Venezuela’s political crisis has deepened, with its socialist president ordering a 10-day block on access to X and accusing the social media platform’s owner Elon Musk of using it to promote hatred in the wake of the South American nation’s disputed presidential election last month.

The development comes after a series of tit-for-tat accusations between Mr. Maduro and Mr. Musk over the July 28 election, which Mr. Maduro claims to have won, despite opposition records from more than 80% of the 30,000 electronic voting machines nationwide showing the actual winner was their candidate, former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez.

The ongoing standoff between Mr. Maduro’s security forces and opposition protesters is vexing for the Biden administration, which had eased sanctions on the Venezuelan oil sector — the major revenue source for Mr. Maduro’s China- and Russia-backed authoritarian regime — last year on pledges from Caracas that the Maduro government would hold fair elections. The administration reinstated the sanctions in April as the regime instead cracked down on opposition figures ahead of last month’s election.

Threat Status Special Foreign Correspondent Geoff Hill examines the situation in a dispatch from the region, noting that U.S. Africa Command withdrew the last American forces from two bases in Niger this month after the Biden administration clashed with the military junta that ousted the country’s pro-Western president last year.

The Pentagon currently has only one permanent base in Africa, on the coast of Djibouti. Russia and China have troops in Djibouti and have grown closer to its president, Ismail Guelleh, so the appeal of another location for U.S. forces on the vast, strategic continent is on the rise.

Botswana routinely votes with Washington in international forums on critical issues, including every United Nations debate criticizing Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In June, when the U.S. military mission for Africa brought together the continent’s army chiefs, the conference was held in Gaborone, Botswana’s capital city. The country is also the only one of Africa’s 54 U.N. members not to have undergone a period of autocratic rule in the past half-century, while its armed forces have experience working with American troops.

Federal prosecutors have charged a Tennessee man they say helped North Koreans pose as American IT workers, helping them earn U.S. salaries and fund Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

According to court papers, Matthew Isaac Knoot is accused of running a “laptop farm” from Nashville. Prosecutors say companies would send him the laptops, figuring they were being used by an American worker. He then used the machines to connect the companies with North Korean IT workers stationed in China, who would work in his name. Companies allegedly paid more than $250,000 for each worker from July 2022 to August 2023. 

Federal authorities said North Korea’s rogue government uses such programs to fund its weapons goals, with thousands of workers producing hundreds of millions of dollars for the regime in Pyongyang, while the workers themselves keep almost none of the money. 

Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said in a statement Thursday that the scam should be a wake-up call to American businesses that use remote IT workers. He told them to be “vigilant in their hiring processes.”

British intelligence says Ukrainian forces probably used the U.S.-supplied Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) last week in the sinking of the Rostov-on-Don, a Russian Kilo-class attack submarine that was part of the Black Sea Fleet.

Saturday’s hit was part of a series of Ukrainian strikes on Russian targets in the Black Sea area. “This latest attack is almost certainly the final chapter for the submarine, with it highly likely being more economically viable to build a replacement than recover and repair it,” British defense ministry officials said in an “intelligence update” circulated online.

A morale boost for Ukrainian forces, the ATACMS strike on the Rostov-on-Don could dent Russian long-range maritime attacks into Ukraine. “The strike highlight[ed] the increasing risks to Russian forces in Crimea and will highly likely force Russia to reconsider any plans to relocate any significant maritime force back to the peninsula,” British officials said.

Retired CIA officer and Threat Status contributor Daniel N. Hoffman looks at the debate over the mysterious condition and draws a connection to Russia, writing that “more research is needed to determine whether cancer might be another consequence of Havana syndrome attacks.”

“Havana syndrome, which authorities now refer to more vaguely as ‘anomalous health incidents,’ was first detected in 2016, when U.S. diplomats serving in Cuba reported experiencing vertigo, headaches, fatigue and hearing loss,” Mr. Hoffman writes. “Since then, U.S. officials serving in China, South Asia, Europe and even Washington have reported symptoms related to the mystifying condition.”

Mr. Hoffman points to the National Academies of Sciences’ conclusion that “directed, pulsed radio-frequency energy” was the most “plausible mechanism” to explain the syndrome. He also notes retired Army Lt. Col. Greg Edgreen’s assertion that Russia has been likely behind such attacks, and investigative journalist Christo Grozev’s conclusion that that Russia’s GRU military intelligence’s Unit 29155, known for its expertise in surveillance, explosives and poisoning techniques, likely carried them out.

“KGB operative-in-the-Kremlin President Vladimir Putin, who also served as director of Russia’s Federal Security Service, is no stranger to cloak-and-dagger espionage,” Mr. Hoffman writes.

• Aug. 7-10 — University of California San Diego Forum on U.S.-China Relations, UC San Diego

• Aug. 12 — How Local Authorities Make Decisions in the Myanmar Civil War, Stimson Center

• Aug. 15 — One Year after Camp David: How Durable Are U.S.-Japan-South Korea Trilateral Ties? Hudson Institute

• Aug. 27 — U.S.-Mexico Relations: Addressing Challenges at the Border, Brookings Institution