ON TUESDAY, November 3, the electoral campaign for the parliamentary elections of December 6, 2020 begins based on the schedule set by the National Electoral Council (CNE), as established by the Constitution of the Republic Bolivarian of Venezuela.
Until next December 3rd, the more than 14 thousand candidates for deputies will be able to carry out their campaign.
On this occasion, 144 deputies will be elected by proportional system (52%) and 133 deputies by nominal system (48%) as part of what is requested by opposition parties before the Supreme Court of Justice to achieve a more plural and representative Parliament.
This time it will take place with the particularity established in the electoral regulations of making the greatest use of digital platforms and avoiding the crowding of people in closed spaces, to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Thus, the electoral body will have on this occasion an alternative page available for national, regional and indigenous political organisations to promote their proposals and make their candidates and their audiovisual material known.
- Experts from the Cuban medical mission in Venezuela are currently making the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests to detect Covid-19 from a modern molecular biology laboratory.
Specialists in epidemiology, microbiology, biochemistry and virology from Cuba, with high qualifications and experience in handling cutting-edge technology, are working in real time to detect the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen.
Daysi Figueredo, head of the 13th brigade of the Ernesto Che Guevara Contingent, said the commitment and dedication by the 28 Cuban health professionals who work in that laboratory, where PCR tests are made to Cuban collaborators and Venezuelan patients.
The laboratory, located at the Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez National Centre for Medical Genetics, in Guarenas parish, Miranda state, has the most demanding biosafety conditions, technology and trained personnel to process around 1,000 tests daily.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Cuban health teams deployed in Venezuela communities have made about 2,100,000 diagnostic tests, around 70,000 per million inhabitants, to detect outbreaks of Covid-19.
To date, the Venezuelan authorities have reported 92,325 cases, 94% of which have recovered, while 801 people died from the disease.
- Argentina has said it will implement a national council on the Malvinas Islands on Friday November 6 to mark the bicentenary of the first raising of the Argentine flag on the islands (1820-2020).
The Council, headed by President Alberto Fernández, aims to establish state policies in the long term to guarantee sovereignty in these areas and promote academic research and a permanent exchange with ex-combatants and their families.
This, as the country prepares to celebrate the bicentennial of raising the national flag in the usurped territory on November 6.
‘The commemoration takes place in a context in which the government of Alberto Fernández has decided to place at the centre of its agenda the claim for the recovery of the sovereignty in the Islands,’ the Secretary of the Foreign Ministry for Malvinas, Antarctica and South Atlantic Daniel Filmus said.
‘Next Friday at 11:30, in all the municipalities of the country and accompanied by the president, we hoist the light blue and white,’ he said.
The Council, headed by President Alberto Fernández, aims to establish state policies in the long term to guarantee sovereignty in these areas and promote academic research and a permanent exchange with ex-combatants and their families.
The Council’s implementation will occur amid a range of activities that marks November 6, 1820, when an Argentinian flag was raised in this territory for the first time following the handing over of territories from Spain’s colonisation.
On November 6, the national flag will be raised all across Argentina at 11.30am local time to show to the world the country’s legitimate right over the islands, which has been usurped by the United Kingdom.
On that day the president, Alberto Fernández, will lead the central act with the raising of the flag, an action that will be multiplied simultaneously in different municipalities of the country, from La Quiaca to Ushuaia, including Antarctica, and will be broadcast on television, he said.
Filmus pointed out that it will be a time to reaffirm sovereignty rights over the islands and this anniversary occurs at a time when the government decided to place the claim for the recovery of that territory at the centre of its agenda.
The official said that the date will ratify that the Malvinas cause continues in force in ‘the hearts of all of us who no longer accept colonialism and demand that our flag fly again on the islands.’
Regarding the conflict over that land usurped from this southern nation in 1833, he pointed out that the country has the legal, historical and geographical elements that support the claim and pointed out that the United Kingdom’s refusal to dialogue shows ‘its will to continue usurping the territory and exploiting the resources that belong to 45 million Argentines.
‘November 6 marks the 200th anniversary of the takeover of the islands by David Jewett, commander of the Argentine navy, who raised the flag in the Malvinas for the first time that day in 1820.
‘Both countries have had a dispute since 1833 over that territory usurped from this South American nation, which led to an armed conflict in 1982 with a balance of 650 national combatants and 255 English soldiers killed.’
- Indigenous and Social Alternative Movement (MAIS) Senator Feliciano Valencia has warned there are signs of repeated popular discontent in Colombia, triggered by the wave of violence in the country.
Valencia, a victim of a recent assassination attempt, wrote on Twitter indigenous workers protests, the national stoppage and demonstrations of former guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are initiatives the Iván Duque government demands to put an end to through massacres and murders.
‘The pilgrimage through life are irrefutable evidence the people are willing to fight for. If we encourage the people a bit more, it will change,’ Valencia tweeted.
Colombia has been recently the scene of several demonstrations, criminalised by the government to justify its refusal to talks.
Protesters peacefully speak out for an end to the wave of violence that has claimed the lives of social leaders, indigenous people, environmental and peace activists, and former guerrillas protected by the Peace Accords signed in 2016.