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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Chileans are increasingly turning to bikes to get to work after weeks of rioting have hobbled Santiago’s metro system, destroyed hundreds of stop lights and left broken glass and debris littering its once-orderly streets.The unrest, the worst faced by Chile since it emerged from dictatorship in 1990, has left at least 26 dead and caused more than $1.5 billion in business losses, devastating the economy.Though protests have simmered down in recent weeks, the damage to streets, squares and the metro remain.Traffic is regularly snarled at downtown intersections that now have no stoplights and where motorists must fend for themselves.Cycling has emerged as the obvious solution, says Tomas Echiburu, a researcher with the Urban Development Center at Chile’s Universidad Catolica.”Before the crisis … 450 cyclists per hour passed through here at peak commute,” he said. “Immediately after the crisis, that quantity has doubled, to 900 per hour.”Bikes now outnumber cars at many intersections during rush hour, and cyclists in shiny new Spandex gear and fluorescent helmets are seen zipping down tree-lined bike lanes throughout much of the business district.”Since the crisis began, the streets have filled with,” said 60-year-old Ana Guzman as she pedaled to work at a local healthcare center. “Before, you could walk peacefully, but now it’s all congested.”Local bicycle shops have reaped the benefits. “Sales have taken off,” said Jorge Arancibia, a local shop owner.”People need to get around and so they’ve either dug out their old bike or bought a new one.”
 
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U.S. President Donald Trump appears intent on following through with his plan to formally designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations. His announcement has put the Mexican government on the defensive. VOA’s Ardita Dunellari looks at the political impact of such a move and its effect on bilateral relations with Mexico.
 
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An Americas regional forum on Wednesday published details of  “deliberate” and “malicious” steps to rig Bolivia’s October election in favor of then President Evo Morales, who has resigned and left the Andean nation in political crisis.A nearly 100-page report by the Organization of American States (OAS) described several violations, including the use of a hidden computer server designed to tilt the vote toward Morales.A charismatic leftist and Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Morales stood for president despite a 2016 referendum that voted down a proposal to allow him to run for a fourth consecutive term. A court packed with loyalists gave him a green light to run indefinitely.”Given the overwhelming evidence we have found, we can confirm a series of malicious operations aimed at altering the will of the voters,” the OAS report said.OAS findings included “deliberate actions to manipulate the result of the election” that make it “impossible to validate” the official results, the report said.Morales fled to Mexico shortly after the OAS’ initial report in early November. He described the allegations of vote rigging as a political hit, saying the OAS was “in the service of the North American empire.”Senators approve a bill on holding new elections in La Paz, Bolivia, Nov. 23, 2019.Bolivia’s Congress in late November passed legislation to annul the contested elections and pave the way for a new vote without Morales, a major breakthrough in the political crisis.Interim President Jeanine Anez, a former conservative lawmaker, has also pledged new elections.At least 30 people have died in clashes between protesters and security forces since the Oct. 20 election. Most have died since Morales stepped down on Nov. 10. 
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Daixy Aguero holds her chin up when students wander by and are surprised to find their teacher selling makeup at a weekend Caracas street market. Aguero says it’s the only way she can make ends meet on a teacher’s pay in Venezuela.Some 40 percent of Venezuela’s teachers have left their schools in the last three years, according to a union representing educators. They’re escaping low pay and crumbling classrooms.Others like Aguero have stayed behind on the front line of the country in crisis.They keep teaching out of a passion that first drew them to education, while taking side gigs to feed their families. Aguero tells her kindergarten students who find her hawking lipstick, eyeliner and face cream that she’s not ashamed.”I tell them you have to work,” she said. “And you have to study.”Thousands of Venezuelan teachers vented their frustration in a two-day strike in late October to demand better working conditions such as fair wages and urgent repairs to crumbling schools.  Teachers in 17 of Venezuela’s 23 states walked out of class, gathering by the hundreds at some protests, while organizers said others stayed in the classroom, fearing they would be punished or fired.Protesters in Caracas carried banners outside the Ministry of Education blasting President Nicolas Maduro, who they say has let the country down as well as its next generation, which they say doesn’t get a proper education.”We are mobilized to defend the quality of education for our students” said Griselda Sanchez, a representative of the Trade Union Coalition. “We’re defending a salary that will allow all of us to live with dignity.”Crisis has driven an estimated 40 percent of Venezuela’s 370,000 active teachers from their jobs since the start of 2017, according to union figures. Many are among the more than 4 million Venezuelans who have left in search of a better life.
Venezuelan Parents Doing Double Duty as Teachers video player.
Embed” />Copy LinkDespite drawing on the world’s largest oil reserves, Venezuela today produces less than 20 percent of the its peak crude production when the late President Hugo Chavez launched the socialist revolution in 1999.Opposition leader Juan Guaido’s U.S.-backed effort to oust Maduro, Chavez’s successor, so far has failed to budge the socialist president, who maintains a tight grip on power with support from the military and dozens of international allies including China, Russia and Cuba.As the political struggle continues with no end in sight, teachers and school administrators say their classes shrink, supplies dwindle and the pay barely covers the basics at home.New teachers earn a minimum wage equal to a few U.S. dollars a month, though pay doubles and triples with years of experience.Children work during class at a school in Caracas, Venezuela, Oct. 7, 2019.A week after the October strike ended Venezuela’s Minister of Education Aristobulo Isturiz spoke in a nationally broadcast press conference about the socialist party’s progress uniting workers, but he did not mention the teachers’ strike or their grievances.Officials recently hiked Venezuela’s minimum wage and bonuses by more than 350%, bringing it to the equivalent of $15 a month. But analysts say hyperinflation will quickly reduce it to a fraction and leave workers again struggling to afford basic items. The International Monetary Fund estimates Venezuela’s inflation will hit 200,000% this year.”This is the only country where no one is happy when there is a salary increase,” teacher Maria Carrillo said. The teachers demand between $500 and $600 a month.It’s not just teachers missing from classrooms.Erika Tortosa, the principal at Jerman Ubaldo Lira public school in the Minas neighborhood of Caracas, said that five years ago, she had 1,000 students crowding into the hilltop campus. Now, the school has about 200 pupils as families have emigrated.To cope with shrinking numbers, the school eliminated fourth grade two years ago, sending the remaining students of that grade to a neighboring school. Then, last year it did away with fifth grade, and this year Tortosa said she has no sixth grade.A girl waits at the entrance of her classroom for her teacher’s arrival, on her first day of class at the Jerman Ubaldo Lira public school in Caracas, Venezuela, Oct. 2, 2019.Teachers say broken desks leave students without a proper place to study, while the lights often don’t work and campuses don’t have consistent water services — troubles shared by residents across much of the country.Tortosa also has trouble finding enough teachers.”A lot of teachers have fled the country,” she said.  “Not everybody, in reality, can endure this situation in crisis that we’re living at this moment.”Aguero, 56, said she’s forced to sell makeup despite making double the monthly minimum wage because of her years on the job. Her salary falls far short of covering her grocery list, she said.  Basic items, like jar of mayonnaise or bottle of juice, can cost the equivalent of $2, quickly devouring her teacher’s pay.  So, she wakes up early on the weekends and pulls a heavy backpack onto her shoulders with her son’s help. She lugs the cosmetics and her portable table to the market.The extra work allows her to bring home considerably more than teaching. It’s is worth it when she’s back in class with her students, she said.”This is our reality,” Aguero said. “Despite that, we keep going to work, and we love it and we work hard.” 
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Latin American lender CAF and the United Nations are seeking to provide financing to the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to improve electricity supply in the crisis-stricken nation that is suffering from chronic blackouts, the two institutions told Reuters. 
 
Lawmakers in Venezuela’s congress have proposed a financing mechanism under which CAF would provide $350 million to make improvements to the ailing power sector, with the U.N. Development Program carrying out the investments. 
 
But the proposal has created a deep divide within the country’s opposition between those who say the proposal will provide humanitarian assistance and those who oppose it because it will provide new funding for Maduro’s government, which is widely accused of corruption and mismanagement. 
 
“The project is a CAF loan to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela which is requested by the Ministry of Finance and has to be approved by the National Assembly,” a U.N. official wrote in an emailed response to questions from Reuters. 
 
CAF in an emailed response to questions confirmed that the loan would go to Venezuela’s government. System of controls
 
No funds would be transferred to state electrical authorities, the U.N. official said, and the financing mechanism would have a system of checks and balances “to ensure that the resources are only used for this purpose.” 
 
Though the amount would be relatively small, its approval could pave the way for Maduro to receive additional international financing down the road. That could eventually undercut the effects of U.S. sanctions, which block American citizens from lending money to Maduro as part of an effort to push him from power. 
 
Draft legislation for the proposal does not describe the financial conditions of the loan, which are usually provided to the legislature before such financing is approved. 
 
Venezuela’s information ministry, which fields questions on behalf of the finance ministry, did not respond to an email seeking comment.  FILE – Patients with kidney disease and their relatives wait on the street for the return of electricity, in front of a dialysis center during a blackout, in Maracaibo, Venezuela, April 13, 2019.Chronic blackouts around the country have undermined the functioning of everything from routine commerce to hospital emergency rooms. Especially hard hit has been the western state of Zulia, where citizens routinely go 12 hours without power. 
 
“Zulia, #withoutpower and distressed, is demanding solutions,” wrote opposition politician Manuel Rosales on Twitter. “It hasn’t been days or months but years of electrical chaos that have disrupted the lives of the people of Zulia.” 
 
Electricity sector expert Miguel Lara warned that legislators who voted for the project would be adding to the country’s debt burden by providing funds to the government. “It does not make technical or economic sense,” he wrote on Twitter. “All resources given to [state power company] Corpoelec are lost. They are the crisis.” 
 
The legislature on Tuesday postponed discussion of the proposal until next week in order to seek out more support among lawmakers. Opposition legislators opposed to the measure declined to comment, saying they prefer to wait for it to come up for a vote. Complaints of corruption
 
Critics have for years denounced widespread corruption in the ruling Socialist Party’s management of the power sector. 
 
Those complaints focused on a 2010 declaration of an “electrical emergency” that led to the disbursement of billions of dollars in no-bid contracts for generation projects that were never completed. Critics call it one of the largest embezzlement schemes in the country’s history. 
 
Maduro’s government denies misuse of funds and blames power problems on sabotage by the opposition. 
 
It was not immediately evident if or how U.S. sanctions would apply to the proposal in question. 
 
The U.S. Treasury did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. 
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Colombian unions and student groups held a third national strike Wednesday amid fraught talks between protest leaders and the government over President Ivan Duque’s social and economic policies. The strike was the latest demonstration in two weeks of protests, which have drawn hundreds of thousands of marchers and put pressure on Duque’s proposed tax reform, which lowers duties on businesses. The protests prompted him to announce a “great national dialogue” on social issues, but government efforts to stop new demonstrations have failed as the union-led National Strike Committee has stuck firmly to demands for one-on-one talks and refused to call off protests. Demonstrators hold flags during a protest as a national strike continues in Bogota, Colombia, Dec. 4, 2019.The demonstrations, while largely peaceful, resulted in damage to dozens of public transport stations and curfews in Cali and Bogota. Protesters have wide-ranging demands, including that the government do more to stop the killing of human rights activists, offer more support for former leftist rebels who demobilized under a peace deal and dissolve the ESMAD riot police, whom marchers accuse of excessive force.”We’re continuing to march to send a message to the president and to Congress: Don’t play with the people,” said student Diana Rodriguez, 23, as she made her way toward Bogota’s Bolivar Plaza late Wednesday morning. “Yesterday they approved the tax reform, and that shows they aren’t taking us seriously,” Rodriguez said, referring to the Tuesday approval of the bill by economic committees in both houses of Congress. The proposal now moves to a floor debate. Five people have died in connection with the demonstrations, which started November 21 and have occurred in tandem with protests in other Latin American countries. “I invite all Colombians to mobilize massively to show the government that there is another opinion in the country, that the other Colombia has the right to be listened to,” Central Union of Workers President Diogenes Orjuela told Reuters by phone early on Wednesday, adding marches must be peaceful. Meetings between Duque’s representatives and the committee are expected to continue on Thursday. The committee has made 13 demands, including that the government reject a rise in the pension age and a cut to the minimum wage for young people, both policies Duque denies supporting. The government has repeatedly said the demands for one-on-one dialogue exclude other sectors and that it cannot meet demands that it refrain from deploying the ESMAD. 
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A sleepy Amazon town has become the flashpoint for the growing hostility between Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and environmental groups following the arrest of volunteer firefighters he has said set blazes in the rainforest. The episode prompted leaders of nine nongovernmental organizations on Tuesday to denounce the persecution of activists, academics and scientists since the election last year of Bolsonaro, who has accused many of them of working in the Amazon on behalf of foreigners — including actor Leonardo DiCaprio. The groups have been critical of Bolsonaro’s push to develop the world’s largest tropical rainforest. The government regards the third sector, Brazilian civil society, as the enemy of the country,'' Ricardo Borges, executive coordinator at Pact for Democracy, said on a video call with reporters that also included the Brazilian branches of the World Wildlife Fund and Amnesty International. FILE - A satellite image shows smoke rising from Amazon rainforest fires in Rondonia state, southwest of Porto Velho, Brazil, in the upper Amazon River basin, Aug. 15, 2019. (Satellite image ©2019 Maxar Technologies)Police last month accused several volunteer firefighters of setting forest fires to get funding through local NGOs in Alter do Chao, a town of fewer than 10,000 people on the bank of the Tapajos River in Para state. Federal prosecutors quickly said their investigation found no such evidence, the local police officer leading the investigation was removed from the case, and a judge ordered that the firefighters be released from prison. Still, Bolsonaro, a former army captain, publicly backed the police allegations against the firefighters and NGOs. Television footage of police making arrests and raiding NGO offices served, for some, as confirmation of the claims. Bolsonaro even accused DiCaprio of providing the funds to the NGOs, something the U.S. actor denied. The controversy has cast Alter do Chao, known asThe Caribbean of the Amazon,” into the national spotlight. Speaking at the edge of his verdant yard, Caetano Scannavino, coordinator of Health and Happiness, one of the two nonprofits investigated by local police, told the Associated Press incendiary rhetoric has created a climate of terror, and security consultants have recommended he leave Alter do Chao as soon as possible. Already he’s stopped sleeping at home. FILE – Caetano Scannavino, coordinator of NGO Saude e Alegria, or Health and Happiness, gives an interview outside his home in Alter do Chao, Para state, Brazil, Dec. 1, 2019.Today we're in a war of narratives. The country is polarized and unfortunately we've created an environment of deconstruction instead of construction, in which people shout at each other and don't debate,'' Scannavino said.It’s not justifiable to feed more hatred into an environment already polarized with hate.” The same day, on the other side of Alter do Chao, a group of traveling soy farmers spoke to the AP over breakfast at their hotel and expressed the sort of skepticism about NGOs that Bolsonaro shares. One suggested NGOs outnumber farmers in the surrounding region. Another said most of their funding goes to employee salaries rather than valid projects. The volunteer firefighters and nonprofits deny any wrongdoing and say the investigation is politically motivated. Para state’s government said it won’t comment on the probe until the police inquiry is concluded. The press offices of the president and the environment minister didn’t reply to requests for comments. Bolsonaro has accused NGOs of feeding off the industry of fines'' in the country's environmental sector and vowed to no longer allocate fine-related revenue to nonprofits. Environment Minister Ricardo Salles also announced earlier this year he was suspending funding to NGOs, pending review of contracts and partnerships to catch possible irregularities. Space researcherSuch targeting hasn't been limited to nonprofits. Amid the international outcry over the Amazon fires in August, Bolsonaro accused the then-head of Brazil's space research institute, Ricardo Galvao, of manipulating satellite data on deforestation in order to undermine his administration. Galvao publicly countered the claims and was fired. Brazil's annual deforestation report released last month showed a nearly 30% jump from the prior year. While the government eventually acknowledged logging had increased, the academic community remained shaken by the high-profile dismissal at a scientific institution. In the Bolsonaro government, there is a group that has a clearly negative view of science,” Galvao said in a phone interview. They have this idea that all scientists are on the left.'' In November, a group of international academics published a research paper in the journal Global Change Biology, debunking the Brazilian government's claims that Amazon fires in August were normal. More than one of the paper's authors remained anonymous for fear of reprisal like that Galvao suffered, co-author Erika Berenguer told the AP. It was really tough for them to make that decision,” she said. In Alter do Chao, the arrest of the firefighters wasn’t the first controversy this year to perturb the town’s peaceful vibe. In July, Brazil’s education minister was eating in the central plaza with his family when indigenous activists staged a short demonstration beside his table. The minister responded by taking a nearby microphone to address the crowd. I just want to show the difference between the left and people who aren't on the left,'' he said.I’m here with my family on my vacation, one week of the year, three little kids, and you try to humiliate me in front of my kids. Is that it? Is that what you are?” It quickly escalated into a shouting match, with video of the episode going viral nationwide. Names circulatedTwo days later, a list with names of NGOs, activists and professors from the region allegedly responsible for the mistreatment of the minister'' started circulating in local WhatsApp chat groups, according to a local journalist who writes under the name Hellen Joplin, who also works with local activists. She found herself on the list, described as being anti-Bolsonaro and aleftist of the worst kind.” It was a total witch hunt: get them and punish them,'' Joplin said in an interview. That night, four police officers drove to her home with red lights flashing as she hosted a meeting of indigenous activists. Terrified attendees hopped Joplin's back fence and hid in the jungle, while officers standing at Joplin's doorway warned her about supposed motorcycle theft in the area and peered into her home, she said at the AP's Rio de Janeiro office. She skipped town with her two toddlers and plans to return only to move her things out permanently. For now, the volunteer firefighters and nonprofits remain under investigation in Alter do Chao. For Ana Torrellas, who helps run a restaurant in the town's plaza, the process looks like arbitrary persecution. Boom, it was their turn, as can happen with me, as can happen with you,” said Torrellas, who moved to town from Venezuela two years ago. “I don’t need glasses to see the plan. They don’t want people who think differently.” 
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A proposal to rebuild Venezuela’s collapsed power grid with the help of the United Nations is proving a political hot potato for Nicolas Maduro’s opponents.On Tuesday, the opposition-controlled National Assembly at the last minute scratched a schedule debate on a $350 million credit from a regional development bank to address an electricity emergency that has left much of western Venezuela in the dark from blackouts for months.Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro gestures as he speaks during a news conference in Caracas, Venezuela, Sept. 30, 2019.The project’s promoters accuse opposition hardliners of playing politics with Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis while ignoring the plight of millions of Venezuelans who urgently demand solutions to everyday travails as the fight to remove Maduro drags on.“We can’t condemn millions of Venezuelans to life without power while we wait for Maduro to give up power,” said Oscar Rondero, an opposition lawmaker from Nueva Esparta state, one of the most impacted by the blackouts.The proposed loan agreement with the Development Bank of Latin America, or CAF, enjoys the backing of Maduro but still requires the National Assembly’s approval. The funding would be used to reconnect 1,206 megawatts of power — about half of its current output from diesel and gas-powered facilities — in four hard-hit areas as well as backup generators for hospitals nationwide.The proposal puts the opposition, which considers the Maduro administration corrupt and illegitimate, in a difficult spot, said David Smile, a Venezuela expert at Tulane University. It also lays bare divisions that have grown more embittered as the U.S.-backed campaign to oust Maduro loses its momentum, with many of his opponents exiled for fear of arrest.“Supporting it would require tacit recognition of the Maduro government,” said Smilde, who is also a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America. “But opposing it would mean denying Venezuelans a significant opportunity to improve the terrible conditions they are living in.”To address those concerns, the U.N.’s development agency would be responsible for administering the funding in conjunction with an independent board comprised of representatives of Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido. No funds would be provided directly to the state-run utility Corpoelec, which is run by Maduro loyalists and widely blamed for the grid’s collapse.If approved, Smilde says it could help foster closer cooperation between the two feuding sides to stem a crisis that has led more than 4.6 million Venezuelans to flee the country, including support for an “oil for food” deal that is increasingly being floated by policymakers and analysts.Still, for some in the opposition, any attempt at cooperation with Maduro to address the country’s humanitarian crisis, however modest, smacks of treason.“Is the legislative branch going to pretend everything is normal approving funding for an executive power that’s supposedly usurping power?” Pedro Urruchurtu, the national coordinator for the Vente Venezuela movement, said on Twitter following Tuesday’s legislative session.The loan proposal dates from March, when moderate opposition lawmakers gathered with their socialist counterparts at a forum sponsored by what’s known as the Boston Group.The informal group came about in the wake of a 2002 coup as a way for Venezuelan lawmakers across the ideological spectrum, as well as Democrats and Republicans in the U.S., to rebuild trust following Hugo Chavez’s brief removal from power. Maduro was among its founding members.More recently, the group was activated to secure the release of Joshua Holt, a Utah man arrested and held for almost two years on what were widely seen as trumped-up weapons charges.Guaido, who leads congress and is recognized as Venezuela’s rightful president by more than 50 countries, including the U.S., has yet to publicly comment on the debate.But Rondero said that members of his Popular Will party have expressed misgivings, while the Justice First party — which controls the largest bloc in congress — opposes the bill outright.In removing a scheduled debate on the loan deal from Tuesday’s legislative session, lawmaker Enrique Marquez said more time was needed to build consensus.
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Three years had passed since the Colombian government signed a peace agreement with the revolutionary armed forces FARC. After years of conflict, Colombians thought this agreement would change the country for the better. Nevertheless, the process is still ongoing and a new wave of violence against local leaders and journalists is erupting in different parts of the country. VOA’s Celia Mendoza reports in Bogota, Colombia
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The Organization of American States (OAS) should avoid “extreme” positions when confronting regional crises like Venezuela’s social and economic collapse and instead promote dialogue, a challenger for the body’s top job said on Tuesday.Hugo de Zela, a longtime Peruvian diplomat and his country’s ambassador to the United States, is running to unseat the organization’s secretary-general, Luis Almagro, who is seeking a second five-year term. Almagro’s current term is set to end next May.The OAS must push for problems to be solved within its member countries by facilitating dialogue between different factions, de Zela told Reuters on the sidelines of a diplomatic meeting in Bogota.”If the organization puts itself on one of the extremes, it stops being effective at solving problems, it stops being present in the solution and it becomes part of the problem,” said de Zela. “That cannot happen.”Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro gestures as he speaks during a news conference in Caracas, Venezuela, Sept. 30, 2019.Venezuela’s economic and political crisis – which has led to widespread shortages of food and medicine and an exodus of people – has dominated recent OAS meetings, with some member states denouncing President Nicolas Maduro as a dictator, while others back him.Member states have also tussled over the admittance to meetings of a representative sent by Venezuela’s opposition leader, Juan Guaido, who argues Maduro’s 2018 re-election was illegitimate. Guaido this year invoked the constitution to assume an interim presidency.Almagro, a Uruguayan whose re-election bid is backed by the United States, Colombia and Brazil, has sought to ramp up pressure on Maduro, including refusing to rule out the use of force against his government last year.”It’s evident that in Venezuela, there is an interruption of the democratic process, it’s evident that the Maduro regime lacks legitimacy, that’s not under discussion. But at the same time, to actively promote the use of force to solve the case of Venezuela is unreal and doesn’t help,” said de Zela.”That is putting ourselves on an extreme. Talking constantly about the use of force to solve the issue of Venezuela is not an effective contribution or a realistic contribution.”Venezuelans must solve their own problems through dialogue, de Zela added, saying free and fair elections must be held urgently in the oil-producing country.”The OAS is not having, as it once did, an active role in cooperation to solve these things,” de Zela said. “There is a lack of dialogue between the member countries and the general secretariat.” 
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Representatives from over a dozen nations that are signatories to a Cold War-era defense treaty for the Americas moved Tuesday to further isolate close allies of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with economic sanctions.The 1947 Rio Treaty signatories concluded a meeting in Bogota by vowing to cooperate in pursuing sanctions and travel restrictions for Maduro government associates accused of corruption, drug trafficking, money laundering or human rights violations.”The political, economic and social crisis in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela represents a threat for the peace and security of the continent,” Colombian Foreign Minister Claudia Blum said in the meeting’s final remarks.While the United States and the European Union have targeted Maduro associates with economic sanctions, Latin American nations who are supporting opposition leader Juan Guaido have largely resorted to diplomatic pressure – and it will be up to each individual nation to decide how to move forward.The promise of enhanced economic pressure against Maduro comes at a time when Venezuela’s opposition is faltering. Guaido has struggled to mobilize supporters onto the streets and dipped in popularity. Meanwhile, fissures within the opposition are coming to light amidst recent controversies involving alleged abuses of power.David Smilde, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America, said the Rio Treaty’s resolution Tuesday marks a “small victory” for the opposition but “not enough to really put them in a different place.””Their strategy of maximum pressure seems to be stalling,” he said.The 19 Rio Treaty member nations have been treading cautiously in pursuing economic restrictions against Venezuela while vowing not to invoke a provision in the accord that authorizes them to pursue a military intervention. The accord instructs signatories to consider a threat against any one of them a danger to all.Colombian President Ivan Duque contends that Maduro is offering a safe haven to rebel factions of the National Liberation Army and dissidents with the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, an assertion the Venezuelan leader denies. Duque urged that nations embark on tougher sanctions going forward.”Here there’s no invitation for use of force,” he said.Despite repeated remarks from Rio Treaty members indicating they will not pursue a military response, Venezuelan leaders contend the signatories are plotting to overthrow Maduro and warning citizens that an intervention could be imminent.”The people should be prepared and alert on the streets,” Diosdado Cabello, head of Venezuela’s all-powerful National Constitutional Assembly, said Tuesday.
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China will help build several major infrastructure projects in El Salvador including a stadium and water treatment plant, the two countries said Tuesday, signaling China’s growing role in the region after El Salvador cut ties with Taiwan.Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who met with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in China this week, said the investment represented a “gigantic, non-refundable cooperation” for the small Central American nation.He did not disclose the planned investment amount.Under the agreement, China will help build a large sports stadium, multi-story library and water treatment plant.China, the world’s second biggest economy, will also assist at coastal tourist sites, including building streets, parks and a water system along the beaches known as Surf City, and restaurants and shops on the Puerto de la Libertad pier.The projects offer the strongest signal yet of El Salvador’s embrace of close relations with China.El Salvador “adheres to the principle of one China, categorically rejects any act that goes against this principle and any form of ‘independence of Taiwan,'” El Salvador and China said in a joint statement.El Salvador broke off diplomatic relations with Taiwan in August last year, following the Dominican Republic and Panama in switching sides to China.
 
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Surging violence by criminal gangs in Central America has led to an increase of asylum seekers at the southern U.S. border.  As local authorities in Honduras and El Salvador struggle to counter the gangs and drug smugglers, the U.S. military is trying to help. VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb visited the troops working to improve security in Honduras and El Salvador.
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Talks between the Colombian government and the unions and student organizations that are planning major protests this week ended without advances on Tuesday, as the country prepares for its third national strike since late November.Hundreds of thousands of Colombians have participated in protests against President Ivan Duque’s social and economic policies since Nov. 21, imperiling the government’s tax reform proposal and leading Duque to announce a “great national dialogue.”Five people have died in connection with the demonstrations, including a young man killed by homemade explosives on Monday in the city of Medellin during a protest at a public university.On Monday, the government asked the unions and student groups that make up the National Strike Committee to call off the Wednesday protest and agreed to a parallel dialogue with them.FILE – Members of the Indigenous Guard and students march in an anti-government protest in Bogota, Colombia, Nov. 29, 2019.The committee rejected the request to halt the strike, continuing to demand the government meet only with them instead of including business groups and others in talks.Diogenes Orjuela, the head of the Central Union of Workers (CUT), told Reuters early on Tuesday the strike would go ahead and that his organization would continue to seek dialogue without “conditions on our plan of action which we have through December 10.”The CUT is the country’s main union, with more than 500,000 members.13 demandsThe committee has made 13 demands of the government, including that it reject a rise in the pension age and a cut in the minimum wage for young people, both policies Duque denies ever supporting.A meeting between the committee and the government ended without progress Tuesday, with presidency official Diego Molano telling journalists that certain committee demands could not be met.”What they have requested can’t be fulfilled, particularly if we only maintain the exclusive and independent negotiations,” Molano said, adding the committee’s demand that the ESMAD riot police not be present during demonstrations was also inviable.The death last week of 18-year-old protester Dilan Cruz has helped fuel anger at the ESMAD, which protesters accuse of using excessive force during crowd dispersion efforts. Cruz was fatally injured on the third day of protests by an ESMAD projectile.Orjuela told journalists following Tuesday’s meeting that the negotiations will move forward while protests continue.
 
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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s lawmaker son Eduardo, once considered for the post of ambassador to the United States, was suspended by his party on Tuesday and could lose the chair of the lower house’s foreign affairs committee.The conservative Social Liberal Party (PSL) suspended Eduardo Bolsonaro for one year for trying to oust its founder Luciano Bivar last month in a battle for control of the party that led to President Bolsonaro leaving to start his own party.The split has left the far-right president without a formal base in Congress for which to push through his agenda of bills aimed at reducing the size of government, fighting graft, loosening gun laws and asserting Christian family values.The small PSL party surged from nowhere to become the second largest in Brazil’s Congress by serving as the platform for Bolsonaro’s successful presidential run last year riding on a wave of conservative sentiment in the country.The party said it punished 18 members for siding with the Bolsonaros in a bitter struggle for control of the party and its large election campaign war chest lost by the president.The PSL will seek to have Eduardo Bolsonaro removed as chairman of the foreign relations committee arguing that the position was assigned to the party according to its number of seats. 
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A magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck early Tuesday off the coast of northern Chile, but there were no reports of damage.      The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was recorded at 3:46 a.m. local time at a moderate depth of 32 kilometers (20 miles). It was centered 37 kilometers (23 miles) west-southwest of the city of Arica.The biggest recent quake to hit Chile came in 2010, when a magnitude 8.8 quake caused a tsunami blamed for more than 500 deaths. 
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Protesters trying to cancel national elections have blocked roads leading to the main airport on the eastern Caribbean island of Dominica.Supporters of the opposition United Workers’ Party set up burning roadblocks on the two main roads leading to Douglas-Charles Airport, forcing the cancellation of at least one flight Tuesday morning. Passengers for other flights were forced to walk more than a mile to the airport, dragging their luggage through the street.The opposition says the country’s loose electoral rules allow the possibility of fraud in the Dec. 6 elections and have sued to stop them. Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit says he plans for elections to proceed.A judge is expected to rule on the case Tuesday.
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The government of President Ivan Duque extended an olive branch Monday to labor and student groups organizing recent protests in Colombia by offering to start separate talks on their demands.Administrative Director Diego Molano said the government is willing to immediately initiate talks on 13 points identified by the National Strike Committee – but also asked it to refrain from a planned protest on Wednesday.”We’ve asked them, given the clamor of Colombians and so that the country can begin the Christmas season peacefully, that they suspend the Dec. 4 strike,” Molano said, noting it could have economic and transportation repercussions.Members of the National Strike Committee, comprised of over a dozen labor, student and other activist groups, said it was too late to stop Wednesday’s protest but expressed hope the offer for dialogue nonetheless remains.”The government has been very slow to convoke us,” said Julio Roberto Gomez, head of the General Labor Confederation, one of the nation’s largest unions and a member of the National Strike Committee.Duque had previously insisted that the strike committee join the “National Conversation” he has begun with a wider swatch of society to draft short- and long-term solutions to issues like corruption and inequality.”I’m the president of all Colombians,” Duque said in a televised interview Monday. “Those who march and those who don’t march.”Protest organizers have refused to participate in that dialogue, bashing it as a conversation amongst allies that would dilute demonstrator concerns, and instead demanded that the president establish separate talks specifically with them.Molano did not make clear if the government would still be willing to hold independent talks with the National Strike Committee even if it proceeds with a Wednesday strike.A woman marches with her children in an anti-government demonstration in Bogota, Colombia, Nov. 21, 2019..Authorities estimate 250,000 Colombians took to streets around the nation in protests against Duque’s government on Nov. 21. The Strike Committee held a second demonstration last week that drew far fewer people.The strike steering committee’s 13 demands include asking Duque to withdraw or refrain from tax, labor and pension law changes that are either before the legislature or rumored to be in development.It also wants Duque to review free-trade agreements, eliminate a police unit accused in the death of an 18-year-old student protester and fully implement Colombia’s historic peace accord with leftist rebels. 
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A Honduran court sentenced seven people to prison terms of up to 50 years Monday for the 2016 murder of indigenous and environmental rights activist Berta Caceres.The seven men were convicted in November 2018 for the attack, which left Caceres dead while another activist survived.Four men — Elvin Rapalo, Henry Hernandez, Edilson Duarte and Oscar Torres Velasquez — were sentenced to 34 years for the murder and 16 years for attempted murder. The country’s Sentencing Tribunal gave three others prison terms of 30 years for their roles, including an army officer, an ex-soldier and a manager of the dam project Caceres opposed.FILE – Honduran environmentalist Berta Caceres speaks in San Francisco during the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize award ceremony, April 20, 2015.Caceres was shot inside her home in La Esperanza in western Honduras one year after winning the Goldman Environmental Prize for her leadership against the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam project. The project was suspended following her death.Roberto David Castillo Mejia, who was executive president of the company leading the construction work, DESA, when Caceres was killed, is accused by prosecutors of organizing the logistics of the killing. That case continues.The company has denied Castillo and its other employees were connected to the murder.Caceres had been threatened before and as early as 2009 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights had ordered protective measures for her safety. Other members of her group had also been killed. The gunmen who killed Caceres also wounded Mexican activist Gustavo Castro Soto, who was at the home that night. 
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Chile’s economy contracted 3.4% in October from the same month a year ago, the central bank said on Monday, posting the single biggest drop in a decade as weeks of violent protests began sending shockwaves through the Chilean economy.Riots in Chile began on Oct. 18 over a hike in metro fares but quickly spiraled into mass protests, arson and looting that have left 26 dead and upwards of $1.5 billion in losses for businesses. The peso has plummeted to a historic low, prompting multiple central bank interventions.The IMACEC economic activity index, proxy for gross domestic product tallied on a monthly basis, fell 5.4% from September.People walk past a bureau de exchange were currency exchange is displayed in Santiago, Chile, Dec. 2, 2019.Scotiabank labeled it the “beginning of the bad news,” in a note to investors, adding that the year-on-year drop in economic activity was “a drop not seen since the 2008 financial crisis.”Non-mining activity fell 4%, the bank said, marked by a sharp drop in education, transportation, business services and the hotel and restaurant sector.The fall-off in activity far exceeded market expectations, said Mauricio Carrasco of consultancy Econsult.”Going forward, restoring public order continues to be the biggest challenge,” Carrasco said.Much of Santiago, Chile’s capital of 6 million, was shut near the end of October as riots and looting closed streets, central squares and many small businesses. Violence spiked again last week, prompting center-right President Sebastian Pinera to renew calls for deeper reforms and a crackdown on lawlessness.Chilean police clash with anti-government demonstrators in Santiago, Chile, Nov. 12, 2019.Mining activity in the world’s top copper producer nonetheless grew 2.0% compared with the same month in 2018, as new production from Codelco’s Chuquicamata mine ramped up, boosting total output despite the mounting protests.Chile’s copper mines have mostly maintained production and kept operations running normally in the face of the unrest, with only scattered incidents reported. 
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday accused Cuba and Venezuela of attempting to hijack democratic protests in Latin America, vowing that Washington would support countries trying to prevent unrest in the region from turning into riots.Amid recent demonstrations in a number of countries in the region, Pompeo stepped up allegations that Cuba and Venezuela had helped stir up unrest but offered few specifics to back his comments.Pompeo cited recent political protests in Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador and said that Colombia had closed its border to Venezuela out of concern that protesters from the neighboring country would enter.”We in the Trump administration will continue to support countries trying to prevent Cuba and Venezuela from hijacking those protests and we’ll work with legitimate (governments) to prevent protests from morphing into riots and violence that don’t reflect the democratic will of the people,” Pompeo told an audience at the University of Louisville, in Kentucky.U.S. relations with communist-ruled Havana have deteriorated since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017. His administration has steadily rolled back parts of the historic opening under Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama.The tension has focused especially on Havana’s support for Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro, who has overseen an economic collapse and stands accused by the United States of corruption and human rights violations.The United States and more than 50 other countries have recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimate president. Guaido invoked the constitution to assume a rival presidency in January, arguing Maduro’s 2018 re-election was a sham.But Maduro retains the support of the military, runs the government’s day-to-day operations and is backed by Russia, China and Cuba.In his speech on Monday, Pompeo said Maduro was “hanging on” and would continue to work to suppress the Venezuelan people, but that he was confident the Venezuelan president’s leadership would end.”The end will come for Maduro as well. We just don’t know what day,” Pompeo said. 
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