Florida Senator Marco Rubio is looking more and more like a true commander-in-chief, and not some fly-by-night, audacity of hope president who has done nothing but diminish the U.S. standing around the world.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro responded to the announcement of expanded sanctions on his regime on behalf of the Obama administration yesterday in an extensive public broadcast in which he repeatedly called President Obama “nefarious” and claimed the United States had organized a false-flag style operation to make it appear that Maduro had bombed his own government buildings.
President Barack Obama issued an executive order on Monday sanctioning seven high-level Venezuelan officials and declaring the nation a “national security threat,” according to Reuters. The actions follow weeks of accusations by President Nicolás Maduro that a bevy of American conspirators, including Vice President Joe Biden, are attempting to force a coup in his country.
A former police chief under Hugo Chávez in Venezuela has been arrested in Miami for allegedly sending a graphic execution video to several U.S. residents, threatening to kill them. Many of those alleging threats are open dissidents of Venezuela’s socialist regime.
In an incendiary televised speech on Saturday, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced the arrest of an American citizen for involvement in a “coup” conspiracy, declared new sanctions on “terrorists” George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and accused the United States government of maintaining “concentration camps” for children.
Acutely aware of Venezuela’s growing economic destitution, the government of Trinidad & Tobago has proposed exchanging Venezuelan oil for Trinidadian toilet paper, to keep supplies in the South American nation’s market replenished.
With Venezuela stirring from the death of 14-year-old Kluiverth Roa at the hands of the Bolivarian National Guard, a human rights organization notes that police homicide of minors increased 55.5% in 2014, and appears to continue to be on the rise.
14-year-old Kluiverth Roa was shot in the head on Tuesday on his way home from school in San Cristóbal, Venezuela. Roa’s way home from school required him to pass through an anti-socialist protest; he was stopped by police almost immediately and shot in the head after witnesses say he yelled “stop the repression!”
The attorney working for Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma has told a Venezuelan publication that his client was implicated in an alleged coup plot by a soldier who had been tortured into incriminating enemies of the state. Ledezma was arrested last week in a Secret Police raid of his office.
Following the shocking images of Venezuelan secret service (Sebin) agents storming the office of Antonio Ledezma, Mayor of Caracas, the Socialist national guard has heightened its surveillance of journalists, cameramen, and even bystanders with recording equipment to prevent further compromising images from being shared on social media.
Antonio Ledezma, the mayor of Caracas, Venezuela, was arrested in a siege of his office yesterday without a warrant and for unspecified “conspiracy” charges. His arrest occurs the day after Popular Will Party opposition leader Leopoldo López’s one-year anniversary behind bars, also for posing an unspecified criminal threat to the nation.
One year ago today, the Venezuelan government arrested Popular Will party leader Leopoldo López for organizing a protest against the government’s socialist policies. He remains in prison, and his wife, Lilian Tintori, has organized a protest of thousands in the very Caracas square where he was arrested, as reports surface that he has been moved into an isolation ward.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whose socialist administration has been a staunch supporter of the radical leftist anti-austerity parties rising to prominence in Greece and Spain, claimed on a national broadcast last week that Greek PM ‘Comrade Alexis’ Tsipras has agreed to visit Venezuela and several other socialist Latin American nations.
The Bolivarian National Guard of Venezuela attacked a group of student protestors with tear gas in San Cristóbal, Táchira, a western regional capital that has become the center of revolt against that nation’s socialist government.
A report claims that two individuals lobbed a Molotov cocktail into the headquarters of Venezuela’s ViVe TV this week. Government officials are already proclaiming the attack on the state-funded network the first blow in an allegedly impending wave of violence to commemorate the oppression of protesters and wave of political dissident arrests last year.
Uruguay has reportedly declared a senior Iranian diplomat persona non grata after he was involved in a bomb plot against Israel’s embassy in early January, according to senior Israeli officials who told Haaretz.
Spain’s new radical leftist party, Podemos (Spanish for “We Can”), is embroiled in a new corruption scandal, this time accused in a complaint by the attorney coalition Clean Hands (“Manos Limpias”) funding itself with “undeclared” Venezuelan money acquired during “diplomatic” trips to the socialist nation.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is calling for his government to draft a blacklist of Venezuelans exiled in the United States calling for Congress to impose further sanctions on his socialist regime for both economic and political crimes, as well as ties to drug trafficking.
Diosdado Cabello, the president of Venezuela’s National Assembly and second-in-command to President Nicolás Maduro, proclaimed the victory of the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) in Greece and the popularity of the leftist Podemos party in Spain to be victories for “Chavismo,” making appearances “all around the world.”
Fraught relations between the United States and Venezuela turned openly hostile on Monday as the U.S. slapped new visa restrictions on Venezuelan officials and their families and Venezuela’s president accused Vice President Joe Biden of plotting to overthrow him.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has personally accused the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, of plotting a “coup d’etat” plan against him, urging the nation’s socialist government to remain on “maximum alert” against Biden and allies of the United States abroad.
The FBI has added a former Venezuelan ambassador to Lebanon and Syria to their Terrorism “Seeking Information” list, after evidence indicated that Ghazi Nasr al Din was using his position to help fundraise for the Shiite terror group Hezbollah.
With the anniversary of the arrest of opposition party leader Leopoldo López approaching, the Venezuelan government has approved new legislation which would allow the Bolivarian National Guard to use “potentially lethal force” against protesters calling for the fully free exercise of the freedoms of expression and assembly.
The former head of security for Venezuela’s Second in Command has defected to the United States, accused his old boss of running an international drug cartel, and now claims that deceased dictator Hugo Chávez Frías died months before the official announcement of his death, hidden from the public eye by current Venezuelan leaders who used his name to pass legislation convenient for them under Chávez’s name.
A court in Albuquerque has sentenced Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni, a U.S. physicist of Argentine descent, to five years in prison for attempting to sell an undercover FBI agent U.S. nuclear secrets, as well as promising a bomb that could severely impair functions in New York City.
A Venezuelan defector says his former boss, the head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, runs a secret drug cartel. Leamsy Salazar was a bodyguard and former head of security for Diosdado Cabello, the 2nd most powerful man in Venezeula’s socialist party.
The former head of security for Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and for current President of the National Assembly Diosdado Cabello has defected to the United States and plans on filing a formal complaint against Cabello for leading a drug smuggling ring.
The government of Venezuela, believed to be the most oil-rich nation in South America, is considering raising gas prices to keep the national economy afloat, though such a move could spark protests and unrest in a nation already rife with political tension.
Venezuela’s economy has slumped to such lows that unemployed individuals are taking up jobs as professional standers-in-line: taking the place of people who pay them to stand for hours, blocks away from grocery stores, for access to limited supplies of milk, flour, and other necessary goods.
Mexican research group the Citizen Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice has released its annual study of the world’s most dangerous cities, and Latin America has once again topped the list, with 43 of the 50 located in the region, and 19 of them located in Brazil alone.
According to several news sources, rumors are circulating of an imminent Venezuelan coup on reigning President Nicolás Maduro.
In a stinging public letter, the Catholic bishops of Venezuela have accused their government of totalitarian oppression of citizens and widespread violations of human rights.
The Venezuelan government has begun to target individuals who take photos of empty supermarket shelves or long lines of citizens waiting for their weekly rations of food, according to a number of Venezuelans on social media, who state they have been harassed by the national police force.
Cuban dissidents and Cuban-American media are reporting that Havana is plagued with the most serious rumors in months that former dictator Fidel Castro has died, after the one-year anniversary of Castro’s last public appearance transpired without fanfare on Thursday.
Two major public health groups in Venezuela are warning that President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government is ignoring a surge in cases of the crippling chikungunya virus that could lead to a “humanitarian crisis” in the increasingly impoverished OPEC nation.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is currently en route to China to ask President Xi Jinping for some much-needed financial assistance in light of an oil crisis that has left a mismanaged and increasingly impoverished Venezuela on the brink of disaster.
The last year was a bad one for international peace and security. Sure, there were bright spots in 2014. Colombia’s peace process looks hopeful. The last round of Iran’s nuclear talks was more successful than many think. Tunisia, though not yet out of the woods, showed the power of dialogue over violence. Afghanistan bucked its history and has, notwithstanding many challenges, a government of national unity.
With the worldwide drop in oil prices, Venezuela has slipped into another recession. Now experts warn the country’s already high levels of inflation could skyrocket next year.
For years, the socialist government of Venezuela has imposed price controls that appear to artificially– and arbitrarily– make some necessary goods impossible to find while making useless luxuries accessible. Never has the situation been as chaotic as this year, experts say, when the market has been flooded with Canadian pines and barbie dolls, but flour and milk remain luxuries.
