TEGUCIGALPA, July 9 (Reuters) – Honduran police on Friday arrested five suspects for their role in killing an Italian man, who was lynched by a mob of more than 600 villagers in revenge for allegedly murdering a homeless man, the government said.
The villagers on Thursday attacked 65-year-old Giorgio Scanu with stones, sticks and machetes at his residence in the town of Santa Ana de Yusguare, in the southern Honduran department of Choluteca, the security ministry said.
The mob came after Scanu after he allegedly beat a 78-year-old homeless man to death on Wednesday for damaging ornamental plants in his garden, according to police reports based on complaints from local residents.
“More than 600 angry residents entered the residence and used sticks, stones and machetes to kill the Italian accused of having killed Mr. Juan de Dios Flores,” said Rebeca Martinez, a spokeswoman for the security ministry.
Parts of Scanu’s residence and a vehicle were set on fire, Martinez added.
Police arrested five people aged between 19 to 55 for the murder of Scanu, a retired engineer who had been living in the rural town and has two children and a wife who reside in Tegucigalpa, according to officials.
The authorities said they believe his family are Honduran.
Martinez said authorities are searching for others involved in Scanu’s lynching and that police were present at the time, but could not stop it due to the size of the mob.
Reporting by Gustavo Palencia; Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Sandra Maler
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Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador participates on a commemoration on the third anniversary of his presidential election victory at National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico July 1, 2021. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido
MEXICO CITY, July 8 (Reuters) – A Mexican news outlet broadcast video on Thursday of a brother of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador receiving stacks of cash several years ago, just ahead of a national vote in which the now-ruling party was competing in its first election.
The new video marks the second time that a brother of the president can be seen accepting large amounts of cash, several years before Lopez Obrador rode to a landslide presidential election victory in 2018 on a pledge to root out rampant corruption.
In the video released late on Thursday by Mexican news outlet Latinus, Martin Jesus Lopez Obrador can be seen receiving an envelope stuffed with a large stack of bills, which a narrator says totaled 150,000 pesos ($7,500) and were part of a recurring set of payments.
According to Latinus, the video was filmed in 2015 just ahead of elections in which the newly-formed Morena party of Lopez Obrador was competing in its first elections.
Latinus added that the cash was never reported to electoral authorities by Morena, and could amount to a campaign finance violation.
The man in the video giving the president’s younger brother the cash is David Leon, a political operative who served as an adviser to Lopez Obrador before heading Mexico’s civil protection agency. He gave up the government job last August.
The president’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Leon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Martin Jesus Lopez Obrador could not be immediately contacted for comment.
Leon was also filmed giving a different brother of Lopez Obrador – Pio Lopez Obrador – wads of cash in separate videos published by Latinus last year.
The president at the time said the cash came from legal contributions by his supporters and was used for the 2015 elections. He denied the payments amounted to corruption, but called on the attorney general’s office to investigate.
In response to the videos released last year, Leon said that from 2013 to 2018 he worked as a consultant “not a public servant,” adding that he supported Lopez Obrador’s political movement by “collecting funds among acquaintances in order to hold rallies and other activities.”
($1 = 19.9947 Mexican pesos)
Reporting by David Alire Garcia and Sharay Angulo; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan
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SANTIAGO, July 4 (Reuters) – Delegates chose a woman on Sunday from Chile’s majority indigenous Mapuche people to lead them in drafting the country’s new constitution – a dramatic turnaround for a group that is unacknowledged in the country’s present rule book.
Elisa Loncon, 58, a political independent, is a Santiago university professor and activist for Mapuche educational and linguistic rights. She was picked by 96 of the 155 men and women, including 17 indigenous people, who make up the constitutional body that will draft a new text to replace Chile’s previous magna carta produced during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
Loncon accepted the position with fist clenched above her head, telling her colleagues to noisy celebrations: “I salute the people of Chile from the north to Patagonia, from the sea to the mountains, to the islands, all those who are watching us today,” she said.
“I am grateful for the support of the different coalitions that placed their trust and their dreams in the hands of the Mapuche nation, who voted for a Mapuche person, a woman, to change the history of this country.”
Her election represents a high point in a day of high drama which included the suspension of the delegates’ swearing in after protests outside and inside the venue, and clashes with police forced a delay to the event.
Problems arose after marches organised by independent, left-wing and indigenous groups fielding delegates for the constitutional body, as well as other interest groups, met heavily armed police manning barricades outside Santiago’s former congress building where the ceremony was being held.
Delegates inside the event then remonstrated with the organisers over heavy-handed police tactics, banging drums and shouting over a youth classical orchestra playing the national anthem.
A constitutional assembly member gestures as they gather for the first session to draft a new constitution, in Santiago, Chile July 4, 2021. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado
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Amid demands by delegates for “repressive” special forces police to be withdrawn, the electoral court official presiding over the ceremony agreed to suspend the event until midday.
The fracas underscored the intense challenges for the drafting of a new magna carta against a backdrop of deep divisions that still simmer after Chile was torn apart by massive protests that started in October 2019 over inequality and elitism and were fueled by a fierce police response.
The constitutional body was picked by a popular vote in May and is dominated by independent and leftist candidates, some with roots in the protest movement, with a smaller share of more conservative candidates backed by the current centre-right government.
The delegates have vowed to address topics including water and property rights, central bank independence and labour practices, prompting jitters among investors of potentially significant changes to the free market system of the world’s top copper producer.
Before the ceremony began, Aymara and Mapuche delegates held spiritual ceremonies with song and dance in the downtown streets surrounding the body’s new headquarters and on a nearby hillside.
Unrecognised in the current constitution, they are hoping a new text will afford their nations new cultural, political and social rights.
The commission has up to a year to agree a common rulebook, establish committees and draft a new text.
Leandro Lima, a Southern Cone analyst for Control Risks, said the independents brought “legitimacy” to the process given Chileans’ deep mistrust in established politics but a paucity of policymaking experience and deep ideological divisions could cause critical delays to the drafting of the text itself.
Reporting by Aislinn Laing
Editing by Marguerita Choy and Diane Craft
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CHRIST CHURCH, Barbados, July 2 (Reuters) – Hurricane Elsa blew roofs off homes, toppled trees and sparked flooding in the island nation of Barbados then pounded St. Vincent with heavy rain and winds on Friday, as the storm was tracking towards Haiti.
Minister of Home Affairs, Information and Public Affairs Wilfred A. Abrahams urged Barbadians to shelter in place and only leave their homes if the structures were damaged.
Elsa strengthened into a hurricane earlier in the day and was about 95 miles (153 km) west-northwest of St. Vincent, blowing maximum sustained winds of 85 miles per hour (140 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
“The island definitely cannot handle any sort of damages at this point because we still haven’t recovered from the volcanic eruption yet,” said 20-year-old student Queriise Thomas in the community of Choppins in southern St. Vincent.
Earlier this year, heavy rains slammed St. Vincent with major flooding and landslides after a series of volcanic eruptions blanketed large swathes of the island in a thick layer of ash. read more
Thomas said intermittent heavy rain caused flooding and parts of the island lost electricity. St. Vincent’s water and sewage authority cut water supply to all residents as a precaution due to potential mudflows.
The NHC forecast 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 cm) of rain with a maximum of 15 inches (38 cm) across the Windward and southern Leeward Islands including Barbados, which could lead to isolated flash flooding and mudslides.
A man views damage to a home after strong winds of Hurricane Elsa passed St. Michael, Barbados July 2, 2021. REUTERS/Nigel Browne
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Hurricane conditions were expected in Haiti and possible in the Dominican Republic and Jamaica by late Saturday, the agency said.
The Barbados minister said damage was reported in the south of the island including power outages, fallen trees, flash flooding and damaged roofs.
Emergency services were unable to reach people, but there were no reports of injuries or deaths.
A resident in south Barbados, 43-year-old structural engineer Greg Parris, whose home lost power around 7 a.m., said: “It was scary. Most of us, we haven’t experienced anything like this for a while.”
Elsa’s progress should be monitored by the Windward Islands, Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and the Cayman Islands, the Miami-based NHC said.
Little change in Elsa’s strength was forecast over the next 48 hours and some decrease in winds is possible on Monday, the hurricane center said.
Elsa’s storm surge was expected to raise water levels by as much as 1 to 4 feet above normal tide levels in some areas. Puerto Rico could receive up to 5 inches of rain, the NHC.
Reporting by Robert Edison Sandiford in Christ Church, Barbados and Kate Chappell in Kingston, Jamaica; Additional reporting by Anthony Esposito in Mexico City and Nakul Iyer in Bengaluru; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Cynthia Osterman
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MEXICO CITY, July 2 (Reuters) – A fire on the ocean surface west of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula early on Friday has been extinguished, state oil company Pemex said, blaming a gas leak from an underwater pipeline for sparking the blaze captured in videos that went viral.
Bright orange flames jumping out of water resembling molten lava was dubbed an “eye of fire” on social media due to the blaze’s circular shape, as it raged a short distance from a Pemex oil platform.
The fire took more than five hours to fully put out, according to Pemex.
The fire began in an underwater pipeline that connects to a platform at Pemex’s flagship Ku Maloob Zaap oil development, the company’s most important, four sources told Reuters earlier.
Ku Maloob Zaap is located just up from the southern rim of the Gulf of Mexico.
Pemex said no injuries were reported, and production from the project was not affected after the gas leak ignited around 5:15 a.m. local time. It was completely extinguished by 10:30 a.m.
The company added it would investigate the cause of the fire.
Pemex, which has a long record of major industrial accidents at its facilities, added it also shut the valves of the 12-inch-diameter pipeline.
Angel Carrizales, head of Mexico’s oil safety regulator ASEA, wrote on Twitter that the incident “did not generate any spill.” He did not explain what was burning on the water’s surface.
Ku Maloob Zaap is Pemex’s biggest crude oil producer, accounting for more than 40% of its nearly 1.7 million barrels of daily output.
“The turbomachinery of Ku Maloob Zaap’s active production facilities were affected by an electrical storm and heavy rains,” according to a Pemex incident report shared by one of Reuters’ sources.
Company workers used nitrogen to control the fire, the report added.
Details from the incident report were not mentioned in Pemex’s brief press statement and the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Reporting by Adriana Barrera and Marianna Parraga; Additional reporting by David Alire Garcia; Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Daina Beth Solomon, Philippa Fletcher and David Gregorio
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
RIO DE JANEIRO, June 29 (Reuters) – Brazil will suspend a $324-million contract for COVID-19 vaccine from India that has mired President Jair Bolsonaro in accusations of irregularities, the health minister said on Tuesday, following guidance by the federal comptroller, the CGU.
The deal to buy 20 million doses of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin shot has become a headache for Bolsonaro after whistleblowers went public with alleged irregularities. One health ministry official said he alerted the president about his concerns.
Bolsonaro, whose popularity has faded as Brazil’s COVID-19 death toll climbed past 500,000, has denied any wrongdoing, saying on Monday he was not aware of any irregularities.
But thorny questions persist, and may pose problems for him ahead of next year’s presidential vote.
Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga told a news conference his team would investigate the accusations during the suspension.
“According to the preliminary analysis of the CGU, there are no irregularities in the contract but, for compliance, the health ministry chose to suspend the contract,” the ministry said in a statement.
CNN Brasil had earlier reported that the ministry had decided to cancel the contract.
Brazilian federal prosecutors have opened an investigation, citing comparatively high prices of about $15 a dose, quick talks and pending regulatory approvals as red flags.
In a statement, Bharat Biotech said it had followed a “step-by-step” approach for the regulatory approval and supply contract of its vaccine in Brazil, and had not received advance payments from the health ministry.
It added that the pricing of Covaxin had been set between $15 and $20 a dose for supplies to governments outside India.
The deal is also being probed by a Senate panel investigating Brazil’s handling of the pandemic.
One leading opposition senator on the panel, Randolfe Rodrigues, filed a formal criminal complaint against Bolsonaro with the Supreme Court on Monday.
He asked the court to investigate why Bolsonaro “did not take any action after being notified of the existence of a giant corruption scheme in the Health Ministry.”
($1=4.9403 reais)
Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter and Pedro Fonseca; Additional reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Clarence Fernandez
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