Last week, the Royal Navy’s HMS Trent appeared off the coast of the South American nation of Guyana. While the vessel arrived for routine training with the Guyanese military, its presence served to ward off threats to Guyanese sovereignty, particularly Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro’s stated desire to absorb the Essequibo region in the country’s western reaches.
On December 3, Maduro conducted a referendum with small turnout that approved the annexation. Likewise, he appointed a governor for the future seized territory. Two days earlier, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Venezuela to “refrain from taking any action” to change the status quo in the Essequibo region.
Most probably, Maduro intends to regain popularity by appealing to Venezuelan nationalism and instigating an international conflict in the same way that the Argentinian military junta did in 1982 when 
it invaded Britain’s Falkland Islands. In both cases, the governments of Argentina and Venezuela suffered from a deep legitimacy and governance crisis. In the case of Venezuela, Maduro is very concerned with the high participation of Venezuelans in the primary elections and the overwhelming victory of Maria Corina Machado, a candidate the government barred from running. (Machado is currently appealing her proscription in the Supreme Court).
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former comrades to end "the corrupt tyranny subjugating and impoverishing the Cuban people."
Several House Republicans have argued that by formalizing the inquiry, the chairmen of the three committees handling the investigation into Biden’s conduct will gain more power to compel interviews, obtain documents, and further the case that the president improperly benefitted from his son’s overseas deals. This move now allows Republican congressional investigators to collect more information about Biden’s alleged involvement in his son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings. 
