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Venezuela

Take 5 Venezuela: Prisoner Wives, Cheap Gas, Maduro On Maradona

Take 5 Venezuela: Prisoner Wives, Cheap Gas, Maduro On Maradona
Aurore Barlier and Pierre Labainville

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 vast majority of Venezuelan people "rejected the presence of the former Spanish prime minister in the country," and criticized his interference in internal affairs. Gonzalez's visit is part of a growing movement to challenge the government's policy of jailing political opponents, with Italian daily La Stampa reporting on a group of wives of imprisoned government opponents who call themselves the "Women In White." The group has also denounced the lamentable economic situation of the country and demanded transparent presidential elections.

SAVE THE CONDOMS

The Center for Biological Diversity has sent 12,000 unusually packaged condoms to Venezuela. The women's monthly Cosmopolitan writes that the condoms feature endangered species pictures on their packaging, as a way to raise awareness of nature conservation while responding to a well-publicized shortage of condoms the country has been experiencing. Last February, the media reported that Venezuela was running out of condoms which had led to skyrocketing prices and raised serious health concerns.

CHEAP AND EMPTY

Venezuela is a new favorite destination of young people who do not want to go broke on their holidays. But although you can buy a beer for a few pennies and find a decent hotel for $5 a night, Reuters says that last year's approximately one million tourists is four times fewer than in Colombia for example. In people's mind, Venezuela remains a place of crime and frequent shortages.



GAS GUZZLING

In Caracas, gasoline for your car is actually cheaper than water: $0.015 per liter ($0.26 per gallon). Prices are even 40 times lower on the black market. With such low prices, Venezuela's carbon footprint is South America's biggest, and is an opportunity for bootleggers who sell the gasoline in neighboring Colombia. According to the Venezuelan newspaper La Calle, the government is considering raising prices, which surprisingly is supported by 59% of the population, according to a recent poll.

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Photo: Sdi-jr/GFDL

MADURO ON FIFA

After the recent soccer scandals that forced FIFA chief Sepp Blatter to resign, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has made clear his preferred candidate is a certain No. 10 from Argentina. "(Diego) Maradona should become president of FIFA," Maduro declared. "He has been denouncing FIFA's abuses for years and all he's got in response were threats and ridicule." Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chavez, was a close friend of Maradona.

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Society

Italy's Right-Wing Government Turns Up The Heat On 'Gastronationalism'

Rome has been strongly opposed to synthetic foods, insect-based flours and health warnings on alcohol, and aggressive lobbying by Giorgia Meloni's right-wing government against nutritional labeling has prompted accusations in Brussels of "gastronationalism."

Dough is run through a press to make pasta

Creation of home made pasta

Karl De Meyer et Olivier Tosseri

ROME — On March 23, the Italian Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, Francesco Lollobrigida, announced that Rome would ask UNESCO to recognize Italian cuisine as a piece of intangible cultural heritage.

On March 28, Lollobrigida, who is also Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's brother-in-law, promised that Italy would ban the production, import and marketing of food made in labs, especially artificial meat — despite the fact that there is still no official request to market it in Europe.

Days later, Italian Eurodeputy Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of fascist leader Benito Mussolini and member of the Forza Italia party, which is part of the governing coalition in Rome, caused a sensation in the European Parliament. On the sidelines of the plenary session, Sophia Loren's niece organized a wine tasting, under the slogan "In Vino Veritas," to show her strong opposition (and that of her government) to an Irish proposal to put health warnings on alcohol bottles. At the end of the press conference, around 11am, she showed her determination by drinking from the neck of a bottle of wine, to great applause.

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