Colombian army frees 57 soldiers detained by locals
The Colombian military said the incident had been triggered by the arrest of a suspected EMC rebel on Saturday.As the soldiers prepared to airlift the suspect out of the mountainous area, they were surrounded by more than 100 people.A second military unit was then seized the following day by an even larger group of locals, General Erick Rodríguez of the Colombian army said.It was not the first time that members of the security forces were detained by locals, but the size of the group of soldiers was unusually large.In past similar instances, locals negotiated with humanitarian groups and the captured soldiers were released relatively swiftly.But this time, those holding the 57 refused to talk to any go-betweens, triggering the deployment of extra troops to the area to free the captive soldiers.Heavily armed reinforcements were deployed to the area and arrested 20 people, the defence minister said.According to estimates by the military, more than 90% of the inhabitants of the area depend on the cultivation of coca bushes - the plant used to make cocaine - for a living.The presence of soldiers in the area is therefore often seen as a direct threat. The region has also been blighted by the presence of several armed groups which extort farmers and landowners, and engage in illegal mining and cocaine trafficking.
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The Sun
4 hours ago
- The Sun
Paedo kidnapped me & kept me prisoner for months – I was tied to a bed, beaten & raped until tip-off saved me
AGED 13, Jessyca Mullenberg was abducted by a man who had been secretly abusing her for years. Now, 30 years after a TV show led to her rescue from his evil clutches, Jessyca, 43, reveals what happened during her months in captivity – and the lasting impact of her ordeal. 6 6 6 Waking up, 13-year-old Jessyca Mullenberg looked down and was gripped with fear. 'I realised I was tied to the front seat of the car by brown rope,' she remembers. 'I was terrified.' She'd been abducted by Steven Oliver, a 39-year-old paedophile obsessed with Jessyca and who had been abusing her for years before kidnapping her. Over the next 105 days, Jessyca would be subjected to multiple rapes, beatings and brainwashing. The nightmare would only come to an end when the FBI discovered her whereabouts after a tip-off. Today, 30 years on from finding herself at the centre of a kidnapping story that rocked America, Jessyca is a mum-of-two and a sexual abuse awareness advocate. She has dedicated herself to stopping any child going through what she did. Jessyca was eight years old when unmarried Oliver, then 34, came into her life. He was a neighbour in the small town of Altoona, Wisconsin, where she lived with her mother Monica and stepfather Jake. Oliver worked as a teaching assistant at her school and was the father of one of her classmates, Ryan. 'Oliver would invite me, my brothers and all the neighbourhood kids to his house to play football,' she says. 'Almost immediately, he started grooming me, first by making me sit on his lap.' He would make up a reason why Jessyca was in trouble and would tell her to go and stand in his kitchen, while everyone was still outside. 'In the kitchen, he'd touch my breasts and bottom, and get me to touch him. If I did it wrong, he'd punch me,' she says. Over the coming months, the abuse in the kitchen escalated to forced oral sex and rape. 'I was eight, so I had no idea what he was doing to me,' explains Jessyca. 'He said if I told anyone, he'd kill my brothers and the rest of my family. I was so young that I totally believed him.' In the summer of 1993, after two years of abuse, Jessyca's family moved 100 miles across state because her stepfather had a new job. 'I was so relieved, because I thought the abuse would stop,' she says. But Oliver was determined not to lose his grip on his young victim, so he began renting a trailer with Ryan close to her father's home – her parents had split when she was four and her father lived around 100 miles from Jessyca's new home. 'I stayed with my dad every weekend, and couldn't believe it the first time I visited and saw Oliver. His trailer was right across the road. I felt sick knowing he was so determined not to let me go.' Oliver, still working as a teacher's aide, found a new way to be alone with Jessyca, in order to continue abusing her. 'He told all the parents in my dad's neighbourhood he'd been selected by a publishing company to start a weekly writing workshop for kids. We'd all submit poems and short stories, we even did a play,' recalls Jessyca. 'He'd single us out for one-to-one tuition, and mine was always longer, so the abuse just continued without anyone knowing. I was so scared of him.' In September 1995, when Jessyca was 13 and she'd been going to the 'workshop' for a few months, Oliver told her that one of her short stories had been chosen for publication, and they needed to travel 200 miles for a meeting at the publishing company's office. She says her father agreed to the trip, unaware he was handing his daughter over to her abuser. 'Even with everything that had been going on, I still believed the trip was real. Why would I not? Oliver had even fooled the adults,' she says. They left early in the morning, and Jessyca fell asleep, but when she woke up and discovered she was restrained, she realised there was no meeting – she'd been kidnapped. Oliver used the journey to ensure she memorised their cover story. 'He told me he was my father 'Dave Johnson', and I was his daughter 'Cindy', and we were moving to start over our lives after my brother and mother had died in a car accident.' Oliver repeatedly told her what he'd do to her and her family if she tried to alert anyone to the kidnapping. 'We stopped on a bridge to take a break,' remembers Jessyca. 'He threw a rock over the bridge and told me that what happened to the rock would happen to my lifeless body if I said anything to anyone or tried to get away from him.' After a nine-hour drive, they arrived at Kansas City airport in Missouri, where Oliver forced Jessyca on to a plane to Houston at knifepoint. 'He held a pocket knife to my back and told me that if I screamed or shouted, he would kill me and then kill my family,' says Jessyca. 'He wouldn't have been able to do this today with all the security checks, but back then you could get a ticket under any name and didn't need proof of identity.' Once they landed, Oliver found them a cheap hotel to stay in, and he went about changing Jessyca's appearance so she wouldn't be recognised. 6 6 'He cut my hair short and dyed it from blonde to brunette,' she remembers. 'He also went clothes shopping and came back with lots of baggy clothes, which made me look like a boy.' After two days, they moved to another hotel near Houston airport, and as they checked in, Oliver wasted no time telling staff his cover story about the fatal car accident and that they were a father and daughter down on their luck. The hotel staff took pity and asked if he'd be interested in a vacant position as a painter and decorator for the hotel. Agents kept asking me if I was Jessyca Mullenberg, but by then, that name didn't mean anything to me. Jessyca after being freed Oliver jumped at the opportunity, particularly because the position included free accommodation in a block of old, abandoned rooms that were separate from the rest of the hotel. Jessyca's heart sank as Oliver marched her towards one of the small, windowless rooms. 'I was locked inside day and night, there was no way to escape. We were in a part of the hotel where no one else was staying, so no one would hear me banging on the door or shouting,' she remembers. When Oliver got back at night, he'd rape her, as well as hit her and tie her to the bed. In the first week of her captivity, Jessyca tried to call her home using the phone in the room while Oliver was working, but the calls never connected. 'It was an old rotary phone, and he'd switched all the numbers around, so I just kept dialling wrong numbers. 'I started to believe that my old life was slipping away, and I couldn't even remember my home number,' she says. Oliver tormented Jessyca psychologically, too, repeatedly telling her that her parents had given up searching for her. But in fact, her desperate family had never stopped looking, and when they were told by the FBI that Oliver might have taken her out of the state, they printed thousands of missing person posters that were then attached to trucks travelling nationwide, in the hope someone might recognise her. In the end, it was an episode of prime-time TV show America's Most Wanted that would save Jessyca from Oliver's abuse. The show had featured her abduction earlier that year, but a repeat episode aired on the evening of December 28, 1995. One of the hotel staff was watching at home and recognised Oliver as the maintenance man staying in the hotel with the young girl he claimed was his daughter. The next morning, FBI stormed the hotel room, arrested Oliver and took Jessyca to safety. By that point, Oliver had completely brainwashed her. 'Agents kept asking me if I was Jessyca Mullenberg, but by then, that name didn't mean anything to me.' Dr Darrel Turner is a forensic psychologist who specialises in predatory behaviour and has consulted for the FBI. He says: 'The more an offender can diminish the child's frame of reference of what's normal and what's not, the more impact they will have on the victim and their ability to appreciate what's happening to them.' Darrel adds: 'It's similar to the abductions of Jaycee Dugard and Elizabeth Smart, who were also just children when they were removed from their family homes and isolated so that the perpetrators could exploit the power differential that exists and exert their terrible influence. "This and the trauma Jessyca had experienced explains her lack of memory.' After hours of talking and them showing photos of my family, I finally remembered what my real name was. Jessyca after being freed 'After hours of talking and them showing photos of my family, I finally remembered what my real name was,' recalls Jessyca. By the time her mother's plane had touched down in Houston the following afternoon, she was beginning to comprehend just what had happened to her during those 105 days in Oliver's clutches. 'It's pure ecstasy,' said her mother Monica when the pair were reunited at the airport. 'We waited so long for the nightmare to be done. We've waited for the miracle to happen.' Bravely, Jessyca agreed to testify at Oliver's trial in 1996, and gave a graphic account of what had happened to her in the time she'd been kept captive. Oliver was sentenced to 40 years in prison for kidnapping and interstate transportation of a minor for illegal sexual purposes. He's still in jail to this day, aged 68. Unfortunately, Jessyca's trauma didn't end with Oliver's imprisonment, and as well as the mental scars he'd inflicted, there were physical ones. 'In my early 20s, I needed jaw surgery, because he had hit me so hard in the face, so many times, that my bones began to deteriorate, making it very hard to talk or eat, and I was suffering from non-stop headaches every day,' she says. Jessyca also suffers from severe PTSD and experiences flashbacks of her ordeal. 'I have a fear of flying after being forced to board the plane in Kansas City,' she says. 'I also can't stand the smell of cigarettes or coffee, because he constantly smelled of those things.' However, Jessyca's determination not to let Oliver hold any further power over her has been a constant in her life since. She went on to study at college and graduated with a degree in psychology, criminal justice and law enforcement. And then, in 2018, she was given the prestigious Hope Award by the National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children. Jessyca is now married to tech manager Curt, 48, and despite fears she may not be able to conceive due to the unrelenting sexual assaults she suffered at the hands of Oliver, she defied the odds and has two children of her own. However, as she explains, being a mum can also bring its own terrors. 'When they were growing up, I was waiting for my five-year-old daughter at the school bus stop, but she never got off and the bus driver didn't see her get on. "I called my husband, panicking, and rushed to the school in tears. "Thankfully, she was at a school event and there had been a misunderstanding about what time she'd be home, but it was a harrowing experience for me.' But Jessyca is determined that Oliver won't take any more from her life than he has already and is passionate about continuing her advocacy work. 'I speak about what I went through to educate people about the signs of abuse, so it can be stopped early and perpetrators can be caught. "I simply won't let Oliver win. I want to devote my life to preventing another little boy or girl from going through the hell that I did.' 6
Daily Mail
4 hours ago
- Daily Mail
The house of horrors where killer butchered couple he befriended online then decapitated and stored their remains in freezer...as neighbour reveals 'chilling' moment he came face to face with killer
Grim photos show the house of horrors where a Colombian porn actor murdered an older couple he was staying with before chopping up their bodies and dumping them on Clifton Suspension Bridge. Civil partners Albert Alfonso, 62, and Paul Longworth, 71, welcomed 35-year-old Yostin Mosquera into their home in Scotts Road, Shepherd's Bush, west London. Tragically, their flat would be transformed into a sinister murder scene as Mosquera hatched a twisted plot to kill both men and desperately cover his tracks on July 8 last year. First, he bludgeoned Mr Longworth to death with a hammer, inflicting blow after blow on the same day he had searched ''where on the head is a knock fatal?' and 'hammer killer'. Chilling photos released by the Met Police show the hammer he used at the scene, as well as the bloodied divan bed where Mosquera hid Mr Longworth's body so that Mr Alfonso - who was at work - would be none the wiser when he returned home. Hours later, Mosquera then stabbed Mr Alfonso to death, knifing him in the torso, face and neck during a recorded sex session at the Scotts Road flat. The jury at Woolwich Crown Court was shown the distressing footage, where Mosquera repeatedly asked his victim 'Do you like it?'. And in a final insult to his victim, the naked murderer danced and sung while his victim bled out on the floor. Mosquera, who was this week convicted of both murders, then brutally decapitated and dismembered the two men, leaving their heads in a chest freezer he had purchased before travelling to Bristol to dump their bodies. Pictures from inside the couple's flat shows the freezer dumped in the middle of the corridor, next to a mirror with a floral design. The grisly deaths were first discovered when the suitcases were found on the iconic bridge at 11.30pm on July 10 last year. One of the suitcases had a tag on it linking them back to an address on Scotts Road where police found the heads in the freezer. It's been more than a year since the couple were murdered in their west London flat. But today, the first floor flat - a stone's throw from the bustling Shepherd's Bush Market - remains virtually untouched with a wilting cactus sat on the windowsill the only sign that someone lived there. Neighbours on the quiet street, where homes sell for nearly half a million pounds, revealed that no one has moved in to the house since as they recalled the 'brutal killing on their doorstep'. Some recalled coming face to face with the would-be murderer, while others were left rocked by the manner of the killings in such a quiet, friendly hub of west London. One neighbour told MailOnline: 'I was really shocked. I used to see Paul all the time. I seen him (Mosquera) once. If I'm being honest I got the shivers. Something in me said I wouldn't like to upset him. 'I picked up something straight away. He stopped and opened the gate for me, let me through. I never seen him before that but I couldn't stop staring. I got the shivers. 'I was shocked when it came out in the papers, I was numb for two hours. It's awful.' The man, who did not want to be named, said he was left feeling 'angry and shocked' that he lived so close to the scene of the double murder. He also questioned Mr Alfonso's desire for 'extreme sex' and pornography, adding: 'You don't know what sort of people it's going to attract. In the end he attracted a murderer from online.' The neighbour, referencing the fact that Mr Alfonso would have sex with other men, added: 'No wonder Paul was always at the pub. I used to see him and the shops and He used to ask me to come for a drink. He'd go at lunchtime.' Mr Longworth would regularly go to The Shepherd & Flock, an Irish pub on the High Street, just a few minutes from his home. Neighbours said that Mr Longworth used to regularly drink at the Shepherd and Flock - a stone's throw from his flat Another neighbour said it is 'such a community' and that 'all the neighbours chat', but they added: 'It's not very nice what he [Mr Alfonso] had in his bedroom. But I guess everyone has skeletons in their closet.' A friend, who like Mr Longworth was Irish, told MailOnline: 'They were really friendly, they were a very happy couple. I knew Paul more so than Albert. 'The last time I saw Paul was probably two weeks beforehand. He'd recently retired. He was planning holidays and things like that. He seemed his normal self. 'I had only just come home from Ireland the day they announced it on the news. I'd seen the police presence and assumed it was a burglary or something. 'It hadn't clicked until they said about the suitcases in Bristol were linked to our street that's when it dawned on me. It was shocking. It's one of those things you expect to see on the news, you never expect it to be on your doorstep. It's awful. 'They were brutally killed. It puts me on edge knowing it happened there. It must be ten times worse for the people who live next to him or above him. The friend, who believes the house has been left empty since, added: 'I'd imagine it would be horrible to move in there. I presume the flat has been cleaned but I don't know.' Neighbours say the 'friendly' community was rocked by the double murder, with one saying: 'I walk through here so many times and I've never ever felt day and night unsafe. I was horrified when I heard about it.' A worker at the nearby care home, just down the road from the flat, said: 'It was scary at the time. It's something you see on the news or in a move not in the place you work.' As far as neighbours are aware, no one has moved in to the house. There are rumours one of the victims' relatives has asked for the keys but there is no sign of anyone living there today. Shuddering, another neighbour said: 'I wouldn't want to live in there. It's a friendly community - everyone was obviously shocked. You don't expect this. ' Mosquera, a Colombian national, met Mr Alfonso online through webcam sex websites and used the names 'iamblackmaster and 'mrd—k20cm'. The court heard Mosquera visited the couple in London in October 2023 and that they travelled to Colombia in March 2024. He returned to England last June on the promise of English lessons and financial support from Mr Alfonso, whom he had met years earlier on porn websites. The court heard how he also participated in sex acts and dominated and degraded Mr Alfonso who filmed it and posted the footage online. He was in a paid sexual relationship with Mr Alfonso. Prosecutors told the trial how Mr Alfonso, a swimming instructor at Mode Gym in Acton, and Mr Longworth, a retired handyman, were in a happy long-term relationship when they were barbarically murdered by Mosquera. Mr Longworth is believed to have been killed by multiple blows to the head with a hammer between 12.30pm and 1pm on July 8 last year when Mosquera was seen closing curtains to a first floor window on CCTV. Mosquera shattered Mr Longworth's skull before hiding his body in a divan bed, the court heard. He later cut his corpse up with a power tool and knife and stuffed it in a suitcase, the trial heard. Later that day, Mr Alfonso was stabbed to death after he and Mosquera were recording themselves having sex. Jurors were shown the horror footage of Mr Alfonso being killed on camera. Mr Alfonso was in a 'submissive' role and referred to Mosquera as 'master' during the recorded session. 'What is striking, when one considers the footage, is just how calm and in control the defendant remains throughout', prosecutor Deanna Heer, KC, told the trial. On the day that the two men were killed Mosquera googled 'Where on the head is a knock fatal?' and 'How long before a corpse starts to decompose?' 'The post mortem examination of his body revealed that he had suffered severe blunt force trauma to the head which caused his death', said Ms Heer. She explained that there were injuries on his hand, which suggested that he had tried to defend himself. 'When the flat was later searched, a hammer was found lying on the floor in the hallway. It was found to be stained with Paul Longworth's blood', she said. Earlier in his evidence, Mosquera claimed Mr Alfonso cut up Mr Longworth's body after killing him. He said he stabbed Mr Alfonso because he was 'afraid that he would do the same to me that he had done to Paul'. Mosquera said after seeing Mr Longworth's dismembered body, he decided to do the same to Mr Alfonso's corpse. 'Yes I saw Paul's body and I cut Albert's. I don't know the exact moment but I cut it having seen Paul's body'. The trial heard how Mosquera was interrupted by a man while he was attempting to dispose of the suitcases on Clifton Suspension Bridge. Prosecutor Ms Heer, KC, said: 'At about 11.30pm on the night of the 10 July 2024 Douglas Cunningham was cycling home across the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol when he saw the defendant, Yostin Mosquera, standing next to a large red suitcase. 'Thinking he was a lost tourist, Mr Cunningham stopped to see if he was okay. 'A few metres away from where the defendant was standing, on the bridge approach, there was another suitcase, a large silver trunk. 'The defendant told Mr Cunningham that he was from Colombia and that the suitcase he was standing with contained car parts. That was a lie. 'In fact, the suitcases contained the decapitated and dismembered bodies of Paul Longworth and Albert Alfonso, which the defendant had taken to Bristol from their home in London where they had been killed two days before.' The trial heard how Mosquera was visiting Mr Alfonso at the time of the killings, having returned to the UK to stay with the couple on June 9 2024. On June 29 2024, Mr Alfonso and Mr Longworth took Mosquera to Brighton for the day, with photos showing them at Brighton pier, drinking beer and going on a zip wire. They also engaged in sex sessions along with another man, known by pseudonym James Smith in the trial. But on July 8 last year, Mosquera hatched his plan to kill Mr Longworth and Mr Alfonso before attempting to cover up their deaths. Mosquera had denied both murders and sought to blame Mr Alfonso for killing Mr Longworth. But the prosecution's case was that Mr Alfonso did not know and that he was out of the flat at work at the time Mr Longworth was killed and that Mosquera hid the body before he returned. The court heard that Mosquera had also got hold of Mr Alfonso's financial information, copying over spreadsheets containing his bank details relating to Barclays, Halifax, Natwest, Moneygram and Paypal on June 27. Prosecutors told the court this was to 'steal' money from Mr Alfonso. On July 8 last year, the day of the murders, Mosquera also looked up the value of the Scotts Road flat in a bid to 'find out what they [the couple] were worth'. Mosquera claimed during the trial that he feared for his own life and believed he was about to be killed when he stabbed Mr Alfonso. He also said he was 'raped every day' by Mr Alfonso, telling jurors it made him feel 'humiliated, sad and trapped', but never angry. But prosecutor Ms Heer KC reminded the court that his 'detailed' defence statement produced for trial made no mention of the alleged rape. The case was put to a retrial after incorrect evidence was placed before the jury. Mr Justice Bennathan told Mosquera, aided in the dock by an interpreter: 'I am not going to pass sentence on you today. The only sentence I can pass is one of life imprisonment.' The judge ordered psychiatric reports and adjourned sentence until 24 October. Mr Justice Bennathan also thanked the jurors who had to view the horrific footage repeatedly throughout trial.
Telegraph
5 hours ago
- Telegraph
Milei's bet on China threatens an ugly fallout with his idol
When firebrand libertarian Javier Milei was campaigning to be president, he vowed that under his watch Argentina would not engage with 'decadent communists' like the Chinese, branding their leaders murderers and thieves. But 18 months is a long time in geopolitics. Milei, one of the few world leaders to attend the presidential inauguration of his political hero Donald Trump in January, has performed a remarkable political U-turn. On Monday, Milei rewrote the visa rules to make it easier for Chinese people to visit or work in Argentina. A week earlier, he unlocked a $5bn (£3.7bn) China-backed hydroelectric project in the country's south, which had been fractiously frozen since before he took office. And in April he renewed a currency swap arrangement with China, worth about 35bn yuan (£3.6bn) – a move that prompted an alarmed White House to dispatch Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, to Buenos Aires to deliver a dressing-down. By cosying up to China, Milei is risking his idol's ire. What has changed? Economics vs politics On the campaign trail in 2023 Milei told Argentine voters: 'I am not going to do business with any communist.' He has previously branded the country a 'bloody dictatorship'. But by last December he was having a sit-down with Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rio, and said he was up for a trip to Beijing. 'If you compare Milei during the campaign to Milei as president, he has softened his views on many, many issues. One of them is China,' says Bruno Binetti, an associate fellow at Chatham House, a think tank. 'He is adapting to the realities of governing, without this affecting his core beliefs and identity.' While Trump and Milei might be political soulmates – radically anti-woke, anti-regulation, anti-net-zero – Argentina cannot do without China's appetite for its exports, nor its investment into areas like mining and energy. 'If you want the economy to grow, if you want to show that Milei's economic model can generate growth, then you need good ties with China,' Binetti says. Milei has tried to separate this economic need from Argentina's wider political and diplomatic relationships, from his radical reform agenda – which has won him admirers worldwide, including Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader. He has refused to join the anti-Trump Brics group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. 'We must separate the geopolitical question from our commercial question,' Milei told the Wall Street Journal last year. Trading and economic relationships should be driven by business and he would not be 'meddling in whatever the private sector decides'. But economics and politics don't separate so easily, particularly in Trump's binary, zero-sum world. Peter Lamelas, Trump's nominee as the next ambassador to Argentina, told a US Senate committee hearing this week that his mission was 'to reduce the malignant influence of opposing powers' in Latin America – and that includes China. 'Argentina is essential, critical to opposing authoritarian regimes like Venezuela and China,' he said. Jim Risch, a Republican senator and the committee's chairman, urged Lamelas to fight China's 'expanding influence' in the region and to 'reduce China's technological and financial influence in Argentina'. Snubs and dealmaking This was not an exchange the two men might have anticipated having. When Trump returned to power, Milei – whom the American calls 'a friend' and 'my favourite president' – would have been at the very bottom of the White House's list of leaders to worry about. Not only was Milei at Trump's inauguration, but he came back a month later to publicly present Elon Musk, then setting up his department for government efficiency, with a version of his trademark bureaucracy-slaying chainsaw. The gift – which was inscribed with Milei's catchphrase 'Long live freedom, dammit!' – was handed over at a Conservative Political Action Conference, where Milei also met Trump. The two leaders discussed Argentina's 'groundbreaking economic reforms', according to a White House readout. Milei was back in the US yet again in April, heading to Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort for the 'American Patriots Gala', where he picked up an award recognising his 'unwavering dedication to freedom, market economics and conservative values'. But this time, Trump was unavailable. Supposedly a problem with the US president's helicopter prevented him from getting to Florida in time to catch Milei on this flying visit. That wasn't the only snub. The day before, Trump had unveiled his 'liberation day' tariffs – and there was no exemption for Argentina from the 10pc worldwide hit. Today, Trump's Aug 1 trade-deal-or-tariff deadline is looming and there is not yet any sign of any agreement with Milei that might ease the pain for Argentina's soy and beef exporters. By contrast, in early May several Chinese officials visited Buenos Aires to sign a deal to buy $900m of Argentine soybeans, corn and vegetable oil. The White House did reportedly help Argentina to secure a new $20bn loan programme from the International Monetary Fund in April. Mauricio Claver-Carone, Trump's special envoy for Latin America, said he hoped this might supplant the Chinese currency swap agreed at almost the same time. 'What we would like to see, eventually, is the end of the famous line of credit Argentina has with China,' he said. 'That line of credit is extortionate, and as long as they maintain that line of credit, China will always be able to extort.' Beijing shot back. 'Fair-minded people are able to tell who is extorting and coercing others and making trouble,' said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian. Balancing act Milei will probably try to keep the two superpowers in some kind of balance. But both will be looking to use carrots and sticks to tip favour their way. China seems to be making most of the running right now, and has ambitions to get further ahead of Trump. A Chinese official told the Argentine newspaper Clarin earlier this year: 'We're doing well, but not as well as we'd like'. If Beijing is appealing to Milei's pragmatism, Washington can count on his passion. His friendship and ideological affinity with Trump will likely stop the scales from tipping too far towards China. 'Milei sees himself clearly as a global leader figure in a Right-wing, pro-West, pro-market movement. And his alignment with Trump is a big part of that identity – it makes him feel part of something bigger,' Binetti says. 'You'd think that given Milei's symbolic role in some Trumpist circles in the US, he would get a little bit more leeway.' If Milei's rapprochement with the Chinese continues to deepen, he might end up testing just how far that leeway extends.
