Transparency records reveal senior trade officials held dinners and strategy meetings with the notorious lobbying firm even as controversy over its Epstein links deepened, says SOLOMON HUGHES
THE gloves are off in Venezuela, with socialist President Nicolas Maduro ordering a 60-day nationwide “economic emergency” and the right-wing opposition declaring its intent to remove him within six months.
The president issued his proclamation on Friday, shortly before he entered the lions’ den of the opposition-dominated National Assembly to deliver his State of the Union address.
He was confronted there by National Assembly president Henry Ramos who has taken upon himself the role of leading scourge of the Bolivarian revolution and its would-be liquidator.
International solidarity can ensure that Trump and his machine cannot prevail without a level of political and economic cost that he will not want to pay, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE
The global left must be unwavering in it is support for Venezuela as Washington increases its aggression, and clear-eyed about the West’s cynical motives for targeting it, says CLAUDIA WEBBE
US baseless accusations of drug trafficking and the outrageous putting of a bounty on a president of a sovereign country do not bode well, reports PABLO MERIGUET
Noboa’s second term looks set to deepen his neoliberal policies: reduced public investment, privatization, cuts to social programmes, and militarisation, says PILAR TROYA FERNANDEZ



