WASHINGTON, DC — Iran’s presence in Latin America and its growing influence in the region are causing consternation among senior lawmakers and top U.S. military officials.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has vowed to collect millions of signatures for a petition against American President Barack Obama, demanding that he repeal executive sanctions against high-ranking armed forces officials in the country over human rights abuses against anti-socialist protesters.
In a surprising assessment that indicates the Venezuelan economy is doing worse than its socialist government has indicated, a Barclay’s report on the nation’s oil exports show that the nation has reduced exports of crude to the Caribbean by at least half, including exports to its greatest political ally, Cuba.
WASHINGTON, DC — The Iran-backed Lebanese terror group Hezbollah is among the terrorist organizations that are benefiting from the illegal drug trade in Latin America, Lt. Gen. Kenneth Tovo, deputy commander of the U.S. Southern Command (Southcom), told lawmakers.
The human rights violations occurring in Venezuela– from thousands of arbitrary arrests to beatings and rapes to the murder of unarmed teenagers– have taken up little of the international spotlight in the past year. They have, however, increasingly caught the attention of human rights groups like Amnesty International, which details and condemns the abuses in a report released this week.
The Brazilian government is preparing to thwart attempts by the Islamic State to recruit young Brazilian citizens to orchestrate “lone wolf” attacks in the Latin American nation, particularly during the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics.
Iran has established 80-plus “cultural centers” across Latin America and the Caribbean to promote Shiite Islam, counter U.S. influence in the region, and increase its own, according to the U.S. Southern Command’s 2015 posture statement submitted to Congress.
In Nicaragua this week on an official visit, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro urged Latin Americans to send “millions of letters to Obama” denouncing a new round of sanctions on Venezuela over the Maduro regime’s many human rights violations. This, according to official correspondence obtained by Latin media, will include letters teachers are to force schoolchildren to write and send to the U.S. President.
A video surfacing online of Nicolás Maduro Guerra, son of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, dancing in a shower of dollar bills at the wedding of an elite business owner has outraged the nation. Maduro Guerra, who himself is a public official in his father’s repressive socialist government, has become a prime target of the opposition on social media over the embarrassing display.
A leftist legislator of indigenous descent in Peru cited Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as an inspiration for his vote against legalizing same-sex civil unions in the South American nation.
The Brazilian magazine Veja published a report this Saturday alleging that former high-ranking officials in the government of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez have proof that Venezuela helped Argentina protect Iranian terrorists believed to be responsible for the deadliest terror attack in Argentina’s history.
(Reuters) – Ridiculing the U.S. qualification of Venezuela as a security threat, President Nicolas Maduro said on Thursday he may travel to Washington to challenge American counterpart Barack Obama.
WASHINGTON — Gen. John Kelly, commander of U.S. Southern Command, warned lawmakers that Sunni extremists are radicalizing converts and other Muslims in Latin America, adding that the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) may exploit trafficking organizations in the region to infiltrate the United States.
Venezuelan Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OEA) Roy Chaderton has raised the ire of the nation’s anti-socialist opposition upon remarking during an interview on state television that bullets pass through the heads of the opposition faster and more silently, because their heads are “empty.”
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The son of Suriname’s president was sentenced on Tuesday to 16-1/4 years in prison, after pleading guilty last August to U.S. charges that he tried to offer a home base to the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah.
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.
As recently as last night Eastern Time, reports circulated that the Colombia government had approved the extradition of major Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) terrorist Eduardo Cabrera (alias ‘The Priest’) to New York, where he awaits a 16-year prison term. Hours later, the government has rescinded its agreement with the United States.
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.
The Chinese government has responded to Colombia’s arrest of a Chinese captain for carrying tons of undeclared ammunition bound for Cuba on his ship. According to military spokeswoman Hua Chunying, the ship was conducting “completely normal military trade cooperation” with Cuba.
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.
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.
The government of Argentina is attempting to dismiss the strength of Wednesday’s rally in honor of Alberto Nisman, a prosecutor found dead the day before he was to testify before Congress against the President of Argentina. Senior government officials described the somber “March of Silence” as “an opposition march” having little to do with Nisman.
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.
With signs bearing his name, flowers, and necessary umbrellas, nearly half a million Argentines took to the streets Wednesday to honor Alberto Nisman, a prosecutor who had accused President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of aiding and abetting Hezbollah terrorists before being found dead of a gunshot wound on January 18.
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.
A federal prosecutor has formally charged Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman, and a number of other high-ranking officials of working to remove Iranian terrorists from Interpol’s wanted list in exchange for preferential economic treatment from the Islamic Republic.
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.
WASHINGTON — Experts at a National Defense University (NDU) conference warned that the Iranian-backed narcoterrorist group Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, has expanded across Latin American and into the United States.
Multiple groups of people believed to be Syrian refugees have been detained and rejected from Montevideo, Uruguay, after using falsified Israeli passports to book their flights into the nation.
Uruguay’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Luis Almagro has ordered extra security protection for the Israeli embassy in Montevideo, as well as for individual Jewish diplomats and at specific Jewish community events, in response to the discovery of an explosive device last week by the embassy and subsequent mystery regarding an Iranian diplomat believed to be involved.
The government of Panama has announced that it will become the first Latin American nation to join the United States-led coalition against the Islamic State in the Middle East. The nation did not specify how it would aid the coalition, a particularly curious question given that Panama has no standing military force.
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.
Argentina’s President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, is under fire for sending a tweet, during a diplomatic trip to China, in which she attempted to recreate an Asian accent, replacing r’s with l’s.
The ex-wife of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman, found dead in his apartment the day before he was to testify to that nation’s Congress against President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, claims she received an image of her ex-husband with a strange hole in his head two days before his death.
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.