Latin America

This Christmas season most Venezuelans aren’t thinking much about sprucing up the home, buying gifts and special meals as they are preoccupied with how to put the bear basics on the table today and then tomorrow. Foto: caratodigital.net

Teodora del Carmen Vásquez is an El Salvadoran woman who suffered a stillbirth in 2007, after the rapid onset of serious pain while she was at work, notes Amnesty International. Police arrested her as she lay in a pool of blood. She was later sentenced to 30 years for ‘aggravated homicide’ under El Salvador’s strict ban on abortions of any kind and has been in jail since 2008.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro affirmed that the ruling United Socialist Party won more than 300 of the 335 mayor’s races in Sundays elections, in which most of the opposition did not participate after denouncing that the elections would not be transparent.

Venezuelans will vote tomorrow in the elections for 335 mayors and one regional governor, which will be held without formal participation of the opposition, which protested the lack of fair conditions. The vote, with a predictable victory for the United Socialist Party (PSUV) of President Maduro, were preceded by the governors’ elections of October 15, in which the ruling party won in 18 of 23 states.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced on Friday that more than 100 top officials of the state oil company PDVSA have been arrested on corruption charges. The officials were put in their positions mainly by the late president Hugo Chavez and Maduro, his successor.

Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa returned to Quito from his home in Belgium last weekend. On Tuesday he expressed his willingness to testify in favor of imprisoned Vice President Jorge Glas in the trial over illicit association following alleged bribes by the Brazilian company, Odebrecht.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-Ho met in Havana with his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodríguez on Wednesday as the two countries reiterated their mutual support and rejection of foreign interference in their internal affairs.

Ecuadorian president, Lenin Moreno, challenged his predecessor Rafael Correa to travel to the country and hold mass rallies so that people could tell him what they thought about the last years of his leadership.

Venezuela’s acting attorney general, Tarek William Saab, today informed of the arrest of the president and five executives of Citgo, a subsidiary in the United States of state oil company PDVSA, accused of signing financial contracts with conditions harmful to the industry.