Despite a 24-hour news cycle, many of the most important issues of 2018 were only lightly covered by the media. We conclude with some of the most important under-reported topics.
The Growing Danger within the Western Hemisphere
In December, there were reports that the Russian military had returned to levels of activity within Cuba, and that its nuclear bombers were flying around the Caribbean. That’s only the tip of a growing iceberg.
In an el-Nacional newspaper article first reported by Fox News, Vladimir Medrano Regifo, former director general of the Office of Identification, Migration and Immigration of Venezuela, revealed that the Venezuelan government may have distributed about 10,000 passports to Syrians, Iranians, and nationals of other Middle Eastern nations. “Nowadays, they do not know where these people are or what they are doing. They can be anywhere in the world, traveling with Venezuelan documentation… Around 173 individuals from the Middle East have been detected with Venezuelan passports. Likewise, the majority of Iraqis who tried to enter Canada first arrived in Caracas, detailed a study by the Center for a Free and Secure Society (SFS) of 2014.”
Antonio Mora, writing for The Hill reports that Russia has an “insidious, increasing influence in Venezuela… Chavez turned to Russia for investment in the country’s energy and mining sectors and as a supplier of weaponry, with Venezuela becoming a major purchaser of Russian military hardware, including fighter jets.
The U.S.-China Economic & Security Review Commission reports that Venezuela maintains strong ties to the Chinese military “through a high number of official visits, military officer exchanges, port calls, and limited arms sales.” Venezuela has purchased Chinese arms and military equipment, including radar and aircraft.
A Council of the America’s study found that “Running a cash-strapped country didn’t stop Maduro from announcing his plans to “modernize” the Venezuelan Armed Forces with new military equipment, marking another aspect of Venezuela’s relationship with China and Russia.
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The base was allegedly planned to be established on the Orchila Island located in the Caribbean Sea some 160 kilometers away from the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. The isle hosts a Venezuelan airfield and a Navy base and was already visited by the Russian military ten years ago… Caracas also clearly indicated its intention to ‘extend’ military cooperation with Russia and ‘make it more effective’… [according to Konstantin Sivkov, a retired Navy officer and a military analyst ‘Moscow would likely need a full-scale military facility, adding that a small installation would not be enough to support Russia’s operations in the area… It might be initially reduced to a limited presence at a level of a flying squadron or an air regiment,” he said, adding that Russia would then likely increase its presence by building fuel and munitions depots as well as deploying air defense systems to the area and making the Venezuelan installation potentially similar to Russia’s Syrian Khmeimim base.’”
Censorship
The moves by Facebook and Google to censor out non-leftist perspectives has not received the attention it deserved in 2018. Google has recently demonstrated its intense progressive leanings by refusing to work with the U.S. Government on defense-related issues, while at the same time cooperating with the Beijing regime in its suppression of dissident views.
Some Facebook staff have rebelled their employers’ censorship and bias. According to a Daily Mail report Facebook engineer Brian Amerige has described the company’s “political intolerance” and the threats against employees who don’t go along with leftist ideology.
Robert Epstein, writing in U.S. News, states that “Google, Inc., isn’t just the world’s biggest purveyor of information; it is also the world’s biggest censor. The company maintains at least nine different blacklists that impact our lives, generally without input or authority from any outside advisory group, industry association or government agency. Google is not the only company suppressing content on the internet. Reddit has frequently been accused of banning postings on specific topics, and a recent report suggests that Facebook has been deleting conservative news stories from its newsfeed, a practice that might have a significant effect on public opinion – even on voting. Google, though, is currently the biggest bully on the block.”
Illustration: Pixabay