Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
A demonstrator looks up at her sign during a rally demanding the Supreme Court uphold the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which grants citizenship to all individuals born within the country’s borders, in Washington, D.C., USA, on May 15, 2025.
HARD NUMBERS: SCOTUS hears birthright case, Tensions flare between Guyana and Venezuela, More strikes in Gaza, The cat’s out of the gene pool
14: The Supreme Court is reviewing arguments on the Trump administration’s plan to end birthright citizenship. A lower court blocked it, citing the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship for “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” The White House isn’t challenging the lower courts’ reasoning, but is arguing that the district judges lacked authority to issue nationwide injunctions in the first place.
3: Guyanese soldiers have come under attack three times in 24 hours in Essequibo, an oil-rich border region that both Guyana and neighboring Venezuela claim. Guyana has administered the region for decades, but Venezuela says it intends to have Essequibo included in its gubernatorial elections scheduled for May 25 as a means to fully incorporate the region.
114: At least 114 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes across Gaza on Thursday, including 56 in Khan Younis. Israel said it was targeting Hamas fighters. The strikes come as Hamas and Israel hold indirect talks on a potential ceasefire and hostage deal.
10.6 million: What do Garfield, Crookshanks, and Puss and Boots have in common? They’re orange and, until now, no one has known why. A group of scientists — with the help of 10.6 million yen ($72,800) in crowdfunding from cat lovers — found that ginger cats lack part of their genetic code, causing cells to produce lighter colors in their fur, eyes, and skin (especially in males). Orange you glad I didn’t say meow?
Guyana President Irfaan Ali at the State Department in Washington in 2022.
Venezuela ratchets up tensions with Guyana over Exxon Mobil megaproject
In response, Guyanese President Irfaan Ali triggered a military response, deploying the country’s naval and air forces to defend the oil megaproject poised to remake the economy of one of South America’s poorest nations.
The incursion came just days after US President Donald Trump canceled Chevron’s licenses to exempt some Venezuelan oil exports from sanctions. The maritime escalation followed an attack last month in which a suspected Venezuelan gang opened fire on Guyanese soldiers, injuring six on patrol along the Cuyuní River.
The background: A year ago, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro signed a law designating Essequibo, a sparsely populated region that comprises roughly two-thirds of Guyana’s territory, as a new state of Venezuela. While Caracas revived its claim to the region in the 1960s, a series of treaties over the last two centuries have repeatedly given Guyana and its colonial forebears control over Essequibo.
Essequibo is rich in deposits of gold and copper, and its seafloor off the coast contains vast oil reserves that Exxon started developing in recent years.
A united front: What Ali’s government lacks in military weapons it seems to be making up for in powerful friends. Washington and London both affirmed support for Georgetown, as did the Organization of American States and the Commonwealth. Guyana’s private sector and the opposition party issued statements backing the government. We'll be watching for signs of how far Venezuela is likely to go to assert its claims over Essequibo.Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh attend an official welcoming ceremony in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on Sept. 3, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Putin visits Mongolia, France hears horror case, Deadly Kabul blast, Half a million for a rager, Japan tries to kick back, Guyana makes record blow bust
1: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday visited Mongolia, marking his first trip to an International Criminal Court member state since the ICC issued a warrant for his arrest over alleged war crimes in Ukraine. Putin’s visit included a meeting with Mongolia’s president and was met with protests demanding his arrest for war crimes related to the deportation of Ukrainian children. Instead of being arrested, Putin was welcomed with a lavish ceremony.
51: On Monday, a French court in Avignon began hearing a horrific sex abuse case involving 51 defendants, all of whom are accused of raping a woman who was routinely drugged by her husband (he is one of the defendants). The case is bringing to light severe problems with France’s laws surrounding rape, which don’t refer to consent explicitly and sometimes make it hard to convict abusers who use drugs to subdue their victims.
6: A suicide bomber killed at least six people in Kabul on Monday and injured at least 13 others. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Taliban government of Afghanistan is a major rival of the Islamic State, which has carried out past atrocities against civilians under Taliban control.
500,000: Fraternity brothers from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill spent over $500,000 dollars raised on GoFundMe to throw a “rager” hosted by conservative country music star John Rich on Monday. The GoFundMe campaign went viral after photos emerged last April of UNC frat brothers holding up a US flag that pro-Palestinian protesters on campus had attempted to take down, instantly making the young men stars on right-wing media.
4: Japan is hardly the first country that comes to mind for work-life balance, with a notoriously grueling work culture that sees most employees working dozens of unpaid overtime hours each month. But Tokyo is looking to change that by encouraging four-day work weeks. The country’s labor department is offering grants and free consulting services targeted at small and medium-sized businesses to help them roll out shorter work weeks — but, so far, only three companies have asked for advice.
200 million: Authorities in Guyana said Sunday that they had seized a record 8,000 pounds of cocaine in a bust of a cache deep in the jungle, with a street value of at least $200,000,000. Guyana is not a producer of cocaine, but traffickers increasingly use its inhospitable jungle as covert staging areas to export the drug, sometimes via homemade submersibles.
Biden's Israel policy hurts his 2024 reelection chances from all angles
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Why is Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war hurting his reelection bid?
Well, look, there is virtually no position he can take on Israel and not alienate a significant piece of his own support base in the United States. He is presently stapled to the Netanyahu government and policy, which is really antagonizing more than 50% of committed Democrats, people who say they're going to vote for Biden. On the other hand, strongly pro-Israel Biden, Israel being America's most important ally in the Middle East, is seen as soft on that policy vis-a-vis the Republicans. The only way this is a winning issue for Biden is if it's no longer anywhere close to the headlines when the election hits.
Does France have a terrorism problem?
Well, sure they do, and they also have a radical Islamic extremist problem, and we've seen most recently that someone, a French national but is sworn allegiance with ISIS, knifed and killed one tourist next to the Eiffel Tower, injured a couple others. What they don't have is a major gun violence problem. If this guy had an assault weapon, probably would've killed a couple dozen.
Are Venezuela and Guyana on the brink of war?
I think the answer to that is no, but certainly we're going to hear a lot about major tensions. And the reason for that is because President Nicolás Maduro, who is very far from being a Democrat, his economy has been driven by him and his predecessor, Chávez, into a ditch. He has virtually no support domestically, and the opposition really, really wants to take power. And there has been a lot of pressure, including from the United States, carrots and sticks economically, to move forward on an election. Problem being that Maduro doesn't want to have a free and fair election, and he needs to find a way to rally support. And one thing he can do is Guyana, piece of Guyana, which the Venezuelans claim as their own, is one of the very few things that the Venezuelan people actually agree with Maduro on. So he decided to host a referendum, which the people strongly support, and they say, "We want to take that piece of territory." Now, supporting it and actually taking it are two very different things. First, because the Americans would strongly oppose. The Brazilians would strongly oppose, and you'd see a lot of sticks as a consequence of that against an economy that can't really afford them. But also, China is a partial owner of the massive oil find that is just offshore this territory in Guyana, and they are the only friend that spends real money with the Venezuelans right now. So I think this is a lot of bluff and a lot of bluster, but nonetheless, it's going to drive some headlines as maybe, maybe people worry about violence and another war in another part of the world.
- Israel-Hamas war: Biden's second foreign policy crisis ›
- Venezuela and Guyana border dispute ›
- Maduro’s weapon of mass distraction ›
- Venezuelan vote puts the neighbors on edge ›
- The Democrats post some wins – but continue to worry about 2024 ›
- Biden's 2024 prospects slip even as Democrats make gains ›
- Biden's 2024 election vulnerabilities and strengths ›
- Biden and Israeli war cabinet go public over disagreement in Gaza war - GZERO Media ›
- AI explosion, elections, and wars: What to expect in 2024 - GZERO Media ›
- US inching away from Israel on Gaza war - GZERO Media ›
- How the US election will change the world - GZERO Media ›
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro shows his ballot during a referendum over Venezuela's rights to the potentially oil-rich region of Esequiba in Guyana, in Caracas, Venezuela, on Dec. 3, 2023.
Maduro’s weapon of mass distraction
Venezuela held a referendum Sunday on proposed statehood for the oil-rich region of Essequibo, currently governed by neighboring Guyana, with more than 95% reportedly voting to approve the proposed takeover.
At 61,600 square miles, Essequibo comprises two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. An international arbitral tribunal awarded the area to Britain in 1899 when the latter controlled British Guiana, but Venezuela has never recognized the ruling. Its contestation took on new life after ExxonMobil discovered oil in Essequibo's offshore waters in 2015, leading to a case before the International Court of Justice at the Hague that remains unresolved.
Venezuela’s referendum asked its citizens five questions, including whether they agreed with creating a new state called Guayana Esequiba, granting its population Venezuelan citizenship and identity cards, and including the new state in the map of Venezuelan territory. While the ICJ urged Venezuela to refrain from “taking any action” on the proposals, it did not ban the holding of the referendum.
Guyana fears the referendum is the first step to a takeover. “This is a textbook example of annexation,” Paul Reichler, an American lawyer representing Guyana, told the ICJ. But Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro disagreed, saying, “We are solving through constitutional, peaceful, and democratic means an imperial dispossession of 150 years.”
Before the vote, his government poured considerable resources into Essequibo-themed music, nationally televised history lessons, murals, events, and social media content to bolster the "Yes" vote. Observers see the referendum as a means of distracting the nation from calls for free and fair conditions in next year’s presidential election, as well as from the US government’s demand that Maduro release political prisoners and wrongfully detained Americans. Analysts say the creation of a Venezuelan state in Essequibo is highly unlikely.
Knowing the referendum would pass, Ian Bremmer tweeted that he was "deeply skeptical we are on the brink of war," especially since China, Venezuela’s close friend, owns a piece of the massive oil find Maduro claims.
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro delivers his annual state of the nation speech during a special session of the National Constituent Assembly, in Caracas, Venezuela January 12, 2021.
Venezuelan vote puts the neighbors on edge
The dispute over the Essequibo region – which is larger than North Korea and inhabited mostly by indigenous communities – stretches back more than 150 years (see our explainer here for more). But Venezuela’s strongman President Nicolas Maduro has ramped up tensions recently.
In part, he’s eyeing massive oil deposits that have been discovered there. But he may also be stoking nationalist feelings ahead of what will be a highly controversial – and not necessarily “free” – presidential election next year. Even prominent opposition figures have long supported Caracas’ claims on the territory (shades of the way that many dissidents in Putin’s Russia supported the annexation of Crimea.)
That means the referendum will almost certainly result in a resounding ¡Sí! But then what?
Rattling Essequibo could flare into a wider conflict. US forces regularly do joint patrols with the Guyanese military to protect local oil fields that US firms are developing. Pentagon officials reportedly visited the capital, Georgetown, this week to reassure the Guyanese, and Brazil put its local forces on high alert.
The risks are immense. But by asking the Venezuelan people to weigh in like this, Maduro may be uncorking nationalist passions that he will struggle to control.
FILE PHOTO: Guyanese Military members line up before Britain's Prince Harry laughs arrives for an official visit of Georgetown, Guyana December 2, 2016.
Venezuela and Guyana border dispute
As if Europe’s colonial-era mapmakers haven’t already bequeathed us enough wars. Now the long-running border dispute between Venezuela and its eastern neighbor Guyana is heating up again.
Guyana says Venezuela is sending troops to the frontier, while Caracas says Venezuelan voters will get to decide unilaterally whether to annex Guyanese territory.
At issue: The western two-thirds of Guyana, known as Essequibo, is a jungle terrain inhabited by 250,000 people. The dispute began with a 19th century map that gave the region to Guyana — at the time a British colonial possession — rather than to Venezuela, which maintained earlier Spanish claims to the area. Several international efforts to resolve the dispute since then have failed, and the issue is currently before the International Court of Justice.
But Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro rejects the court’s jurisdiction. He plans instead to put the question of annexation to Venezuelan voters in a plebiscite on Dec. 3.
Why now? Because there’s oil there, lots of it, following massive discoveries by ExxonMobil over the past decade. Maduro has his eye on those reserves, which would bring Guyana’s 800,000 citizens one of the swiftest windfalls of oil wealth in history.
But he may also be playing domestic politics. He recently tried to tar the Venezuelan opposition as national traitors for supposedly advancing a US-backed plan to scuttle the vote — an assertion the opposition vociferously denied.
Los Yanquis are in the area. Any forceful attempts to seize Guyanese territory could spark a crisis that quickly draws in the United States — since 2020, Washington has run joint naval patrols with Guyana.
The “bad guys” at COP26
Everyone understands that burning fossil fuels contributes directly to global warming. We all know that we have to reduce oil and gas consumption to avert the worst effects of climate change. And we're well aware that this is a major focus at COP26 right now.
But spare a thought for those who are often portrayed as the bad guys in all of this: the countries that pump and export hydrocarbons like mad. And they do it not because they hate polar bears, but rather because oil and gas exports are crucial for their economies, their geopolitical power, or in some cases their very survival.
Let's have a look at the tradeoffs that a few exemplary exporters are dealing with.
Saudi Arabia: "We need the black (gold) in order to go green!" The world's leading oil exporter relies on selling petroleum for half of GDP, and almost three-quarters of export earnings. In other words, you will pry the energy industry away from Riyadh's cold dead hands.
What the Saudis have proposed, by way of a climate action plan to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2060, is to massively reduce emissions within their borders by investing in renewable energy, carbon capture, and tree-planting schemes. What Riyadh has not pledged to do is cut oil production. In fact, the Kingdom envisions increasing output in the coming years.
Critics say that Riyadh's promises are a dodge, a kind of country-level greenwashing that ignores the global impact of the local energy industry. The Saudis' argument is: well, where do you expect us to get the cash to diversify our economy if not from the one thing — just about the only thing — that actually earns us money?
Russia: the Arctic Amazon? The Kremlin's most important tool of geopolitical influence is its control over the Russian gas pipelines that keep Europe warm. No wonder the world's fourth largest polluter hasn't historically been a cheerleader for cutting emissions.
Plus, as the Arctic ice melts, it's opening up lucrative maritime shipping lanes that Moscow can control. But recently Vladimir Putin has started to sound more urgent about global warming, calling it a "serious danger" for Russia and the world. Russia plans to get to Net Zero before 2060by boosting renewable energy, phasing out coal use, and even (very) gradually reducing oil exports after 2030.
A big twist here is that Putin spies an opportunity for Russia to be a green superpower in its own right. Its sprawling and largely untouched forests can absorb billions of tons of carbon every year, provided they don't burn down. Critics say Putin is just hiding behind those trees in order to avoid cutting more emissions.
Iraq: "We'll get back to you on the climate stuff." Iraq this year suffered an unprecedented wave of deadly heat, which scientists ascribed in part to climate change. The heatwave caused blackouts, which in turn contributed to mass protests about corruption and unemployment. Then, almost no one voted in the recent election, and the government that took power afterwards remains fractious, weak, and mistrusted.
A government like that is hardly in a position to lead a sustained drive to diversify the economy. Nor to massively adopt renewables in a country that derives 90 percent of its income from oil, and is the world's third largest oil exporter.
Climate policy requires a credible and functioning state. Some major oil-producing countries (Venezuela comes to mind as well) simply have more pressing needs right now, like holding the country together.
Guyana: "Don't keep us from getting rich!" A few years ago, the small, coastal South American country of Guyana made an astounding discovery. Oil. Gargantuan amounts of it. Enough to transform one of the Western Hemisphere's poorest nations into one of the world's richest in a matter of years.
And you want them to give that up? That's a tough sell. But it's not just about getting rich: some 80 percent of Guyana's population lives below sea level, meaning climate change poses a huge risk to the country.
Where else, ask Guyana's leaders, are we going to get the money to mitigate that damage, if not from selling oil?