A Venezuelan government opponent who has sought refuge inside the Vatican’s diplomatic mission for the last year-and-a-half has been granted asylum by the Holy See, his lawyer said on Tuesday.
Lawyer Alonso Medina Roa said the Vatican approved diplomatic asylum for 34-year-old Nixon Moreno, who has been holed up in the Vatican’s mission in Caracas since March last year.
PERSECUTION?
The former student is wanted by Venezuelan authorities on charges of attempted murder and lascivious acts against a female police officer. He denies the allegations, saying he is fleeing political persecution and his life is in danger.
Medina Roa said it was up to the government to guarantee him safe passage out of Venezuela. He said the Vatican approved asylum for Moreno in June and sent a diplomatic note to the government on the matter last month.
Archbishop Giacinto Berlocco authorized Moreno to make public the granting of his asylum request on Tuesday, an official at the Vatican’s mission said.
She spoke on condition of anonymity because she did not have permission to speak publicly about the issue.
STUDENT PROTESTS
Moreno finished his studies in political science while holed up in the Vatican mission. The charges against him stem from violent student protests in 2006 in the Andean city of Merida.
Students called the protests after the Supreme Court suspended elections at the University of the Andes for posts then held by student leaders sided with President Hugo Chavez’s government.
Moreno, a government opponent, had been considered a favorite for the elections.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
RSS