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President Maduro managed to rescue the two-year-old girl who was being held in a shelter without the protection of her parents. On Wednesday, Communications Minister Freddy Ñañez confirmed that Maikelys Espinoza Bernal returned to her homeland on a flight with 226 migrants who were repatriated from the U.S. to Venezuela.

This two-year-old girl became the center of an international controversy after being separated from her family by U.S, immigration authorities. Her parents, Yorely Bernal and Maiker Espinoza, who entered the U.S. in May 2024 seeking asylum, were deported separately. Accused of belonging to the Aragua Train gang, the little girl’s father was sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, while Maikely’s mother was deported on a flight out of the U.S.

U.S. authorities arbitrarily detained these Venezuelan migrants and used ethnic profiling, as the accusations against them were based on their tattoos, which included cartoon characters and personal symbols, rather than any concrete evidence of criminal activity, as the Daily Beast recalled.

“The arrival of Maikelys Espinoza, the rescued girl who had been kidnapped by the U.S. government, is confirmed. Once the deportation process began, Maikelys was placed in a shelter where she remained for weeks without contact with her loved ones. These abuses sparked outrage both inside and outside the U.S.

Over the past few weeks, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has condemned the abuses against the Espinoza Bernal family as a violation of international law, accusing the United States government of kidnapping the two-year-old girl.

“Victory for justice! Maikelys Espinoza has returned to Venezuela, thanks to the tireless efforts of President Nicolas Maduro. A triumph for the Venezuelan people!,” stressed community communicator Ronald Tovar, referring to the new success achieved through the Return to the Homeland Plan.

Moscow, May 18 (Prensa Latina) Russia considers that the necessary result of the special operation is long-term peace, guarantee of its security and protection of the interests of Russian speakers in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin said today.

The head of state, who spoke to VGTRK journalist Pavel Zarubin, assured that Moscow has sufficient strength to complete the special military operation with the desired result. “That result is the elimination of the causes that provoked this crisis, the creation of conditions for long-term sustainable peace and ensuring the security of the Russian state,” he said.

Putin also stressed that it is necessary to ensure the interests of the Russian people in those territories. “Where people live who consider Russian their mother tongue and consider Russia their homeland,” he explained. Putin. Russia has been conducting a special military operation in Ukraine since February 24, 2022, Putin said, to protect the population from “genocide by the Kiev government” and to tackle the national security risks posed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's advance eastward.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro vows to resubmit his labor reform referendum to the Senate after denouncing fraud in the recent vote, calling on popular mobilization to defend workers’ rights and democratic participation.

President Gustavo Petro has announced his intention to resubmit the labor reform referendum to the Colombian Senate following what he and his allies describe as a fraudulent vote that blocked the popular consultation. The referendum, aimed at improving workers’ rights through 12 key questions, was narrowly rejected by the Senate with 49 votes against and 47 in favor.

Petro condemned the actions of conservative Senator Efraín Cepeda, accusing him of prematurely closing the vote to prevent the referendum’s approval and calling for the people to take a decisive role in the democratic process.

The rejection of the referendum was marked by intense controversy, with Interior Minister Armando Benedetti accusing Senate President Cepeda of manipulating the voting process. Benedetti claimed that Cepeda closed the voting registry while government-aligned senators were still trying to register their votes, effectively rigging the outcome against the labor reform initiative.

This maneuver followed an earlier attempt by conservative factions to revive a labor reform bill previously sunk in the Senate’s Seventh Committee, which Petro’s government had sought to bypass through the referendum.

In response to what he termed “fraud,” President Petro has called on unions, peasant organizations, indigenous groups, and youth committees to organize community councils and determine the next steps in defending workers’ rights and democratic participation. He emphasized that public forces should avoid repression, limiting their role to protecting institutional buildings and maintaining peace.

Efraín Cepeda has committed a possible crime, and the Supreme Court must investigate. The evidence suggests fraud, and the court will decide. I will once again exercise my constitutional and legal right to submit the referendum to the Senate, ensuring a fair vote. This time the people, the principal, will decide how to act before the Senate of the Republic, the mandated.

Petro’s call signals a strategic shift towards grassroots mobilization as a counterweight to legislative obstruction, reinforcing his government’s commitment to social justice and labor empowerment.

This latest setback highlights the ongoing struggle between Colombia’s progressive government and entrenched conservative interests resistant to Petro’s transformative agenda. The labor reform referendum was designed to restore and enhance protections for workers, addressing decades of neoliberal policies that have eroded labor rights.

Despite the Senate’s rejection, Petro’s administration remains determined to pursue reforms through popular participation and legislative channels, framing the fight as part of a broader movement for social and economic justice in Colombia.

President Petro’s resolve to resubmit the referendum and mobilize popular support underscores the critical moment facing Colombia’s leftist government as it confronts institutional barriers and conservative opposition intent on maintaining the status quo. The coming weeks will be decisive in shaping the future of labor rights and democratic engagement in the country.

The President of Bolivia, Luis Arce, has announced that he will not run for office again in the elections scheduled for August 17. The decision, made public a few hours before registration for the presidential race opened, follows a long path of divisions within the Movement for Socialism (MAS), the party that has governed the country almost uninterruptedly for over 20 years. "Today I make known to the Bolivian people with absolute firmness my decision to withdraw my candidacy for the presidential elections next August," Arce said, calling for unity in his political party, to prevent the "fascist project" designed to "destroy the plurinational state" from winning. The appeal was especially directed at his predecessor, who was once a political ally, Evo Morales, who is seeking a new mandate despite the various legal impediments certified by the Constitutional Court. “From this stage I challenge former President Evo Morales not to insist on being a candidate for the presidency,” he said.

An economist, 61 years old, Arce has also long been responsible for a social and economic crisis in the country that has brought his government's approval ratings to their lowest levels in years. The crisis in the availability of the dollar, which the Central Bank has kept tied to a relatively stable exchange rate with the Bolivian for years, and the poor supply of fuel, crucial in a country whose structure makes road transport dominant, are at the root of numerous social protests, often resulting in prolonged closures of the main roads. A poll in view of the presidential elections, published at the end of March by the company Captura, assigned Arce about 1 percent of the preferences.

The hope of the incumbent president is that the unity of the left-wing forces, once united in the MAS and now divided into three segments, can be recomposed. In addition to those of Morales and Arce, who was for a long time Minister of Finance in the governments of the "cocalero" leader, there is in fact a third front that refers to Andronicus Rodriguez, president of the Senate who surprisingly launched his candidacy in recent days, when the head of state was still in the running. A decision that had opened controversy for the possible further fragmentation of the vote, but which today, in light of Morales' renunciation, could be less serious. The political fracture between Arce and Morales, the former considered distant from the leftist values ​​proclaimed by the latter, has led over time to the division of the MAS into two blocks, both in parliament and in the country, protagonists of intense political and legal clashes. Lastly, in November 2024, Evo was ousted from the party he had led for 27 years, forcing him to take refuge in a new political force – Evo Pueblo – which proclaims total distance from the MAS.

Morales has theoretically exhausted the maximum limit of presidential mandates recognized by the Constitution, having also lost a referendum that he had called precisely to overcome the obstacle, but he does not intend to give up the race, denouncing a maneuver against him orchestrated by the right. The indigenous leader is also the protagonist of a delicate judicial affair: accused of sexual violence against minors and human trafficking, he is the subject of an arrest warrant that has been evading for months, sheltered by his most loyal supporters in the region of Cochabamba, which has always been his political and electoral bastion. Not infrequently, protests against the government's actions have been confused with clashes between supporters of Arce and those of Morales, a leader whom the president accuses of wanting to act only to prolong his political trajectory to the detriment of the interests of the people.