""""Venezuela"""

[1stRambo]

Yo, this will happen if you Vote for any Socialist Democrat, including Hillary Clinton!!!

"GTP"

 

[longknife]

Collapsing economy has forced Venezuelans to sift through trash for food

Truly, truly sad. A nation rich with natural resources and people willing to work hard to make a living and it's failing. A cruel dictator claiming socialism for the masses – the common approach by those types – while amassing riches for himself and his cronies.



Nearly half of Venezuelans say they can no longer afford to eat three meals a day, according to a recent poll by the local firm Venebarometro. The poll surveyed 1,200 adults at their homes the first week in April and had a margin of error of plus or minus of about 2 percentage points.



Story @ Collapsing economy has forced Venezuelans to sift through trash for food

 

[longknife]

In switch, hungry Venezuelans now smuggle Colombian food home

Note the figure in the far back left? Probably making great money letting the people smuggle foodstuffs from Colombia.



Dozens lined up on a bridge to plead with the military to let them through. Others drifted over in wooden boats right under the nose of Venezuela’s National Guard and army. A half-dozen said they bribed officials to cross over dirt roads, and a few swam from one leafy shore to the other.



Full story @ In switch, hungry Venezuelans now smuggle Colombian food home - One America News Network

 

[longknife]

In pictures: Venezuela's mango harvest

This and more pictures @ In pictures: Venezuela's mango harvest - BBC News

 

[waltky]

Citibank to Close Venezuela Government Accounts...

Maduro: Citibank to Close Venezuela Government Accounts
Tuesday 12th July, 2016 - Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said on Monday that Citibank NA, planned to shut his government's foreign currency accounts within a month, denouncing the move by one of its main foreign financial intermediaries as part of a "blockade."

"With no warning, Citibank says that in 30 days it will close the Central Bank and the Bank of Venezuela's accounts," Maduro said in a speech, adding that the government used the U.S. bank for transactions in the United States and globally. "Do you think they're going to stop us with a financial blockade - No, gentlemen. No one stops Venezuela."

Citibank, a unit of Citigroup Inc., could not immediately be reached for comment about the purported measure against Venezuela's monetary authority and the Bank of Venezuela which is the biggest state retail bank. With the OPEC nation's economy immersed in crisis, various foreign companies have been pulling out or reducing operations.

Critics say the socialist economics of Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez have been a disaster for Venezuela, while the government blames its political foes and local businessmen for waging an "economic war" against it. Due to strict currency controls in place since 2003, the government relies on Citibank for foreign currency transactions.

Maduro Citibank to Close Venezuela Government Accounts

 

[waltky]

Rice and beans route reopens to hungry Venezuelans...

Venezuela re-opens Colombian border to allow shoppers to cross
Sat, 16 Jul 2016 - Venezuela opens its border with Colombia for the second time this month to allow people to cross over to shop for foods and medicines.

Last week 35,000 crossed over for the first time since the border was closed a year ago by President Nicolas Maduro to fight cross-border crime. Officials said they were expecting even larger crowds this weekend. Many basic goods are in short supply in Venezuela because of a severe economic crisis in the country. The border across a pedestrian bridge connecting Tachira in Venezuela and Cucuta in Colombia opened on Saturday, a day earlier than authorities from both countries had previously announced. Officials said they wanted to avoid the build-up of too many people. It was expected to stay open for about 12 hours.

A Venezuelan citizen at the border opening in San Antonio del Tachira, Venezuela​

Women push past border controls

Venezuela has suffered severe shortages for months as a result of the falling price of oil which is the country's prime source of income. Many supermarket have empty shelves and Venezuelans spend days in queues to buy basic goods. Government critics also blame President Maduro for severe mismanagement of the economy. Mr Maduro for his part has blamed the country's business community for the shortages. He ordered the border to be closed in August 2015 after former Colombian paramilitaries attacked a Venezuelan military patrol and wounded three soldiers.

Venezuela re-opens Colombian border to allow shoppers to cross - BBC News

See also:

Investigation of Mexico dump didn't confirm student fire
Jul 15,`16) -- The most recent forensic investigation of the southern Mexico garbage dump where the government says 43 students were incinerated did not confirm there was a fire there that night.

The report from international fire experts convened by the government was obtained by The Associated Press through an open records request. It shows the experts found evidence the Cocula dump had been the site of at least five fires, but could not determine when. Remains of 17 people were also found, but it was unknown when they were burned. "The duration and dates of the fires could not be established based on the available physical data," the report said. In April, when the Attorney General's Office and one of the fire experts publicized the findings, they said only that there was evidence of a large fire at the dump and that remains of at least 17 adults were found. They did not release the report itself, citing confidentiality, and left the impression the investigation supported the government's theory that the students were burned there.

The 43 students from a rural teachers college in Guerrero state were detained by local police in the city of Iguala on Sept. 26, 2014, and were turned over to a crime gang. After an initial investigation, the government said it had determined the "historical truth" and said all of the students were killed and their bodies were incinerated at the dump and then tossed into a river. A team from the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, which spent months reviewing the government's investigation, had criticized the April presentation by the Attorney General's Office, suggesting it gave a false impression. The nine-page report established that it drizzled the night the students were taken and the following morning. But the experts did not say whether the recorded rain amounts would have impeded a fire of the magnitude needed to incinerate 43 bodies.

Family members and supporters of 43 missing teachers college students carry pictures of the students as they march to demand the case not be closed and that experts' recommendations about new leads be followed, in Mexico City. The most recent forensic investigation of the southern Mexico garbage dump where the government says 43 students were incinerated did not confirm there was a fire there that night. It shows the experts found evidence the Cocula dump had been the site of at least five fires, but could not determine when. Remains of 17 people were also found, but it was unknown when they were burned.​

There was no information about the identities of the 17 remains found, but it was known that the remote dump had become a place to dispose of bodies for some time in an area where hundreds have gone missing. A previous forensic examination by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, which worked the site alongside government investigators at the request of the students' families, confirmed that at least one set of the 17 remains at the dump did not belong to any of the missing students. It had a dental piece that none of the missing students had. The latest forensic examination of the dump was organized by the government after previous investigations contradicted the official version of events. It was supposed to scientifically clarify where the students ended up, but created more argument because the government presented the findings as though they supported its theory.

At the presentation by the Attorney General's Office, fire expert Ricardo Torres said more tests were needed to determine whether 43 people could have been burned at the dump, but he added there had been a large controlled fire there and 17 sets remains were recovered. No more details were offered and questions were not taken. The full report warned about the limitations of reaching any firm conclusion about the dump because it had not been guarded for a month. "It is certainly plausible that unknown persons may have entered the site and/or contaminated the site," the report said.

The Argentine team had previously advised of shell casings that suddenly appeared at the site and were later touted by the government as evidence that the students were executed at the dump. Santiago Aguirre, deputy director of the nonprofit Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Center for Human Rights, which is representing the students' families, said Friday the report displayed serious deficiencies and was part of "a deliberate attempt to fabricate a version not supported by scientific evidence." Before departing Mexico at the end of April, the team from the Inter-American Human Rights Commission urged the government to drop its theory and explore details in the investigation that point to other possible destinations for the students' remains.

News from The Associated Press

 

[yiostheoy]

Mexico needs to do something to help out Venezuela.

And the USA will probably help Mexico fund it.

 

[waltky]

Transfer of wealth from Venezuela to Colombia for food...

Middle-class Venezuelans liquidate savings to stockpile food
Jul 18,`16 -- Tebie Gonzalez and Ramiro Ramirez still have their sleek apartment, a fridge covered with souvenir magnets from vacations aboard, and closets full of name brand clothes. But they feel hunger drawing close.

So when the Venezuelan government opened the long-closed border with Colombia this weekend, the couple decided to drain what remained of the savings they put away before the country spun into economic crisis and stocked up on food. They left their two young sons with relatives and joined more than 100,000 other Venezuelans trudging across what Colombian officials are calling a "humanitarian corridor" to buy as many basic goods as possible. "This is money we had been saving for an emergency, and this is an emergency," Ramirez said. "It's scary to spend it, but we're finding less food each day and we need to prepare for what's coming."

Gonzalez, 36, earns several times the minimum wage with her job as a sales manager for a chain of furniture stores in the western mountain town of San Cristobal. But lately, her salary is no match for Venezuela's 700-percent inflation. Ramirez's auto parts shop went bust after President Nicolas Maduro closed the border with Colombia a year ago, citing uncontrolled smuggling, and cut off the region's best avenue for imported goods. The couple stopped eating out this year, abandoned plans to buy a house and put a "for sale" sign on their second car. There is no more sugar for coffee, no more butter for bread and no more infant formula for their 1-year-old son.

Ramiro Ramirez pushes a shopping cart as he shops for food with his wife Tebie Gonzalez in Cucuta, Colombia, Sunday, July 17, 2016, during the temporary opening of the long-closed border with Colombia. "This is money we had been saving for an emergency, and this is an emergency," Ramirez said. "It's scary to spend it, but we're finding less food each day and we need to prepare for what's coming."​

When Ramirez, 37, went to get a late night snack on Friday, he found nothing in the refrigerator. So Sunday, the couple donned their nicest clothes and hid fat wads of bills in their bags. Before heading to the border, they surveyed the stocks in their renovated granite kitchen: An inch of vegetable oil at the bottom of a plastic jug. A single package of flour. Some leftover cooked rice. No coffee. Then they set off in a 2011 Jeep SUV onto darkened highways, the lights of hillside shantytowns glinting in the blue darkness like stars.

At the crossing, scowling soldiers with automatic weapons patrolled a line that wrapped around more than a dozen blocks. The couple considered turning back. But within minutes, people started shouting that immigration officials were waving everyone through, and the line broke into a stampede. Gonzalez and Ramirez ran with thousands of others toward a bridge barely wide enough for two cars to pass. Soon, it was packed as tightly as a rush-hour subway train. Some people cradled newborns, others toted dogs as they headed to a new life in Colombia. Most carried suitcases and backpacks to fill with groceries.

MORE

 

[waltky]

Colombia havin' to re-supply after Venezuelan shopping spree...

Colombia sends 46 trucks to restock after 120,000 Venezuelans cross border to buy goods
July 18, 2016 -- After more than 123,000 Venezuelans entered Colombia over the weekend to buy basic goods, Colombian officials sent 46 trucks to restock the border town of Cucuta.

Colombia's Foreign Ministry estimates 35,000 Venezuelans entered on Saturday, while 88,000 entered on Sunday. Venezuelans began queuing at the town of San Antonio del Tachira to cross the Simón Bolívar bridge to reach the Colombian town of Cucuta in the Norte de Santander province. Venezuelans also entered Colombia through the Pedro Maria Ureña international bridge. The Colombian National Police escorted the 46 trucks to Cucuta after fears of skyrocketing prices and scarcity due to unprecedented demand.

Venezuelans from all over the country traveled to the border crossing to purchase basic goods as Venezuela faces a deepening economic crisis, El Universal reported. The Colombian and Venezuelan border was completely closed by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro late last year after three Venezuelan soldiers and a civilian were injured in an attack by suspected smugglers in San Antonio del Tachira.

Colombia and Venezuela's 1,400-mile border is porous and highly unregulated. It's often used by smugglers to purchase heavily subsidized goods in Venezuela to resell in Colombia for a profit. Food scarcity in Venezuela has led basic goods such as flour, sugar and rice to be missing from shelves. A little boy was lost amid the flow of tens of thousands during the weekend. Colombian police officers were able to reunite the boy with his mother -- a moment caught on video.

Colombia sends 46 trucks to restock after 120,000 Venezuelans cross border to buy goods

 

[Agit8r]

I suppose it's all Obama's fault for imposing sanctions on them, right?

 

[waltky]

Venezuela opposition escalates protests against Maduro 'dictatorship'...

Enraged Venezuela opposition escalates anti-Maduro protests
October 26, 2016 - Venezuela's increasingly militant opposition stepped up its push to remove leftist leader Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday with rallies that drew hundreds of thousands of protesters and calls for a general strike and march on the presidential palace.

Enraged by last week's suspension of their push for a referendum to remove Maduro and determined to end 17 years of socialism in the South American OPEC nation, Venezuela's opposition has sharply ramped up tactics in recent days. Maduro, the unpopular 53-year-old successor of Hugo Chavez who has presided over an unprecedented economic crisis in Venezuela, accuses them of seeking a coup with U.S. help. "They are desperate, they have received the order from the north to destroy the Venezuelan revolution," he told a counter-march of red-shirted government loyalists.

After launching a political trial against Maduro on Tuesday in the National Assembly, the opposition coalition held nationwide marches dubbed "Takeover Of Venezuela" on Wednesday. "This government is going to fall!" crowds chanted, many wearing white and waving national flags as they filled one of Caracas' main highways. Protesters clashed with security forces in various places, including the volatile western town of San Cristobal that was an epicenter of violence during failed 2014 anti-Maduro protests.

Coalition leaders called for a national strike for Friday, and a Nov. 3 march to the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, unless the election board allows the referendum. "This has gone too far. I do not like confrontation, but we have been too compromising and soft with the government," said carpenter Grimaldi Lopez, 50, carrying a large Venezuelan flag covered in the signatures of well-known opposition leaders. "The referendum was our constitutional right, and they have denied it. What are they scared of?," he added at the Caracas rally, echoing accusations that Maduro leaned on compliant electoral and judicial authorities to block the plebiscite.

Despite sitting on the world's biggest oil reserves, Venezuela is in the throes of a punishing recession that has many poor families skipping meals amid scarce food and triple-digit inflation. Foes say Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader who narrowly won election after Chavez's death in 2013, is an incompetent autocrat who is to blame for the economic mess.

TALKS PLAN FALTERS

 

[waltky]

Venezuelan power company in default...

Venezuelan Debt Crisis Widens, With Power Company in Default
NOV. 10, 2017 - Venezuela showed new signs of a financial unraveling on Friday, as the state electricity company was declared in default.

The announcement of the country’s first bond default came three days before the government was to begin talks with investors to refinance and restructure more than half of its $120 billion in debt. “This is the first drizzle in a huge thunderstorm,” said Jose L. Valera, an international energy lawyer in the Houston office of the Mayer Brown law firm. “The whole country of Venezuela is bankrupt.” The electricity company, Corpoelec, based in Caracas, was unable to make a $28 million payment on a $650 million bond. The bond was originally issued by Electricidad de Caracas before it was nationalized as a Corpoelec subsidiary a decade ago.

The default was announced in a notice by Wilmington Trust after bondholders complained that they had not received payment on a coupon that was due on Oct. 10 but had a grace period that ended on Thursday. Venezuela and its state-owned enterprises — including the oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, known as Pdvsa — have missed roughly $350 million in interest payments over the last month. The grace period on many of them will end in the next few days. “There are going to be so many different debtors from the sovereign to these different state-owned companies,” Mr. Valera said, “and they are all going to be defaulting at the same time.”

Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro spoke in Caracas last month. His country’s debt problems intensified on Friday.​

President Nicolás Maduro announced last week that the government would refinance and restructure $63 billion in bonds, and invited investors to meet with a government committee led by his vice president. It is uncertain how many investors will take part, since United States sanctions restrict any negotiation or purchases of new bonds by American-regulated financial institutions. Monday could be a decisive day in Venezuela’s credit crisis.

While President Maduro’s committee will offer restructuring proposals, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, a panel formed by the derivatives industry, will meet to discuss the Venezuelan debt situation. The panel will discuss whether late and partial payments of $1.2 billion due last week from Pdvsa constituted a “credit event” that could prompt bondholders to organize to seek payment. The creditors could pursue legal action to confiscate Venezuelan assets abroad, such as oil tankers or even refineries owned by the Pdvsa subsidiary Citgo.

Venezuelan Debt Crisis Widens, With Power Company in Default

 

[blastoff]

Why doesn't the government just borrow a few billion dollars from Hugo Chavez's daughter?

That's the beauty of socialism. Once the guy running things and his family get done fleecing the national treasury and fiscal collapse is inevitable the people always know where to go to get a loan.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Yo, this will happen if you Vote for any Socialist Democrat, including Hillary Clinton!!!
View attachment 77503

"GTP"
View attachment 77506

That's like saying that any capitalist society that collapsed, means all of capitalism doesn't work.

 

[TroglocratsRdumb]

The Left Wingers are still very bitter about the fall of the Berlin Wall