Ex-tycoon Batista gets 30-yr jail
‘Trump pressed Venezuela invasion’
SAO PAULO, July 4, (Agencies): Eike Batista, the former mining and oil magnate who was once Brazil’s richest man, was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison for bribing Rio de Janeiro state’s disgraced ex-governor, according to a court document published on Tuesday.
Batista’s conviction and sentencing by federal judge Marcelo Bretas are the latest in a wave of graft investigations that have sent scores of powerful businessmen and politicians to jail.
The eccentric former billionaire’s meteoric rise and fall mirrored the recent fortunes of Brazil, where the commodities boom faded as his energy, mineral and logistics empire fell apart earlier this decade.
His swashbuckling attitude and confident forecasts of a prolonged golden era for Brazil evaporated just as Latin America’s largest economy suffered its worst recession on record.
Batista, whose legal team said he would appeal, was found guilty of paying a $16.5 million bribe to former Rio governor Sergio Cabral, who also was found guilty in the case.
Trump pressed invasion:
Batista
As a meeting last August in the Oval Office to discuss sanctions on Venezuela was concluding, President Donald Trump turned to his top aides and asked an unsettling question: With a fast unraveling Venezuela threatening regional security, why can’t the US just simply invade the troubled country?
The suggestion stunned those present at the meeting, including US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and national security adviser H.R. McMaster, both of whom have since left the administration. This account of the previously undisclosed conversation comes from a senior administration official familiar with what was said.
In an exchange that lasted around five minutes, McMaster and others took turns explaining to Trump how military action could backfire and risk losing hard-won support among Latin American governments to punish President Nicolas Maduro for taking Venezuela down the path of dictatorship, according to the official. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discussions.
But Trump pushed back. Although he gave no indication he was about to order up military plans, he pointed to what he considered past cases of successful gunboat diplomacy in the region, according to the official, like the invasions of Panama and Grenada in the 1980s.
The idea, despite his aides’ best attempts to shoot it down, would nonetheless persist in the president’s head.
9 convicted for Jara’s death:
A Chilean judge has convicted nine retired soldiers in the 1973 murder of one of Chile’s most beloved folk singers, Victor Jara, the judiciary said on Tuesday.
Jara, 40, was arrested the day after the Sept 11, 1973 CIA-backed coup that overthrew Salvador Allende and installed Augusto Pinochet as dictator.
Jara’s body was found days later, riddled with 44 bullets. He had been held, along with around 5,000 other political prisoners, in a sports stadium where he was interrogated, tortured and then killed.
Among other horrors, the singer-guitarist’s fingers were crushed, broken by rifle butts and boots.
Correa ordered jailed:
An Ecuadoran judge ordered Tuesday that former president Rafael Correa, who is out of the country, be jailed after failing to appear in court in connection with a probe into the kidnapping of an opposition lawmaker.
Chief prosecutor Paul Perez demanded Correa’s arrest and extradition from Belgium, where he currently resides, after the 55-year-old former leader failed to appear at court in Ecuador’s capital as required under the terms of an investigation.
Mayor killed in Mexico:
Gunmen killed the mayor of a town in western Mexico where three Italian men went missing in late January, the Jalisco state prosecutors’ office said Tuesday.
The mayor of Tecalitlan was gunned down by assailants wielding rifles and a municipal worker was wounded in the attack Monday.
The missing Italians are Raffaele Russo, his 25-year-old son Antonio Russo and his 29-year-old nephew Vincenzo Cimmino, all from the Naples area.