WorldcrunchThe shoes were clearly too big for him to fill. Three-and-a-half years after Hugo Chávez’s death, his successor Nicolás Maduro is losing an already loose grip on the helm of his country. A disastrous economic and social crisis is turning into a political one, and the country’s long-suffering opposition feels primed to remove him from […]
Massive protests Wednesday target recent actions by Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro for banning a referendum and evading parliament. Does he compare to Latin American strongmen of the past?
-OpEd- Frustration is the lifeblood of dictatorship. Just look at what’s happening in Venezuela. President Nicolas Maduro recently declared that he had readied a decree to revoke the institutional immunity from criminal prosecution of “all public positions,” including members of parliament of course. As you may recall, since the last elections in January, the majority […]
El Nacional, September 2 “Massive, without fear and in peace” reads Friday morning’s front-page headline of Venezuelan daily El Nacional, after one of the largest protests to date against President Nicolas Maduro’s reign. Tens of thousands of chanting protesters marched Thursday through the streets of Caracas demanding a vote on recalling Maduro. In recent years, […]
Brazil struggled to complete the sporting venues needed for the Olympic Games, in Rio de Janeiro. But what about the brand new stadiums that were built especially for the FIFA World Cup, just two years ago? Although they cost billions, most of these stadiums now have a very low occupancy rate: The Arena Pantanal only […]
SPOTLIGHT: VENEZUELAN POLITICAL CRISIS INTENSIFIES Stories about Venezuela’s toilet paper shortage are no laughing matter, especially when people are also struggling to access basic food supplies and medicine, and face soaring crime rates and rolling blackouts. But rather than work together to help alleviate the crisis, President Nicolas Maduro and the political opposition, which controls […]
Venezuela, a land that made 19th-century travelers marvel at its natural treasures, has become one of the last places any tourist would visit these days.
El Nacional, June 9, 2016 Venezuelan daily El Nacional on Thursday features front-page clashes linked to the country’s ongoing food shortages. “Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAP) will control 70% of food staples,” reads the lead headline of the Caracas daily that is close to the opposition. The headline refers to the policy touted by […]
OCUMARE — It’s midday on this Thursday, and hundreds of people are squeezing inside a supermarket in Ocumare, a poor city about an hour’s drive south of Caracas. Armed police officers are allowing people in, but just a few at a time, infuriating the multitude massed outside since dawn to buy corn flour at a […]
With his recent “state of emergency” declaration and decision to put the army on high alert against the threat of hostile “interventions,” Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro continues to show that he has no intention of being either pushed or voted out of power. Since opposition parties won a parliamentary majority in December, Maduro and his […]
Venezuela’s economic woes are depriving the socialist regime of its remaining popularity, even as the government uses every constitutional and political trick up its sleeve to block the opposition’s ascent to power.
CARACAS — It might be funny if it weren’t true — which Venezuelan reporter Nitu Pérez Osuna didn’t think it was before witnessing it with her own eyes: people lining up along a Caracas street to get a “shot” or “lick” of deodorant. “I’d seen something similar two years ago on Twitter and thought it […]
Venezuelan public workers woke up Wednesday to newspaper headlines that told them to stay home. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced in a televised address Tuesday that the government is slashing additional working hours for the country’s 2.8 million public workers in a bid to save energy, reducing the working week from four to two days. […]
-Analysis- MIAMI — The gradual renewal of ties between the United States and Cuba no longer qualifies as news. Both sides have put aside their prerequisites for sitting and talking — an end to the embargo for Cuba, and Cuba pledging to change its political system. Each country has followed a basic script guiding both […]
Falling revenues, dire financial conditions and voter exasperation have curbed populist-socialist power in Venezuela and Argentina. The opponents have their work cut out for them.
El Universal, Dec. 7, 2015 CARACAS — Venezuelans congratulated themselves for what several officials described as an “exemplary” election, without violence or widespread accusations of fraud. The ballot Sunday saw the liberal opposition to President Nicolas Maduro took 99 of 167 parliamentary seats in a provisional vote count, with the ruling, socialist PSUV party winning […]
As Venezuela’s government becomes nervous about possible defeat in parliamentary elections Sunday, its threatening rhetoric shows signs it might refuse to acknowledge a loss at the polls. Then, all bets are off.
The supply crisis that has plagued supermarkets and consumers for months now has hit the health care sector, with medicines, doctors and even emergency care in short supply. Plummeting oil prices are a major factor, as is the legacy of Hugo Chavez.
The extreme economic condition that is now practically extinct across the globe could return in Venezuela if a range of corrective measures that are anathema to the socialist government aren’t swiftly instituted.
CARACAS — Venezuelan security agents have detained Manuel Rosales, an opposition politician returning to the country after six years in exile, at the airport in Maracaibo, in the western state of Zulia. Opposition daily El Universal reports that the 63-year-old former presidential candidate and ex governor of Zulia, was arrested “literally as he got off […]
Latin American history in the 20th century is stained with autocrats and human rights violations. But with former victims now elected leaders, why don’t they speak up about political prisoners in Venezuela?
El Tiempo, August 18, 2015 An already critical economic situation is spiraling out of control in Venezuela, with newspaper El Tiempo reporting that “the word “cheap” is disappearing from the Venezuelan vocabulary.” In the northern city of Puerto La Cruz, a kilo of tomatoes or onions can cost a whopping 400 bolivars ($63), double what […]
President Barack Obama is restoring United States influence on the American continent, a reminder of the importance of neighbors.
Venezuela, facing economic turmoil and the challenge of upcoming legislative elections, is inflaming a centuries-old border dispute with Guyana.
We shine the spotlight this week on Venezuela: PRISONER POLITICS Plenty of glowing foreign press coverage of the arrival in Caracas of former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, who came to support opposition leaders who’ve been jailed by the government of President Nicolás Maduro. But El Correo del Orinoco, a state-owned daily, wrote that the […]
The White House move to impose sanctions on Venezuela was a badly timed swipe against the authoritarian government that may have imploded on its own. Instead, the U.S. gave it new life.
“I am just like Stalin,” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said. Today’s Mexican daily La Razon featured the shockingly proud comparison to the Soviet dictator, which the Venezuelan president made during a visit to the Caracas Book Fair on Thursday. “And here they have a copy of Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend,” Maduro […]
Obama’s executive order slapping sanctions on Venezuelan officials is ostensibly in defense of liberty. But it could just as well be another of a long line of aggressive American interventions.
Hampered by plummeting oil prices and fading public support, President Nicolas Maduro and his crafty sidekick, Assembly leader Diosdado Cabello, are trying to provoke an opposition outburst. Last week’s arrest of Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma was a c
CARACAS — Protests erupted in the Venezuelan capital Thursday night, after the city’s Mayor Antonio Ledezma was hauled away by camouflaged police, who also smashed into opposition leader’s office. A CCTV image of the police entering the office made El Nacional“s front page Friday. Opposition supporters began making as much noise across the city as […]
If urban traffic jams and bustling restaurants are symptom of prosperity, long lines outside shops indicate a distorted, depressed economy. This is the current face of Venezuela’s capital.
Political repression is one thing, but if store shelves are empty, the so-called “revolution” is destined to crumble.
After opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez was jailed, the Maduro government is now targeting another political nemesis, Maria Corina Machado. The world must take notice.
With the region still divided into different trading blocs, Chile is leading efforts to bring Latin American nations together for a joint policy to expand global trade.
CUCUTA — It’s 2 p.m., and the borderland between Colombia and Venezuela is sizzling in the afternoon heat. Sweat is the permanent companion of all those crossing the Simón Bolívar bridge linking Venezuela with the Colombian border city of Cúcuta. Mariela* has been sitting for two hours in an endless line of cars, returning from […]
-Analysis- BOGOTA — Venezuela is in crisis — a tremendous one. Food and basic drugs are in short supply. The annual murder rate has reached 79 per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest in the world and a cold figure that covers a multitude of personal tragedies. Inflation is expected to reach a rate of […]
A sharp critique against the government by an insider shows the ranks of the Bolivarian movement may be set to turn on President Nicolas Maduro. What’s lost without Hugo Chavez.
Leaders in Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil refuse to face the reality that the days of easy money are over, and the time is now for real reform.