07/02/2025
FTS 12.30
*Ecuador: silence begins ahead of election
*UNICEF: 1M+ children in Gaza face trauma
FTS 12.30
*Ecuador: silence begins ahead of election
*UNICEF: 1M+ children in Gaza face trauma
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00:00In Ecuador, the election silence is in place three days before the presidential elections
00:17in the country.
00:22The president of the United States, Donald Trump, imposed sanctions on the International
00:26Criminal Court for having issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu.
00:35And UNICEF denounced that over 1 million Gazan children are facing psychological trauma after
00:41more than 15 months of genocide at the hands of Israel.
00:50Hello and welcome to From the South.
00:52My name is Belén de los Santos and we are in Caracas, Venezuela, with the English news.
01:12In Ecuador, the election silence started on Friday at three days before the polls at the
01:18country.
01:19More than 14 million Ecuadorians are eligible to vote next Sunday, February 9, so that they
01:24can decide among the candidates who is best for running the nation's future.
01:29This general elections will be held amid instability triggered by political violence, energy crisis
01:35and the accusations against President Daniel Navoa for not being abided by electoral rules.
01:42The National Electoral Council announced that the voting process initiated on Thursday with
01:47the suffrage of those who are deprived of freedom without fixed sentence, and it will
01:52continue this Friday with the home voting process for people with physical limitations.
02:11And we go now to Venezuela, as President Nicolás Maduro reiterated his denunciation of the acts
02:16of corruption of the extreme right wing in the country, stressing that the sanctions
02:20requested by this sector have robbed the country of more than $600 billion.
02:26During the closing of the 5th Congress of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the
02:31President announced that in the last few years, the country has been in the presence of an
02:35extreme right wing that used politics to enrich itself.
02:39In this sense, the Venezuelan head of state condemned the terrorist actions that this
02:43group has promoted in the country, promoting violence and economic destabilization.
02:49President Nicolás Maduro also stated that with these actions, they forced Venezuelan
02:53families to migrate to other countries, profiting with their groups of coyotes who were in charge
03:00of mobilizing migrant citizens.
03:13Because if we are saying that they pocketed $31,000 million directly, that they put their
03:21hand in the pocket of the gringos with their actions of sanctions and blockades, they made
03:30the country lose more than $630,000 million.
03:48They forced thousands of families to leave the country and set up mafia companies of
03:54coyotes to take them first to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and down there.
04:04And then, in the year 2021-2022, the same companies of coyotes directed by these same
04:14people will take them to the United States.
04:23And now we have a short break coming up, but we'll be right back.
04:25Stay with us.
04:44Welcome back to From the South, and we now go back to Ecuador with days to go before
04:51the election in the country, and we now welcome Juan Carlos Valareso, his chair of the International
04:57Relations Department at the Catholic University of Ecuador.
05:01Thank you, Juan Carlos, for joining us here in From the South.
05:06Thank you very much for having me.
05:08So Juan Carlos, tell us, what do we know at this point about what's coming on Sunday?
05:14Well, what we do know for sure is that this may end up in a runoff between the two top
05:23candidates.
05:25There are over 16 candidates running for the presidential election.
05:29However, it is well known that there are two that are at the top, Daniel Novoa and the
05:36contested contender, Elisa Gonzalez.
05:42So just to get a little bit deeper into what is going on in Ecuador, we have been seeing
05:48a year that was marked by different sort of crisis, and insecurity is one of the main
05:54topics in the country.
05:56So tell us, how does that play into this election?
06:00We've been seeing different measures taken by President Novoa in the last few days.
06:05How do you see this impacting the results on Sunday?
06:10I consider that this is the definite topic that will determine who people vote for, right?
06:18I think it's very important, the fact that we analyze how the candidates have addressed
06:26the issue of insecurity.
06:28On the part of Daniel Novoa, we see a continuation of a policy that has proven not to be that
06:34effective, right?
06:35The militarization of the conflict and the problem has turned out into more violence.
06:41There's now evidence that the criminal organizations have become stronger, and they are now more
06:48present all over the country.
06:51So apparently his approach has not resulted in the expected results.
06:58In addition to that, the proposals that Luisa González gave are not that clear regarding
07:05how to control the problem with insecurity and drug trafficking.
07:10Her speech resembles a lot to the speech from the RevoluciĂłn Ciudadana's era 10, 15 years
07:18ago.
07:19So in my view, I think it also needs to adapt to the current demands of the people.
07:25We have to consider that there are a number of people that are undecided and still haven't
07:30made up their mind about who to vote for.
07:34So we are trying to, just day before the elections, bring to our international audience just the
07:39key topics to understand the situation in Ecuador before this polls.
07:44So the energy crisis has also been on the news, both nationally and internationally.
07:51So I wanted to ask you, what is the situation at the moment in this regard?
07:55And again, how could this impact the results on Sunday?
07:59Well, I think what Ecuador went through in the last year or so, with the blackouts and
08:11the lack of energy in different parts of the country due to climate change and stuff, but
08:16also I would agree with many that consider that it is also a mismanagement of the resources,
08:23of that planning of the issue.
08:28How Daniel Navarro handled it, I think was very reactive.
08:33I don't think it was propositive.
08:36I don't think it was proactive in terms of looking at different solutions.
08:40And the ones that were taken seem to have cut the problem, but not to the root, because
08:48the Engineers Association has already said that it is very likely that we'll have blackouts
08:57again in April.
09:00The problem here is a very complex one, because we need energy, we need different sources,
09:06alternative sources of energy as well.
09:08And that's something that they need to consider.
09:10Exactly.
09:11And from what you're saying, I gather that one of the key aspects to get into and analyze
09:18what's happening on Sunday has to do with how the people evaluate how the current president
09:24has dealt with this sort of crisis in the country.
09:28So of course, Ecuador is at an exceptional mandate at the moment, because actually Luisa
09:34González and also Daniel Navarro faced each other just a couple of years ago to end what
09:40was Lasso's term.
09:42So this situation may be repeated on Sunday.
09:46How does this moment compare to that one in which, of course, Daniel Navarro was the winner?
09:52And how could what you were saying in terms of the evaluation of this short mandate come
09:58to play at what will be a new edition of that poll?
10:04Well, I think you're totally right.
10:08A lot of people are evaluating now Daniel Navarro's actions as a president, and many
10:13are disinjected with what he proposed and what he did.
10:17In fact, we see that he still has a very strong base of supporters.
10:21In fact, he leads all of the polls previous to last week that were officially over.
10:30And it says a lot as well about the bases that support Luisa González, which is also
10:38a very strong base, but also with the context of supporting Rafael Correa.
10:45So we see here a polarization of support.
10:48However, what's grown in the last year, I think it's the number of people that are undecided.
10:54This will be the determining factor to see whether Daniel Navarro or Luisa González
11:01end up in the first place.
11:03Many speculate that this will be a victory in the first ballot of the election.
11:10I highly doubt that, but we'll see because as you know, with the recent elections in
11:15the U.S. as well, polls are really not to be trusted that much.
11:21Excellent.
11:23So thank you so much, Juan Carlos Valares.
11:25So we were talking about the elections that are coming on Sunday.
11:29It's a pleasure to have you here in From the South.
11:33Thank you very much for having me.
11:35So now we will go to a short break, but we'll be right back.
11:39Stay with us.
11:53Welcome back to From the South.
12:04We continue with more information.
12:06The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Honduras, Enrique Reyna, presented on Thursday before
12:10the United Nations agencies a program of attention designed by the executive branch to assist
12:16migrants expelled by the government of the United States.
12:20The Migration Governance Council, which is made up of several institutions, has presented
12:24one of its most important plans to UN agencies.
12:28The comprehensive program, Hermano o Hermana Vuelve a Casa, or Brother and Sister Come
12:32Home, focused on strengthening the legal coverage of their nationals in the United States, protecting
12:38and assisting the most vulnerable migrants and promoting their social and economic integration.
12:44And it was discussed with the multi-state agencies to define their participation in
12:49each of them.
12:59And the President of the United States, Donald Trump, imposed sanctions on the International
13:04Criminal Court, the ICC, for having issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister
13:09Benjamin Netanyahu.
13:10This order was carried out in the context of the visit to the White House of the Israeli
13:15Prime Minister, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for the genocide against Gaza.
13:21The Trump administration alleges that the court issued unwarranted arrest warrants for
13:26Netanyahu, in addition to asserting that the investigations against Israel pose an extraordinary
13:32threat to U.S. national security and foreign policy.
13:37It is important to note that the United States and Israel are not part of the court and do
13:42not recognize it.
14:04And precisely we go to the situation in the Middle East.
14:07The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, UNICEF, denounced that over
14:12one million Gazan children are facing psychological trauma after more than 15 months of genocide
14:18at hands of Israel.
14:19The Zionist aggression has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians since October 2023, according
14:26to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
14:29The death toll has left over 38,000 orphaned children who now deal with the sequels of
14:35the genocidal operation.
14:37In this context, UNICEF alerted on the magnitude of the humanitarian situation in the Strip
14:42and the challenges that Palestinians currently face, including the lack of clean water, food
14:48and basic services and commodities.
14:50In this regard, UNICEF stressed that the entry of humanitarian aid is insufficient to meet
14:55the demand of their needs.
15:07And in other news, 80 years ago, Soviet soldiers took Berlin to end the Second World War.
15:13However, Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared that he was grateful to the United States for liberating
15:18his country from the Nazis.
15:20From Moscow, our colleague Oleg Yasinsky with more.
15:24Eighty years ago, Soviet soldiers took Berlin to end the Second World War for the Soviet
15:33Union.
15:34This was the great patriotic war costing millions of soldiers and civilian lives.
15:39An inconvenient truth for the West today, whose leaders, such as the United States President
15:44and the German Chancellor, openly deny and misrepresent it.
16:03Changing history has, in fact, become a weapon against Russia, demerit the effort and sacrifice
16:11of the Western Soviet people to justify United States hegemony on the European continent.
16:18Scholz wants to insult the Russian people, intentionally, to please the US deep state.
16:24This is part of his policy, mandated by the previous US administration.
16:30My best prizes were for the victory over Germany and for the capture of the city of Berlin.
16:39Russia was also not invited to the 80th anniversary celebrations of the liberation of Auschwitz
16:44by the Soviet army.
16:45Its absence from the commemoration events is more than an insult to the memory of those
16:49who gave their lives to save the world from Nazism.
16:52Rewriting history to suit political interests is a way of creating new conflicts.
16:58In the concentration camp, people came up to us, they wanted to touch the stars, they
17:05were trying to convince themselves that the Russians had come and liberated them.
17:09They were all like skeletons.
17:10It was impossible to stay there for more than three minutes.
17:14It was scary to watch, it was impossible.
17:21With the authority of the Soviet Union, they had no chance for revenge.
17:25And now, for the first time in many decades, they have the opportunity.
17:29And they are taking advantage of it in every possible way.
17:33It is enough to listen to the absolutely disgusting statements of almost all European leaders.
17:38And first of all the French, Germans and English.
17:47Those words are an offense, not only to Russia, but to thousands of anti-fascist Germans,
17:53the real heroes of their people who went to the death camps together with communists and
17:56Jews and those who managed to save their lives.
17:59It was thanks to the Red Army.