Latest news with #CentralUniversityofVenezuela
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
What is Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang targeted by Trump?
In September 2023, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro sent 11,000 soldiers to storm the Tocorón Prison in the northern state of Aragua. But they were not dispatched to quell a riot. The troops were taking back control of the prison from a powerful gang that had turned it into something of a resort, complete with zoo, restaurants, nightclub, betting shop and swimming pool. But the gang's boss, Hector Guerrero Flores, escaped. Now the Tren de Aragua organisation is in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump's drive to remove foreign criminals from the US as part of his campaign pledge to mass deport illegal immigrants. Here is what we do know about Tren de Aragua. Tren de Aragua was originally a prison gang that Hector Guerrero Flores turned into a "transnational criminal organisation", according the US state department, which is offering a reward of $5m for information that could lead to his arrest. Guerrero Flores, 41, was in and out of Tocorón for more than a decade. He escaped in 2012 by bribing a guard and was then rearrested in 2013. Upon his return, he transformed the prison into a leisure complex. And he expanded the gang's influence far beyond the jail's gates, seizing control of gold mines in Bolivar state, drug corridors on the Caribbean coast, and clandestine border crossings between Venezuela and Colombia, according to the US state department. The gang's name translates as "Train of Aragua", and it may have come from a railroad workers' union. Luis Izquiel, a criminology professor at the Central University of Venezuela, told the BBC that the union controlled a section of the railway that crossed Aragua and would extort contractors and sell jobs on work sites. Tren de Aragua has under Guerrero Flores's leadership expanded into Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile and diversified from extorting migrants into sex-trafficking, contract killing and kidnapping. By most accounts, Tren de Aragua spread out of Venezuela when the country entered a humanitarian and economic emergency in 2014 that made crime less profitable, and now is believed to have nodes in eight other countries, including the US. Ronna Rísquez, a journalist who has written the definitive book on the group, estimated last year that the organisation has 5,000 members and annual profits of between $10m and $15m. Others have estimated its membership at roughly half that figure. A prosecutor in Chile has called Tren de Aragua a "brutal organisation" that uses murder and torture to achieve its aims. While it is smaller or less wealthy than other criminal groups in Latin America, Tren de Aragua is often compared to the ultra-violent MS-13 gang from El Salvador. Tren de Aragua members have been accused of dressing up as Chilean police officers and then kidnapping Venezuelan opposition military officer Ronald Ojeda, whose body was found buried in Santiago, Chile, in March 2024. The US Treasury, under then-President Joe Biden, sanctioned Tren de Aragua last summer, saying that the gang was involved in sex-trafficking across the US border. On Saturday Trump invoked the 18th Century Alien Enemies Act as he accused Tren de Aragua of "perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion of predatory incursion against the territory of the United States". He said the gang was engaged in "irregular warfare" against the US at the direction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Shortly after taking office in January Trump also has declared Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organisation, placing the group in the same category as Islamic State and Boko Haram, Nigeria's Islamist militants. In Texas, Florida, New York and Illinois, alleged Tren de Aragua members have been arrested in recent months and charged with crimes ranging from murder to kidnapping. Last summer NBC News reported that the Department of Homeland estimated that 600 Venezuelan migrants in the US had connections to the gang, with 100 believed to be members. As of 2023, there were 770,000 Venezuelans living in the US, representing slightly less than 2% of all immigrants in the county, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Most had been given protected status by the US government. Customs and Border Protection reports encountering 313,500 Venezuelan migrants at the border in 2024. Manhunt for Venezuelan gang boss who ran luxury jail Cómo opera el temido Tren de Aragua, la sangrienta megabanda de Venezuela que se ha expandido por América Latina
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Pope signs decree making José Gregorio Hernández, 'doctor of the poor,' Venezuela's first saint
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A man revered by millions as the 'doctor of the poor' will be the first saint from Venezuela after Pope Francis approved a decree Tuesday. A date for the canonization of Dr. José Gregorio Hernández, who died in 1919, has not been set. The Vatican in a statement said Francis also decided to convene a formal meeting of cardinals to set the dates for future canonizations, but it was not immediately scheduled. 'This historic event, long awaited by the Venezuelan people, is a recognition of the exemplary life and heroic virtues of a man who dedicated his existence to alleviating human suffering and transmitting a message of love and hope,' the Archdiocese of Caracas said in a statement. 'The Catholic Church recognizes his life of holiness, accompanied by a universal devotion, which today allows him to be elevated to the altar.' Hernández was beatified in April 2021 after the church certified a miracle in the case of a girl who completely recovered after being shot in the head in 2017. Hernández, born on Oct. 26, 1864, in the western Venezuela town of Isnotu, never married and graduated as a doctor in Caracas, Venezuela's capital, in 1888. He was convinced that science was one of the main ways to get the South American country out of misery and went on to establish two research institutions as well as teach several classes at the Central University of Venezuela, the nation's oldest and largest. He traveled to Europe to study and then to become a Catholic monk, but his fragile health was affected by Italy's cold and humid weather. He returned to Venezuela to recover and stayed permanently. On June 29, 1919, Hernández was hit by a car while crossing a street shortly after picking up medicine at a pharmacy to take to an impoverished woman. His death was caused when his head hit the edge of a sidewalk. An estimated 20,000 people participated in his funeral procession, about a quarter of the population of Caracas at the time. In 1986, the Vatican declared Hernández 'venerable,' which means that he led an exemplary Christian life. But to achieve sanctity, teams of doctors, theologians and cardinals must approve miracles attributed to him. When Pope John Paul II, now a saint, visited Venezuela in 1996, he received a petition signed by 5 million people — at the time, almost one in four Venezuelans — asking him to declare Hernández a saint. ____ Follow AP's coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at The Associated Press
The Independent
27-02-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Pope signs decree making José Gregorio Hernández, 'doctor of the poor,' Venezuela's first saint
A man revered by millions as the 'doctor of the poor' will be the first saint from Venezuela after Pope Francis approved a decree Tuesday. A date for the canonization of Dr. José Gregorio Hernández, who died in 1919, has not been set. The Vatican in a statement said Francis also decided to convene a formal meeting of cardinals to set the dates for future canonizations, but it was not immediately scheduled. 'This historic event, long awaited by the Venezuelan people, is a recognition of the exemplary life and heroic virtues of a man who dedicated his existence to alleviating human suffering and transmitting a message of love and hope,' the Archdiocese of Caracas said in a statement. 'The Catholic Church recognizes his life of holiness, accompanied by a universal devotion, which today allows him to be elevated to the altar.' Hernández was beatified in April 2021 after the church certified a miracle in the case of a girl who completely recovered after being shot in the head in 2017. Hernández, born on Oct. 26, 1864, in the western Venezuela town of Isnotu, never married and graduated as a doctor in Caracas, Venezuela's capital, in 1888. He was convinced that science was one of the main ways to get the South American country out of misery and went on to establish two research institutions as well as teach several classes at the Central University of Venezuela, the nation's oldest and largest. He traveled to Europe to study and then to become a Catholic monk, but his fragile health was affected by Italy's cold and humid weather. He returned to Venezuela to recover and stayed permanently. On June 29, 1919, Hernández was hit by a car while crossing a street shortly after picking up medicine at a pharmacy to take to an impoverished woman. His death was caused when his head hit the edge of a sidewalk. An estimated 20,000 people participated in his funeral procession, about a quarter of the population of Caracas at the time. In 1986, the Vatican declared Hernández 'venerable,' which means that he led an exemplary Christian life. But to achieve sanctity, teams of doctors, theologians and cardinals must approve miracles attributed to him. When Pope John Paul II, now a saint, visited Venezuela in 1996, he received a petition signed by 5 million people — at the time, almost one in four Venezuelans — asking him to declare Hernández a saint. ____
