by the El Reportero’s wire services
Venezuela’s opposition party claimed the majority of seats in the National Assembly in elections held Sunday, the first major shift in power in the legislative branch since the late President Hugo Chávez took office in 1999.
The Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) took 99 seats to just 46 for the United Social Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Tibisay Lucena, president of Consejo Nacional Electoral announced.
“Venezuela, we won!” said opposition key figure Henrique Capriles, governor of the state of Miranda. “I always told you all, this was the way! Humility, maturity and serenity. Long live the people of Venezuela!”
Venezuelans across the country displayed their participation in the voting by sharing photos of ink-dyed fingers on social media.
The election results are seen as a major setback to the ruling party. This is the first time in 17 years that Chavismo has not won a nationwide election in Venezuela.
Last night, the President of Venezuela and leader of the PSUV Nicolás Maduro called all the people to a national debate to strengthen the Bolivarian Revolution, which suffered its second defeat in 20 elections since 1999.
Experts insisted on new research on Ayotzinapa case
The Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (IMCI) insisted today on opening new lines of investigation into the disappearance of the 43 students of Ayotzinapa.
The experts informed in a statement that they have satellite evidences that the students were not cremated in the dustbin of Cocula, Guerrero, although they did not rule out that it happened elsewhere.
The IMCI criticized to be kept apart from the questioning the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) conducted to 11 military on the events of September 26, 2014 in Iguala.
The statements in the Ministry of Justice that the PGR took to these soldiers from Battalion 27 of Iguala in the Ayotzinapa case are not valid and must be repeated, considered the IMCI.
“The IMCI has prepared a document with the questions to ask to the 27 military of its initial request”, it adds.
The experts insisted that sure, based on satellite photos, that there was not a fire in the dustbin of Cocula the night of Sept. 26, as shown in the version of the PGR, although they announced they are preparing new material to be sent to fire experts who will carry out a second inspection there.
International experts presented today a second report on their investigation of the Iguala case during a press conference.
Also in Ayotzinapa:
Orbelin Benítez, an alleged member of the criminal group Guerreros Unidos, involved in the forced disappearance of 43 teaching students from Ayotzinapa, was arrested in the Mexican state of Guerrero, report media today.
The suspect was arrested yesterday by members of the Mexican Army and the Federal Police involved in the Operativo Tierra Caliente, informed the Guerrero Coordination Group, said the journal La Jornada.
He was apprehended in front of a building located in the street Tlacotepec of the colony Los Insurgentes, in the municipality of Iguala, in possession of a rifle and another short weapon.
More than a million judicial cases in Guatemala pending
One million, 210 thousand 743 records with reports of robberies, rapes, frauds, thefts and murders continue pending of a judicial process in Guatemala t, according to the Integrated Case Management System of the Public Ministry (MP) on computers.
The Prosecution Section Liquidation, created by the Agreement 3-2014 to expedite the processing of one million 280 thousand 378 cases shelved and reduce the wide margin of impunity in the country, managed to take 69,635 cases to process during its first year of operations.
In that way, only 5.4 percent of neglected records were resolved, the report said.
Moreover, the staff in charge of this procedure, dismissed every day from 50 to 75 cases, for an average of up to 400 files a week, even checked by the judges, said the head of the body, Bonnie Avila, quoted by the newspaper Siglo 21.
It also became known that most of the complaints postponed municipal, departmental and national authorities, had not been resolved by the loss of documents in previous years.
