Free Republic

CARACAS (Reuters) – Russia has agreed to lend Venezuela over $2 billion to finance the purchase of weapons including tanks and advanced anti-aircraft missiles, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday. Chavez said the purchases agreed on a trip to Moscow last week included 92 tanks and the S-300 missile system, which is capable of shooting down fighter jets and cruise missiles. "We have to thank the Russian government, which approved a $2.2 billion loan for arms spending," Chavez said on his weekly television show. He did not say how much the new weapons cost. A major oil exporter, Venezuela's...

The Chavista regime of Nicolás Maduro is playing with fire and knows it! US Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a stern warning yesterday from Guyana: any aggression against this country or ExxonMobil's operations in the Essequibo will have "serious consequences" for Caracas. In a press conference alongside Guyanese President Irfaan Ali, Rubio didn't mince words: "It would be a very bad day for the Venezuelan regime, a very bad week, and it wouldn't end well." The message is clear: the US will not tolerate the bravado of a declining leftist dictator. Maduro, the tyrant who has plunged Venezuela into...

Kingston (Jamaica) (AFP) – Secretary of State Marco Rubio heads Thursday to Guyana to offer to put the newly oil-rich nation under the US security umbrella as neighboring Venezuela asserts claims. A decade after the discovery of vast reserves, the small South American nation is poised this year to become the world's largest producer of oil on a per capita basis, outpacing Qatar and Kuwait. With tensions on the rise between Guyana and US nemesis Venezuela, Rubio will sign a memorandum of understanding that outlines security cooperation, according to the State Department. President Donald Trump's administration said it envisioned a...

Venezuela has moved “substantial quantities of [military] personnel and equipment to the border with Guyana amid its territorial dispute over the Essequibo region. The update comes from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C., *** The think tank talks about an expansion of a military base on Anacoco Island in the area, with new roads and a bridge getting built in the past few months. A local airport is also being expanded, CSIS also said, citing satellite imagery and social media posts According to the report’s authors, the activity could be preparation for a “manufactured crisis” before...

South America is teetering on the edge of an armed conflict. #Venezuela argues that the #Esequibo region of #Guyana was unlawfully taken when the border was established over a century ago.

The United States said it will carry out military flights in Guyana on Thursday in a joint operation as the South American country faces soaring tensions with neighboring Venezuela over a contested oil-rich region. "In collaboration with the Guyana Defence Force, the U.S. Southern Command will conduct flight operations within Guyana on December 7," the American embassy in Guyana said in a statement, noting the flights are part of "routine engagement" to enhance a security partnership between the two countries.

The response by Israel to the October atrocities of Hamas seems to have roused the international Left into a furious frenzy. Widespread demonstrations supporting the Gazans’ slaughter continue on a daily basis in major cities around the world and, especially, on university campuses. The demonstrations feature thinly- or not-so-thinly-veiled calls for elimination of Israel as a state, and for violence against Jewish people. The demonstrators call the Jews every horrible thing they can think of, the very worst in their vocabulary being “settler colonialists.” Meanwhile, other comparable conflicts go on around the world without even a hint of interest from...

Venezuelan electoral authorities on Sunday claimed that 95 percent of voters in a nonbinding referendum approved of the nation's territorial claim on a huge chunk of neighboring oil-rich Guyana.

Brazil "has intensified defensive actions" along its northern border as it monitors a territorial dispute between its neighbors, Guyana and Venezuela, the country's defense ministry said on Wednesday. "The Ministry of Defense has been monitoring the situation. Defensive actions have been intensified in the northern border region of the country, promoting a greater military presence," it said in a statement. Brazil's push to move more military resources north comes amid rising tensions between Venezuela and Guayana over an oil-rich region known as the "Esequiba," which constitutes over two thirds of Guyana's total land mass. Venezuela's claims on the Esequiba, which...

Guyana is revisiting a dark history nearly half a century after U.S. Rev. Jim Jones and more than 900 of his followers died in the rural interior of the South American country. It was the largest suicide-murder in recent history, and a government-backed tour operator wants to open the former commune now shrouded by lush vegetation to visitors, a proposal that is reopening old wounds, with critics saying it would disrespect victims and dig up a sordid past. Jordan Vilchez, who grew up in California and was moved into the Peoples Temple commune at age 14, told The Associated Press...

One year ago, Venezuela held a referendum to reaffirm its territorial claims on Guyana's Essequibo region. That ballot ended up being a preview of the country's stolen presidential election in July of this year. The turnout was so low that the electoral authorities lied about the results and never released the full vote tallies. While authorities claimed that 10 million votes were cast, independent analysts believe the number was fewer than 2 million, given the empty polling sites. Immediately following the referendum in December 2023, President Nicolas Maduro began what many portrayed at the time as a march to war...

GEORGETOWN, Guyana — Guyana is revisiting a dark history nearly half a century after US Rev. Jim Jones and more than 900 of his followers died in the rural interior of the South American country. It was the largest suicide-murder in recent history, and a government-backed tour operator wants to open the former commune now shrouded by lush vegetation to visitors, a proposal that is reopening old wounds, with critics saying it would disrespect victims and dig up a sordid past. Jordan Vilchez, who grew up in California and was moved into the Peoples Temple commune at age 14, told...

Nicaragua’s Communist dictator, Daniel Ortega, has authorized the installation of Russian military bases on his territory. The decree is reported to have been signed on Monday, August 21, according to the Russian state news site “Avia.Pro”. Avia.Pro reports: The President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, signed a decree according to which the deployment of Russian military bases and deployment of cruise missiles will be allowed in the country. This decision could become an important factor in the geopolitical balance of the region, especially given its close proximity to the United States. The Russian news site also highlights the distance between Nicaragua...

he Venezuelan government called the military drills of two U.S. planes in Guyana a "provocation" and said the country has "become a new colony" of the North American country. "The Bolivarian Navy strongly rejects the reiterated provocations by the U.S. Southern Command and approved by the government of Guyana, which has become a new American Colony," said Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López. He added that the country's defense systems are "activated against any attempt to breach the Venezuelan geographical space."

President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela is an exuberant dictator, a lover of military salutes who is being investigated for crimes against humanity, but he’s not reckless enough to invade neighboring Guyana, is he? Would the leader of a country in an ever-deepening economic crisis risk starting Latin America’s first interstate war this century? Well, maybe. For a century and a half, Guyana and Venezuela have quarreled over Essequibo, a stretch of the Amazon that both countries claim. Guyana has long governed the territory, but Venezuela also claims sovereignty over it, citing maps drawn in colonial times. Last year, Maduro expressed...

on the 3rd of December 2023 Venezuela 0:02 hosted a nationwide referendum on 0:04 whether or not their country should 0:05 Annex 2third of guyana's territory their 0:08 Geographic neighbor immediately to the 0:09 east this region of Guyana is known as 0:11 the esao and it's a huge piece of land 0:14 only slightly smaller than the US state 0:16 of Florida is but guyan themselves were 0:18 not welcome to vote in the Venezuelan 0:20 referendum calling for the partition of 0:21 their own country a couple days later on 0:23 the fifth of December the Venezuelan 0:25...

Guyana President Mohamed Irfaan Ali obliterated a BBC reporter who accused him of contributing to climate change by allowing oil drilling off its coast. BBC journalist Stephen Sackur slammed Ali for allowing the drilling, asking id he had the "right" to do so. "Let's take a big picture look at what's going on here. Over the next decade, two decades, it is expected that there will be $150 billion worth of oil and gas extracted off your coast," Sackur said.

Guyanese President Irfaan Ali did not mince words while answering a BBC reporter who asked him about the country's carbon emissions as it plans to extract oil and gas from its coast. In a viral video of the heated exchange, Ali stops the BBC reporter and questions whether he had the "right to lecture on climate change" and if he was in the "pockets of those who destroy the environment through the industrial revolution and are now lecturing us".

Venezuela is sending troops to its border with neighboring Guyana as tensions continue to escalate over a territorial dispute, raising the risk of a military conflict between the two South American nations. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal citing satellite images and videos made public by the country's military, Venezuelan forces have stationed troops, tanks, missile-equipped patrol boats, and an armored carrier at its border with Guyana. The dispute comes as Venezuela attempts to annex the region of Essequibo, where the country's socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro has said he plans to “grant operating licenses for the exploration...

This was a hot topic on FR a few weeks ago but had died down, it appears the Biden Administration could be facing another bad situation in South America, if a war breaks out in South America the flood of illegals at the Southern border could escalate to even higher levels