Thousands attend Venezuela aid concert on barricaded border

Yahoo – AFP, Rodrigo Almonacid with Maria Isabel Sanchez in Caracas, 22 February 2019

Thousands wait for the start of the Venezuela Aid Live concert in Cucuta, Colombia

Thousands of people, many waving Venezuelan flags, flocked to the Venezuela-Colombia border Friday for a charity concert to push for humanitarian aid deliveries in defiance of a blockade by the government of President Nicolas Maduro.

Humanitarian aid has become a key focus of the power struggle between Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido, who has been recognized as interim leader by more than 50 countries.

The tense aid standoff turned deadly even before the concert began, when two people were killed and 15 wounded when they tried to prevent Venezuelan troops from blocking an aid entry point on the Brazilian border.

"An indigenous woman and her husband were killed and at least 15 other members of the Pemon indigenous community were injured," said a local human rights group, Kape Kape.

The clash occurred in southeastern Bolivar state close to the border with Brazil, which Maduro ordered closed on Thursday.

Guaido, who on Thursday set out from Caracas in a convoy of trucks to personally bring in aid from the border, called on the military to arrest those responsible for the killings, "or you will be responsible."

Venezuelan singer Jose Luis Rodriguez "El Puma," performs at the "Venezuela 

Aid Live" concert in Cucuta, Colombia, on February 22, 2019

Fleeing shortage

Some 2.7 million people have fled Venezuela since 2015 amid a devastating political and economic crisis, according to UN figures released Friday. It said people were fleeing the crisis -- marked by acute food and medicine shortages -- at a rate of 5,000 a day in 2018.

Maduro, who retains the support of allies China and Russia and crucially, the powerful military, has blocked the entry of aid and accused the United States of plotting a military intervention.

US special representative Elliott Abrams kept up the foreign pressure on Maduro on Friday, joining a Cucuta-bound plane carrying medical supplies and enough food to feed 2,000 people for a month.

"The humanitarian and the social-economic situation in Venezuela is very bad, there's a terrible need for food, for supplies, and the international community is responding," Abrams said.

Moscow has blasted Washington for using aid as a "convenient pretext for conducting military action."

Workers load food and medical aid for Venezuela from a US Boeing 767 aircraft 

at the Hato International Airport in Willemstad, Curacao in the Netherlands Antilles 

on February 21, 2019

Chants of 'freedom'

Hundreds chanted "freedom" and "the government is going to fall" while they waited for the concert to begin under a hot sun on the edge of the Colombian city of Cucuta, the barricaded border crossing visible nearby.

"We must break the impasse, end the humanitarian crisis," British entrepreneur Richard Branson, who organized the concert, told the crowd shortly before veteran Venezuelan crooner Jose Luis Rodriguez began his set.

Branson said he hopes to raise $100 million for humanitarian aid over the next 60 days via internet donations, though meanwhile aid is being stockpiled in Colombia, Brazil and the Caribbean island of Curacao because of Maduro's ban.

Venezuelan singer Carlos Baute, one of 30 stars gathered by Branson to perform during the six-hour concert, said he was there "to open a humanitarian channel" for the delivery of aid. "Tomorrow we will be free," he said.

The line-up includes Latin American giants Carlos Vives and Juanes of Colombia, Juan Luis Guerra of the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico's Luis Fonsi.

Satellite photo locating rival concerts on Venezuelan border, with map of 

Venezuela-Colombia border crossings

Colombian President Ivan Duque, Chile's Sebastian Pinera and Mario Abdo of Paraguay will participate at the closing ceremony on Friday evening.

"The concert is an immense help because this type of initiative was necessary to open our eyes and pressure the Venezuelan government," said Wendy Villamizar, a 32-year-old Venezuelan woman wearing a cap with her country's yellow, blue and red tricolor.

In contrast to the milling crowds at Cucuta, hundreds of yards (meters) away on the Venezuelan side of the border in Urena, the site of a rival concert announced by Maduro was quiet.

A stage has been built, but there were few people around the site, heavily guarded by military. Maduro earlier this week announced a three-day "Hands Off Venezuela" concert to last until Sunday but few details of the line-up or schedule have been released.

On Thursday he warned those taking part in the Cucuta event: "All the artists that are going to sing in Colombia should know that they are committing a crime, they are endorsing a military intervention."

Australia detains nanny over alleged Pinochet-era crimes

Yahoo – AFP, Daniel DE CARTERET, 20 February 2019

A military coup in Chile in June 1973 led to a regime that presided over
thousands of murders, tortures and forced disappearances

Australia on Wednesday announced it had arrested a nanny living in the country for more than three decades on allegations of Pinochet-era kidnapping and torture.

Adriana Elcira Rivas Gonzalez, 66, was detained on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Australia's attorney general office said, adding she "is wanted to face prosecution in the Republic of Chile for aggravated kidnapping offences".

She is alleged to have been a member of dictator Augusto Pinochet's feared secret police in the 1970s and is wanted in connection with the disappearance of a senior Communist Party official.

US-backed Pinochet, who died in 2006, toppled a democratically elected president and presided over thousands of murders, tortures and forced disappearances as Latin America was ravaged by Cold War-fuelled violence.

Court documents show she is accused of being involved in the disappearance of Victor Manuel Diaz Lopez, undersecretary general of the Communist Party.

He was detained by several agents early in the morning of May 10, 1976, transferred to a secret police facility on the outskirts of Santiago and then disappeared without trace.

Rivas had been arrested in Chile in 2007 during a return to her homeland, but escaped back to Australia in 2010 while on bail.

Chile requested her extradition in 2014 from Sydney, where she has been working part time as a nanny and a cleaner in the city's Bondi suburb.

According to Chilean human rights archive Memoria Viva, "La Chani" -- as Rivas was known -- was once a personal secretary to notorious secret police boss Manuel Contreras and was later linked to an infamous Lautaro Brigade death squad.

In a 2013 interview with Australian broadcaster SBS, Rivas claimed she was innocent, but defended the use of torture in Chile at the time.

"They had to break the people -– it has happened all over the world, not only in Chile," she said.

More than 3,000 regime opponents and alleged collaborators were killed or went missing during Pinochet's rule, according to researchers at Chile's Diego Portales University. Nearly 40,000 were tortured.

Rivas appeared in a Sydney court Wednesday with the case adjourned until March 1.

Chilean-born lawyer Adriana Navarro, who has been lobbying for Riva's extradition, said the arrest was met with "elation as well as a lot of sadness and pain" by families of victims in Chile still seeking justice.

"They want Adriana Rivas, if she says she is not guilty of the charges, to front the Chilean justice system and be absolved if that is the case," she told reporters outside the court.

"However, the evidence that the Chilean government has and the justice system has in Chile is very sound, and there are many witnesses to Adriana Riva's participation in the crimes," she added.

Mexico leader's humble air travel a security headache

Yahoo – AFP, Jennifer GONZALEZ COVARRUBIAS, February 19, 2019

Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador always travels by commercial
flights, even sitting in economy class (AFP Photo/Alfredo ESTRELLA)

Mexico City (AFP) - Accompanied only by five unarmed aides and a small collection of amulets, Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador makes police and flight attendants alike tremble when he embarks on air travel, always in economy class.

Lopez Obrador, known by his initials AMLO, stops for photos with everyone, allowing them to kiss, hug or even grab him by the waist.

"Of course, whatever photos you like," said the smiling president to a woman trying to snatch a photo with her smart phone as he walked to the plane ahead of a trip to Sinaloa, the dangerous drug-trafficking state made famous by narcotics kingpin Joaquim "El Chapo" Guzman.

AMLO's acquiescence sparked a near stampede as others swirled around the president looking for their own memento.

All the while, there was no security to push back the throngs.

Mexico's leftist leader has done away with the thousands of military escorts looking after the president and sent them to work "for the benefit of the people."

The presidential jet, a Boeing Dreamliner 787-8 bought for $218 million is now on sale in California. AMLO traveled to Sinaloa on a cramped Embraer Jet.

Even aboard a plane, Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador takes the 

time to pose for photos with other passengers, much to the chagrin of flight 

attendants (AFP Photo/Alfredo ESTRELLA)

"How can I board this plane when there's so much poverty in Mexico," AMLO had said about the Boeing Dreamliner.

Now he travels with a small retinue of aides headed by Daniel Asaf, a restauranter of Lebanese origin and former candidate for Mexico City's legislature.

'The worst'

In fact, none of AMLO's aides are security specialists, instead they are defined by their "loyalty."

Three women and two men spent most of the trip to Sinaloa shoving back reporters and asking travelers to move away after taking a selfie.

The security services may be in a fluster but AMLO is the most popular president in the country's history with an 80 percent approval rating, according to the last Mitofsky poll.

Part of that popularity came from his campaign promises to reduce his own salary and those of the government's top officials.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador gained popularity during his election campaign

 by promising to reduce his salary and those of top government officials (AFP Photo/

Alfredo ESTRELLA)

However, Mexico City's airport police are less impressed with AMLO's humble availability.

"When he has to cross the entire airport, it's the worst," said an airport police officer who wished to remain anonymous.

"People pounce on him. If one day someone wants to do something to him we won't be able to stop them because he doesn't like being guarded.

"He can't continue like this, he has to use the VIP room."

On this journey, AMLO was heading to one of a part of Mexico infested with drug traffickers and violent gangs. But he has no fear of being attacked, believing himself protected by an assortment of talismans.

"I have a lot of protection, this is a shield," he told AFP, holding up an image of the "Sacred Heart" of Jesus.

Among his other protective amulets, AMLO carries a four leaf clover and a dollar given to him by a Mexican migrant.

Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says he doesn't need the protection of 

the security services as he has a collection of talismans (AFP Photo/Alfredo ESTRELLA)

'It's awful'

For some passengers, having the president on their flight gives them a feeling of security.

Carmen Diaz, a 52-year-old housewife traveling to Sinaloa for a party, said she would have "never expected" to find herself on a flight with the president.

Although she worried it would be unsafe due to the number of people aboard, "it's the opposite because they're watching the flight closer."

But for air stewardess Alejandra Martinez, the flight is a headache.

"It's awful that he's come on my flight. People are ignoring the (safety) instructions, they're leaving their seats even during turbulence and the press don't understand that their cameras could become projectiles if something unexpected happens," she said.

"I hope he never travels with my family."

Upon landing at the Culiacan airport in Sinaloa, AMLO was met by throngs of supporters and angry widows of police officers killed in the fight against drug traffickers.

After all the commotion of his humble journey, AMLO had no time for the waiting masses, and was whisked away by the local governor's security detail.

Canada's Trudeau announces $53 million in aid to Venezuelans

Yahoo – AFP, Michel COMTE, February 4, 2019

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledges Can$53 million, about $40 million,
in humanitarian aid for Venezuelans (AFP Photo/Lars Hagberg)

Ottawa (AFP) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Monday pledged Can$53 million (US$40 million) in humanitarian aid for Venezuelans amid a deepening crisis.

"Today, Canada is stepping up and announcing $53 million to address the most pressing needs of Venezuelans on the ground, including almost 3 million refugees," Trudeau told a gathering of the Lima Group of nations.

"The bulk of the funds will go to trusted partners, and neighboring countries to help them support Venezuela and Venezuelans," he said.

The 14-member Lima Group, which includes most Latin American countries and Canada, met to discuss how to support opposition leader Juan Guaido, who proclaimed himself acting president last month.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Deputy Head of European Diplomacy Helga Schmid were to participate by videoconference in the debates.

Guaido, who heads the opposition-controlled National Assembly, addressed the gathering in a video message, saying he looked forward to having "free and fair elections as soon as possible in order to restore democracy to Venezuela."

Venezuelans are "very close to reclaiming their freedom," he said.

Most of the bloc last week urged Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to step down, and make way for elections to deal with an economic collapse that has sent Venezuelans flooding into neighboring countries.

Madrid, London, Paris, Berlin and several other European capitals on Monday also backed Guaido as interim president of Venezuela after Maduro refused to call a presidential election despite a European ultimatum.

Created in 2017, the Lima Group includes Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico (which did not recognize Guaido), Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Guyana and Saint Lucia.

Trudeau, Guaido call

Trudeau, who has been personally involved in the crisis, spoke with Guaido by telephone on Sunday. The two men called for the organization of a "free and fair" presidential election in Venezuela and reaffirmed the "illegitimacy" of Maduro's presidency.

Maduro began a new term in office last month after disputed 2018 elections whose results were rejected as invalid by the opposition.

Julio Borges, leader of the Primero Justicia Party of Venezuela and Guaido's special envoy, told reporters as he arrived for the Lima Group meeting that European backing of Guaido was "very good news."

"We are hoping and we are expecting at this meeting of the Lima Group to have full support for the humanitarian channel, for the coalition for freedom in Venezuela, full support for free elections in our country, full support for new measures for democratic pressure in order to finish the regime of Maduro," he said.

"We really believe that what we are doing is not only for Venezuela, it's the fall of the Berlin wall in Latin America and it's a new chapter for history."

The Canadian funding will go specifically to providing emergency food assistance, healthcare, water and sanitation, education and protection services for those most affected by the crisis, including refugees.

Canada will also help monitor and report on the human rights situation in Venezuela.

Brazilian indigenous community threatened in aftermath of dam burst

Yahoo – AFP, Rosa SULLEIRO, February 1, 2019

An indigenous woman of the Pataxo Ha-ha-hae community crying as she looks out
over the Paraopeba river, filled with mud after a disastrous dam collapse in Brazil's
Minas Gerais state (AFP Photo/Mauro Pimentel)

São Joaquim de Bicas (Brazil) (AFP) - In her 88 years, Antonia Alves has seen much hardship as a member of Brazil's indigenous community, whose people have often been driven from their ancestral lands over conflicts with farmers and loggers.

Until a few days ago, she had never seen an entire river die right before her eyes.

This is the unthinkable ecological nightmare her people are facing, however, after a dam storing mining waste collapsed in Minas Gerais state in southeast Brazil, engulfing the village of Brumadinho, where 110 people have been confirmed dead.

Another 238 unfortunates are still missing, hopes of their recovery all but gone in the toxic wave of sludge that engulfed them, suffocating everything in its path to the Paraopeba river.

The brown waters, which reek of dead fish, reached as far as Nao Xoha, a village sheltered by the Atlantic rainforest 14 miles (22 kilometers) from the burst dam.

Alves and her small branch of the Pataxo Ha-Ha-Hae indigenous people settled in the forest a year and a half ago, relocating from their strife-torn ancestral lands in the north to live in nature according to their customs.

"It is very sad because we lived off the river," said Alves, her face lined by age and sun, head crowned with a band of white and purple feathers.

A member of the Pataxo Ha-ha-hae community carrying a cooking pan along a
path through the forest (AFP Photo/Mauro Pimentel)

"We bathed there, took our water from it, washed our clothes there and fished from it. Indians live from fishing and hunting."

Alves' neighbor Jocelia Josi describes the stench as she pulled dead fish from what formerly an important tributary of the Sao Francisco, the longest entirely-Brazilian river.

'Village of resistance'

"Now we don't have any more food from there," said the 46-year-old, who is waiting for her daughter and three-month-old grandson to return from the state capital Belo Horizonte, where they were evacuated after the disaster.

It is lunchtime in Nao Xoha -- which means "warrior spirit" in the community's native tongue -- and Alves and her husband Gervasio, a serene elder of 93, are waiting for their daughter to finish cooking outside their modest hut.

But today is no normal day. Nothing has been normal here since Dam Number 1, owned by mining giant Vale, burst last Friday, dramatically changing the lives of the 27 families living in the village.

Nao Xoha lacks its own medic, but a doctor has checked up on the 15 people who were not evacuated, and volunteers have brought supplies to the community, which always lacked electricity and now has no water.

Hayo Pataxo ha-ha-hae, the 29-year-old leader of the indigenous community, 

looks at the Paraopeba river, filled with toxic mud from the Brumadinho dam

collapse, where his community used to catch fish to eat (AFP Photo/Mauro Pimentel)

To reach the village, visitors have to cross a railway line where cargo trains pass and then enter the verdant Atlantic rainforest.

The dam breach unleashed a torrent of almost 13 million cubic tons of mud that swept across the countryside before reaching the river.

But its impact spreads even further than the vast scar of mud that rescue services are probing for the bodies of the missing.

The government of Minas Gerais has warned that the metal-tainted waters present a health risk and organizations like the WWF have said the environmental impact will be felt for years to come.

"They have taken away part of our reserve, killed a part of it, but we are a village of resistance and we will get over this," said community leader Hayo Pataxo Ha-ha-hae, who sported a head dress made of palm fronds.

"We will carry on even if the river has died. Nature depends on us to preserve it."

'Lack of respect'

He had just attended another meeting with FUNAI -- the Brazilian government body responsible for indigenous peoples' interests -- and said it was too early to determine what action the community would take against Vale.

He simply insisted that his people would resist, and defend their traditional lifestyle, just as they have for centuries.

A dead fish in the waters of the Paraopeba river, near the town of Brumadinho where 

a dam full of mining waste collapsed on January 25 (AFP Photo/Mauro Pimentel)

"It shows a lack of respect towards us", said Tahh'a, a well-built watchman aged 55, his frown wrinkling the black paint on his face.

"The biggest loss for us is the fish, because we are not permitted to hunt around here," he said, holding a pointed stick in his hand, a machete dangling from his hip.

While the full extent of the environmental impact remains unclear, the precedents are not encouraging.

No one here can forget the destruction of the Rio Doce river, also in Minas Gerais, which was devastated by the collapse in 2015 of the Mariana dam, the biggest environmental disaster in Brazilian history. That barrier was also jointly owned by Vale.

"I want to tell not only Vale, but also our leaders, to punish those guilty of doing this to our indigenous nation, together with the farmers and the families who lost people," said 29-year Hayo.

"How many more people have to be killed before the justice department takes notice?" he demanded.

"It is very sad," added Alves. "When are they going to clean up the river? When will there be fish in it again?"

Related Article:

UN shines spotlight on dying indigenous languages

UN shines spotlight on dying indigenous languages

Yahoo – AFP, February 1, 2019

Dawn Madahbee, an Ojibwe Indian and business executive of the woodland peoples
 of Canada, addresses delegates at the First Nations Economic Opportunities Conference
in Sydney, Australia in July 2006 (AFP Photo/TORSTEN BLACKWOOD)

United Nations (United States) (AFP) - There's Ojibwe in Canada, Ami in Australia and Ayapanec in Mexico: these are among the world's nearly 2,700 indigenous languages at risk of disappearing unless new initiatives are taken to revive them, UN officials say.

The United Nations is hoping to raise awareness of the cultural loss with the launch this week of the International Year of Indigenous Languages, a yearlong project to help protect these ancient mother tongues.

"2019 must serve as a turning point in our collective determination to save indigenous languages and those who speak them," Maria Fernanda Espinosa, the president of the General Assembly, told a UN gathering on Friday.

Young aborigines from Taiwan participate in a blessing ceremony at the Amerindian

village of Klahowya, British Columbia, Canada in September 2011 (AFP Photo/

Laurent Vu The)

Out of the roughly 7,600 languages spoken worldwide, 2,680 indigenous languages are in danger and many are disappearing at an alarming rate, according to UN officials.

"Every two weeks, there is an indigenous language that disappears, so it is a pretty large toll indeed," said Ernesto Ottone-Ramirez, an assistant director at the UN's cultural agency UNESCO.

In 2003, the last fluent speaker of Akkala Saami, spoken in Russia's northern Kola peninsula, died, a few years before Tefvic Esenc Eyak disappeared in 2008 with the death of Marie Smith Jones in Alaska.

At a ceremony in Paris this week, eight-year-old Odeskkun Thusky spoke in his native Algonquin from Canada's First Nation regions in Quebec and Ontario.

Dawn Madahbee, an Ojibwe Indian and business executive of the woodland 

peoples of Canada, addresses delegates at the First Nations Economic 

Opportunities Conference in Sydney, Australia in July 2006 (AFP Photo/

TORSTEN BLACKWOOD)

"It's important to speak this language because our language here is dying and we want more people to speak it so our language doesn't die," Thusky told AFP.

Canada, home to around 630 First Nation tribes comprising 1.4 million people, has promised funds to help revitalize several languages.

In Australia, more than 250 aboriginal languages were spoken when the British first started to settle in 1788, but only around 120 are still spoken today.

In a bid to hold on to them, some Northern Territory schools now provide education in both English and an aboriginal language.