World

As the dust settled on Jair Bolsonaro’s seismic victory in Brazil back in 2018, one might have spared a thought for those dedicated to the cause of international socialism. Having bathed in the glory of the so-called "Pink Tide" and the commodities boom of the early 2000s that allowed socialist governments such as Hugo Chávez's Venezuela to seemingly prosper, any hopes that Latin America would forever unify in the cause of left-wing anti-imperialism seemed well and truly dashed. In many of the continent’s wealthiest countries, right-of-center politicians had swept to power with a view to restoring their nation’s former glory. These included Bolsonaro in Brazil, Sebastian Piñera in Chile, Ivan Duque in Colombia, and Mauricio Macri in Argentina, among others.

The E100 bus is not somewhere you will find an Emirati. Departing about every thirty minutes from 4 a.m. onward and taking passengers from Abu Dhabi to Dubai for just 25 AED ($7.80), this is not a place for the rich. It is the domain of the weary peoples, the migrant workers who make this minuscule monarchy work. At 5:13 a.m. in late December, this crowd was ready to go. Bags packed for whatever indignity might come next. They were ready long before most Emiratis are awake because, for them, the United Arab Emirates is an opportunity.

Sex workers take Switzerland! As the World Economic Forum gets underway in Davos, it's not just politicians and business leaders flying in for a few days: droves of prostitutes are said to be heading into the Alpine resort town. Cockburn can’t pretend to be surprised: what more do we expect from the 1 percent? One visiting escort told German tabloid Bild that she's charging $700 per hour or $2,500 per night. She also said she preferred the visiting Americans and Brits as bedfellows: "Unfortunately, Germans are stingy when it comes to tips." Customer details, given their high profiles, are typically hush-hush — politicians could get in big trouble back home if their excursions became public.

Yoon Suk-yeol isn’t a household name in the United States, but his comments this week have put him in the international spotlight. Speaking at a press briefing on Wednesday, the South Korean president openly surmised that if North Korea’s nuclear weapons program continued unabated, Seoul may have to explore an option the United States wouldn’t like: producing nuclear weapons of its own. Referring to Pyongyang’s weapons programs, Yoon said, "It’s possible that the problem gets worse and our country will introduce tactical nuclear weapons or build them on our own. If that’s the case, we can have our own nuclear weapons pretty quickly, given our scientific and technological capabilities.” The remarks generated immediate pushback from nuclear security experts.

So the Brooks Brothers riot has arrived in Brasilia. That riot, a precursor to January 6, took place in Miami-Dade County in November 2000 and was led by Republican staffers intent on disrupting the recount of votes. On Sunday, with Jair Bolsonaro hunkered down in Florida, his followers thought it would be a neat idea to follow suit, trashing the presidential palace, the National Congress and Supreme Federal Court. A motley crew of Americans helped stoke the madness. “The whole thing smells,” said one visitor to Steve Bannon’s podcast following the first round of voting in October. It was the very same farrago of lies that circulated after America’s presidential election took hold. There was the nonsense about a “stolen election.

Since Moscow launched the invasion of Ukraine in February, the deaths of Russian oligarchs seem to be constantly in the headlines. Despite the official causes of death given, Cockburn has a sneaking suspicion that Vladimir Putin might have something to do with it. Death by unusual, news-making circumstances is a hallmark of his regime. The Russian leader intends for such deaths to make the news and for the world to blame the Kremlin for them. It forms part of his strategy of intimidating potential opponents and dissidents. Enemies of Putin that have gone to the West have faced radiation poisoning and attacks with powerful nerve agents. Those who have countered Putin in Russian politics have been jailed or gunned down in the streets. Now, apparently, oligarchs are in the crosshairs.

2019 was a banner year for Juan Guaidó, a relatively obscure Venezuelan lawmaker who announced to a crowd of thousands in the heart of Caracas that he, and he alone, was Venezuela’s new interim president. The United States and dozens of other countries in Europe and Latin America quickly followed up with official recognition for the fresh-faced head of the Venezuelan National Assembly. Nicolás Maduro, the man who took over the presidency after Hugo Chávez’s death, was for all intents and purposes relegated to the status of an isolated despot who had no legitimate claim to the Miraflores palace. 2022, however, has brought Guaidó and his international supporters back down to earth, with the opposition ditching his government in a 72-28 vote.

So much for "don’t mention the war!" Russian president Vladimir Putin has called the conflict in Ukraine a war for the first time on Thursday. Cockburn is quite flummoxed — this is the same Putin who has made an industry out of locking people up who refused to call the war a “special military operation”. On December 22, while addressing the situation in Ukraine, Putin said, “Our goal is not to spin the flywheel of military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war.” The irony alone of this statement is too much to handle. The man who invaded his neighbor and disregarded the laws of war is now saying he does not want to “spin the flywheel of military conflict”?