BUENOS AIRES: The brutal killing of a 16-year-old girl who was allegedly raped and impaled on a spike by drug dealers has sparked outrage in Argentina, where protesters plan a “women’s strike” Wednesday.
Lucia Perez, a high school student in the resort city of Mar del Plata, died on Oct. 8 after being brought to the hospital by two men who said she had overdosed on drugs.
But after doctors noticed signs of violent sexual penetration, investigators pieced together a different story.
Prosecutors say the two men drugged, raped and impaled her through the anus, causing pain so excruciating that she went into cardiac arrest and died.
The lead prosecutor, Maria Isabel Sanchez, could barely hide her disgust.
“I know it’s not very professional to say it, but I’m a mother and a woman, and I’ve seen a thousand things in my career, but nothing equal to this litany of abhorrent acts,” she said.
Argentine girl’s rape, murder spark new demonstrations
Argentine girl’s rape, murder spark new demonstrations
End of US-Russia nuclear pact a ‘grave moment’: UN chief
- Guterres urged Washington and Moscow “to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework”
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN chief Antonio Guterres on Wednesday urged the United States and Russia to quickly sign a new nuclear deal, as the existing treaty was set to expire in a “grave moment for international peace and security.”
The New START agreement will end Thursday, formally releasing both Moscow and Washington from a raft of restrictions on their nuclear arsenals.
“For the first time in more than half a century, we face a world without any binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the Russian Federation and the United States of America,” Guterres said in a statement.
The UN secretary-general added that New START and other arms control treaties had “drastically improved the security of all peoples.”
“This dissolution of decades of achievement could not come at a worse time — the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is the highest in decades,” he said, without giving more details.
Guterres urged Washington and Moscow “to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework.”
Russia and the United States together control more than 80 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads but arms agreements have been withering away.
New START, first signed in 2010, limited each side’s nuclear arsenal to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads — a reduction of nearly 30 percent from the previous limit set in 2002.
It also allowed each side to conduct on-site inspections of the other’s nuclear arsenal, although these were suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic and have not resumed since.
