Redcuban1959 [any]

Since 2009, China has been Brazil’s largest trading partner, with trade steadily increasing to reach a record US$158 billion in 2023. On Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomed Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva with honors at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where the two leaders held a closed-door meeting before signing new bilateral agreements.

“For years, the international order has needed deep reforms. In recent months, the world has become more unpredictable, more unstable and more fragmented. China and Brazil are determined to unite against unilateralism and protectionism,” Lula said. He is taking part in the 4th China-CELAC Ministerial Meeting.

The Brazilian president also voiced opposition to trade wars, stating they “have no winners,” “increase prices,” “suppress economies” and “erode the incomes of the most vulnerable people in each country.”

“President Xi Jinping and I support fair trade based on the rules of the World Trade Organization,” Lula emphasized. Xi, for his part, stressed that China and Brazil will jointly defend free trade and the multilateral system. He said the two countries must stand together against unilateralism, protectionism and acts of intimidation.

The text reads, “If virality were not driving analysis in Brazil, this powerful image of Lula and Xi Jinping would be duly interpreted as a show of unity and strength of the Global South through multilateralism and the Brazilian would be celebrated as a statesman, because he is.”

Xi also noted that both nations should align their development strategies, advance the building of a China-Brazil community, promote greater solidarity and cooperation among Global South countries, and strengthen collaboration in infrastructure, agriculture, energy and the energy transition.

Since 2009, China has been Brazil’s largest trading partner, with trade steadily increasing to reach a record US$158 billion in 2023. That year, Brazil registered a favorable trade surplus of US$51 billion. Bilateral cooperation spans nearly all sectors, under a broad strategic partnership agreement in effect since 2012.

On the global stage, in addition to being members of the G20, Brazil and China — along with Russia, India and South Africa — are founding members of BRICS, the economic cooperation group that also includes Iran, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Ethiopia. Brazil holds the rotating BRICS presidency in 2025 and will host the next summit, raising expectations that Xi will visit the country in the coming months. He last visited Brazil in November 2024.

The U.S. President’s visit comes amid ongoing turmoil in the Middle East. On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in the Saudi capital Riyadh, kicking off his visit to the Middle East amid calls for Washington to play a role in facilitating regional stability.

Trump was greeted at King Khaled International Airport by Prime Minister and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as “MBS” and considered Saudi Arabia’s strongman, who extended his hand at the bottom of the plane’s stairs before escorting him to the airport’s Royal Lounge.

The four-day whirlwind tour will take Trump to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, where he intends to meet with Gulf leaders and finalize investment deals worth trillions of U.S. dollars.

The visit comes amid ongoing turmoil in the Middle East: negotiations between the United States and Iran over nuclear issues have shown little progress; Israel’s offensive in Gaza continues; and there are no clear signs of de-escalation in its hostilities with Yemen’s Houthis and Lebanon.

The United States has come under widespread regional criticism for backing Israel’s military escalation and proposing the relocation of Palestinians from Gaza. Regional analysts hope that Washington could play a meaningful role during Trump’s visit by promoting a ceasefire and easing tensions.

With many issues in the Middle East “unsolved,” the need for the United States to coordinate with regional countries appears to be “more pressing than ever,” said Abdulaziz Sager, chairman of the Gulf Research Center. Saudi Arabia marks Trump’s first major official overseas visit of his second term. On his inauguration day in January, Trump said that he would choose Saudi Arabia as his first destination “if Saudi Arabia wanted to buy another 450, or 500 billion.”

‘We’ll work with Latin American and Caribbean countries to firmly safeguard the international system,’ he said. On Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed support for Latin American countries in their rejection of foreign interference in domestic affairs.

This show of support for national sovereignty came during the opening address of the 4th China-CELAC Ministerial Forum, held with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). “China supports the countries of the region in safeguarding their national sovereignty and independence,” Xi said, urging CELAC nations to “pursue a development path suited to their national conditions.”

In addition to the foreign ministers of CELAC countries, the forum includes the participation of presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Gabriel Boric of Chile, and Gustavo Petro of Colombia, who currently holds CELAC’s rotating presidency. Xi emphasized that China and Latin American countries are “important members of the Global South” and must remain united amid rising geopolitical tensions, bloc confrontations and increasing tendencies toward unilateralism and protectionism.

“We will work with Latin American and Caribbean countries to firmly safeguard the international system and speak with one voice on international and regional affairs,” he said.

“Development and revitalization are our inherent rights, and fairness and justice are our shared aspirations,” Xi added, in the face of “geopolitical turmoil and confrontation.” He highlighted joint efforts “to practice true multilateralism, uphold international fairness and justice, and promote the reform of the global governance system to advance multipolarity.”

The Chinese leader noted that trade between China and Latin America surpassed US$500 billion for the first time in 2024 and said his country is committed to continued mutual support with CELAC nations on issues concerning their “core interests and major concerns.”

Xi also announced that China would extend a US$9.2 billion line of credit to the region and enhance cooperation on security and law enforcement.

“We must deepen exchanges across various sectors and strengthen communication and coordination on significant international and regional issues,” Xi said. He added that Beijing will invite 300 political party leaders from CELAC countries to visit China to “exchange experiences on governance.”

The 4th China-CELAC forum will address issues including electrical interconnection, renewable energy, trade integration, projects linked to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and access to natural resources such as lithium, rare earth elements, oil, and copper.

The President of Bolivia, Luis Arce, has announced that he will not run for office again in the elections scheduled for August 17. The decision, made public a few hours before registration for the presidential race opened, follows a long path of divisions within the Movement for Socialism (MAS), the party that has governed the country almost uninterruptedly for over 20 years. “Today I make known to the Bolivian people with absolute firmness my decision to withdraw my candidacy for the presidential elections next August,” Arce said, calling for unity in his political party, to prevent the “fascist project” designed to “destroy the plurinational state” from winning. The appeal was especially directed at his predecessor, who was once a political ally, Evo Morales, who is seeking a new mandate despite the various legal impediments certified by the Constitutional Court. “From this stage I challenge former President Evo Morales not to insist on being a candidate for the presidency,” he said.

An economist, 61 years old, Arce has also long been responsible for a social and economic crisis in the country that has brought his government’s approval ratings to their lowest levels in years. The crisis in the availability of the dollar, which the Central Bank has kept tied to a relatively stable exchange rate with the Bolivian for years, and the poor supply of fuel, crucial in a country whose structure makes road transport dominant, are at the root of numerous social protests, often resulting in prolonged closures of the main roads. A poll in view of the presidential elections, published at the end of March by the company Captura, assigned Arce about 1 percent of the preferences.

The hope of the incumbent president is that the unity of the left-wing forces, once united in the MAS and now divided into three segments, can be recomposed. In addition to those of Morales and Arce, who was for a long time Minister of Finance in the governments of the “cocalero” leader, there is in fact a third front that refers to Andronicus Rodriguez, president of the Senate who surprisingly launched his candidacy in recent days, when the head of state was still in the running. A decision that had opened controversy for the possible further fragmentation of the vote, but which today, in light of Morales’ renunciation, could be less serious. The political fracture between Arce and Morales, the former considered distant from the leftist values ​​proclaimed by the latter, has led over time to the division of the MAS into two blocks, both in parliament and in the country, protagonists of intense political and legal clashes. Lastly, in November 2024, Evo was ousted from the party he had led for 27 years, forcing him to take refuge in a new political force – Evo Pueblo – which proclaims total distance from the MAS.

Morales has theoretically exhausted the maximum limit of presidential mandates recognized by the Constitution, having also lost a referendum that he had called precisely to overcome the obstacle, but he does not intend to give up the race, denouncing a maneuver against him orchestrated by the right. The indigenous leader is also the protagonist of a delicate judicial affair: accused of sexual violence against minors and human trafficking, he is the subject of an arrest warrant that has been evading for months, sheltered by his most loyal supporters in the region of Cochabamba, which has always been his political and electoral bastion. Not infrequently, protests against the government’s actions have been confused with clashes between supporters of Arce and those of Morales, a leader whom the president accuses of wanting to act only to prolong his political trajectory to the detriment of the interests of the people.

Latin America mourns the death of the Tupamaro guerrilla who became a world symbol of political coherence and honesty. Former Uruguayan President José “Pepe” Mujica passed away this Tuesday, May 13, 2025, at the age of 89 at his farm in Rincón del Cerro, Montevideo, after battling a terminal phase of esophageal cancer. He was accompanied by his wife, Lucía Topolansky

Although Jose Mujica withdrew from electoral politics, he remained active in the grassroots work of the Popular Participation Movement, continuing to serve as a prominent figure for the Latin American left until the end of his life. This iconic leader governed Uruguay from 2010 to 2015. In his youth, during the 1960s and 1970s, Mujica was part of the National Liberation Movement–Tupamaros, a guerrilla group remembered for its daring operations in urban resistance against the dictatorship.

He spent approximately 13 years in prison. Mujica was captured multiple times and imprisoned from the early 1970s until 1985, during Uruguay’s civic-military dictatorship. He endured harsh conditions, spending most of his incarceration in solitary confinement. Once released, he became involved in party politics. As president, Mujica became a global reference point for his extremely austere lifestyle and his commitment to fighting poverty and promoting social equality.

“Pepe Mujica was a Tupamaro, a leftist, and anti-imperialist. He was the Uruguayan president who legalized abortion, marijuana, and gay marriage. His political impact on human civilization was so positive, and he remains an icon of freedom and dignity for Latin America.”

Early Steps Toward an Unwavering Social Commitment

Born in Montevideo in 1935, Mujica spent much of his youth working in the countryside. In the 1960s, he became interested in agricultural and social issues, which led him to active political engagement. This occurred as Uruguay’s economy began to stagnate, hitting the middle and lower classes the hardest.

In 1962, Mujica left the National Party and joined the Tupamaros, an urban guerrilla movement with a Marxist orientation inspired by the Cuban Revolution. There, he met Lucia Topolansky, who would become a legislator, vice president and his lifelong partner. Mujica participated in guerrilla actions and was imprisoned multiple times, the last being in 1972 at the beginning of the dictatorship. He spent most of his confinement in solitary isolation until his release in 1985, when democracy was restored in Uruguay. That experience deeply shaped his later focus on dialogue and social peace.

After his release, Mujica entered electoral politics. Alongside other former guerrillas, he co-founded the Popular Participation Movement, which became a faction within the Broad Front, a left-wing coalition founded in the 1970s. Mujica was elected to the legislature in 1995 and became a senator in 1999. In these roles, he contributed to the legalization of informal labor and improvements in social security for urban workers and farmers. From 2005 to 2008, he served as minister of agriculture during the administration of Tabare Vazquez. His impeccable reputation and enduring popularity propelled him to the presidency in 2010.

Mujica’s Latin American Dimension

During his presidency from 2010 to 2015, Mujica implemented social inclusion and welfare policies. A key example of his progressive outlook was the passage of the Equal Marriage Act in 2013.

His “Together Plan” focused on improving housing conditions for the poorest families, while the “Equity Plan” continued financial support for households with children in vulnerable situations.

Although Mujica was unable to carry out a major educational reform, the Uruguayan economy continued to grow, and poverty declined steadily during his administration.

He diversified Uruguay’s productive matrix without abandoning agricultural investment, strengthening the country’s position as a food exporter. One of his most groundbreaking initiatives was the 2013 legalization of the production, sale, and consumption of cannabis—a global first.

Internationally, Mujica sought diplomatic balance and promoted dialogue as a means of resolving geopolitical conflicts. Under his leadership, Uruguay solidified its role in regional organizations such as the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).

A Politician Who Shone Through Simplicity

After completing his presidential term, Mujica remained active in both international and national politics, while his image became amplified by his charisma and wisdom. At various forums and institutional settings, he continued to passionately advocate against imperialism and for the self-determination of peoples.

Known for his austere lifestyle and concern for environmental issues, Mujica frequently urged world leaders and citizens alike to adopt a more humane and less consumerist mindset—one that aimed for sustainable development for future generations.

“We have invented a mountain of superfluous needs. Shopping for new, discarding the old… That’s a waste of our lives! When I buy something, or you, we’re not paying with money. We’re paying with the time from our lives we had to spend to earn that money,” he said.

Mujica returned to his Senate seat from 2015 to 2018. Later, he continued to influence public discourse as an active commentator on political and economic developments. In April, he announced his intention to step away from the public spotlight due to being diagnosed with esophageal cancer.

Nevertheless, to the extent that his health allowed, Mujica remained politically active as a committed grassroots member of Uruguayan left. He participated in several campaign rallies during the election that brought Broad Front candidate Yamandu Orsi to the presidency.

“To live in accordance with how one thinks, that’s what I call having dignity. That’s how I try to live. And I don’t say that others should do it, but I do believe that if politicians lived like the majority, they would be respected,” said Mujica, a man who donated most of his presidential salary, drove an old Volkswagen Beetle, and lived in a modest farmhouse—choices that made his words resonate far beyond Uruguay.

Montevideo, May 13 (Prensa Latina) The specialized prosecutor for Crimes against Humanity, Ricardo Perciballe, requested the prosecution with imprisonment and the closing of borders for the former commander in chief of the Uruguayan Navy, Tabaré Daners, it was reported today.

Perciballe filed the same claim for sailors Nelson Wander Olivera, Raúl Fernando Lecumberry and Eduardo José Mendoza. All of them are being investigated for the torture of 10 members of the Union of Communist Youth (UJC) and the Communist Party of Uruguay (PCU) in August 1977.

In the document presented to the Justice the prosecutor points out that they were detained in the Fusileros Navales (Fusna), “interrogated and tortured so that they would admit their links to the referred structures, as well as to provide the names of other members”. The testimonies collected by the prosecutor give an account of the tortures they suffered while they were held in the Fusna.

“There are two forms of torture, physical (cattle prods, hangings, waterboarding, clubbing, kicking) and then there is psychological torture, which they do not touch (…) We were all subjected to the same treatment, all of this happened in the Fusna,” said one of the witnesses. Perciballe requested the prosecution of Daners for crimes of serious injuries, deprivation of liberty and private violence against the detainees. Tabaré Daners appears as summary judge in several cases in which the complainants ended up being prosecuted by the so-called “military justice” with “absolutely spurious” and “fraudulent” sentences, says the document from the prosecutor’s office.

Russia was and will remain an insurmountable barrier to Nazism, Russophobia, and antisemitism, he stressed. On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to continue fighting Nazism, including in Ukraine, during the military parade marking the 80th anniversary of the Red Army’s victory in World War II.

“Russia was and will remain an insurmountable barrier to Nazism, Russophobia, and antisemitism, and will combat the brutality of those promoting such aggressive and destructive ideas,” Putin said during his address from a tribune set up in Red Square in front of Lenin’s Mausoleum.

Putin declared that his country would never forget the lessons of the WW2, in which the USSR— which did not engage in the war until Germany invaded Soviet territory in 1941— lost 26 million people, including eight million soldiers. Although Kyiv did not officially join the three-day unilateral truce declared by Putin, Ukrainian drones did not spoil the Kremlin’s celebration, and none had flown over Russian territory since the day before.

Putin and Xi, Inseparable

A smiling Putin appeared on the tribune between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the 100-year-old Soviet veteran Ivan Martinushkin, the last living witness who participated in the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland by the Red Army on January 27, 1945.

Putin did not part from Xi for a single moment, constantly making comments to him about the units and military equipment parading over the cobblestones of the square. Not even when they later laid a floral offering at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

In addition to Russian troops, military detachments from thirteen countries marched, including an honor guard from China’s People’s Liberation Army. Not far from Putin sat invited leaders such as Lula da Silva (Brazil), Nicolas Maduro (Venezuela), Miguel Diaz-Canel (Cuba), Teodoro Obiang (Equatorial Guinea), and Alexander Lukashenko (Belarus).

Also invited to the tribune were American and Israeli war veterans, but notably absent were representatives from the Soviet Union’s World War II allies, who did attend the 50th and 60th anniversaries in 1995 and 2005.

Nazism Is Still Alive

Putin, who requested a moment of silence in memory of the fallen, asserted that “truth and justice” are on Russia’s side in fighting the rehabilitation of Nazism, accusing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—who is of Jewish descent—of doing just that.

He emphasized that the ancestors of the Russian people “entrusted” their descendants to “firmly defend national interests, their millennia-old history, culture, traditional values, and everything that is valuable and sacred to us,” clearly alluding to the Russian language and Orthodox religion in Ukraine.

“The entire country, society, and people support the participants in the special military operation. We are proud of their bravery and determination, that strength of spirit which has always and only brought us victory,” he said and paid tribute to the role played by the Allied countries in defeating Hitler’s forces.

“We will always remember that the opening of a second front in Europe after the decisive battles on Soviet territory brought the victory closer… Russia highly values the contribution to our shared victory made by the soldiers of the Allied armies, resistance fighters, the brave Chinese people, and all those who fought for a peaceful future,” Putin stated.

“The complete defeat of Nazi Germany, militarist Japan, and their satellites in various parts of the world was achieved thanks to joint efforts,” he insisted.

Intercontinental Missiles and Assault Drones

During the parade itself, around 130 war machines rolled through, including the legendary Soviet T-34 tanks and SU-100 self-propelled artillery units, both used during WW2. One of the stars of the parade was the imposing Yars intercontinental ballistic missiles, which have a range of up to 7,500 miles.

Also on display were T-90M Proryv tanks—the first Russian tank with an automatic transmission; the 152mm Malva artillery piece mounted on an eight-wheeled BAZ chassis; Iskander ballistic missiles; and the new Kurganets-25 armored personnel carrier.

But the real novelty was the drones, which have proven highly effective in Ukraine. Specifically, the parade featured Geran-2 drones, widely believed to be copies of Iranian Shahed drones; Orlan reconnaissance drones; and Lancet kamikaze drones, all transported on Kamaz off-road trucks.