WORLD ROUNDUPVenezuela & the Latin American Left | Thailand’s Royal Spell Has Been Broken | U.S. Must Lead Sanctions on Israel’s Illegal Occupation, and more
· In Venezuela, the Latin American Left Will Show Us What It Really Stands For
The Latin American left has a decision to make about Venezuela: Oppose Nicolás Maduro’s totalitarian bid to remain in power indefinitely or enable it
· Germany Issues Arrest Warrant for Ukrainian Over Nord Stream Explosion
The sabotage of the pipelines that carried Russian gas to Europe has become one of the central mysteries of the war in Ukraine.
· Thai Court Ejects Prime Minister, as Old Guard Reasserts Power
Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin was considered a figurehead leader in a behind-the-scenes power struggle. He was ousted on ethics charges.
· Thailand’s Royal Spell Has Been Broken
What we are seeing is the beginning of the end for the Thai royalty’s once-commanding hold over its subjects
· Why the U.S. Must Lead Sanctions on Israel’s Illegal Occupation
No multilateral sanctions campaign will be effective unless it is backed by the power of the dollar, which dominates global trade and banking
In Venezuela, the Latin American Left Will Show Us What It Really Stands For (Will Freeman, CFR)
The Latin American left has a decision to make about Venezuela: Oppose Nicolás Maduro’s totalitarian bid to remain in power indefinitely or enable it. Efforts to constrain Maduro may not succeed. But giving in to him will destabilize neighboring countries—with consequences for the United States—undermine the left’s claims to respect democracy and possibly cost its leaders political support.
According to an Associated Press review of about 80 percent of Venezuelan voting machines’ paper tallies provided by the opposition, Maduro lost the July 28 election to opposition coalition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia by a more than 2-to-1 margin. Rather than acknowledge it, however, Maduro simply announced that he had won and blamed an unsubstantiated cyberattack by Elon Musk for his inability to prove it.
Maduro’s blatant steal marks a dark new chapter in Venezuela. Until July 28, the country was authoritarian with a patina of democracy, holding periodic unfree, unfair elections. Now that Maduro knows he lacks the popular support to win even on a tilted playing field, he is scrapping the facade and going full totalitarian, exceeding even his previous crackdowns.
Germany Issues Arrest Warrant for Ukrainian Over Nord Stream Explosion (Melissa Eddy and Julian E. Barnes, New York Times)
A European arrest warrant was issued for a Ukrainian man suspected of involvement in blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline nearly two years ago, Polish prosecutors said on Wednesday.
The sabotage in September 2022 of the Nord Stream pipelines that carried Russian gas to Europe has become one of the central mysteries of the war in Ukraine, prompting extensive finger-pointing and guesswork. But until Wednesday, there were very few answers.
The Polish prosecutors office said it had received the warrant, issued by Germany, in June for a suspect who was living in Poland at the time. The suspect — identified only as Volodymyr Z., in keeping with German privacy laws — left the country before Polish authorities could detain him, according to Anna Adamiak, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office in Warsaw.
The German federal prosecutor’s office declined to comment on the warrant, whose existence was first reported by a trio of German news outlets. (Cont.)
