Brazil should sever ties with Venezuela’s socialist government, distance itself from Iran and consider recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, said Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of the front-running presidential candidate.

"You need to play tough with Venezuela. It’ll be a 180 degree-change in relation to Venezuela," the lawmaker said in an interview on Wednesday in Brasilia. He is one of the most influential voices in the presidential campaign of his father, Jair. "I wouldn’t recognize the Venezuelan government."

If ex-Army Captain Jair Bolsonaro wins the runoff vote against the Workers’ Party’s Fernando Haddad on Oct. 28, he has promised to name as many as five generals to his cabinet, giving the security forces their biggest public role in decades. In addition, at least 38 former soldiers, police officers and firefighters rode the coattails of the former paratrooper to win election to congress Oct. 7. In 2014, only 14 veterans won.

“This is because of the insecurity that we’re experiencing in Brazil,” said Waldir Soares de Oliveira, a re-elected congressman and ex-cop known as Deputy Waldir. "No one can cope with this wave of insecurity any more."

The only promise that is new about the promised peace plan is the way it will be forced on the Palestinians: no one has promised that the plan itself will be new. With Saudi Arabia and Egypt—the outside—brought onside with the promise of continued military aid despite their crimes against humanity and violations of international law and the Palestinians weakened by being silenced, economically crushed and stripped of any friends to help them, the United States and Israel are now free to attempt to impose a peace plan on the Palestinians.

As the US continues to send not-so-subtle signals that it could be open to a military invasion of Venezuela after a US-supported coup plot involving Venezuelan military officers fizzled, Nicolas Maduro - who only a few months ago evaded a bizarre assassination attempt involving C4-laden drones - has accused the Trump Administration of conspiring to have him assassinated.

When approached for a response to Maduro's comments, a White House spokesman did little to rebut his claims, saying only that the US's "policy preference" is "for a peaceful, orderly return to democracy in Venezuela." Given Venezuela's ailing energy infrastructure, and US sanctions that have made it difficult for the Maduro regime to sell its oil or tap capital markets for funding, the government has been forced to rely on China and, to a lesser extent, Russia to keep it afloat.

One of the suspects accused of trying to assassinate Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro using drones armed with explosives died under mysterious circumstances Monday.

Venezuelan government officials say Fernando Albán, a 56-year-old city councilor in the capital of Caracas and Maduro critic, died by suicide after jumping out a tenth floor window of the Bolivarian Intelligence Service, the country's top intelligence agency.

But Maduro critics have accused the regime of murdering Albán as part of a massive crackdown on opposition groups and human rights activists.

There is another fact that stands out in the poll: 62% of Venezuelans prefer President Maduro to solve the economic problems of the country, while 34% prefer an opposition government. 61% blame economic problems on agents external to the government such as the economic war, the fall of the price of oil, price speculation, and U.S. financial sanctions, while 37% attribute them to the economic policies implemented by the government.

The possible conspirators within the armed forces, meanwhile, have been detected and imprisoned, while the foreign media speak of other disgruntled soldiers who have deserted.

Foreign mainstream media outlets insist on imposing the military options on public opinion (even posting bizarre surveys), but opposition political leaders consider that this debate could feed expectations for an external saviour, which would go against reorganising efforts made by some [opposition] politicians.

It’s the latest example of Giuliani traveling abroad to cash in on his tough-on-crime reputation from his days as New York City mayor, despite the fact that new research has increasingly discredited his signature implementation of the “broken windows” policing strategy.

Back home, Giuliani is defending president Donald Trump in a probe related to foreign interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, but his own ties to foreign governments, through lucrative contracts such as this one, have drawn scrutiny in Washington. Critics in multiple countries where Giuliani operates — including the U.S. — argue that his specialty is serving as a media diversion, rather than the job description written on his contracts.

This week we witnessed the horrible spectacle of Nikki Haley, President Trump’s Ambassador to the United Nations, joining a protest outside the UN building and calling for the people of Venezuela to overthrow their government.

“We are going to fight for Venezuela,” she shouted through a megaphone, “we are going to continue doing it until Maduro is gone.”

This is the neocon mindset: that somehow the US has the authority to tell the rest of the world how to live and who may hold political power regardless of elections.

After more than a year of Washington being crippled by evidence-free claims that the Russians have influenced our elections, we have a senior US Administration official openly calling for the overturning of elections overseas.

Imagine if President Putin’s national security advisor had grabbed a megaphone in New York and called for the people of the United States to overthrow their government by force!

The Trump administration and some others in the U.S. government have sent some not-so-subtle hints lately that they are open to a military invasion of Venezuela to oust President Nicolas Maduro.

“It’s a regime that frankly could be toppled very quickly by the military, if the military decides to do that,” President Trump told reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.

The words seem to offer some encouragement for a coup, which may not come as a surprise because the New York Times published an investigation in early September that found that the Trump administration met secretly with Venezuelan military officers over the last year to discuss an overthrow of Maduro.

When President Donald Trump said a year ago that the U.S. was considering a “military option” for Venezuela, hardly anyone in Washington thought it was a good idea.

Today, as Venezuela slides toward dictatorship and collapse, triggering a millions-strong migration crisis, support for such a move is being discussed openly. The notion of using force to topple the government of President Nicolas Maduro is gaining adherents -- although it remains a distinctly minority view.

During his Tuesday UN General Assembly address President Trump held nothing back in terms of excoriating the socialist pariah state of Venezuela and leader Nicolas Maduro.

"Not long ago, Venezuela was one of the richest countries on Earth," Trump said. "Today, socialism has bankrupted the oil-rich nation and driven its people into abject poverty."

Trump continued, "Virtually everywhere socialism or communism has been tried, it has produced suffering, corruption, and decay. Socialism’s thirst for power leads to expansion, incursion, and oppression. All nations of the world should resist socialism and the misery that it brings to everyone."

The US president blamed Venezuela's collapsed economy and worthless currency, which has created a humanitarian crisis resulting in some 2 million citizens fleeing the country in recent years on the “Maduro regime and its Cuban sponsors”.

In August 2017, Donald Trump said he did not exclude the military option to solve the Venezuelan crisis, which provoked a strong rejection both inside and outside the United States. However, the idea remains present even though many express themselves against it, writes the Business Insider newspaper.

The military option for resolving the crisis in Venezuela is on the table or at least in the head of the US president. So the AP news agency reported earlier this summer that President Donald Trump had discussed the military invasion of Venezuela during a White House meeting last year. To bolster his arguments, Trump recalled the military interventions of Grenada and Panama, which he said were a success.

The United States is preparing to take “action” against socialist Venezuela, while simultaneously going down the same path. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that in the coming days, the US’s “series of actions” will put pressure on the Venezuelan government.

“You’ll see in the coming days a series of actions that continue to increase the pressure level against the Venezuelan leadership folks, who are working directly against the best interest of the Venezuelan people,” Pompeo said according to Reuters. “We’re determined to ensure that the Venezuelan people get their say.”

The Trump administration has been steadily increasing sanctions against officials in the leftist socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro, accusing it of “stifling democracy” by jailing opposition leaders. Although Pompeo did not say what actions specifically would be taken, it appears the US seeks to somehow “punish” Venezuela while continuing to take America down the same path.

A Chinese hospital ship has docked in Venezuela, where for the next week it will provide free health care to local patients.

Venezuela's Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino López, went to the port of La Guaira to welcome the Chinese crew.

He said that the Peace Ark's visit was agreed by President Nicolás Maduro during a visit to Beijing last week.

Venezuela agreed at the time to increase its exports of oil to China, which is one of its main creditors.

Citing the US desire to increase pressure “against the Venezuelan leadership folks,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says that in the days to come, the administration will announce a series of actions against Venezuela.

Pompeo declined to offer any specifics, which is probably going to lead to speculation of something major coming, since recent reports of US policy toward Venezuela has been uniformly hostile.

President Trump threatened to attack Venezuela back in August of 2017, and this summer reports are that he’d repeatedly had to be talked out of such attacks. Early this month, the administration was confirmed to be engaging in secret coup talks with Venezuelan rebels.

Colombia is producing more cocaine now than it ever has, according to a new report by Bloomberg. The amount of land planted with coca shrubs is up 17% last year, rising to 171,000 hectares, which surpasses levels prior to US president Bill Clinton’s "Plan Colombia" counter-narcotics program.

Almost all of the world's cocaine comes from Colombia, Bolivia and Peru. Colombia produces more than half of the total cocaine in the world. Under Clinton’s plan, the aid provided to Colombia over the course of the last six decades was "stepped up dramatically". Colombia has repaid the world by cranking out record levels of cocaine - probably not the solution Clinton, or other advocates for aid-giving, were seeking.

Colombia's 171,000 hectares is enough raw material to produce 1,379 tons of cocaine, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. It’s also more than triple the output of five years ago.

Carmenza Gomez was planning a surprise Christmas dinner in the winter of 2008 to celebrate having her eight children back together under one roof in their home in an impoverished suburb in Bogota, the capital of Colombia.

That summer, the family had finally been reunited after years apart due to the sons' military service. It was months away, but Carmenza wanted to throw an elaborate dinner to share their first Christmas together in years.

But just days after the last of her sons arrived home, 23-year-old Victor Fernando, her third youngest, disappeared.

The "dream" of socialism has once again collided with the realities of economics, after nearly 40% of stores in Venezuela have been forced to close following a mandated 3,000% increase in minimum wages by the Maduro government, according to the Miami Herald, citing the National Council of Commerce and Services of Venezuela.

Further complicating the situation are price caps on goods sold in stores - which are now selling below cost, and cannot raise prices to cover the mandatory increases in salaries.

If store owners are caught raising prices, they face fines and prison.

"We have inspections, and they force us to sell at last month’s prices," said Uzcátegui. "That takes money away from the business because of the hyperinflation, when you can’t even sell at yesterday’s prices because you lose money."

The head of the Organization of American States (OAS), accused by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of being a “CIA agent,” says military intervention against Caracas should not be ruled out as a response to the ongoing crisis.
OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro has hinted that the bloc may consider taking military action in Venezuela if it runs out of diplomatic options in its bid to alleviate the plight of people in the crisis-stricken country.

“With regards to a military intervention aimed at overthrowing the regime of Nicolas Maduro, I think we should not exclude any option,” Almagro said on Friday.

Venezuelans have been fleeing to neighboring countries in droves due to shortages of food and water, as well as soaring inflation and unemployment at home.

For a brief period earlier this year, it appeared that Beijing had finally had enough of supporting its "ideological allies" in Caracas when it decided to limit its "exposure" to Venezuela after the country struggled to make interest payments on a $19 billion loan. But in the wake of reports that the US nearly supported a military uprising against the socialist government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the Chinese Communist Party has apparently changed its mind. Instead of tightening the leash, Beijing has offered a $5 billion loan to the struggling socialist "republic" as Maduro prepares to travel to Beijing to grovel before the Party bosses, according to a Bloomberg report.

The advisory also warns military activities linked to the bloody conflict in Syria have been ramped across Iran's airspace.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington are running high following Donald Trump’s controversial decision to pull out of the landmark Iran nuclear deal re-introduce economic sanctions last month.

Flight Service Bureau, which provides safety information on airspace to airlines, said "without seeming alarmist", the deteriorating relationship between the US and Iran must be taken into account when planning flights in Iran's airspace.

Caracas is preparing the return of oil contracts with private companies that were last used in the 1990s before the Chavez era that made PDVSA the one and only operator of oil fields. Reuters reported this week it had seen a draft of the contract stipulating the state oil company will give control over several fields to a set of local companies for a period of six years. The companies will have to commit to boosting production, funding field maintenance, and purchasing whatever equipment they need to do all this. In exchange, PDVSA will pay them a fee for the oil they extract.

After it was revealed in a weekend New York Times piece that the Trump administration held multiple meetings with "rebellious officers" inside Venezuela's army to consider launching a military coup against the country's socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro, we cited a former Latin America diplomatic official quoted in the Times who aptly described, “This is going to land like a bomb” in the region.

The astounding revelation — though perhaps familiar-sounding when considering the historical string of coups and CIA covert interventions across the 20th century from Cuba to Nicaragua to Chile — comes just over a month after a bizarre assassination attempt involving two C-4 explosive laden drones which detonated near Maduro as he gave a televised speech during a military parade in Caracas.

In the aftermath of the story, Venezuela has announced plans to hold a massive march on Tuesday against Washington's now confirmed attempts to meddle in the country's internal affairs.

Washington would still “prefer” a peaceful restoration of “democracy” in Venezuela, the White House said in response to a scandalous report about US officials’ contacts with Venezuelan military officers seeking to stage a coup.

Brazil’s National Museum in Rio de Janeiro was gutted Sunday night by a massive fire that consumed not only the historic 19th century palace that housed the institution, but a vast and irreplaceable collection of what was by far the largest natural history and anthropology museum in Latin America. The majority of the 20 million items it contained were destroyed.

While the immediate cause of the blaze is still unknown, this catastrophe and the irreparable loss to human culture were the product of policies of austerity and the diversion of vast social resources to feed the profits of international finance capital and a rapacious and culturally backward Brazilian capitalist ruling class.

Brazilian far-right candidate for president Jair Bolsonaro was stabbed in the abdomen during a parade in the city Juiz de Fora Thursday. The wound is reportedly superficial.

Earlier this year, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro rolled out his latest scheme to rescue his economy, offer an alternative to the increasingly worthless bolivar, and skirt U.S. sanctions on financial transactions. But Maduro’s cryptocurrency, supposedly backed by Venezuela’s oil reserves, is a very hollow promise.

To be sure, few analysts expected much from the “petro,” Maduro’s hastily launched cryptocurrency. One petro was supposed to be backed by one barrel of oil, and the vast reserves of oil located in a specific part of Venezuela were promised as a backstop for the new cryptocurrency. It was always an odd scheme. After all, what makes the petro any different from the bolivar, Venezuela’s official currency? Isn’t the value of and faith in the bolivar also effectively backed by the country’s oil wealth?

On May 11, three days after Argentina secured a $50 Billion IMF bailout - the largest in the fund's history - we jokingly noted that with the peso resuming its slide, an indication the market did not view the IMF backstop as credible, the ECB would need to get involved.

The US military can take necessary actions to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power as his government has become a threat to US national security, says Republican Senator Marco Rubio.

In an interview with Univision, an American Spanish-language TV network, Rubio, who is a vocal opponent of Maduro, said a military intervention by Washington was not out of question.

“I believe that the Armed Forces of the United States are only used in the event of a threat to national security. I believe that there is a very strong argument that can be made at this time that Venezuela and the Maduro regime has become a threat to the region and even to the United States," he said.

Mauricio Macri’s presidency was meant to lead Argentina out of a dismal period of debt defaults, currency controls and recession. But, as Bloomberg reports, markets show investors are losing faith in the new dawn for South America’s second-largest economy.

Despite all the constant propaganda spewing forth from officials in Argentina (and at The IMF), we leave it to an old friend and veteran EM trader to sums things up: "The Argies are proper f**ked."

Indeed, judging by today's market action and headlines, he is right, as despite the promise of a USD 50 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout (which is now being accelerated), the Argentine peso continues to collapse, inducing the next wave of inflation, and it could shortly usher in the next recession/depression.

The Trump administration’s sanctions on Venezuela have not just weakened the country’s economy but have deprived millions of viewpoints questioning the US policies, as Abby Martin’s show on TeleSUR shut down citing financial woes.

“From inside history’s biggest empire...recording a world shaped by war & inequality” – The Empire Files’ (TEF) airs on TeleSUR, a latin-American TV network that derives most of its funding from the Venezuelan government. Abby Martin, a former RT journalist now hosting TEF announced on Wednesday that the show would completely shut down its operations, citing the tough US sanctions on Venezuela’s socialist government as responsible.

Just one day after Venezuela's historic currency devaluation, which lopped off 5 zeros from the currency and prices while bizarrely pegging the "sovereign Bolivar" - the country's latest currency incarnation - to the petro, an oil-backed cryptocurrency (which has been banned by the US Treasury), chaos has predictably returned to the country with the greatest petroleum deposits in the world.... and hyperinflation failed to depart for even one day.

That what Henrique Rosales discovered when he went to an ATM on Tuesday - the day after Venezuela's historic currency transformation took place - to withdraw Venezuela’s new currency: he found it dispensed a maximum of 10 sovereign bolivars a day, the equivalent of 15 U.S. cents.

Venezuela came to a standstill on Tuesday as the country tried to deal with its newly introduced currency.

Thousands of businesses closed in order to adapt to the "sovereign bolivar", and many workers stayed at home.

President Nicolás Maduro launched the new banknotes on Monday, revaluing and renaming the old bolivar currency.

The government says this will tackle runaway inflation, but critics say it could make the crisis worse. The notes went into circulation on Tuesday.

President Maduro had declared Monday to be a bank holiday.

The reports I have been receiving are mostly from friends and relatives concerned about the economy. I explained to them that it is just the consequence of a depopulation plan being applied. Many Venezuelans still believe that Maduro is an inept moron. Far from that, fellows. He is a clever guy. Not clever enough to take care of his own health, and getting as fat as a whale (hopefully this should be helpful for us, a lethal stroke would be very welcome these days) is a proof of this.

As I mentioned, he is clever, and in my personal opinion, he is just another one of the bunch of sociopaths that rule the sadistic gang that has imprisoned our young members of the Special Forces, and has jailed to every patriot with a uniform that has raised his/her voice. Jeez, I wonder who they will go after when the last one is in jail. The Venezuelan Boy Scouts Association?

Brazil’s President Michel Temer announced an emergency meeting of government Sunday after deploying troops to the border town of Pacaraima where Venezuelan migrants clashed with residents.

Temer met with key officials at his presidential palace, including those of defense, public security, and foreign affairs, but limited details were disclosed, said the AFP.

The situation in Pacaraima was critical on Saturday, migrant camps were overwhelmed by angry residents following reports that a local restaurant owner had been attacked by a gang of Venezuelans.

There has been growing hostility towards the numbers of Venezuelan migrants entering the Roraima state, Brazil’s northernmost region, in recent months.

Groups of men carrying blunt objects set fire to the camps and other items belonging to the Venezuelans, and more than one thousand migrants fled town back across the border.

President Maduro is introducing a series of deep economic reforms, to put an end to hyperinflation and to re-start the economy. But this can only happen if faith is restored in the currency and if US financial sanctions come to an end, says CEPR’s Mark Weisbrot

In 2007, following Venezuela’s expropriation of billions of dollars of assets from U.S. companies like ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, I suggested a potential remedy.

Since Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA (Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A.) owns the Citgo refineries in the U.S., the companies that had lost billions of dollars of assets should target these refineries for seizure as compensation.

Chaos and confusion erupted across Venezuela, and most stores were shuttered on Saturday, after president Nicolas Maduro announced that the government would enact a massive currency devaluation, implement a new minimum wage, hike taxes, and also raise gasoline prices for most citizens even as the country struggles with the greatest hyperinflation on record, surpassing even that of the Weimar Republic.

"They've dollarized our prices. I am petrolizing salaries and petrolizing prices," Maduro explained in a Friday televised address. "We are going to convert the petro into the reference that pegs the entire economy's movements."

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has said the country’s subsidized fuel prices should rise, to stop smugglers from cheating the country out of billions of dollars. Will this help alleviate the ongoing crisis or be another failed measure at redemption for the government?

Vessels sailing in the vicinity of Trinidad and Tobago are now under threat of being the victims of piracy for the first since the 1700s. According to a report from the Washington Post, in the wake of Venezuela’s economic and societal collapse, criminals desperate to earn a living have taken up the centuries-old crime and are attacking yachts and fishing vessels along the coast of South America.

Vessels sailing in the vicinity of Trinidad and Tobago are now under threat of being the victims of piracy for the first since the 1700s. According to a report from the Washington Post, in the wake of Venezuela’s economic and societal collapse, criminals desperate to earn a living have taken up the centuries-old crime and are attacking yachts and fishing vessels along the coast of South America.

Jeremy McDermott of Insight Crime, a nonprofit that studies organized crime in the region told the Washington Post that “It’s criminal chaos, a free-for-all, along the Venezuelan coast.”

“This reminds me of how the problems started off the coast of eastern Africa," said Roodal Moonilal, a politician from Trinidad and Tobago while speaking to the Washington Post. “What we’re seeing – the piracy, the smuggling – it’s the result of Venezuela’s political and economic collapse.”

Deeply Disturbing': For Second Time This Year, Facebook Suspends Left-Leaning teleSUR English Without Explanation

"It seems like the censorship power many people on the left want Silicon Valley executives to unilaterally exercise might end up being wielded against the left. One good way to know that would happen is that is already is happening."

For the second time this year, Facebook removed TeleSUR English's page without an explanation beyond claiming the media network had violated the platform's terms of service. (Photo: TeleSUREnglish/Twitter)

For the second time this year, Facebook has suspended teleSUR English's page, claiming the left-leaning Latin American news network violated the social media platform's terms of service without any further explanation—a move that provoked outrage and concern among journalists, free speech advocates, and Big Tech critics.

Following the attempt on Venezuelan Nicolas Maduro’s life with two explosive-laden drones on Saturday, the President promised to get to the bottom of the failed plot. Last night he showed that his government has learned some things at least, and Maduro says there is still more evidence to come.

Prior to releasing the evidence, Maduro announced that he would be showing off what Venezuelan security had found late Monday night. According to Maduro at the time the evidence backed up the initial claims he had made right after the assassination attempt that “there is sufficient evidence of the participation of the outgoing Colombian government of President Juan Manuel Santos.”

On Tuesday night Maduro presented the evidence to the people of Venezuela in a televised address. Much of what Maduro presented seems to confirm his conclusions and exposes a wider network of the forces plotting to end his life, and the Bolivarian revolution.

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has said he believes that his US counterpart Donald Trump would not allow anyone to plot the assassination of other world leaders on United States’ soil.

On Saturday, a military parade in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas attended by Maduro was interrupted by what authorities said was an assassination attempt on the life of the president. Venezuela’s Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez said several drones detonated close to the presidential box during Maduro's address. The president was unharmed, but seven soldiers sustained injuries.

Industry collapse
The downfall of Venezuela’s chief industry, coupled with International Monetary Fund predictions that inflation in the country will skyrocket to 1 million percent by the end of this year, have created an unusual scenario, in which Maduro may even welcome US sanctions on its oil sector. As Venezuela’s economy continues to unravel, leading to surging prices and rampant hunger, Maduro could try to pin the blame on sanctions.

“If you break it, you buy it,” said George David Banks, a former international energy and environment adviser to President Trump. “The White House doesn’t want to own this crisis.”

A video was revealed on Sunday showing former Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, telling a group of listeners that Venezuelan soldiers need to “remove” President Nicolas Maduro from office.

The recording was released just 24 hours after two air drones carrying explosives were detonated above President Maduro and several members of his administration on Saturday as the head of state addressed a large crowd at the 81st anniversary of the Bolivarian National Guard in Caracas. Maduro and other Venezuelan officials are saying that right-wing factions in the United States, Venezuelan and Colombia are behind the drone bombs.

In the video the former president and current Congress member says in English:

“I have said this in public, I have said that the Venezuelan soldiers need to remove that government (of Nicolas Maduro), not to establish a military government, but to call for a rapid transition, with democratic and transparent elections.

Update: Speaking on state TV a day after the alleged assassination attempt on Maduro, Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said that six people have been taken into custody and more arrests are possible in the coming hours. He also said that two drones carrying 1 kg each of C-4 explosive were "disoriented" by govt. signal blockers.

He added that the government has raided several Caracas hotels in search for evidence, and noted that one suspect linked to a 2017 attack on Carabobo military base, another to last year’s anti-government protests.

Footage has emerged which appears to show the moment a drone bomb detonated over a packed rally where Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was giving a speech.

The video, which has been widely shared by Venezuelan social media accounts, shows a single drone hovering above the military parade - before suddenly exploding into a fireball.

Venuzuelan officials have claimed dissidents used two M600 drones, each carrying 2lb of C4 explosive. One of the drones was allegedly set to explode above the president while the other was to detonate directly in front of him.

Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said the military managed to knock one of the drones off-course electronically and the other crashed into an apartment building two streets away from where Mr Maduro was speaking to the hundreds of troopsl.

Did the US try to assassinate Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro?
John Bolton, Trump’s veteran neocon national security adviser, told Fox News the US had nothing to do with the explosive drone attack during an appearance in Caracas that injured several people but left Maduro and his entourage untouched.

“I can say unequivocally there was no U.S. government involvement in this at all. If the government of Venezuela has hard information that they want to present to us that would show a potential violation of U.S. criminal law, we’ll take a serious look at it, but in the meantime I think what we really should focus on is the corruption and oppression in the Maduro regime in Venezuela,” said Bolton during an interview with Chris Wallace.

Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” US national security adviser John Bolton denied that the US government had at all been involved in the reported Saturday assassination attempt in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas.

There were conflicting reports on what happened, but the government reported seven National Guard soldiers were injured by a pair of “drone-like devices that carried explosives.” They believe this was a failed attempt to assassinate President Maduro, who was unharmed.

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has survived an apparent attack on his life during a military parade celebrating the 81st anniversary of the Bolivarian National Guard in the capital, Caracas.

In a televised national address late Saturday, Maduro said he was fine and laid blame for the attack firmly at the feet of “right-wing imperial forces” who he said had hired the would-be assassins.

“They have tried to assassinate me today, and everything points to the Venezuelan ultra-right and the Colombian ultra-right, and the name of Juan Manuel Santos is behind this attack,” he said.

“I must inform that they have been captured – those who attempted to take my life – and they are being processed. I won’t say more, but the investigation is very advanced.

“I tell the Venezuelan opposition that I guarantee you can live in this country peacefully. If something happens to me, you will have to face millions of Campesinos and humble people making justice with their own hands.

Amid the economic, political, and social collapse, Brazil has been described by many as being in the midst of a “zombie apocalypse” as years of corruption and violence spectacularly implodes all at once.

Horrified by the out of control violence and pessimistic about the nation’s political and economic outlook, thousands of wealthy Brazilians are now fleeing the country.

Thiago Lacerda, a high-profile actor, is one of the thousands of celebrities, bankers, lawyers and affluent Brazilians considering emigration before the next round of turmoil.

“I’m totally freaked out by what’s been happening, especially here in Rio [Rio de Janeiro],” Mr. Lacerda told The Wall Street Journal.

The 40-year-old actor said he has considered moving his family to Europe for the safety of his three children. “In several years, they’re going to want to go out, to start dating, without worrying about getting shot.”

With patented angst, Noam Chomsky opined on President Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua to an agreeing Amy Goodman: “But there’s been a lot of corruption, a lot of repression. It’s autocratic, undoubtedly.”

Earlier in their DemocracyNow! interview, the main talking points were established via a video clip of a dissident former official from Ortega’s Sandinista Party: Ortega’s “entire government has been, in essence, neoliberal. Then it becomes authoritarian, repressive.”

Left out of this view is why the US has targeted Nicaragua for regime change. One would think that a neoliberal regime, especially if it were authoritarian and repressive, would be just the ticket to curry favor with Washington.

A recent New York Times piece has sounded the alarm over what Washington perceives as China's "expanding reach into Latin America," related to a space mission control center located in the heart of the Patagonia region of Argentina.

The underlying perspective of the New York Times report over what is otherwise ostensibly a peaceful Argentine-Chinese space communications partnership is presented bluntly in the third stanza: "The isolated base is one of the most striking symbols of Beijing’s long push to transform Latin America and shape its future for generations to come — often in ways that directly undermine the United States’ political, economic and strategic power in the region."

Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega said he had sufficient proof that the United States was financing the ongoing violence in his country through organizations like the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

"We are facing a powerful enemy, which has carried out an armed invasion of Nicaragua several times, the United States, and it continues to interfere in Nicaragua's affairs. Yes, of course [Nicaragua has evidence of such financing]. Through these US accounts, the US Agency for International Development and other US organizations… they declare millions which are allocated for Nicaragua, for democracy as they say," Ortega said in an interview with the Euronews TV channel.

On joining the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 1990, Anayibe Rojas Valderrama, became “Sonia.” By then the insurgency had already, for 26 years, been fighting Colombia’s rich and powerful over their control of land.

Colombian soldiers captured her onFebruary10, 2004. Charged with drug trafficking, Sonia was extradited to the United States on March9, 2005. Convicted by the U.S. District Court in Washingtonon February 7, 2007, Sonia is serving a 16 year, eight month sentence at the Carswell woman’s prison in Fort Worth, Texas. She leaves prison on August 18 and presumably will be deported to Colombia. Her experience illustrates aspects of revolutionary struggle in Colombia and U.S. intervention and points to the currently dim prospects for peace there.

As the Nicaraguan police and their attendant pro-government “militia” invaded the poor neighborhood of Managua known as “Americas 1,” where residents are routinely harassed, Karina Navarette and her husband took her two children to a relative’s house, where they were to be watched, as usual, while Mama worked in a nearby residence. On the way, they saw “several armed men, ready to shoot.” That’s when all hell broke loose:

“They were all dressed in black and hooded and began to shoot at them. ‘My husband who was carrying the baby turned back to see and that’s when the bullet hit my baby’s head. We left running and there a boy helped us and they took him to the hospital, but there they told us that he was already dead.”

Who’s winning the US-China trade war? When it comes to soybeans, the answer is Brazil. The South American nation is capitalising on the strife caused by US President Donald Trump’s trade war to profit from both China and America in soybean trade.

China has been the biggest buyer of US soybean in recent years, but as imports have become caught up in Beijing and Washington’s tit-for-tat tariffs, Chinese purchasers are now looking to to Brazil to make up the shortfall.

As a result, US soybean prices have fallen by 20 per cent since April to their lowest price in nearly a decade, while the Brazilian crop is being sold at a premium, according to industry watchers.