World

Leaks from a shadowy group of hackers targeting secret files held by the armed forces of several Latin American nations have fueled controversy in Mexico about the military’s growing power.

A trove of sensitive information was stolen from the Mexican defense ministry by the collective called Guacamaya, which has also claimed cyberattacks in Chile, Colombia and Peru.

“Their objectives are more political than economic,” said Diego Macor, a cyber-security expert at US technology giant IBM in Chile, who describes members of the network as “hacker-activists.”

The leaks revealed that the Mexican army continued to use Pegasus spyware developed by Israeli firm NSO Group after President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office in 2018, according to an investigation by the Network in Defense of Digital Rights and its partners.

The targets included journalists and a human rights activist, according to the probe, which was assisted by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab.

The army insisted that it had only used spyware to fight organized crime.

The hack also left Mexico’s military facing allegations that some of its members have links to drug cartels, and that it engineered a contentious security reform giving it control of the National Guard, which was previously under civilian command.

Two soldiers sold grenades, other weapons and tactical equipment to drug cartel members, according to analysis of the files by the civil society group Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity.

The Mexican and Peruvian militaries also allegedly monitored civil society organizations such as Amnesty International, which condemned their actions as “unacceptable.”

“The undue monitoring of civil society organizations identified in the Guacamaya collective leaks is an example of the hostile context in which we work as organizations defending human rights in the Americas,” said Amnesty regional director Erika Guevara-Rosas.

“Instead of monitoring the activities of civil society organizations, the military and other authorities in the region should be ensuring a favorable environment for the defense of rights and acknowledging the important role played by human rights defenders,” she added.

Mexican legislators on Wednesday summoned Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval to explain himself, but he refused, telling them to visit him in his office instead.

– President’s health –

The leaks revealed previously undisclosed information — subsequently confirmed by Lopez Obrador — that the 68-year-old president was taken by air ambulance in January from his ranch in southern Mexico to a hospital in the capital with heart problems. Lopez Obrador had already suffered a heart attack in 2013.

Before coming to power in 2018, Lopez Obrador had vowed to send the military back to the barracks.

But under his presidency, the armed forces have kept their role in tackling cartel-related violence and even gained more responsibility, including control of ports and customs and major infrastructure projects.

This week lawmakers approved an extension of the Mexican armed forces’ public security role until 2028.

In Colombia, Guacamaya claimed to have obtained more than 300,000 private emails from the military forces and the state prosecutor’s office, although the hack has yet to generate the same level of controversy there as in Mexico.

The Colombian army said it was “aware of the possible extraction of information from the general command.”

Guacamaya also released tens of thousands of emails from the National Hydrocarbons Agency and a private company, New Granada Energy Corp.

The records revealed 62 oil and chemical spills between 2015 and 2020.

Most of these “environmental incidents” were not reported to authorities, according to internal communications from New Granada Energy, which could not be reached for comment.

In Chile, hackers exploited flaws in the computer systems of the Joint Armed Forces Command. 

The vulnerability of the Chilean army’s servers had been known since August 2021, said Nicolas Boettcher, an expert at Diego Portales University in Santiago.

Even so, “there have been no calls for tenders for the review and repair of the servers,” he said.

burs-st-dr/tjj/caw

British Prime Minister Liz Truss on Friday fired her finance minister after prolonged market turmoil, but some Conservatives were plotting their new leader’s own demise as her right-wing economic agenda imploded.

Kwasi Kwarteng became the second shortest-lived chancellor of the exchequer in UK political history, paying the price after Truss’s crash programme of unfunded tax cuts terrified the financial markets.

Truss did little to reassure investors and the UK electorate at a brief news conference — her first since succeeding Boris Johnson on September 6. 

She insisted she had acted “decisively” to bring about “economic stability” — but the pound resumed its slide on currency markets, falling under $1.12.

“We will get through this storm,” she said, taking only four questions, looking nervously around the room and delivering terse replies.

“I want to deliver a low-tax, high-wage, high-growth economy,” Truss added. “That mission remains.”

Kwarteng, who had rushed back early from international meetings in Washington, was replaced by the centrist former foreign secretary and former Tory leadership candidate Jeremy Hunt as Britain’s fourth chancellor this year.

Financial upheaval sparked by the new government’s September 23 plan to slash taxes — financed via billions in more borrowing — had subsided somewhat since the Bank of England (BoE) intervened in bond markets.

But the central bank was adamant it would end its bond-buying spree on Friday, and market analysts said only a bigger climbdown by Truss following Kwarteng’s disastrous budget announcement last month would avert fresh panic.

She duly delivered the U-turn by announcing she would retain the Johnson government’s plan to raise profits tax on companies — having already changed her mind about cutting income tax for the highest earners.

– Collapsing polls –

The promised tax reforms were the centrepiece of Truss’s successful pitch to Tory party members that she, rather than moderate rival Rishi Sunak, was the best candidate to replace Johnson. 

Almost two-thirds of the 2,000 voters polled by “Find Out Now” after Friday’s press conference believe she should now resign.

More than 60 percent also said there should be a general election, while only 8 percent said she should stay as leader.

Other polls show a mammoth lead up opening up for the main opposition Labour party, threatening electoral meltdown for the Tories. 

Labour leader Keir Starmer said that ditching Kwarteng would not “undo the damage made in Downing Street”.

“Liz Truss’ reckless approach has crashed the economy, causing mortgages to skyrocket and has undermined Britain’s standing on the world stage,” he said.

Tony Travers, from the London School of Economics, told AFP that Kwarteng had been made “the fall guy for the government’s mistakes” — but that the sacking had not taken the pressure off Truss or calmed the Tories.

“It’s very hard to see them coming back from this” by the next election, he added.

– ‘Rash talk’ –

Kwarteng had been due to stay in Washington this weekend to conclude annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

He had already earned a rebuke from IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva, who had stressed the need for “coherent and consistent” policies.

Commenting on the tax U-turn, senior IMF official Alfred Kammer paid credit to the UK’s “strong institutions”, such as the BoE and the Office for Budget Responsibility — both of which were undermined by Truss and Kwarteng.

Also speaking in Washington, European Union economy commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said the upheaval in Britain showed “how prudent we should be also with our fiscal and monetary mix”.

In the US capital on Thursday, Kwarteng had insisted that his job was safe. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

But UK broadcasters showed live footage of Kwarteng’s British Airways plane landing at London’s Heathrow airport a day early, after Truss held hurried meetings with her own financial advisors in his absence.

Multiple reports said that senior Tory MPs were plotting to unseat Truss by installing a new leadership team under Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, who also ran to succeed Johnson.

Party grandees could move next week, senior BBC journalist Nick Watt tweeted.

“They said not tenable for PM to remain after sacking @KwasiKwarteng who was implementing the programme that won her the Tory leadership,” he wrote.

But Bernard Jenkin, a senior voice on the Tory right, called for “calm” after Hunt’s appointment.

“Rash talk of ditching the PM, or calls for a general election, will not calm the financial markets,” he tweeted.

Two brothers were on Friday jailed for 40 years each for the car bomb murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia who uncovered corruption in high places and whose killing sparked an international furore and forced the resignation of the prime minister.

Caruana Galizia, 53, was one of Malta’s most prominent public figures. Once described as a “one-woman WikiLeaks”, she was a vocal critic of the country’s political elite in her blog, accusing them of cronyism and corruption.

“There are crooks everywhere you look now,” she wrote, hours before the attack that killed her on October 16, 2017. “The situation is desperate.”

The sentences handed down to George and Alfred Degiorgio came on the first day of their trial — and nearly five years to the day that she was murdered.

Friday’s dramatic proceedings had seen the pair plead not guilty before a judge in the morning, before changing their pleas hours later.

“Today’s judgement is another important step towards justice for the Caruana Galizia family,” Prime Minister Robert Abela said on Twitter.

“We remain determined to see full justice delivered for the family and for Malta.”

In a statement released by his office, he added: “In parallel, the government will continue implementing important reforms to strengthen further the rule of law principles and democracy in Malta.”

– ‘Investigate your friends’ –

The much-delayed trial of the brothers — charged with homicide, causing a fatal explosion and criminal conspiracy, among other crimes — began Friday with a dramatic outburst from defendant George Degiorgio. 

“Don’t you know who killed Daphne?” Degiorgio called to the prosecution upon entering court. 

“Your friends, those you were shoulder to shoulder with… Go investigate them!”

A third hitman, Vincent Muscat, had already pleaded guilty last year and was jailed for 15 years.

Judge Edwina Grima had refused a defence request to suspend the trial which had been based on what they said had been the lack of time to prepare.

Courtroom observers Friday included representatives from press freedom groups, including Reporters without Borders and the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom.

The Degiorgio brothers said last year they were prepared to implicate a former government minister in exchange for a pardon, which was not granted.

George Degiorgio confessed to the crime during an interview from jail in July, calling it “just business”. 

Early Friday, he repeated his previously stated not guilty plea before the court.

His brother Alfred, seated in a wheelchair, said “I have nothing to say,” which the court recorded as a not guilty plea. 

But within hours, both had changed their pleas to guilty.

– Malta in spotlight –

Caruana Galizia’s assassination sparked outrage around the world and put Malta, the European Union’s smallest member state, in the spotlight over its apparent rule-of-law failings.

Joseph Muscat resigned as prime minister over the affair in January 2020, following mass protests over his perceived efforts to protect friends and allies from the investigation. 

A 2021 public inquiry into Caruana Galizia’s murder found the state should bear responsibility for her death, by creating a “climate of impunity” for those who wanted to silence her.

Still awaiting trial is wealthy Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech, considered by prosecutors to be the alleged mastermind of the murder.

Sunday will mark the fifth anniversary of Caruana Galizia’s murder.

Scottish actor Robbie Coltrane, who played Hagrid in the Harry Potter films, has died aged 72, his agent said on Friday.

He also played a former KGB agent-turned-Russian mafia boss in two James Bond films — “Goldeneye” (1995) and “The World Is Not Enough” (1999) — with Pierce Brosnan.

“My client and friend Robbie Coltrane OBE passed away on Friday October 14,” Belinda Wright said in a statement, calling him “a unique talent”.

Coltrane, who was born Anthony Robert McMillan on March 30, 1950, in Rutherglen, near Glasgow, forged a career as an actor, comedian and writer.

On television, he starred alongside Emma Thompson in the cult BAFTA-winning BBC mini-series “Tutti Frutti” in 1987.

He came to prominence and won more awards for his portrayal of the hard-drinking criminal psychologist Dr Eddie “Fitz” Fitzgerald in the ITV series “Cracker” (1993-2006).

He was the English author and lexicographer Samuel Johnson in the TV comedy series “Blackadder the Third” alongside “Mr Bean” star Rowan Atkinson and Hugh Laurie (“House”).

Frequent co-star Stephen Fry tweeted that he was “awe/terror/love struck all at the same time” when he first met Coltrane 40 years ago.

“Such depth, power & talent: funny enough to cause helpless hiccups & honking as we made our first TV show, ‘Alfresco’. Farewell, old fellow. You’ll be so dreadfully missed,” he wrote.

On the big screen, Coltrane had roles in the 1987 Neil Jordan crime drama “Mona Lisa” and teamed up with former Monty Python star Eric Idle in the 1990 comedy “Nuns on the Run”.

But he will best be remembered globally as Rubeus Hagrid, the half-giant half-human gamekeeper and Keeper of the Keys and Grounds of Hogwarts school in the film franchise of JK Rowling’s best-selling Harry Potter books.

The role “brought joy to children and adults alike all over the world, prompting a stream of fan letters every week for over 20 years”, said Wright.

“As well as being a wonderful actor, he was forensically intelligent, brilliantly witty”, she said.

Rowling tweeted that “I’ll never know anyone remotely like Robbie again. 

“He was an incredible talent, a complete one off, and I was beyond fortunate to know him, work with him and laugh my head off with him,” she wrote.

Coltrane is survived by his sister Annie Rae, his children Spencer and Alice and their mother Rhona Gemmell. 

No cause of death was given but Wright thanked medical staff at Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert, central Scotland, “for their care and diplomacy”.

Competing criminal gangs have turned to sexual assault as a way to terrorize Haitians and consolidate territorial control, a UN report said on Friday.

More than a half dozen armed gangs wage turf wars in Haiti, but battles in the capital Port-au-Prince are particularly intense, making crosstown journeys risky and leaving hospitals barely functioning.

“Gangs use sexual violence to instill fear, and alarmingly the number of cases increases by the day,” said Nada Al-Nashif, the acting UN high commissioner for human rights.

The UN report said collective gang rapes have occurred of children as young as 10 and elderly women, often before aghast family members. It said men, women, girls and boys had all suffered the sexual assaults.

The armed gangs use rapes to “punish, subjugate, and inflict pain” on the citizens and as a coercive tool to force cooperation, it said.

In the past year, “gang violence has spiraled out of control” in Haiti’s cities, the report said, noting that 60 percent of Port-au-Prince may now be under gang territory, accounting for at least 1.5 million people. 

The report, issued jointly by the UN office in Haiti and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said some victims are kidnapped and subjected to assault “over the course of several days or weeks.”

The motives for the assaults can be multiple, it said. Attacks are used to punish Haitians for living in or traversing areas under the control of rival gangs or to press the victims’ families to pay a ransom.

Sometimes the assaults are recorded and videos sent to families to pressure them to pay up, it said.

In a spasm of violence in just a single week in July, rival armed gangs sexually assaulted 52 women and girls in the capital district of Cite Soleil as they fought for control, the report said.

In one case, a 25-year-old pregnant woman, Rose, was beaten and raped by three heavily armed masked men in the presence of her children, it said.

Nearly all such sexual assaults go unpunished, the report added, partly due to rampant insecurity.

Gang violence fell in Haiti from 2004 to 2017, when UN peacekeepers were in the country, but has risen since. 

Gangs battle each other and oppress the populace with increasingly sophisticated weapons, including military grade sniper rifles, belt machine guns and semi-automatic pistols, the report said.

It called on UN bodies, civil society groups and others to help Haiti bolster its police, health care and judicial systems to fight impunity.

Without action, it added, the wave of rapes “risks further shattering the already deeply fragile social fabric… and may undermine prospects of… lasting stability.” 

Adiel Gonzalez, a 32-year-old former theology student, was forced to break with his church eight years ago due to his sexuality. 

He became a fierce LGBTQ+  rights campaigner and on Thursday, was able to tie the knot with his long-time partner and fellow activist Lazaro Gonzalez — among the first gay weddings celebrated in Cuba.

Thanks in large part to the efforts of the pair and others like them, Cuba finally approved same-sex marriage on September 25 after a long battle against religious and cultural resistance in the socially-conservative country.

The Cuban family code adopted last month allows not only legal unions but also adoption, surrogate pregnancy for gay couples and parental rights for non-biological mothers and fathers.

“For us who have been involved so directly” in the struggle, which was “part of our daily life… for seven consecutive years, to get married was the closure, the culmination,” Adiel Gonzalez told AFP next to his new husband, a 52-year-old artist, at their home in Bolondron, central Cuba.

On Thursday, Lazaro Gonzalez got up very early to prepare the banquet to which only the pair’s closest family and friends were invited.

He cooked traditional fare such as fried rice, a casava dish called “yuca al mojo” and sweet plantain.

“We have been awaiting this moment for so long, it was a dream,” he told AFP over coffee before getting dressed for the ceremony.

The happy couple exchanged vows, smiling ear to ear, at the only civil registry in the town of some 7,000 inhabitants.

– Church opposition –

Cubans voted in a referendum last month to approve same-sex marriage, joining only eight other countries in Latin America where it is legal: Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Chile and some Mexican states.

The approved family code, which had the support of President Miguel Diaz-Canel, replaced legislation from 1975 that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

The government had sought to change this already in the 2019 constitution, but withdrew its proposal amid strong opposition from churches and conservative groups.

Marginalization of LGBTQ+ people in traditionally macho Cuban society peaked in the 1960s and ’70s. 

In 2010, Fidel Castro admitted the Cuban revolution had oppressed members of the community as deviants, including with forced labor camps for re-education. Some were driven into exile.

A major opponent of the family code is Cuba’s powerful Catholic Church, which maintains “it is a child’s right to have a father and a mother.”

– ‘God does not care’ –

Adiel Gonzalez, who wears a religious cross around his neck, said he was born into a “very conservative and fundamentalist” Christian family.

“I was taught to reject any homosexual urges. Any love, even, was considered a sin,” he recounted.

From the age of 11, he said, he tried to “change” himself through prayer.

“But it did not work because sexual orientation is not a choice,” he told AFP. “I am convinced that God does not care about sexual orientation.”

By the time he turned 20, Adiel had accepted his sexuality. He tried to foster grass-roots acceptance at his local church, but finally broke ties with the Church in 2014 to start a Christian LGBTQ+ activist group.

It was a painful process.

“I was in the crossfire because I was doing activism from the point of view of my Christian identity,” said Gonzalez, who found himself the target of vicious attacks, including death threats, on social media.

But he did not give up, campaigning for the family code which was finally approved with 66,85 percent of the vote.

“We shouted, we embraced, it was very emotional,” said Lazaro of the referendum’s outcome. “It really was worth” the battle.

“We do not need a signature to be happy, but to have society recognize that we are in a relationship like any other heterosexual one, and that it is very important for us” to have legal protections, he added as he embraced his husband.

Two hitmen brothers were each sentenced to 40 years in prison Friday for killing a prominent journalist in Malta five years ago, an assassination that sparked an international outcry.

The murder sparked mass protests in Malta and eventually led to the resignation of the prime minister, Joseph Muscat.

The sentences handed down to George and Alfred Degiorgio came on the first day of their trial for the 2017 killing of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

The dramatic proceedings saw them plead not guilty before a judge in the morning, before changing their pleas hours later. 

“Their position has changed… they declare they are guilty,” defence lawyer Simon Micallef Stafrace told the court, ahead of the sentencing.

The car bomb killing of 53-year-old investigative journalist Caruana Galizia, described as a “one-woman WikiLeaks”, led to widespread anger internationally.

One of Malta’s most prominent public figures, Caruana Galizia was a vocal critic of the country’s political elite, whom she accused of cronyism and corruption via her blog.

The October 16, 2017 car bomb attack near her home came hours after she had posted a message that read: “There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.”

“Today’s judgement is another important step towards justice for the Caruana Galizia family,” Malta’s Prime Minister, Robert Abela, wrote on Twitter.

Still awaiting trial is wealthy Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech, considered by prosecutors to be the alleged mastermind of the murder.

– ‘Investigate your friends’ –

The much-delayed trial of the brothers — charged with homicide, causing a fatal explosion and criminal conspiracy, among other crimes — began Friday with a dramatic outburst from defendant George Degiorgio 

“Don’t you know who killed Daphne?” Degiorgio called to the prosecution upon entering court. 

“Your friends, those you were shoulder to shoulder with… Go investigate them!”

A third hitman, Vincent Muscat, pled guilty last year to the murder and was sentenced to 15 years in jail.

As the trial opened, judge Edwina Grima said a defence request to suspend the trial, due to what lawyers said was their lack of time to prepare, had been refused.

Courtroom observers Friday included representatives from press freedom groups, including Reporters without Borders and the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom.

– Malta in spotlight –

The Degiorgio brothers said last year they were prepared to implicate a former government minister in exchange for a pardon, which was not granted.

George Degiorgio confessed to the crime during an interview from jail in July, calling it “just business”. 

Early Friday, he repeated his previously stated not guilty plea before the court.

His brother Alfred, seated in a wheelchair, said “I have nothing to say,” which the court recorded as a not guilty plea. 

But within hours, both had changed their pleas to guilty.

Caruana Galizia’s assassination sparked outrage around the world and put Malta, the European Union’s smallest member state, in the spotlight over its apparent rule-of-law failings.

Joseph Muscat resigned as prime minister over the affair in January 2020, following mass protests over his perceived efforts to protect friends and allies from the investigation. 

A 2021 public inquiry into Caruana Galizia’s murder found the state should bear responsibility for her death, by creating a “climate of impunity” for those who wanted to silence her.