FTS 12:30 21-07: Colombia’s Pres. calls on lawmakers to advance reforms
21/07/2023
FTS 12.30
*NASA warns that July may be the warmest month ever
*Thousands rally in Lebanon against Quran desecration in Sweden
FTS 12.30
*NASA warns that July may be the warmest month ever
*Thousands rally in Lebanon against Quran desecration in Sweden
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NewsTranscript
00:00 In Colombia, President Gustavo Petro installed a new congressional session with a call to
00:13 lawmakers to contribute to move forward environmental and social justice reforms.
00:22 The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, warned that July may be the warmest
00:28 month ever recorded.
00:33 And in Lebanon, thousands took to the streets in Beirut to express their outrage at the
00:37 discredition of a copy of the Quran in Sweden.
00:45 Hello welcome to From the South, I'm Luis Alberto Matos from Adresu Studios in Havana,
00:50 Cuba.
00:51 We begin with the news.
00:52 In Haiti's capital city, demonstrators took to the streets to demand the resignation of
00:56 Prime Minister Henry and a reduction in fuel prices.
00:59 Protesters burned tires and threw stones at the police, who responded with tear gas.
01:04 Demonstrators called for the Henry government to lower the price of fuels, including gasoline,
01:08 diesel and kerosene.
01:10 They also blamed the Prime Minister for the increased violence in the country that saw
01:14 75 people killed and another 40 kidnapped from May 1st to mid-July.
01:24 Under Prime Minister Ariel Henry, we have had more kidnappings, more corruption, more
01:29 insecurity, an increase in rape and unemployment, as well as poverty and poverty cuts.
01:37 In Guatemala, the Public Prosecutor's Office confirmed an arrest warrant against Eleonora
01:41 Noemi Castillo Pinzón, deputy director of the Registry of Citizens of the Supreme Electoral
01:46 Tribunal.
01:48 The public ministry also confirmed that a raid was carried out at the Registry of Citizens.
01:52 The Special Prosecutor's Office against impunity also carried out a raid at the Directorate
01:56 of Human Resources of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to seize documents, particularly
02:00 the employment file of Castillo Pinzón.
02:03 The statement from the Seventh Court said the arrest warrant against Eleonora Castillo
02:08 is for obstruction of justice.
02:10 According to them, she refused to comply with judges' order.
02:15 It was a search operation to seize documents.
02:21 The record of the deputy director of the Registry of Citizens, who is currently the acting director.
02:41 In this concert, dozens of people took to the streets to protest against the investigation
02:45 launched by the Attorney General's Office against presidential candidate Bernardo Arevalo's
02:50 Zemilla Party.
02:51 Guatemala has been roughed by four weeks by illegal actions against the winners of the
02:55 first round of elections, prompting protests at home and reproaches internationally for
03:00 alleged election meddling.
03:01 The Public Prosecutor's Office alleges irregularity in the collection of signatures during the
03:05 founding of the Zemilla Party.
03:08 Today is the seventh day that we are here calling for demonstrations, sending a clear
03:17 message that leaders should be elected the ballot box and not in the courts.
03:21 That is the reason for the demonstrations to reject the regressive agenda of the Congress
03:26 of the Republic, the Supreme Court of Justice and different state institutions that are
03:30 trying to obstruct the Guatemalan electoral process.
03:34 Above all, the Public Prosecutor's Office does not have jurisdiction over the Supreme
03:39 Electoral Court, which is the entity that will have to say yes or no to a political
03:44 party.
03:46 On Thursday, the Red Cross confirmed that 20 people were injured when a bus carrying
03:49 migrants overturned on a Costa Rican road near the Nicaraguan border.
03:53 The accident occurred near the small farming town of Los Chiles, and around 65 migrants
03:57 were traveling from Panama to Nicaragua to continue their journey to the United States.
04:02 According to Javier Gonzalez, head of emergency response, the injured were taken in ambulances
04:07 to the hospital in the city of San Carlos, some 90 kilometers from the scene of the accident.
04:13 Your figure said one of them was in critical condition.
04:22 We have a bus that overturned off the road approximately two meters with a capacity for
04:26 approximately 60 to 65 migrants.
04:30 One was transferred in critical condition at the moment.
04:33 Ten were transferred in urgent condition, and we are finishing the work of patient assessment
04:39 to make a transfer to the hospital of San Carlos.
04:42 They are in stable condition.
04:45 In Colombia, President Gustavo Petro installed a new congressional session with a call to
04:49 lawmakers to contribute to move forward his environmental and social justice programs.
04:55 According to local analysts, the second legislative period that began this Thursday will test the
05:00 capacity of President Petro to advance the social reforms he proposed to Colombians during
05:04 his electoral campaign.
05:06 Petro defended the need for a broad agrarian reform to solve one of the country's major
05:11 problems, which is land tenure.
05:13 Interior Minister Luis Fernando Velasco announced that the government will insist on processing
05:18 a health reform that will give access to basic services to millions of Colombians in the
05:23 countryside.
05:24 In this context, President Gustavo Petro spoke about the negotiations between his government
05:30 and the National Liberation Army.
05:32 The head of state affirmed that the war between the state and the emergency is coming to an
05:37 end.
05:37 In terms of peace, we have undoubtedly taken initiatives which are debatable.
05:47 I accept the discussion and the criticism.
05:50 Nobody has the true answer to the question of how to achieve peace in Colombia.
05:54 The country has advanced and regressed for decades.
05:59 We have carried out the peace process with the ELN, and it is moving forward.
06:06 Now there is a ceasefire with the National Liberation Army throughout the country.
06:12 The war between the state and the insurgency, which is the one that produced the casualties,
06:17 is coming to an end.
06:19 No, I'm not a lawyer.
06:24 The war is coming to an end.
06:27 In Brazil, President Lula said about the completion of 186,000 unfinished projects of the Brazil
06:33 social housing program, which was paralyzed after the 2016 coup against former President
06:39 Dilma Rousseff.
06:40 Our correspondent, Brian Meir, with details.
06:44 After the 2016 coup against President Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's social housing program
06:50 was paralyzed.
06:51 Last week, President Lula ordered all 186,000 unfinished projects to be completed.
06:58 Now residents of Brazil's first social movement housing development are finally receiving
07:02 their land deeds.
07:04 This project started throughout the struggle of free social movements.
07:11 It started as a squatters' camp.
07:14 And based on this need for housing, we managed to pressure the local government to donate
07:19 the land.
07:20 And our neighborhood was born.
07:27 Like thousands of projects that followed it, the social movements in Nossa Prata neighborhood
07:31 received subsidized financing from the federal government to hire a construction crew.
07:36 They lowered costs by helping level the land and keeping the building site clean.
07:40 In exchange, they agreed to pay 25 reais a month for 10 years to receive legal ownership.
07:46 This project started in 2008 during the second term of Mayor Ives Ribeiro.
07:51 And so now we are finishing it, giving dignity to the residents by giving them the deeds
07:58 to what is already theirs.
08:02 Although it took longer than expected, residents of Nossa Prata neighborhood are proud of the
08:07 way that their pilot project was rolled out across Brazil.
08:11 This pioneering project had the wings.
08:14 This thing we started here in Paulista, Pernambuco, moved up to the national level and spread
08:21 around the world.
08:27 Brian Meir, Telesur, Paulista, Pernambuco.
08:31 Let's take a short break, but remember you can join us on TikTok @TelesurEnglish where
08:35 you will find news in different formats, news updates, and much more.
08:40 Other stories coming up.
08:43 Stay with us.
08:43 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:46, Welcome back from the south.
09:16 The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration warned that July may be the warmest month
09:22 ever recorded, according to monitoring tools from the European Union and the US University
09:26 of Maine, which combined ground and satellite data, several daily temperature records have
09:33 already been broken this month.
09:36 NASA climatologist Gavin Smith indicated that these effects cannot only be attributed to
09:42 the El Nino phenomena, a recurring climate event linked to the warming of the equatorial
09:47 Pacific Ocean, which has just begun.
09:49 Smith believes that what we are seeing is widespread warming, especially in the oceans.
09:55 In the meantime, Smith predicts that this trend will continue because mankind continues
10:00 to introduce greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
10:08 And in this context, on Friday, the World Health Organization reported that a dengue
10:11 outbreak is expected in Europe after the heat wave.
10:14 The WHO expressed that it is possible that after the recent episodes of heat and rains,
10:20 an outbreak could spread in different parts of the continent.
10:23 Also the head of the WHO's Tropical Disease Control Program, Raman Bela Yudhayan, added
10:29 that the disease is raging in places where it was previously non-existent and that this
10:34 is related to climate change.
10:36 The organization urges governments to create action plans and monitor symptoms in the population.
10:41 In western India, the death toll due to a landslide in the village of Irshadwali rose
10:51 to 16.
10:52 The National Disaster Response Force reported that so far 21 people have been successfully
10:57 rescued.
10:58 The fatalities include six women and four children.
11:01 Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Vatnavesh noted that heavy rains have forced
11:07 the evacuation of nearly 11,500 residents of four districts over the past three days.
11:12 The event took place in a small village of about 225 residents in Raigad district, part
11:18 of the western state of Maharashtra, when heavy rains triggered a landslide at midnight
11:23 on Wednesday, burning about 15 homes.
11:31 In Colombia, an avalanche in the municipality of Quetame left at least 21 people dead and
11:36 several more missing.
11:37 This was confirmed by the governor of the department, Nicolas Garcia.
11:41 The governor reported that nine people are still missing and that he is committed and
11:45 obliged to find them.
11:46 Garcia explained that work continues with machinery to remove the large amount of earth
11:51 slid by the avalanche and declared a state of public comment in order to have the resources
11:56 to attend to families affected by the disaster.
11:59 The heavy rains generated a sudden rise of the Naranjal stream, which overflowed and
12:04 swept away more than 20 houses in a small village in the area.
12:12 At the end of the deadline for postal voting, Spain registers a record participation, with
12:16 more than 90% of those registered on the dismal IT ahead of the general elections on Sunday.
12:23 The postal voting period closed with a record of over 2.4 million ballot papers issued.
12:29 The number corresponds to the last official ballots released and corresponds to 93.8%
12:34 of the Spanish citizens who requested their vote by mail.
12:38 The voting process closed at 2 p.m. local time, which was the legal deadline forecast
12:43 in the ballot paper, a deadline that was extended for 24 hours after the postal company asked
12:48 the Central Electric Board to extend it.
12:50 On Friday, Russia's defense minister said Russian military vessels fired missiles at
13:09 surface targets during naval exercises in the northwestern part of the Black Sea.
13:14 The statement added that the crew of the attack vessel Ivanovets of the Russian Black Sea
13:18 Fleet fired anti-armor cruise missiles at a target ship.
13:22 The Russian ministry also said during the joint exercise that ships and fleet aviation
13:27 worked on isolating the area temporarily closed to navigation and also carried out a number
13:33 of measures to intercept a possible enemy vessel.
13:37 The exercises come after the Kremlin announced that from July 20, ships sailing in the Black
13:41 Sea bound for Ukrainian ports will be considered possible carriers of military cargo.
13:51 On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin reported that the Ukrainian military suffered
13:55 massive losses during its attempted counteroffensive, and the West is struggling to maintain supplies
14:00 of weapons and ammunition.
14:02 It's quite obvious that the Western sponsors of the Kim regime are clearly disappointed
14:09 with the results of the so-called counteroffensive that the Ukrainian authorities had talked
14:14 so much about in the previous months.
14:18 There have been no results yet.
14:23 Ukrainian military units have suffered huge losses in suicidal attacks that amount to
14:28 tens of thousands and spike constant sweep across Ukrainian cities and villages amid
14:33 the ongoing mobilizations.
14:34 It is increasingly difficult for the regime to send reinforcements to the front.
14:39 The country's mobilization resources are increasingly exhausted.
14:45 On Friday, China vowed to take all necessary measures to safeguard its institutions and
14:49 the integrity of its nationals overseas after the Chinese consul appealed in the Ukrainian
14:53 city of Odessa was damaged in a Russian strike.
14:56 Regarding the Ukraine crisis, China's position has been consistent and critical.
15:01 We stay committed to and will continue to play a constructive role in promoting a political
15:05 settlement of the crisis.
15:08 U.S. President Barack Putin announced the start of construction of the first section
15:11 of Arctic LNG-2, a gigantic liquefied natural gas project in the Arctic from which the French
15:18 company Total Energies withdrew in 2022.
15:21 Putin pointed out that the implementation of such projects will make it possible to
15:25 double Russia's capacities within five or six years after the completion of the construction
15:30 of a specialized port for the export of liquefied gas.
15:34 The president also predicted that the completion of the second line of the project will influence
15:39 the traffic on the Northern Sea Route, which will increase and will be accompanied by the
15:43 expansion of the fleet of high-class icebreakers destined to sail the Arctic Sea.
15:49 Arctic LNG-2 envisages the construction of three liquefied natural gas production lines
15:54 with an annual capacity of 6.6 million tons each, so that the total capacity of the project
16:01 will be almost 20 million tons of liquefied natural gas per year.
16:10 Treasury English launched its own videos on demand site for you to go and revisit our
16:14 interviews, top stories, special broadcastings and more.
16:18 Go to the top left corner in our website homepage and click on the video option to access our
16:23 VOD platform.
16:24 We will now take a short break.
16:26 Don't go away.
16:27 Welcome back from the South.
16:47 On Friday, thousands of people took to the streets in Lebanon's capital to express
16:51 their outrage at the desecration of a copy of the Quran in Sweden.
16:55 Others gathered at the rally called by Hezbollah, brandishing copies of the Holy Book and chanting
17:00 "With our blood, we protect the Quran."
17:03 Some burned Swedish flags.
17:04 Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called on Muslims to demand their governments expel
17:09 Sweden's ambassadors.
17:11 The demonstrations came after Swedish police permitted a protest in which an Iraqi of Frisian
17:16 origin, now a self-described atheist, living in Stockholm, kicked and stood on a Quran
17:21 outside of the Iraqi embassy.
17:29 On Friday, following a threat from Pyongyang of nuclear retaliation over growing U.S. military
17:34 deployments in the peninsula, Seoul told North Korea that its use of nuclear weapons would
17:38 mean the end of Kim Jong-un's government.
17:41 On Thursday, Pyongyang's defense minister warned that this week's port visit of a U.S.
17:46 nuclear-capable submarine to Busan, the first one since 1981, could meet the legal threshold
17:52 for the North to use its nuclear weapons.
17:54 Last year, North Korea adopted a sweeping nuclear law, setting out an array of scenarios
17:59 in which it could use its nuclear weapons, including preemptive nuclear strikes, if threatened.
18:04 On Friday, Seoul's defense minister said in a statement that Seoul and Washington have
18:08 made clear before any nuclear attack on the alliance will face an "immediate, overwhelming
18:13 and decisive response."
18:19 India, the world's largest rice exporter, prohibited with immediate effect the sale
18:23 of non-basmati white rice.
18:25 The decision could further raise international rice prices.
18:28 The Ministry of Food and Consumer Affairs said in a statement that the prohibition should
18:32 ensure an adequate supply for Indian consumers and mitigate price increases in the domestic
18:37 market.
18:39 Rice prices rose sharply due to the pandemic, the Ukraine crisis, and the impact of the
18:44 El Niño weather phenomenon on rice yields.
18:47 Indian exports of non-basmati white rice represent about 25 percent of India's total rice exports.
18:53 India's decision could increase food insecurity in countries dependent on rice imports, such
18:57 as Turkey, Syria and Pakistan.
19:05 Three months into the Cebu conflict in Sudan, fighting continues unabated and on Thursday
19:09 caused the temporary interruption of power supply and telecommunications services in
19:13 the capital of Khartoum.
19:15 Fighting between the armed forces of Sudan, which answered to the military government
19:18 and the rebel group known as the Rapid Super Forces, continues in Khartoum, North Khartoum,
19:23 Omdurman and North Kordofan.
19:27 New armed clashes between two warring side camps a day after 14 people were killed in
19:31 a drone attack by the parliamentary group on civilian communities in the capital's south,
19:36 according to a military spokesman.
19:38 For its part, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated in a report
19:42 that the fighting in this territory has claimed the lives of more than 1,100 people since
19:48 April to date, with more than 12,000 wounded.
19:56 In South Africa, a body was found in central Johannesburg early Thursday after an unexplained
20:01 explosion ripped through a major road during rush hour.
20:04 Witnesses reported chemical odors and fumes escaping after the explosion, which damaged
20:09 the road surface and overturned vehicles, including minibus cabs.
20:13 The road was closed while investigators searched the area.
20:16 The premier of Gauteng province, Pan Yasa Al-Esoufi, said a preliminary inspection had
20:21 not revealed the cause of the blast.
20:24 The services initially blamed subway gas pipes, but the city's private gas company said it
20:29 was unlikely to be the case as customers continued to receive their supplies without interruption.
20:39 In Cambodia, the 18 political forces that will compete in the national elections of
20:44 next July 23 closed on Friday their campaigns.
20:47 The parties carried out peaceful campaigns that include meetings with their supporters,
20:52 home visits, concerts, video projections and profiles in social medias.
20:56 According to a National Electoral Council report, all participating groups enjoyed the
21:00 same broadcasting time to promote their political programs on state radio and television.
21:06 The Secretary-General of the Royal Academy of Cambodia, Thiao Npaew, reaffirmed his optimism
21:11 that the ruling Cambodian People's Party will once again win a landslide victory in the
21:15 upcoming elections.
21:17 And we have come to the end of this new brief, remember you can find this and many other
21:30 stories on our website www.terrestrialinglish.net and you can join us on our social medias on
21:34 Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Telegram and TikTok.
21:37 For Terrestrial English, I'm Luis Alberto Matos, thank you for watching.
21:40 [music]