Indigenous people in Brazil’s rainforest are getting their long awaited first doses of a vaccine against the coronavirus, which has infected thousands in their community and killed hundreds of others. The Brazilian military flew medical workers and 1,000 doses of the CoronaVac Chinese vaccine into the Amazon rainforest on Tuesday and began vaccinating the indigenous people, who celebrated the arrival of the vaccine. Isabel Ticuna, one of the people in her village to get inoculated said, “the vaccination is so important for all of our indigenous community, for all the villagers. It was this that we were waiting for.” The coronavirus pandemic has taken a tremendous toll on Brazil’s indigenous people because a large part of the population does not have immediate access to a medical facility. The coronavirus has killed 926 indigenous people in Brazil and infected more than 46,000, according to a tribal umbrella organization called Articulation of Indigenous People of Brazil.  So far, Brazil has confirmed more than 8,500,000 cases and 210,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University COVID Resource Center. 
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The incoming Biden administration will work “to cease funding for further construction” of the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary nominee Alejandro Mayorkas, who told senators Tuesday that U.S. law will dictate whether individuals in migrant caravans are allowed to remain in the United States. 
 
Mayorkas appeared for his Senate confirmation hearing one day after reports surfaced that Biden intends to propose an eight-year path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants shortly after taking office Wednesday, signaling an immediate focus on a topic that has both consumed and paralyzed Congress for decades. Biden to Propose 8-year Path to Citizenship for Immigrants It would provide an eight-year path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million people living in the US without legal statusRepublican lawmakers pressed Mayorkas on whether the Biden administration would spend $1.4 billion that Congress appropriated late last year to continue border wall construction, one of President Donald Trump’s top priorities that has been fiercely opposed by Democrats, including President-elect Joe Biden. 
 
Mayorkas said he would examine whether existing funds must be spent and underscored Biden’s opposition to further wall appropriations. He did not signal any intention by the incoming administration to tear down wall sections already built. FILE – President Donald Trump signs a plaque that bears his name on the 450th mile of the border wall in Texas, January 12, 2021. 
The hearing came as a caravan of Central American migrants pushes north toward the United States. Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah asked Mayorkas if the caravan would be allowed to enter the United States or turned back at the border. 
 
“We are a nation of immigrants and we are also a nation of laws, and I intend to apply the law,” the Cuban-born Mayorkas responded. “If people qualify under the law to remain in the United States, then we will apply the law accordingly. If they do not qualify to remain in the United States, then they won’t.” 
 
The nominee rejected calls by progressive elements of the Democratic coalition that helped elect Biden to defund U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency within DHS that, among other duties, carries out deportations of undocumented immigrants. Alejandro Mayorkas, nominee to be Secretary of Homeland Security, testifies during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, January 19, 2021. 2015 DHS inspector general’s report The hearing lasted more than two hours and featured repeated questions about Mayorkas’ role in the granting of U.S. visas to wealthy foreign investors when he served as director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) during the former Obama administration. A 2015 DHS inspector general’s report concluded that Mayorkas intervened in the EB-5 investor program at the behest of some powerful Democrats in a way that “created an appearance of favoritism and special access.” Mayorkas noted that the report found no legal wrongdoing. 
 
“The inspector general did not take issue with the disposition of the cases in which I became involved because I studied the law, and I followed the facts, and that is my North Star. And it always has been. And any suggestion to the contrary, is incorrect,” Mayorkas said.  FILE – District of Columbia National Guard stand outside the Capitol, January 6, 2021, after a day of rioting protesters.DHS after Capitol riot If confirmed, Mayorkas would be the first Latino and first immigrant to lead that Department of Homeland Security. In addition to leading USCIS, he served as Obama’s deputy secretary of DHS, the third-largest federal agency in the nation.   DHS was created after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, a period when threats originating abroad were seen as paramount. 
 
Addressing the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol carried out by Trump loyalists, Mayorkas expressed horror and said authorities have yet to learn everything that happened that day.  
 
He vowed to “do everything” to ensure that “the tragic loss of life, the assault on law enforcement, the desecration of the building that stands as one of the three pillars of our democracy, the terror that you felt your colleagues, staff and everyone present will not happen again.” 
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The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday sanctioned three individuals, fourteen entities, and six vessels for their ties to a Mexico-based network involved in the sale of Venezuelan oil benefitting the government of President Nicolas Maduro.The list of actors designated by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) includes an Italian and a Swiss citizen, as well as a Venezuelan-Spanish dual citizen. The listed entities include organizations based in places like Malta, Panama and Zimbabwe. Two U.S. companies based in New York City were also designated.Starting today, U.S. property of the sanctioned entities is frozen, while U.S. based companies that are more than 50% owned by the designated individuals and entities are blocked. “Those facilitating the illegitimate Maduro regime’s attempts to circumvent United States sanctions contribute to the corruption that consumes Venezuela,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. “The United States remains committed to targeting those enabling the Maduro regime’s abuse of Venezuela’s natural resources.”Last June, OFAC designated five other actors for their participation in a sanctions-evasion scheme benefitting the Maduro regime and the state-controlled oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PdVSA). PdVSA and the Venezuelan Central Bank have also been sanctioned under President Donald Trump. As of October 2020, the Treasury Department had imposed sanctions on around 160 Venezuelan or Venezuelan-connected individuals, while the State Department had revoked the visas of more than 1,000 individuals and their families, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service.The U.S. is among the Western nations that recognized opposition leader Juan Guido as Venezuela’s interim president. 
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Mexico expects to receive its last Pfizer–BioNTech vaccines against COVID-19 Tuesday for the next three weeks as it supports a United Nations’ proposal to limit purchases in order to make vaccines available to poor countries. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Mexico will get 200,000 doses of the Pfizer- vaccine on Tuesday before its shipments are temporarily suspended. The Mexican leader says the temporary suspension of Pfizer shipments will not impact his efforts to get vaccines to all citizens. He said the government is already making deals so that the Chinese vaccine CanSino starts arriving, as well as the Sputnik V vaccine from a Russian laboratory and the AstraZeneca vaccine from the University of Oxford. Mexico expects to receive five million doses of the Pfizer vaccine once its shipments resume next month. So far, Mexico has confirmed 1, 649,502 coronavirus cases and 141,248 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. 
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A powerful 6.4 magnitude earthquake hit San Juan Province in Argentina late Monday night, according to early reports from the U.S. Geological Survey.  A series of aftershocks, with a lower magnitude than the quake also occurred.  The U.S. Tsunami Warning System said the earthquake in west central Argentina did not pose a tsunami threat and no warning was posted.  Initial reports indicate the quake, which hit at a shallow depth of 10 kilometers beneath the epicenter near Pocito, Argentina, had the potential to damage buildings and infrastructure, but there were no immediate reports of widespread damage.  
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Guatemalan forces used tear gas and batons Monday to break up a group of Honduran migrants near the border who were hoping to travel to the United States. Roughly 2,000 migrants had camped out at a roadblock on the two-lane highway to Chiquimula near the village of Vado Hondo for nearly two days. Some threw stones at Guatemalan forces that were attempting to disperse the crowd, prompting them to use tear gas and batons. Guatemalan authorities reported that the road was once again open to traffic Monday, but most migrants remained on Guatemalan soil. Some Hondurans have reportedly agreed to be bused back across the border, diminishing the group of nearly 8,000 attempting to travel to the United States. Honduran migrants react while accompanied by a police officer after Guatemalan security forces cleared a road where the migrants have been camping after authorities halted their trek to the United States, in Vado Hondo, Guatemala, Jan. 18, 2021.Migrants say they are fleeing lawlessness and poverty, as the COVID-19 pandemic and two hurricanes in November ravished the already impoverished country. Monday’s clash follows an unsuccessful push by about 100 migrants to break through the roadblock on Sunday. Many migrants showed visible injuries from batons after the clash with Guatemalan troops.   Some migrants say they hope the Biden administration will be more sympathetic than the Trump administration to their pleas for a better life. Speaking to Reuters news agency, a Biden transition official discouraged migrants from continuing their journey to the United States. “Overcoming the challenges created by the chaotic and cruel policies of the last four years, and those presented by COVID-19, will take time,” the official said, adding that “the journey to the United States remains extraordinarily dangerous, and those in the region should not believe anyone peddling the lie that our border will be open to everyone next month.” Traveling on foot, the migrants say they are willing to brave a journey of thousands of kilometers through Guatemala and Mexico to reach the U.S., escaping poverty, unemployment, gang and drug violence, and natural disasters in their country.  Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico have said they are collectively taking security and public health measures because of the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent unauthorized border crossings.   Last month, Honduran authorities stopped a caravan before it reached the Guatemalan border. Last year, other caravans were broken up by Guatemala’s authorities before reaching Mexico.  
 
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President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Monday renewed his attack on the U.S. investigation of a former Mexican defense secretary and warned that the U.S. Justice Department should consider carefully its threat to suspend cooperation with Mexico. López Obrador defended the decision by the Mexican Attorney General’s Office not to pursue charges against retired Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos, and he mocked the results of the seven-year investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. “How are you going to accuse someone based on photographs of phone screens?” López Obrador said in reference to hundreds of pages of evidence the U.S. government shared with Mexico after dropping charges against Cienfuegos and returning him to Mexico in November. On Friday, Mexico published all of the information the U.S. had shared, spurring a rare public rebuke from the Justice Department that expressed disappointment in Mexico’s decision to drop the case against Cienfuegos.  “The United States Department of Justice is also deeply disappointed by Mexico’s decision to publicize information shared with Mexico in confidence,” the U.S. department said in a statement Friday. “Publicizing such information violates the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance between Mexico and the United States, and calls into question whether the United States can continue to share information to support Mexico’s own criminal investigations.” López Obrador responded Monday: “I hope they think about it carefully, because I could say the same, too. We are disappointed with the DEA’s work.” López Obrador accused the DEA of making up the case against Cienfuegos. The intercepted message exchanges allegedly between Cienfuegos and members of the H-2 cartel suggest the then highest-ranking member of Mexico’s military was helping the cartel by keeping the military off their backs and going after their rivals. But López Obrador said the language used and the spelling mistakes committed by the person identified by U.S. prosecutors as Cienfuegos would not be possible from a mid-level officer, much less a high-ranking one. “They put it together in an improper way, without professionalism, without ethics,” the president said. “No foreign government can undermine the dignity and prestige of our nation.” López Obrador has heaped more responsibility — and power — on the armed forces than any recent president. The military was furious with Cienfuegos’ arrest in October at Los Angeles International Airport. The U.S. case also implicated other members of the military. Following Cienfuegos’ return, Mexico’s congress passed a law that will restrict U.S. agents in Mexico and remove their diplomatic immunity. Despite the heated rhetoric, López Obrador said he expects Mexico’s relationship with the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden to be unaffected. But he said things would be done differently in the bilateral security relationship.  “We cannot allow foreign agents to take charge of the functions of Mexico’s government,” he said. 
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Roughly 100 Honduran migrants were met with tear gas and struck by police with batons when they tried to pass through a roadblock on the border with Guatemala.
 
The group of migrants were part of roughly 2,000 Hondurans who stopped Saturday night behind the roadblock.
The majority stayed behind Sunday morning when the clashes between some members of their group and police began. None of the migrants made it through the roadblock.
 
Hundreds of migrants later sat in the roadway, refusing to move and attempting to appeal to Guatemalan authorities as fellow Central Americans.
 
The Associated Press reported that many migrants showed visible injuries from batons after the clash.
 
At least 9,000 migrants from Honduras had crossed into Guatemala Saturday in a caravan that began one day earlier, hoping to reach the United States in the early days of the new presidential administration.
 
The Guatemalan government issued a statement Saturday calling on Honduran authorities to “contain the massive departure of its inhabitants, through permanent preventive actions.”
 
Few of the migrants possessed the negative COVID-19 tests Guatemala requires upon entry.
 
Traveling on foot, the migrants say they are willing to brave a journey of thousands of kilometers through Guatemala and Mexico to reach the U.S., escaping poverty, unemployment, gang and drug violence and natural disasters in their country.What appears to be the first migrant caravan from a Central America country this year includes women and young children. Coming less than a week before U.S. President-elect Joe Biden takes office, some migrants say they hope that the new administration with be more sympathetic than the Trump administration to their plea for a better life.Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico have said they are collectively taking security and public health measures because of the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent unauthorized border crossings.Mexican officials said Thursday, they had discussed migration with Biden’s nominee for national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and raised “the possibility of implementing a cooperation program for the development of northern Central America and southern Mexico, in response to the economic crisis caused by the pandemic and the recent hurricanes in the region.”Last month, Honduran authorities stopped a caravan before it reached the Guatemalan border. Last year, other caravans were broken up by Guatemala’s authorities before reaching Mexico.
 
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At least 9,000 migrants from Honduras crossed into Guatemala on Saturday in a caravan that began one day earlier, hoping to reach the United States in the early days of new administration.Initially, police at checkpoints set up along the highway in both Honduras and Guatemala asked for identification documents but made no attempt to stop the migrants.On Saturday, however, Guatemalan soldiers blocked part of the migrant caravan close to a point of entry on a highway in Chiquimula, near the Honduras border.The Guatemalan government issued a statement calling on Honduran authorities to “contain the massive departure of its inhabitants, through permanent preventive actions.”Traveling on foot, the migrants say they are willing to brave a journey of thousands of kilometers through Guatemala and Mexico to reach the U.S., escaping poverty, unemployment, gang and drug violence, and natural disasters in their country.This, the first migrant caravan from a Central America country this year, includes women and young children. Coming less than a week before U.S. President-elect Joe Biden takes office, the migrants apparently hope that the new administration with be more sympathetic than the Trump administration to their plea for a better life.Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico have said they are collectively taking security and public health measures due to COVID-19 pandemic to prevent unauthorized border crossings.Mexican officials said Thursday, they had discussed migration with Biden’s nominee for national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and raised “the possibility of implementing a cooperation program for the development of northern Central America and southern Mexico, in response to the economic crisis caused by the pandemic and the recent hurricanes in the region.”Last month, Honduran authorities stopped a caravan before it even reached the Guatemalan border. Last year, other caravans were broken up by Guatemala’s authorities before reaching Mexico.
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Several thousand migrants from Honduras began their journey toward the United States Friday, with a large group of them already crossing to Guatemala.Police at checkpoints set up along the highway, in both Honduras and Guatemala, asked for identification documents, but made no attempt to stop the migrants.Video footage showed hundreds of migrants, holding up the Honduran flag and chanting as they crossed the border at El Florido checkpoint into Guatemalan territory.The first migrant caravan from a Central America country this year includes women and young children. Coming less than a week before U.S. President-elect Joe Biden takes office, the migrants apparently hope that the new administration with be more sympathetic than the Trump administration to their plea for a better life.Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico, however, are collectively taking security and public health measures due to COVID-19 pandemic, to prevent unauthorized border crossings.Mexican officials said Thursday, they had discussed migration with U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and raised “the possibility of implementing a cooperation program for the development of northern Central America and southern Mexico, in response to the economic crisis caused by the pandemic and the recent hurricanes in the region.”Last month, Honduran authorities stopped a caravan before it even reached the Guatemalan border. Last year, other caravans were broken up by Guatemala’s authorities before reaching Mexico.       
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The U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned Cuba’s interior minister Friday for alleged human rights abuses.“The Cuban regime has a long history of human rights abuse,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. “The United States will continue to use all the tools at its disposal to address the dire human rights situation in Cuba and elsewhere around the world.”The Treasury Department also sanctioned the country’s interior ministry, which it said has specialized units of its security branch dedicated to “monitoring political activity, and Cuba’s police support these security units by arresting persons of interest.”The U.S. cited the ministry’s 2019 arrest and imprisonment of Cuban dissident Jose Daniel Ferrer, who “reported being beaten, tortured and held in isolation.”The Cuban government did not respond immediately to the sanctions, which freeze any U.S. assets held by Cuba or a Cuban national and generally bar Americans from doing business with them. Anyone who engages in certain transactions with these entities runs the risk of being hit with U.S. sanctions.The sanctions were imposed five days before Donald Trump leaves office after losing the November 3 presidential election to Joe Biden.The Trump administration worked throughout its four-year term to reverse President Barack Obama’s historic reconciliation with Cuba. On Monday, the administration again placed Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, potentially complicating Biden’s expected efforts to ease tensions with Cuba.
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Some 3,000 people left Honduras on foot Friday in the latest migrant caravan hoping to find a welcome, and a better life, in the United States under President-elect Joe Biden’s new administration.
 
Seeking to escape poverty, unemployment, gang and drug violence and the aftermath of two devastating hurricanes, the migrants plan to walk thousands of kilometers through Central America.
 
But they will have to overcome a rash of travel restrictions in Guatemala and Mexico long before they even make it to the American border.
 
The quest is likely to end in heartbreak for many, with American authorities already having warned off the group that includes people of all ages and some entire families.
 
“I want to work for my house and a car, to work and live a dignified life with my family,” said Melvin Fernandez, a taxi driver from the Caribbean port city of La Ceiba in Honduras, who set off on the long journey with his wife and three children, aged 10, 15 and 22.
 
Some of the migrants left shortly after 4:00 a.m. (1000 GMT) from the transport terminal of San Pero Sula, Honduras’ second-largest city, headed for Agua Caliente on the Guatemalan border some 260 kilometers (162 miles) away.
 
They set off alongside roads with backpacks, some with the Honduras flag, many with small children in their arms, and most with facemasks to protect against the coronavirus.
 
They say they hope to catch lifts from passing motorists or truckers or, failing that, walk the entire way.
 
To enter Guatemala, the first country on their route, however, the migrants will have to show travel documents and a negative coronavirus test — requirements that not all of them meet.
 ‘Broken heart’
 
“We are leaving with a broken heart, because in my case, I leave my family, my husband and my three children behind,” 36-year-old Jessenia Ramirez told AFP.
 
“We are going in search of a better future, a job so we can send a few cents” back home. We are trusting in God to open our path, Biden is supposed to give work opportunities to those who are there [on American soil].”
 
The travelers are hopeful that Biden, who takes over the U.S. presidency on January 20, will be more flexible than his predecessor Trump.
 
Biden has promised “a fair and humane immigration system” and pledged aid to tackle the root causes of poverty and violence that drive Central Americans to the United States.
 
But Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, warned the group last week not to “waste your time and money.”
 
The U.S. commitment to the “rule of law and public health” is not affected by the change in administration, he said in a statement, and migrant caravans will not be allowed to make their way north in violation of national sovereignty and immigration laws.
 
More than a dozen migrant caravans have set off from Honduras since October 2018.  
 
But all have run up against thousands of U.S. border guards and soldiers under the administration of Donald Trump, who has characterized immigrants from Mexico as “rapists” who were “bringing drugs” and other criminal activity to the United States.
 Hoping beyond hope
 
Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras have an agreement with the United States to stop north-bound migratory flows from the south of the continent.
 
Honduras has mobilized 7,000 police officers to supervise the latest caravan on its journey to the Guatemalan border. A first group of some 300 people already set out Thursday  from San Pedro Sula.
 
Guatemala Thursday declared seven departments in a state of “alert,” giving security forces the authority to “forcibly dissolve” any type of public groupings.  
 
Mexican authorities said late Thursday that 500 immigration officers were being deployed to the Guatemalan border in anticipation of the caravan’s arrival.
 
But the migrants are keeping the end goal in sight.
 
Among them, 28-year-old Eduardo Lanza said he dreamed of living in a country where people of different sexual orientations can live in dignity, “respect … and a job opportunity.”  
 
Norma Pineda, 51, said last year’s hurricanes left her “on the street.”
 
“We are leaving because here is no work, no state support, we need food, clothes…” she told AFP.
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U.S. President-elect Joe Biden has promised a quick and dramatic reversal of the restrictive immigration policies put in place by his predecessor President Donald Trump. While Biden pledged to undo many of Trump’s policies starting the first day he takes office on January 20, the layers of reforms will take much longer to implement.
 Immigration reform and ‘dreamers’
 
Biden, a Democrat, said in a June tweet he will send a bill to Congress “on day one” that laid out “a clear roadmap to citizenship” for some 11 million people living in the United States unlawfully.
 
Biden has said he would create permanent protection for young migrants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, known as “Dreamers.” Started by former President Barack Obama when Biden was vice president, the program currently provides deportation protection and other benefits to approximately 645,000 people.
 
Trump’s Republican administration tried to end DACA but was stymied in federal court. The program still faces a legal challenge in a Texas court.
 
Vice president-elect Kamala Harris said in an interview with Univision on January 12 that the administration planned to shorten citizenship wait times and allow DACA holders, as well as recipients of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), to “automatically get green cards,” but did not explicitly say when or how these changes would happen.
 
Trump moved to phase out TPS, which grants deportation protection and allows work permits to people from countries hit by natural disasters or armed conflict. Earlier in his campaign, Biden promised to “immediately” grant TPS to Venezuelans already in the United States.
 
For years lawmakers have failed to pass a major immigration bill. Democrats may stand a better chance of passing legislation after a run-off election in Georgia handed them control of both houses of Congress.
 Restoring asylum and refugees
 
Trump blasted what he called “loopholes” in the asylum system and implemented overlapping polices to make it more difficult to seek refuge in the United States.
 
One Trump program called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) forced tens of thousands of asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court. Biden said during the campaign he would end the program on day one. His transition team, however, has said dismantling MPP and restoring other asylum protections will take time.
 
Under rules put in place by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control during the coronavirus pandemic, most migrants arriving at the border are now immediately expelled. Biden’s team has not pledged to reverse that policy right away.
 
Migrant caravans have been on the move in Central America, with some aiming to arrive at the southwest border after Biden’s inauguration. Advocates worry that the pandemic will make it difficult for border officials and migrant shelters to handle large numbers of people.
 
Biden has also said he would raise the cap for refugees resettled in the United States from abroad to 125,000 from the historic low-level of 15,000 set by Trump this year.
 Family reunification  
 
Biden’s transition team promised to immediately create a federal task force to reunify children separated from their parents under one of the Trump administration’s most controversial policies.
 
Thousands of children were separated from their parents when Trump implemented a “zero tolerance” policy of prosecuting all border crossers, including families, for illegal entry. Though Trump officially reversed the policy in June 2018 amid international outcry, some children have continued to be separated for other reasons. Advocates are still searching for the parents of more than 600 separated children.
 Travel and visa bans
 
One of Trump’s first actions after taking office in 2017 was banning travel from several Muslim-majority countries. Following legal challenges, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a revised version of the ban in 2018. It has since been expanded to 13 nations.
 
Biden has promised to immediately rescind the bans, which were issued by executive actions and could be easily undone, according to policy experts.
 
During the coronavirus pandemic Trump issued proclamations blocking the entry of many temporary foreign workers and applicants for green cards. While Biden has criticized the restrictions, he has not yet said whether he would immediately reverse them.
 Border wall
 
Biden pledged to immediately halt construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, which Trump touted as a major accomplishment during a Texas visit just days before leaving office.
 
It is not entirely clear what Biden’s administration will do with contracts for wall construction that have already been awarded but have yet to be completed, or with private land seized by the government in places where building has stopped.
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For more than 60 years, Cuba supplied at least some rice, milk, beans, sugar, chicken, electrical power and even cigarettes to its people nearly free of cost regardless of whether they worked, allowing many to survive without a job or depend solely on remittances. But this year, the government is implementing a deep financial reform that reduces subsidies, eliminates a dual currency that was key to the old system and raises salaries. It hopes to boost productivity to alleviate an economic crisis and reconfigure a socialist system that will still grant universal benefits such as free health care and education. People wearing protective face masks amid the new coronavirus pandemic wait their turn to enter a state-run store in Havana, Cuba, Jan. 14, 2021.”It’s a major shift in focus for a society that has lived and functioned one way for 62 years,” said Cuban economist Ricardo Torres. “This sends a message: If you want to be in a fairly comfortable situation, then you have to get a job.” The changes come as Cuba struggles with the pandemic, an 11% drop in gross domestic product and the loss of what the government estimates is nearly $5.6 billion as a result of economic sanctions imposed by outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump. Until December 31, Cubans would pay 75 cents for a monthly basket filled with 19 basic products including meat, coffee, eggs and soap. Now that will cost them $7, according to Betsy Díaz Velázquez, minister of internal trade. Education and health services remain free, and the government will still subsidize milk for children up to age 7 and provide food to vulnerable groups, though some worry the reforms will lead to problems. “It increases inequality without there being a concrete plan to reduce it,” said Harold Cárdenas, a political analyst living in the U.S. who is part of a group that advocates a more democratic socialist Cuba. “It would be an exaggeration to say this is how the aspiration to socialism in Cuba ends, but this is definitely not how it is achieved.” But he said that encouraging people to work rather than discouraging it “will make the difference between success and failure for years to come.” Elimination of ‘convertible peso’About 7 million of the island’s 11 million inhabitants are of working age, with some 2.7 million unemployed or not looking for a job. As a result, it hasn’t been unusual to see young people playing dominoes on street corners, idly talking with friends for hours or leaving work early. FILE – A worker shows a wad of Cuban pesos in Havana, Cuba, Dec. 11, 2020.Authorities haven’t immediately said where the idle will find productive jobs. They have promised a law by year’s end that could encourage more private businesses but haven’t given details of what it might entail. The most visible immediate change may be elimination of the “convertible peso,” a dollar-linked currency aimed at drawing money from abroad that was necessary to buy many goods, often even essentials, hard to find in regular pesos.  That dual currency system introduced in 1994 was meant to alleviate the crisis caused by the loss of aid and subsidized trade with the recently collapsed Soviet Union. But it snarled government accounts, discouraged exports and employment, and financed inefficient state-owned companies that now have a year to prove their viability or face closure. Now, only the Cuban peso will remain in circulation. Raising salaries, pricesIn addition, the government is increasing salaries — quadrupling them in some cases — and raising the minimum wage from $20 to $87 a month.  But few Cubans are celebrating the change because the prices of many goods, including food and gas, also have soared. A pound of rice used to cost 25 centavos, for example. It’s now 7 pesos — a 28-fold increase. Prices for cooking gas jumped more than 20 times. Bus fares quintupled. FILE – Workers wearing ill-fitting masks used to curb the spread of the new coronavirus push a cart loaded with sacks in Havana, Cuba, Dec. 23, 2020.”You don’t solve anything by raising prices,” said Lorena Durañón, 23, a medical student. “It’s hitting people really hard.” There was such a flurry of complaints about the new prices, especially for electrical power, that authorities recently went on public TV to announce a reduction. The reform also hits the island’s burgeoning private sector, which the government has periodically expanded and squeezed after it emerged in 1993 and which has created 600,000 jobs since a major reopening over the past decade. “It’s hard because they’ve already increased the prices of raw material, which is already expensive and scarce,” said Isabel Viera, 60, an artisan who used up her savings after the pandemic dried up tourism. “The situation is very difficult.”  Despite the worries, President Miguel Díaz-Canel has promised that no one will be left behind. The aim, he said, is to guarantee all Cubans greater equality to opportunities, rights and social justice — not through egalitarianism, but “by promoting interest and motivation in work.” 
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Federal authorities indicted the “board of directors” of the MS-13 gang on terrorism charges Thursday. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York, 14 gang leaders are charged with “conspiracy to provide and conceal material support to terrorists, conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, conspiracy to finance terrorism and narcoterrorism conspiracy,” the Justice Department said in a news release. One of those charged is Borromeo Enrique Henriquez, also known as Diablito de Hollywood. Prosecutors called him one of the gang’s most important members. All the suspects make up the Ranfla Nacional, which is MS-13’s ruling body.  Eleven of the charged are in jail in El Salvador, but three remain at large. The Justice Department said it was exploring ways to extradite the imprisoned to the United States. “MS-13 is responsible for a wave of death and violence that has terrorized communities, leaving neighborhoods on Long Island and throughout the Eastern District of New York awash in bloodshed,” Acting U.S. Attorney Seth D. DuCharme said in a statement. “Even when incarcerated, the Ranfla Nacional continued to direct MS-13’s global operations, recruit new members, including children, into MS-13, and orchestrate murder and mayhem around the world.” He added that Thursday’s indictments seek to demolish MS-13 by targeting its leadership. MS-13, also known by its Spanish name Mara Salvatrucha, was started by refugees from El Salvador in Los Angeles in the 1980s, but has since spread across the U.S. While the group’s center of gravity remains in Central America, it has an estimated 10,000 members in the U.S., where they operate in units known as “programs” and “cliques.” In July, more than two dozen alleged leaders and members of the gang were arrested during sweeps in Virginia, New York and Las Vegas. 
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Investigators at the U.N. Human Rights Office are accusing police in Peru of having used excessive force to quell anti-government mass protests last November, killing two people and injuring hundreds of others. The investigators view the crackdown by Peru’s security forces as unnecessarily harsh and in violation of international human rights norms and standards. Protesters took to the streets between November 9 and November 15 to challenge the legitimacy of the interim president, Manuel Merino, as well as in anger over general social conditions.   The protests came to a head during violent clashes between police and demonstrators in the capital, Lima, on November 15. U.N. human rights spokeswoman Liz Throssell said police officers did not distinguish between the largely peaceful protesters and the minority who allegedly were violent. FILE – Demonstrators clash with police during protests following the impeachment of President Martin Vizcarra, in Lima, Peru, Nov. 12, 2020.She said investigators concluded that human rights violations were committed based on interviews with victims and witnesses, as well as audio and video recordings, and medical records.  “The report says that police fired pellets from 12-gauge shotguns and tear gas canisters directly at people’s heads and upper bodies, indiscriminately and from close range,” Throssell said. “Two protesters were killed by shotgun pellets fired at their torso, and more than 200 people, including passers-by, were injured.”   Throssell said U.N. Human Rights Chief Michelle Bachelet noted that people have the right to peaceful assembly, and potentially lethal force can be used only if there is an imminent threat of death or serious injury.   “The High Commissioner underlines that all allegations of human rights violations should be promptly, independently and thoroughly investigated, noting that some preliminary investigations had begun,” Throssell said, adding, “She also stressed how important it was for the government to publicly acknowledge that violations had been committed.”   The report said many people have been arbitrarily arrested and denied access to legal assistance, and that some people allegedly were physically and psychologically abused. The report also documented threats and attacks on journalists and human rights defenders. Throssell said the Peruvian authorities have cooperated with the U.N. investigation and have seen the report. She added that the High Commissioner hoped the recommendations in the report will help the Peruvian government going forward, especially when it comes to holding perpetrators of crimes accountable. 
 
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Late-stage trials in Brazil show the Chinese COVID-19 vaccine Sinovac to be 50.38% effective, nearly 30 percentage points below the initial results released last week. Instituto Butantan, the São Paulo-based research institute responsible for developing the vaccine and conducting trials in the country, announced last week the vaccine had a 78% overall efficacy, while offering total protection against severe cases. The new trials, which involved 12,508 volunteers, have shown that Sinovac continues to be 100% effective in blocking severe cases. “This is an efficient vaccine,” Instituto Butantan Chief Researcher Ricardo Palacios said during a press conference Tuesday. “We have a vaccine that is able to control the pandemic through this expected effect, which is the decrease in the disease’s intensity.” The results come at a moment in which President Jair Bolsonaro’s government has been criticized for the delay in rolling out the vaccine. Neighboring countries, such as Chile with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and Argentina with Russia’s Sputnik V, started their vaccination campaigns weeks ago, while Brazil still does not have a concrete immunization plan a week after the country surpassed 200,000 COVID-19 deaths. Last week, Bolsonaro’s government closed an exclusive deal with Instituto Butantan for 100 million doses to be distributed by the end of 2021. The vaccine, however, still needs the approval of the Brazilian National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA). Instituto Butantan has included the new results in its emergency request for approval, initially filed Friday. ANVISA requires a 50% effective rate for vaccines, the same percentage recommended by the World Health Organization. 
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Thousands of Brazilians hit the beach this past weekend in Rio de Janeiro, despite warnings from authorities bracing for a new wave of COVID-19 cases. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports.Produced by: Arash Arabasadi 
 
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Ford Motors Co. has announced it will cease its manufacturing operations in Brazil, where it has been operating for more than a century and controls 8% of the automotive industry.
 
In an effort to maintain global operating margins, the company announced Monday two plants will be shut down immediately, while a third one will close by the end of 2021. The decision, which will cost Ford about $4.1 billion in pretax charges, is expected to leave about 5,000 people unemployed.
 
“With more than a century in South America and Brazil, we know these are very difficult, but necessary, actions to create a healthy and sustainable business,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said. “We are moving to a lean, asset-light business model by ceasing production in Brazil.”
 
Brazilian Economy Minister Paulo Guedes lamented the decision, but he said in a statement that it “goes against the strong recovery observed in the majority of the country’s industrial sectors.”
 
Meanwhile, Brazil’s center-right House Speaker Rodrigo Maia said on Twitter it represents “a sign of the lack of credibility of the Brazilian government,” of which he has become a fierce critic.
 
“I hope that Ford’s decision alerts the government and the parliament so that we can move forward in modernizing the State and guaranteeing legal security for private capital in Brazil,” Maia added.
 
The fifth largest automaker in Brazil, Ford indicated it will continue to serve the Brazilian market with cars sourced from neighboring countries, including Argentina and Uruguay. It also said it will maintain its South America headquarters and proving grounds in São Paulo, as well as its product development center in the northeast state of Bahia.
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Colombia is warning potential migrants from Venezuela about an increase in sexual trafficking and exploitation cases in Colombia. VOA’s Cristina Caicedo Smit has the story.Camera: Nelson Abril
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The Trump administration redesignated Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism” Monday, just nine days before U.S. President Donald Trump leaves office.   The move places new sanctions on Cuba shortly before President-elect Joe Biden takes office and could complicate any efforts by the incoming Biden administration to revive Obama-era detente with Havana.  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the designation Monday, citing Cuba’s continued harboring of U.S. fugitives, its refusal to extradite Colombian rebels, as well as its support for Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. Cuba has a long-standing alliance with Maduro, and the two countries cooperate on trade and travel. The designation reimposes major restrictions on Cuba, including barring most travel between Cuba and the United States, as well as the transfer of money between the two countries.  FILE – Vintage cars drive on the seafront boulevard El Malecon in Havana, Cuba, December 29, 2020.“With this action, we will once again hold Cuba’s government accountable and send a clear message: the Castro regime must end its support for international terrorism and subversion of U.S. justice,” Pompeo said in a statement Monday.   Trump has clamped down on Cuba since coming to power in 2017, working to reverse former President Barack Obama’s efforts at rapprochement. Obama formally removed Cuba from the terrorism list in 2015, a step toward restoring diplomatic ties with Havana that same year.   Since Trump came to power, he has steadily increased restrictions on flights, trade and financial transactions between Washington and Havana.   Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez condemned Monday’s action, writing on Twitter that it is hypocritical and a “cynical designation of Cuba.” “The U.S. political opportunism is recognized by those who are honestly concerned about the scourge of terrorism and its victims,” he said. Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks, the new chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement that he was outraged by Trump’s designation. “For four years, the Trump administration’s policy towards Cuba has been focused on hurting the Cuban people,” he said, adding that Trump “has always seen Cuba as a political football with zero regard for the long-suffering Cuban people.” He urged Biden to reverse the designation when he takes office.  “It is essential that the State Sponsor of Terrorism list be used judiciously to maintain its seriousness and integrity,” Meeks said. Cuba has repeatedly refused to turn over U.S. fugitives that have been granted asylum, including Joanne Chesimard, who fled a New Jersey prison following her conviction for killing a New Jersey state trooper in the 1970s.   
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Thousands of girls in Canada have been married before turning 18, researchers said Monday, warning that a rise in unofficial child marriages could make the practice harder to prevent and call into question the country’s global leadership.More than 3,600 marriage certificates were issued to girls younger than 18 in Canada between 2000 and 2018, found a study from McGill University in Montreal.Yet that number is just the tip of the iceberg, as more and more child marriages in recent years have been common-law unions, informal arrangements that provide fewer rights, it found.At least 2,300 common-law partnerships, defined legally as relationships where a couple has lived together for at least a year, involved children under 18 as of 2016, the study showed.The findings contrast with Canada’s positioning as a global leader in the United Nations-backed drive to end child marriage worldwide by 2030, said Alissa Koski, co-author of the study.”Our results show that Canada has its own work to do to achieve its commitment to the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (on ending child marriage),” the university professor said.”All the while it is advocating for an end to child marriage elsewhere, the practice remains legal and ongoing across Canada,” Koski said.Canada’s Office of the Minister for Women and Gender Equality was not immediately available for comment.The country committed at least $62.5 million to tackle child marriage worldwide from 2011 to 2016 and has led or supported several U.N. resolutions on the issue in recent years, according to Girls Not Brides, a global campaign group.Girls who marry young are often pulled out of school and are at higher risk of marital rape, domestic abuse and pregnancy complications, activists have said.Canadian law permits children to marry from the age of 16 with parental consent or a court order.About 95% of child marriages in Canada were informal as of 2016, compared with less than half in 2006, the study found.The shift could be in response to growing public disapproval of children entering wedlock, according to the authors, who said informal unions could be more harmful than formal marriage as they offered less social, legal and economic protection.In Quebec, individuals in common-law unions are not entitled to alimony or property if the union ends, the authors said.”This raises questions about how best to address the issue,” the authors said in a statement. “Preventing common-law unions among children will require different and innovative approaches that address the deeper motivations for this practice.”Worldwide, an estimated 12 million girls are married every year before the age of 18 – nearly one girl every three seconds.U.N. experts have predicted the COVID-19 pandemic could lead to an extra 13 million child marriages over the next decade.
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U.S. federal prosecutors have filed motions saying that Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández took bribes from drug traffickers and had the country’s armed forces protect a cocaine laboratory and shipments to the United States.The documents quote Hernández as saying he wanted to “‘shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos’ by flooding the United States with cocaine.”The motions filed Friday with the U.S. Southern District of New York do not specifically name the president, referring to him as “CC-4,” or co-conspirator No. 4, but clearly identify him by naming his brother and his own post as president.The president, who has not been charged, has repeatedly denied any connection to traffickers despite the 2019 conviction of one of his brothers, Juan Antonio Hernandez. During that trial, the president was accused of accepting more than $1 million from Mexican drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán — an accusation repeated in the new motions.He has said that traffickers are falsely accusing him to seek vengeance for clamping down on them. The government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new filings.The motions seek pretrial approval to admit evidence in the case of Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez, who was arrested in Miami in March. And they expand upon allegations filed shortly after the arrest accusing Hernandez of taking bribes in exchange for protection from law enforcement.Fuentes Ramirez is accused of conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the United States, and the motions filed Friday accuse him of producing “hundreds of kilograms a month” of cocaine and of having several people killed to protect his illicit business.”By late 2013, the defendant partnered directly with CC-4 and high-ranking officials in the Honduran military. At this time, CC-4 was pursuing election as the president of Honduras as a member of the Partido Nacional de Honduras (the “National Party”),” the motion said.It added that a witness “would testify that they and other drug traffickers were paying massive bribes to CC-4 in exchange for protection from law enforcement and extradition to the United States,” and that the president-to-be “accepted approximately $1 million in drug trafficking proceeds that was provided to his brother by the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquín Guzmán Loera.”Prosecutors say he had agreed to work through the president’s now-convicted brother.The motions also implicate senior military, police, political and business figures in laundering money and bribery.Hernandez, who had been president of congress before being elected president in 2013, was reelected in 2017 to a term that ends in January 2022. He has cooperated with the Trump administration and its efforts to stem migration from his nation and others in Central America.During a January 2020 visit to Honduras, acting U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said, “Honduras is a valued and proven partner to the United States in managing migration and promoting security and prosperity in Central America.”
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Relatives of those killed by Iran’s shoot-down of a Ukrainian passenger plane last January say they do not want blood money from Tehran but rather an international trial to hold its leaders accountable, a procedure contingent on overcoming lengthy hurdles under global conventions.The Jan. 8, 2020, downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 by Iranian missiles shortly after it took off from Tehran killed all 176 people on board, most of them Iranians and Iranian Canadians who were flying to Kyiv en route to Canada. Iran has described the downing as a mistake by air defense personnel but has not held anyone accountable.In the last nine days of December, five people based in Canada and the U.S. who lost loved ones on the plane spoke to VOA Persian about what they want to see happen next in their pursuit of justice as they prepared to mark the first anniversary of the tragedy.Several of them said they reject unilateral Iranian offers of financial compensation or “blood money.”Navaz Ebrahim’s sister and brother-in-law Niloofar Ebrahim and Saeed Tahmadesbi, who were killed in Iran’s shoot-down of a Ukrainian passenger plane near Tehran on Jan. 8, 2020. (Courtesy of family)The Iranian Cabinet Mehrzad Zarei’s 17-year-old son, Arad, who died in Iran’s shoot-down of a Ukrainian passenger plane near Tehran on Jan. 8, 2020. (Courtesy of family)The other litigation involves several victims’ families Shahin Moghaddam’s wife, Shakiba Feghahati, and son Rosstin, who were among the 176 people killed in Iran’s shoot-down of a Ukrainian passenger plane near Tehran on Jan. 8, 2020. (Courtesy of family)Edmonton, Canada, resident Javad Soleimani, husband of crash victim Elnaz Nabiyi, said the government of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has not been aggressive enough in pushing for Iran to face a trial at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Other victims’ relatives echoed that criticism.Javad Soleimani’s wife Elnaz Nabiyi, one of those who died in Iran’s shoot-down of a Ukrainian passenger plane near Tehran on Jan. 8, 2020. (Courtesy of family)Two international civil aviation conventions to which Canada and Iran are signatories require states to try to FILE – Canada’s Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale speaks during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, March 20, 2018.Canada also is seeking to change international rules that entitle Iran to lead the official investigation of the crash as the country where the incident happened.“For the party that is responsible for the crash to be investigating itself is just not credible in our view. So we are pursuing changes in the process,” Goodale said.As a fourth remedy, Ottawa is working with the four other countries that lost citizens in the crash — Afghanistan, Britain, Sweden and Ukraine — in a “coordination group” to try to launch reparation negotiations with Iran.Goodale said the coordination group has had at least one technical meeting with Iran to examine how negotiations would be conducted. However, he said one critical element for starting negotiations is missing, namely the official Iranian investigation’s final report that would give the parties a set of facts to use in debating reparations.Under United Nations rules, Iran provided a draft of the report in late December to Ukraine, which operated the downed jet, and to the U.S. and France, which built it. Tehran is not required to share the draft with Ottawa and has not done so.Goodale said Ukraine, the U.S. and France have up to two months to comment on the Iranian draft and Tehran then will have another month to potentially revise it based on those comments.“If this process drags on for months, the coordination group countries will need to consider starting negotiations with Iran before the final report is released, because we all feel the anguish of the families,” Goodale said.In December, Iranian Foreign Ministry Alireza Ghandchi’s wife Faezeh Falsafi and two children Daniel and Dorsa, passengers killed in Iran’s shoot-down of a Ukrainian plane near Tehran on Jan. 8, 2020. (Courtesy of family)Ontario-based Alireza Ghandchi, whose wife and two children died on the downed plane, said Iran’s investigation of its role in the crash has been marked by delays and excuses.“It’s a pattern that has been constant for the past 42 years,” Ghandchi said, referring to the length of time since Iran’s ruling Islamist clerics seized power in a 1979 revolution.Iranian forces that shot down the Ukrainian passenger jet had been on alert for a U.S. response to a missile strike Iran launched on American troops in Iraq hours earlier. Iran had attacked the U.S. troops, wounding dozens, in retaliation for a U.S. airstrike that killed top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad five days previously.This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. Click here and here for the original Persian versions of the story. 
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