Trump is not even bothering to pretend now that the Venezuela business was anything to do with drugs. He and his cronies are after the oil, and to make a lot of money in the process. He knows full well that he won’t benefit as much if he installs the rightful winner of the last election, so is ignoring them in favour of the vice President who is going to be under his thumb while he asset strips Venezuela. And he is quite serious about Greenland. He has only got away with Venezuela so far because Maduro is a bad man, and needed to go. However, he hasn’t called for any free and fair elections, because that doesn’t suit his purposes. He won’t have that excuse in Greenland. And if we are judging leaders by their behaviour in ignoring the law, the rest of the government, and the rights of the people, and using their position to build their own assetsTrump ought to be on the list to go, along with his mate, Putin.
No almost certainly not, the most likely candidates are an accidental lab leak or natural zoonotic disease from the local market probably racoon dog. This is a 2023 summary: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2305081 China did not help by not properly examining the market in the first place, they just closed and cleared it. They were also not completely open with what data they had about the source. A lot of misleading discussion has been caused, mainly, by US politicians's point scoring off each other on a subject that they do not know much if anything about. The WHO 2025 report in the conclusion says: "The weight of available evidence reviewed by SAGO suggests zoonotic spillover of SARS-CoV-2 into the human population, either directly from bats or through an intermediate host. However, SAGO cannot conclude with certainty where and when this occurred, nor if the HSM was indeed the first instance of spillover into the human population, or the site of further spillover and amplification. Susceptible infected animals (or animal products) could have acted as reservoirs and therefore exposed humans through different routes: (a) before the infected animals or humans arrived at the HSM, or (b) once the infected animal or animal product arrived at the HSM. However, irrespective of the precise spillover event or events, the HSM appears to be location for amplification of infection in humans leading to widespread transmission to surrounding areas in China, and eventually to other countries." Complete report here https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/defa...2-by-sago.pdf?sfvrsn=b0f90ad4_6&download=true
If Trump tries anything with Greenland everything could escalate as she has close ties with Denmark who is a member if the UN.
Imagine how we feel here in Canada? That long land border we share is just an imaginary line according to the Donald. We have not only oil that he would like. We've got precious metals, we've got fantastic amounts of hydro electric power and on and on. And there's our Prime Minister flying everywhere to stay out of the country because if he stayed here, he'd be hiding behind his chair in the legislature, with his hands over his eyes !
No because then the Supreme Court could interfere with his cronies. More likely to keep it as a Free Economic Zone, like suggested for the Donbas, with certain Americans companies having special rights there regarding development, taxes, regulation etc.
Greenland isn't a rogue state in any sense at all, it's part of a European country, so he won't be able to walk in there in the same way. He'd need the people of Greenland to want to become part of the US.
And therein lies the crux of what I've been saying - it is all well and good having all of this legal stuff and complaining etc, but if those who are really going to upset the apple cart aren't playing along and you cannot actually do anything to them, they are simply going to carry on as they are and ignore you.
I guess it's a shame that Trump would think of putting local folks to work in their own country and get paid a decent wage to extract oil, or other items, and skills to other countries to better themselves. Locals would build infrastructure etc. And not turn their money back to a socialist state, guess they would become a capitalist country. Sad for them heading that way.
@redstar, ideally Venezuelans would benefit. However, history shows that rarely happens when huge US conglomerates go in to organise the extraction of resources. A really excellent book on the topic is Confessions Of An Economic Hitman, written by an American, John Perkins, whose job it was to oversee these things.
Jury is out on your statement. What really happens is----because the Media prefers to report the negative, when Venezuelans succeed it will not get reported. In the meantime, I am hearing of the hundreds of British folks exiting.
I agree the media prefers to doom and gloom. However, John Perkins had no need to. He was an insider. He was involved first hand.
Poor Venezuelans. They have finally got rid of a bloodsucking dictator, who ignored the law, used the military as his own personal hit squad, while growing his own wealth. And now they’ve got another one in charge. I suppose they can at least look forward to a golden statue, and maybe a fancy ballroom, while their access to healthcare is reduced even further. The illegal government is still in power, with the vice President now in charge, but this time under the control of an invading force. No chance for the Venezuelan people to have a say in their own future.
