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As hundreds of thousands of desperate Venezuelans flee their country, in many cases on foot, their Latin American neighbors face a critical test: whether they can respond effectively to a crisis that threatens their own stability without the leadership of the United States. So far, they are flunking — and they know it. “The answer is, we can’t,” says Colombia’s ambassador in Washington, Francisco Santos. “It’s sad to say, but we can’t.”

ACAPULCO, Mexico—It was the beginning of just another day in one of the world’s most murderous places. Cristian Sabino was sitting on a plastic chair by this beach resort’s central market when a gunman walked up and shot him five times. As the 22-year-old dropped to the ground, the assailant fired a final bullet to the head and walked away. Six more people would be killed that day in Acapulco, including a cabdriver who was hacked to pieces. Death is so much part of the landscape that once police cordoned off the area around Mr. Sabino’s body, some patrons at...

Over the past couple of days, CNN and MSNBC have been freaking out over another Trump administration activity that was also done by Obama administration which the liberal media only just noticed because they've been so fixated on trying to find examples of President Donald Trump mistreating immigrants. Even though both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations sometimes denied passports to residents of southern Texas who were suspected of having fraudulent birth certificates that conceal they were actually born in Mexico, a number of liberal anchors have shown shock over questionable reports that such activity might have increased...

A Chinese space force in Argentina, Russian control of Venezuelan gas and South American armies equipped with the latest Chinese and Russian hardware. Until recently, it might have sounded like the plot of a geopolitical thriller in a region once considered America’s backyard. But this is what Defense Secretary James N. Mattis faced on his visit this week to several South American nations, where economic and military posturing by Beijing and Moscow has been on the rise for the past decade. Analysts say Chinese loans in recent years have allowed authoritarian leaders to consolidate power in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua,...

Trump administration officials have made thinly veiled calls for a military coup that would topple the Venezuelan dictatorship and pave the way for democracy. But some well-respected academics are warning that a military coup would more likely produce a Russia or China-backed anti-American dictatorship. Evan Ellis, a Latin America expert with the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, and Brian Fonseca, a professor at Florida International University who has written extensively about the Venezuelan military, are among those who believe that a military coup in Venezuela would probably lead to a pro-Russian or pro-China regime, rather than to a...

The Senate in deeply Catholic Argentina has begun a session to debate and vote on a bill legalising elective abortions in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. Argentina, the homeland of Pope Francis, is still a very religious society. The Catholic and Evangelical churches have long exerted a strong political and cultural influence. Between 350,000 and 500,000 illegal abortions are performed each year in Argentina. Argentina’s health ministry has estimated that hundreds of women die from secret, unsafe procedures, making it the leading cause of maternal death. An additional 45,000 to 60,000 women are hospitalised each year due to complications....

On Friday's Andrea Mitchell Reports, MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff misleadingly claimed that hundreds of illegal immigrants were deported before they were "able" to collect their children without noting that, according to Trump administration officials, many of them declined the opportunity to take their children with them, possibly hoping that the children will succeed in attaining asylum and indefinite residency. MSNBC Misleadingly Claims Illegals Deported Before 'Able' to Reunite w ChildrenReferring to ACLU demands that the government locate deported immigrants who are presumably in their home countries to ask them if they wish to arrange to get their children back, host...

A seemingly odd fireman is fighting fires in Guatemala—Israel. Even before Guatemala’s Vulcan del Fuego resumed its restless sleep Sunday evening, Israel issued emergency aid from its embassy including $10,000 for medical purchases. The pyroclastic flow that erupted from Vulcan del Fuego slammed into the village of El Rodeo at the base of the volcano, killing at least 69. Due to the close proximity of the volcano to Guatemala City, some 1.7 million people have been affected. In response to the tragedy, President Jimmy Morales declared three days of national mourning.

MANAGUA: At least 121 people have been killed in a wave of protests since Apr 18 against President Daniel Ortega's government, Nicaragua's main human rights group said Tuesday (Jun 5), calling it a "human tragedy." The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH) said another 1,300 people have been wounded in the protests, which have met with a violent crackdown from the government. "This is now a massacre, a human tragedy where the goal is to exterminate all those young people who think differently than or are critical of the government," the group's executive secretary, Marlin Sierra, told AFP. "It amounts...

Now that Venezuelan autocrat Nicolás Maduro has engineered his re-election in what reasonable observers have decried as a sham vote, it’s impossible to say how long he will remain in office. But the United States and its allies should lay the groundwork for the remaining portions of the Venezuelan government not beholden to Maduro to take the choice out of his hands. Nearly two decades of creeping authoritarianism and large-scale economic mismanagement have taken a staggering toll on Venezuelans. Moreover, with reports of low voter turnout in an otherwise stage-managed electoral process and rising military dissension, clearly the Maduro regime...

MANAGUA, NICARAGUA Nearly seven weeks after a violent crackdown on student protesters ignited a movement to oust the president of Nicaragua, daily life has become difficult and dangerous for a population increasingly in open rebellion against the government. At least 113 people have been killed, more than 1,000 injured and hundreds arrested since the political uprising began in mid-April, according to human rights groups. Dozens of others have disappeared. In what was until recently one of the safest countries in Latin America, families are now afraid to leave their homes after dark. Barricades set up by protesters block highways, public...

The links of the terrorist group Hezbollah with criminal gangs in Colombia to obtain financing With the help of drug traffickers from the Oficina de Envigado, terrorists wash assets and receive money from drug trafficking in the Middle East and Africa 29 mar. 2018 GoogleTranslate: Thus, they are indoctrinated in Islam to convert them into so-called "lone wolves", individuals who carry out terrorist actions alone, without the support of a team. This generates alarm among the authorities, taking into account that in Colombia there are more than 40 thousand Muslims, and five mosques and 10 centers ... ( - Así,...

Unless you read the Spanish-language tweets, or read all the way to the bottom of U.S. news accounts about the Summit of the Americas, you'd never know what a kickass job Mike Pence did for the U.S. this week in Lima, Peru. He knocked it out of the park with his lead on Venezuela's moral odiousness and failed democracy and in so doing, brought the rest of the long-reluctant Latin states along with him, stating: “We want one message to be clear: We are with the people of Venezuela.” He openly met with Venezuela's opposition leaders who have been shut...

The Summit of the Americas this Friday and Saturday in Peru was to be the centerpiece of President Trump's first visit to Latin America, and the first time he met many of the region's leaders. Now, Trump has suddenly announced he won't be attending after all — he's staying in D.C. to focus on Syria and sending Vice President Pence in his stead. Why it matters: Jason Marczak, director of the Atlantic Council's Latin America Center, says Trump's decision is a "significant blow" to the chances of improving relations with the region and with those leaders, many of whom are...

Guatemala's former military leader Efrain Rios Montt, who briefly ruled the country in the 1980s, has died at the age of 91. In 2013, he became the first former head of state to face genocide charges in his own country. Gen Rios Montt was accused of ordering the killing of more than 1,700 ethnic Mayans during a civil war. The last several years of his life were spent fighting a legal battle against the allegations in court. Gen Rios Montt seized power during a 1982 coup d'etat, in the midst of a bloody civil war in the country between the...

An Islamic paramilitary organization financed by Iran has infiltrated large swaths of South America, joined forces with drug cartels and created a major threat to Florida and the rest of the U.S., experts testified at a Congressional Field Hearing in Pensacola on Monday about Hezbollah’s gains in the Western Hemisphere. U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, moderated the hearing at the National Naval Aviation Museum. He said transcripts of the experts’ testimony would be provided to the U.S. House Armed Services and Judiciary committees. “This hearing is about highlighting the importance of a stable Western Hemisphere and countering threats...

Primetime Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson used a segment during his show Friday night to focus on a recent report that rated California last in terms of quality of life among the 50 US states. "How do you take a place that was as world famous as Eden and in 50 years, make it the worst place in America?" Carlson asked his guest, radio talk show host Ethan Bearman. When Bearman suggested that overpopulation might be one of the reasons for California's poor quality of life, Carlson interjected. "Hold on, where do the majority in the past 30 years —...

It’s en vogue for enraged liberals to compare Trumpism to Argentine Peronism, wielding the analogy as a warning about the potential apocalypse that they fear is about to engulf us. Most recently it was Larry Summers, a member of the Democratic establishment for decades, who took to Twitter to declare: “I worry about the Argentinization of US government.” Summers sent the tweet after President Trump accused Democrats of treason and the media reported on the president’s childish wishes for a military parade. He employed a standard characterization of Peronism as an authoritarian movement, a familiar depiction that no doubt had...

Mexico posted its highest homicide rate in decades, with the government reporting Sunday there were 29,168 murders in 2017. The number is the highest since comparable records began being kept in 1997 and is also higher than the peak year of Mexico's drug war in 2011, when there were 27,213 murders. The Interior Department, which posted the number, reported the country's homicide rate was 20.5 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2017, compared to 19.4 in 2011.

Full title :Exclusive — Ret. Lt. Gen. Flynn: Terror-Linked Nations ‘Cutting Deals’ with Mexican Cartels to Enter U.S. Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), tells Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM that countries that are known to support radical Islamic terrorism are "cutting deals" with Mexican cartels for access to human smuggling routes into the United States. Citing photos from the U.S. Border Patrol component of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency on Friday, Gen. Flynn also told Washington Political Editor Matthew Boyle, host of Breitbart News Daily, that there are signs...