Roberto Velasco embodies two qualities valued by President Claudia Sheinbaum: technical expertise and generational renewal. At 38, he is the youngest to lead the department in nearly a century.
Financial strangulation, as he put it, is the latest weapon in the government's escalating effort to clear the way for expanded mining and oil development in one of the world's most biodiverse countries. Months earlier, officials had temporarily frozen the accounts of several of Ecuador's most prominent environmental defenders, including Tapia, citing investigations into unjust private enrichment and financing terrorism.
The operation, illegal according to international law, marks the latest in a long history of US interventions in Latin America, often justified by Washington with claims of regional security. Many of these interventions can be traced back to the Monroe Doctrine, a foreign policy principle which despite its 19th century origins has continued to influence US foreign policy over the past 200 years.
The United States demanded on Wednesday that Cuba undertake very dramatic changes very soon, while increasing pressure on an island facing its worst economic crisis in decades. At the same time, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is holding conversations with Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, grandson of Raul Castro, the regime's strongman, according to the U.S. outlet Axios, which claims these talks are taking place outside the Cuban government's official channels in Havana.
The Mexican president's phone call, asking Castro to leave a summit of heads of state before the arrival of U.S. president George W. Bush, perfectly illustrates the dilemma that other Mexican presidents have historically faced, and which now confronts the government of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum: how to maintain good relations with both Cuba and the United States. Sheinbaum finds herself stuck in this dichotomy,
There are more signs that the United States is disengaging from the global order established after World War II. President Donald Trump has ordered his administration to pull out of more than 60 agencies, half of them part of the United Nations. Trump argues that being a member of these organisations is contrary to his country's interests. The secretary of state went as far as saying they're useless or wasteful.
Petro said he had invited Rodriguez to meet in the border city of Cucuta to discuss energy cooperation and infrastructure projects. Venezuela's interim President Delcy Rodriguez has announced that she and Colombian President Gustavo Petro agreed to hold a bilateral meeting to discuss security issues, as well as economic and energy matters. We continue to promote a relationship of understanding and shared benefits for the wellbeing of our peoples, Rodriguez said in a post shared on Instagram on Wednesday.