U.S. government officials Juan Gonzalez, Jimmy Story and Roger Carstens officially traveled to Venezuela over the weekend for talks with Nicolas Maduro. Carstens had already been to Caracas in early December to discuss the CITGO 6. People seem surprised by what they perceive as a change of heart at the White House, ignoring that Carsten and Bill Richardson had already visited Maduro (unofficially).

Early this morning, at around 5:00am local time and on the back on Vladimir Putin's orders, Russian military forces launched a full out invasion of Ukraine. Sources report a naval blockade of the Sea of Azov, Ukranian military infrastructure under coordinated attack all around the country, tanks and trucks pouring in from Crimea, the two separatists regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, and Belarus. Kyiv is already in the grasp, as seen below.

The case of Cuba, and how decades of failed U.S. foreign policies never brought intended objective of dislodging that dictatorship, should be mandatory reading not only with all "customer-facing" State Department's diplomats, but with senior Congressmen, Senators and relevant American policy-making folk.

The latest regarding novel ways for PDVSA to continue laughing at U.S. Treasury sanctions involves an offshore jurisdiction that was never featured among usual suspects: Labuan International Business and Financial Centre. Companies registered in Labuan are a bit like the old bearer shares structures of other jurisdictions: UBO records related to any given company are only to be made available to enquiring parties if the UBO allows it.