In the spotlight: protection status for Venezuelans in Colombia
Venezuelan refugees cross the border into Colombia (File image).
© AP / Fernando Vergara
Text by: Marie Normand Follow
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Colombian President Ivan Duque has decided to create a “
temporary protection status
” for Venezuelans who have fled their country in recent years.
Clearly, nearly a million undocumented Venezuelans will obtain temporary papers, including the right to work legally, for 10 years.
This makes Colombia, for
El Espectador
, "
a leading country in the field of immigration
", "
at the forefront
", even the headline newspaper dares.
Concretely, what does this temporary status change?
El Tiempo
explains that these migrants will
be
able to "
exercise any type of activity or profession in the country
".
However, they do not have the right to vote or to have easy access to Colombian nationality.
The key point is in the area of health, the newspaper continues, since Venezuelan citizens residing in Colombia will have access to the public health system, including the vaccination campaign against Covid-19 which is to begin on February 20.
Political cost?
The president initially wanted to exclude undocumented migrants.
He had been heavily criticized.
El Espectador
, wonders about the "
political cost
" of this about-face of Ivan Duque.
The newspaper observes the situation of foreign governments having taken "
similar measures
" in countries "
with better economic and social conditions than Colombia
".
The newspaper cites the example of Germany and judges that Angela Merkel suffered politically from her decision to welcome nearly a million migrants in 2015.
Semana
notes for its part that according to official figures, “
more than 300 migrants try to enter the national territory illegally every day, just through the Norte de Santander department
”.
In Peru, a neighboring country to Colombia, the 800,000 Venezuelan migrants who arrived since 2016 will have access to the vaccination campaign.
El Nacional
explains that the vaccination of all foreigners is planned by the Peruvian Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Peru "will
begin to vaccinate health personnel on Tuesday, after the arrival on Sunday of the first batch of 300,000 Chinese vaccines from Sinopharm,
" notes the Venezuelan online media.
Ecuador: who to face Andres Arauz in the second round?
Confusion still reigns around the two candidates who will face each other in the second round for the presidential election in Ecuador.
There is still around 1% of the votes to count this Tuesday, February 9.
These votes are gradually rising from areas that are difficult to access, explains
El Comercio
.
The National Electoral Council must also "
revise
" a fairly large batch of votes deemed "
inconsistent
".
The opponent of the socialist Andrés Arauz therefore remains to be defined.
Lawyer Yaku Pérez and former banker Guillermo Lasso are in a pocket handkerchief and even if he still leads by a short head, Yaku Perez is already denouncing a plot.
"
The future of the country depends on the way in which the winners and the losers of the first round of the elections will react
", worries the newspaper
La Hora
.
In the midst of a pandemic, in the midst of an economic and social crisis, "
politicians and society as a whole must work together to avoid further blockages and build a viable project for the country
".
The newspaper calls in particular Yaku Pérez, the probable candidate of the second round, to "
clarify what are its true tendency and its project for the country
".
His breakthrough during this election is in any case historic, thinks
the editorial
writer
of the newspaper: “
The demonstrations of October, the pandemic and the crisis of correism
[the current of the former president Rafael Correa]
created another country, a cohesive country that was reflected in the ballot box.
The country has spoken and everyone should listen
”.
Florida: hacking of a drinking water network
Chilling information to read in the
Miami Herald
this Tuesday.
The town of Oldsmar, near Tampa, in central Florida, was the subject of an attempted poisoning of its drinking water system, which supplies about 15,000 residents, on Friday.
"
Someone remotely accessed the computer that drives the city's water treatment system and briefly increased the amount of sodium hydroxide added to it by more than 100 times
," explained the sheriff who opened an investigation, along with the FBI and the Secret Service.
"
This chemical is used in small amounts to control the acidity of water,
" the American newspaper explains, "
but it is also a corrosive compound commonly found in household cleaning products
."
The city's water supply was not affected "
because a supervisor noticed the change on his computer screen and immediately corrected it
".
In any case, Senator Marco Rubio insisted on
: this issue must be treated "
as a matter of national security
".
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