FTS 12:30 07-02: U.S. pres. Trump sanctions ICC over Israel probe

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07/02/2025 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 Revolución 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.

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