World News
Peru: Pedro Castillo deposed and arrested, his vice-president invested
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Sylvie Claire / December 8, 2022
The Peruvian president Pedro Castillo was on Thursday in detention in a base of the police force in Lima, the day after his impeachment and his arrest during a day rich in twists and turns which saw his vice-president Dina Boluarte invested at the head of the Latin American country, customary of the political crises.
The third impeachment procedure got the better of the leftist president. Mr. Castillo tried his luck by announcing the dissolution of the Parliament that was trying to bring him down, a maneuver immediately qualified as a “coup d’état” by many personalities.
Pedro Castillo, 53, who came to power in July 2021, was “placed under arrest,” announced prosecutor Marita Barreto.
Images showed the deposed head of state sitting in an armchair, surrounded by prosecutors and police.
According to the Peruvian media, Mr. Castillo was then transferred by helicopter towards a base of the special forces of the police force in Lima, where he should be held for a maximum duration of 15 days.
The public prosecutor’s office carried out moreover in the evening of Wednesday of the searches to the presidential palace.
A judicial source specified to the AFP that an investigation for “rebellion” had been opened against Mr. Castillo who will have directed the country only seventeen months.
This is in addition to six other investigations into corruption and influence peddling, offences for which members of his family and political entourage are also accused.
His impeachment on the grounds of “moral incapacity” was broadcast live on television and was approved by 101 of the 130 parliamentarians, 80 of whom are in opposition.
In a last-ditch effort to save his job, the former president announced the dissolution of parliament just hours before it was to meet to decide his fate.
He had also announced the establishment of an “exceptional emergency government” and wanted to “convene a new Congress with constituent powers” as soon as possible. A maneuver ignored by Parliament and widely denounced by the political class.
According to the police, after the failure of his attempt at dissolution, Mr. Castillo intended to take refuge in the Mexican embassy and seek asylum, but he was arrested before.
“Today there was a coup d’état in the purest style of the 20th century,” denounced Constitutional Court President Francisco Morales, saying that “no one owes obedience to a usurper government.
The independent political analyst Augusto Alvarez declared to the AFP that Mr. Castillo had “violated the article 117 of the Peruvian Constitution and (was) in the illegality. It is an auto-coup of state ».
At the time of a ceremony of investiture in front of the Parliament where she was girded with the presidential sash to become the first woman president of Peru, Dina Boluarte, also repeated that there had “been an attempt of coup d’état promoted by Pedro Castillo which found no echo in the institutions of the democracy nor in the street”.
“I assume (the power) according to the Constitution of Peru, from this moment” and until “July 2026”, when was to end the mandate of Mr. Castillo, said the lawyer of 60 years stemming from the same party of Marxist inspiration (free Peru) that him.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered quietly in front of the Parliament.
“We are tired of this corrupt government, of this government that has been stealing from us since day one,” Johana Salazar, a 51-year-old worker, told AFP.
Others defended Mr. Castillo and called for “respect for the people’s vote”, like Sissy, a 50-year-old municipal employee, who said that “since the president arrived, they have humiliated him, they have not accepted a president from the provinces”, referring to the former teacher in rural areas for 24 years, a political novice.
The United States immediately made it known that it no longer considered Pedro Castillo to be the country’s current president. “We will categorically reject any act that violates (…) any Constitution, any act that undermines democracy,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price.
Brazil’s President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he found it “always regrettable that a democratically elected president should suffer such a fate”, but he was pleased that “everything was carried out within the constitutional framework”.
The Spanish government and the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) Luis Almagro denounced a “rupture of the constitutional order” in the attempts of Mr. Castillo, while Madrid welcomed “the restoration of democratic normality ».
Pedro Castillo had already escaped two motions of impeachment for “moral incapacity” — which had previously brought down two presidents in office, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (right) in 2018 and Martin Vizcarra (center) in 2020 — the last of which was in March 2022.
In particular, he was accused of repeated ministerial crises and the formation of four governments in eight months, an unprecedented event in Peru.
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Sylvie Claire / July 21, 2024
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky spoke on the phone on Friday, with the former US president claiming to have promised the Ukrainian president to “end the war” between Ukraine and Russia should he return to the White House. “As your next president of the United States, I will bring peace to the world and end the war that has cost so many lives,” said the Republican presidential candidate.
Donald Trump frequently claims that he would be able to put an end to the conflict in Ukraine very quickly on his return to power, but never provides details of how he would achieve this. Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the phone call, during which he congratulated the billionaire on his official nomination the previous day as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate.
Donald Trump’s frequent praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as his criticism of other Nato countries, is causing concern among Ukraine’s Western allies. In February, he threatened that, if he returned to the White House, he would no longer guarantee the protection of Atlantic Alliance countries against Russia if they did not pay their share, even claiming that he would “encourage” Moscow to attack them. The former American president also used his power over the Republicans to block a $61 billion military aid package for Kiev for months in Congress, which was finally adopted at the end of April.
In his posting on X on Friday, Volodymyr Zelensky said he had “agreed with President Trump to discuss, in a face-to-face meeting, the steps to be taken towards a just and lasting peace” in Ukraine.
World News
Former Ukrainian far-right MP murdered in Lviv: “All leads are being investigated, including Russia”
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Steph Deschamps / July 21, 2024
In a message on Telegram, the Ukrainian National Police said she had succumbed to her injuries in hospital after being the target of an assassination attempt.
“I always say that no place is safe in Ukraine,” lamented Lviv mayor Andriï Sadovy, denouncing a ‘heinous murder’ and offering his condolences to the victim’s relatives.
According to the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office, the attack took place on Friday evening, at around 7.30pm, when an unidentified individual fired at Irina Farion, seriously wounding her in the head. “All surveillance cameras are being checked, witnesses are being interviewed and several districts (of Lviv) are being examined. All leads are being investigated, including the one leading to Russia”, reacted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on X on Saturday.
Interior Minister Igor Klimenko told a briefing in Lviv on Friday evening that the suspected killer could have been lurking around Irina Farion’s home for several days.
According to him, investigators are currently focusing on the possibility of a murder motivated by a “personal grudge” linked to the victim’s activities, but are not ruling out a “commissioned assassination” either.
The 60-year-old language teacher and linguist was a member of parliament for the nationalist Svoboda party between 2012 and 2014.
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Sylvie Claire / July 18, 2024
At least six people died in a shopping mall fire on Wednesday in Zigong, southwest China, and thirty others were rescued, China’s state broadcaster CCTV said. “Rescue teams are continuing their search,” the media outlet added.
Images broadcast by the channel and others shared on social networks show thick black smoke rising from a building overlooking a shopping street in this city 1,600 kilometers from the capital Beijing, in the southwestern province of Sichuan.
The fire broke out in the early evening in a shopping mall at the foot of a 14-storey building, CCTV reported.
“At 8:20 pm, the fire was extinguished and 17 people were rescued. Others are still trapped, and rescue operations are continuing”, said the station in an initial report on the situation.
Fires and other fatal accidents are frequent in China, due to the sometimes lax application of safety standards. In January, at least 39 people perished in a store fire in central China. According to the authorities, the fire started in the basement of a store when workers “broke the rules” during construction work. At the time, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for lessons to be learned from the disaster to prevent further tragedies. The same month, a fire in a residential building claimed at least 15 lives.
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