Venezuela faces a national emergency after suffering two large earthquakes in just forty seconds. While rescue efforts continue in the most affected areas, in Spain the political debate continues to be marked by the appearance of Pedro Sánchez in Congress and by the new judicial revelations that affect former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. This is how Carlos Alsina summarizes the main news of the day.
Venezuela declares a national emergency after two large earthquakes
The first thing is Venezuela and the double earthquake that shook the country late yesterday afternoon, shortly before one in the morning Spanish time. Two intense earthquakes, one of magnitude 7.2 and another of 7.5occurred just forty seconds apart about 300 kilometers from Caracas, in the municipality of Montalbán.
The acting president, Delcy Rodriguezhas appeared this morning on two occasions. First to declare the national emergency and activate the general staff in charge of coordinating the response to the catastrophe. It has subsequently updated the provisional balance of fatalities and injuries.
Rodríguez has also confirmed the arrival in the next few hours of international rescue teams and has indicated that the state of La Guaira It is the most affected by the damage caused by the earthquakes.
At this time, the Venezuelan authorities continue to work on the search and rescue of people trapped in collapsed or seriously damaged buildings, as well as on locating possible victims.
The United States Embassy has mobilized an assistance team to coordinate humanitarian and emergency aid to Venezuela. The planned resources include specialized search and rescue teams, medical supplies and humanitarian materials.
As detailed by Delcy Rodríguez, the most affected areas are the east of Caracas, Miranda, La Guaira, Falcón and Carabobo. In addition, there have been gas outages in several buildings, incidents in the water supply and the suspension of both the metro and railway services to facilitate rescue and recovery tasks.
The partners increase the pressure on Sánchez after his appearance
There was little self-criticism in the speech of Pedro Sanchez yesterday in Congress. Far from dispelling the doubts of his parliamentary partners, the intervention left the image of a president increasingly questioned by the forces that support the legislature.
The feeling shared by several groups is that Sánchez has lost the support of a parliamentary majority and that, although he avoids formally submitting to a question of confidence, he no longer has a solid majority to govern.
It was precisely the PNV who spoke of the existence of “negative majorities.” But one of the most critical interventions came from Together. Its spokesperson, Miriam Nogueras, demanded that the president follow the example of Keir Starmer and hand over the baton to another leader to avoid elections that, in her opinion, could favor the extreme right.
Gabriel Rufián also hardened his tone. The ERC spokesperson accused Sánchez of constantly resorting to the “and you more” strategy, although he ended up using a similar argument during his own intervention. The result was a session with numerous questions and reproaches, but with few concrete proposals about the future of the legislature.
At the opposite extreme was EH Bilduwho maintained a much more favorable position to the president. Although he demanded that responsibilities be assumed for corruption cases, he avoided increasing pressure on the Government and joined the thesis of an alleged judicial, police and media operation aimed at putting an end to the legislature.
New evidence against Zapatero for alleged efforts in Bolivia
While Sánchez carried out a closed defense of José Luis Rodríguez Zapateroinsisting that definitive conclusions cannot yet be drawn about his judicial situation, the UDEF issued a new report that increases pressure on the former president.
According to investigators, Zapatero would have received 200,000 euros for carrying out negotiations and influencing the Government of Bolivia.
The payments would have been made through a shell company and, according to the police report, reinforce the hypothesis that the former president acted as commission agent or influence intermediary more than as a professional consultant.
In addition to those 200,000 euros, he would have received different expenses associated with work commissioned by the Peruvian company. focus. During his statement before Judge Calama, Zapatero avoided specifying what exactly the consulting services provided were.
The UDEF maintains that these economic movements reinforce the indications about the existence of an alleged organization led by the former president and dedicated to taking advantage of his network of institutional contacts to benefit different private clients.
The affected client in Bolivia would be the Gloria Group. According to the police report, Zapatero had intervened before the Bolivian authorities to try to resolve the judicial problems of one of the group’s companies, which was subject to a sanction of 107 million euros.
