World

Libertarian economist Javier Milei’s smashing landslide victory is the most radical thing to happen to Argentina in decades. But his win portends more than just a free-market revolution on the pampas. It’s just the latest example of a trend we’ve been seeing for decades: the triumph of blue-collar conservative fusionist populism. Milei is routinely portrayed in the western press as an Argentine Trump with crazy economic policies. There’s some truth to that. His rallies sometimes involve pyrotechnics and he brandishes sputtering chainsaws to symbolically deliver the message that he will take apart the system that impoverishes Argentines.

Venezuela has become a headache for Washington. Just after the Biden administration engineered a rapprochement strategy, Nicolás Maduro did more than just double down on not following through his promises of democratization: he is now pushing to annex neighboring Guyana. These developments, though, should have been anticipated, as Venezuela becomes a crucial part of China’s geopolitical strategy. "Ready for what will be a historic visit to strengthen ties of cooperation and the construction of a new global geopolitics. Good news will rain for the Venezuelan people," said Maduro after landing in the Chinese city of Shenzhen back in September.

At the opening ceremony of the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles last year, President Joe Biden announced the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity, which the White House described as “a historic new agreement to drive our hemisphere’s economy recovery and growth and deliver for our working people.” The plan has become the administration’s signature Latin America policy. As noted by the White House, the region matters not solely because it’s where the US is situated, but because it also accounts for 32 percent of global GDP. Even more so, the region is rich in resources that are crucial in the development of emerging technologies.

Venezuela's controversial Esequibo referendum received the support of voters on Sunday. In short, it asked Venezuelans if more than two-thirds of Guyanese territory should be annexed and an overwhelming majority said yes — albeit not many showed up to the polls. Since then, things have gotten tenser and the US has begun to vocalize its backing of Guyana, with the White House declaring its “unwavering support” this Thursday. In less than a week, Brazil has deployed troops along the Venezuelan border, Nicolás Maduro has announced the creation of an Esequibo division of the state-owned oil company and a helicopter carrying five senior Guyanese military officials has gone missing.

What position should the distant observer take on the COP28 conference in Dubai? That the sight of 70,000 delegates flying into a desert oil state from around the world to discuss human impacts on climate change is beyond satire and that its proceedings are never likely to rise above Greta Thunberg’s encapsulation of all such jamborees as “blah blah blah?” Or that the climate problem is now so obvious and urgent that all efforts towards global action, however small, should be uncynically applauded? I leave that choice on the table.

Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro carried out a controversial referendum on whether more than two-thirds of Guyanese territory is Venezuelan land this Sunday, challenging the international community and making a mockery of the Biden’s administrations rapprochement. The results for the referendum are in, with all of the propositions receiving more than 95 percent approval, according to the country’s electoral council.

Javier Milei, a messy-haired bombastic libertarian economist, won Argentina’s presidential elections against socialist minister of economics Sergio Massa this Sunday. With the backdrop of inflation that the International Monetary Fund projects will trail only that of Zimbabwe and Venezuela by the end of the year, Milei triumphed with over 55 percent of votes in the runoff with more than 94 percent of votes counted, according to data from the country’s National Electoral Chamber. In a brief speech before the results were announced, Massa, who came first in the October 22 election that led to the run-off, said, “Milei is the president elected for the next four years,” adding that he had called Milei to personally congratulate him on his victory.

Eight years ago in Guyana, an Idaho-sized country on the northern coast of South America, ExxonMobil discovered massive oil reserves. So massive, that it’s speculated that the tiny nation, which is one of the least densely populated countries on the planet, could become the richest country per capita. Estimates indicate that Guyana has around 11 billion barrels of oil equivalent, boosting the nation to the third position in terms of proven oil reserves in the region. To contextualize the enormity of these discoveries, consider that the tiny nation has almost five times more proven oil reserves than Argentina, a country thirteen times larger by land mass. Only Brazil, the fifth largest country, and Venezuela, the country with the largest proven oil reserves, surpass Guyana.

In 2006, there was Manuel Rosales. In 2012, there was Henrique Capriles. In 2018, there was Juan Guaidó. All managed to capture the hopes of Venezuela’s opposition, but as hopes slipped away, so did their popularity. Now, there is a new opposition leader in town: Maria Corina Machado, an ideologically driven fighter and a woman who was not afraid to call former president Hugo Chávez a “thief” to his face. As Venezuelans often imprudently say, she “tiene las bolas bien puestas,” meaning that, although female, she “has her testicles in the right place.” That's something that millions of Venezuelans can’t say about the charming yet gutless men who have monopolized the country’s hopes in the past. In July, Dr.