Report: Defecting Venezuelan Troops Planned to Re-Enter Country by Force

(Photo Credit: Venezuelan Defense Ministry)

 

Their plans were cut short only after Colombian officials intervened in the 11th hour.

A group of heavily armed former Venezuelan soldiers, led by a retired general, reportedly planned to use armed force to push back National Guard troops loyal to President Nicolas Maduro who were blocking aid shipments from crossing the border from Colombia.

‘Man-made crisis’: Venezuelan hell destabilizes region

Venezuelan refugees line up for food donations at Simon Bolivar Square in Boa Vista, Brazil. / Andre Coelho / Bloomberg

 

UNITED NATIONS — It didn’t have to be this way. An oil rich, economically prosperous middle class country, once a stable Latin American democracy, is disintegrating into a socialist dystopia plagued by hunger, corruption, hyper-inflation and churning political unrest.

While petroleum remains Venezuela’s major export, now tragically it’s the people too who are fleeing this twice California sized country.

‘Breathtaking homicidal violence’: Latin America in grip of murder crisis

An activist paints the silhouette of a murder victim at the Coque slum in Recife, Brazil. The report’s authors fear voters may look to strongman-style populists to solve the crisis. Photograph: Eraldo Peres/AP

 

Region has experienced 2.5 million murders since 2000 and report paints bleak picture of extreme violence and deteriorating security

Latin America has suffered more than 2.5m murders since the start of this century and is facing an acute public security crisis that demands urgent and innovative solutions, a new report warns.

“The sheer dimensions of homicidal violence are breathtaking,” says the report by the Igarapé Institute, a Brazil-based think tank focused on security and development issues.

Socialist hell: 120,000 desperate Venezuelans cross into Colombia for food, medicine

Some 120,000 desperate Venezuelans poured into Colombia over the weekend to buy food and medicine that are in short supply in socialist Venezeula.

Under the 21st century socialist, or “chavismo”, movement started by Hugo Chavez and continued by his hand-picked successor Nicolas Maduro, 70 percent of Venezuelans live in poverty amid triple-digit inflation, mortality rates are skyrocketing, public services are collapsing, crime is out of control, and hospitals do not have basic, inexpensive medicines.

Russian Naval Expansion Threatens U.S. Influence in the Western Hemisphere

 

On Wednesday, April 20, 2016, the New York Times reported that the most Russian attack submarines, in two decades, are patrolling the coastlines of “Scandinavia and Scotland, along with the Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic.” This increased area of patrols and the Russian’s build up of arms is approaching Cold War levels, and signals the increasingly competitive and uneasy relationship between the U.S. and Russia.

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Russia’s activity within the Western Hemisphere has increased since the beginning of he Obama Administration. Russian activity in the Western Hemisphere first began with the sale of military equipment to Venezuela that soon transitioned into the two nations participating in joint naval exercises. It was believed that the Russia decision to launch the exercise came after the U.S. announced it would be reforming the 4^th fleet to patrol the Caribbean.

Germany’s Leading Role

BERLIN/CIUDAD DE MÉXICO (Own report) – Following her talks yesterday with Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto in Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that Germany will strengthen its partnership with Mexico. It will train members of the police and armed forces and enhance economic cooperation with that country. Mexico, traditionally, has been one of the German companies’ two most important trading partners in Latin America. Particularly German automobile companies use Mexico as a low-wage production site for the lucrative US market. Cooperation now will also be strengthened with the military and in the field of domestic repression. This must be seen in the context of the gradual polarization on both shores of the Pacific, as Western powers and their allies take up positions in opposition to the People’s Republic of China, while several governments, which had refused to bow to western hegemony, have been recently either voted out of office or are threatened with being ousted. Berlin is offensively supporting those forces, cooperating with the West – such as Mexico, whose President Peña Nieto, in turn, explicitly recognizes Germany’s “leading role.”

Cuban fiasco: Obama throws a lifeline to an imploding, tyrannical, bankrupt regime

Lest we already forget what Raúl Castro mentioned months ago: The Communist revolution is basically triumphant because nothing had to change to make America open the floodgates.

 

In that simplistic jargon characterizing President Barack Hussein Obama’s worldwide “transformation” of U.S. foreign policy, the chief argument for his Cuban shift has been “[T]hese 50 years have shown that isolation has not worked.”

In the facts of history, in this as in so many other instances, Obama is wrong.

The fact is that U.S. policy toward Cuba, with its ups and downs, has been generally successful.

U.S. cities ‘secretly selected’ for importing Muslims

The answers to these questions are simple. Very little information is available. And there are no guarantees that some very bad apples won’t arrive in your town, says a leading expert on the refugee resettlement program.

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On March 16, Ann Corcoran, author of the Refugee Resettlement Watch blog, spoke at a national security summit in Columbia, South Carolina, hosted by former Defense Department analyst Frank Gaffney. A few days before that conference, on March 9, a story broke in the local Spartanburg newspaper that World Relief, one of the nine resettlement agencies that works under contract with the federal government, was planning to open an office in Spartanburg.

Chinese missile warheads found on ship en-route to Cuba

Colombian authorities found a total of 99 Chinese-built missile warheads of unspecified type on 3 March during an inspection of Chinese-flagged merchant vessel Da Dan Xiu at Cartagena.

These were due to be delivered to Cuba.

Russia and China dig a channel vying with the Panama Canal

China and Russia arе embarking on a big geopolitical and economic venture of laying in Nicaragua a rival to the USA brainchild, the Panama Canal.

This was disclosed to the “Voice of Russia” by Petr Yakovlev, the head of the Center for Iberian Studies, Institute of Latin America, Russian Academy of Sciences. The expert said that Russian companies are holding talks with Chinese partners on how to participate in this strategic project in Latin America.

The start of the construction is planned for December 2014. Longer time slots had been proposed earlier. It is possible that adjustments have been made ​​following the probable participation of Russian companies in the project. Given the confidentiality of negotiations, Peter Yakovlev did not reveal the names of the Russian companies participating in them.

An ’80s Flashback? Russia’s New Military Presence In Nicaragua

Don’t ever be fooled by articles where the author or someone who was quoted states that Russia has purely economic/commercial interests. The headline alone is questionable because it’s not ‘new’. They are either duped or purposely whitewashing the military threat. Point being, they (along with China) are encircling the United States. Through the documentation of articles here alone under the China or Russia tags and categories, one can clearly see this one case of many points to a bigger picture. They’re not there to fight drugs either, since they’ve already drugged the United States in the first place.

Here are also a few examples of Russian military involvement:

Russian Military Chief Arrives in Nicaragua to Develop Ties

Putin’s July 4th Message

Russia, Nicaragua to hold joint military exercise – Lavrov

Russia planning to open new naval bases abroad – Telegraph

Airport Punta Huete rejuvenated (Spanish)

U.S. Fears Soviet Use of New Nicaraguan Airfield

Blast from the Past File: President Reagan’s March 15, 1986 radio address on Nicaragua more timely than ever as Red Axis takes over Latin America

“We have Nicaragua, soon we will have El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Mexico. One day, tomorrow or five years or fifteen years from now, we’re going to take 5 to 10 million Mexicans and they are going into Dallas, into El Paso, into Houston, into New Mexico, into San Diego, and each one will have embedded in his mind the idea of killing ten Americans.”  (Thomas Borge, Nicaragua Interior Minister as quoted in the Washington Times, March 27, 1985)

Faced with Colombia’s military strength and apparent resolve not to hand over a disputed swathe of the Caribbean, Nicaragua is inviting friendly Russia into the area.

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The Nicaraguans have announced that in 2014 they will allow U.S. and Russian military forces to enter the section of the Caribbean that the Hague Court gave them — which Colombia has so far refused to abandon or hand over. Nicaragua has said the forces would participate in joint counter-narcotics operations, but Colombia is increasingly on edge about other actions Nicaragua may have planned with the two large foreign powers.

US and China: The Fight for Latin America

According to Robert Valencia, China is vying for greater economic influence in Latin America, to include possibly constructing and operating an alternative ‘Panama Canal’ through Nicaragua. One unanticipated consequence of this burgeoning US-China rivalry, Valencia observes, is that it might push Latin American countries closer together.

During the first weekend of June, U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in California to discuss cyber espionage and territorial claims in the Pacific Rim. While tension on these topics has hogged the headlines, the fight for influence in another area could be even more important—Latin America. Other emerging markets in Africa, where China has an overwhelming influence due to foreign direct investment in mining and oil, also offer economic opportunities, but Latin America has an abundance of natural resources, greater purchasing power, and geographic proximity to the United States, which has long considered Latin America as its “backyard.”

Colombia establishes closer information security links with NATO

Colombia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization signed an agreement on information security that will allow exploring future cooperation and consultation in areas of common interest. The agreement was signed on Tuesday in Brussels by NATO Secretary General Ambassador Alexander Vershbow and the Defense Minister of Colombia, Juan Carlos Pinzón Bueno.

“As an Alliance of democracies, we are gratified when countries sharing similar values reach out to us,” the Deputy Secretary General said during his meeting with Minister Pinzón Bueno.

Ambassador Vershbow said that Allies have agreed to pursue tailored cooperation with Colombia on a case-by-case basis, in areas of common interest and that by signing this accord NATO and Colombia stress their shared interest in consultation and cooperation.

Admiral: Global Special Operations ‘Network’ To Be Unveiled This Fall

WASHINGTON — In September, America’s top special operator plans to sit down with US geographic combatant commanders to finally lay out plans for what he has been calling the “global SOF network.”

“We’re going to lay that out in a very visual fashion” for the commanders, said Adm. William McRaven, head of US Special Operations Command. He made his remarks during a luncheon wrapping up a two-day “Positioning Special Operations Forces [SOF] for Global Challenges” conference convened by the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis here.

Colombia heads toward NATO membership

BOGOTA : Colombia’s defense ministry later this month will sign a cooperation agreement with NATO, in hopes of joining the international military alliance, President Juan Manuel Santos said Saturday.

“In June, NATO will sign an agreement with the Colombian government, with  the Defense Ministry, to start a process of rapprochement and cooperation, with  an eye toward also joining that organization,” Santos said at a military  promotion ceremony.