’s ombudsman’s office. The current situation has been exacerbated by a lack of opportunities for residents and neglect by the Peruvian state, he says.

Protected areas and Indigenous reserves have been heavily affected. “It is a great concern because of the pressure on our rivers,” says one Kichwa Indigenous leader who wishes to remain anonymous. “As they continue to pollute the rivers, they bring diseases because people consume the fish.”

A recent report from the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) has exposed the scale and impact of illegal gold mining in Peru’s Loreto region. More than 11 large rivers are affected by illegal mining, it found, covering three protected natural areas and 31 Indigenous territories.

The Nanay basin, which supplies drinking water to almost half a million people in Iquitos, the largest city in the Peruvian Amazon, has been most heavily damaged, with more than three times as many mining sites as on the other 10 rivers combined. Between 2021 and July 2023, the report says, 122 cases of illegal mining were identified along the river.

“For the first time, we now have a good idea about what is happening in the north of Peru, especially the Nanay,” says Matt Finer, director of MAAP.

As pressure mounts over the activity, Becerra has urged the regional government to address the increase in mining and strengthen state action. “The regional government must express its true capacity to intervene in the fight against illegal mining so that the executive or national government assumes responsibility,” he says.

The authorities have failed to clear hundreds of illegal miners within three protected areas, including in the Yaguas national park, which covers 868,000 hectares (2,145,000 acres) of tropical forest and is home to 29 Indigenous communities. It is estimated that 550 fish species and up to 65% of Peru’s freshwater fish live in the park’s waters, including key migratory catfish.

In response to these threats, the Kichwa leader and other Indigenous peoples have taken matters into their own hands, creating independent monitoring groups to oversee and protect their territories.

Communities have learned to employ technology to identify threats and report environmental crimes in collaboration with Orpio, the organisation of Indigenous people of Peru’s eastern Amazon, an ecological monitoring programme.

“We monitor not only the rivers but also illegal logging, burning, invasions and drug trafficking,” the Kichwa leader says. “We see where people are causing an impact on communities, such as the presence of mining, and we try to control it.”

But those fighting the criminals face considerable danger.

The Kichwa leader is one of many environmental defenders to have faced intimidation and threats from illegal miners while patrolling the region. “When we filed complaints, I received threats from the miners because they could no longer work freely or easily enter communities,” they say. “They told me I had to withdraw the complaints from the prosecutor’s office.

“Other colleagues have been threatened by weapons, and that presented a real fear for me and my family.”

The Loreto region, which covers almost a third of Peru’s territory and borders Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil, is considered one of the world’s most biologically diverse regions. It accounts for only 5% of the Amazon basin by area but harbours up to 40% of its terrestrial vertebrate species and has the largest peat deposits in the basin.

Manuyama says: “The mining has had a devastating impact on our environment. The forest is already depredated and mortally wounded. Illegal mining will destroy the Amazon’s fragile ecosystem, which is serious for the world.”

The mining in the region is artisanal, an intensive operation that studies show worsens water quality, disrupts the natural flow of water, and pollutes rivers and streams with high concentrations of mercury. Environmentalists and biologists fear this activity will damage aquatic ecosystems and threaten the food security of Indigenous communities who depend on these rivers.

Andrea Buitrago, director of the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development (FCDS) in Peru, says the toxic metal leaches into the Amazon’s watercourses, “poisoning Indigenous communities in the region and local populations that consume the contaminated fish”.

Although there have been few studies on levels of contamination in Loreto’s waters, researchers farther south in Peru’s Madre de Dios region have been able to document the widespread and severe impacts of artisanal mining on local livelihoods and the environment.

Corine Vriesendorp, an ecologist at the Field Museum in Chicago and director of its Andes-Amazon programme, says: “Mercury is showing up in the leaves of canopy trees and the bodies of howler monkeys,” adding that the metal “quickly becomes pervasive and has real human-health impacts.”

Vriesendorp believes the proliferation of illegal mining in Nanay shows how complex the situation has become. “It is in the back yard of Iquitos, which is where the regional government is, and the fact that they have not been able to control it, recognising that it is fundamental for the wellbeing of everyone who lives there, suggests this is a massive challenge,” she says.

In Allpahuayo-Mishana national reserve, which MAAP says has also been affected by illegal mining, Sernanp, Peru’s authority for protected natural areas, has trained park rangers in surveillance and other conservation strategies to prevent illegal mining.

Herman Ruíz Abecasis, the reserve’s director, says: “We have been supporting joint actions to fight against illegal mining on the Nanay River, providing the necessary support within our institutional reach.”

During an environmental summit in August, Peru’s president, Dina Boluarte, and the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, agreed to protect the Amazon and its Indigenous inhabitants from the climate crisis, ecological devastation and crime.

At the end of the two-day meeting, Amazonian leaders signed the Belém Declaration, which includes a commitment to combat illegal mining and strengthen regional and international cooperation. However, critics said the declaration was much weaker than hoped.

“This is a force that is totally beyond what governments are capable of taking on and what local people are taking on,” Vriesendorp says.

“Drugs, arms, timber and other illegal economies in the Amazon tend to be quite connected, and they are run by armed groups and actors. It’s very hard as an individual, whether you are a park guard or community president, to take those things on. We have to attack the root drivers of this demand.”

 

[innonimatu]

Operation chainsaw begins. By finally devaluating the official over-the-counter exchage rate to 800-1 to the US dollar (up from 365 until a few days ago, and now there's been a long weekend/bank holiday), the new government seems to hope to actually capitalise on exports (criminally undervalued).

There's also quite a few other shock measures coming in.

KABLOOIE.

Put 2+2 together. This devaluation has nothing to do with exports.

Milei is the oligarch's tools. The argentinian oligarchs. Like Macri before.

Macri facilitated them exporting their money as US dollars abroad. The IMF loan was for that, the dollars entered to support that exit of funds. Many thousands of millions.

Now their new tool devalues the peso and (that's the +2) sells off the economy, the public companies, to those who just happen to have the big dollars. The oligarchs. To offer them an even better deal, this devaluation prior to the sell-off. The more the peso crashes, teh cheaper they will seize all the public assets sold off.
They must have studied Yeltsin's Russia. It's the same playbook.

This overview of Argentina's situation is worth spending a little time in, if one is curious about the place.

 

[Takhisis]

What? Are you even aware that the Peronist administration heade by the Kirchner family comprises some of the largest landowners and wealthiest industralists in the entire country?

Are you aware that the loan asked for by Macri was actually mostly payed out during the Peronist presidency to be promptly frittered with none of the tight controls initially required, leading to a soon-to-be-200% inflation rate and that on top of those 44,000,000,000 dollars they raised the federal state's sovereign debt by another 160,000,000,000 dollars? Are you aware that Néstor Kirchner himself simply took his province's funds and shipped them into a personal offshore bank account? Are you aware that the Kirchners were barred from office and took office anyway and were still convicted for their crimes while in office, even after having a prosecutor and a witness murdered?

 

[Estebonrober]

US Media Suppressed Their Government's Role in Ousting Brazil's Government - FAIR

US journalists remained silent about their government's role in removing Brazil’s front-running presidential candidate in the 2018 elections.

fair.org

During these meetings, FBI agents coached the Brazilian prosecutors on using media leaks to damage the reputation of top-ranking Workers Party officials, including Lula. They also gave lessons on effective use of the coerced plea bargain, an ethically questionable tactic, widespread in the US, that had recently been legalized in Brazil.

The Intercept article was the final evidence that Brazilian journalists who had been challenging the official narrative on Operation Car Wash had been waiting for for years. However, there was already enough public record of the DoJ role in Car Wash before the Intercept article. In June 2019, Brazilian congressmember Paulo Pimenta had presented a dossier to the European Parliament, and a group of Democratic US congressmembers, in which he made a convincing argument that DoJ wasn’t just a partner, it was leading the investigation.

Just a reminder, the evil empire is still in action everyday, everywhere.

 

[Takhisis]

We should also bear in mind how the Odebrecht corporation and other were engaged in a continent-wide corruption scheme that included the deaths of World Cup stadium construction workers. But of course the same happened with other World Cups and Olympic Games in e.g. Qatar and nobody complained, so clearly they just seize upon random excuses for convenience.

It's awful living in a region that has been chosen as a battleground.

 

[innonimatu]

That "Car Wash" was politically motivated, and had nothing whatsoever to do with "justice", had been obvious from the start. The charges agains Lula were plainly made-up. In as corrupt a country (aren't they all anyway) as Brazil, making a case on an appartment and nothing more, that a former president could very well indeed afford from wages, was ridiculous. It was allegedly the product of corruption because... what? No actual evidence for the alleged corruption was produced, and none was necessary because judge and prosecution were working from the same guys. The guys who had them brought to bloody Langley afterwards (Bolsonaro too) for their reward.

I noticed that the self-professed lawyers who fervently pretended to believe in "lava jato" here have pulled a vanishing act when Brazil's elite decided to reverse it because Bolsonado proved a loose cannon.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Gunmen storm Ecuador television studio live on air​

A group of armed men have broken into a live television studio in Ecuador and threatened staff, footage shows.

A live broadcast by station TC in the city of Guayaquil was interrupted on Tuesday by the group, who were wearing hoods and carrying guns.

Staff were forced to on to the floor, before the live feed cut out.

A 60-day state of emergency began in Ecuador on Monday after a convicted gang leader vanished from his prison cell.

The hooded men were seen leaving the TC studios, with police seen entering the set about 30 minutes after the gunmen first appeared.

National police units in Quito and Guayaquil have been deployed to the scene.

The country's national police force said in an update on X, formerly Twitter, that staff had been evacuated from the studio.

Following the incident, President Daniel Noboa signed an executive order declaring an internal armed conflict and listed several organised crime groups as "terrorist organisations" and "non-state actors".

At least seven police officers have been kidnapped by gang members since the state of emergency was declared.

The measures were introduced by President Noboa after the boss of the Los Choneros gang disappeared from a maximum security jail on Sunday.

Nearly 40 other inmates, including another convicted drug lord, broke out from another prison in the city of Riobamba in the early hours of Tuesday.

It is not clear at this stage whether the storming of the television station is linked to the prison escape, but it is an example of the deteriorating security situation in the country.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-67930452

 

[Estebonrober]

Gunmen storm Ecuador television studio live on air​

A group of armed men have broken into a live television studio in Ecuador and threatened staff, footage shows.

A live broadcast by station TC in the city of Guayaquil was interrupted on Tuesday by the group, who were wearing hoods and carrying guns.

Staff were forced to on to the floor, before the live feed cut out.

A 60-day state of emergency began in Ecuador on Monday after a convicted gang leader vanished from his prison cell.

The hooded men were seen leaving the TC studios, with police seen entering the set about 30 minutes after the gunmen first appeared.

National police units in Quito and Guayaquil have been deployed to the scene.

The country's national police force said in an update on X, formerly Twitter, that staff had been evacuated from the studio.

Following the incident, President Daniel Noboa signed an executive order declaring an internal armed conflict and listed several organised crime groups as "terrorist organisations" and "non-state actors".

At least seven police officers have been kidnapped by gang members since the state of emergency was declared.

The measures were introduced by President Noboa after the boss of the Los Choneros gang disappeared from a maximum security jail on Sunday.

Nearly 40 other inmates, including another convicted drug lord, broke out from another prison in the city of Riobamba in the early hours of Tuesday.

It is not clear at this stage whether the storming of the television station is linked to the prison escape, but it is an example of the deteriorating security situation in the country.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-67930452

Oh, look right in the US's backyard the worst kind of lawlessness has been continuously perpetuated in multiple nations... It is almost as if the world's preeminent superpower is completely impotent in maintaining order in its own backyard...or its entire existence is predicated on maintaining destabilized areas for what amounts to piracy on a massive corporate/capitalistic manner... I wonder which one it is...

 

[Farm Boy]

Should we occupy and annex, then?

Just occupy? Carry out assassinations? Which are you thinking will help?

 

[Estebonrober]

Should we occupy and annex, then?

Just occupy? Carry out assassinations? Which are you thinking will help?

Maybe jsut stop destabilizing governments we don't like because they try to make a better nation for their people instead of serving the whims of our corporations.

 

[Farm Boy]

That'd be nice. What're wet don't to destabilize that one, or have we stored doing it? Actual question.

 

[Estebonrober]

That'd be nice. What're wet don't to destabilize that one, or have we stored doing it? Actual question.

wut?

 

[Farm Boy]

**What are we doing to destabilize that one. Or have we stopped doing it. **

I hate smart phones. They type really poorly with any degree of cold and callous.

 

[Estebonrober]

**What are we doing to destabilize that one. Or have we stopped doing it. **

I hate smart phones. They type really poorly with any degree of cold and callous.

It's always hard to tell in real time. Typically, we find out CIA ops took place during a particular timeline years or decades later. In the case of Ecuador, you had a leftish wing government more closely align itself with China while cutting off certain trade relations with the US. Then suddenly this nation (which heretofore managed to avoid a lot of the narco-violence of the region) becomes awash in hyper violence of the drug trade and a government covered in a bribery scandal... Next thing you know an heir to a fudging banana empire wins election and promises a dramatic cozying up to the US...with all of the promises of stepping up the police state to boot.

When it comes to the US and its machinations in the Western Hemisphere, if it smells like something died nearby, we probably had something to do with it. This situation smells like a lot of dead.

 

[innonimatu]

It's always hard to tell in real time.

Bribing is very effective. Most countries have their pliticial elites divided enough that some money can go a long way. I'm enjoying seeing Germany undone here in Europe by the same weapon it used in decades past against other european countries. Couldn't happen to a more deserving people, getting a loser role as the US's poodle.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Ecuador prosecutor probing TV studio attack killed​

A prosecutor investigating an attack on a TV studio in Ecuador last week has been killed, officials say.

César Suárez was shot dead in the port city of Guayaquil, Guayas province on Wednesday, the attorney general said.

It is not clear whether Mr Suarez's death is linked to his investigation into the TV station attack.

During the dramatic incident last week, masked men burst into public TV channel TC's studio during a live broadcast and threatened them at gunpoint.

Pictures that were broadcast live on air showed journalist Jose Luis Calderon pleading with the gunmen, while station staff were forced to sit or lie on the studio floor.

One cameraman was shot in the leg, while another's arm was broken during the attack, TC's deputy director of news said.

Local media reports that Mr Suárez was shot while driving near his office. Unverified footage on social media also shows a vehicle with bullet holes in the window.

In an interview with newspaper El Universo one day before his death, Mr Suárez said he had not been given police protection despite interrogating the 13 people arrested following the TV station attack.

His killing is the latest in a surge of violent incidents across Ecuador, which has seen the escape of two gang leaders from prison, hundreds of prison guards taken hostage and explosions in several cities.

In response, President Daniel Noboa declared a 60-day state of emergency and ordered the military to "neutralise" 22 armed groups which he redefined as terrorist organisations.

Reacting to Mr Suarez's death, Attorney General Diana Salazar said: "It is impossible not to be broken by the death of a colleague in the fight against organised crime. We will remain firm in his name: for him, for the country, for justice.

"Thank you for your work, César. Rest in peace," she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-68014040