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Argentina claims to be sheltering Venezuelan opposition leaders in embassy

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Members of Venezuela’s opposition coalition have sought refuge in the Argentinian embassy in Caracas, according to the office of Argentina’s president, Javier Milei.

“We have sheltered political opposition leaders in our embassy in Caracas,” presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni said in a news conference in Buenos Aires on Wednesday. “We call for a solution soon.”

Just one day prior, Milei’s administration had released a statement expressing “concern” at the “acts of harassment and persecution directed against political figures in Venezuela”.

The far-right Milei also warned his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolas Maduro, against “any deliberate action that endangers the safety of Argentinian diplomatic personnel or Venezuelan citizens under [the embassy’s] protection”.

The announcement comes as members of Venezuela’s opposition coalition face threats of arrest, amid a heated election season.

Maduro is seeking a third six-year term in office, and critics have accused him of attempting to derail and intimidate popular opposition candidates in order to secure a victory.

Last week, for instance, Maduro’s administration arrested two opposition figures and issued warrants for the detention of approximately six more.

While the statement from Argentina did not name the opposition figures taking shelter in the Caracas embassy, they are believed to be among those facing arrest.

The statement also did not disclose how many Venezuelans sought protection in the embassy.

Opposition setbacks

With Venezuela’s presidential election approaching on July 28, the opposition coalition — called the Plataforma Unitaria Democratica (PUD) or the Democratic Unitary Platform — has faced setback after setback.

In July, the Venezuelan government expanded a ban against popular opposition leader María Corina Machado, preventing her from holding public office.

She had recently launched her presidential campaign at the time, and she was polling as the frontrunner among candidates to represent the opposition in the 2024 presidential race.

A few months later, in October, Machado made good on the promise of her poll numbers: She won the opposition primary in a landslide, with more than 93 percent of the vote.

But Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal in January upheld the ban against her, accusing her of corruption and of supporting United States sanctions against the country.

With her candidacy effectively scuttled, Machado named 80-year-old professor Corina Yoris on Friday to be her replacement to represent the opposition.

Yoris’s candidacy was short-lived, however: She missed a Monday deadline to register for the vote, claiming that her efforts to sign up on the election authority’s online platform were blocked by Maduro’s allies in the agency.

“They haven’t let us get in,” Omar Barboza, an opposition official, told the media.

Late on Tuesday, the opposition coalition said it was able to “provisionally register” a third candidate, diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez. But critics have questioned what further roadblocks may arise — and how the confusion may affect the race.

International response

The barriers to opposition figures participating in the July presidential race — and the recent spate of arrests — have raised international concerns about the validity of Venezuela’s upcoming elections.

In October, President Maduro agreed to a deal — known as the Barbados Agreement — that would lay the groundwork for a free and fair election in July.

It required Venezuela to respect the right of political groups to chose their own candidates freely. The agreement would also allow international observers and media to participate in monitoring and covering the vote.

In exchange, the United States pledged to lift certain sanctions against Venezuela’s oil industry, a pillar of its economy.

But the US has warned that the recent actions against Venezuela’s opposition coalition could threaten relief from those sanctions, and it has recently reimposed some of the restrictions. Brazil and other countries have likewise articulated concerns about the the upcoming election.

Maduro, meanwhile, has accused the opposition of attempting to destabilise his government and foment violence against him. He has also sought to frame the opposition as a tool of international forces, such as the US.

But the president and his administration have been widely accused of using torture, arbitrary detention and other human rights abuses to suppress dissent.

“Authorities harass, persecute, and jail union workers, journalists and human rights defenders, restricting civic space,” the nonprofit Human Rights Watch wrote in its 2023 country report.

Argentinian President Milei, a vocal critic of left-leaning governments, echoed calls for Venezuela to hold transparent elections with his Tuesday statement.

“President Javier Milei urges the socialist Nicolas Maduro to ensure the security and well-being of the Venezuelan people, as well as to call transparent, free, democratic and competitive elections, without proscriptions of any kind,” it read.

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Most Americans disapprove of Israel’s actions in Gaza: Poll

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Poll shows ‘clear disconnect’ between President Joe Biden’s policies and US public, especially Democrats, analyst says.

A majority of Americans disapprove of Israel’s actions in Gaza, a new poll has shown, as the Israeli military continues to pound the besieged Palestinian enclave and imposes a siege that has created a hunger crisis.

The Gallup poll released on Wednesday found that 55 percent of respondents disapproved of the Israeli military’s actions in the Gaza Strip, up from 45 percent who said they disapproved in November, a month after Israel began its operation.

Among Democratic Party voters, the percentage was even higher, with 75 percent of respondents expressing a negative view of Israel’s actions, while 60 percent of independents also said they disapproved.

“The Gallup poll reflects a clear disconnect between the Biden administration’s policies and the views of a majority of Americans, particularly Democrats, on Israel’s actions in Gaza,” said Raed Jarrar, advocacy director at Democracy for the Arab World Now, a think-tank in Washington, DC.

“This divergence suggests a pressing need for the administration to realign its foreign policy with the values and expectations of its constituents,” Jarrar told Al Jazeera in an email.

“Such a substantial gap in approval should be another reason for the administration to end its ongoing support to Israel’s genocide.”

A majority of Americans (55%) now oppose the military action Israel has taken in Gaza, a shift from November 2023.

New data: https://t.co/7Xoe3pQJhZ pic.twitter.com/G4xQobSfOh

— GallupNews (@GallupNews) March 27, 2024

The findings of the poll, which was conducted earlier this month, come as Israel has intensified its bombardment of parts of the Gaza Strip despite growing international demands for a lasting ceasefire to end the war.

US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has also faced protests and public anger over his staunch support for Israel and refusal to withhold foreign aid to the Israeli government until it complies with international human rights norms.

Earlier this week, the Biden administration abstained from a United Nations Security Council ceasefire resolution instead of using its veto, a move that experts said highlighted Biden’s frustrations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But Washington continues to provide weapons and public support to Israel, and senior US officials have downplayed the importance of the UN Security Council measure.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said on Wednesday that Israeli attacks on the territory over the past 24 hours had killed at least 76 Palestinians, raising the total to at least 32,490 Palestinians killed since Israel began its assault following Hamas’s October 7 attack that left 1,139 Israelis dead.

Israel also continues to block humanitarian aid deliveries to the enclave, which is facing shortages of food, clean water and other supplies.

A UN expert warned this week that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The Israeli government rejected those allegations.

Against that backdrop, Biden’s approval rating for his handling of the situation in the Middle East sits at 27 percent, according to another Gallup poll released last week.

Among Democrats, the approval rating was 47 percent, compared with 16 percent and 21 percent among Republicans and independents, respectively.

“Democrats’ widespread opposition to Israel’s actions underscores the difficulty of the issue for President Joe Biden among his most loyal supporters,” Gallup said on Wednesday.

“Some Democratic critics believe Biden has been too closely aligned with Israel by not taking stronger actions to promote a ceasefire and to assist Palestinian civilians caught in the war zone.”

Biden has faced a growing protest movement over his Gaza policy as he campaigns for re-election in November against his predecessor and the Republicans’ presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump.

Groups have urged Democratic voters to cast “uncommitted” ballots during several state primaries so far this year, including in the key US swing state of Michigan.

Earlier this month, organisers of the so-called Listen to Michigan campaign announced plans to take their movement national.

“Today, we launched our national movement to let you all know uncommitted voters aren’t going anywhere, and we aren’t backing down until we achieve a permanent ceasefire,” Layla Elabed, a key organiser, told reporters.

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UN report says households waste 1 billion meals daily

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Households worldwide threw away one billion meals every day in 2022, according to a new study by the United Nations.

In the Food Waste Index Report published on Wednesday, the UN said households and businesses binned more than one trillion dollars’ worth of food at a time when more than 780 million people were going hungry.

The index tracks the progress of countries attempting to halve food waste by 2030.

It said that more than one billion tonnes of food – almost one-fifth of all the produce available on the market – was wasted in 2022, most of it by households.

“Food waste is a global tragedy. Millions will go hungry today as food is wasted across the world,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said in a statement.

Such wastage was not just a moral but “environmental failure”, the report said.

Food loss and waste generate 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. If it were a country, it would rank third after China and the United States.

The report, co-authored with non-profit organisation WRAP, is the second on global food waste compiled by the UN and provides the most complete picture to date.

Food waste
Rubbish is loaded into a landfill in Lenox Township, Michigan, US, July 28, 2022 [File: Paul Sancya/AP Photo]

Conservative estimate

The report said that the “billion meals” daily figure was a “very conservative estimate” and “the real amount could be much higher”.

“For me, it’s just staggering,” Richard Swannell from WRAP told news agency AFP.

“You could actually feed all the people that are currently hungry in the world – about 800 million people – over a meal a day just from the food that is wasted every single year.”

He said bringing together producers and retailers had helped reduce waste and get food to those who need it, but more action was needed.

In 2022, food services like restaurants, canteens, and hotels were responsible for 28 percent of all wasted food, while retailers like butchers and greengrocers dumped 12 percent.

But the biggest culprits were households, which accounted for 60 percent – some 631 million tonnes.

Swannell said much of this occurred because people were simply buying more food than they needed, misjudging portion sizes, and not eating leftovers.

Another issue was expiration dates, he said, with perfectly good produce being trashed because people incorrectly assumed their food had gone off.

Food loss

Kalyani Raghunathan, a research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, told Al Jazeera that global production of food far exceeds the global requirement.

“It’s not about net supply and demand – it’s more a question of the distribution of that food,” she said.

She noted the terms “food loss” and “food waste” are often used interchangeably, but that rates of food loss and food waste were different around the world.

“We tend to see that a lot of wastage is concentrated in higher-income countries. We see more food loss in lower-income countries. And that’s the part of the food that gets lost between production and when it arrives to be sold. The food waste part of it, which is from retail up until consumption, which tends to be in higher income countries and particularly at a household level.”

Rubbish waste
A person picks through rubbish for reusable items at the Bhalswa landfill in New Delhi, April 27, 2022 [File: Manish Swarup/AP Photo]

‘Devastating effects’

Food waste had “devastating effects” on people and the planet, the report said.

Converting natural ecosystems for agriculture is a leading cause of habitat loss yet food waste takes up the equivalent of nearly 30 percent of the world’s farming land, the report said.

“If we can reduce food waste across the entire of the supply chain, we can … minimise the need to have land set aside that’s growing stuff that’s never used,” Swannell said.

It is also a key driver of climate change, generating up to 10 percent of annual greenhouse gas emissions.

“If food waste was a country, it would be the third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet behind the US and China,” Swannell said.

But people rarely think about it, he said, despite the opportunity to “reduce our carbon footprint, reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, and save money, simply by making better use of the food that we’re already buying”.

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