“Initially, Trump defended his military operations near Venezuela as keeping drugs out of the US, although experts say the cocaine that passes through Venezuela winds up mostly in Europe while fentanyl is sourced from China.
Trump also accused Maduro of emptying Venezuela’s prisons and “mental institutions” into the U.S., although there’s no evidence of that either. According to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have settled in the U.S. in recent years due to economic and political instability in their home country.
By mid-December, Trump accused Maduro of “stealing” U.S. oil and land. Trump appeared to be alluding to work done in the 1970s in Venezuela by Western oil companies before the government there opted to nationalize its reserves, eventually forcing out American companies.
In a Dec. 17 social media post – around the same time sources say Trump was making a decision to greenlight the Jan. 3 military operation — Trump said the U.S. military threat to Venezuela will “only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”
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Two days later at a press conference, Secretary of State Marc Rubio offered a more general explanation than access to oil reserves, calling Maduro’s presidency “intolerable” because it was cooperating with “terrorist and criminal elements” instead of the Trump administration.”
In Cambodia there is a scam empire. If an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is not true. If something seems so good that you are wondering who is the sucker here?, then you may be the sucker. Don’t send money to people you don’t know, especially girlfriends who may be scamming you. Many people were offered fake jobs, and when they flew to the country, they were kidnapped and forced to scam people online.
Japan’s anti-foreigner political turn is resulting in greater difficulty to start a business there and gain permanent residency. The people’s anti-foreigner feelings may be driven by too many tourists who do not respect Japan’s conservative culture.
Thailand built its huge tourism industry on US military bases and US military R and R during the Vietnam war. Young US military men spent far more than other tourists. Thailand was then able to turn this war-time tourism industry into a permanent industry.
Coptic is the final written version of the ancient Egyption language that was used before being overtaken by Arabic, making Arabic a colonial imperialist language in Egypt.
When you temporarily defund the military, you lose key human capital that moves into the private sector and can’t easily be brought back. You would make the military weaker long term.
Israel recognized Somalia’s breakaway region, Somaliland, as an independent country. No other UN country has done so. Somaliland declared independence in 1991.