The demons of the Americas star in the first hours of the investigation into the assassination of Ecuador's anti-corruption candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, produced a few days before the presidential elections on August 20. Hitmen, drug trafficking and organized crime emerge from the shadows of the plot that the local security forces, with the help of the US FBI and the Colombian police, have begun to unravel after the murder of the journalist, the main civil whip against government corruption. former.

In the midst of the state of emergency imposed by the Government and with a dejected and fearful country, the State Attorney General's Office yesterday began the process against the six alleged Colombian hitmen arrested during the operations on Thursday. The investigators have found 22 elements of conviction to accuse all of them, including the two men who were recognized in the vicinity of the scene of the attack, in Quito. They have been ordered preventive detention for 30 days due to the “serious danger of flight”. Among the confiscated weapons is a rifle, whose projectiles match the casings found in the vicinity. Investigators also found the fingerprint of one of the six Colombians on the motorcycle used to flee the scene..

Thanks to the various searches carried out in the capital, two motorcycles and a stolen vehicle were found, in the trunk of which part of the commando arsenal was hidden: rifles, four pistols, a submachine gun, four ammunition boxes with 348 cartridges and two rifle magazines. plus three grenades.

The Colombian media reported at the time that the six detainees have extensive criminal histories, mainly related to drug trafficking, but which also include homicide, theft and illegal possession of weapons.. Andrés Manuel Mosquera, José Neider López, Adey García, Camilo Andrés Romero, Jules Castaño and Jhon Gregore Rodríguez would be part of different organized crime groups, according to the Ecuadorian authorities.

At least two of them benefited from grace measures provided by the judges in the days prior to the attack. The Government has lashed out hard in recent months against the courts that have released those they considered dangerous criminals.

CALLS TO POLITICIANS

Among the seized properties are several mobile phones. And this is where the assassination of Villavicencio becomes even more cloudy: according to the Colombian network Caracol, several calls were made between the detainees and three Ecuadorian politicians.. The authorities, for the moment, have not confirmed the news from the Colombian channel.

Little is also known about the hitman who died after being shot near the scene of the crime. The Prosecutor's Office has not offered more information beyond confirming his death. The facts are confusing, even in the images collected from a nearby building it is observed how agents and citizens fiercely beat an individual. In total, nine people were injured in the shooting..

Ecuador's criminal laws are very harsh against this type of crime, up to 26 years for murder, plus aggravating circumstances for assassination and for having been carried out during a public gathering.. At least a dozen cases precede the death of the anti-corruption journalist, including last month that of the mayor of Manta, Agustín Intriago, the most popular in the country.. The Manta coast is a key location for the drug trafficking network, which has turned the Ecuadorian coast into one of its favorite bridges for sending cocaine to Europe and the United States..

ASSASSINATION OF THE PRESIDENT OF HAITI

The arrest of the alleged Colombian hitmen immediately recalled in their country of origin the assassination that ended the life of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. About twenty former Colombian soldiers turned mercenaries participated in the operation against the politician who sought to reform the Caribbean country.

More similar in profile to those now detained are the hit men who ended the life of Paraguayan anti-corruption prosecutor Marcelo Pecci, murdered a year ago during his honeymoon on an island in the Colombian city of Cartagena.. The gunman who fired was the Venezuelan Wendret Carrillo, hired in Medellín and who had worked for the Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan criminal group that has spread throughout the continent and is directed from the Tocorón prison by the Niño Guerrero. The rest of the band members were Colombians..

The hours after the murder have also left thunderous clashes on social networks, such as the one starring the widow of Villavicencio, Verónica Sarauz, and the correísta candidate, Luisa González. In an electoral spot, the standard-bearer of the Citizen Revolution took advantage of the situation to emphasize the crimes committed by the drug trafficking mafia, to sentence that “criminal violence kills us all, kills society, kills democracy. We will make Ecuador a country of peace again”.

The video provoked the indignation of Sarauz: “Enough is enough, you are the ones who sowed terror in the country, you agreed with the narco-criminal gangs, you were the ones who raided and persecuted us for years, you who stole public resources. And they are you who maintain links with criminal gangs”.

Argentina arrives wrapped in violence to the crucial presidential primary elections this Sunday: after the death of a protester in the middle of incidents on Thursday night in the center of Buenos Aires, this Friday the area was the scene of serious incidents, stone throws against the police and various acts of vandalism. In this context, the Minister of Security, Aníbal Fernández, questioned the holding of the elections.

Ultra-left organizations marched on Thursday afternoon to the Obelisk, the emblematic monument on Avenida 9 de Julio, the main artery of the city. Several members of the group sang against the elections and burned ballot boxes. Police in the city of Buenos Aires clashed with Facundo Molares Schoenfeld, a former FARC member and dissident of the Colombian peace process.. Molars, which decompensated, died despite the resuscitation maneuvers of the police. An independent autopsy seeks to establish the reasons for his death.

A protest march to the Obelisk, called by anarchist and far-left organizations, degenerated this Friday into serious incidents, with a rain of stones, destruction of public furniture and attacks against a police facility. The great unknown of the elections is who will win the inmate of Juntos por el Cambio, the opposition coalition to Peronism, which hopes to return to the Casa Rosada on the 40th anniversary of the recovery of democracy.

Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, mayor of Buenos Aires, faces Patricia Bullrich, former Minister of Security. While Rodríguez Larreta embodies the possibility wing and prone to consensus in the opposition, Bullrich leads the tougher wing. The incidents in the center of the capital were a test for Rodríguez Larreta, who is blamed for being weak in the face of public disorder. Kirchnerism, in turn, accuses him of being responsible for the “murder” of Molares Schoenfeld.

“I am returning to work after a few weeks of treatment,” the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, who just recovered from Covid, tells us by phone. He often recalls his country's European identity and his memories as a “child of Chernobyl”

This week it was supposed to house fifty asylum seekers out of an expected total of more than five thousand. But the Bibby Stockholm is empty at her mooring in Dorset, a county in the south of England.. And it is that the first to embark on the floating residence since Monday 7, a total of 39 refugees, were unexpectedly evacuated this Friday due to the risk of contamination of the water system. The Ministry of the Interior confirmed in a press release that “environmental tests” of the pipes of the boat have given a positive result of the bacteriological presence of legionella.

The dangerous bacterium has, at least temporarily, scuttled Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's strategy to reduce the economic and political cost of irregular immigration.. No refugee will board the floating prison until new analyzes ratify the purification of the internal water system. “The health and well-being of the individuals on the ship is our top priority,” a ministry spokesman said on Friday.

Meanwhile, the 39 evicted will once again occupy the hotel rooms that the head of the Conservative Government and his Minister of the Interior, Suella Braverman, want to eliminate and replace with cabins on port waters, bedrooms in old military barracks and tents near the centers of reception of refugees. Sunak is confident that the hardening of living conditions on British soil will deter foreigners from crossing the English Channel by boat from France and will allow the estimated seven million euros a day that the Administration spends on hotel rooms to be cut.

Record arrival of migrants

But the forecasts don't add up yet. On Thursday the 10th, the 2023 record for the number of migrants who have arrived in England via the dangerous Channel route was recorded. Up to 755 adults and minors arrived in 14 boats, including a group of 17 that nearly capsized at sea. They were rescued by operatives from the National Lifeboat Organization (RNLI) after the British Border Force lost one of its rescue boats to damage.. A maritime surveillance drone crashed that same morning, further complicating the situation.

The British press warns that the mark of 100,000 irregular immigrants on journeys from coastal enclaves of the European Union has been exceeded since the Government began to record the data, in 2018. Statistics for the first six months of the year indicate a 14% reduction from the previous period, but the improvement seems more related to adverse maritime and weather conditions along the route than to government measures and Sunak's promise to ” stop the boats”. In fact, a new peak of arrivals in small boats is anticipated this weekend, as the weather forecasts announce good temperatures and moderate wind.

Human rights organizations and anti-racism collectives yesterday called for a reversal of the policy of confining migrants on boats. “The Bibby Stockholm is a visual illustration of the hostile environment this government deploys against refugees and has quickly become a symbol of the chaotic incompetence that has destroyed the UK asylum system,” said Steve Smith, director of Care4Calais.

This NGO defends a group of refugees who refused to board the sleeping boat, alleging mental and physical health issues, and the bacteriological detection in the water system adds weight to their suspicions. “We have always known that our concerns regarding the health and safety of the ship are justified and this new demonstration of mismanagement confirms our position,” the coordinator concluded.

The Bibby Stockholm is moored at the privately owned Portland pier, and local authorities were barely consulted about the controversial deal with the central government.. For the mayor of the town, Carralyn Parkes, the health incident “is part of a long litany of disasters around the barge”. In turn, the Dorset regional council, which covers this remote enclave of the English 'Jurassic coast', was quick to issue a message of confidence. “No individual has symptoms of Legionella disease and the broader Portland community is not at any health risk,” he said Friday.

The bacterium was detected in analysis of water intakes collected from the pipes of the boat, which was moored at the dock on the Isle of Portland in mid-July.. The tests had been carried out days ago, but the operation to transfer the asylum seekers was launched without waiting for the results. Interior assured that none of the evacuees showed signs of discomfort and described the eviction as a “precautionary measure”..

Maria Dolhopova is 33 years old, and in 2021 she married Artem Verbovsky, two years her junior and senior lieutenant of the Azov regiment. From his mobile phone he shows the last messages they exchanged through Telegram in the most intense days of

The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, announced this Friday the dismissal of all those responsible for the country's regional recruitment offices due to the high number of cases of corruption in these types of centers.

“The system should be run by people who know exactly what war is and why cynicism and bribery in wartime are treasonous,” Zelensky said on his Telegram channel.

The decision was made at a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine chaired by Zelensky and must be implemented by the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valery Zaluzhny.

The Ukrainian president explained in his message that corruption proceedings have currently been opened against 112 officers from these recruitment centers, while there are suspicions against 33 of them, according to data from the different security forces and the prosecutor's office.

“Some accepted cash, others cryptocurrency, that's the (only) difference

The war in Ukraine goes on for a long time. One more day, Russia reports drone attacks from Ukraine to the annexed areas. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, this Saturday it destroyed 20 Ukrainian drones launched over the Crimean peninsula..

Meanwhile, the United States has shown this Friday its willingness to train Ukrainian pilots in the use of F-16 combat aircraft. Although the fighters will not be operational until the spring of 2024.

The death toll on the Hawaiian island of Maui stands at 67, after authorities confirmed another 12 deaths as a result of a massive fire that turned wide swaths of a century-old city into a hellish landscape of ashen rubble.

Maui County said in a statement posted online that firefighters are continuing to battle the fire, which is still not under control.. Meanwhile, Lahaina residents were allowed to return to their homes for the first time to assess the damage.

Associated Press journalists witnessed the devastation, in which nearly all buildings were reduced to rubble on Front Street, the heart of Maui's community and the island's economic center.. The roosters, known for roaming the streets of Hawaii, meandered through the ashes of what was left, including a chilling traffic jam of the charred remains of dozens of cars that failed to make it out of hell.

Burning cars crushed by fallen telephone poles. Charred elevator shafts standing as testimonials to the burnt-out apartment buildings they once served. Pools filled with charcoal colored water. Children's trampolines and scooters disfigured by extreme heat.

“It hit so fast, it was unbelievable,” Lahaina resident Kyle Scharnhorst said as he surveyed the damage at his apartment complex Friday morning.. “It was like a war zone.”

The wildfires are the deadliest natural disaster to hit the state in decades, surpassing a tsunami that killed 61 people in 1960.. An even deadlier tsunami, which left more than 150 dead on the island of Hawaii – the so-called Big Island – in 1946, prompted the development of a land-wide emergency system that includes sirens that are sounded every month to check that work correctly.

But many fire survivors said in interviews that they didn't hear any sirens or receive any warning to give them enough time to prepare, only realizing they were in danger when they saw flames or heard explosions nearby.

“There was no warning. there was absolutely none. Nobody came. Instead, officials sent alerts to mobile phones, television and radio stations, but widespread power outages and cellular network outages may have limited their reach.

Governor Josh Green warned that the death toll will likely rise as search and rescue operations continue.. He also said Lahaina residents would be allowed to return Friday to check out their property, and that people will be able to go outside to get water and access other services.. Authorities established a 10 p.m. curfew. until 6 am. of Saturday.

“The recovery is going to be extraordinarily difficult, but we want people to go back to their homes and do what they can to test them safely, because it's pretty dangerous,” Green told Hawaii News Now.

Fueled by a dry summer and strong winds from a passing hurricane, at least three wildfires raged on Maui this week, advancing rapidly through the parched brush that blankets the island.

The most serious one entered Lahaina on Tuesday, leaving a grid of gray rubble wedged between the blue ocean and lush green hillsides.. Skeleton remains of buildings leaned under roofs that collapsed in the flames. Palm trees were scorched, boats in the harbor caught fire, and the stench of burning lingered.

This wildfire is forecast to be the second costliest disaster in Hawaiian history, behind only the damage caused by Hurricane Iniki in 1992, according to estimates by Karen Clark & Company, a leading forecasting firm.

This is the deadliest wildfire in the United States since the 2018 Camp Fire in California, which killed at least 85 people and ripped through the town of Paradise.

Lahaina's wildfire risk was well known. Maui County's hazard mitigation plan, last updated in 2020, identified that Lahaina and other West Maui communities experienced frequent wildfires and had a large number of buildings at risk of wildfire damage.

The report also noted that West Maui had the second-highest rate of households without a vehicle and the highest rate of non-English speakers on the island.

“This could limit the population's ability to receive, understand, and take expeditious action during hazardous events,” the plan noted.

Maui's firefighting efforts may also have been hampered by understaffing, said Bobby Lee, president of the Hawaii Firefighters Association.. There are a maximum of 65 firefighters working at any given time in Maui County, and they are responsible for fighting fires on three islands: Maui, Molokai and Lanai, he explained.

Those crews have about 13 fire trucks and two ladder trucks, but the department doesn't have ATVs, he added.. That means fire crews can't fight wildfires thoroughly before they reach roads or populated areas.

The Peruvian Interior Minister, Vicente Romero, assured this Friday that the National Police has reinforced surveillance on the border between Peru and Ecuador, with the aim of preventing a possible escape of the members of the criminal gang to which the murder is attributed. of the presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.

In a statement collected by the Andina state agency, Romero explained that the reinforcement consists of 200 agents of the Peruvian National Police (PNP), in addition to taking “the necessary provisions.”

“There is also work at the intelligence level between the two police forces to facilitate the capture of these criminals,” noted the head of the Interior.

In this sense, he explained that they are “working with the general commander of the National Police after the events, and with the head of the Tumbes police region,” the border region with Ecuador.

He also recalled that last April the Government declared a state of emergency in the border areas of the entire country, which allows the authorities “to act more effectively.”

The Ecuadorian presidential candidate was assassinated on the afternoon of last Wednesday, shot as he left a rally in the compound of a school in the north of Quito, a crime for which there are six detainees – all of them Colombians – but where it is unknown who is behind it of the order to assassinate him.

assassination

A group of hitmen shot Villavicencio, a candidate for the Construye political movement, at point blank range, while one of the suspects in the shooting detained at the site by police officers and other civilians died under unclear circumstances when he was transferred to a judicial unit.

Villavicencio had denounced death threats a few days ago after dedicating his life to denouncing corruption and establishing himself as a staunch enemy of former President Rafael Correa (2007-2017), based on his journalistic investigations and complaints.

violent escalation

Ecuador is experiencing a spiral of violence that began to spiral at a dizzying pace a couple of years ago, with frequent prison killings between gangs of inmates who, according to the authorities, were fighting for control of the prisons.

This prison violence took to the streets, especially in coastal provinces such as Guayaquil and Esmeraldas, the former used as a shipping area by drug gangs for the surreptitious shipment of drugs to the largest consumer markets in the United States and Europe. .