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Soriek  5mo ago (text post)   1814 thread views

Transnational Thanksgiving (comes one day early)

Posting this a day early because I won’t be around tomorrow.

This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum lives in or might be interested in. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Venezuela

The past few weeks have been dizzying for Venezuela’s diplomatic relations. First they agreed to hold a free and fair election (remains to be seen) in exchange for the United States lifting sanctions and repatriating Venezuelans. Then they turned around and started holding a referendum on whether they should just annex two thirds of Guyana. This week they’ve decided to play the statesmen again and have restored diplomatic relations with Paraguay.

Paraguay got its first leftist President, Fernando Lugo, in 2008 and the two countries got close for a little while until Venezuela expelled Paraguay’s diplomats in 2012, supposedly in protest of Lugo's impeachment. With the Colorado Party (Paraguay’s ruling party in the dictatorship, which has continued to be dominant) back in power relations turned frosty again quickly. Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benítez finally cut off relations in 2019 by formally recognizing Juan Guaido as the leader of Venezuela. With Guaido effectively out of the picture, current President Santiago Peña (still of the Colorado Party) has apparently agreed to mend relations. It’ll be to interesting to see why people think the call was made.

You mean Guyana?

Yes, thank you

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