Venezuela is currently recovering from a disastrous flood in the city of Las Tejerias. At least 54 people died in floods on October 8 and three more people were found dead in the central Venezuelan state of Aragua, reports Reuters
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Another reason for the Venezuela swap urgency is because the recent international sanctioning on Russia heavily influences global energy prices. Venezuela is one of Russia’s most important allies in Latin America and this agreement may impact how that relationship unfolds.
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On September 2, the presidents of both Colombia and Venezuela announced that the closure of their countries’ borders for cargo traffic will end on September 26, and flights between their capitals will also resume, reports the Associated Press. On August 29, the presidents of Colombia and Venezuela officially re-established diplomatic ties, three years after ties had been severed.
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Nicolás Maduro, the simultaneously reviled and celebrated socialist President of Venezuela, is facing another contested vote in November’s upcoming regional elections, according to CNN. The rise and fall of Maduro’s political legitimacy parallel that of other populist leaders in Latin America, but recent events indicate that Maduro may finally achieve the legitimacy he desires.
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A Venezuelan oil tanker carrying over one million barrels of oil, Nabarima, is in danger of sinking in the waters between Venezuela, Trinidad, and Tobago. If the damaged ship sinks, the resulting oil spill will be worse than the 1989 Exxon oil spill and the 2010 BP oil spill.
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A refugee is defined as “someone with a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group or political opinion”. A migrant, meanwhile, is defined as “someone who voluntarily leaves his or her country of origin to seek a better life and who does not face impediments to returning home”. Yet for the five million people who have fled from Venezuela since 2015 neither of those definitions accurately describes their circumstances.
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In Haiti’s capital city of Port-au-Prince, protests and outcry over hard living conditions and corruption persist in the streets among both the rich and the poor.
Read moreAn active police state operating in the Western Hemisphere is bad enough. A terrorist state is even worse.
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As the security situation in Venezuela continues to deteriorate, bordering nations in the region fear violence will spill across their borders. The nation most at risk: Colombia.
Read moreOn Wednesday, March 6, Diplomacy students had an online talk with Dr. Gabriel Hetland on the ongoing geopolitical crisis in Venezuela. Dr. Gabriel Hetland, professor of Latin America, Caribbean, and Latino Studies at the State University of New York at Albany, discussed several aspects of the current instability in Venezuela.
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