June 12 marked two years since the kidnapping of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Nain Saab, while on a humanitarian mission to Iran—his third mission to the country—to try to alleviate the effects of the U.S. economic warfare against Venezuela, reports Kawsachun News.
Kawsachun News spoke to Ecuadorian economist Juan Fernando Terán on April 2 about Western sanctions, the Ukraine war and how Latin America can protect its economy.
Only a handful of European countries have refused to impose sanctions on the Russian Federation after the United States called for them once Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine began on February 24. Serbia is one such outlier. As a result, the West is pressuring the Balkan nation to change its foreign-policy vector and pick a side in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, reports Nikola Mikovic.
While the Russian “special military operation” in Ukraine turns three weeks old today, Azerbaijan and Armenia are expected to preserve good relations with Moscow. The small countries hope the war in Ukraine will not spill over into the South Caucasus, an area the Kremlin sees at its “near abroad," writes Nikola Mikovic.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s top Latin America advisor, Juan S. González, admitted U.S. sanctions against Russia aim to hurt Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. The three socialist governments condemned NATO aggression for creating the crisis in Ukraine, reports Ben Norton.
The U.S. Treasury Department quietly signaled on February 2 that it was “tweaking” sanctions against Afghanistan’s Haqqani Network, a Sunni Islamist militant organization. International banks can now transfer money to the Taliban, including its affiliated Haqqani Network, without fear of breaching sanctions, which means the United States may now have a say in the Taliban-run government, writes M.K. Bhadrakumar.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019
