Tag Archives: Latin America

US

Immigration records contradict Santos’ claim his mother was at World Trade Center on 9/11

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CNN
 — 

Newly uncovered immigration records for Rep. George Santos’ mother appear to contradict the embattled freshman Republican’s repeated claim that she was present at the World Trade Center during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The records indicate that Fatima Devolder said she was in Brazil between 1999 and early 2003, and therefore not in New York City when the attacks took place. CNN obtained the records, first reported on by The Forward, from genealogy researcher Alex Calzareth, who received them from a Freedom of Information Act request.

While in Brazil in 2003, Devolder indicated on a form that she had not been to the US since she left in 1999. Devolder also filed paperwork in Brazil in 2001, just months before the September 11 attacks, saying her green card had been stolen.

Representatives for Santos did not return CNN’s requests for comment.

Santos has repeatedly claimed that his mother was at the World Trade Center on September 11 and said the incident played a role in her death from cancer.

In a December 17, 2021, radio interview on “The Voice of Reason with Andy Hooser,” Santos said that his mother got “caught up in the ash cloud” on 9/11 and that she did not sign up to get financial relief because she didn’t want to take money away from first responders.

“She was in the south tower, and she made it out. She got caught up in the ash cloud. My mom fought cancer till her death,” Santos said.

Santos has previously claimed his mother was a financial executive, although that description has since been removed from his website. The records obtained by CNN show she listed her jobs as a housekeeper or home aid.

Devolder also listed both of her parents – Santos’ grandparents – as being born in Brazil, again undercutting his claim that his maternal grandparents fled the Holocaust.

Santos has refused to step down from Congress, despite facing mounting legal issues and growing calls to resign for extensively lying about his resume.

– Source:
CNN
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Hear from the Navy veteran that was allegedly scammed by Santos

He is already facing a federal probe led by prosecutors in New York who are investigating his finances. And in a separate matter, CNN reported that law enforcement officials in Brazil will reinstate fraud charges against Santos. Prosecutors said they will seek a “formal response” from Santos related to a stolen checkbook in 2008, after police suspended an investigation into him because they were unable to find him for nearly a decade.

In an interview last month with the New York Post, Santos denied being charged with any crime in Brazil, saying “I am not a criminal here – not here or in Brazil or any jurisdiction in the world. Absolutely not. That didn’t happen.”

Santos admitted to stealing a man’s checkbook that was in his mother’s possession to purchase clothing and shoes in 2008, according to documents obtained by CNN.

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Science

Foot-long dwarf boa found in Ecuadorian Amazon

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CNN
 — 

Scientists have identified a tiny new species of dwarf boa living in the Ecuadorian Amazon that even a snake hater could love: These small reptiles are just a foot long.

Alex Bentley, research coordinator of the Sumak Kawsay In Situ field station in the eastern foothills of the Andes, stumbled across a small, curled up snake in a patch of cloud forest, an upland forest where clouds filter through the treetops.

He sent a photo of the snake to colleagues, including Omar Entiauspe-Neto, a graduate student at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and Butantan Institute in Brazil.

“We were immediately surprised, because it shouldn’t be there,” said Entiauspe-Neto, the corresponding author of the paper describing the species in the European Journal of Taxonomy.

Other dwarf boas have been identified elsewhere in South America and the West Indies, but none had ever been found in the region where Bentley spotted this one. The closest known match in Ecuador lives west of the Andes, and, according to Entiauspe-Neto, it looks “radically different” from the specimen in Bentley’s photo.

While the snake didn’t match any known species of dwarf boas, it had a lot in common with a specimen in the Ecuadorian Museum of Natural Sciences collected several years ago.

“We’re usually afraid to describe new species based on only a single one, because there’s a chance that there might be some sort of variation,” Entiauspe-Neto said. “Once we had those two specimens, we were fairly sure they were a new species.”

By comparing both the physical characteristics and genetic sequences of the mystery snakes with known species, the researchers determined that they’d found an animal new to science. They named it Tropidophis cacuangoae in honor of Dolores Cacuango, an Indigenous activist who championed women’s rights and founded Ecuador’s first bilingual schools with lessons in Spanish and the Indigenous language Quechua.

Like its fellow dwarf boas, T. cacuangoae is distantly related to the bigger boa constrictor, but they have key traits in common.

They both have thickset bodies, and their skeletons bear vestigial hip bones, relics of snakes’ ancient legged ancestors. And instead of being armed with venom, they squeeze their prey to death, blocking blood flow and causing cardiac arrest.

While 10-foot-long boa constrictors go after animals as big as wild pigs, dwarf boas have diets that largely consist of small lizards. And since they don’t have size on their side like true boa constrictors, dwarf boas have evolved a strange defense mechanism: When threatened, they curl into a ball and bleed out of their eyes.

This behavior, also seen in horned lizards, might appear more gross than threatening, but Entiauspe-Neto suspects the behavior is part of a bigger constellation of death feigning found throughout the animal kingdom.

“Most predators tend to feed on living prey,” he said. If a predator such as an eagle sees a dwarf boa coiled up and bleeding from its eyes, “the predator is very likely to think that the snake might be either sick or dying, so therefore it will not feed on it” to avoid catching whatever made the snake seem ill.

However, dwarf boas face far bigger threats than predators: The newly identified species may already be endangered due to habitat loss. “It has a fairly small range,” Entiauspe-Neto said. “So while it still needs to be formally evaluated by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), I think it might be threatened with extinction.”

Thaís Guedes, a researcher at the State University of Campinas in Brazil who was not involved with the study, praised the work. “I am always happy when I see a new species of snake being introduced to the world,” Guedes said.

Honoring activist Cacuango in the naming of the species is also important, she said, since Indigenous peoples play a key role in conservation.

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World

Peru: Protester killed as anti-government violence spreads to tourist city

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CNN
 — 

One protester has died and at least 19 Peruvian police officers were injured in anti-government clashes in Cusco as officials in the tourist city put health facilities on red alert.

Protesters had tried to enter the Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport during curfew Wednesday, an Interior Minister statement said. The officers injured suffered from head trauma and bruises, it added.

A member of the Anansaya Urinsaya Ccollana de Anta indigenous community was later reported to have been killed in the city, bringing the death toll across the country to 48 since protests began in December following the ousting of leftist former President Pedro Castillo, according to the Peruvian Ombudsman report.

“We demand an immediate investigation to find those responsible for the death and proceed to the respective sanctions,” the Ombudsman said in a statement, according to Reuters news agency.

The Ministry of the Interior reported that the Regional Health Management of Cusco had placed all health establishments on red alert.

Thousands have paid tribute to the dead by parading coffins through the streets of Juliaca, a city where almost half of the deaths occurred, before burying them alongside images of the victims, Reuters reported.

Peruvians carrying black flags also marched through the streets in the region of Puno, some shouting “The bloodshed will never be forgotten!”

Peru’s top prosecutor’s office launched an inquiry Tuesday into new President Dina Boluarte and senior cabinet ministers over deadly clashes that have swept the country following the ousting of Castillo.

Protesters are demanding the resignation of Boluarte, the dissolution of Congress, changes to the constitution and Castillo’s release.

The new government, however, won a vote of confidence in Congress by a wide margin Tuesday evening. A loss would have triggered a cabinet reshuffle and the resignation of Prime Minister Alberto Otárola.

The vote of confidence, a constitutional requirement after a new prime minister takes office, passed with 73 votes in favor, 43 against and six abstentions.

The inquiry comes after at least 18 people died since Monday night during demonstrations in the southern Puno region, including a Peruvian policeman who was burned to death by protesters.

Police confirmed to CNN Espanol Tuesday that Peruvian officer Jose Luis Soncco Quispe died on Monday night after being attacked by “unknown subjects” while patrolling in Puno.

“We regret the sensitive death of José Luis Soncco Quispe. We extend our condolences to his closest family and friends. Rest in peace, brother policeman!” Peruvian National Police wrote on Twitter.

A curfew will be in place from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. local time “to safeguard the life, integrity and freedom of citizens” following the conflicts in Puno, the Council of Ministers tweeted Tuesday.

The recent unrest has proved to be the worst violence in Peru since the 1990s when the country saw clashes between the state and rebel group Shining Path. That violence left 69,000 people dead or missing over a period of two decades, according to Reuters.

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World

Peru anti-government protests spread, with clashes in Cusco

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LIMA, Peru (AP) — Protests against Peruvian President Dina Boluarte’s government that have left 48 people dead since they began a month ago spread through the south of the Andean country on Wednesday with new clashes reported in the tourist city of Cusco.

Health officials in Cusco said 37 civilians and six police officers were injured after protesters tried to take over the city’s airport, where many foreign tourists arrive to see sites including the nearby Incan citadel of Machu Picchu.

Protests and road blockades against Boluarte and in support of ousted President Pedro Castillo were also seen in 41 provinces, mainly in Peru’s south.

The unrest began in early December following the destitution and arrest of Castillo, Peru’s first president of humble, rural roots, following his widely condemned attempt to dissolve Congress and head off his own impeachment.

The protest, mainly in neglected rural areas of the country still loyal to Castillo, are seeking immediate elections, Boluarte’s resignation, Castillo’s release and justice for the protesters killed in clashes with police.

Some of the worst protest violence came on Monday when 17 people were killed in clashes with police in the city Juliaca near Lake Titicaca and protesters later attacked and burned a police officer to death.

On Wednesday, health officials in Cusco said that a civilian died after being hit by gunfire.

Earlier, Peru’s Ombudsman’s Office had said that 39 civilians had been killed in clashes with police and another seven died in traffic accidents related to road blockades, as well as the fallen police officer. Wednesday’s death increases the toll to 48,

On Tuesday, Peru’s government announced a three-day curfew from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. in Puno.

The National Prosecutor’s Office said it has requested information from the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and the defense and interior ministries for an investigation it has opened against Boluarte and other officials for the protest deaths.

In Juliaca, in Puno province, a crowd marched alongside the coffins of the 17 people killed in Monday’s protests.

“Dina killed me with bullets,” said a piece of paper attached to the coffin of Eberth Mamani Arqui, in a reference to Peru’s current president.

“This democracy is no longer a democracy,” chanted the relatives of the victims.

As they passed a police station, which was guarded by dozens of officers, the marchers yelled: “Murderers!”

Meanwhile, a delegation from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights began a visit to Peru on to look into the protests and the police response.

Boluarte was Castillo’s former running mate before taking over the presidency. She has said she supports a plan to push up to 2024 elections for president and congress originally scheduled for 2026. She’s also expressed support for judicial investigations into whether security forces acted with excessive force.

But such moves have so far failed to quell the unrest, which after a short respite around the Christmas and New Year’s holidays have resumed with force in some of Peru’s poorest areas.

Castillo, a political novice who lived in a two-story adobe home in the Andean highlands before moving to the presidential palace, eked out a narrow victory in elections in 2021 that rocked Peru’s political establishment and laid bare the deep divisions between residents of the capital, Lima, and the long-neglected countryside.

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US

‘No amnesty!’: Brazilian protests demand jail for rioters

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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — “No amnesty! No amnesty! No amnesty!”

The chant reverberated off the walls of the jam-packed hall at the University of Sao Paulo’s law college on Monday afternoon. Within hours, it was the rallying cry for thousands of Brazilians who streamed into the streets of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, penned on protest posters and banners.

The words are a demand for retribution against the supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro who stormed Brazil’s capital Sunday, and those who enabled the rampage.

“These people need to be punished, the people who ordered it need to be punished, those who gave money for it need to be punished,” Bety Amin, a 61-year-old therapist, said on Sao Paulo’s main boulevard. The word “DEMOCRACY” stretched across the back of her shirt. “They don’t represent Brazil. We represent Brazil.”

Protesters’ push for accountability evokes memories of an amnesty law that for decades has protected military members accused of abuse and murder during the country’s 1964-85 dictatorship. A 2014 truth commission report sparked debate over how Brazil has grappled with the regime’s legacy.

Declining to mete out punishment “can avoid tensions at the moment, but perpetuates instability,” Luis Felipe Miguel, a professor of political science at the University of Brasilia, wrote in a column entitled “No Amnesty” published Monday evening. “That is the lesson we should have learned from the end of the military dictatorship, when Brazil opted not to punish the regime’s killers and torturers.”

The same day, Brazilian police rounded up roughly 1,500 rioters. Some were caught in the act of trashing Brazil’s Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace. Most were detained the following morning at an encampment in Brasilia. Many were held in a gymnasium throughout the day, and video shared on pro-Bolsonaro social media channels showed some complaining about poor treatment in the crowded space.

Almost 600 who were elderly, sick, homeless or mothers with their children were released Tuesday after being questioned and having their phones inspected, the Federal Police said in a statement. Its press office previously told The Associated Press that the force plans to indict at least 1,000 people. As of Tuesday afternoon, 527 people had been transfered to either a detention center or prison.

The administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says jailing the rioters is only the start.

Justice minister Flávio Dino vowed to prosecute those who acted behind the scenes to summon supporters on social media and finance their transport on charges involving organized crime, staging a coup, and violent abolition of the democratic rule of law. Authorities also are investigating allegations that local security personnel allowed the destruction to proceed unabated.

“We cannot and will not compromise in fulfilling our legal duties,” Dino said. “This fulfillment is essential so such events do not repeat themselves.”

Lula signed a decree, now approved by both houses of Congress, ordering the federal government to assume control of security in the capital.

Far-right elements have refused to accept Bolsonaro’s electoral defeat. Since his Oct. 30 loss, they have camped outside military barracks in Brasilia, pleading for intervention to allow Bolsonaro to remain in power and oust Lula. When no coup materialized, they rose up themselves.

Decked out in the green and yellow of the national flag, they broke windows, toppled furniture and hurled computers and printers to the ground. They punched holes in a massive Emiliano Di Cavalcanti painting at the presidential palace and destroyed other works of art. They overturned the U-shaped table where Supreme Court justices convene, ripped a door off one justice’s office and vandalized a statue outside the court. Hours passed before police expelled the mob.

“It’s unacceptable what happened yesterday. It’s terrorism,” Marcelo Menezes, a 59-year-old police officer from northeastern Pernambuco state, said at a protest in Sao Paulo. “I’m here in defense of democracy, I’m here in defense of the people.”

Cries of “No amnesty!” were also heard during Lula’s Jan. 1 inaugural address, in response to the president detailing the neglect of the outgoing Bolsonaro administration.

Bolsonaro, a former army captain, has waxed nostalgic for the dictatorship era, praised a notorious torturer as a hero and said the regime should have gone further in executing communists. His government also commemorated the anniversary of Brazil’s 1964 coup.

Political analysts had repeatedly warned that Bolsonaro was laying the groundwork for an insurrection in the mold of that which unfolded in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. For months, he stoked belief among hardcore supporters that the nation’s electronic voting system was prone to fraud — though he never presented any evidence and independent experts disagreed.

Results from the election, the closest since Brazil’s return to democracy, were quickly recognized by politicians across the spectrum, including some Bolsonaro allies, as well as dozens of other governments. The outgoing president surprised nearly everyone by promptly fading from view, neither conceding defeat nor emphatically crying fraud. He and his party submitted a request to nullify millions of votes, which was swiftly dismissed by the electoral authority.

None of that dissuaded his die-hard backers from their conviction that Bolsonaro should still be in power.

In the immediate aftermath of the riot, Lula said that the so-called “fascist fanatics” and their financial backers must be held responsible. He also accused Bolsonaro of encouraging the uprising.

Bolsonaro denied the president’s accusation Sunday. Writing on Twitter, he said peaceful protest is part of democracy, but vandalism and invasion of public buildings cross the line.

Authorities are also investigating the role of the federal district’s police in either failing to halt protesters’ advance or standing aside to let them run amok. Prosecutors in the capital said local security forces were negligent at the very least. A supreme court justice temporarily suspended the regional governor, who oversees the force, for what he termed “willful omission” and issued warrants for the preventative arrests of the former heads of the security secretariat and military police, as well as searches of their residences.

Another justice blamed authorities across Brazil for not swiftly cracking down on “homegrown neofascism.”

The upheaval finally prompted municipal and state governments to disperse the pro-Bolsonaro encampments outside the military barracks. Their tents and tarps were taken down, and residents were sent packing.

Meanwhile, pro-democracy protesters want to ensure their message — “No amnesty!” — will be heeded by both the law enforcement authorities and any far-right elements who might dare defy democracy again.

“After what happened yesterday, we need to go to the street,” said Marcos Gama, a retiree protesting Monday night in Sao Paulo. “We need to react.”

___

AP videojournalist Mello reported from Sao Paulo. AP writer Carla Bridi contributed from Salvador.

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US

Biden is facing sharp questions after documents revelation

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CNN
 — 

President Joe Biden is facing sharp new questions about his handling of classified documents as he prepares for a summit with the leaders of the US’ neighboring nations.

The news that several classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president were discovered last fall at his private office in Washington, DC, broke moments after the president’s motorcade had rolled into the National Palace in Mexico City, in a visit that marks a US president’s first visit to Mexico since 2014.

Biden’s lawyers say they found the government materials in November while closing out a Washington, DC-based office that Biden used as part of his relationship with the University of Pennsylvania, where he was an honorary professor from 2017 to 2019.

Fewer than a dozen classified documents were found at the office, another source told CNN. It is unclear what the documents pertain to or why they were taken to Biden’s private office. The classified materials included some top-secret files with the “sensitive compartmented information” designation, also known as SCI, which is used for highly sensitive information obtained from intelligence sources.

Federal officeholders are required by law to relinquish official documents and classified records when their government service ends.

As the news of the classified documents quickly consumed coverage back at home, Biden was busy kicking off a highly anticipated bilateral meeting with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, where immigration was expected to be among the top issues discussed.

As the moment was unfolding, one senior administration official traveling with the president told CNN that Biden had been in meetings all afternoon ahead of the extended bilateral meeting with his counterpart.

“Nothing has changed in his schedule,” the official said. “He’s focused on the summit and meeting with our closest neighbors.”

On whether advisers have discussed the issue of the classified documents during Biden’s visit to Mexico so far, this official said that as far as they were aware, it had not come up.

Meanwhile, asked by reporters in the room before the bilateral meeting for a response to the classified documents, Biden stayed quiet and at one point appeared to smirk as shouting reporters were ushered out of the room. Seated to Biden’s left during his meeting with the Mexican president: Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has asked the US attorney in Chicago to review the matter, a source familiar with the matter told CNN, a process that is still in a preliminary stage.

The US attorney in Chicago, John Lausch Jr., was appointed by former President Donald Trump in 2017.

A source familiar with the matter told CNN that Biden is still not aware of what is contained in the actual documents. White House officials, who have gone to great lengths to avoid any real or perceived effort to influence the Justice Department, are likely to maintain that posture with this specific review.

Biden wasn’t aware the classified documents were located in the office and didn’t become aware of them until his personal lawyers communicated their existence to the White House Counsel’s office, that source familiar told CNN.

Richard Sauber, special counsel to Biden, said in a statement that the White House is cooperating with the National Archives and Department of Justice.

“The documents were discovered when the President’s personal attorneys were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.,” Sauber said in a statement. “The President periodically used this space from mid-2017 until the start of the 2020 campaign. On the day of this discovery, November 2, 2022, the White House Counsel’s Office notified the National Archives. The Archives took possession of the materials the following morning.”

“The discovery of these documents was made by the President’s attorneys,” Sauber added. “The documents were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives. Since that discovery, the President’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives.”

The episode has echoes of the scandal that enveloped Trump in late 2021 over scores of classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida during a raid by the FBI. However, there are some key differences between the two scenarios in the Biden team’s telling.

Sauber said Biden’s personal attorneys quickly turned over a small number of classified documents once they were found in a locked space. With Trump, when the National Archives realized key records were missing it was forced to haggle with Trump for months over the return of government documents.

The documents discovered in Biden’s office had never been sought or requested by NARA or any other government entity.

Trump eventually gave 15 boxes of materials back to NARA. But federal investigators later came to correctly suspect that he was still holding onto dozens of additional classified files. So, DOJ prosecutors secured a grand jury subpoena and later got a judge’s permission to search Mar-a-Lago, to find the documents. He is now under investigation by special counsel Jack Smith for potentially mishandling classified documents.

Ever since the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago in August – a search that uncovered dozens of additional classified files – Trump has promoted wild and unfounded allegations about his predecessors’ supposed mishandling of government records. The news about classified records turning up at Biden’s private office is sure to provide new fodder to Trump, who has already announced his 2024 presidential bid.

It also quickly became a flashpoint on Capitol Hill for House Republicans eager to use their new oversight powers on the Biden administration.

Rep. James Comer, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, told CNN he plans to press the National Archives for information about the classified documents removed by Joe Biden during his time as VP. He said he would send a letter to the Archives — which his committee oversees — within the next 48 hours.

“President Biden has been very critical of President Trump mistakenly taking classified documents to the residence or wherever and now it seems he may have done the same,” Comer said. “How ironic.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy didn’t say whether he believes House Republican should investigate Biden’s retention of classified documents but said the reaction to Trump holding onto classified documents has been driven by politics.

“I just think it goes to prove what they tried to do to President Trump overplayed their hand on that,” McCarthy said.

“They’ve been around even longer,” McCarthy said of Biden’s team. “President Trump had never been in office before and had just left, came out. Here’s an individual spent his last 40 years in office.”

McCarthy added: “It just shows that they were trying to be political with President Trump.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight panel, pointed to what the Biden detailed as key differences between the two instances, noting Biden’s attorneys “appear to have taken immediate and proper action to notify the National Archives about their discovery of a small handful of classified documents found in a locked cabinet at the Penn Biden Center so they could be returned to federal government custody.”

Raskin, of Maryland, said he had confidence Garland had taken the appropriate steps to “make an impartial decision about any further action that may be needed.”

Still, some members of Biden’s own party also expressed concern at the idea of classified documents being found in an improper location.

Two senior Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee – Reps. Adam Schiff and Jim Himes – both told CNN that classified documents must be handled securely, offering their first reaction to news that President Biden may have mishandled classified documents from his time as vice president.

While both men said they hadn’t yet read the facts of the stories about the matter yet, Schiff said, “Obviously if there are classified documents anywhere they shouldn’t be that’s a problem and a deep concern.”

Asked if Congress should look into the matter, Schiff said: “I probably don’t want to say more time until I have a chance to read the article. But I think it ought to be concerning to anyone if classified information is not where it should be.”

Himes told CNN, “Look, classified information needs to stay in secure spaces. So, we’ll wait to see the facts, but, you know, classified information needs to be in secure spaces.”

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US

Brazil: Bolsonaro supporters break into Brazilian Congress and presidential palace

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CNN
 — 

Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday breached security barriers set up by the Armed Forces and gained access to key buildings for the three branches of government, including the congressional building, the Supreme Court and the Planalto Presidential Palace.

Footage showed massive crowds in the capital of Brasília walking up a ramp that leads to the congressional building, where they had reached the Green Room, located outside the lower House of Congress’ chamber, Interim Senate President Veneziano Vital do Rogo told CNN Brasil.

Other outlets showed Bolsonaro suporters entering the Supreme Court and the presidential palace, where CNN Brasil showed the arrivals of anti-riot police and the Brazilian Armed Forces. Inside, protesters were using furniture to build barricades to prevent police from entering, CNN Brasil reported.

The floor of the Congress building was flooded after the sprinkler system activated when protesters attempted to set fire to the carpet, according to CNN Brasil.

Additional videos showed protesters inside the building taking gifts received from international delegations and destroying artwork.

By Sunday evening, several hours after the breaches, the three buildings had been cleared of protesters, CNN Brasil reported. At least 170 people have been arrested, according to Federal District Civil Police.

Paulo Pimenta, the Communications Minister, released a video Sunday evening of a walking tour of his office in the Planalto Palace. The video shows furniture overturned and offices along a corridor in disarray.

“I’m in my office on the second floor of the Planalto Palace, as you can see everything was destroyed,” Pimenta says in the video. “This is a criminal thing that was done here, this is a revolting thing. Works of art…Look what the vandals did here, the chaos the vandals made here. Destroyed works of art, the country’s heritage.”

The breaches come about a week after the inauguration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whose return to power after a 12-year hiatus comes after he defeated Bolsonaro in a run-off election on October 30.

Bolsonaro’s administration previously said it was cooperating with the transition of power, but the far-right leader has stopped short of explicitly conceding his election loss, and he left the country for the United States prior to Lula’s inauguration.

Supporters of Bolsonaro have been camped out in the capital since then. Justice Minister Flavio Dino had authorized the Armed Forces to set up the barriers and guard the congressional building Saturday due to the continued presence of pro-Bolsonaro supporters.

“Today is sad day for the Brazilian nation,” Valdemar Costa Neto, head of Bolsonaro’s right-wing Liberal Party said in a statement Sunday evening.

“We cannot agree with the depredation of the National Congress. All ordered manifestations are legitimate. Disorder has never been part of the principles of our nation,” Neto said. “I want to say to you that we strongly condemn this type of attitude. And that the law must be fulfilled, strengthening our democracy.”

President Lula on Sunday described the events as “barbaric” and called the Bolsonaro protesters who breached the government buildings “fascists.”

“These people are everything that is abominable in politics, to invade the government headquarters, the headquarters of Congress and the headquarters of the Supreme Court like true vandals destroying everything in their path,” Lula said.

Lula also said there was a “lack of security” and said “all the people who did this will be found and punished.”

The president held the press conference in Araraquara, where he had been surveying areas damaged by heavy floods.

Brazilian officials condemned the actions of demonstrators, which were reminiscent of January 6, 2021, when rioters stormed the US Capitol in an effort to prevent the certification of the 2020 election and President Joe Biden’s win over former President Donald Trump.

“The National Congress has never denied a voice to those who want to demonstrate peacefully. But it will never give room for turmoil, destruction and vandalism,” Arthur Lira, president of the Lower House of Congress said on Twitter. “Those responsible for promoting and abetting this attack on Brazilian democracy and its main symbols must be identified and punished in accordance with the law.”

Brazil’s Attorney General’s office (MPF) said in a statement it is investigating all involved in the breaches.

“The Attorney General of the Republic, Augusto Aras, monitors and follows with concern the acts of vandalism to public buildings that occur in Brasília this Sunday (8),” the MPF said.

Aras has also “requested the Attorney General’s Office in the Federal District (PRDF) to immediately open a criminal investigation procedure aimed at holding those involved accountable.”

Several hours after the breach, Brazil’s Federal District Military Police (PMDF) said in a statement they had begun dispersing pro-Bolsonaro protesters inside the buildings.

Those identified as taking part in “acts of vandalism” were taken to the police station, according to the PMDF.

Dino, who said he was at the Ministry of Justice headquarters, condemned the actions of Bolsonaro’s supporters in a statement on Twitter, saying, “This absurd attempt to impose the will by force will not prevail.”

Gleisi Hoffman, president of the Worker’s Party, called the breaches “a crime announced against democracy” and “against the will of the polls.”

Federal District Security Secretary Anderson Torres – and the former justice minister under Bolsonaro’s government – similarly called the scenes “regrettable,” adding that he had ordered “immediate steps to restore order in the center of Brasília.”

Torres, who was the Justice Minister under Bolsonaro, was appointed to the Federal District office by current governor Ibaneis Rocha but was dismissed after Sunday’s breaches.

Rocha posted a video on YouTube Sunday night apologizing for the storming of federal public buildings.

“What happened was unacceptable,” Rocha said. “We did not believe at all that the demonstrations would take on the proportions that they did. They are true vandals, true terrorists, and they will have every fight with me to punish them.”

Brazilian Federal Public Defender (AGU) asked the country’s Supreme Court to issue an arrest order for Torres and “other public agents responsible for acts and omissions.”

The AGU also requested the “immediate evacuation of all federal public buildings across the country, and the dissolution of anti-democratic acts carried out in the vicinity of barracks and other military units.”

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Sunday afternoon condemned the violence in Brazil’s capital and “any effort to undermine democracy in Brazil.”

“President Biden is following the situation closely and our support for Brazil’s democratic institutions is unwavering. Brazil’s democracy will not be shaken by violence,” Sullivan wrote on Twitter.

Portugal’s government said in a statement it condemns “the acts of violence and disorder that took place today in Brasilia” and pledged support for authorities “in restoring order and legality.”

French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, joined other world leaders in offering support to President Lula: “The will of the Brazilian people and democratic institutions must be respected! President Lula da Silva can count on the unconditional support of France,” Macron said on Twitter.

The President of the European Council Charles Michel also condemned “the assault on the democratic institutions of Brazil” and pledged his support to the Brazilian president, as did Spain and Colombia.



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Biden walks stretch of US-Mexico border, amid GOP criticism

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EL PASO, Texas (AP) — President Joe Biden walked a muddy stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border and inspected a busy port of entry Sunday on his first trip to the region after two years in office, a visit shadowed by the fraught politics of immigration as Republicans try to blame him for the record numbers of migrants crossing into the country.

At his first stop, the president observed as border officers in El Paso demonstrated how they search vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband. Next, he traveled to a dusty street with abandoned buildings and a small playground. Near the street was a metal border fence that separated the U.S. city from Ciudad Juarez. Biden walked slowly along the border wall, initially joined by two Border Patrol agents.

In a sign of the deep tensions over immigration, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, handed Biden a letter upon his arrival in the state that said the “chaos” at the border was a “direct result” of the president’s failure to enforce federal laws. Biden later took the letter out of his jacket pocket during his tour, telling reporters, “I haven’t read it yet.”

Asked what he’s learned by seeing the border firsthand and speaking with the officers who work along it, Biden said: “They need a lot of resources. We’re going to get it for them.”

Immigration for years has been a serious point of conflict, exposing both the dysfunction of the U.S. system as well as the turmoil within migrants’ home countries that has pushed many to flee. Administration officials have tried to counter Republican criticism by saying Congress should work with them to increase border security funding and overhaul immigration policy.

Biden was spending just a few hours in the city, which is currently the biggest corridor for illegal crossings, in large part due to Nicaraguans fleeing repression, crime and poverty in their country. They are among migrants from four countries who are now subject to quick expulsion under new rules enacted by the Biden administration in the past week that drew strong criticism from immigration advocates.

The president also was to visit the El Paso County Migrant Services Center and meet with nonprofits and religious groups that support migrants arriving to the U.S. It was not clear whether he would talk to any migrants.

Biden’s announcement on border security and his visit to the border are aimed in part at quelling the political noise and blunting the impact of upcoming investigations into immigration promised by House Republicans. But any enduring solution will require action by the sharply divided Congress, where multiple efforts to enact sweeping changes have failed in recent years.

From El Paso, Biden was to continue south to Mexico City, where he and the leaders of Mexico and Canada will gather on Monday and Tuesday for a North American leaders summit. Immigration is among the items on the agenda.

In El Paso, where migrants congregate at bus stops and in parks before traveling on, border patrol agents stepped up security before Biden’s visit.

“I think they’re trying to send a message that they’re going to more consistently check people’s documented status, and if you have not been processed they are going to pick you up,” said Ruben Garcia of the Annunciation House aid group in El Paso.

Migrants and asylum-seekers fleeing violence and persecution have increasingly found that protections in the United States are available primarily to those with money or the savvy to find someone to vouch for them financially.

Venezuelan migrant Jose Castillo, who said he traveled without family members for five months from his home on Margarita Island to arrive in El Paso on Dec. 29, said he hoped Biden “will take us into consideration as the human beings we are.”

Castillo was among a group of about 30 migrants who gathered for prayers Sunday morning outside the Sacred Heart Catholic Church where many of the newcomers have been camping.

“We have suffered a lot since entering the jungle of the Darien Gap and passing through Mexico. It has all been a battle, battle, battle,” he said. “I know that we are here illegally, but please give us a chance.”

The numbers of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has risen dramatically during Biden’s first two years in office. There were more than 2.38 million stops during the year that ended Sept. 30, the first time the number topped 2 million. The administration has struggled to clamp down on crossings, reluctant to take hard-line measures that would resemble those of former President Donald Trump’s administration.

The policy changes announced this past week are Biden’s biggest move yet to contain illegal border crossings and will turn away tens of thousands of migrants arriving at the border. At the same time, 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela will get the chance to come to the U.S. legally as long as they travel by plane, get a sponsor and pass background checks.

The U.S. will also turn away migrants who do not seek asylum first in a country they traveled through en route to the U.S. Migrants are being asked to complete a form on a phone app so that they they can go to a port of entry at a pre-scheduled date and time.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters aboard Air Force One that the administration is trying to “incentivize a safe and orderly way and cut out the smuggling organizations,” saying the policies are “not a ban at all” but an attempt to protect migrants from the trauma that smuggling can create.

The changes were welcomed by some, particularly leaders in cities where migrants have been massing. But Biden was excoriated by immigrant advocate groups, which accused him of taking measures modeled after those of the former president. Administration officials disputed that characterization.

For all of his international travel over his 50 years in public service, Biden has not spent much time at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The only visit that the White House could point to was Biden’s drive by the border while he was campaigning for president in 2008. He sent Vice President Kamala Harris to El Paso in 2021, but she was criticized for largely bypassing the action, because El Paso wasn’t the center of crossings that it is now.

President Barack Obama made a 2011 trip to El Paso, where he toured border operations and the Paso Del Norte international bridge, but he was later criticized for not going back as tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors crossed into the U.S. from Mexico.

Trump, who made hardening immigration a signature issue, traveled to the border several times. During one visit, he crammed into a small border station to inspect cash and drugs confiscated by agents. During a trip to McAllen, Texas, then the center of a growing crisis, he made one of his most-often repeated claims, that Mexico would pay to build a border wall.

American taxpayers ended up footing the bill after Mexican leaders flatly rejected the idea.

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Associated Press writers Andres Leighton in El Paso, Texas; Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

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Ana Montes, American convicted of spying for Cuba, released from US federal prison after 20 years

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CNN
 — 

Ana Montes, an American citizen convicted of spying for Cuba, has been released from US federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, according to Federal Bureau of Prison online records.

Cuba recruited Montes for spying in the 1980s and she was employed by the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency as an analyst from 1985-2001. She was eventually promoted to be the DIA’s top Cuba analyst.

The FBI and DIA began investigating her in the fall of 2000 but, in response to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, she had access to plans for US attacks against Afghanistan and the Taliban.

On September 21, 2001, Montes was arrested in Washington, DC, and charged with conspiracy to deliver defense information to Cuba.

In early 2002, she was sentenced to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to espionage. The judge who sentenced Montes ordered her to be supervised on release from prison for five years.

Regarding Montes’ release, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio slammed Montes for betraying the US and assisting Cuba’s communist regime.

“Americans should remember Ana Belén Montes for who she really is, despite the fact that she has served her time in prison. If we forget this spy’s story, it will surely repeat itself,” Rubio said in a statement released on Saturday.

Ana Montes, now 65, was known as the Queen of Cuba, an American who for over a decade and a half handed over so many US military secrets to Havana that experts say the US may never know the full extent of the damage.

In 1984, Montes was working a clerical job at the Justice Department in Washington and studying for a master’s degree at Johns Hopkins University.

She often found herself railing against President Ronald Reagan’s support for rebels fighting pro-communist regimes in Central America.

“She felt that the US didn’t have the right to impose its will on other countries,” said FBI Special Agent Pete Lapp, the man who eventually led the investigation against Montes, and ultimately arrested her.

Her anger about US foreign policy complicated her relationships and drew the attention of Cubans who enticed her to turn her back on friends, family and her own country.

Someone at Johns Hopkins noticed Montes’ passionate views about Cuba and soon she was introduced to recruiters, and agreed to help the Cuban cause.

At about the same time, Montes applied for a job at the Defense Intelligence Agency, where workers handle US military secrets on a daily basis. When she started there in 1985, the FBI says she was already a fully recruited Cuban spy.

One night in 1996, Montes was called to consult at the Pentagon during an ongoing international incident, but she broke protocol by failing to remain on duty until dismissed. This raised suspicion.

Four years later, DIA counterintelligence officer Scott Carmichael heard the FBI was looking for a mole – an unidentified spy inside the DIA who was working for Cuba.

The suspect had traveled to the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, at a specific time. When he looked up a list of DIA employees who visited Gitmo during those dates, a familiar name popped up – Ana Montes.

“The moment I saw her name, I knew,” Carmichael said.

After that, Carmichael and FBI agent Lapp teamed up to prove that the DIA’s Queen of Cuba was really a spy.

Thanks to “very sensitive” intelligence, it was known that the unidentified DIA mole had bought a specific brand, make and model of computer at a specific time in 1996 from an unknown store in Alexandria, Virginia.

Lapp was able to find the store’s original record that linked that computer to Montes, confirming their beliefs.

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On eve of Biden’s border visit, migrants fear new rules

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EL PASO, Texas (AP) — Several hundred people marched through the streets of El Paso Saturday afternoon, and when they arrived at a group of migrants huddling outside a church, they sang to them “no estan solos” — “you are not alone.”

Around 300 migrants have taken refuge on sidewalks outside Sacred Heart Church, some of them afraid to seek more formal shelters, advocates say, amid new restrictions meant to crack down on illegal border crossings.

This is the scene that will greet President Joe Biden on his first, politically thorny visit to the southern border Sunday.

The president announced last week that Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Venezuelans will be expelled to Mexico if they enter the U.S. illegally — an expansion of a pandemic-era immigration policy called Title 42. The new rules will also include offering humanitarian parole for up to 30,000 people a month from those four countries if they apply online and find a financial sponsor.

Biden is scheduled to arrive in El Paso Sunday afternoon before traveling on to Mexico City to meet with North American leaders on Monday and Tuesday.

Dylan Corbett, who runs the nonprofit Hope Border Institute, said the city is experiencing an increasing “climate of fear.”

He said immigration enforcement agencies have already started ratcheting up deportations to Mexico, and he senses a rising level of tension and confusion.

The president’s new policy expands on an existing effort to stop Venezuelans attempting to enter the U.S., which began in October.

Corbett said many Venezuelans have since been left in limbo, putting a strain on local resources. He said expanding those policies to other migrants will only worsen the circumstances for them on the ground.

“It’s a very difficult situation because they can’t go forward and they can’t go back,” he said. People who aren’t processed can’t leave El Paso because of U.S. law enforcement checkpoints; most have traveled thousands of miles from their homelands and refuse to give up and turn around.

“There will be people in need of protection who will be left behind,” Corbett said.

The new restrictions represent a major change to immigration rules that will stand even if the U.S. Supreme Court ends a Trump-era public health law that allows U.S. authorities to turn away asylum-seekers.

El Paso has swiftly become the busiest of the Border Patrol’s nine sectors along the U.S. border with Mexico, occupying the top slots in October and November. Large numbers of Venezuelans began showing up in September, drawn to the relative ease of crossing, robust shelter networks and bus service on both sides of the border, and a major airport to destinations across the United States.

Venezuelans ceased to be a major presence almost overnight after Mexico, under Title 42 authority, agreed on Oct. 12 to accept those who crossed the border illegally into the United States. Nicaraguans have since filled that void. Title 42 restrictions have been applied 2.5 million times to deny migrants a right to seek asylum under U.S. and international law on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

U.S. authorities stopped migrants 53,247 times in November in the El Paso sector, which stretches across 264 miles of desert in West Texas and New Mexico but sees much of its activity in the city of El Paso and suburban Sunland Park, New Mexico. The most recent monthly tally for the sector was more than triple the same period of 2021, with Nicaraguans the top nationality by far, followed by Mexicans, Ecuadoreans, Guatemalans and Cubans.

Many gathered under blankets outside Sacred Heart Church. The church opens its doors at night to families and women, so not all of the hundreds caught in this limbo must sleep outside in the dropping temperatures. Two buses were available for people to warm up and charge their phones. Volunteers come with food and other supplies.

Juan Tovar held a Bible in his hands, his 7-year-old daughter hoisted onto his shoulders. The 32-year-old was a bus driver in Venezuela before he fled with his wife and two daughters because of the political and financial chaos that has consumed their home country.

He has friends in San Antonio prepared to take them in, he said. He’s here to work and provide an education for his daughters, but he’s stuck in El Paso without a permit.

“Everything is in the hands of God,” he said. “We are all humans and we want to stay.”

Another Venezuelan, 22-year-old Jeremy Mejia, overheard and said he had a message he’d like to send to the president.

“President Biden, I ask God to touch your heart so we can stay in this country,” Mejia said. “I ask you to please touch your heart and help us migrants have a better future in the U.S.”

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Leighton reported from El Paso and Spagat from Yuma, Arizona. AP writer Claire Galofaro contributed to this report from Louisville, Kentucky.

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