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GatoGordo's JournalMexican Foreign Minister: No democracy in Venezuela
MAY 30, 2017 6:20 PM
Mexico’s foreign secretary says there is no democracy in Venezuela
BY LEÓN HERNÁNDEZ
lhernandez1@elnuevoherald.com
"Venezuela lacks democracy, its regime has authoritarian traits and poses risks for the Latin American region, said Mexico's foreign secretary, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray Caso, guest of the Americas Conference Series with Andrés Oppenheimer, speaks on Tuesday, May 30, 2017 at the Braman Miller Center of the University of Miami., adding that his country would plead for a ruling on the case at the meeting of foreign ministers of the Organization of American States on Wednesday in Washington.
"Mexico will not stop using all diplomatic channels, including the OAS, in order to have a constructive impact on achieving a peaceful solution to the restoration of democracy. We have a country that, in fact, is no longer a functional democracy. Today it is not a democracy,” he said Tuesday during a town hall-style conversation with Miami Herald columnist Andrés Oppenheimer, organized by the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald at the University of Miami."
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http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/article153450119.html
Venezuela in near anarchy
Venezuela is sliding into anarchy
By Mariana Zuñiga and Nick Miroff
Washington Post, May 24
"Rioting and looting have exploded in the rural state of Barinas, leaving seven dead and dozens injured. In one of Caracas's main plazas on Saturday, a lynch mob doused a young man with gasoline and set him ablaze. And in several neighborhoods of the capital, masked protesters have been setting up smoldering street barricades known as “guarimbas,” demanding payment from passing cars.
After seven weeks of near-daily protests, the incidents point to spreading anarchy in Venezuela, as both the government and opposition leaders — who urge nonviolence — appear to be losing control.
Venezuelan security forces and the pro-government motorcycle gangs known as “colectivos” have met the unrest with escalating force, and in some cases, lethal gunfire, making matters worse. At least 55 people have been killed in the past seven weeks, including protesters, members of the security forces and bystanders caught in the fray. About 1,000 have been injured, according to the latest tally by authorities, and 346 businesses have been looted or burned."
Read more here https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/05/24/venezuela-is-sliding-into-anarchy/?utm_term=.70c99a8fc1ed
Venezuela leader beaten, protesters met with deadly force
Venezuela opposition leader Capriles 'beaten' at protest
9 hours ago
From the section Latin America & Caribbean
"Almost 60 people have died in protest-related violence since the latest wave of anti-government unrest began across the country on 1 April.
The parents of Juan Pablo Pernalete, a student killed when he was hit by a tear gas canister at a protest on 26 April, called on the authorities to put an end to "the repression".
"Enough of so much repression by the forces tasked with ensuring our security and public order," the statement by José Gregorio Pernalete and his wife Elvira Llovera read.
"Like so many other youths, all that our son wanted was to express himself freely as the Venezuelans they are and who have the right to do so.
"Protesting is not a crime, protesting does not mean toppling a government, protesting only means that things aren't going well and that people are demanding a change of economic and social policies. That's why no one has the right to repress or kill a Venezuela merely for protesting.""
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Read more here http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-40091843
No food in the land of plenty. The Venezuela Paradox
Venezuela’s paradox: People are hungry, but farmers can’t feed them
The Washington Post
Mariana Zuñiga, Nick Miroff
3 days ago
"Drive around the countryside outside the capital, Caracas, and there’s everything a farmer needs: fertile land, water, sunshine and gasoline at 4 cents a gallon, cheapest in the world. Yet somehow families here are just as scrawny-looking as the city-dwelling Venezuelans waiting in bread lines or picking through garbage for scraps.
Having attempted for years to defy conventional economics, the country now faces a painful reckoning with basic arithmetic.
“Last year I had 200,000 hens,” said Saulo Escobar, who runs a poultry and hog farm here in the state of Aragua, an hour outside Caracas. “Now I have 70,000.”
Several of his cavernous henhouses sit empty because, Escobar said, he can’t afford to buy more feed. Government price controls have made his business unprofitable, and armed gangs have been squeezing him for extortion payments and stealing his eggs.
Venezuela’s latest public health indicators confirm that the country is facing a dietary calamity. With medicines scarce and malnutrition cases soaring, more than 11,000 babies died last year, sending the infant mortality rate up 30 percent, according to Venezuela’s Health Ministry. The head of the ministry was fired by President Nicolás Maduro two days after she released those statistics."
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Read more: http://www.msn.com/en-ae/news/world/venezuela%E2%80%99s-paradox-people-are-hungry-but-farmers-can%E2%80%99t-feed-them/ar-BBBzVmT
Maduro's "bad debt" equivalent of 48% interest on backs of Venezuelans
Venezuela's political opposition finds a new weapon against its leftist dictator
Tom DiChristopher, Wilfred Frost
3 Hours Ago
"Venezuela's opposition party is refining a new weapon against the government of embattled President Nicolas Maduro: threatening that the country's lenders may not get their money back after Maduro is removed from power.
The leader of Venezuela's National Assembly, Julio Borges, criticized Goldman Sachs after the company bought the distressed debt of PDVSA, the country's state-owned oil company. Borges suggested that a future government might not honor the bonds.
The letter accuses Goldman of "making a quick buck off the suffering Venezuelan people" by helping to prop up the Maduro regime. Venezuela's government has mismanaged the country's economy, leading to severe food shortages and staggering inflation, but despite those hardships it has continued to make debt payments."
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http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/30/venezuelan-opposition-threatens-not-to-repay-bonds.html
Venezuela's corrupt Chavistas shamed abroad
Venezuela socialists met shaming, protests on trips abroad
By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON AND JOSHUA GOODMAN, ASSOCIATED PRESS MIAMI
May 30, 2017, 11:21 AM ET
"Javier Fungairino was eating breakfast with his son at a bakery one recent morning when he noticed a familiar face at a nearby table: a former minister of Venezuela's socialist government whose presence reminded him of the pain he suffered when he left his homeland for Miami three years ago.
"I knew it was him," the 43-year-old Venezuelan businessman said of the encounter this month. "But the first thing I asked was, 'Are you Eugenio Vasquez?', and he said, 'Yes.'"
Immediately, an angry mob of scolding Venezuelan exiles surrounded the former head of state-run Banco de Venezuela, shouting "Rat!" and "Get out, thief!" until Vasquez and another man with him fled.
"I never laid a finger on him. I simply raised my voice," Fungairino said. "They hate when people complain. They think they're so powerful that they're not used to that kind of treatment.""
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http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/venezuela-exiles-hound-shame-socialist-officials-abroad-47715264
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