Posted by BW Actual on Aug 6th 2024
BLACKWATER USA | DAILY BRIEF
Venezuela
- Venezuela's sanctioned attorney general, Tarek Saab, announced a criminal investigation into opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and the candidate she supported after she was banned from contesting the presidential election herself, Edmundo Gonzalez.
- Specifically, Saab says Machado and Gonzales "falsely announced a winner of the presidential election other than the one proclaimed by the National Electoral Council" (which falsely announced Pres. Maduro as the winner- and incited "police and military officials to disobey the laws" in an open letter.
- Their letter called on Venezuelan soldiers to reconsider support for a president who ordered a crackdown on protests against his election theft, and it wasn't particularly controversial: it said, in part, "We urge you to prevent the regime from unleashing its rampage against the people and to respect, and ensure that others respect, the results of the July 28 elections."
- Foreign ministers from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) - a group of mostly majority Muslim countries - will gather in Saudi Arabia tomorrow to discuss "the continued crimes of the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian people" - specifically, the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
- The extraordinary meeting was reportedly called by Iran's Acting Foreign Minister, Ali Bagheri Kani: he wants regional allies - and even rivals like Saudi - to join Iran in condemning the "blatant crime" Israel committed by violating Iranian sovereignty by striking Haniyeh there.
- Bagheri Kani's tone has been provocative - for example, he promised to respond to Israel's strike in ways that would make Israel "eternally rue its constant insanity" - but even more moderate voices are welcoming the OIC meeting as an opportunity to ease regional tensions.
- Iran has arrested 20 to 40 senior military and intelligence officials over the breach that allowed Israeli operatives to (allegedly) plant the explosive device that killed Haniyeh in his room months before it was (again allegedly) remotely detonated to kill him. Some of those detained were reportedly very senior, but Iran has kept a tight lid on exactly who is being investigated.
- Separately, Iran-backed militants fired two rockets at Al Asad air base in Iraq, injuring five U.S. troops. Iraqi Shia militants have reescalated their attacks on U.S. forces and coalition partners in the region in recent weeks.
- Bangladesh's army chief said the military would "take full charge" of the country following the sudden flight of embattled PM Sheikh Hasina.
- The military plans to form an interim government with major political parties - but excluding Hasina's long-ruling Awami League, which is bound to object to being excluded.
- Hasina is either in Bangladesh or the UK. She'd hoped to claim asylum in the UK, but the UK seems uneager to have her until the UN can carry out a probe into the recent violent crackdowns that happened on her watch.
- One of the prisoners Russia released in last week's swap didn't want to be released. Ilya Yashin is a Russian dissident who continued to agitate Pres. Putin behind bars.
- He condemned his "illegal expulsion" from his home country as a Putin trick to silence him: "When I stay in Russia and take those risks [of speaking out], I’m actually responsible for my words. People hear you much better when you’re there."
- Yashin is now in Germany. He says he wants to return home, but his official Russian security service attachment told him that if he did, he would risk a worse fate than exile.
- Ethnic Chinese rebels in Myanmar captured an army headquarters near the border with China, in a significant setback for the struggling military junta (this was one of just 14 headquarters in the country and hosted thousands of soldiers).
- The junta blamed "foreign countries" for arming the rebels. China is known to manufacture at least some of the weapons and ammunition they use. But it's also a major investor in capital investments that benefit the junta, which is perhaps why junta leaders didn't want to explicitly call it out.
- Saddam Haftar - Khalifa's son - reportedly caused a partial closure of eastern Libya's Sharara oilfield over the weekend - and then tried to blame it on local agitators from the Fezzan Movement.
- According to some reports, the Fezzan had nothing to do with it. Rather, Saddam Haftar ordered the closure to get back at Spain - whose Repsol owns 12% of Sharara's production - for issuing the arrest warrant that led to Italian authorities detaining him recently. (Spain issued the warrant after intercepting an arms shipment from UAE to Benghazi that it says Haftar orchestrated).
- As always in Libya, these reports are laden with confusing politics and it's hard to tell what's true and what's not. The only thing that's clear is that Sharara's production dropped about 20% to 230,000 bpd over the weekend.