US withdrawing last of its embassy personnel from Venezuela

[Ghost Dog]

Source: Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The United States announced late Monday that it is pulling the remaining staff from its embassy in Venezuela, citing the deteriorating situation in the South American nation.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the decision... Pompeo said the remaining diplomats would be out of Venezuela by the end of the week...

... President Nicolas Maduro said on national television Monday night that progress had been made in restoring power in Venezuela. He also said two people who were allegedly trying to sabotage power facilities were captured and were providing information to authorities, though he gave no details.

Guaido, who heads the opposition-controlled congress, and the United States say Maduro’s claims that the U.S. sabotaged the power grid with a “cyberattack” are an attempt to divert attention from the government’s own failings...



Read more: https://apnews.com/07e2f8abb3a64506a91d11dfd69e86cc

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Reuters simultaneously reports:

... Much of Venezuela remained without power on Monday, although electricity had largely returned to the capital of Caracas following an outage that began on Thursday and which President Nicolas Maduro has called an act of U.S.-backed sabotage...

... Guaido called for a halt in shipments of oil to Maduro’s political ally Cuba, which has received discounted crude from Venezuela for nearly two decades. The deals have drawn scrutiny from the opposition and its allies abroad as Venezuela’s economic crisis worsened.

“We ask for the international community’s cooperation to make this measure effective, so that the oil the Venezuelan people urgently need to attend to this national emergency is not given away,” Guaido said.

U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton backed the measure, writing on Twitter that, “insurance companies and flag carriers that facilitate these give-away shipments to Cuba are now on notice.” He did not specify any measures the U.S. government may take...

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-venezuela-politics/venezuela-congress-declares-state-of-alarm-over-blackout-idUKKBN1QS1XG

And Agence France Presse also this morning in Europe informs us that:

... President Nicolas Maduro meanwhile called for grassroots groups to hit back against what he called attacks encouraged by the US against the country's electrical grid...

... Guaido, in a speech to the National Assembly which he leads, said "tomorrow at three o'clock in the afternoon, all of Venezuela will be on the streets" to protest against Maduro...

... US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Washington is withdrawing all its remaining personnel from the US embassy in Caracas. All non-emergency staff were ordered to leave on January 24.

"This decision reflects the deteriorating situation in #Venezuela as well as the conclusion that the presence of US diplomatic staff at the embassy has become a constraint on US policy," Pompeo wrote on Twitter...

https://www.afp.com/en/news/3954/venezuelas-guaido-calls-new-rally-lawmakers-declare-alarm-doc-1ee27o17

For background on the three Agency newswires quoted above, see here:

It is one of the most important aspects of our media system – and yet hardly known to the public: most of the international news coverage in Western media is provided by only three global news agencies based in New York, London and Paris.

The key role played by these agencies means that Western media often report on the same topics, even using the same wording. In addition, governments, military and intelligence services use these global news agencies as multipliers to spread their messages around the world.

A study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles were based in whole or in part on agency reports, yet 0% on investigative research. Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews were in favor of the US and NATO intervention, while propaganda was attributed exclusively to the opposite side...