Foreign Digest Updates: Venezuela, China and Russia

Venezuela

            The Venezuelan national assembly, led by the democratic opposition to the Socialist regime, re-elected Juan Guaido as its leader earlier this month.  He had invoked a constitutional provision to declare himself interim president a year before after the tyrannical President supplanted the assembly with another body.  The United States, several Latin American and European States recognize Guiado as the President of Venezuela.

China

            There were more protests in Hong Kong, the former British territory that reverted to China in 1997.  Protestors are demanding electoral reform and are demonstrating against abuses by the city-state’s police, who have violently cracked down on the protests.  Communist China had promised Hong Kong autonomy and liberty, but has encroached on both.  The territory’s Peking-backed government was forced by mass demonstrations to withdraw a proposed extradition law last year that could have been a tool for repression by sending dissidents to mainland China.

            The violations of freedom by Communist China in Hong Kong helped influence the recent elections in the Republic of China on Taiwan, in which the President, who is of the pro-independence party, was re-elected over the party backed by Communist China.

Russia

           There was a protest in Russia for human rights.  There were arrests, as the tyrannical regime of Vladimir Putin does not tolerate freedom of assembly or any dissent or criticism.