Latin America Breaking News

Ecuador's President Guillermo Lasso dissolved the National Assembly by decree on Wednesday, bringing forward legislative and presidential elections, a day after he defended himself in an impeachment hearing.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/ecuador-president-dissolves-legislature-bringing-elections-forward-2023-05-17/

Following the establishment of the School of the Americas by the Yanquis in Panama, where methods of destabilization and subversive elements mainly from the Latin American militaries were trained to promote coups throughout the continent, Russia and China could well set up a School of Latin America and the Caribbean Mexico City, where counter-intelligence methods and political science would be promoted among selected militaries and intelligence staff from the countries of the region.

Chilean parties begin campaign on constitutional project

https://www.plenglish.com/news/2023/11/17/chilean-parties-begin-campaign-on-constitutional-project/

It must be remembered that in its Freudian and unstoppable delusion of grandeur, Brazil expelled Maduro's Venezuela from Mercosur some time ago, a move that cost Caracas enormous damage in a currently much needed geopolitical leverage.

Irfaan Ali will be skinned alive by Maduro in a face-to-face clash.

Maduro has touched the limit of Washington's power, by Gevorg Mirzayan for VZGLYAD. 12.13.2023.

The United States is demonstrating very unusual behavior regarding the new conflict that is currently flaring up in a key region for them - Latin America. Venezuela is actually annexing the territory of a neighboring state, but Washington is acting very softly and with almost no threats. Why?

“We are exploring closer defense cooperation with our allies, including the United States.” With these words, Vice President of Guyana Bharrat Jagdeo described how his country plans to defend itself from a possible and very early absorption by its neighbor, Venezuela. As you know, in a recent referendum, 95% of the Venezuelan electorate supported the creation of a new region within Venezuela, which is currently the territory of Guyana. We are talking about the Essequibo region, which is extremely rich in oil.

But the fact is that it is Washington, which intervenes so aggressively in both the Ukrainian and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, that demonstrates amazing passivity in the Venezuelan-Guyanese history. No threats of troops, sanctions or even aggressive rhetoric.

Washington limited itself to only diplomatic calls for a peaceful resolution of the “border dispute... since there is no reason for a fight” and military exercises with Guyana - separately discussing the “routine” nature of these exercises. Yes, the Venezuelan Ministry of Defense called  the exercises a “provocation” and “a step in the wrong direction,” but everyone understood perfectly well that the steps could have been more stringent.

After all, Washington has long dreamed of removing President Maduro. The Venezuelan leader has been the main geopolitical adversary of the United States in the region for many years, attracting not only Russia, but also Iran and China to the region, controlling significant oil reserves and (despite the economic crisis) supporting leftist ideas in the region. And which, according to a number of Western experts, is now trying to do in Guyana the same thing that Moscow did in Ukraine - which means it must be stopped in order to avoid a precedent.

So why aren’t the Americans in a hurry to take advantage of the situation and defeat Maduro? There are several reasons for this.

Firstly, Washington needs to remove President Maduro exclusively without direct American intervention. Given the level of anti-American sentiment in Latin America, this intervention will help Maduro consolidate around himself not only the Venezuelan population, but also other residents of the region. Moreover, even if the intervention is in the nature of protecting a sovereign country from Venezuelan attacks.

Therefore, it would be optimal for the United States, for example, for Guyana to be protected by some large Latin American country. For example, Brazil, which has already expressed its readiness to intervene. “Here in South America we don’t want war,” said Brazilian President Lula.

Better yet, remove them without war. After all - and this is secondly - the United States would like to weaken Nicolas Maduro as much as possible in advance of the presidential elections in Venezuela (which will be held in 2024). And the war gives Maduro a number of opportunities to strengthen his position. From the enthusiasm of citizens (if Maduro wins the upcoming war and receives a resource-rich territory with oil, gold, fresh water and timber and with a relatively small population of about 100 thousand people) to the postponement of elections due to declared martial law.

Thirdly, direct American intervention means that America, exactly during the ongoing election campaign in the United States, is getting involved in a third optional conflict (along with the Ukrainian and Israeli-Palestinian ones). And this is against the backdrop of the fact that in the same 2024 a much more dangerous conflict that threatens US interests could begin - if the situation in the Taiwan Strait escalates.

In order to neutralize this aggravation (or better yet, prevent it), America must have a free hand and fill its arsenals. We can say that Maduro very precisely chose the moment of action against Guyana. In fact, it turned out that Venezuela marked the limit of the possibilities of aggressive American policy. Washington can manage two conflicts (in Israel and Ukraine) simultaneously and directly, but in the third, in Latin America, its resources are no longer sufficient.

That is why Washington is now refraining from both tough actions and rhetoric that would deprive it of freedom of maneuver.

Instead, the Americans have resorted to a series of steps that leave the leadership in Caracas without any flexibility. “Decisive action now could give Maduro pause: Guyana’s friends, particularly the US and Brazil, need to prepare a combination of diplomatic, military and economic tools to avoid a major war in America,” says former NATO commander James Stavridis.

Actually, part of these efforts will be the negotiations that the leaders of Venezuela and Guyana will hold on December 14 in one of the Caribbean states - Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Maduro himself has already expressed his readiness to “preserve Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace without interference from external players.”

And now the United States will do everything possible to ensure that these negotiations end in success. Moreover, success here means not only Venezuela’s refusal to fight, but also the absence of any significant compensation from Guyana for this refusal.

In this case, Nicolas Maduro risks disappointing his electorate, and nationalist sentiments (which the Venezuelan leadership has been inciting among its own population for so many weeks) will turn against the current government. And the opposition will definitely take advantage of this, which will thus strengthen its position before the 2024 elections.

https://vz.ru/world/2023/12/13/1244083.html

Vietnam jungle was a bad experience though. And Russia today will be just as happy as Soviet Union back then to help.

They are probably helping right now.

Bolivia signs agreement with Russian company for lithium exploration, 12.13.2023.

The Bolivian government has signed a partnership with the Russian company Uranium One Group for the construction of a pilot plant for the direct extraction of lithium in the south of the country.

"This form of partnership translates into benefits for our country. From this agreement we are sure that there will be investments and the production work generated from the agreement will generate more development for the country," said Bolivian President Luis Arce.

The Bolivian government aims to accelerate the industrialization of lithium, moving from the extraction of the raw material to the manufacture of lithium batteries, in partnership with foreign companies.

"We know the interests in our resources and will talk to companies around the world. In our visits to Europe at the BRICS summit, interest in our lithium was demonstrated,” the president said.

The agreement will allow the realization of a pilot project for the extraction of lithium that will later be realized in an industrial complex with a capacity for the production of 14 thousand tons per year.

A first agreement was already signed in June by the Bolivian government with Uranium One Group to enable the construction of the industrial complex to exploit lithium. The representative of the Russian company, Yuri Ulichaniv, celebrated the agreement and foresaw the future of relations between the two countries involving lithium.

"After signing the agreement, we will start designing the plant of the lithium industrial complex. I hope that in the short term we will sign contracts for the start of construction," he said.

Bolivia, which is part of the lithium triangle with Argentina and Chile, concentrates one of the largest sources of the element in the world. Most of the Reserve is concentrated in Potosí.

Yandex Translate from Portuguese

https://sputniknewsbr.com.br/20231213/bolivia-fecha-acordo-com-empresa-russa-para-exploracao-do-litio-32008591.html

Kiko wrote:Bolivia signs agreement with Russian company for lithium exploration, 12.13.2023.

This kind of deal strikes at the heart of the old colonial way of doing business, where the locals perform all the low level tasks for peanuts whilst the colonist and its companies keep the value added parts of the process either investing capital (not available to the locals) locally or back home.

Here it looks like the Russians are sharing the whole process, including the top, battery production, with the locals.

This is the BRICS and beyond future, transforming (or averaging) the spread of wealth.

Washington can manage two conflicts (in Israel and Ukraine) simultaneously and directly, but in the third, in Latin America, its resources are no longer sufficient.

We hear this shit way too often and now just accept it is true, but is it?

Could I claim to play 30 games of chess at once just because I might be able to... if I don't win any of the games does it really mean anything at all?

The US isn't managing anything at all in the Ukraine or in Israel, yet still is gathering a coalition of the stupid to start something over Taiwan.

And lets not forget Syria and they also have plenty of bases throughout the middle east that are a bit tenuous and vulnerable and even bases in Africa where they are getting kicked out along with the French and Germans who the locals are realising are as much use as tits on a bull.

This is the BRICS and beyond future, transforming (or averaging) the spread of wealth.

Very much so, what the west claimed was happening all this time but the damn stupid lazy or corrupt natives couldn't get with the programme... of course the reality is that any smart natives they brought back to the home country and trained them up and used their brains and skills, or if that brain was used as an agitator to get better rights and better conditions for the natives the CIA or european equivalents made these guys disappear.

It is the reason there are so few Chavez'z and their equivalents of ghandi and martin luther king... they were of course present and of course murdered as quickly as possible to prevent them becoming problems for the big western countries making their fortunes.

With proper support and cooperation and respect... which is all Russia asked for from the west who rejected it for them like they rejected it for everyone else before them... ironic that Russia was the last country colonised by the west... in the 1990s, yet they still managed to steal enormous amounts of wealth and resources and kept on pretending to be the good guys.

Not the first time the US has done this and certainly wont be the last.

While they have money they can play these games, but of course it just takes an apathetic population to vote in an obviously corrupt leader, but then if countries like Canada and Argentina had good sense when it comes to election time they wouldn't be in the places they are economically and politically.

On January 17, President of Ecuador Daniel Noboa informed about making an agreement with the United States, whereby Ecuador will transfer armament and materiel of Soviet and Russian make to Washington in exchange to new ones with the total cost of $200 mln

https://tass.com/defense/1736741

So Equador is supporting the Ukraine to kill Russians... I am sure they will take note of that hostile act in Russia.

Those guys just got overrun by cartel on a live TV station

Countless presidential candidates were assassinated, and other figures gunned down in public

They have way bigger issues that worrying about Ukraine

It's a country run by narcotraffickers

And Africa is overrun with ISIS and religious nutters that their French colonial overlords couldn't defeat either... maybe they should be asking Russia for help instead of turning to the US because the US have never really helped them in the past.

The US is better known for helping itself.

GarryB wrote:So Equador is supporting the Ukraine to kill Russians...

those few old arms won't make much of a difference; the US is scaping them up from around the world as "the writing on the wall" becomes ever more glaring.

I am sure they will take note of that hostile act in Russia.

I heard that Russia just threatened to stop importing their bananas.
What else can they do about it?
Meanwhile, https://original.antiwar.com/Roger_Harris/2024/01/28/us-military-projection-in-latin-america-and-the-caribbean-intensifies/

It is also clear thry want to clear out soviet MIC made stuff so that these nations will buy western stuff afterwards. Slithery but clever. This along with CAATSA is trying to erase Russian defense items from the market. Russia knows this and has contingencies.

https://apnews.com/article/el-salvador-nayib-bukele-president-reelection-ef04e20d901908099f4f787b841aca89