A team of Mexican entrepreneurs were the winners of the 2019 Hult Prize — a $1 million award presented each year to aspiring young visionaries from around the world who are creating businesses with a positive social impact.This year’s contest focused on global youth unemployment and attracted more than 250,000 participants from around the world.Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who’s been a major supporter of the Hult Prize since its inception in 2009, announced the winners.”These young people are our best hope for the future,” Clinton said. “Look at them! They are from all over the world. They are happy to be together. They think what they have in common is more important then what divides them.”RutopiaRutopia, the winner, connects tourists with indigenous communities in rural areas of Mexico.Mexican travel start-up Rutopia has teamed up with Airbnb to offer visitors unique travel experiences in rural areas of Mexico. (Courtesy – Rutopia)”It feels great! We are very excited and we cannot wait to come back to Mexico and share these with all the other people in Rutopia,” said Emiliano Iturriaga, who accepted the award along with three of his team members.He also said it was a win for all the people they work with in the local communities.Iturriaga describes Rutopia as an engine that empowers indigenous youth to design and sell trips online, while making it easy for travelers to find authentic cultural experiences.”We’re turning unemployed youth into successful touristic entrepreneurs in their own villages,” he said.The company is now collaborating with Airbnb to create eco-friendly, immersive travel experiences.Business as a force for goodAhmad Ashkar founded the Hult Prize Foundation in 2009, to inspire students on university campuses around the world to think differently about business, he said.”I was an investment banker, the child of refugees, who felt unfulfilled with their own life and my contribution to society,” he said. “So I felt young people had to choose: be good or be cold-hearted investment bankers. So I created The Hult Prize as a platform to equip them, arm them, and then deploy capital to these young people and their ideas; capital that can help them change the world.”A social entrepreneur himself, Ashkar feels he’s doing his part toward that goal. He’s the founder of Falafel Inc., a Palestinian-inspired small-food business in Washington, D.C., with a cause.Falafel Inc. in Washington, D.C. uses some of the proceeds from its Palestinian-inspired falafel sandwiches to help employ and feed refugees. (Julie Taboh/VOA)“With every dollar you spend in our restaurant, we help feed, employ and empower refugees,” Ashkar said. “I’m proud to say we fed more than a quarter-million refugees since launching Falafel Inc. around the world.”Diego’s storyDiego Sandoval first heard about the Hult Prize when he was a sophomore in high school. He then became involved with the program during his sophomore year of university at NYU Abu Dhabi, bringing the Hult Prize competition to his university campus.Diego Sandoval with his mentor Ahmad Ashkar at Boston Regional, 2017. (Courtesy – Diego Sandoval)”That led to a series of internships with the Hult Prize accelerator program, where the best 50 teams get together over six weeks to compete and build their businesses,” he said.”The accelerator program brings in 200 students from around the world from over 30 countries,” Sandoval said. “And I had the privilege of sitting down with every participant, every competitor, to study the social networks behind their business growth. And so as part of the Social Research branch of network science, I was able to investigate that social capital that we have embedded in the Hult Prize ecosystem.”The experience gave him the opportunity to understand the message of what the Hult Prize stands for he said. “It really aims to inspire students to change the trajectory of their careers from a traditional, conventional path to a more entrepreneurial and more passion-driven, mission-driven career.”Winners circlePrevious Hult Prize winners have included people like Mohammed Ashour, co-founder and CEO of the Aspire Food Group, which harvests crickets as a source of protein to feed the world.And a winning start-up team from India called NanoHealth, devoted to bringing health care to India’s urban slums.”We have companies in agriculture, in fishing, in youth unemployment, from Palestine to Zimbabwe,” Ashkar, of the Hult Foundation, said. “We’ve got over 25,000 students who organize programs across a hundred countries and 2,500 staff and volunteers.”It’s just been a humbling experience to build this movement,” he said.Hult Prize 2020The theme for the 2020 Hult Prize is the issue of climate change.For would-be contestants, Rutopia’s Iturriaga offered advice: “The important thing is that you really care about the problem. You don’t build a business and then make the impact, you first see what’s your passion, what do you want to solve in the world, and then you build a business around it.”Tina Trinh contributed to this report from New York City.
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The United States will continue to pursue diplomatic negotiations with North Korea while pressing Pyongyang to improve its human rights practice, a State Department official said this week. 
 
Robert Destro, U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor affairs, told VOA in an interview Thursday that Washington has to “engage” with “a human rights violator like North Korea” to “get them to change their behavior.”   Robert Destro, U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor affairs. (Courtesy U.S. State Department)Destro’s remarks came amid escalating threats from North Korea to give the U.S. an ominous “Christmas gift” and walk away from nuclear talks. 
 
Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that he was redesignating North Korea as a Country of Particular Concern for systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom. The same day, President Donald Trump signed legislation tightening sanctions on Pyongyang. 
 
Destro also commented on human rights practices in Iran, China and Venezuela. The following are excerpts from the interview. 
 VOA: Earlier this morning, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just redesignated Iran as a Country of Particular Concern. One year ago, Iran, along with others, like China and North Korea, were designated as CPC. Are those countries being redesignated again this year under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998? 
 DESTRO: I can’t speak to the other countries, you know. I can only speak for the countries that have been through the designation process. So I’m — the secretary announced Iran, so that’s all I can talk to you about today. 
 VOA: On North Korea: Yesterday, the United Nations General Assembly, in an annual resolution, condemned “the long-standing and ongoing systematic, widespread and gross violations of human rights” in and by North Korea. Could you please comment? 
 DESTRO: Well, we remain deeply concerned about what’s going on in North Korea. I think the credible evidence that’s coming out of North Korea speaks for itself. I think that the U.S. has been very eloquent and I don’t think we have much to add to that. It’s a very good statement. 
 VOA: Is there any discussion in this building that putting North Korea’s human rights abuses on the spot is hurting the diplomatic effort? 
 DESTRO: I’m not sure how to answer a question like that. I think that it’s — in any case where you have a human rights violator like North Korea and you’re trying to get them to change their behavior, you have to engage with them. I mean, this is just human behavior. You’re either going to have a good relationship or a bad relationship or something in between. So my view is that there’s nothing inconsistent with the president trying to engage with the North Koreans and to try and get them to change their behavior. That’s the whole point of the negotiations. 
 VOA: On Tibet, a recent proposed congressional bill — the Tibetan Policy and Support Act — would impose sanctions on any Chinese official who interferes in the selection of the successor to His Holiness Dalai Lama. It would also press for a U.S. consulate in Lhasa. China has pushed back, saying the United States “blatantly interferes in China’s internal affairs and sends a wrong signal to the Tibetan independent forces.” What is your take on this issue? How do you respond to China’s criticism? 
 DESTRO: As an official of the State Department, it’s not my role to comment on pending congressional legislation. Congress is its own independent branch, you know. They will take whatever action they need to take, and then we will take whatever actions are appropriate once they’ve acted. 
 VOA: On Venezuela, what is the U.S. assessment of the reported harassment by the government against the National Assembly members? 
 DESTRO: Well, the United States is committed to democracy in Venezuela. By removing the immunity of members of Congress, you know, you don’t foster democracy. And so we’re very concerned about any attempts by the government to suppress its own democratically elected representatives. That’s just not appropriate. 
 VOA: Do you have a general view on the current human rights situation in Venezuela? 
 DESTRO: Well, we applaud the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Madam (Michelle) Bachelet’s most recent report. We think it is a good follow-up to the report that they had before. And I think we all need to study it very carefully and to take heed of the kinds of recommendations that it makes. 
 VOA: Thank you very much for talking to Voice of America. 
 DESTRO: Thank you. 
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Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Saturday named Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz as the country’s first prime minister since 1976 — a nomination quickly confirmed by the country’s parliament. Marrero, 56, has been tourism minister for 16 years, presiding over a rise in visitors and a hotel construction boom that has made tourism one of the most important sectors of the Cuban economy. Diaz-Canel cited Marrero’s experience in negotiating with foreign investors as one of his prime qualifications, according to state media. The position of prime minister was held by Fidel Castro from 1959 to 1976, when a new constitution changed his title to president and eliminated the post of prime minister. Castro and his brother Raul held the presidential post along with Cuba’s other highest positions, like Communist Party leader, until this year, when Raul Castro stepped down as president and a new constitution divided the president’s responsibilities between Castro’s successor, Miguel Diaz-Canel, and the new post of prime minister. The new constitution envisions the prime minister as responsible for the daily operations of government as head of the Council of Ministers. The prime minister has a five-year term and is nominated by the president.
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Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro lashed out at journalists on Friday, saying one had a homosexual’s “face” in a remark that was promptly mocked by the president’s critics.A visibly upset Bolsonaro accused the press of bias against him and his son, Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro. Prosecutors in Rio de Janeiro are investigating allegations the younger Bolsonaro hired employees with no duties while he was a state legislator. Another investigation is probing whether those “phantom” workers kicked back part of their salaries to then be laundered through a chocolate shop he co-owns.In a video posted to Facebook, the younger Bolsonaro has delivered a lengthy denial of all wrongdoing.FILE – Flavio Bolsonaro, son of Jair Bolsonaro, is seen behind him at the transition government building in Brasilia, Nov. 27, 2018.The drone of accusations has been a thorn in the side of President Bolsonaro, who was elected on an anti-crime platform to purge the political class of corruption. He has routinely attacked the credibility of mainstream media, particularly targeting the goliath Globo, for unfair coverage.At a routine morning meeting with journalists in the capital, the president complained that media have accused him of being a racist and committing crimes against the environment. Then he told one reporter, “Your face looks an awful lot like a homosexual’s, but that’s no reason to accuse you of being a homosexual.”The comment was met with laughs from his aides and supporters standing nearby.Meanwhile some politicians, journalists and other Brazilians turned to social media, posting selfies with the caption “awfully homosexual face.” Jean Wyllys, an openly gay former lawmaker who often clashed Bolsonaro when the two served in Congress, was an early participant of the online movement.”‘An awfully homosexual face.’ With pride!” Wyllys, now a professor at Harvard University’s Afro-Latin American Research Institute, wrote on his Twitter feed.History of offensive rhetoric Bolsonaro has a history of making derogatory remarks about women, gay people and racial minorities, including on last year’s campaign trail. Such offensive rhetoric has diminished since he took office at the beginning of this year.Asked at the morning briefing whether he had proof that a suspicious deposit into his wife’s bank account was merely repayment of a debt, Bolsonaro instructed the journalist, “Ask your mother if she gave your dad a receipt,” prompting a cheer from his supporters. He then asked whether the reporter had a receipt for his shoes. “No, you don’t have it!” he concluded.Bolsonaro also complained that details of a sealed investigation have consistently leaked to the press. “Is the process under seal or not? Answer! Answer, damn it!” he said, and then accused Rio’s prosecutors’ office of having a “direct line” to Globo’s news channel.In a statement published Friday, Globo said that while it took pride in delivering breaking news to its audience, it had not been the first publication to reveal information on the prosecutors’ investigations into Sen. Bolsonaro.
 
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As Venezuelans head to the polls next month, top U.S. officials are pressing for free elections for the National Assembly and the presidency, saying the vote is crucial to the country emerging from its deep political crisis.U.S. officials also are urging authorities to “unconditionally release” all persons being detained for political reasons.Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro’s 2018 reelection is considered to be illegitimate by many nations in the Western Hemisphere. The United States and more than 50 other countries now recognize National Assembly leader Juan Guaido as the interim president of Venezuela.On Jan. 5, the Venezuelan National Assembly will vote on its president for 2020. Guaido is seeking reelection, a year after declaring himself to be the country’s interim leader.FILE – Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who many nations have recognized as the country’s rightful interim ruler, gestures as he speaks during an extraordinary session of Venezuela’s National Assembly in Caracas, Venezuela, Dec. 17, 2019.U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams sounded hopeful Friday that opposition leader Guaido will win.”I think that at least as of now, he has the votes to be reelected,” said Abrams during a press briefing at the State Department.Allegations of briberyThe U.S. envoy said the Maduro government is “using a combination of threats, arrests and bribes up to 500,000 dollars per vote” to stop the reelection but “it’s not widespread enough to change the outcome.”U.S. officials took note that Russia and China, Maduro’s major supporters, have not offered any investment or loans to Venezuela in the last six months.”I think it’s striking that they don’t seem to be willing to give him another dime because they know it will be stolen or wasted. I think they know the regime is going to go,” said Abrams.A recent U.N. report painted a grim picture of Venezuela as a dysfunctional society. Citing data, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said thousands of people continue to flee the country as its political, economic and human rights crises deepen.Venezuela’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Jorge Valero, disputed the report’s findings, saying there is no humanitarian crisis in Venezuela.
 
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Canada’s minister of health, Patty Hajdu, on Thursday proposed banning promotion and advertising of vaping products in public spaces, convenience stores and online, in an effort to curb youth use of e-cigarettes.Hajdu also announced new mandatory health warnings on vaping product packaging.The proposed regulations come amid growing fears surrounding vaping’s safety and mounting evidence that youth vaping is on the rise both among people who once smoked and those who had not.FILE – Canada’s Minister of Health Patty Hajdu speaks in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Dec. 10, 2019.While e-cigarettes are marketed as a safer alternative to traditional cigarettes and a means to help smokers quit, health officials are concerned they are getting a new generation hooked on nicotine.The number of Canadian teens who said they had vaped in the past month doubled from 10% to 20% between 2017-’18 and 2018-’19, according to the Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey.”The latest statistics … are alarming,” Hajdu said in a news release. “We are working with experts and all Canadians to find ways to prevent youth from vaping. The new measures announced today will help, but there is more to do.”In an interview with the CBC public broadcaster, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the measures a “first step.””There’s a lot more information to gather,” he said. “We are very worried about the reports of the extremely negative impacts of vaping.”A U.S. study released earlier this week found that e-cigarette use significantly increases the risk of developing chronic lung conditions such as asthma, bronchitis, emphysema or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
 
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The son of Russian spies who was born in Canada and was stripped of his citizenship after his parents were arrested for espionage in the United States is a Canadian national, the country’s top court ruled  Thursday.
Canada’s Supreme Court unanimously upheld an earlier federal court ruling that said a 2014 administrative decision to strip Alexander Vavilov of his citizenship was unreasonable. Vavilov was born in Canada in 1994, as was his brother, Timothy, four years earlier.
“The judges said that Mr. Vavilov was a Canadian citizen,” according to the ruling.
The hit TV series The Americans was based partly on the story of Vavilov’s family. His parents came to Canada in the 1980s under deep cover and assumed names, with the mission to immerse themselves in Western society. The family later moved to Boston, where Vavilov’s parents were arrested in 2010 and charged with spying.
Vavilov’s parents returned to Russia in a spy swap. Both brothers were also sent to Russia. Alexander said he had no idea that his parents were spies until they were arrested.
Children born in Canada normally automatically become Canadian citizens, but the country’s Registrar of Citizenship said Alexander was an exception because his parents had been like diplomats — representatives or employees of a foreign government.
The Supreme Court upheld a previous federal appeals court ruling saying that Vavilov’s parents did not enjoy the “privileges and immunities” of diplomats and so the exception could not be applied to their son.
Andrey Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova used the aliases Donald Heathfield and Tracey Ann Foley — names lifted from two Canadian children who had died in infancy. They later admitted their real names to U.S. authorities.
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“I’m buying dollars, I’m buying euros,” Roly, 28, whispers furtively to tourists outside a hotel in Havana.Roly, who declined to disclose his last name for fear of reprisals, works as a “mule”, traveling abroad to buy goods to sell back in Communist-run Cuba where the black market booms due to shortages and high prices in the state-run economy.But like many Cubans, he says that he is struggling to acquire the hard currency he needs as it has become near impossible in recent weeks to obtain it legally at the country’s banks and exchange houses.Analysts say the recent elusiveness of hard currency is likely due to a deteriorating economic situation and increased demand as the government steps up moves to end Cuba’s labyrinthine dual currency system.Among those affected are Cubans who want to protect themselves from any kind of possible depreciation this complex process could entail by parking their savings in hard currency and those, like Roly, wanting to travel abroad.Neither of Cuba’s two currencies – the peso or the dollar-equivalent convertible peso (CUC) – are legal tender outside the island, where all financial institutions are state-run.”There’s been no money available at the banks or exchange houses for weeks, you have to look elsewhere,” said Roly. “I’ve spent half a day on the streets under the sun and I haven’t managed to buy a single dollar.”Cuba’s foreign exchange earnings have declined in recent years in tandem with the economic woes of its ally Venezuela and a tightening of the decades-old U.S. trade embargo under President Donald Trump, including increased restrictions on U.S. travel.Several countries such as Brazil, Bolivia and Ecuador have also ended over the past year contracts under which they hired thousands of Cuban doctors from the state. Such service exports make up most of Cuba’s hard currency earnings.In October, Cuba opened around a dozen stores selling appliances, car parts and other items for dollars, with a bank card. Economists said this should help authorities rake in some hard currency and stem capital flight through the activity of mules such as Roly.Some say establishing the “dollar stores” could also be a sign the government is bringing back the greenback to stabilize the economy during elimination of the dual currency system, at least during a transition phase.”The economy is already being dollarized, even if no-one says it” said Cuban economist Omar Everleny. “That the CUC has started to lose value…is a reality”.Cuba’s two currencies have circulated on the island at multiple exchange rates ever since the decline of Cuba’s former benefactor the Soviet Union as part of a strategy to open up the economy while shielding local industry and citizens.But the system has for years been deemed more damaging than beneficial to the economy and the government is expected to eliminate the CUC over the next year.In November, it banned its export and import. Passengers catching flights abroad have to now exchange their CUCs before passing through customs and purchase goods on the other side in tradeable currency.”For the last few weeks, they’ve not allowed us to sell hard currency, neither dollars or euros, because there’s no money,” said Miriam Gonzalez, 55, a cashier at an exchange house.”They are sending all the hard currency received here to the airport.”Even those with accounts in hard currency at Cuban banks have struggled to get their money out, sometimes having to wait for weeks, much to their frustration.”You just can’t trust our country’s banks,” said one client, who declined to give her name after attempting to withdraw 500 euros someone had transferred her from Spain. Her bank instead put her on a waiting list.”There’s no money available at the moment … it’s disrespectful.” 
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Bryan Russell has Down syndrome and does daily speech exercises, putting pens and corks in his mouth to help build up low muscle tone there. He is also waging a long-shot bid to become a national Peruvian lawmaker, going door to door in Lima to ask for votes.Russell, 27, wants to use his campaign to raise awareness about people with developmental disabilities and he says he represents an alternative to the scourge of corruption in Peru that has brought down presidents and weakened democratic institutions.”I’m someone clean, honest, transparent,” Russell said in an interview with The Associated Press. He spoke while sitting next to Amor, a pet dog he rescued from the street.The purpose of politicking, he said, is to “break the paradigm” that people with Down syndrome can’t be independent.FILE – Congressional candidate Bryan Russell, right, kisses his mother Gladys Mujica at his home, in Lima, Peru, Dec. 13, 2019.Russell may be the first person with Down syndrome to run for public office anywhere, according to the Global Down Syndrome Foundation.”We are thrilled that Bryan Russell is running for Congress in Peru,” said Michelle Sie Whitten, president and CEO of the foundation. “As far as we know, he is the first professional who has Down syndrome running for a publicly elected office, and he is showing the world that we need diversity in all areas of society including in our governments.”In 2013, Angela Bachiller, who has Down syndrome, became a city councilor in Valladolid, Spain. But she didn’t run for election, instead taking over the post after her predecessor resigned because of corruption allegations.Down syndrome is a genetic abnormality that causes developmental delays and medical conditions such as heart defects and respiratory and hearing problems.Russell is a candidate for Peru-Nacion, a center-right party that is not widely known and has fared poorly in past elections. However, Russell’s bold campaign ahead of the Jan. 26 parliamentary elections is getting attention. He was invited to speak at a leftist forum where he asked people to fight for people like him, regardless of political leanings.”I want people with my condition to have a voice,” said Russell, who studied communications at the Peruvian San Ignacio de Loyola University and said his parents encouraged him to find his own way.”I learned how to read and write, walk, run and eat, basically to respect myself,” the candidate has written.FILE – Congressional candidate Bryan Russell campaigns at San Martin Plaza in Lima, Peru, Dec. 13, 2019.”Well this is really impressive, because Bryan is changing the history and that is the most important thing,” said Gladys Mujica, Russell’s mother.Mujica, an English teacher, described her son as a “symbol.”‘Give him a chance’Some Peruvians are open to Russell’s campaigning, which consists on a normal day of handing out leaflets while carrying a sign with an image of his face.”He’s looking to do his best. The ‘normal’ people try to steal from the country. That’s a very big difference,” said Carlos Maza, a retired man who said he would vote for Russell.”We have to give him a chance,” said Elena Saavedra, a secretary who shook the candidate’s hand.About 3 million Peruvians have some kind of disability in a country of more than 30 million, according to official figures. There is no data for the number of Peruvians with Down syndrome, though historian Liliana Penaherrera, founder of the Peruvian Society for Down Syndrome, estimates there could be up to 25,000 people with the condition.PrejudicesPeople with Down syndrome struggle to overcome prejudices, including a perception that they are basically big children and can’t make their own decisions, said psychologist Patricia Andrade.As a result, many with Down syndrome live on the margins of society because employers prefer to hire people with other kinds of disabilities, filling a quota of 3% and 5% in workplaces of more than 50 people.Last year, Peru changed its laws to allow people described as disabled to exercise their rights without the intervention of a representative on their behalf. Previously, they needed a guardian to marry, vote, sign a work contract, acquire a credit card and do other things.Penaherrera welcomed Russell’s political candidacy, saying it draws attention to people who struggle against discrimination and the invisibility that society forces upon them.Still, she said, Russell should be held to the same standards as “any other politician” if he gets elected.
 
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A minibus carrying a family to a holiday beach getaway in Mexico crashed into a lumber truck on Wednesday and caught fire, killing 14 people, including five children, authorities said. 
 
Many of the victims were trapped inside the burning minibus, whose charred chassis could be seen impaled on the back of the truck. The accident occurred in Jalisco state, on the highway that runs from the family’s native Guanajuato state to the Pacific beach resort of Puerto Vallarta. 
 
Twelve more people were injured in the pre-dawn crash. Two were in serious condition and were airlifted to a hospital in the state capital, Guadalajara, said state emergency authorities. 
 
Officials said the truck had stopped on the side of the road when the minibus crashed into it. 
 
“It was a tourism service hired by a family” traveling to Puerto Vallarta for the holidays, said Samuel Flores of the Jalisco state civil protection service. 
 
Deadly accidents occur frequently during the Christmas season in Mexico as roads fill with vacationers and revelers. 
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Prosecutors in Bolivia’s capital issued an arrest warrant against ousted President Evo Morales on Wednesday, accusing him of sedition and terrorism.Interior Minister Arturo Murillo recently brought charges against Morales, alleging he promoted violent clashes that led to 35 deaths during disturbances before and after he left office.Officials say he ordered supporters to blockade cities in order to force the ouster of interim President Jeanine Anez, who took over when Morales resigned on Nov. 10 after a wave of protests and under pressure from the police and military.Morales, who first flew to Mexico and now is based in Argentina, has repeatedly denied the charges as a setup.Morales said Tuesday that he would campaign for the presidential candidate of his party in elections expected within the next several months, though a date has not been set. The candidate from Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism party is yet to be chosen, and the former president cannot run in the new elections.Bolivia’s first indigenous president has described the movement that pressured him to leave as a coup d’etat.Fraud allegationsCritics of the long-ruling leader had accused him of using fraud to win a fourth straight term in office in an Oct. 20 vote. An audit by the Organization of American States backed up the allegations, saying it found evidence of vote-rigging.Morales retains a strong following in Bolivia and has an ally in the government of Argentine President Alberto Fernandez, who took office two days before the former Bolivian leader arrived in the country.Bolivia’s interim government has expressed concern that Morales could use Buenos Aires as a campaign headquarters and might plot his return home.
 
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Immigrants convicted of illegally reentering the U.S., driving drunk or committing domestic violence will be barred from claiming asylum under a proposed regulation announced Wednesday by the Trump administration.The proposal, which must go through a public comment period before it is finalized, lists seven criminal areas, including some low-level crimes, that would bar migrants from claiming asylum in addition to federal restrictions already in place. It also would remove a requirement for immigration judges to reconsider some asylum denials.It’s another push to restrict asylum by President Donald Trump’s administration, which claims migrants are gaming the system so they can spend years in the U.S. despite their ineligibility, in part because of a lower bar for initial screenings. Most of the people who claim asylum are fleeing violence, poverty and corruption in their home countries.Immigrant advocates and humanitarian groups have criticized Trump’s hard-line policies as inhumane and have said the U.S. is abdicating its role as a safe haven for refugees.But an immigration court backlog has reached more than 1 million cases, and border agencies were overwhelmed this year by hundreds of thousands of Central American families that require more care-giving and are not easily returned over the U.S.-Mexico border.In an effort to stop the flow of migrants, the Department of Homeland Security, which manages immigration, has sent more than 50,000 migrants back over the border to wait out asylum claims. The migrants often are victimized in violent parts of Mexico and sickened by unsanitary conditions in what have become large refugee camps. Homeland Security officials also have signed agreements with Guatemala and other Central American nations to send asylum seekers there. The first families have already been sent to Guatemala.The Justice Department also has taken aim at so-called sanctuary cities, like New York and Chicago, which do not assist Homeland Security agents with immigration-related requests. New York officials, for example, say they do not believe immigrants should be deported for minor offenses and won’t notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement if they have an immigrant in their custody. Attorney General William Barr and acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf complained about such policies.“I think what we are doing is playing politics with public safety,” Wolf said recently in a Fox News Channel interview on New York laws. “That is really concerning from protecting the homeland perspective, making sure that DHS law enforcement officers have the data and the tools that they need to protect their communities.”The proposed new rules would make asylum seekers ineligible if they were convicted of a felony or if they were arrested repeatedly on domestic violence charges. Other crimes include: low-level convictions for false identification or unlawful receipt of public benefits. Plus: smuggling or harboring immigrants, illegal reentry, a federal crime involving street gang activity or driving while under the influence of an intoxicant.These crimes are in addition to other bars already in place  through federal asylum laws.The changes were made so that the departments “will be able to devote more resources to the adjudication of asylum cases filed by non-criminal aliens,” according to a joint release Wednesday by the Justice Department and Homeland Security.For the budget year 2018, there were about 105,500 asylum applications by those who came to the U.S. and were not in deportation proceedings first. The figure decreased by 25% from the previous budget year.During the same period, the number of asylum applications by migrants who were already in court for deportation proceedings increased about 12%, to 159,473, mostly from Central America and Mexico.According to Homeland Security data, the total number of people granted asylum increased 46%, to 38,687, in 2018. The top countries were China, Venezuela and El Salvador.
 
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When the Honduran boy complained of a toothache, Dr. Psyche Calderon asked the obvious question: “When did the pain start?”The answer broke her heart.”When La Mara broke all my teeth and killed all my family,” the 14-year-old said.He said little else about the attack by the infamous Central American gang, La Mara Salvatrucha. Just: “I was the only one that survived.”Calderon is not a therapist, nor a lawyer or a dentist. She is a general practitioner volunteering her time to provide care for Central Americans stuck in Mexico while they try to obtain asylum in the United States. There was little she could do for this teenager.”So I gave him an antibiotic, then went home and cried,” she said.Calderon is part of a movement of health professionals and medical students from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border that is quietly battling to keep asylum seekers healthy and safe while their lives remain in flux.They try desperately to tend to a need left largely unmet by the governments of both countries. It has thrust volunteer doctors into new and unusual roles where they often have to improvise while working with limited donated medications and equipment and dealing with non-medical issues. Besides giving patients a pill for pain relief, the doctors might need to direct them to legal help for their cases while offering a listening ear as a kind of therapist to a population suffering deep trauma from violence that forced them to flee their homelands.With little training or preparation for this type of medical work, doctors like Calderon are trying to come up with guidelines to better treat migrants with emotional trauma.Tens of thousands of people are stuck in Mexican border cities as their asylum cases wind their way through the U.S. court system under a Trump administration policy that returns them across the border to wait out a decision, rather than allowing them to stay with relatives or sponsors in the United States. Thousands of others wait for their numbers to be called so they can start their claim in a process that meters the number of asylum requests that are submitted to U.S. officials.Many in Tijuana have lived for months at crowded shelters, sleeping on floors, with little access to public health clinics.Along Mexico’s border with Texas, hundreds are living outside in tents made out of garbage bags. Families sleep near piles of human feces and bathe in the Rio Grande, known to be contaminated with E. coli and other bacteria.In the Mexican city of Matamoros, the nonprofit Global Response Management bought flu vaccines from a local pharmacy at roughly $50 a dose to administer. Its volunteers set up sidewalk clinics to treat asylum seekers.The health crisis spans both sides of the border. In the past year, at least three children, detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents, have died from the flu while being held. They include a 16-year-old boy who was seen on security footage writhing in agony on the floor in a U.S. Border Patrol holding cell.Doctors recently protested outside a detention facility in San Diego to pressure the U.S. government to allow them to administer the flu vaccine to migrants for free, but so far Customs and Border Protection has refused, saying it is not equipped to run a vaccination program.Meanwhile, in Tijuana, volunteers like Calderon have been going out to gritty, far-flung neighborhoods to set up pop-up clinics on the weekends at shelters that are rarely visited by Mexico’s public health doctors, if at all.”I shouldn’t be doing this,” Calderon said. “They need to be in another place to be safe. That other place should be taking care of them, or the Mexican government should be taking care of these refugees.”The 34-year-old Tijuana doctor treats addictions in her day job. Her private practice caters to Americans seeking lower-cost medical care across the border who pay in dollars, allowing her to be able to volunteer. She found her new calling in 2018 when thousands of Central Americans poured into Tijuana after crossing Mexico in a caravan.Calderon, who slips in and out of English and Spanish seamlessly in a single sentence, grew up in Tijuana watching the border walls go up. At 11, she participated with her family in protests against California’s Proposition 187 that denied public education and health care to people in the United States illegally. At the age of 17, she shadowed doctors treating Mexicans deported to Tijuana from the U.S.So when the caravan arrived, she reflexively went to the sprawling soccer field where they camped and start treating people. There she met other volunteers, including an emergency room physician from Los Angeles and a medical student from San Diego.When the Mexican government closed down the festering soccer field camp, the volunteers realized the health crisis was not going away. So they joined forces under the Refugee Health Alliance, one of a handful of such groups along the 1,954-mile border.Advocating for what they call “border-less medicine,” they started by organizing pop-up clinics at the shelters on Saturdays and attracting volunteers by word of mouth and through social media postings.A year later, the Refugee Health Alliance has hosted 800 volunteers who have seen more than 9,000 patients; in addition to treatment, they document signs of torture and abuse for asylum cases. Volunteers also see asylum seekers during the week at a clinical space shared with a Mexican nonprofit that treats sex workers and drug addicts.Each Saturday at 9 a.m., the volunteers gather less than a block from the towering border wall in Tijuana.They improvise to overcome barriers. On a Saturday in October, a Chicago doctor who did not know Spanish used Google translate on his iPhone to tell a Guatemalan man and his family that he needed to go to the hospital because he likely had appendicitis. On the other side of the curtain, a Mexican midwife gave a Honduran woman who was eight months pregnant an ultrasound while talking over the mechanical iPhone voice conveying the urgent news about the man’s appendix.The Refugee Health Alliance hopes to open its own clinic next year.On the group’s 52nd consecutive Saturday at the shelters, a 24-year-old San Diego woman who moved to Tijuana to help coordinate the efforts gives volunteers a brief orientation.Celeste Pain, who crosses back to San Diego daily to work at an outlet store, rattles off instructions: Don’t ask about people’s backgrounds, which could trigger traumatic memories, or take photographs. Fill out medical forms that ask for a person’s medical history, their court date and their number in line of those waiting to ask for asylum. Determine when the client will be crossing the border; they likely will be held in U.S. immigration detention centers, which could disrupt their care.The volunteers also are given labels and told to put them on any medication they give to the asylum seekers so U.S. immigration officials will not take the pills away — though they often do, anyway.They head out to the first stop, at the bottom of “Scorpion Canyon.”There they meet Calderon traipsing past barking pit bulls, crowing roosters and pigs, lugging a massive duffel bag down a muddy, trash-strewn road. Two University of Arizona medical students jump in to help.Calderon leads the dozen or so volunteers into a cavernous Christian church that first sheltered Haitians who flocked by the thousands to this border city in 2016. Now the church is filled with scores of tents housing Central Americans.The two dozen volunteers include two pediatricians, a university professor who also practices medicine, medical students from Phoenix and San Francisco, a Stanford University psychology doctorate student who worked with children at refugee camps in Iran, and two sisters from Los Angeles who have relatives in Tijuana.They unfold tables and metal chairs in the congregation hall to set up makeshift examining spaces as giggling children run by. They unpack a half-dozen duffel bags and suitcases bursting with plastic bags filled with asthma inhalers, antibiotics and other prescription drugs. Some medications were brought in by volunteers, including the two sisters who said they were stopped by Mexican customs officials and had to pay up to $100 before being allowed into the country.Calderon works between the church where she sees mostly Central Americans and a neighboring cluster of rooms built out of discarded doors and crates housing several dozen Haitians.”Tenemos tongue depressors?” she asks one of the bilingual volunteers.She sees a woman with a badly healed broken wrist, a girl’s belly covered with scabies, an undernourished pregnant woman, a baby with a cold, a toddler who is underweight, a woman with a swollen check and infected tooth, another with a red, swollen eye.With a warm smile and a pink stethoscope around her neck, she sees patient after patient. She calls dentists, ophthalmologists and other specialists she knows to see if they are willing to see the patients she cannot treat.Meanwhile she teaches the U.S. volunteers how to make do with the limited supplies and traditional equipment, like a non-digital blood pressure monitor. With no scale, she has learned to calculate weight by lifting babies under their arms. She scurries to a cinder-block room abutting a row of outhouses to find privacy to do a breast exam on a Honduran woman.Eight months have passed since that day she saw the boy with the broken teeth. She still thinks of him. She never saw him again nor learned of his fate.The experience made her a better doctor, she said. Now when Calderon asks about migrants’ pain, she treads carefully: A hurt neck, might be from getting a head smashed in by thieves. A case of acid reflux might stem from anxiety about not being in a safe place.”When you see someone who comes to you with insomnia, with no hope, it’s really hard on us too. What do we say? What do we treat? Is this an illness?” she asks.What’s more, how do doctors treat patients they are unlikely to see more than once?”That’s why we’re trying to write the protocol for mental health, and trying to get experts for refugee medicine to help us out with these questions,” she said.Five hours into this Saturday’s work, Calderon takes a sip from her thermos of water, which bears a sticker of a dog exclaiming: “This is fine.” It’s a stark contrast to what she feels. She always wishes she could do more.But in some ways, it’s a reminder to herself as much as a reassurance to her patients: This is fine, even though it’s not, but it’s what she has to accept given the limitations, the barriers that have created these conditions of mothers, fathers and children living for months as campers using outhouses, water from buckets and spigots and sleeping on cement floors side by side.Calderon learned to accept those limitations after treating the boy with the toothache. She took time off and sought therapy for herself, feeling overwhelmed. Then she took a course to learn how to treat patients who have endured tragedies.”I need to be OK that I did something,” she said. “It’s a thing that all doctors come to understand at some point, right? I hope. We do what we can.” 
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U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Guatemala’s outgoing president Jimmy Morales at the White House Tuesday, where the two discussed immigration and trade.Trump called the relationship with Guatemala “tremendous” and praised Morales on the immigration deal where Guatemala agrees to accept migrants seeking asylum in the U.S.”The relationship is very good, it’s a very important country from the standpoint of the border and trade,”  Trump added.In July the Trump administration reached an agreement with the Morales government that will allow U.S. immigration officials to send migrants requesting asylum at the U.S.-Mexican border to Guatemala.The U.S. has signed similar agreements with El Salvador and Honduras, requiring migrants on their way to the U.S. to apply for protections in those countries first. U.S. immigration authorities may send migrants back to those countries if they fail to do so, effectively making it almost impossible for migrants from the Northern Triangle countries to seek asylum.The Trump administration has sent the first migrants back to Guatemala in November. According to the Guatemalan government, a total of 24 people have been sent to the country under the program.President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Friday, July 26, 2019. Trump announced that Guatemala is signing an agreement to restrict asylum applications to the U.S. from Central America.”Now they have to take them back, and they take them back with open arms,” said Trump.That may not be the case as Guatemala’s president-elect Alejandro Giammattei who will take office in January has balked at accepting the agreement reached by his predecessor.In August Giammattei said that Guatemala will not be able to hold up its side of the agreement and serve as a “safe third country” for asylum seekers as the country  “does not fulfill the requirements” to be one.The incoming government will have to weigh their options as the Trump administration has made it clear that Guatemala must agree to accept asylum-seekers in order to benefit from a U.S-sponsored regional economic development plan.In October, Mauricio Claver-Carone, senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the White House National Security Council said that Guatemala must embrace the safe third country agreement if it hopes to benefit from the economic development plan for Mexico and Central America known as America Crece.Although Giammattei has been critical of the ACA (Asylum Cooperative Agreements), “the prospect of governing a country without U.S. aid may deter him from following through with revoking its implementation,” said Cristobal Ramon, senior policy analyst with the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Immigration ProjectRamon said that Giammattei could always threaten to revoke the agreement unless the U.S. agrees to make more aid investments in the country or receive other benefits for Guatemalan nationals like receiving a second package of H-2A visas for Guatemalan farm workers.It’s too early to know if Giammattei would take this route “and if Trump could make these concessions in the face of these threats”  but it’s something that Giammettei could potentially do to bolster the gains Guatemala gets from implementing this agreement, Ramon added.Trump dismissed VOA’s questioning on whether he would withhold aid from the country should Giammattei continue to reject the agreement.”Guatemala is terrific. Guatemala has been terrific,” Trump said.
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At midday on Dec. 17, 2014, the sound of church bells echoed in Havana as presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro announced that the United States and Cuba would reestablish diplomatic relations and end nearly 60 decades of hostility.Five years later, it feels almost as if that historic moment never happened, Cubans said in interviews in the capital Tuesday.President Donald Trump has spent roughly as much time undoing detente as Obama spent constructing it, and relations between the two countries are at one of their lowest points since the end of the Cold War.Trump has cut back U.S. visits to Cuba — barring cruise ships, flights to most cities and unguided educational travel — the most popular form of American trip to Cuba.The U.S. Embassy in Havana has been reduced to skeleton staffing after diplomats reported a string of health problems whose source remains a mystery. The closure of the embassy’s visa section, and end of special five-year visas for Cubans this year, means travel to the U.S. has become near-impossible for many Cubans who used to fly regularly to South Florida to see family and buy supplies for businesses.The Cuban economy is stagnant, with tourism numbers flat and aid from Venezuela far below its historic peak as Cuba’s oil-rich chief ally fights through its own long crisis.U.S. President Barack Obama, right, and Cuban President Raul Castro shake hands before a bilateral meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York, Sept. 29, 2015.In 2014, Obama and Castro’s announcement felt like the end of a dark era for Cuba and the start of something positive and new, people said in Havana. Now, the two years of detente under Obama feel like a temporary break in a long history of tension and struggle that has no end in sight, they said.“There was hope, thinking that there would be an opening with Obama,” said Alfredo Pinera, a 37-year-old construction worker. “And with Trump, it’s like a child’s dream, gone up in smoke.”Pinera works in Mexico, and returns to Cuba regularly to see his wife and sons, ages 16, 11, and 9. He said he hoped that the end of hostilities with the U.S. would bring a better life for him, his family and the entire country.“I felt good,” he said. “There was hope for improvement, for change in this country, economically, politically, socially.”He said he and his family were surviving in the hard times, which were far from the depths of the post-Soviet “Special Period” of the 1990s. But he said the optimism they felt five years ago had suffered a heavy blow.“All of those hopes that so many Cubans went crashing to the round,” said Pinera as he sat on a curb connecting his phone to a public WiFi access point outside the baseball stadium where Obama and Castro watched an exhibition game during the U.S. president’s historic 2016 visit to Havana.The Cuban government celebrated Tuesday as the anniversary of the return of three of five Cuban agents arrested as they carried out infiltration of anti-Castro emigre groups. The swap of the agents for U.S. contractor Alan Gross and a jailed spy was an essential precursor to the re-establishment of relations, but the larger context was barely mentioned in Cuban state media on Tuesday.President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Paraguay’s President Mario Abdo Benitez in the Oval Office of the White House, Dec. 13, 2019, in Washington.The Trump administration says it is trying to cut off the flow of cash and oil to the Cuban economy in order to force the communist government to end its support for Venezuela.Carlos Fernández de Cossio, the director of U.S. affairs for the Cuban Foreign Ministry, said some influential interests in the United States were working to end diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba, and the island’s government was prepared.“I don’t think there will be a break-off in relations, frankly I don’t know if that will happen. I do know that there’s a group of powerful people that have that intention,” he said. “Cuba can’t be taken by surprise by that reality if it occurs.”Elizabeth Alfonso, 21, left school after she got pregnant at 14. She has spent the last six years raising her son and working as a waitress in a state cafeteria and maid in other Cubans’ homes.Still a child herself when Obama and Castro made their announcement, she has only vague memories of the two years of improved relations, but she knows things felt better.“I thought things would get better. That’s what everybody thought,” said Alfonso, who sat in a park near the U.S. Embassy, waiting to start her shift as a maid in a nearby home.She said she planned to return to school next year to get the equivalent of a high-school diploma, but had few hopes for improvement in Cuba. Many of her friends and relatives want to leave the country, she said, but that had become far more difficult due to Obama’s ending of near-automatic residency for Cuban immigrants and Trump’s increased deportations of people who once were guaranteed entry at the border.Alfonso said she was waiting for the return of a cousin who crossed Mexico to get to the southern U.S. border but was detained and is awaiting deportation.Antoin Ugartez, a 42-year-old father of three who rents a three-wheeled covered scooter known as a Cocotaxi from a state-run agency, said the post-Trump decline in tourism had hit him hard.Detente, he said, “was a great step forward for Cuban society. Things developed and you started to see different perspectives, a different vision of economic improvement for your family, the conditions you live in.”Now, he said, “I barely make enough to put food on the table.”
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Victims of a 2018 shooting rampage in Toronto that left two dead and 13 injured are suing the American maker of the pistol used in the attack, holding it responsible for not making guns safer.The class action, according to court documents obtained Tuesday by AFP, alleges that Smith and Wesson knew that its M&P 40 handgun “was an ultra-hazardous product.”And it should have known that the weapon might end up being stolen and used to harm or kill innocent people, the suit claims.Yet the company chose not to incorporate safety features such as fingerprint recognition to prevent unauthorized users, it alleges.The class action, which must still be certified, is seeking Can$150 million (US$115 million) in damages.FILE – Handguns are displayed at the Smith & Wesson booth at the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show in Las Vegas, Jan. 19, 2016.Lead plaintiffs Samantha Price and Skye McLeod said in a statement of claim that they’d gone out for ice cream with friends on the evening of July 22, 2018, when they were confronted by a man opening fire on Toronto’s bustling Danforth Avenue.Price was struck by a bullet, but survived. McLeod was injured while fleeing. Their friend Reese Fallon, 18, and 10-year-old Julianna Kozis were shot dead.After an exchange of gunfire with police, the shooter took his own life.Police still don’t know how he obtained the gun, which had been reported stolen from a Saskatchewan shop in 2015.But the lawsuit notes that Smith and Wesson was aware that “more than 200,000 firearms” like the one used in the Danforth shooting “were stolen from their owners every year in the United States.”The company had agreed in 2000 to incorporate smart gun technologies in new models by March 2003 to address this.The deal, however, collapsed after the United States passed a law in 2005 shielding gun manufacturers and dealers from liability when crimes are committed with their products.The shield does not apply in Canada.Remington, Smith and Wesson lawsuitsIn March, a Connecticut court ruled that U.S. gunmaker Remington can be sued over the 2012 massacre at the Sandy Hook elementary school in which one of its weapons was used to kill 20 children and six staffers.That lawsuit alleges that Remington is culpable because it knowingly marketed a military grade weapon that is “grossly unsuited” for civilian use yet had become the gun most used in mass shootings.In the Canadian case, the plaintiffs say Smith and Wesson should have included safety technology in its .40-caliber semi-automatic pistol, which was made available for sale in Canada starting in 2013, “so as to avoid, prevent or deter substantial and foreseeable harm.”Manufacturers have claimed that the technology is expensive and impractical.Patrick McLeod, the father of one of the Danforth victims and a former police officer, disagrees.”I can look at my iPhone and it unlocks. Meanwhile, we’re selling semi-automatic handguns that have no safety devices on them at all,” he told the Globe and Mail.
 
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The first woman to be elected mayor of Colombia’s capital city has married her partner in a private civil ceremony before taking office.Claudia Lopez announced her wedding to Angelica Lozano Monday evening by sharing an enthusiastic message and several photographs on social media.”On my way to the happiest moment of my life!” Lopez wrote on Twitter.The incoming mayor of Bogota, who takes office in January, thanked her bride for “loving me always” and promised “to honor and love” her the rest of their days. Photographs show the pair dressed in white, holding a simple bouquet of flowers and smiling.The couple’s union has become a rallying cause among supporters promoting LGBT rights in the traditionally conservative, Catholic country – though Colombia has permitted gay marriage since a landmark Constitutional Court ruling in 2016.Lozano told Colombia’s BLU Radio that the couple has tried to marry previously but their schedules made organizing a wedding complicated.”We told ourselves, `We have to do it now or another four years will pass by,” Lozano said. “Because Claudia’s priority the next four years will be her job.”When she is sworn into office, Lopez will become the first openly lesbian mayor of a capital city in Latin America, a region slowly advancing in improving LGBT rights but where long-standing cultural biases and inequality remain barriers.Lopez has been making waves in Colombia for years, starting from her days as an analyst shedding light on corruption in the highest echelons of power. In her personal life, she’s been equally upfront and transparent, sharing a passionate kiss with Lozano as the election results came in during the October vote for Bogota mayor.Few details about the ceremony were released, but Lopez said their white pant suits were crafted by Colombian designer Angel Yanez.”Thank you life for this marvelous year!” Lopez hailed on social media. “I graduated with my doctorate, won mayoral office and married the love of my life!” 
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Netflix is seeing rapid subscriber growth in regions including Asia and Latin America as it girds for tougher competition in the streaming market, newly detailed figures show.In a regulatory filing this week, Netflix offered the first detailed look at its finances from various regions around the world.The figures showed nearly 14.5 million subscribers in the Asia-Pacific region at the end of September, representing growth of more than 50 percent over the previous 12 months.The region including Europe, the Middle East and Africa had some 47 million paid subscribers, up 40 percent year-over-year, in the largest segment outside North America.Latin America included some 29 million subscribers, a rise of 22 percent over the past year, Netflix said in the filing.North America is the largest market for Netflix with some 67 million subscribers but growth over the past year was just 6.5 percent.Netflix is the leader in streaming television, operating in some 190 countries, but it is facing new offerings from deep-pocketed rivals including Disney, Apple, Comcast’s NBCUniversal and AT&T’s WarnerMedia. 
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A Mexican foreign ministry undersecretary says he did not negotiate a trade deal that would allow up to five U.S. labor inspectors into Mexico.Jesus Seade posted in several tweets that there is a simple reason labor inspectors would not be allowed into Mexico.  Mexican law prohibits it, Seade said.Last Tuesday, Mexico, the U.S., and Canada signed a revised United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. Mexico’s Senate ratified the new deal two days later.When legislation to implement the trade deal was introduced in the U.S. Congress, it contained language proposing the posting of up to five labor attaches to monitor Mexican labor reforms.Seade quickly objected with “surprise and concern” and announced a trip to Washington.His Mexican critics said that he and others in President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s administration had overlooked something in the new deal and had approved the pact too hastily.But Seade said there was nothing in the ratified trade package that authorized the posting of U.S. labor inspectors in Mexico.  “It is a very good agreement for Mexico,” Seade said.  “That’s why the U.S. needs ‘extras’ to sell it internally that were not part of the package.” 
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The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, is holding a first-ever forum in an effort to drum up international support for tens of millions of people displaced by war, poverty, repression and other woes. The Global Refugee Forum, taking place December 16-18 in Geneva, will seek to gather leaders from governments, business and civil society to work together to find solutions for the unprecedented number of people — more than 70 million, according to the U.N. — displaced in their home countries or abroad. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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Human remains discovered last month at a farm outside the city of Guadalajara have been confirmed as belonging to at least 50 people, authorities in Mexico’s west-central state of Jalisco reported.Jalisco state prosecutors said recovery work at the farm in Tlajomulco de Zuniga, which began Nov. 22 after the initial discovery, concluded Friday as experts determined there was no more evidence to be gathered from the scene.The office said in a Saturday statement that there was a “preliminary” indication that the remains corresponded to 50 individuals.Prosecutors said they had identified 13 people so far — 12 male and one female, all of whom were previously listed as missing.The state forensic sciences institute will seek to determine the sex of the rest and cause of death.The investigation continues, with the goal of identifying more victims as well as “those responsible for this crime which gravely harms society,” the statement said.The state is home to Jalisco New Generation, one of Mexico’s bloodiest and most ruthless drug cartels.In July, Jalisco prosecutors announced 21 bodies had been found in excavations in the yard of a house near Guadalajara. In May, authorities discovered the remains of at least 34 people at two separate properties in the state.Such clandestine burial sites are frequently used by criminals to dispose of bodies.At least 40,000 people have disappeared since Mexico’s drug war began in 2006. 
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Just days after agreement on a pact to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico objected Saturday to legislation introduced in the U.S. Congress as part of an eventual ratification of the deal. Jesus Seade, the Mexican Foreign Relations Department’s undersecretary and chief trade negotiator for North America, said most of the bill is in line with the typical process of ratification, but it also adds the designation of up to five U.S. labor attaches in Mexico tasked with monitoring the implementation of the labor reform that is under way in our country.'' Seade said that was not part of the agreement signed December 10 in Mexico City by Mexico, the United States and Canada to replace NAFTA, but was rather the product ofpolitical decisions by the Congress and administration of the United States.” Mexico should have been consulted but was not, Seade said, and, of course, we are not in agreement.'' Mexico said that it resisted having foreign inspectors on its soil out of sovereignty principles, and that the agreement provided for panels to resolve disputes pertaining to labor and other areas. The three-person panels would comprise a person chosen by the United States, one by Mexico and a third-country person agreed upon by both countries. Seade called the designation of labor attachesunnecessary and redundant” and said the presence of foreign officials must be authorized by the host country. “U.S. officials accredited at their embassy and consulates in Mexico, as a labor attache could be, may not in any case have inspection powers under Mexican law,” he added. Sunday trip to WashingtonSeade said that he sent a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer expressing Mexico’s surprise and concern'' over the matter and that he would travel to Washington on Sunday to convey the message personally to Lighthizer and U.S. lawmakers. The elements of House Resolution 5430 in questiondisplay a regrettable mistrust” in the treaty, which was negotiated in the spirit of good faith,'' the letter read. We reserve the right to review the scope and effects of these provisions, which our government and people will no doubt clearly see as unnecessary,” it continued. “Additionally, I advise you that Mexico will evaluate not only the measures proposed in the [bill] … but the establishment of reciprocal mechanisms in defense of our country’s interests.” Mexico’s Senate approved the modifications to the agreement Thursday evening 107-1. 
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UN investigators accused Chile’s police and army of indiscriminate violence and gross violations, including torture and rape, in crushing recent mass protests over social and economic grievances.An investigative team from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights produced a 30-page report expressing alarm at the excessive use of force by security agents.     It said Chile’s violent crackdown on protesters resulted in the reported deaths of dozens of people, a high number of injuries, and the arbitrary detentions of thousands of demonstrators.Chile’s Office of the Public Prosecutor says it is investigating 26 deaths.   The report holds state agents responsible for many of these deaths, noting that live ammunition was used in some cases.  The Chilean Ministry of Justice reports that nearly 5,000 people, more than half of whom were police officers, have been injured during the protests.  UN sources say the number of injured is higher than that cited by government officials.  They accuse state agents of unnecessary and disproportionate use of less-lethal weapons, such as anti-riot shotguns, during peaceful demonstrations.Imma Guerras-Delgado headed the mission to Chile, which took place in the first three weeks of November.  She said the demonstrations that have been occurring since mid-October were triggered by multiple causes, including social and economic inequality.”The majority of those who have exercised the right to assembly during this period have done so in a peaceful manner,” Guerras-Delgado said. “We have found that the overall management of assemblies by the police was carried out in a fundamentally repressive manner.”  Guerras-Delgado said the mission is particularly concerned by the use of pellets containing lead.  She said hundreds of people suffered eye injuries, causing blindness in a number of cases, and condemned the brutal suppression of peaceful nationwide protests by the police and army.”Human rights violations documented by OHCHR [Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights] include the excessive or unnecessary use of force that led to unlawful killings and injuries, arbitrary detentions and torture and ill treatment,” she said.   Among its recommendations, the report urges Chile to immediately end the indiscriminate use of anti-riot shotguns to control demonstrations.  It also calls on the government to make sure security forces adopt measures to guarantee accountability for human rights violations and to prevent the recurrence of similar events.
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Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon jumped to the highest level for the month of November since record-keeping began in 2015, according to preliminary government data published Friday.Destruction of the world’s largest tropical rainforest totaled 563 square km (217.38 square miles) in November, 103% more than in the same month last year, according to the country’s space research agency INPE.That would bring total deforestation for the period from January to November to 8,934 square km, 83% more than in the same period in 2018 and an area almost the size of Puerto Rico.The data released by INPE was collected through the DETER database, a system that publishes alerts on fires and other types of developments affecting the rainforest. The DETER numbers are not considered official deforestation data. That comes from a different system called PRODES, also managed by INPE.PRODES numbers released last month showed deforestation rose to its highest in more than a decade this year, jumping 30% from 2018 to 9,762 square km. Deforestation usually slows around November and December during the Amazon region’s rainy season. The number for last month was unusually high.Researchers and environmentalists blame right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro for emboldening ranchers and loggers by calling for the Amazon to be developed and for weakening the environmental agency Ibama.Bolsonaro and Environment Minister Ricardo Salles have said previous governments played a role in deforestation’s increase, saying policies including budget cuts at agencies like Ibama were in place well before the new government took office on Jan. 1.Brazil’s Environment Ministry had no immediate comment Friday on the DETER data for November.
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