The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) identified and sanctioned several “shadow banking” networks, multi-jurisdictional illicit financial systems that allow criminalized Iranian entities access to the international financial system. “The shadow banking network seeks out jurisdictions that have business with developing countries that Iran wants to forge [ … ]
Transnational Threats


UN Experts Warn of Worsening Attacks on Civil Society in Venezuela
“These attacks, both on the opposition and on journalists, have been going on for a long time, almost 20 years,” Leonardo Paz, a researcher at the Center for Prospecting and International Intelligence at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, told Diálogo. According to Paz, the increasing attacks indicate that the regime has [ … ]

Chinese Projects Violate Latin Americans’ Rights
China’s investments in Latin America come with social, cultural, and environmental violations, the Collective on Chinese Financing and Investment, Human Rights, and Environment (CICDHA), a network of 50 regional civil society organizations, indicated in a recent report. The report, presented in February as part of a United Nations (U.N.) review [ … ]

Military Consolidates Political Power in Venezuela
Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro announced on Twitter the appointment of Bolivarian Army Colonel Pedro Rafael Tellechea Ruíz as the new oil minister, replacing Tareck El Aissami, one of the regime’s most effective operators, following his resignation. “It is already a military hegemony. This rearrangement of officials is to diminish the noises [ … ]

US and Colombian Armies Strengthen Partnership During Training Rotation
The United States and Colombian armies are continually looking for ways to further strengthen the already rich partnership they share. The latest example of this comes as an infantry company from the Colombian Army was embedded with the U.S. Army 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, alongside U.S. soldiers [ … ]

China to Increase Bolivian Lithium Extraction
State-owned Yacimientos de Litio Boliviano (YLB), together with Chinese companies CATL, BRUNP, and CMOC (CBC), will build two production plants in the Bolivian salt flats of Uyuni and Coipasa with direct lithium extraction (DLE) technology, which will be ready by 2025, Spanish daily El País reported. Each of these plants [ … ]

US Pledges $27 million to Education in El Salvador
The U.S. government and the Salvadoran Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology launched the Educational Innovation Project in a bid to improve the safety and quality of education for children between the 1st and 6th grades in 300 public schools in the departments of Santa Ana, San Salvador, and San [ … ]

The Fight Against Russia’s Fake News in Cuba
A fierce information war is being fought in Caribbean nations with Russian state media trying to peddle one narrative about the Ukraine war while a fact-checking site from Kyiv battles to rebut the stories. In Cuba, Kremlin-controlled media outlets such as Russia Today, Sputnik, and RIA-Novosti have been the main [ … ]

Brazil Increases Presence of Women in UN Peacekeeping Missions
Brazil once more demonstrated its commitment to Women, Peace, and Security, exceeding the participation of women security officers in United Nations (U.N.) peacekeeping missions in 2022, the Brazilian Ministry of Defense indicated in a statement. “The deployment of Brazilian military women to occupy such positions indicates the alignment of the [ … ]

US Helps Costa Rica Combat Cyberthreats
The United States committed to donate $25 million to Costa Rica to help strengthen its cybersecurity and digital infrastructure against threats from malicious actors. Costa Rica’s Ministry of Science, Innovation, Technology, and Telecommunications (MICITT) and the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica announced the initiative. “The U.S. government’s support is very [ … ]

Women’s Presence Soars in Uruguayan Armed Forces
The percentage of women in the Uruguayan Armed Forces rose by 25 percent in recent years, with military women assuming more important responsibilities in the Army, Navy, and Air Force, the Uruguayan Ministry of Defense indicated. In early February, the Uruguayan Navy reached a historic milestone as Ensign Nati Fontaine [ … ]

China Makes Advances on Second Overseas Naval Base
Chinese-funded construction in the northern compound of Ream Naval Base in Cambodia, in the Gulf of Thailand, is making progress, recent satellite images have shown. As reports began to emerge in 2022 about the deal that will allow China to use the base militarily for 30 years, both countries initially [ … ]