Argentina’s Defense Minister Jorge Taiana and Brazil’s Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira signed a letter of intent to incorporate 156 Guaraní 6x6 armored combat vehicles to the Argentine Army’s fleet to enable both nations to conduct combined military operations with an efficient asset and contribute to stability in the region. “The [ … ]
Transnational Threats


Iran to Overhaul Venezuela’s Largest Refinery
The National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) and state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) will soon start to revamp the Paraguaná Refining Center (CRP), Venezuela’s largest refining complex, to restore its fuel production capacity, Reuters reported February 3. NIORDC and PDVSA are expected to sign a $460 million agreement [ … ]

OAS: Illegal Gold Trade from Ecuador to China on the Rise
Organized crime, illegal mining, and illicit gold trade between Ecuador and China have increased substantially in recent years, the Organization of American States (OAS) indicated in a report. These problems have led Ecuador to declare illegal mining a national security threat on January 26. According to the OAS report, On [ … ]

Nicaraguan ‘Dictatorship Tried to Silence the Media,’ Says Journalist
Arrested for her journalism, kept in dire conditions in a small prison cell, and now stripped of her Nicaraguan citizenship, Lucia Pineda Ubau has endured a lot. Pineda suspects prison guards drugged her food and kept her in solitary confinement to break her will while she was in prison in [ … ]

USS Milwaukee Keeps Drugs from Reaching the US
The Freedom-variant littoral combat ship USS Milwaukee (LCS 5), with embarked U.S. Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment (LEDET) 104, seized an estimated $27.4 million in suspected cocaine during an interdiction at sea, February 28. While underway, a maritime patrol aircraft spotted a suspected drug smuggling go-fast vessel (GFV) and vectored [ … ]

Ortega-Murillo Regime Dissolves Nicaragua’s Private Banks Association
The Daniel Ortega-Rosario Murillo regime, through Nicaragua’s Ministry of the Interior, dissolved February 2 the legal entities of 17 civil organizations, including Nicaragua’s Private Banks Association (Asobanp), “thus cutting off the dialogue with the banking sector,” Nicaraguan daily La Prensa reported. “The Nicaraguan dictatorship has entered into a process of [ … ]

Ortega-Murillo Regime Backs Iran’s Nuclear Program
The Nicaraguan regime of Daniel Ortega-Rosario Murillo defended the right of each country to develop nuclear weapons in a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Managua on February 2, Nicaragua state-owned news site El 19 Digital reported. “In this world what should be done is for all [countries] [ … ]

China’s Spy Balloons Float over the World
The Chinese spy balloons that entered the airspace of the United States and at least three Latin American countries in late January and early February, capturing the world’s attention, exposed China’s growing interest in low-cost and difficult-to-detect devices for surveillance and defense systems, Spanish daily El País reported. “The more [ … ]

Mexican Cartels Bolster Foothold and Alliances in Colombia
Between 2018 and 2022, Colombia’s Ombudsman Office emitted more than 20 alerts that affiliates of Mexico’s largest and most powerful cartels were active on Colombian soil. Some 40 Mexican nationals, according to the Ombudsman Office, were behind bars for drug trafficking charges in Colombia as of early 2023. Syndicates such [ … ]

Jamaica Builds Up Capabilities to Deal Blows to Narcotrafficking
The Jamaica Defence Force’s (JDF) Maritime, Air, and Cyber Command (MACC) kicked off the new year conducting a maritime training exercise in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Jamaica together with the Dominican Armed Forces and the Royal Bahamas Defence Force. Exercise Event Horizon, carried out January 10-21, which [ … ]

China and 5G Technology, a Weapon for Dictatorships in Latin America
In China, the government maintains control over the internet and all information and communication technology products and services provided by Chinese companies. According to Argentina-based news site TeleSemana, China has been using the technology of Huawei, a company closely linked to the Chinese government, to control and monitor the population. [ … ]

Illegal Gold Mining Operations in Venezuelan Amazon on the Rise
On January 9, the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP), of U.S.-based nongovernmental organization (NGO) Amazon Conservation, said that according to satellite images more than 750 hectares of the Yacapana National Park in the Venezuelan Amazon had been deforested between 2021 and 2022 — all for illegal gold mining [ … ]