Opposition lawmakers in Venezuela are trying to pry the military’s loyalty away from President Nicolas Maduro, offering protection to members of the armed forces who support a transitional government.

Congress passed a declaration Tuesday declaring Maduro’s rulings invalid and giving amnesty to members of the military who help return Venezuela to democratic rule.

Maduro has cultivated a stronghold within the military even as Venezuela collapses in a historic economic and political crisis.

Venezuela analyst Diego Moya-Ocampos says the opposition is offering the armed forces incentives to break away rather than continue supporting Maduro.

Maduro was sworn this month in to a second term following elections critics reject as a sham.

The pro-Maduro Supreme Court earlier had ruled that acts of the opposition-dominated congress are invalid.

Venezuela and Turkey are working on a deal to ship tonnes of gold to refine and certify in the Turkish city of Corum this year.

Facing sanctions and international pressure, Venezuela is increasingly turning to Turkey as a partner in the Middle East. Ankara will provide a host of services to Caracas, including building hospital and schools and providing humanitarian aid as a part of the gold refining deal.

Venezuelan Minister of Industries and National Production Tareck El Aissami will finalise a deal on the gold trade during a visit to Turkey on Wednesday. He will also tour an industrial complex in Corum, where Ahlatci Metal company has a refinery with an annual capacity of 365 tonnes, according to a spokesperson from the Turkish precious metals company.

CNN has cited three unnamed administration sources to say President Trump is considering formally recognizing Venezuela's opposition leader as the legitimate president following Nicolas Maduro's contested inauguration last week for a second, six-year term as the country's leader. And further CNN reports the White House is also mulling a complete embargo of Venezuelan oil.

It's a reference to the 35-year-old head of Venezuela’s opposition-run parliament, Juan Guaidó, who some argue is the rightful president of the country. As the president of the National Assembly of Venezuela Guaidó stirred controversy following Maduro's contested re-election by challenging Maduro's rule in saying he was the only "legitimate power" that the Venezuelan people look to. He said at a political rally last Friday, a day after Maduro's swearing in ceremony:

While standing in a Gulf Arab capital on Saturday, continuing his eight day tour of the Middle East primarily to assure allies that the US hasn't "abandoned" to region to Iran with its impending Syria pullout, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed another "pariah state" problem, but thousands of miles away in Latin America, ironically while standing in an "allied" Gulf autocratic sheikhdom.

Speaking to reporters in the UAE capital of Abu Dhabi he spoke about regime change — this time not in the Middle East — but in Venezuela, another country under various forms of sanctions by the US for over a decade. In surprisingly provocative comments Pompeo threw the United States' full weight behind Venezuela's opposition seeking to depose President Nicolás Maduro, who days prior on Thursday was inaugurated for another, much-disputed six-year term, which many Western leaders have refused to recognize.

The Guardian’s Tom Phillips’ article Venezuela Crisis Takes Deadly Toll on Buckling Health System (January 06, 2019) is more good news for US psychopaths, such as Trump, Bolton and Pompeo. Children are dying in Venezuela. Sanctions are working!

Tom is becoming the Luke Harding of Venezuela. Luke…err, Tom blames all of Venezuela’s problems on president Nicolas Maduro. Tom has piled on, repeating the Washington Consensus vilifying Maduro…...that is what “repeaters” do.

If Maduro is illegally and violently removed from office, what will come after? Probably chaos, since there is no united opposition. Chaos is what the US desires, because chaos gives the US an excuse for interventions. A dysfunctional opposition then gives the US the power to be the kingmaker. The US has a self-proclaimed “right” to intervene anywhere, anytime in Latin America, according to the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, and the 1904 “Big Stick” Roosevelt Corollary.

The US State Department is calling on Venezuela’s National Assembly to impose regime change following the election of President Nicolas Maduro to a second term in power. US officials say that Maduro is “illegitimate.”

To that end, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has promised that the US will restore “real democracy” to Venezuela, which is to say removing the president from power. Venezuela’s General Assembly president has suggested he could invoke the constitution to name himself as interim president.

That seems to suit the State Department just fine. Vice president Mike Pence had said the US won’t recognize the most recent Venezuelan election, and says democracy will prevail in the country, which again means replacing Maduro.

During recent South America visits, Mike Pompeo has been courting other nations to support regime change in Venezuela. Both Brazil and Colombia appear to be on board with the US demands.

Washington has explicitly expressed its support for a potential coup against the elected Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, by offering its backing to the opposition and stating outright it was time for a “new government.”

"The Maduro regime is illegitimate and the United States will continue ... to work diligently to restore a real democracy” to Venezuela, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters on his trip to the Middle East on Saturday, adding that Washington would attempt to make the Latin American nations “come together to deliver that.”

Brazil's government on Saturday issued a statement saying it recognized Venezuela's Congressional leader, who opposes President Nicolas Maduro, as the rightful president of Venezuela.

Maduro, who started a second term as president this week, has found himself increasingly isolated as countries around the world have called his continued leadership illegitimate.

Juan Guaido, the head of Venezuela's opposition-led Congress, said this week he was prepared to assume the country's presidency on an interim basis and call elections.

Venezuela's sidelined opposition-controlled legislature is calling for a mass protest against President Nicolas Maduro in a bid to oust the socialist leader in favor of "a transitional government."

Maduro, 56, was sworn in for a second term on Thursday, having won a controversial election in May that was boycotted by the opposition and branded a fraud by the United States, European Union and Organization of American States.

The president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaido, said Friday that the constitution gives the legislature the right to assume transitional power after declaring Maduro a "usurper," but said it would need military backing and for people to take to the streets to demand change.

"Is it enough to lean on the constitution in a dictatorship? No. It needs to be the people, the military and the international community that lead us to take over," said the 35 year-old Guaido, speaking to a crowd of around 1,000 opposition supporters in Caracas.

Venezuela Supreme Court judge Christian Zerpa has fled to the US to protest over President Nicolás Maduro's second term in office.

Last year's election "was not free and competitive", the former Maduro loyalist told a Florida radio station.

And he accused President Maduro of systematically manipulating the affairs of the Supreme Court.

In response, the court said Mr Zerpa was fleeing allegations of sexual harassment.

Opposition parties boycotted the 2018 vote, calling it a sham.

A severe storm produced very heavy rain and strong winds over parts of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia over the past couple of days, causing widespread flooding and leaving at least 4 people dead.

The storm caused major flooding in northern Argentina, disrupting traffic, submerging cars and forcing thousands to evacuate homes on January 8 and 9, 2019. Winds gusted to 90 km/h (60 mph), downing trees and power poles.

The worst hit cities in Argentina were Corrientes and Resistencia on the Parana River.

Brazil has been swept with a rash of violence as gangs react to new President Jair Bolsonaro's crackdown on crime - which includes military takeovers of Brazilian cities and shoot-to-kill orders carried out by teams of sharpshooters.

Five hundreds national guard troops have been deployed to the north-eastern town of Fortaleza in the state of Ceará, after authorities have been overwhelmed by more than a week of violence which saw more than 160 attacks, reports the Guardian.

Relations between Caracas and many of its Latin American neighbours slipped recently amid growing US pressure against the Venezuelan government.

Paraguayan President Mario Abdo announced Thursday that diplomatic relations between Asuncion and Caracus would be cut off effective immediately.

Abdo made the dramatic announcement in a televised address and on Twitter, just moments after the swearing in ceremony for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who began his second six-year term in office on Thursday after securing victory in the presidential election last May.

"The government of the Republic of Paraguay, in fulfillment of its constitutional powers and national sovereignty, has decided to sever diplomatic relations with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, to close our embassy there and to immediately recall Paraguayan diplomatic personnel accredited in that country," Abdo said.

OPEC and US Shale have been duking it out in the oil markets for a few years now - ever since the days of $100 oil. OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, took up a campaign to flood the market with oil to drown out the rising stars of the US Shale world. But that $100 oil came at a price, and the glut sunk prices to uber lows that hurt every oil producer in the world - some more than others.

Brazil’s northern state of Ceará marked a week of unceasing rioting and vandalism, largely in its capital Fortaleza, after the nation’s criminal gangs announced a truce to destroy the city in an attempt to pressure President Jair Bolsonaro to abandon reforms to more adeptly fight organized crime.

Venezuela’s opposition-controlled but toothless National Assembly declared Nicolas Maduro’s presidency illegitimate on Saturday, calling on the military to support efforts to “restore democracy.”

The United States, which has sanctioned Venezuelan officials and entities, hailed the legislature as “the only legitimate and last remaining democratically elected institution” in the country.

Every Wednesday, Joselyn Morales and her three sons join hundreds of other Venezuelans in lines at the Padre Claret church in Maracaibo, a city in northwestern Venezuela, for meals served by volunteers.

“We eat what people give us. My husband works as a watchman, but his salary is not enough to buy food. We have gone up to two days without eating,” said Morales, accompanied by her sons – 8, 4, and 1 years old – as she waited on the slow-moving line.

Morales is just one of many Venezuelans who are hungry due to the country’s economic crisis, where reports show that more than one-third of the people eat only one meal a day. The economic collapse sparked by two decades of socialist Chavista policies has turned the once rich oil-producing country into one of the poorest in the region.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has claimed that Juan Guaido, the new president of the country's opposition-controlled National Assembly, is a US agent.

"He is a puppet, an American agent, created by… the US intelligence agencies, it is them who control him", Maduro told Venezuela's state television.

Comments from Brazil’s new right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro that he would be open to the United States operating a military base on Brazilian soil have not been well received by the country’s armed forces, a senior army officer told Reuters on Saturday.

I am very worried; he talked too much about God.” So said a prominent Brazilian political commentator on TV after hearing President Jair Bolsonaro’s victory speech on the night of October 28, 2018, when the polls showed his victory by a 55–45 margin over the Marxist candidate, Fernando Haddad.

So now talk of God is supposed to worry people. This is sad. But the people of Brazil don’t care. Bolsonaro’s government, in which I serve as foreign minister, doesn’t care what pundits say or what they worry about: they don’t have a clue about who God is or who the Brazilian people are and want to be. Their worry is that of an elite about to be dispossessed. They are afraid because they can no longer control public discourse. They can no longer dictate the limits of the president’s or anyone else’s speech. The last barrier has been broken: we can now talk about God in public. Who could imagine?

Earlier in the day, the Lima Group, which is composed of 12 countries in North and South America, urged Maduro to hand over power to the Venezuelan parliament and schedule new presidential elections.

"We reaffirm the illegitimacy of Nicolas Maduro", the new president of the opposition-controlled National Assembly Juan Guaido stated, according to El Mundo. "As of January 10, he will be usurping the presidency and consequently this National Assembly is the only legitimate representative of the people".

Ending his first week in office by quickly putting into action the far-right agenda he promoted during his campaign, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday unveiled economic proposals that critics says will worsen inequality across Brazil, putting corporate profits above the well-being of middle- and lower-class families.

Privatization of airports and seaports, tax cuts for the rich, pension cuts, and a minimum wage set lower than Bolsonaro's predecessor had planned were among the economic reforms the new president has in store for the country, as it moves toward what the new right-wing government calls a "minimal state."

At least five people have been injured in an explosion at a bus stop in Santiago, the capital of Chile. An eco-terrorist group has claimed responsibility.

The explosion took place shortly before noon local time on Friday, as one of the people touched a bag that was left at the bus stop on Avenida Vicuña Mackenna, according to police. It is one of the city’s main thoroughfares.

Interior Minister Andrés Chadwick is visiting the injured at the hospital. Santiago mayor Evelyn Matthei told the local media there was “intention to cause harm.”

Professor Arie Kacowicz, an expert on Latin America from the Department of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, predicted on Wednesday in an interview with Arutz Sheva that, despite the encouraging statements of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian embassy will not move to Jerusalem.

Bolsonaro announced after his election that he intended to uphold his campaign promise and move the Brazilian embassy to Jerusalem.

While Israel has welcomed the move, Arab leaders have condemned it and have pressured Bolsonaro not to go through with it.

The US has been stepping up its involvement in military exercises in Latin America in recent years, partly in response to growing regional influence by Russia and China. The US has long supported right-wing governments in the region to protect its interests and block Soviet influence; more recently, they’ve been a bulwark against the Pink Tide.

Almost since the country's inception, the United States has viewed Latin America as its own backyard, with US President James Monroe articulating that view in 1823 in a doctrine that came to be named after him. Ironically, that, too, was provoked by Russian expansion into the Americas, when it claimed land along North America's northwestern Pacific coast.

Brazil's newly-sworn-in right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro has said that he might consider hosting a US military base in the future and called a Brazilian embassy move to Jerusalem a done deal in a new interview on Thursday.

Bolsonaro, dubbed the 'Trump of the Tropics' for his rhetoric, uncannily similar to that of US President Donald Trump, lived up to his nickname as he floated the idea of welcoming US soldiers on a permanent basis, reiterated his support for Israel, while calling Venezuela 'a dictatorship' and Russia its enabler.

In an interview with SBT broadcaster on Thursday, Bolsonaro said that while he considers physical presence of foreign forces a symbolic move in a globalized word, he is open to the idea of hosting US troops on Brazilian soil.

The Foreign Ministry refused to disclose information on German intelligence cooperation with the CIA in Chile in the 1960s and ‘70s, citing the “good of [the] state” and an agreement of “confidentiality.”

The German Foreign Ministry has refused to disclose details on cooperation of the BND, the German intelligence service, with Chile during the rule of Augusto Pinochet, Deutsche Welle reported Thursday.

The request was filed by Jan Korte, a lawmaker of the Die Linke party, and contained 68 questions. The response he received was so incomplete and generally evasive that Korte filed an official complaint about the non-cooperation of the government, DW reports.

"These answers are an unparalleled insult," Korte told reporters. "And, by the way, that is no way to treat the parliament."

On New Year’s Day, Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, was sworn in – and he started his presidency with a bang.

One of his main goals is to fight the “Marxist garbage” that has installed itself in educational institutions, Samhällsnytt reports.

If any values are to be taught in schools alongside the subject knowledge, then it’s traditional family values, the newly appointed Minister of Education Ricardo Vélez has stated.

Brazil’s hosting of the UN climate summit in 2019 has been canceled – because the president believes that the doomsday climate change warnings are exaggerated and propaganda from the global left and cultural Marxists.

As we reported earlier he has promised to make the process short with the criminal gangs that plague the country.

Child soldiers from Sudan's Darfur have reportedly been fighting on behalf of Saudi Arabia and its allies in the frontline of the deadly war on Yemen, with money being their only motive.

The New York Times reported that the Saudis have used their vast oil wealth to outsource the war, mainly by hiring survivors of the Darfur conflict to operate in Yemen, many of them children.

Citing several Sudanese mercenaries and lawmakers, the report said that as many as 14,000 Sudanese militants have been fighting in Yemen alongside Saudi-backed forces while at least hundreds of them have been killed so far.

Almost all the Sudanese come from Darfur and most of them belong to the Rapid Support Forces, a tribal militia blamed for war crimes during the Darfur conflict, the report added.

Saudi Arabia and its allies launched the military aggression against Yemen in March 2015 but have been facing strong resistance from Yemeni armed forces led by the Houthi fighters.

VENEZUELA has been rocked by a 5.6 magnitude earthquake, with residents in the region of Carabobo reporting strong shaking.

The Venezuelan Navy illegally entered the waters of Guyana this weekend and forced a ship contracted by Exxon Mobil to conduct oil research in the area to vacate, claiming that Guyana’s permission to explore its sovereign territory was not enough for the ship to be legally present in the water.

The incident, which Guyanese authorities angrily denounced and vowed to bring to the attention of the United Nations, reignites a feud Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro began with the neighboring country in 2015, claiming as much as two-thirds of Guyana itself belonged to Venezuela. Guyana has repeatedly noted that Venezuela signed an agreement in 1899 on the territory in question and no disputes remain as to who owns that land.

Brazil is going weapons-free.

Up to 120 sharpshooters will accompany Rio de Janeiro police into the city's slums to eradicate violent gun-toting criminals, according to Flavio Pacca - a longtime associate and security adviser to Governor-elect Wilson Witzel.

The marksmen will work in pairs; one shooter and one spotter who will monitor conditions and videotape the executions, according to Bloomberg, with the two officers alternating roles.

"The protocol will be to immediately neutralize, slaughter anyone who has a rifle," said Witzel - a former Brazilian marine and federal judge, on December 12. "Whoever has a rifle isn't worried about other people's lives, they're ready to eliminate anyone who crosses their path. This is a grave problem, not just in Rio de Janeiro, but in other states."

While the Amazonian basin is most often touted for its biodiversity, there are also hundreds of indigenous tribes that live in the rainforest. Many of these tribes are under direct threat of displacement by resource extraction and deforestation. To this day, 70 percent of the Ecuadorian Amazon has been leased to oil companies, and plans have been set to auction off more land.

One of these areas includes a large swath of Waorani territory, labelled Block 22 by the Ecuadorian government. The territory is home to 18 roadless Waorani communities, including hundreds of medicinal plants, hunting routes, cemeteries, battlegrounds, watering holes, and a huge diversity of flora and fauna.

Little by little, the partisans of the Cebrowski doctrine are advancing their pawns. If they must cease creating wars in the Greater Middle East, they’ll just turn around and inflame the Caribbean Basin. Above all, the Pentagon is planning to assassinate an elected head of state, ruin his country, and undermine the unity of Latin-America.

When he arrived at the White House, President Donald Trump opposed the Cebrowski plan. However, two years later, he has so far only been able to prevent the Pentagon and NATO from handing over States to the terrorist groups they employ (the « Caliphate »), but not to stop manipulating terrorism. Concerning the Greater Middle East, he has managed to diminish the tension, but the wars still continue there at lower intensity. Concerning the Caribbean Basin, he restrained the Pentagon, forbidding them to launch direct military operations.

As Washington is determined to leave the landmark INF Treaty, it seems Moscow is looking for a response. Russian media has cited diplomatic sources as saying that Moscow is eyeing a strategic air base off Venezuela's coast.
The arrival of two Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers to Venezuela earlier this month has provoked a nervous reaction from Washington and led to a brief heated exchange between the US and Russian officials. This might have been a prelude to a more ambitious endeavor, Russia's Nezavisimaya Gazeta (NG) daily revealed, citing military and diplomatic sources.

Sources told the paper that Moscow seeks to create a semi-permanent base for the Russian long-range aviation on one of Venezuela's islands in the Caribbean Sea as it prepares for “long-time military presence” in the US 'backyard'.

This video shows the Russians arriving in a show of support for Venezuela with joint military drills.

image

They get a very warm emotional welcome.

The “Tu-160” nuclear-capable bombers have the distinction of having the largest wingspan of any combat aircraft in use and being the fastest bomber in the world today,

There’s few better places to look in the world than Venezuela when you want to point out the dangers of giving your market, your government, and your very citizenry over to the siren song of socialism. But as an excellent piece on FoxNews.com points out this week, Venezuela is not just a case study in capitalism and freedom over socialism and totalitarianism. It is also a wake-up call for anyone who doesn’t understand why the Second Amendment – and the widespread exercise of the freedom to bear arms – is such an important bulwark against a tyrannical government.

According to the Russian news agency Tass, Russia is establishing a strategic air base on the Venezuelan island, La Orchila. Russian sources explain this development as part of the boomerang effect of Trump’s abandonment of the intermediate range missile treaty with Russia.

The Brazilian Navy’s (MB, in Portuguese) Fleet Marine Squad (FFE, in Portuguese) deployed to the state of Goiás, in central Brazil, to conduct Operation Formosa, the largest exercise of the Brazilian marines’ training cycle. The exercise brought together 1,700 service members from Brazil, Paraguay, and the United States to the Brazilian Army’s Formosa Training Camp (CIF, in Portuguese), September 21-October 3, 2018.

Operation Formosa seeks to maintain marines’ readiness capabilities. As such, marines simulate an amphibious operation with the use of weapons and combined assets from partner nation marines.

Although the exercise takes place in a dry climate region away from the ocean, CIF facilitates the use of land and air assets, as well as live fire. The camp is Brazil’s largest training center.

The arrival of Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers to Venezuela has spurred negative reactions from some US officials, although the planes didn't carry nuclear armaments and had already visited the country in the past.

German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine has alleged that the disturbance in US government circles, which was incited by the visit of Russian Tu-160s to Venezuela, is caused by the fact that while the US grip on the region weakens, especially on Venezuela itself, Russia is continuing to cement its positions in the Latin American country. The newspaper even suggested that Venezuela might become a "new Cuba in the US backyard" for Russia.

Kentucky Fried Chicken was rumored to be the latest fast-food restaurant in Venezuela to accept Dash cryptocurrency for payment.

(Actually, KFC denies these claims, but then Church’s Chicken stepped up to the plate and announced it will accept the tokens.)

Why Dash? Because the cost of a chicken now exceeds $14 million bolivars, the Venezuelan currency.

Hyperinflation in the socialist country has caused the currency to lose about 99% of its value since last year… And even then it had already been through years of hyperinflation.

Officially, the exchange rate is $1 USD for 248,000 bolivars. In reality, the exchange rate on the black market is $1 USD for over 6.6 million bolivars.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused US National Security Advisor John Bolton of preparing a plot to murder him, and also has called out Colombian leader Ivan Duque as Bolton’s accomplice.

“John Bolton is leading the plan to unleash violence and conduct a coup to introduce a transitional government” in Venezuela, Maduro said at a press-conference, which was broadcast live on his Facebook page. “Bolton is preparing a plan for my assassination.”

Venezuela's economic depression has claimed yet another victim, as Goodyear Tire announced it would shutter its Venezuela operations and lay off its entire local workforce, the latest foreign corporation to close shop in the crisis-torn county. On Monday, employees arrived at the company’s lone plant in the industrial city of Valencia to find it closed with a letter posted on the door. “Goodyear Venezuela has been forced to cease operations,” according to a copy seen by Bloomberg.

A large child sex slavery ring overseen by Israelis was dismantled by Colombian police earlier this week, in a story that has shocked Colombia and much of Latin America but received minimal coverage from mainstream Western media outlets. The network had been active since 2011 and expressly “recruited” young, underage females in situations of economic hardship or domestic abuse to work as “sex slaves” catering to Israeli tourists visiting Colombia.

Colombian authorities first began to investigate the sex slavery network in June 2016 following the murder of Israeli citizen Shay Azran in the Colombian city of Medellín. Soon after, Azran’s murderer was found to be another Israeli, Assi Ben Mush, an ex-IDF soldier who was known for his past involvement in both drug and human trafficking in the early 2000s. However, Mush was never arrested for Azran’s murder.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slammed Russia for sending a pair of long-range nuclear capable Tu-160 bombers "halfway around the world" to Venezuela in comments posted to Twitter late Monday. The Kremlin confirmed the jets touched down at Venezuela's Simon Bolivar International Airport in the capital of Caracas previously that day.

“The Russian and Venezuelan people should see this for what it is: two corrupt governments squandering public funds, and squelching liberty and freedom while their people suffer,” Pompeo stated.

Two Russian Air Force Tupolev Tu-160 heavy strategic bombers arrived to Venezuela after 10,000-kilometer flight from Russia.
The Kremlin, which has described the flights as training exercises and part of Russia’s right to make "regular flights over the international waters," responded by describing Pompeo's statement as "an utterly inappropriate comment" and his weighing in as "indeed very undiplomatic," according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Two Russian nuclear-capable strategic bombers arrived in Venezuela on Monday, a deployment that comes amid soaring Russia-U.S. tensions.

Russia's Defense Ministry said a pair of Tu-160 bombers landed at Maiquetia airport outside Caracas on Monday following a 6,200-mile flight. It didn't say whether the bombers were carrying any weapons and didn't say how long they would stay in Venezuela.

A total of 38, J8 Jeeps were donated by the United States Government to the Guatemalan military on October 11, 2018.

According to a report from The Washington Post, the donation was made despite the fact that Guatemalan authorities were being accused of using similar US donated Jeeps to intimidate American diplomats and anti-corruption investigators.

The donation of the new Jeeps was given to Guatemala’s Ministry of Defense for use in anti-narcotics operations.

Law enforcement authorities in Colombia suspect 12 Israelis of running a sex-trafficking network alongside two Colombians. The office of Colombia's attorney general said eight of the suspects have been arrested, including six Israelis.

The alleged sex trafficking ring provided Israeli travelers with “tourism packages” that included prostitutes, some of whom were minors, who received between 200,000 pesos ($63) to 400,000 pesos ($126) in return for sexual services.

During the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last week, Argentina and China reached a trade agreement on, among other things, cherry exports, as the South American country strives to become “the world’s supermarket.”

The agreement will be signed on Sunday by Argentine President Mauricio Macri and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Argentina's agro-industry secretary, Luis Miguel Etchevehere, told the South China Morning Post (SCMP) Saturday.

The brother of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez was arrested Friday on charges of trafficking cocaine, weapons offenses and making a false statement, according to the US Department of Justice.

Authorities with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) arrested Antonio Hernandez Alvarado, also known as "Tony Hernandez," in Miami, but he is being prosecuted in New York. Hernandez, 40, is a former member of the National Congress of Honduras, the indictment states.
A federal indictment states Hernandez was involved in processing, receiving, transporting and distributing multi-ton loads of cocaine that came to Honduras by plane, boat and, on at least on occasion, by submarine. The indictment also states Hernandez had access to labs in Honduras and Colombia, where some of the cocaine was stamped "TH" for Tony Hernandez.

Another stunning statistic that should surprise absolutely no-one with an internet connection, is that Venezuela also happens to be the largest supplier of oil to the United States, sending about 1.5 million barrels per day.

Not paying for that would be good for America’s economy, as would stemming their supply to America’s competitors.

During a press conference with Calixto Ortega, the president of the Central Bank of Venezuela on Tuesday, Economy Vice President Tareck El Aissami said in early October that all future transactions on the exchange market would be made in euro, yuan and “other convertible currency” instead of the US dollar.

The Trump administration is getting ready to add Venezuela to the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, The Washington Post newspaper reported, citing US officials and internal government emails.

The newspaper said that US officials and the Department of State declined to comment on the pending decision. However, the Washington Post noted that the State Department had recently asked for feedback on the proposed decision from agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the US Agency for International Development.

Israeli Foreign Ministry documents at the Israel State Archives reveal that Israel enjoyed “cosy ties” with Brazil’s military dictatorship, which ruled from 1964 to 1985.

According to the report by +972 Magazine, the year after the coup, in June 1965, Aryeh Eshel, director of Latin American affairs at Israel’s Foreign Ministry, wrote that he hoped “the current regime in Brazil lasts”.

Based on the information available, and not subject to censorship, the report states there were “strong ties” with respect to military relations:

Brazil’s security forces used Israeli Uzi submachine guns, and the [Brazilian] National Truth Commission revealed that intelligence agents from the National Intelligence Service of Brazil (SNI) — who were primarily responsible for torture, oppression, and crimes committed by the regime — received training in Israel.

Venezuela's justice department in exile has requested an international arrest warrant, also known as a red notice, for Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro.

The Supreme Tribunal of Justice in exile accused Maduro of corruption in a letter to Jürgen Stock, the secretary-general of Interpol, dated on Monday.

The exiled department, which calls itself the Legitimate TSJ, was established in 2017 amid a constitutional change.

It said that Maduro accepted, directly or indirectly, funds from illegal activity and called for 18 years and three months in jail.

"As a result of the aforementioned, this Plenary Chamber considered it appropriate to request that Interpol issue a red notice for Nicolás Maduro Moros for the purposes of international cooperation on common crimes for the apprehension of the above-mentioned subject," said the letter, which was addressed from Coral Gables, Florida.

Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, campaigned on a plan to sell off major portions of the Amazon rainforest to agribusiness, mining. and hydro-power.

“Minorities have to adapt to the majority, or simply disappear,” he said on the campaign trail, adding that under his administration, “not one square centimeter” of Brazil will be reserved for the country’s indigenous peoples.

Thirteen percent of the land in Brazil is protected indigenous territory in the Amazon rainforest, where most of the world’s last uncontacted tribes take refuge. Bolsonaro has said he wants to put all of that land on the auction block.

Massive caravans of migrants heading north to the United States are a problem for many reasons, but one of those reasons that gets overlooked, downplayed, or outright rejected by the Left and its compliant media is that they can be used as a means of infiltrating really bad people into the country.

Like terrorists.

In written testimony prepared for House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism hearing Wednesday, the State Department’s top counter-terrorism official Nathan Sales warned that Hezbollah is deploying “large caches of military equipment and explosives” in Bolivia, as well as delivering some to jihadists currently deployed in Peru.

Chinese telecoms giant ZTE is helping Venezuela build a system that monitors citizen behavior through a new identification card. The "fatherland card," already used by the government to track voting, worries many in Venezuela and beyond.

Amid talks about the preparation of the new Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, for the transfer of his country’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem, media outlets and social media websites, including Walla! website, have been flooded with pictures showing the President’s two sons wearing two t-shirts, one bearing the IDF logo and the other the Mossad logo.

Eduardo and Carlos, the sons of Bolsonaro, had visited Israel while wearing t-shirts bearing the IDF and Mossad logos. The photo was published on Eduardo’s Twitter account in 2016.

Following the winning of President Bolsonaro, a right-wing candidate who pledged to transfer his country’s embassy to Jerusalem, the photo of the two brothers has been re-published.

Earlier, Caracas indicated that it was looking to repatriate some 14 tons of gold bars back from the UK out of concern that the bullion may be affected by harsh US sanctions against the Latin American country.

The Bank of England is refusing to release Venezuela's gold bars, worth about $550 million or £420 million, back to Caracas, with British officials understood to have referred to "standard" anti-money laundering measures, The Times reports, citing unnamed sources.

Venezuela is seeking to repatriate about $550 million in gold bars from the Bank of England because of fears it could be caught up in international sanctions on the country, two sources with direct knowledge of the effort told Reuters.

Latin America is re-converting into Washington’s backyard and as a sideline is returning to fascist rule, similar but worse than the sixties seventies and eighties, which stood under the spell of the CIA-led Operation or Plan Condor. Many call the current right-wing trend Operation Condor II which is probably as close to the truth as can be. It is all Washington / CIA fabricated, just with more rigor and more sophistication than Plan Condor of 40 and 50 years ago. As much as it hurts to say, after all the glory and laurels sent out to Latin America – with Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Rafael Correa, Evo Morales, Lula, the Kirchners, José Mujica, Michelle Bachelet – more than 80% of the population of Latin America were living for some 15 to 20 years under democratically elected mostly left-leaning governments, really progressive. – Within no time, in less than 3 years the wheels have turned.

Fascist Bolsonaro wins Brazil Elections. During the campaign he promised to move Brazil’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and kick the Palestinian Embassy out of Brasilia.

New Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s “economic guru,” Paulo Guedes, has suggested that the country could head for a ‘soft Braexit’ from the continent’s fledgling EU-like supranational organisation Mercosur, the ‘Southern Common Market’.

Canadian MP Irwin Cotler claims to be committed to ending the humanitarian crises in Venezuela, yet Cotler has devoted much of his life to defending Israeli human rights violations, including its recent killing of unarmed protesters in Gaza.