Donald Trump, the 45th US president, broke with decades of a relatively bipartisan foreign policy consensus by wreaking havoc on US bilateral relations with China and the European Union. Latin America was an exception to the Trump playbook. It is true that US relations with Mexico were...
On June 20, we celebrated World Refugee Day. This was an opportune time for us all to pay attention to the challenge of forced displacement today. Strikingly, the world is facing the largest forced displacement crisis since World War II, with nearly 80 million people having fled their countries...
Two American men have been detained by the Venezuelan military following “a botched beach landing in the fishing village of Chuao,” the Associated Press reports. They were reportedly attempting to invade Venezuela and capture President Nicolas Maduro, apparently as a prelude to installing...
Venezuela’s dictatorship has proved to be highly resilient. It mutated from a lively democracy in the second half of the 20th century to a hybrid regime where unfree and unfair elections were held and repression reigned, giving way to the current dictatorial domination. In the process, it also...
During World War I, soldiers all along the Western front held a series of informal truces in December 1914 to commemorate Christmas. It was early in the war, and opposition had not yet hardened into implacable enmity. The military command, caught by surprise, could not impose complete battlefield...
As long as Cuba and Russia are ready and willing to prop up Maduro, there may be no clean way out of the mess in Venezuela. On April 30, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó called for the people and military of Venezuela to rise up and oust embattled President Nicolás Maduro. This action...
In this edition of The Interview, Fair Observer talks to Robert Patman, professor of international relations at the University of Otago, New Zealand. Venezuela is in the midst of a severe socio-economic and political crisis. President Nicolás Maduro faces growing pressure, both domestically and...
Instead of attempting to undermine China’s Latin America plan, the United States needs to construct one of its own. On April 12, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo kickstarted a week of travel to several Latin American countries, where he did not fail to warn of the dangers of a close...
Mike Pompeo wants Americans to understand two essential things: what he and John Bolton have to say about Venezuela is true and his skillset includes the art of lying, cheating and stealing. The US-supported coup attempt in Venezuela has failed. Even US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recognizes...
No matter how bad the situation is in Venezuela, a US military response will only make matters worse for the Venezuelans. It may be foreign adventure time again for the good old USA. With troops being pulled out of Syria and Afghanistan after successfully “vanquishing” the enemy and the...
After a few years preaching in the wilderness, Venezuela’s democratic forces found a new energy with Juan Guaidó. Until January this year, Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s strongman, seemed to have overcome all the obstacles in his battle for political survival. Appointed by Hugo Chávez —...
US moves so far — the threats, the sanctioning of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company — have given Maduro a way to deflect responsibility for the country’s problems away from himself. Thousands of people, mostly women, protested the food shortages in their country by banging on pots...
If the exodus continues, the staggering amount of Venezuelan refugees spread throughout the Western Hemisphere could eclipse the total of 6 million that have fled from war in Syria. Numerous countries and regions across the globe are experiencing the consequences of mass migration waves due to...
Maduro may still be in office, but nothing in the Venezuelan landscape looks rosy for the government. On May 20, Nicolás Maduro was re-elected president of Venezuela after an election almost everyone within and outside the country dubbed not free and fair. He presided over a process where most...
Nicolás Maduro has claimed victory in an election widely seen as a farce. As a result, the options to push for real political change in Venezuela are limited. On May 20, after months and years of domestic crisis, the regime of Nicolás Maduro finally held the long-postponed presidential...
