Inside Stories

Over 40 days have passed since the forced disappearance of Argentinian activist Santiago Maldonado. President Mauricio Macri’s government appears to be more preoccupied with protecting the impunity of the Argentine Military Police, also known as the gendarmerie, than with listening to the demands for Maldonado’s release — or at least for information on his whereabouts and condition — being made by a mobilized populace.

Though Hillary Clinton has blamed numerous factors and people for her loss to Donald Trump in last year’s election, no one has received as much blame as the Russian government. In an effort to avoid blaming the candidate herself by turning the election results into a national scandal, accusations of Kremlin-directed meddling soon surfaced.

YANGON, MYANMAR – (Analysis) In recent years, Myanmar (formerly Burma) has only rarely been in the news. The quiet treatment owed much to the assumption that the country’s fledgling democracy was in “good hands” once the U.S-backed 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi gained renewed political prominence after the 2015 elections and assumed the office of state counselor a year later.

MEXICO CITY– In the last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made Israeli political history by being the first sitting prime minister to visit Latin America, traveling to Argentina, Colombia and Mexico during his brief tour.

In what is set to be a major blow to the U.S.’ increasingly fragile “petrodollar” system, Venezuela announced on Wednesday that it would no longer accept U.S. dollars as payment for its crude oil exports. According to the Wall Street Journal, Venezuela has begun using euros in lieu of the dollar and will convert existing cash holdings into euros as well.

On July 19, the Trump administration announced that it would end the CIA’s covert program aimed at arming and training terrorist-linked “moderate rebels” in Syria, sparking hope among some Trump supporters that he was finally enacting the anti-interventionist rhetoric of his campaign.

WASHINGTON (Analysis) — Far right-wing theocratic fascism has crept into the halls of the United States government. It now permeates the often unstated agendas of certain politicians and officials, whose Christian dogma demands that they act to make the United States a bastion for like-minded souls — meaning only those souls ardently worshiping the same God, for the same reasons, and in the same manner as they do. Everyone else is, for all intents and purposes, the enemy.

With the U.S. touting another round of unanimously-passed sanctions as the cure-all for the situation in North Korea (DPRK), there are grounds for concern that President Donald Trump himself may pose a major hurdle to their successful implementation.

There has long been speculation regarding ties between the Israeli government and the terror group Daesh, otherwise known as the Islamic State.

Throughout Florida, Hurricane Irma – touted as a “once in a generation” storm – is causing widespread panic. More than 600,000 people have been ordered to evacuate amid concerns about the potential damage to buildings and infrastructure the Category 4 storm could cause. Though many coastal structures are certainly in danger, with Irma’s center expected to pass right over Miami, another grave danger posed by the storm is being ignored.