Chilean authorities announced Thursday that rescue workers had found debris and human remains from the military transport plane that went missing on a regular flight to Antarctica.The head of the Chilean air force, General Arturo Merino, told reporters that based on the condition of the remains, it would be “practically impossible’ that any survivors would be found.”Remains of human beings that are most likely the passengers have been found among several pieces of the plane,” Merino said. “I feel immense pain for this loss of lives.”The C-130 Hercules was carrying 17 crew members and 21 passengers, including members of the Chilean air force, army and three civilians.  The wreckage was found 30 kilometers from the plane’s last-known position.
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Former Bolivian President Evo Morales has arrived in Argentina, where he has been granted asylum by the new left-wing government.Morales had fled to Mexico after nationwide protests over election fraud forced him to resign early last month.”He feels better here than in Mexico, which is far away,” Argentine Foreign Minister Felipe Sola said Thursday. The two countries are neighbors.Morales will live in the capital, Buenos Aires, with his two children. Sola said four former high-ranking officials in his administration had accompanied Morales and had also requested asylum.Morales fled Bolivia after the Organization of American States concluded that the October elections had been rigged to grant him a fourth term in office.”We expect the Argentine government to comply with international norms of political asylum,” Bolivian Foreign Minister Karen Longaric warned. “We don’t want to see what happened in Mexico, where Evo Morales had an open microphone and a stage.”Interim Bolivian President Jeanine Anez has said Morales will not be allowed to run in new presidential elections that are expected to be held early next year.But on Sunday, Morales’ Movement Towards Socialism (Mas) party named him its campaign manager.”Thank you for not abandoning me. I will always be with you,” Morales tweeted after that decision was announced.
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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Wednesday that he has a possible skin cancer, after a medical visit where he had a mole removed from his ear.The presidential office, however, said there is no sign that Bolsonaro has a cancer, adding that the president had been to a hospital in Brasilia in the afternoon. “The president is in good health, without any indication of a skin cancer and is keeping his appointments for this week,” said the statement.Earlier, Bolsonaro also said he had been advised to cancel a trip to Salvador, in the state of Bahia, due to suffering from exhaustion.
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Debris believed to be from a military transport plane carrying 38 people that vanished two days ago en route to the Antarctic has been discovered in the frigid, treacherous waters between the icy continent and South America, Chile’s Air Force said Wednesday.Air Force Gen. Eduardo Mosqueira said “sponge” material, possibly from the plane’s fuel tank, was found floating roughly 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the place the C-130 Hercules last had radio contact.The debris will be analyzed to see if it corresponds to the missing plane, he said, adding that the process could take up to two days.The C-130 Hercules took off Monday afternoon from a base in far-southern Chile on a regular maintenance flight for an Antarctic base. Radio contact was lost 70 minutes later.The debris was spotted by a private plane assisting in the search, and officials said a Brazilian ship in the area equipped with instruments will next scan 3,200 meters (10,499 feet) underwater at the site.“We estimate that the debris may in fact be from the C-130 fuel tank,” Mosqueira said.The discovery came as Chilean officials had expanded the search for the missing military plane.Mosqueira said the search area covered an area of about 400 by 450 kilometers (250 by 280 miles) and he said improved visibility was helping the crews of searchers using planes, satellites and vessels from Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and the U.S. as well as Chile.The search area extended over treacherous waters of Drake Passage between the tip of South America and the Antarctic. The plane was carrying 17 crew members and 21 passengers, three of them civilians.The two pilots had extensive experience, according to the Chilean air force, which said that while the plane was built in 1978, it was in good condition. The air force said it flies this route monthly.The four-engine C-130 is a “military workhorse” and experts say in general well maintained airplanes can fly for 50-plus years.The aircraft would have been about halfway to the Antarctic base when it lost contact, officials said, adding that no emergency signals had been activated.The plane had taken off in favorable conditions, though it was flying in an area notorious for rapidly changing weather, with freezing temperatures and strong winds. Seven hours after contact was cut off, the air force declared the plane a loss, though there was no sign of what happened to it.Ed Coleman, a pilot and chair of the Safety Science Department at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, said rapidly changing weather in the Antarctic makes it a difficult place for pilots.Air masses converge there, driving storms with powerful wind gusts, while stirring the sea with swells 6 meters (20 feet) or bigger, he said. Flying becomes challenging, and making a smooth sea landing nearly impossible, he said.“You can have a clear sky one minute, and in a short time later storms can be building up making it a challenge,” he said. “That causes bigger swells and rougher air.”The inhospitable Antarctic is equally formidable to rescuers, who have to respond quickly to pull any survivors from the cold, rough waters, he said.
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Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Wednesday he will send a new regional trade agreement to the Senate immediately for ratification.
                   
The president suggested it would be just a formality because senators from all parties were present at the signing Tuesday with representatives of Canada and the United States and were in agreement.
                   
“There’s already agreement because they were consulted before the signing,” he said. “They were told what the agreement contained and there was a condition that nothing would be signed until they gave their consent.”
                   
The trade pact will replace the North American Free Trade Agreement.
                   
Lopez Obrador said that the agreement would benefit Mexico’s economy. Mexico had been the first country to agree to the new accord, but was waiting for it to overcome hurdles in the U.S. Congress, including Democratic concerns over labor protections.
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Venite Bernard’s feet are bloodied and torn because, she said, she had no time to grab her sandals when she fled her shack with her youngest children as gangsters roamed the Haitian capital’s most notorious slum, shooting people in their homes.Now the 47-year-old Bernard and her family are camped in the courtyard of the town hall of Cite Soleil in Port-au-Prince, along with more than 200 others, fleeing an outbreak of violence that is part of what civic leaders say is the country’s worst lawlessness in more than a decade.”Bandits entered the homes of some people and beat them, and they were shooting,” Bernard said through her tears, lying on a rug in the shade of a tree. “Everyone was running so I left as quickly as I could with the children.”United Nations peacekeeping troops withdrew from Haiti in 2017 after 15 years, saying they had helped to re-establish law and order in the poorest country in the Americas, where nearly 60 percent of the population survives on less than $2.40 a day.But that left a security vacuum that has been exacerbated over the past year by police forces being diverted to deal with protests against President Jovenel Moise.”With limited resources, they have been unable to contain the activity of gangs as they might have wished,” said Serge Therriault, U.N. police commissioner in Haiti in an interview.Demonstrators loot a burning truck after the wake of demonstrators killed during the protests to demand the resignation of Haitian president Jovenel Moise in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, Nov. 19, 2019.An economic downturn with ballooning inflation and a lack of investment in low income districts has also helped boost crime, turning them into no-go areas.The situation – which diplomats fear represents a growing threat to regional stability that could have knock-on effects on migration and drugs and weapons trafficking – is causing alarm in international circles.The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on Haiti on Tuesday, its first in 20 years.Moise’s critics say he has lost control of the country and should resign. The 51-year old says the situation is already calming down and he will carry out his full term.Residents say gangs fight over territory where they extract “protection” fees and carry out drugs and arms trades.Politicians across the spectrum are using the gangs to repress or foment dissent, providing them with weapons and impunity, according to human rights advocates and ordinary Haitians.”When those in power pay them, the bandits stop the population from participating in the anti-government protests,” said Cite Soleil resident William Dorélus. “When they receive money from the opposition, they force people to take to the streets.”Both opposition leaders and the government deny the accusations.Impunity Breeds CrimeMoise said in an interview with Reuters last month he was working on strengthening Haiti’s police force and had revived a commission to get gang members to disarm.”Allegations of unlawful violence will be investigated and responded to by our justice system as a matter of priority,” the presidency wrote in a statement to Reuters on Tuesday.Critics say, however, that under his watch, authorities have failed to prosecute gang leaders, effectively giving the criminals carte blanche and weakening the authority of police.”Every time the police stop a gangster, there is always the intervention of some authority or another to free them,” said Pierre Esperance, who runs Haiti’s National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH) that monitors rights violations.Esperance, who addressed Tuesday’s Congress hearing, said more than 40 police officers had been killed this year, compared with 17 last year.A boy eats next to makeshift shelters at La Saline neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Aug. 8, 2019.The most high-profile case of apparent impunity is the massacre a year ago in the neighborhood of La Saline, a hotbed of mobilization against Moise’s government, according to rights advocates.Over two days, gangs killed at least 26 people while police failed to intervene, according to a U.N. report. Eyewitnesses cited in the report say they saw a senior government official with the gang members.”These allegations raise the possibility of a complicity between the gangs and state authorities,” the U.N. wrote.The government eventually fired the official, who denied any involvement. Neither he nor anyone else has been arrested or prosecuted over the massacre.”This dossier (on the La Saline massacre) is in the hands of the justice system,” Moise told Reuters.Lo Saline residents say they feel abandoned to their fate.”We never received an official visit after these events,” said Marie Lourdes Corestan, 55, who said she found her 24-year old son’s corpse among a pile of mutilated bodies and whose house was burnt down. “The bandits said they would come back and not distinguish between children, women, and men.”There have been six massacres since Moise took office, according to the RNDDH, the most recent one last month.The U.N.’s Therriault said a recent waning of protests was allowing police officers to regain a grip on the overall security situation and Cite Soleil Mayor Jean Hislain Frederic said authorities hoped to convince people to return home next week.But many, including Bernard, who has been unable to locate her two eldest sons, say they are too afraid.”I hope my boys are not dead,” she said. “I wish for the end of this violence, and that God helps us to find somewhere to live.”
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Lawyers for Huawei’s chief financial officer have won a court battle after a judge asked Canada’s attorney general to hand over more evidence and documents relating to the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, according to a court ruling released Tuesday.Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes in the Supreme Court of British Columbia agreed with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd’s legal team that there is an “air of reality” to their assertion.FILE – A logo of Huawei marks one of the company’s buildings in Dongguan, in China’s Guangdong province, March 6, 2019.But she cautioned that her ruling is limited and does not address the merit of Huawei’s allegations that Canadian authorities improperly handled identifying information about Meng’s electronic devices.Meng, 47, was arrested at the Vancouver International Airport on Dec. 1, 2018, at the request of the United States, where she is charged with bank fraud and accused of misleading the bank HSBC about Huawei Technologies’ business in Iran. She has said she is innocent and is fighting extradition.She was questioned by Canadian immigration authorities prior to her arrest, and her lawyers have asked the government to hand over more documents about her arrest.Meng’s legal team has contested her extradition in the Canadian courts on the grounds that the United States is using her extradition for economic and political gain, and that she was unlawfully detained, searched and interrogated by Canadian authorities acting on behalf of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).Judge’s rulingIn her ruling, Holmes wrote that she found the evidence tendered by the attorney general to have “notable gaps,” citing the example of why the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) “made what is described as the simple error of turning over to the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), contrary to law, the passcodes CBSA officers had required Ms. Meng to produce.”Holmes also said the attorney general did not provide adequate evidence to “rebut inferences from other evidence that the RCMP improperly sent serial numbers and other identifiers of Ms. Meng’s devices to the FBI.”Holmes said these gaps in evidence raise questions “beyond the frivolous or speculative about the chain of events,” and led her to conclude that Meng’s application “crosses the air of reality threshold.”The order does not require the disclosure of documents — the attorney general may assert a privilege, which Meng could contest in court.Neither the Canadian federal justice ministry nor Huawei immediately responded to requests for comment.No timeline was outlined in Holmes’ ruling.Meng’s extradition hearing will begin Jan. 20, 2020, in a federal court in Vancouver.
 
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Alberto Fernandez assumed the presidency of Argentina on Tuesday, returning the country to the ranks of left-leaning nations at a moment of right-wing resurgence in the Western Hemisphere.
                   
Taking the vice presidency was Cristina Fernandez, 66, a polarizing figure who served as president from 2007 to 2015 and whose presence has raised questions about the extent of her influence in the new administration.
                   
Alberto Fernandez, a 60-year-old lawyer from the country’s center-left Peronist movement, faces the grave and immediate challenge of trying to pull Argentina from economic crisis: The country has a 35% poverty rate and is struggling to make debt payments on time.
                   
The economy is expected to shrink 3% by the end of 2019, with inflation at 55%.
                   
“I come before you to call for unity from all Argentina, to build a new social contract of brotherhood and solidarity,” Fernandez said in his inaugural address before Congress. “I come before you calling for all to put Argentina on its feet, to put the country on a path toward development and social justice.”
                   
He said that his administration’s first meeting would focus on reducing hunger, and said that Argentina wanted to pay all its creditors but lacked the capacity to do so.
                   
Outgoing leader Mauricio Macri became the first non-Peronist president to complete his term in 74 years, a landmark seen as a sign of Argentina’s maturing democracy.
                   
The new president said on Twitter that he would dedicate himself to “putting my dear Argentina back on its feet.”
                   
Alberto Fernandez served as head of Cristina Fernandez’s Cabinet for the beginning of her time in power and many wonder if the new vice president will wield outsized power in the new government. She and Alberto Fernandez have denied that.
                   
However, close allies of Cristina Fernandez have already been named to key government positions and her son is head of the governing party in the lower house of the legislature.
                   
Peronists cheered as the pair were inaugurated, saying they had high hopes for an improved quality of life.
                   
“I see a lot of people unemployed, a lot of hunger, and that is very frustrating,“ said Claudia Pouso, a 57-year-old retiree. I want everything to be turned around, more jobs for people. My daughter works in the hospital and there is nothing there. … Everything needs to change.”
                   
Outgoing Interior Minister Rogelio Frigerio praised Alberto Fernandez’s conciliatory attitude toward his political opponents, and his openness toward dialogue.
                   
“We have to give the next government the benefit of the doubt, he needs help and we will help,” Frigerio said.
                   
The incoming president has already announced plans to fight poverty with the distribution of subsidized basic foods, and he has outlined measures to lower food prices and fight malnutrition in poor families.
                   
He has also announced plans to raise retirees’ pensions and increase benefits for public employees and welfare recipients.
                   
Alberto Fernandez is expected to move Argentina away from close cooperation with the U.S. and other conservative governments that are trying to unseat Venezuela’s embattled socialist president, Nicolas Maduro.
                   
Fernandez is close to former left-leaning Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Mexico’s populist president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Meanwhile, tensions have been rising between Fernandez and far-right President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, which Argentina’s main trading partner.
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A man who served as secretary of public security in Mexico from 2006 to 2012 has been indicted in New York City on drug charges alleging he accepted millions of dollars in bribes to let the Sinaloa cartel operate with impunity in Mexico.Genaro Garcia Luna, 51, a resident of Florida, was charged in Brooklyn federal court with three counts of cocaine trafficking conspiracy and a false statements charge, authorities said in a release.
Garcia Luna was arrested Monday by federal agents in Dallas. Prosecutors in Brooklyn said they will seek his removal to New York. The arrest and charges were announced Tuesday.
U.S. Attorney Richard P. Donoghue said Garcia Luna took millions of dollars in bribes from the former leader of the Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, “while he controlled Mexico’s federal police force and was responsible for ensuring public safety in Mexico.”
 “Today’s arrest demonstrates our resolve to bring to justice those who help cartels inflict devastating harm on the United States and Mexico, regardless of the positions they held while committing their crimes,” he said.
Garcia Luna received millions of dollars in bribes from 2001 to 2012 while he occupied high-ranking law enforcement positions in the Mexican government, authorities said.
From 2001 to 2005, Garcia Luna led Mexico’s Federal Investigation Agency, and from 2006 to 2012 served as Mexico’s secretary of public security, controlling the nation’s federal police force, authorities said.
They said the bribes paid to Garcia Luna cleared the way for the Sinaloa cartel to safely ship multi-ton quantities of cocaine and other drugs into the United States while getting sensitive law enforcement information about investigations and information about rival drug cartels.
There was no immediate comment from representatives for Garcia Luna.
Garcia Luna was once seen as a powerful ally in the American effort to thwart Mexican cartels from flooding the U.S. market with cocaine and other illegal drugs. But he had also previously come under suspicion of taking bribes.
In 2018, former cartel member Jesus Zambada testified at El Chapo’s New York trial that he personally made at least $6 million in hidden payments to Garcia Luna, on behalf of his older brother, cartel boss Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.
The cash was delivered during two meetings at a restaurant in Mexico between the start of 2005 and the end of 2007, he said.  
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U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed a modified North American trade pact Tuesday, declaring it is a significant improvement over the original North American Free Trade Agreement and over the first proposal from the White House.“There is no question, of course, that this trade agreement is much better than NAFTA,”  Pelosi said at a Capitol Hill news conference announcing the deal. “It is infinitely better than what was initially proposed by the administration.”The agreement was made possible after congressional Democrats and the White House agreed on final terms, ending more than two years of talks that also included Canada and Mexico.Pelosi and many other Democrats have long lambasted the original NAFTA accord, particularly the extensive trade-related job losses in the U.S. manufacturing sector.U.S. President Donald Trump noted on Twitter Tuesday his trade pact apparently received “very good Democrat” support and that the agreement “will be the best and most important trade deal ever made by the USA.”Looking like very good Democrat support for USMCA. That would be great for our Country!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 10, 2019“Importantly,” Trump continued, “we will finally end our Country’s worst Trade Deal, NAFTA!”As Republican leaders and lawmakers pushed Pelosi on the issue for months, Pelosi held extensive talks with the Trump administration to win stronger enforcement provisions, an apparently successful effort to win Democratic support.She also painstakingly worked to get the support of labor, including an endorsement from the AFL-CIO, which is critical to getting congressional approval.”For the first time, there truly will be enforceable labor standards,” including a process allowing for inspections of factories, said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.Weeks of negotiations, closely watched by Democratic labor allies, bought lawmakers and administration officials together.The deal represents a significant victory for Trump who campaigned for the presidency on a promise to renegotiate or abolish NAFTA.When a reporter asked at the news conference why she would give Trump a political victory, Pelosi responded, “We are declaring victory for the American worker.”NAFTA killed most tariffs and other trade barriers involving the U.S., Canada and Mexico.The original NAFTA divided Democrats, but the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) is more protectionist and labor-friendly, indicating it may be more palatable to the Democratic Party.An unlikely coalition of critics consisting of Trump, labor unions and many Democratic legislators considered NAFTA a job killer for the U.S. because it encouraged U.S. factories to relocate to Mexico to capitalize on the country’s low-wage workers.The proposed USMCA deal contains provisions designed to lure manufacturers back to the U.S.It also includes updated labor regulations and more stringent enforcement provisions to hold Mexican companies more accountable on labor.Officials from the U.S., Canada and Mexico met in Mexico Tuesday to discuss the new deal.It requires U.S. congressional approval before it is ratified.Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar, whose district in Texas is near the U.S.-Mexico border, said Tuesday the House is planning to vote on the deal next week.  
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Chile’s military has launched a search and rescue mission for an air force plane carrying 38 people that disappeared Monday during a flight to a base in Antarctica.The C-130 Hercules aircraft took off from the southern city of Punta Arenas, located more than 3,000 kilometers south of the capital Santiago. The 17 crewmen and 21 passengers were heading to the Antarctic outpost to check on a floating fuel supply line and other equipment.  The air force says it lost contact with the plane nearly an hour-and-a-half later.
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A conservation group trying to protect the world’s most endangered marine mammal said Monday that hundreds of fishermen massed in dozens of boats to fish illegally in Mexico’s Gulf of California.Activists with the Sea Shepherd group said they witnessed about 80 small fishing boats pulling nets full of endangered totoaba fish from the water near the port of San Felipe on Sunday.Those same nets catch vaquita porpoises. Perhaps as few as 10 of the small, elusive porpoises remain in the Gulf of California, which is the only place they live.While totoaba are more numerous, they are also protected. But their swim bladders are considered a delicacy in China and command high prices.The Mexican government prohibits net fishing in the gulf, also known as the Sea of Cortez, but budget cuts have meant authorities have stopped compensation payments for fishermen for not fishing.Sea Shepherd operates in the area to remove the gillnets that trap vaquitas, but the group said the mass fishing seen Sunday was a new tactic, in which a number of boats would surround and enclose totoabas to ensure they couldn’t escape the nets.The mass turnout overwhelmed the relatively few Mexican navy personnel present, the group said. In the past, fishermen have attacked Sea Shepherd boats as well as naval vessels.
 
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France and a group of Brazilian states plan to announce a partnership to preserve the Amazon rainforest, the group’s leader said on Monday, bypassing Brazil’s federal government after a spat between the presidents of the two countries.Amapa state Governor Waldez Goes, who heads the consortium of the nine states that comprise Brazil’s vast Amazon region, told Reuters that the partnership would be announced at the U.N. climate summit in Madrid this week and would include other initiatives aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions.Fires in Brazil’s section of the rainforest, which accounts for 60% of the overall Amazon and is seen as a bulwark against climate change, surged in August to their highest point since 2010. The widespread blazes provoked an international outcry that Brazil was not doing enough to protect its forest.French President Emmanuel Macron called for urgent actions to be taken on the fires, rapidly becoming embroiled in a war of words with Brazil’s right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro.FILE – French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a press conference after the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assem.bly at the French mission to the UN in New York, Sept. 24, 2019Macron accused Bolsonaro of lying to world leaders about Brazil’s commitment to preserving the environment. Bolsonaro at one point insulted Macron’s wife and said he would only accept $20 million in aid offered by the G7 group of wealthy nations if Macron withdrew his “insults.”Macron said he thought Brazilian women must be ashamed of Bolsonaro, and suggested he was not up to the job of president.Goes said the nine Brazilian states would announce a mechanism on Tuesday to allow foreign countries to contribute directly to state-level projects to preserve the Amazon.He said that they had approached several European countries about funding such efforts.The non-binding partnership with France could lay the groundwork for the country to provide eventual financial support to the states’ environmental projects, he said. It was not clear whether talks will advance far enough at the summit for France to announce an amount that it would contribute, Goes added.A spokesman for the French delegation at the conference declined to immediately comment.FILE – Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro looks on during the ceremony of the 300 days of government at the Planalto Palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Nov. 5, 2019.Environmentalists blame Bolsonaro for Amazon deforestation hitting an 11-year high as he has prioritised economic development of the rainforest over conservation.”The Brazilian President has in his official agenda the exploitation of the Amazon,” said Nara Bare, a Brazilian indigenous representative at a protest outside the two-week climate summit in Madrid, which is due to conclude on Friday.Bolsonaro has said the media has sensationalized the Amazon fires and demonized him. 
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For seven nerve-wracking months, they slept through the day in cramped quarters on cold floors, while spending their nights in prayer, keeping fit with dumbbells made from water jugs and peering through the diplomatic compound’s curtains for fear of surveillance.But on Monday, 16 national guardsmen who shocked Venezuela and the world alike by revolting against President Nicolas Maduro were safely out of the country, having successfully fled the Panamanian embassy in Caracas that had been their makeshift home since April.The Associated Press spoke exclusively to the group’s leaders, who provided the first detailed account of what led them to plot with Maduro’s opponents in an uprising that laid bare fraying support for the socialist leader within the armed forces.Due to security concerns, lieutenant colonels Illich Sanchez and Rafael Soto wouldn’t reveal exactly when or how they left Venezuela. They only said they journeyed in small groups as part of a clandestine “military operation” that counted with the support of dozens of low-ranking troops and their commanders.“We left Venezuela but our fight to restore Venezuela’s democracy will continue,” said Sanchez in a phone interview from an undisclosed location.In this Nov. 8, 2019 photo, Venezuelan guardsmen play a game of dominoes inside Panama’s Embassy, in Caracas, Venezuela.The previously untold story of how Sanchez and Soto managed to dupe their superiors and plot a revolt against Maduro underscore how discontent — and fear — is running high inside Venezuela’s barracks even as the embattled leader clings to power amid punishing U.S. sanctions imposed after presidential election widely seen as fraudulent.                  The two standout officers seemed ideally suited for the high-risk mission, having risen through the ranks to a trusted position with direct control of troops and regular contact with Maduro’s top aides.Sanchez, 41, commanded a garrison of some 500 guardsmen responsible for protecting downtown government buildings including the presidential palace and supreme court. Soto, 43, for a time was assigned to the feared SEBIN intelligence policy, leading a team of some 150 agents charged with spying on government opponents.In their telling, the two longtime friends grew disillusioned watching the devastation of Venezuela’s economy and started secretly plotting to remove Maduro. Eventually they teamed up with Maduro’s opponents led by National Assembly President Juan Guaido, who is recognized as Venezuela’s rightful leader by the U.S. and some 60 countries.On April 30, they stunned Venezuelans by appearing before dawn with tanks and heavily armed troops on a bridge in eastern Caracas alongside Guaido and activist Leopoldo Lopez, who they helped spring from what they considered an illegal house arrest.“When I gathered my troops at 2 a.m. and told them we were going to liberate Venezuela they broke down in tears,” said Sanchez, who as part of his official duties providing security to congress had to speak with opposition lawmakers on a regular basis. “Nobody saw it coming, but they were all immediately committed.”Adds Soto: “Everything was perfectly lined up for a peaceful transition.”But they say they were defrauded by Maduro aides, including Supreme Court President Maikel Moreno and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, who they claim never fulfilled a promise made to the opposition to abandon their support of Maduro. Both Moreno and Padrino have repeatedly reasserted their loyalty to Maduro.In this Nov. 8, 2019 photo, Venezuelan soldiers, who took part in a failed April rebellion against Nicolas Maduro, stand in a prayer circle inside Panama’s Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela.In the confusing aftermath of the failed rebellion, they scurried for protection on the back of motorcycles, stripping off their olive green fatigues and knocking, unsuccessfully at first, on several embassy doors.Amid the chaos, Lopez phoned then Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela, who immediately embraced their cause and arranged their safe entry into the embassy.He recalled how two months before the U.S. invasion of Panama, in 1989, then-dictator Gen. Manuel Noriega crushed a similar revolt and then ordered the execution of more than 10 ringleaders.“We couldn’t leave them alone,” Varela said in an interview. “The Sebin was 10 feet from the door. They were going to kill them all.”The embassy, in an upscale high-rise occupied by state-run companies and well-connected government contractors, would become their makeshift home for the next seven months. Both men said the “humanitarian support” provided by the embassy’s staff and the Panamanian people ensured their safety.While confined, the 16 guardsmen worked hard to maintain their military discipline. To keep out of their host’s way, they adopted an inverted sleep schedule, dozing during the day on thin mattresses strewn across the floor of a small room. Then at night, after the diplomats went home, they’d come alive to cook together on a small stove top, keep fit with dumbbells improvised from 20-liter water bottles and read religious texts in a prayer circle.
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News reports say House Democrats and the White House are close to agreeing on changes to a trade deal that the United States, Canada and Mexico signed last year but have not ratified.The United States-Mexico-Canada-Agreement, known as the USMCA, would replace the existing North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, which President Donald Trump has derided as the “worst trade deal” ever signed by the U.S. He made renegotiating NAFTA a campaign promise during the 2016 presidential race.NAFTA took effect in the 1990s during U.S. President Bill Clinton’s administration.FILE – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador speaks during his daily morning press conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico, Nov. 21, 2019.The Mexican Senate accepted changes to the USMCA after intense negotiations with the United States. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is urging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to move forward on the deal.”It’s time, it’s the moment,” Lopez Obrador said at a press conference.Reports say Pelosi is studying the terms of the agreement. The changes to the deal are aimed at winning the support of House Democrats. Those close to the discussions say a ratification vote could take place in the House of Representatives on Dec. 18.FILE – Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., meets with reporters during her weekly news conference at the Capitol in Washington, Dec. 5, 2019.Both the House and the Senate must sign off on the deal.Some congressional Republicans have criticized Pelosi, saying she is holding up the deal, which they say is having an impact on Trump’s negotiations with China.”We would get a better agreement with China if we had USMCA done,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in his weekly press conference last Thursday. China and the U.S. have placed billions of dollars worth of tariffs on each other’s goods in the trade war.NAFTA’s critics say it encouraged factories and jobs to relocate to Mexico. NAFTA eliminated most tariffs among the three nations, making it one of the largest free trade agreements in the world.Ratification neededThe revised agreement must be ratified by legislators in the three countries for it to go into force. House Democrats called on Mexico to adhere to higher labor standards.Mexican senators have approved the USMCA. If it cannot be ratified by all three countries, they will remain in NAFTA unless they break away from it.Lopez Obrador expressed concern for implementing the trade deal sooner rather than later. He said time was running short to avoid the matter becoming an issue in the U.S. presidential race.
 
 The Trump administration also made lowering the trade deficit with Mexico part of a renegotiation strategy.
 
Separately, the United States had a last-minute request to the agreement over the weekend, relating to how steel is identified. The U.S. has proposed that 70% of steel for automobile production come from the North American region. Cars produced in Mexico also use components made in Brazil, Japan and Germany.If Congress is not able to pass Trump’s renegotiated trade deal, he said that he would take the United States out of NAFTA.
 
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House Democrats have reached a tentative agreement with labor leaders and the White House over a rewrite of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal that has been a top priority for President Donald Trump. That’s according to a Democratic aide not authorized to discuss the talks and granted anonymity.Details still need to be finalized and the U.S. Trade Representative will need to submit the implementing legislation to Congress. No vote has been scheduled.
The new, long-sought trade agreement with Mexico and Canada would give both Trump and his top adversary, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a major accomplishment despite the turmoil of his likely impeachment.
An announcement could come as early as Monday. Pelosi, D-Calif., still has to officially sign off on the accord, aides said. The aides requested anonymity because the agreement is not official.
The new trade pact would replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, which eliminated most tariffs and other trade barriers involving the United States, Mexico and Canada. Critics, including Trump, labor unions and many Democratic lawmakers, branded NAFTA a job killer for America because it encouraged factories to move south of the border, capitalize on low-wage Mexican workers and ship products back to the U.S. duty free.
Weeks of back-and-forth, closely monitored by Democratic labor allies such as the AFL-CIO, have brought the two sides together. Pelosi is a longtime free trade advocate and supported the original NAFTA in 1994. Trump has accused Pelosi of being incapable of passing the agreement because she is too wrapped up in impeachment.
Democrats from swing districts have agitated for finishing the accord, in part to demonstrate some accomplishments for their majority.
By ratifying the agreement, Congress could lift uncertainty over the future of U.S. commerce with its No. 2 (Canada) and No. 3 (Mexico) trading partners last year and perhaps give the U.S. economy a modest boost. U.S. farmers are especially eager to make sure their exports to Canada and Mexico continue uninterrupted.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer last year negotiated the replacement agreement with Canada and Mexico. But the new USMCA accord required congressional approval and input from top Democrats like Pelosi and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal of Massachusetts, who have been engaged in lengthy, detailed negotiations over enforcement provisions and other technical details.
The pact contains provisions designed to nudge manufacturing back to the United States. For example, it requires that 40% to 45% of cars eventually be made in countries that pay autoworkers at least $16 an hour — that is, in the United States and Canada and not in Mexico.
The trade pact picked up some momentum after Mexico in April passed a labor-law overhaul required by USMCA. The reforms are meant to make it easier for Mexican workers to form independent unions and bargain for better pay and working conditions, narrowing the gap with the United States.
Mexico ratified USMCA in June and has budgeted more money later this year to provide the resources needed for enforcing the agreement.  
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 The flaming barricades are mostly gone, protesters have largely dissipated and traffic is once again clogging the streets of Haiti’s capital, but hundreds of thousands of people are now suffering deep economic aftershocks after more than two months of demonstrations.
The protests that drew tens of thousands of people at a time to demand the resignation of President Jovenel Moise also squeezed incomes, shuttered businesses and disrupted the transportation of basic goods.
“We are nearing a total crash,” Haitian economist Camille Chalmers said. “The situation is unsustainable.”
Haiti’s economy was already fragile when the new round of protests began in mid-September, organized by opposition leaders and supporters angry over corruption, spiraling inflation and dwindling supplies, including fuel. More than 40 people were killed and dozens injured as protesters clashed with police. Moise insisted he would not resign and called for dialogue.
The United Nations World Food Program says a recent survey found that one in three Haitians, or 3.7 million people, need urgent food assistance and 1 million are experiencing severe hunger. The WFP, which says it is trying to get emergency food assistance to 700,000 people, blames rising prices, the weakening local currency, and a drop in agricultural production due partly to the disruption of recent protests.
In the last two years, Haiti’s currency, the gourde, declined 60% against the dollar and inflation recently reached 20%, Chalmers said. The rising cost of food is especially crucial in the country of nearly 11 million people. Some 60% make less than $2 a day and 25% earn less than $1 a day.
A 50-kilogram (110-pound) bag of rice has more than doubled in price in the local currency, said Marcelin Saingiles, a store owner who sells everything from cold drinks to cookies to used tools in Port-au-Prince.
The 39-year-old father of three children said he now struggles to buy milk and vegetables.
“I feed the kids, but they’re not eating the way they’re supposed to,” he said, adding that he has drained the funds set aside for his children’s schooling to buy food.In this Dec. 3, 2019 photo, children play near their home in the Cite Soleil slum of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.A growing number of families across Haiti can’t even afford to do that since the protests began, with barricades preventing the flow of goods between the capital and the rest of the country.
Many of those live in Haiti’s rural areas, which also have been hardest hit by demonstrations that continue in some cities and towns.
Wadlande Pierre, 23, said she temporarily moved in with her aunt in the southwest town of Les Cayes to escape the violent protests in Port-au-Prince. However, she had to move back to the capital because there was not gas, power or water in Les Cayes, and food was becoming scarce.
“There is no access to basic items that you need,” she said.
Pierre is now helping her mother, Vanlancia Julien, sell fruits and vegetables on a sidewalk in the neighborhood of Delmas in the capital.
Julien said she recently lost a couple hundred dollars’ worth of produce because she could not go out on the street to sell due to the protests.
“All the melon, avocado, mango, pineapple, bananas, all of them spoiled,” she said.
Last year, sales were good, but she is now making a third of what she used to earn before the protests began, even though streets have reopened.
“That doesn’t amount to anything,” she said. “The fact that people don’t go out to work, it’s less people moving around and makes it harder for me.”
That also means businesses like the small restaurant that 43-year-old Widler Saint-Jean Santil owns often remain empty when they used to be full on a regular afternoon.
He said the protests have forced many business owners to lay off people, which in turn affects him because clients can no longer afford to eat out.
“If people are not working, there is no business,” he said.
Among the businesses that permanently closed was the Best Western Premier hotel, which laid off dozens of employees.
Chalmers warned that economic recovery will be slow if the political instability continues, adding that the situation is the worst Haiti has faced in recent history.
“A lot of crises came together,” he said. “Not only the economic one, but the political and fiscal ones.” 
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With its top leader absent, the party of Evo Morales gathered Saturday in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba to start choosing its candidates for new elections called after the resignation and exile of the former president amid protests over vote results.Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party is divided almost three weeks after Bolivia’s first indigenous president, prompted by the military and nationwide protests, left for political asylum in Mexico saying he was the victim of a coup d’etat. Critics of the long-ruling leader say he used fraud to win a fourth straight term in office in the Oct. 20 vote.”Evo is not alone”, shouted party militants, mostly from social and indigenous organizations, in a Cochabamba coliseum.The date for the new elections has not yet been set.Morales, who is currently in Cuba for a medical appointment, said via Twitter that “today the people are uniting, organizing and mobilizing to recover democracy and continue the process of change.”MAS president Rimer Agreda said the gathered delegates will vote to punish members who betrayed the party, apparently referring to party members who didn’t back Morales.”We have to give a punishment vote to all (those) who are at the service of the U.S. embassy,” he added. Morales has said that he was ousted with U.S. support.Chamber of Deputies president Sergio Choque said Morales will have final say over the candidates chosen. “We will go (the elections) with new candidates coming from the social sectors.”It was unclear how long the candidate selection process would take.Morales left the Andean country on Nov. 11 for Mexico, a day after his resignation. Sen. Jeanine Anez then assumed the presidency temporarily for 90 days. A consensus of political forces was later reached to call new elections and cancel the Oct. 20 vote, which an Organization of American States report has said with filled with irregularities and manipulation.On Friday, news emerged that Morales had temporarily left Mexico for Cuba. A former aide did not specify whether Morales made the trip for a routine medical checkup or to treat a specific ailment.Morales underwent treatment in Cuba in 2017 for nose, ear and throat complaints. 
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President Donald Trump said Friday in a tweet that he will hold off on designating Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations.Trump said all the work had been completed and he was statutorily ready to issue a declaration but had decided to delay at the request of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador holds his daily news conference in Oaxaca, Mexico, Oct. 18, 2019.There was no immediate confirmation from Mexico, but the government had pushed back against Trump’s plan, saying such a step by the U.S. could lead to violations of its sovereignty.“All necessary work has been completed to declare Mexican Cartels terrorist organizations,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Statutorily we are ready to do so.”“However, at the request of a man who I like and respect, and has worked so well with us, President Andres Manuel (at) LopezObrador — will will temporarily hold off on this designation.”Under pressure from Trump’s threat to impose tariffs, Mexico has pressed thousands of national guard troops into service to help block Central American migrants from traveling through Mexico to reach the U.S.In place of designating the cartels as terrorist outfits, Trump said the U.S. and Mexico instead will “step up our joint efforts to deal decisively with these vicious and every-growing organizations.”Trump had said in a radio interview just last week that he “absolutely” would move ahead with designating the drug cartels as terrorist organizations, attributing American deaths to drug trafficking and other activity by the cartels.“I’ve been working on that for the last 90 days,” Trump said in the interview when host Bill O’Reilly asked whether such a designation would be forthcoming.O’Reilly had asked if Trump would designate the cartels “and start hitting them with drones and things like that?”Trump replied: “I don’t want to say what I’m going to do, but they will be designated.”Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard sought meetings with U.S. government officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Ebrard also said on Twitter that he would use diplomacy to “defend sovereignty.”
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Argentine President-elect Alberto Fernandez unveiled his cabinet on Friday evening, laying out his core team days before the center-left leader takes office facing a stalled economy, rising debt fears and painful inflation.Fernandez named Martin Guzman as economy minister, who will need to help steer debt restructuring negotiations with international creditors and the International Monetary Fund over around $100 billion in sovereign debt.Guzman, a young academic and protege of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, is considered an expert in the field of debt restructuring, though he has little hands-on experience in policy making.Matias Kulfas, who previously held government and central bank positions, was named as production minister. Young political scientist Santiago Cafiero, heir to a historic Peronist family, was named Cabinet chief, and former Buenos Aires Governor Felipe Sola was tapped as foreign minister.Peronist Fernandez, who takes over from conservative leader Mauricio Macri, will be sworn into office on Dec. 10.Vice President-elect Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, a divisive former president, was not present at the event when Fernandez announced his picks.
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It has been more than two years since Venezuelan authorities arrested a group of CITGO executives, all of them dual U.S.-Venezuelan nationals. The family of one executive, Tomeu Vadell, lives in a small Louisiana town that recently held a vigil to draw attention to the detention. For VOA, Jorge Agobian has more from Lake Charles.
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Union leaders and Colombian government representatives met on Thursday for the second time this week but failed to reach an agreement to end protests against President Ivan Duque’s economic and social policies.The meeting took place just one day after a national strike organized by unions, students and advocacy groups drew thousands of protesters.”We remain deeply at odds with the government over the make up of the discussions,” Diogenes Orjuela, the head of the Central Union of Workers (CUT), told journalists after the meeting.”Furthermore, the government has taken a step back by labeling the discussions as exploratory. We continue to hold that this is a table for negotiations between the government and the national strike committee, to discuss the 13 demands that have been raised,” he said.Protest leaders’ demands include that the government take more action to halt the killings of human rights activists, better implement a peace deal with leftist rebels and dissolve the ESMAD riot police, whom they accuse of excessive force during the protests.FILE – Members of the Indigenous Guard and students march in an anti-government protest in Bogota, Colombia, Nov. 29, 2019.Protesters also oppose a Duque tax reform which would cut duties on businesses, and reject other proposals Duque denies supporting, like alleged efforts to raise the pension age and cut the minimum wage for young people.The government on Thursday asked protest leaders to make their demands more specific.”The government needs to know the full depth of these demands so that it can discuss what agreements can and cannot be achieved,” said presidency official Diego Molano. “What we cannot do is build a negotiation based on 13 different topics without clearly knowing each demand.”The protests, which have been largely peaceful, saw looting and attacks against transport systems in the first few days, leading the mayors of Cali and Bogotá to institute curfews.Five people have died in connection with the protests, which followed upheaval in other Latin American countries such as Ecuador, Chile and Bolivia.The government and protest leaders have agreed to a further meeting next week. 
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Big oil companies operating in Mexico have launched a drive to convince leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to resume auctions of oil and gas contracts he has branded a failure in reviving the industry.Chevron, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, among other firms in Mexico’s Association of Hydrocarbon Companies (Amexhi), say they have met output targets and investment pledges worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the initial phases of their contracts.”We’ve been complying (with contractual obligations), and by any metric you look at, we’ve been successful,” Amexhi President Alberto de la Fuente told reporters this week.Now they want the government to restart the auctions initiated under a 2013-2014 energy opening, including those to select partners for state oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex).FILE – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador speaks during his daily morning press conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico, Nov. 21, 2019.Lopez Obrador has strongly criticized the reform, which was enacted under his predecessor and opened the door to over 100 exploration and production contracts for oil companies.Having canceled auctions scheduled for 2019, he points out the reform has failed to lift crude output to the previous government’s target of 3 million barrels per day (bpd).Production is below 1.7 million bpd, the lowest in decades.The government said it will not do more until seeing “tangible” results, without specifying what that means.The president also suspended auctions for the heavily-indebted Pemex to seek private partnerships known as “farmouts.”Amexhi argues output is a poor yardstick because only 29 contracts are in the production stage out of 111 awarded through 2018. The rest still need time to finish exploratory drilling and studies before beginning commercial production, it says.FILE – Alberto de la Fuente, CEO of Shell in Mexico, gestures during Forbes Forum 2017 in Mexico City, Mexico, Sept. 18, 2017.”What we need is to sit down with the energy ministry, with the government and understand which metrics are important to them,” said de la Fuente, a former energy regulator who is now Shell’s country manager in Mexico.Some voices within Lopez Obrador’s administration are trying to convince the president to resume auctions, two officials told Reuters. The task is hard, they said, because he believes the state should hold a prominent role in the sector.Meanwhile, private and foreign oil firms have spent about $11 billion in investment, taxes and payments to Pemex, and plan to invest another $37 billion in the coming years, Amexhi says.”We’re looking to raise awareness in the government about how imperative it is to resume tenders,” said a director of a foreign oil company in Mexico who requested anonymity.”If not, it’s going to be impossible for production to pick up given the state Pemex is in and because the government is racing against the clock to meet its own goals,” he said.Lopez Obrador has pledged to reverse more than a decade of falling crude output at Pemex. The firm’s exploration and production budget has been crimped by its debt, the largest of any oil company in the world.Experts say it will be impossible for Pemex to reach its output goal of 1.8 million bpd by the end of 2019 after October closed with production at 1.66 million bpd.In the private sector, Amexhi expects production to reach nearly 50,000 bpd this year and jump to 280,000 bpd by 2024. But it argues new auctions could produce even faster results.Carlos Salazar, head of powerful Mexican business lobby CCE that helped resolve a dispute between the government and several energy infrastructure firms, said he supports Amexhi’s efforts.”Let’s set the milestones so that everyone, the public opinion, knows the objectives,” he said. 
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Hundreds of Venezuelan children are fleeing into Brazil alone and at risk of becoming homeless, abused or recruited by gangs, Human Rights Watch said Thursday.
                   
The human rights group cited government figures indicating that over 500 children have crossed into the Brazilian state of Roraima since May.
                   
Ninety percent of the Venezuelan children were between 13 and 17 and traveled alone or with an adult who was not a relative or legal guardian. Many were fleeing hunger, looking for healthcare to treat serious ailments or trying to find work in Brazil.
                   
“The humanitarian emergency is driving children to flee Venezuela alone,” said Cesar Munoz, senior Brazil researcher at Human Rights Watch.
                   
An estimated 4.6 million Venezuelans have fled their country’s economic and political turmoil, a figure that the United Nations believes could reach 6.5 million by the end of 2020, making it one of the largest mass migrations on the planet today.
                   
More than 224,000 have fled to Brazil, where many remain in the border state of Roraima because of its relative isolation from the rest of the country. Human Rights Watch found that many of the shelters there are overcrowded, meaning children often end up living on the streets and unable to access government services.
                   
One 16-year-old boy was found choked to death in October, his body left in a plastic bag.
“While Brazilian authorities are making a great effort to accommodate hundreds of Venezuelans crossing daily into Brazil, they are failing to give these children the protection they desperately need,” Munoz said.
                   
The study encourages Brazil’s federal government to work with local authorities to identify, track and support unaccompanied Venezuelan minors.
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