- 6 hours ago
22/07/2026
FTS 08.30
*Colombian Pres. Petro files lawsuit to nullify De la Espriella's election.
*United States launches attacks against Tehran, capital of Iran, among other cities.
teleSUR
FTS 08.30
*Colombian Pres. Petro files lawsuit to nullify De la Espriella's election.
*United States launches attacks against Tehran, capital of Iran, among other cities.
teleSUR
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NewsTranscript
00:10Venezuela's acting president,
00:11Darcy Rodríguez, led an inspection of land in the White State to evaluate its potential
00:16for new housing projects.
00:21Colombia's president, Gustavo Petrofield, an electoral lawsuit seeking to annul the
00:25election of Abelardo de la Espriella as president.
00:32The United States launches attacks against Iran for the 11th consecutive night, striking
00:36several cities, including the capital, Tehran.
00:46Hello and welcome to From the South, I am Lorena Fon from the Telesurio Studios in Caracas,
00:51Venezuela.
00:51We begin with the news, stay with us.
01:12The government of Venezuela released an updated official report detailing the figures on the
01:16damage, losses and measures taken after the earthquakes that struck on June 24.
01:21According to the official report released on July 21, 2026, the death toll has risen to
01:265,346, while the number of injured remains at 16,740.
01:32Authorities also reported that 6,462 people have been rescued, and the report indicates that
01:41128,324 families have received assistance and 23,122 people are in temporary camps, while
01:4917,265 families have lost their homes.
01:55In addition, 856 buildings have been damaged and 190 have collapsed.
02:01Relief efforts have included the distribution of 10,964,097 tons of food and 29,565,652 liters of
02:18water, while 39,576 people have received medical treatment.
02:24A total of 2,278 international rescue workers are assisting the country, alongside 30,989 deployed
02:33personnel and 31,745 volunteers.
02:37Finally, authorities also reported the establishment of 107 temporary camps, and the recording of
02:431,405 aftershocks.
02:54On Tuesday, Venezuela's Acting President, Delcy Rodriguez, led an inspection of land in
02:59La Guayre State to evaluate its potential for new housing projects.
03:02The technical evaluation is part of the government's reconstruction efforts following the twin earthquake
03:07that struck the country on June 24.
03:09The geological assessment covered 584,000 square meters of land, which could be used for construction
03:16of over 25,000 earthquake-resistant homes.
03:19The project is also expected to include schools, sport facilities, commercial areas and recreational
03:25spaces as part of a broader urban planning initiative.
03:28The evaluation of the floodlands and beaches in this coastal state will determine the soil's
03:34load-bearing capacity for flexible structural systems and energy dissipation technologies.
03:48We have been visiting several sites in La Guayre State, where preliminary studies indicate
03:54that housing can be built.
03:56And it's not just the sites we have already inspected.
03:59We have launched a statewide assessment across La Guayre.
04:03At this moment, technical teams led by Engineer Garces are evaluating the feasibility of developing
04:09new housing projects in those areas.
04:12At the same time, Paola, Minister, as you continue with that task, the President of the National Assembly,
04:19who heads the Camp and Housing High Command, is in Xarayabe inspecting residential buildings
04:25that are close to completion.
04:27Our goal is to follow a schedule of monthly housing deliveries from now through December,
04:33so that every family currently living in temporary camps knows they will receive a permanent home.
04:43And as part of the Venezuela Rises Again plan repair work is underway, and the home is affected
04:49by the June 24 double earthquake.
04:51Our colleague Belen de los Santos brings us the following study from La Guayre.
04:57In Mareabajo, La Guayre, reconstruction work began weeks ago.
05:01Located just here, apartment buildings were given a yellow classification,
05:06following the professional inspection.
05:08They are not structurally compromised, but do require repairs.
05:12That is a task that is being carried out by the workers of the plan Venezuela Rises Again.
05:19We have crews ready to rehabilitate 172 homes that are currently being attended to,
05:26in order to protect the lives of the Venezuelan people,
05:31who were affected on June 24 by the double earthquake that struck this area.
05:36Of the more than 9,600 buildings already assessed in La Guayre State,
05:411,785 have received a yellow classification, as is the case of Marewan Tower.
05:49The specialists came first, the engineers, the structural pathologists,
05:54the surveyors who inspected the site.
05:57Well, they are the ones who know, they are the experts.
06:02And they determined that the foundation was affected.
06:07But its performance allowed the structure to be repaired rather than demolished.
06:11The work is being carried out without rest,
06:14so that residents can resume life home as soon as possible.
06:20My apartment suffered some cracks,
06:22mostly around the large window, which was the most affected area.
06:27They have really been working hard.
06:31They are doing a good job, both the engineers, the architects,
06:35and their entire team.
06:38The team has been here consistently from Monday through Monday.
06:42They have even worked on Sundays.
06:44It seems that starting next week, they will begin working at night
06:47so they can deliver the tower as quickly as possible.
06:50During a supervision tour of the work,
06:52the president of the Venezuela Rises Again plan said that the repairs
06:56take into account the characteristic of each structure and its location.
07:00The goal is to urgently address the population's needs.
07:04This is the methodology approved by the specialists for this type of building
07:09that received a yellow classification,
07:12meaning it is repairable and habitable.
07:15A total of 11,794 homes are currently under reconstruction nationwide
07:21as part of the Venezuela Rises Again plan.
07:25On camera, Marco Da Silva, Belen de los Santos,
07:28for Telesur English from La Guaira, Venezuela.
07:31The Venezuela's acting president, Elsie Rodriguez,
07:34also had a meeting with members of Israel's humanitarian aid and assistance delegation
07:38after completing their support operations in the country.
07:41During the meeting, Rodriguez expressed the government's gratitude
07:45for their technical and logistical support in earthquake-affected areas.
07:49This gesture conveyed the national government's appreciation
07:53for the field operations carried out by the Israeli Technical Delegation
07:56and supported by Venezuela's Jewish community.
07:59The delegation was one of many countries and multilateral organizations
08:03that provided assistance to Venezuela during the disaster search and rescue efforts.
08:16On another note, the U.S. Attorney Office proposes that the trial
08:20against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, First Lady,
08:25and National Assembly member Celia Flores begin in June 2027.
08:30This proposal was announced hours before a follow-up hearing on the case
08:35to discuss the timeline for the trial against the Venezuelan presidential couple.
08:40The president's defense team will present its initial arguments in September,
08:44while the prosecution plans to submit most of its evidence in November.
08:48It should be noted that the district judge in charge of overseeing the case
08:52is the one who will ultimately set the timeline.
09:02And now we have a short break coming up.
09:04But first, remember you can join us on TikTok at Talosuri English,
09:07where you will find news in different formats, news updates and more.
09:11We'll be right back. Start with us.
09:25Welcome back to From the South.
09:27We continue now in Colombia's where President Gustavo Petro filled an electoral lawsuit
09:31seeking to annul the election of Abelardo de la Espriella as president.
09:34Backed by 70,000 citizens designated as digital witnesses,
09:39the legal action argues that there was algorithmic manipulation on a foreign computer server
09:45and at the polling stations in Colombia and abroad,
09:48similar to cases that occurred in Ecuador and Honduras.
09:51The lawsuit does not mention the word fraud, but rather a structural inverifiability of the process.
09:59Furthermore, the plaintiffs point out that nearly 20% of the polling stations
10:04were processed just seven minutes after the polling stations closed,
10:09a time frame incompatible with the manual counting
10:12and that 97.5% of documents lacked metadata or a cryptographic signature
10:19leaving the preliminary counts in the hands of software that cannot be audited.
10:28President Gustavo Petro posted the following message on his social media accounts.
10:33Here is all the evidence of electoral fraud in Colombia,
10:36which has already been submitted to the courts.
10:48Chile's National Congress approved on Tuesday the economic megaproject
10:51promoted by far-right President José Antonio Cast,
10:54which favours foreign investments and the nation's millionaires
10:57and dispense social benefits for the majority.
11:00The Chamber approved 27 of the Senate's 28 amendments
11:04during the Bill's third legislative stage in Santiago de Chile.
11:08CAST's neoliberal project consistently reduces several taxes on large corporations
11:13and the super-rich establishes a tax invariability
11:16considered undemocratic and authoritarian,
11:20supports foreign investors by guaranteeing them compensation risk
11:25the state's state system and temporarily reduces the inheritance tax
11:29and capital repatriation.
11:31In a sense, the Opposition has already announced plans
11:33to raise constitutional objections to at least 12 of the 28 Senate amendments
11:38citing unjustified privileges for financers and big businessmen
11:43and the transgression of legal norms.
11:52For the part, the legislative forces of progressivism and left-wing representatives
11:57strongly oppose President CAST's neoliberal project in Chile's Congress,
12:01arguing that it only benefits the top one percent
12:04in detriment of the majority of Chilean society.
12:08I have come to denounce a lie, the lie that this bill helps Chile.
12:12It is a bill that is not going to help small and medium-sized businesses.
12:16It is not going to help small shops.
12:18It is not going to help the families who get up day after day
12:21looking for a new opportunity.
12:23On the contrary, it is a reform aimed at President CAST,
12:26his businessman friends, and the financiers of the Republican Party.
12:30It is a bill that uses the pain of families waiting for reconstruction
12:33to introduce a tax reform that is only ideological
12:36and does nothing to help the situation of Chile today.
12:40Who does it benefit?
12:41The ministers of this government, who are not going to pay property taxes.
12:48This is a bad bill because it does not think about 99 percent of Chileans
12:53and, as it is proposed, it grants benefits exceeding four billion dollars
12:57to the richest one percent in the country.
12:59They sought to cover the financial hole by indebting the country.
13:02But even more relentless is this government that makes us come vote
13:06while half the country is underwater.
13:08I wonder whether the government has really listened to Chileans.
13:15I do not know what level of human misery we are facing.
13:24I do not think it is right that in this Congress we are capable of voting for a reform that
13:33enriches the one percent,
13:37who already obscenely have their coffers full of money from the work of the immense majority of us.
13:45Are you not ashamed that people cannot get health care?
13:51Or that workers' families cannot send their girls to be educated because it is not a right?
13:58Are you not ashamed of so much greed and so much human misery?
14:16In Chile, severe storms and unprecedented rainfall have left at least 13 people dead
14:21and seven other missing across the country.
14:24The state of catastrophe has been declared following a historic flooding
14:28that has swept throughout usually arid northern regions like Coquimbo and Atacama.
14:33Over 60,000 people remain completely isolated due to mudslides and overflowing rivers
14:39that destroyed roads and vital infrastructure with nearly 3,000 homes severely damaged.
14:46Emergency forces and military personnel are deploying human aid to the disaster zones
14:51as the government focuses on restoring basic power, water and transport services.
15:05Let's take a short break but before we invite you to visit our Facebook page at Telesur English.
15:10There you will be able to watch our top stories, special live coverage and much more.
15:14Follow our page and activate the notification button to stay up to date towards most recent events.
15:19Final short break. Now go away.
15:47Welcome back from the south. We continue now our information in the Middle East for the analysis.
15:51The United States has launched attacks against Iran for the 11th consecutive night striking several cities
15:56including the capital, Tehran.
15:57In a statement, the US Central Command said that its forces targeted Iranian military operations centers,
16:03marauding capabilities, aircraft hangars, drone storage facilities and military logistics infrastructure.
16:09Meanwhile, Iranian media reported that massive explosions were heard across the Iranian capital
16:14and that the air defense system had been activated in various locations in Tehran.
16:21Explosions were also reported in northwestern Tabriz and in the southern areas of Boucher and Sirik.
16:28In this sense, attacks on Tabriz and Tehran mark a departure from the general trend of strikes in the latest
16:33round,
16:33which have largely focused on southern Iran and the area around the Strait of Hormuz.
16:43Iran urged the international community to adopt a zero tolerance policy toward attacks on peaceful nuclear facilities.
16:49The Iranian delegation issued a statement to the United Nations and other international organizations in Vienna
16:55condemning the US aggression against the Karun nuclear power plant.
16:59The statement emphasizes that Tehran will not hesitate to defend its rights and stresses
17:04that preventing any attack on nuclear facilities is also the responsibility of the international community.
17:10Furthermore, it states that such actions are intended to destroy a country's entire civilian infrastructure
17:16because of its resistance to injustice and its refusal to surrender unconditionally.
17:28In the United States, Secretary of Defense Pete Hesed has put the latest official price tag on the U.S.-Israel
17:34war on Iran at $37.5 billion.
17:38Hesed confirmed the figure during a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday,
17:44in which he and chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Dane Kane were questioned about their request for a
17:51$1.5 trillion US defense budget,
17:55including nearly $70 billion for the war with Iran.
17:59This latest quote is about $8 billion higher than the previous figure released by the administration of President Donald Trump,
18:08of $29 billion in May, following the new escalation of hostilities in the region after U.S. forces violated the
18:15peace deals
18:16with nine lead strikes against the Persian nation.
18:19For the part, Democratic representatives criticized the military spending amid a Middle East crisis that is far out of U
18:26.S. government control.
18:34Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has stressed that the government is set to take control of the southern territories from
18:41Israeli occupation forces,
18:43as the Lebanese people remain skeptical about the peace deal.
18:46Nawaf Salam shared a video on eggs from the southern town of Sautuar al-Garbilla,
18:52one of three towns that are in the first phase of a pilot zone project
18:56that's part of a larger framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel signed in Washington, D.C. last month.
19:03Salam said that the Lebanese government's goal is to complete Israeli withdrawal from all Lebanon,
19:08stressing the Lebanese armies mobilizing so that the people can return to their homes in the south.
19:13However, people of Lebanon deeply distrust the Sinus entity and remain skeptical before the negotiation process,
19:21given that Israel has instantly violated the peace agreement so far.
19:29I want to address the Lebanese people, and especially our people in the south, from Sautuar al-Garbilla.
19:40This national moment carries great political and moral weight because it represents the beginning of the Israeli withdrawal from our
19:46land.
19:52We have affirmed from the outset that our goal is a complete Israeli withdrawal from all our land.
19:59Today is just the beginning, but we are determined and steadfast.
20:05We will continue mobilizing our political and diplomatic efforts to secure a complete withdrawal from all our lands.
20:17The Lebanese President Joseph Aoun met with United States President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday.
20:22In the context of the conversation, U.S. President promised support for Lebanon,
20:26claiming that Israel was in the process of redeploying the other sections.
20:31However, the Sionist regime continues to systematically raise entire sovereign border villages to the ground,
20:36while President Aoun praised the administration.
20:38He stated that Hezbollah's disarmament is only possible if the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon ends.
20:58The Russian government described the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's plan to deploy military troops in Ukraine as unacceptable,
21:05in a context marked by the conflict.
21:08Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated that Moscow remains strongly opposed to the plans by NATO
21:13and various European countries to deploy troops on Ukrainian territory under the protection of providing security guarantees to Kyiv.
21:21Peskov stated that this is not just an idea, but a concrete plan in the works following the recent meeting
21:27of Ukraine's allies.
21:28Therefore, he emphasized that they will not allow the alliance's military presence near the borders.
21:34In this scenario, President Vladimir Putin accused European leaders of stalking war hysteria
21:39and ignoring Russia's security demands while supporting military action against the country.
21:54The Philippines' Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has referenced Beijing's commitment to deepening
21:59strategic and economic ties with the ASEAN Bloc during high-level meetings in Manila.
22:05And as in regional foreign ministers Wang stressed that bilateral trade surpassed $1 trillion in 2025
22:12and called for greater solidarity to anchor peace and development across Asia.
22:17During bilateral discussions, Wang Yi urged member states to accelerate negotiations on a regional code of conduct,
22:24emphasizing that maritime disputes should not impede trade integration, digital cooperation and broader stability across the global south.
22:32In this context, the top Chinese diplomat emphasized the global initiatives put forward by President Xi Jinping
22:38in the face of current geopolitical challenges.
22:49President Xi Jinping has put forward the significant concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind
22:55and the four major global initiatives, which aim to align with the trend of the times towards peaceful development,
23:01addressing the deficits in peace, development, security and governance,
23:04and promote the establishment of a more just and reasonable system of global governance.
23:14China is willing to work with ASEAN to uphold the principles of peaceful development and win-win cooperation,
23:22to bring benefits to the peoples of the region through closer cooperation,
23:26and to address new challenges and uncertainties with firmer solidarity.
23:30Together, we shall be a driving force for promoting peace and development in the region and across the world.
23:39And like this, we have come to the end of this news brief.
23:42Remember, you can find this and many other stories on our website at www.telesuryenglish.net
23:46and join us on social media via Facebook, Instagram, Telegram and TikTok.
23:52For Telesury English, I am Lorena Fong. Thank you for watching.
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