Tag Archives: Nicolas Maduro

Creative Associates International (CAI): It’s Not Exactly the CIA, But Close Enough

While mercenary armies like Blackwater have at least been subject to inquiry, making the company’s name infamous around the world, Creative Associates International has largely flown under the radar — exactly where the organization’s board wants it to be.

By Alan Macleod   Published 8-13-2021 by MintPress News

Graphic by Antonio Cabrera

You have likely not heard of them, but Creative Associates International (CAI) is one of the largest and most powerful non-governmental organizations operating anywhere in the world. A pillar of soft U.S. power, the group has been an architect in privatizing the Iraqi education system, designed messenger apps meant to overthrow the government of Cuba, served as a front group for the infamous Blackwater mercenary force (now rebranded as Academi), and liaised with Contra death squads in Nicaragua. As such, it has functioned as “both as an instrument of foreign policy and as a manifestation of a broader imperial project,” in the words of Professor Kenneth Saltman of the University of Illinois, Chicago. Continue reading

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Further Escalating Tensions, Trump Administration Seizes Alleged Iranian Fuel Bound for Venezuela

Iran’s ambassador to Venezuela, Hojad Soltani, said that neither the ships nor their owners are Iranian but did not address whether the gasoline came from his country.

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-14-2020

The U.S. government seized the cargo of four ships, including the Bella, the U.S. Justice Department confirmed Friday. (Photo: DOJ)

In an escalation of President Donald Trump’s sanction regimes against Iran and Venezuela, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the U.S. has for the first time confiscated cargo from four ships that federal prosecutors allege were transporting 1.1 million barrels of Iranian gasoline to the South American country.

The seizure, confirmed Friday by the U.S. Justice Department, comes after federal prosecutors filed a civil-forfeiture complaint in July claiming that the sale was set up Mahmoud Madanipour, an Iranian businessman with supposed ties to his country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which last year the Trump administration designated a foreign terrorist organization. Continue reading

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Disbelief as Trump Appoints Disgraced Iran-Contra Criminal Elliott Abrams as Iran Envoy

Activists, the UN, and even mainstream news outlets expressed dismay at the Trump administration’s decision to appoint regime-change champion Elliot Abrahams to the role of Special Representative for Iran.

By Alan Macleod.  Published 8-7-2020 by MintPress News

Elliott Abrams speaking at the 2012 CPAC in Washington, D.C. Photo:Gage Skidmore/flickr/CC

The Trump administration has appointed disgraced neoconservative hawk Elliott Abrams to the new position of chief advisor on Iran after former insider Brian Hook handed in his resignation earlier this week. “Special Representative Hook has been my point person on Iran for over two years and he has achieved historic results countering the Iranian regime,” said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday, “Following a transition period with Brian Hook, Elliott Abrams will assume the position of Special Representative for Iran, in addition to his responsibilities as Special Representative for Venezuela.” Continue reading

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With a Quarter of the World’s Population Under US Sanctions, Countries Appeal to UN to Intervene

Eight countries, representing around one-quarter of all humanity, say that Washington’s actions are undermining their response to the COVID–19 pandemic sweeping the planet.

By Alan Macleod. Published 3-27-2020 by MintPress News

The governments of China, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela – all under sanctions from the United States – sent a joint statement to the United Nations Secretary-General, the UN’s High Commissioner on Human Rights and the Director-General of the World Health Organization calling for an end to the unilateral American economic blockade, as they are, “illegal and blatantly violate international law and the charter of the United Nations.”

The eight countries, representing around one-quarter of humanity, say that Washington’s actions are undermining their response to the COVID–19 pandemic sweeping the planet. “The destructive impact of said measures at the national level, plus their extraterritorial implication, together with the phenomenon of over-compliance and the fear for ‘secondary sanctions,’ hinder the ability of national governments” in procuring even basic medical equipment and supplies, including coronavirus test kits and medicine. It is a “hard if not impossible deed for those countries who are currently facing the application of unilateral coercive measures,” to cope, they conclude. Continue reading

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Pro-Coup Venezuelan Soldiers Who Fled to the US Now Locked Up in ICE Detention Center

In an ironic twist worthy of an Alanis Morissette song, participants in U.S.-backed coup are now in an ICE detention camp.

By Alan Macleod. Published 12-27-2019 by MintPress News

Screenshot: NBC News

 

The Venezuelan soldiers who participated in the U.S.-backed coup attempt in April of this year and subsequently fled to the U.S. have been incarcerated in ICE detention camps ever since. Telemundoa subsidiary of NBCUniversal, secured an interview with Major Hugo Parra, the highest-ranking of the handful of soldiers who answered self-declared President Juan Guaidó’s call to overthrow the government of Nicolas Maduro. After the coup ended in spectacular failure, Parra revealed that he fled the country, ending up in the United States on April 11, where he expected to be given a hero’s welcome for his part in the Trump-approved insurrection.

Instead, he was immediately detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), first kept in a facility in Texas, then later transferred to the Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana. He has been refused all requests for bail or appointments to see a judge, one of nearly 42,000 people, most of them from Latin America, currently locked up in ICE prisons. Continue reading

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Venezuelan Government Denounces US Seizure of Embassy, Arrest of Peace Activists as Violation of Vienna Convention

“We do not authorize any of the coup leaders to enter our embassy in Washington D.C.,” said deputy foreign minister on behalf of Maduro government

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 5-16-2019

Peace activists lived at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, D.C. for more than a month in hopes of blocking the Trump administration from turning it over to supporters of an effort to oust the country’s elected president. (Photo: Jeremy Bigwood)

Venezuelan Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Ron on Thursday urged the Trump administration not to hand over the country’s embassy in Washington, D.C. to leaders of an attempted coup after U.S. law enforcement forcibly removed peace activists who have lived there since last month as guests of President Nicolás Maduro’s government.

“We denounce these arrests, as the people inside were there with our permission, and we consider it a violation of the Vienna Conventions,” Ron said in a statement. Continue reading

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Despite International Law Which Would Make It Illegal, Pompeo Claims US Attack on Venezuela “Would Be Lawful”

“Attacking [Venezuela] for any reason,” warned one legal expert, “would violate the most fundamental of all international law.”

By Jon Queally, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 5-5-2019

U.S. Secretary of State appearing on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday morning. “Attacking [Venezuela] for any reason,” warned international law scholar Mary Ellen O’Connell earlier this year, “would violate the most fundamental of all international law — the prohibition on the use of force. International law permits force in response to an armed attack in self-defense, but not for regime change, to secure oil or even to distribute food.” (Photo: ABC/This Week)

After U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday morning that President Donald Trump has a “full range of options” when it comes to possible next moves against Venezuela, anti-war critics are wondering what the Democrats in Congress are prepared to do in order to curtail the administration’s ongoing threat of using military force to overthrow the government of President Nicolas Maduro – an effort international legal experts say would be a violation of international law.

“We have a full range of options that we’re preparing for,” Pompeo said on ABC’s “This Week.” Continue reading

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‘One of the World’s Most Respected Intelligence Services’: Bolsonaro’s Bring-Your-Son-to-the-CIA Day

“This is the perfect symbol for Latin America’s far right, which has for decades drowned the left in blood thanks to the help of its CIA benefactor.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 3-18-2019

Jair Bolsonaro took office as president of Brazil in January. This week, he is in Washington, D.C. to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump. Photo: Marcelo Camargo/Agência Brasil (CC BY 3.0 BR)

Nearly 55 years after the CIA backed a coup d’état that overthrew Brazil’s democratically-elected government, the nation’s right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro raised eyebrows on Monday with an unusual and unannounced trip to the spy agency’s U.S. headquarters.

Bolsonaro is officially in town to meet with President Donald Trump on Tuesday, the Brazilian’s first bilateral meeting with a head of state since taking office in January. His visit to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia was revealed by his son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, in a tweet on Monday morning. Continue reading

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Demands That Trump End Economic War and Attempts at Regime Change at #HandsOffVenezuela March on Capitol Hill

“There is nobody in that White House or in this administration that cares at all for the Venezuelan people.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 3-16-2019

Americans warned against economic sanctions and a potential military intervention in Venezuela in Washington, D.C. on Saturday. (Photo: @ChuckModi1/Twitter)

Denouncing the “strangling” of the Venezuelan economy via sanctions and demanding the Trump administration allow the South American country to determine its own fate, pro-democracy protesters marched through Washington, D.C. on Saturday to demand, “Hands Off Venezuela!”

The demonstration came seven weeks after the Trump administration recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president, rebuking President Nicolas Maduro, who won re-election last May. Continue reading

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US Blamed Venezuelan President for Burning AID Trucks. Wrong.

“They tried a false flag operation, that supposedly the people of Venezuela had burned a truck carrying rotten food — no, no, no — it was they themselves”

By Common Dreams. Published 3-10-2019

Aid trucks burn on Venezuelan-Colombia border, February 23, 2019. Media around the world got it wrong. The Panama Post headline: “Police forces loyal to Maduro burnt trucks with humanitarian aid; The dictatorship’s repressive authorities allowed three trucks of humanitarian aid to cross the border, only to set them on fire once they were over the bridge.” (Twitter)

On February 23, a caravan of large cargo trucks was crossing a bridge from Colombia into Venezuela delivering food and other aid when they dramatically went up in flames. US officials seized upon the event as evidence of a “sick tyrant” stopping food from getting to hungry people:

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted: Continue reading

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