Tim Donner: Maduro - How His Daring Capture Will Change the World

This could stand as the most significant geopolitical event since 9/11

They got him. The nightmare of Nicolas Maduro’s illegitimate, murderous regime in Venezuela and the untold hundreds of thousands who have died at the hands of the lethal drugs pouring in from the South American narco-terrorist state has mercifully come to an end. After the daring capture of Maduro and his wife in the dark of night, the question quickly turns to what will happen next in once-prosperous Venezuela and, most importantly, how the success of this breathtaking military and law enforcement operation will change the geopolitics of not just the western hemisphere, but the entire world.

Dave Patterson: The Greatest Threat in Western Hemisphere? Transnational Terrorists

The single largest threat to the US in the Western Hemisphere is transnational terrorist criminal organizations, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. This point of view is consistent with the US National Security Strategy that places the Western Hemisphere, America’s backyard, as a priority for geostrategic emphasis. To that end, the Trump administration has adopted a robust and many-faceted set of actions to address the threat.

Mark Angelides: Blockade - Venezuela Gets the Terror Treatment

A total blockade of oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuelan waters has been imposed by the Trump administration, ratcheting up tensions that came to a head Tuesday evening, December 16. Ordering a “total and complete blockade,” President Donald Trump has escalated the South American situation in an effort to disrupt and destroy the flow of illegal drugs into the US. And yet, the political and economic ramifications go far beyond the drug cartels.

Dave Patterson: What to Do About Venezuela?

The war on drugs wasn’t a real war until President Trump made it one.

President Trump has made Venezuela a special project, presenting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as the face of the evil visited on America by drug and human traffickers. Maduro does not personally run the cartel’s transnational criminal operations, of course, but he facilitates. In some cases, he may actively support and protect them. Trump has taken a multi-pronged approach to stopping this.

Trump’s Venezuela Strategy Is Three-fold

Ross Meurant: Is Our Country At Risk?

Definitely and we know why: Matthew 10.36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

But just for a moment, step beyond the mess Labour have delivered during their reign of economic ruin, rampant crime and racial division of New Zealand.

International Headlines:

- Second Ecuador politician killed in less than a week. (1)
- Ecuador election: 'I'm wearing a bulletproof vest 24 hours a day. (2)
- Ecuador election: Narco politics rule ahead of polls. (3)

These headlines must send a warning to the rest of the globe. Read the articles and it’s clear that “control” of Ecuador, Columbia, Mexico and other Central American states is increasing placed in the hands of drug cartels.

Karl du Fresne: The lingering consquences of idealistic 60s liberalism

My generation has a lot to answer for. Recreational drugs, for example – or as former Wellington coroner Garry Evans preferred to call them, “wreckreational drugs”.

Mine was the generation that rebelled against the values of its parents. We were smug and spoilt, with plenty of time on our hands to reflect on how wrong our elders were about everything. We rejected their dreary, conformist moral values. “If it feels good, do it” became the catch-cry of a generation.

Lindsay Mitchell: Benefits - blackmail money extracted under threat?

The NZ Herald editorialises today about drugs and beneficiaries:

"...using the benefits system as a means of forcing people off drugs and getting their lives back in order has never been considered before."

Let's back up a bit here. According to the 1965 NZ Yearbook;