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Opposition leader María Corina Machado vowed to continue her political struggle from Venezuela while former presidential candidate Edmundo González supports the opposition from exile in Spain. Election observers fled to Colombia after questioning the July election results.
Unverified development · updated through
Opposition leader María Corina Machado vowed to continue her political struggle from Venezuela while former presidential candidate Edmundo González supports the opposition from exile in Spain. Election observers fled to Colombia after questioning the July election results.
Open source reportGeography
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Edmundo González dossier
7 mapped developments across 1 map positions. Centroid markers show geographic scope, not an exact incident site.
Venezuela
All 10 parties in the main opposition coalition backed former diplomat Edmundo González for the July presidential election after María Corina Machado remained barred from running.
Approximate map position: country centroid. The extracted place did not have provider-resolved coordinates.
Chronology
Off Leash update 10 Sept Syria •Israel targeted a government research institute in Masyaf, Syria, killing at least 18. •Reuters reported that a team of Iranian scientists was working at the institute, which produces short- and long-range missiles and drones that Iran sends to its proxies, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis. (The facility also produces chemical weapons that Pres. Assad uses on his own people). Israel •A Jordanian gunman killed three Israeli civilian workers at the Allenby Bridge border crossing. Jordan has a vigilant security service and strong security ties with Israel (though many Jordanians sympathize with their Palestinian neighbors), so attacks like this are rare. This was the first one along the Jordanian-Israeli border since Oct. 7. •Meanwhile, Israel targeted a Hamas command that it said was "disguised in the humanitarian area in Khan Younis," killing at least 40. Hamas said the casualties were displaced civilians and denied hiding militants among them. Venezuela •Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado vowed to stay in Venezuela and "take part in the struggle from here" while the candidate she supported in July's election, Edmundo Gonzalez, supports the cause from exile in Spain. •Gonzalez joins a long list of Venezuelan opposition leaders - and even mere sympathizers - driven into exile. The NYT interviewed five others who served as election observers but fled to exile in Colombia after (rightfully) asking questions about election results. •Those that didn't flee are being rounded up in Pres. Maduro's Operation Knock Knock - a nationwide manhunt for people who attended opposition protests or posted pro-opposition content online. Thousands have been arrested so far. China •Foreign direct investment in China hit a record low of negative $14.8 billion in the second quarter. •Perhaps in response, Communist Party leaders removed two industries - publishing and traditional medicine production - from the list of sectors barring foreign investment. There are still 29 industries on the restricted list. Ukraine •Ukraine launched a significant drone attack on Moscow overnight. Russia acknowledged the attack and closed three of Moscow's four airports to activate air defenses that it claims shot down 144 Ukrainian drones. •Ukraine claimed Moscow also launched a reciprocal drone attack on Kyiv. Mexico •Mexico's upper chamber is weighing a controversial constitutional change that will swap 7,000 judges with new, popularly-elected replacements. •The proposal was easily passed in the lower chamber last week, and there are rumors that enough upper chamber swing legislators have swung in favor of the amendment and are ready to pass it. •AMLO is pitching the change as a much-needed judicial reform, but the plan's myriad critics say it will expose judges to stronger political influence from Morena leaders - or worse, from bad actors like drug cartels. Other News •Fresh off local elections that resulted in big gains for the far right - and smarting from two deadly stabbings committed by rejected asylees - Germany said it would expand border patrols and strengthen a "hard line" on illegal migration. •Separately, Australia's government announced plans to ban children from social media - though it didn't confirm where the age cutoff would be.
Open source reportOff Leash update 6 Sept Venezuela •Venezuela's opposition leader Maria Corina Machado gave an online press conference in which she told international journalists what they already knew: "Everyone knows that [opposition candidate] Edmundo González is the president-elect." •Machado also called on the U.S. to "do much more" to punish Pres. Maduro for his false claim to the presidency. •A State Department spokesman responded blandly: "We are considering a range of options to demonstrate to Maduro and his representatives that their misgovernance in Venezuela has consequences." China •During this week's Forum on China-Africa Co-operation, Pres. Xi promised African countries 360 billion yuan ($51 billion) in financing over the three years until the next triennial Forum. •He also committed one billion yuan ($141 million) to training African armies, which is a small sliver of the $2 billion the Pentagon spends on its African operations - including AFRICOM as well as assistance and training programs. •Xi hopes to present Chinese funding as an alternative to Western support. He told the African leaders gathered at the Beijing Forum: "the Western approach to [modernization] has inflicted immense sufferings on developing countries." •Separately, China said it would stop allowing foreigners to adopt Chinese babies unless they're blood relatives or step relatives of the adoptee. With a declining birth rate, Beijing probably hopes to keep enough young'uns working in China to support an aging population. Ukraine •Speaking at an international audience in Vladivostock, Pres. Putin brushed off concerns about Ukraine's invasion of Kursk, saying Russia's offensive in eastern Ukraine is its "first-priority goal." •He chided Ukraine for sending "fairly large and well-trained units" into Kursk: "The enemy’s goal was to make us nervous and worry and to transfer troops from one sector to another and stop our offensive in key areas, primarily in the Donbas. Did it work or no? No." (The U.S. and Ukraine both said small numbers of Russian troops were transferred to Kursk - but it wasn't the large redeployment Ukraine hoped for). •Separately, Ukraine accused Russia of executing three Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) as they sought to surrender in Donetsk. Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office says it's investigating 54 such cases of Russian troops executing Ukrainian POWs over the course of the war. Israel •Israel ended its operation targeting Islamic Jihad militants in Jenin after nine days. It was one of the most significant recent Israeli operations in the West Bank. •Israel said it targeted militants preparing attacks on Israeli civilians, and indeed, most (but not all) of the 21 Palestinians killed during the operation were claimed by Hamas, Fatah, or Islamic Jihad as fighters. Sudan •A UN-backed team in Sudan concluded that both sides - the Rapid Support Forces and the military - may have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, and recommended an arms embargo and a UN peacekeeping force. The UAE has been supporting the Rapid Support Forces, and will object to UN peacekeeper scrutiny. Electric Vehicles •Volvo ditched its plans to produce only electric vehicles (EVs) by 2030 amidst a slowdown in demand for EVs. Instead, it said only 10% or less of its cars would be "mild hybrids" by 2030 - but reiterated that "our future is electric." •Volvo isn't the only EV maker scaling back its ambitions as the market for EV cools. Toyota also reduced its EV production target for 2030 by one third.
Open source reportOff Leash update 29 Aug Venezuela •One of Venezuela's top election officials, Juan Carlos Delpino, directly discredited Pres. Maduro's account of the vote for the first time this week. •Delpino - who is one of two opposition-aligned members of the five-person National Electoral Council (CNE) responsible for organizing elections and certifying their results - told the NYT that his council "had not received any evidence" that Maduro won a majority of the vote, and lamented that the CNE had "failed the country." He spoke from hiding, fearing for his safety. •His fear is reasonable: Maduro's security forces continue to arrest Venezuelans who dare support the opposition. Perkins Rocha - opposition leader Marina Corina Machado's lawyer and close confidante - was among those arrested this week. •With Diosdado Cabello now appointed Minister for the Interior, Justice, and Peace; we can expect the crackdown to worsen: Cabello has previously said that Machado and opposition president-elect Edmundo Gonzalez should be "behind bars." Israel •Hamas said the 10 Palestinians Israel killed in its West Bank operations Tuesday and Wednesday were among its members. •There's a polio outbreak in Gaza, and the UN hopes to innoculate 640,000 Palestinian children with vaccines to stop the spread of the virus - starting this weekend. •Israel reportedly authorized temporary and localized humanitarian pauses in the fighting in Gaza to facilitate vaccinations, but evacuations, displacement, and ongoing fighting will certainly complicate the process. Yemen •Iran says its Houthi proxies in Yemen have agreed to a truce to let rescuers assess the Sounion oil tanker its missiles damaged and set alight. However, the Houthis say they only agreed to allow a tugboat to come tow the ailing - and possibly leaking - Sounion away. Either way, we'll soon learn how big of an environmental risk the damaged tanker is. Ukraine •Ukraine used F-16s to shoot down incoming Russian cruise missiles on Monday, marking the first aerial kills by the new (to Ukraine) jets. •Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway have pledged a total of 85 F-16s for Ukraine; because only a few of them have arrived so far, Ukraine is only using the few it has against targets like these cruise missiles that can't shoot back. •Separately, Ukrainian drones targeted the Zenit oil depot deep inside Russia's Kirov region, causing two fires. It's the first time Ukraine has struck Kirov, which is 700 miles (1,125 km) inside Russia. Russia •In response to new U.S. sanctions against Russia, Russia permanently banned 92 U.S. citizens - including journalists, lawyers, professors, and business executives - from entering the country. •Among those banned were 14 WSJ employees, including WSJ editor in chief Emma Tucker. Given the 16 months their colleague Evan Gershkovich spent in Russian jail before he was finally released in a swap last month, I doubt anyone from the WSJ was eager to visit Russia anytime soon anyway. Other News •French authorities charged Telegram founder Pavel Durov with a slew of crimes related to illegal activity others committed on his platform. He was released on bail of €5 million ($5.5 million) and barred from leaving the country. Free speech advocates and tech companies are preturbed that the creator of an online forum can be held liable for crimes others use it to commit.
Open source reportOff Leash Update 23 Aug Ukraine •According to Ukraine's commander-in-chief, Gen. Syrsky, Ukrainian troops have now advanced as far as 35 km into Kursk. •Russia has shifted some troops from Chasiv Yar to defend against the Kursk invasion, but the operation hasn't diverted Russian forces away from Ukrainian front lines as much as Ukraine hoped it would. •Russia still has the upper hand in Pokrovsk, for example, and Ukrainian troops there just withdrew to avoid being encircled. •Last week, German prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian allegedly involved in the 2022 attacks sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines. Now German anger at the possibility that Ukraine was behind the attacks is morphing into new scrutiny of German support for Ukraine. •Chancellor Scholz insisted that Germany remains "Ukraine's biggest national supporter in Europe," but his unpopular ruling coalition is facing popular and fiscal pressure to reduce its overall spending - as well as its spending on Ukraine. Venezuela •Venezuela's Supreme Tribunal of Justice - which Pres. Maduro stacked with supporters - unsurprisingly ruled in his favor and certified his fraudulent election victory. •The court said its ruling was based on "national and international experts" and was "supported by the tally reports issued by each of the vote machines" - though the vast majority of "international experts" are certainly not on Maduro's side (save a few Chinese techs that are helping Maduro steal the vote), and neither Maduro nor the court has released any tally reports to support their claims. •The opposition, meanwhile, has released online tallies showing that its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, won seven million votes to Maduro's three million. The court said the opposition's tallies were forged. Afghanistan •Afghan women lost their figurative voices when the Taliban took over in 2021; now they're losing their voices in a more literal way - and losing other rights, too. A new 114-page Taliban document now forbids women from talking loudly (even inside their own homes), singing or reading the Koran in public, or merely looking at men they don't know. •The new edict also forbids Afghan men from trimming their beards. •One Afghan former civil servant told The Telegraph: "The international community’s engagement with the Taliban has emboldened them to further suppress women," and that seems plausible. •In a further sign of international engagement with the Taliban, the UAE officially accepted a Taliban ambassador today. That makes the UAE the second country - after China - to legitimize the Taliban government by accepting its ambassador.
Open source reportOff Leash Update 30 July Commodity Prices •Aluminum: $2,289/ton •Antimony (ingot min. 99.65% fob China): $23,100/ton •Cobalt: $26,625/ton •Copper: $9,111/ton •Gold: $2,374/toz •Lead: $2,068/ton •Natural Gas (Nymex): $1.94/MMbtu •WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $75.86/barrel •Zinc: $2,669/ton Venezuela •Pres. Maduro declared victory in yesterday's election. So did his opposition opponent, Edmundo González. •This time, Maduro claimed just 51.2% of the vote - just enough to avoid a runoff, but (Maduro probably hopes) not egregiously incredible enough to spark a revolution. •Many would-be observers boycotted the poll because Maduro tainted it from the start by bullying the opposition ( @MariaCorinaYA ) out of a fair race. And the few observers who participated cited widespread irregularities. •Electoral authorities also prevented the public from fact-checking its count by refusing to release paper tallies printed by voting machines at key polling places. Israel •On Saturday, a Hezbollah rocket killed at least 12 kids and teens on a soccer (football) field in the Golan Heights, a sliver of Syria that Israel occupied in 1967 and annexed in 1981. •Israel's security cabinet authorized PM Netanyahu to decide on the "manner and timing" of a response - likely involving counterstrikes in Lebanon. •One such counterstrike already took place: an Israeli drone strike killed two people and wounded three - including a child - in the southern Lebanese town of Shaqra. China •SecState Blinken criticized China's "escalating" and "unlawful actions" in the South China Sea during a trip to Laos - where he will meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. •Blinken will also visit Vietnam, Japan, and the Philippines in an effort to befriend Southeast Asian countries that are feeling threatened by an increasingly bellicose China. North Korea •Saturday was North Korea's Victory Day - commemorating the 70th anniversary of the truce that paused (but didn't end) the Korean War. •Kim Jong Un invited a special guest for the occasion: Russian Defense Minister Shoigu. His presence at the Victory Day festivities serves as a reminder of the increasingly close ties between Russia and North Korea, which were further solidified by Pres. Putin's second visit to the Hermit Kingdom last month. Sahel •Tuareg separatists engaged Malian soldiers backed by Russian Wagner troops near Mali's border with Algeria and - according to the Tuaregs - "decisively obliterated these enemy columns" over three days of fighting. •The Tuareg have been fighting for independence since 2012, but they started this latest round of fighting in response to recent military offensives that recaptured formerly rebel-held territory. •The rebels say they seized "a large amount of equipment and weapons" and took "dozens" of Wagner fighters captive. •The Malian army says two soldiers died and also acknowledged losing a helicopter in another nearby rebel stronghold, but said nothing about Wagner involvement in the fighting...officially, Wagner personnel are only in Mali to train local troops and shouldn't be fighting alongside their "trainees." Libya •Libya convicted 12 current and former officials for their negligence in managing dams near Derna that collapsed last year, killing at least 4,300 - and possibly over 12,000. Several were ordered to repay funds obtained through "illicit means," suggesting that the court blamed their misdeeds (at least in part) on corruption. Other News •French authorities are blaming the far-left for last week's organized attacks on French train lines. Today they arrested a far-left activist in Normandy in connection with the incidents. •Meanwhile, a new coordinated infrastructure attack affected fiberoptic telecom networks throughout France (though Paris was not affected).
Open source reportOff Leash Update 20 July Russia •A Russian court sentenced WSJ journalist Evan Gershkovich to 16 years in prison on bogus espionage charges. •Gershkovich probably won't serve all 16 years: Pres. Putin has suggested he could be traded for a high-value Russian prisoner in a swap, but first he had to be sentenced (Russia generally doesn't swap prisoners until after their sentencing). China •China's Third Plenum ended without any meaningful economic policy announcements, disappointing analysts who'd hoped for bolder action to kickstart sluggish domestic growth. •Separately, former president Trump claimed Taiwan "stole" the American semiconductor industry and "should pay" for the U.S. guaranteeing its security. Shares in TSMC - Taiwan's (and the world's) largest chipmaker - slipped 2.4% on concerns that the U.S. might not come to Taiwan's defense if China invades while Trump is president. Venezuela •Venezuela's opposition leader, María Corina Machado - who was blocked from running against Pres. Maduro on July 28 - accused Maduro's goons of staging "a deliberate provocation" to incite her security chief, Milciades Ávila, to come to her physical defense. •Ávila did come to her defense, and he was promptly arrested for it. This is only the latest example of Maduro's security forces intimidating the opposition ahead of the election. •It's not as though Maduro even needs to bully the opposition: he's also electioneering in other ways, including by designing the ballot to show his own name and photo 13 times - under multiple "parties" - before it shows any of the opposition candidates running against him. •Banned from running herself, Machado is supporting the only serious opposition candidate, Edmundo González, who is currently leading several polls - though Maduro certainly won't let him win the real election. Gaza •Israel's far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, paid a provocative visit to the contested holy site of Al Aqsa / Temple Mount in Jerusalem, telling video cameras that he went to pray for the return of Hamas hostages - "but without a reckless deal, without surrendering." •Jordan condemned the visit as "a provocative step" and the White House complained about it as "counterproductive to peace and security in the West Bank" without mentioning Ben-Gvir by name. •Meanwhile, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel's occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem violated international law. Its opinion is nonbinding but influences the media and public perspectives. Terrorism •The Pentagon warned that claimed attacks by Islamic State (IS) are on track to more than double this year vs. last year. •IS has claimed 153 attacks in the first half of 2024 - and in just Syria and Iraq - compared to 121 attacks it claimed in all of 2023 in those two countries. •IS's affiliates have also stepped up their attacks in other regions like Afghanistan (IS-Khorasan) and the Sahel (IS West African Province). •An analyst attributed this year's rise in claimed IS attacks to increasing frustration with the government in Syria and Iraq - which is driving IS's ability to recruit new jihadists there - as well as competition from Iran-linked groups for U.S. counterterrorism priority - which is diverting resources away from fighting IS globally. Minerals •Anglo American said its diamond mining division, De Beers, would cut production amidst falling sales plamed in part on declining demand for diamonds in China.
Open source reportOff Leash update 4/22 -The Philippines and the U.S. begin annual joint military exercises today, but this time the exercises take place far from Philippine territorial waters in a part of the central South China Sea claimed by China. Though international law allows the exercises to take place there, China will see them as a provocation. -Passover begins at sundown today and ends at sundown next Tuesday. North Macedonia votes for president on Wednesday. U.S. SecState Blinken will visit China this week with a warning to Beijing to stop Chinese companies from helping Russia make military hardware. -Commodity Prices Aluminum: $2,669/ton Antimony (ingot min. 99.65% fob China): $14,200/ton Cobalt: $27,830/ton Copper: $9,876/ton Gold: $2,337/toz Lead: $2,219/ton Natural Gas (Nymex): $1.77/MMbtu WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $82.77/barrel Zinc: $2,852/ton -Iran and Israel Both Iran and Israel seem to be standing down after their tit-for-tat exchange of unprecedented direct strikes last week. Iran downplayed Israel's drone strike on Friday and seems content to let it be the last shot in this volley. Israel's Friday strike hit a defensive battery near some of Iran's most important nuclear infrastructure. Western officials said Israel's objective was to show that it could penetrate Iranian defenses undetected - and it apparently did on Friday. Some Israeli media reports suggest Israel used a supersonic "Rampage" missile in that final strike on Friday. Neither Israel nor Iran are confirming those reports: Iranian officials are happy to let the public believe the foreign minister's comment that the weapons deployed agaisnt Isfahan were "like toys our children play with" rather than a high-tech, 1,250 lb (567 kg) missile. Separately, Iraq's pro-Iran Popular Mobilisation Forces accused the U.S. of striking one of its bases near Baghdad, killing one militant -Gaza The U.S. is reportedly planning to slap sanctions on the Israel Defence Forces' Netzah Yehuda Battalion for alleged human rights violations it committted in the West Bank. PM Netanyahu vowed to "fight" the sanctions, which would suspend U.S. funding and training for the unit. Israel's head of military intelligence, Aharon Haliva, became the first senior official to resign over the failure to foresee and prevent Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks. The attacks happened over six months ago, but as protests against PM Netanyahu's handling of the war grow, critics want heads to roll. Ukraine -Sadly after much delay and politicking, the U.S. House approved a long-stalled $95 billion foreign aid bill for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Ukraine celebrated the news: $61 billion of the total is earmarked for it, including $14 billion for weapons. The Kremlin warned that the bill's passage would "further ruin" Ukraine. -Venezuela Saturday was the deadline for swapping candidates on the ballot for Venezuela's July presidential election. The opposition had hoped to put its unity leader, Maria Corina Machado, on the ballot, but she's still barred from running under a politically-motivated technicality, so all 10 parties in the main opposition coalition aligned behind a relatively unknown former diplomat, Edmundo González, as their candidate. -Myanmar Recently-united rebel groups are rapidly retaking territory from government forces in Myanmar. Rebels now control over half the country. China The Maldives' pro-China ruling People's National Congress (PNC) party won a decisive victory in this weekend's parliamentary elections, with enough seats to secure an outright majority. The PNC's leader, incumbent president Muizzu, steered the country closer to China but has been restrained by a pro-India party's control of the legislature. Now that the PNC controls the legislature too, we'll likely see the Maldives pivot more sharply towards China. 1/2
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