Latin America

Washington has caused enormous damage to Venezuela in its relentless pursuit of “regime change” for the last 15 years. In March, President Obama once again absurdly declared Venezuela to be an "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” and extended economic sanctions against the country.

Is Venezuela descending into a nightmarish scenario, as these stories suggest? To answer this question I’ve spent the last three weeks talking to dozens of people—rich and poor, Chavista and opposition, urban and rural—across Venezuela.

La défense de la souveraineté nationale, comme sa critique, donne lieu à de graves malentendus dès lors qu’on la détache du contenu social de classe de la stratégie dans laquelle elle s’inscrit. Le bloc social dirigeant dans les sociétés capitalistes conçoit toujours la souveraineté comme un instrument nécessaire pour la promotion de ses propres intérêt

Cuba’s former president Fidel Castro compared NATO’s recent statements to that of Nazi SS and accused US and its allies of igniting conflicts abroad. Castro slammed John McCain for backing Israel and accused both of being involved in the creation of ISIS.

So how is your war on “terrorism” going? I’m not doing too well at it since I have no idea who the enemy is. Like the American black comedian, Dick Gregory, who, on hearing that President Johnson had declared a war on poverty, ran out onto the street with a hand grenade to throw it at some poor people, I have no idea who the real enemy is, who to throw a grenade at

“I feel that the Chilean State is committing a disguised genocide, it’s a Terrorist State and this genocide is like the one perpetrated 500 years ago, but is now being disguised, mass media hides it and society in general is not aware of what’s happening”. These are the worlds of Barbara Villalba, teacher and member of the Coordination for the Defense of the Mapuche people.

The Bolivarian Revolution faces determined attacks led by Venezuelan elites. But the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) shares blame for the current situation. The party’s relationship with its mass base had deteriorated; corruption and economic turmoil impact ordinary Venezuelans; and the bid to democratize the state was largely abandoned. These all left an opening for the opposition.

Ten years of recession have made Puerto Rico’s government insolvent and made its economy collapse. The problems of Puerto Rico started before the global crisis emerged in Wall Street and now it contributes to making the crisis public but also, much more serious. Now, it is finally revealing the fiscal and economic failure of the colonial regime and it has caught the nation in a situation which appears impossible to solve.

Last Monday The Supreme Court ruled against Puerto Rico regarding its Debt, and determined that the island cannot turn to Act 71 – which enables some Commonwealth Public Corporation in financial distress to restructure their debt obligations – striking down Puerto Rico law.

Glenn Greenwald is the journalist that was responsible for a series of articles that revealed to the world the espionage carried out by the US government through the NSA, the National Intelligence Agency. One of the spied people was the Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff.