In this episode, we're joined by returning guest Joseph Humire, Executive Director of the Center for a Secure Free Society, and host of the new Border Wars podcast, to discuss recent developments along the Colombia-Venezuela border as they relate to Russia's ongoing invasion of neighboring Ukraine, as well as the recent trip by senior officials from the U.S. State Department to Caracas to meet with Nicolas Maduro and other officials from the regime's inner circle.   Joseph M. Humire is a national security expert, specialized in analyzing Transregional Threat Networks in the Western Hemisp ..read more

In this episode, we discuss the emerging using of cryptocurrency in Venezuela and the potential use case for this revolutionary technology to combat the endemic hyperinflation that plagues the country’s economy. Venezuela's national currency, the bolivar, is at the brink of extinction. The value has plummeted to such a degree that the currency is worth less than the paper is printed on. This severe devaluation has led to a de facto dollarization in the country, and a reliance on dollar remittances from families living abroad. However, sending money across borders into Venezuela can be ver ..read more

In this episode, we speak with the team at Yakera, a newly launched platform designed to re-imagine peer-to-peer aid in Venezuela. Launched by a group of students at Kenyon College, Yakera is a platform with the potential to help Venezuelans transition from survival to resilience.  Skyrocketing hyperinflation and chronic food shortages amidst an ongoing global pandemic have pushed Venezuelans to a point of desperation, with a growing number relying on remittances sent from families living abroad. Remittances are in fact the single greatest resource of income stimulating the Venezuelan eco ..read more

In this episode, we're joined by Dr. Evan Ellis to discuss how Russia's invasion of Ukraine could affect Venezuela, Russia's closest ally in the Western Hemisphere. Dr. Evan Ellis is a research professor of Latin American studies at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, with a focus on the region’s relationships with China and other non-Western Hemisphere actors as well as transnational organized crime and populism in the region. Dr. Ellis previously served as on the secretary of state’s policy planning staff with responsibility for Latin America and the Caribbean as well as i ..read more

In this episode, we discuss the Juan Guaidó-led Venezuelan opposition's "National Salvation Agreement" and their recent decision to enter ongoing negotiations with representatives of the Maduro regime (include Nicolás Maduro's son) in Mexico, as well as the decision to participate in local and regional elections to be held in November of this year. Like most Venezuelans, both in the country and abroad, we remain skeptical of further dialogue and negotiations with the Maduro regime, and much more so of participating in elections in a dictatorship. In the past, the regime has repeatedly used neg ..read more

NOTE: This episode was recorded prior to the July 2021 protests in Cuba. These nationwide protests, stemming from chronic shortages, lack of medical supplies, and skyrocketing prices for basic necessities, are the largest seen in decades, and are directly linked to Venezuela's declining oil production. More importantly, these protests are a call for freedom, which we echo and fully support. This episode will help put into context the interdependency between the dictatorial regimes of Cuba and Venezuela. Viva Cuba Libre.   “Colonialism basically consists of political, military and cultural ..read more

In this episode, we turn our attention back to the subject of foreign interference in Venezuela, and set our sights on the actors that compose the Middle Eastern origin of the Venezuelan crisis: Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah. Hezbollah, a political party in Lebanon whose militant wing is designated as a terrorist organization by a number of countries abroad, has a deeply rooted history in Latin America through diaspora communities that are co-opted by the group to minimize the exposure or detection of its illicit activity in the region.  Apart from its expressed explicit support for Nicol ..read more

Nicaragua is a country that is going through many of the same elements of a political crises as Venezuela. The Central American country is ruled by a corrupt dictatorship under a man named Daniel Ortega, who, like his counterpart and close friend Maduro, rigged elections and brutally represses protests to his decades of consolidated rule alongside his wife Rosario Murillo, who serves as the country’s vice president. In absolute terms, the repression's 2018 death toll (over 300) is comparable to that of Venezuela, but relative to Nicaragua's much smaller population, it ranks as one of the ..read more

Over the past two decades, China has become Venezuela's most important economic partner. At one point, Venezuela was the largest recipient of Chinese loans in the whole world, making up more than half of China's loan portfolio at approximately $60 billion. While those loans have long since dried up, and Venezuela still owes China tens of billions of dollars, China remains a key political and economic lifeline for the Maduro regime, importing Venezuelan oil in spite of U.S. sanctions, gifting medical supplies to combat the COVID pandemic, and generally providing quiet but crucial diplomatic sup ..read more

Over the past month, Venezuela’s military has launched an offensive against irregular Colombian armed groups in the western state of Apure. About eight Venezuelan soldiers have died during the operations, which have caused over 5,000 people from the area to flee across the border into Colombia.   These armed groups include dissident members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Marxist paramilitary insurgency operating in Colombia for decades until they signed a 2016 peace treaty with the Colombian government. These dissident groups rejected the peace treaty and hav ..read more