In mid-February, Venezuelan militia members participated in a national military exercise with the National Bolivarian Armed Forces (FANB, in Spanish). The event, which included street patrols, simulated armed combat, and even training with portable air-defense systems, debuted the Bolivarian Militia as an official branch of FANB. On February 4, Nicolás [ … ]
Disinformation and Ignorance: Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan Strategies
In the midst of a violent environment against the independent media in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, journalists are denouncing the interference of these regimes through social media, a tool for resistance, says Guillermo Medrano, coordinator for Human Rights at the Violeta Chamorro Foundation, a Nicaraguan nongovernmental organization (NGO) that advocates [ … ]
Venezuela Provides Safe Haven to Hezbollah, US Warns
In an interview with Voice of America, U.S. Department of State spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said that it was necessary for more countries in the region to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. Ortagus added that the Nicolás Maduro regime provides a safe haven to Hezbollah members. Two decades ago, the [ … ]
Air Force Academy Has First Female Flight Instructor for T-27 Tucano
Brazilian Air Force (FAB, in Portuguese) First Lieutenant Juliana Santos de Souza became the first female flight instructor for the T-27 Tucano, an aircraft used for cadet pilots in their fourth year of basic training at the Air Force Academy (AFA), in Pirassununga, São Paulo. February 3, 2020 marked the [ … ]
Mexico Opens Joint Training Center for Peacekeeping Operations
On January 8, 2020, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador inaugurated the facilities of the Secretariat of the National Defense’s Joint Training Center for Peacekeeping Operations (CECOPAM, in Spanish) in Huehuetoca, Mexico. In 2015, the country resumed its participation in United Nations (U.N.) led peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance operations. “For [ … ]
Operation Shelter, Two Years as a Model of Excellence for Other Countries
Launched in March 2018 in the state of Roraima, Operation Shelter seeks to welcome, shelter, and relocate immigrants who flee the Venezuelan crisis. The operation has become Venezuelans’ main gateway into Brazil. To mark the second anniversary of the most important civil-military engagement in the history of the Brazilian Armed [ … ]
US Sent More than $656 Million in Humanitarian Aid for Venezuelans
Since 2017, the U.S. government has provided more than $656 million in humanitarian aid for Venezuelans, according to a February 4 report from the U.S. Department of State. The figure shows a significant increase in U.S. resources destined for this purpose in the last few years. The document stated that [ … ]
Iran’s Regime is a Threat to International Financial System, Group Says
Iran needs to be essentially blacklisted from participating in the international financial system after the regime refused to implement restrictions against terrorist financing, an international watchdog group said February 21. The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) had given Iran’s regime a February deadline to enact restrictions against money laundering [ … ]
Holistic Strengthening of Partnership
In the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment in which we live today, partnerships become the most important operational approach to face global and regional challenges. Threats to our regional security and prosperity are not delineated by physical borders; they operate across multi-domains (land, maritime, air, space, and cyberspace) within [ … ]
Cuba’s Torture Methods in Venezuela Take a Brutal Toll
Cuba’s influence has caused a sharp increase in brutal torture methods used on prisoners in Venezuela, according to a recent report by the CASLA Institute, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) that promotes human rights and democracy in Latin America. In 2019, Luis Almagro, secretary general of the Organization of American States, [ … ]
Brazilian Institutions and Teams Fight Cyberattacks
In 2019, federal, municipal, and state agencies all over Brazil recorded 23,717 notifications and 12,365 incidents in their networks and systems. The threats included website invasion, fraud, and interference in network and system availability. The Brazilian Government Response Team for Computer Security Incidents, a governmental organization tasked to gather, analyze, [ … ]
Central American, US Firefighters Grow Competencies, Partnerships
Like past years going back more than a decade, Joint Task Force Bravo (JTF-Bravo) welcomed 25 Central American firefighters from Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to be trained during an iteration of CENTAM SMOKE — a biannual firefighting exercise — February 3-7 at Soto Cano Air Base, [ … ]