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Neither do Democrats. They will try to steal the next election. We must be sure they don't get away with it.I don't see how this ends well. Those people deserve a better government but Middle Eastern/Third World leaders don't just give up their power.
they say the same thing about your party too....fascinating.....Neither do Democrats. They will try to steal the next election. We must be sure they don't get away with it.I don't see how this ends well. Those people deserve a better government but Middle Eastern/Third World leaders don't just give up their power.
Banging on pots and yelling at the leader, the protesters chased the president at a political event, local media reported. Many Venezuelans blame the country’s unpopular leader for the nation’s food crisis. Grainy and unclear mobile phone videos emerged on social media where the president is seen running through the protests, dodging irked protesters. “Right now, there are more than 30 people detained… as a result of the incident in Villa Rosa,” Alfredo Romero of Penal Forum right groups said on Twitter.
Reports pointed out that all except Braulio Jatar - a local pro-opposition lawyer - were detained. Jatar was released the following afternoon. Maduro had travelled to the country’s northern coast to inaugurate a number of new public housing units. Although the president’s office has remained silent about the incident, Henrique Capriles, an opposition governor, said, “The people of Vila Rosa in Margarita have no fear. Through banging pots, Maduro was run out of town.”
Information Minister Luis Marcano, on the other hand, published a video on Twitter showing the president being cheered in Margarita Island. He wrote, “What you didn’t see in the videos manipulated by the right wing.” The protest came after a march in Caracas on Thursday where more than one million people took to the streets to demand his removal from the office. The anti-government protestors are calling for a referendum to recall the president amid the economic crisis faced by the country that has led to a severe food shortage in Venezuela.
However, the government said that it prevented a coup plot following the demonstration. Addressing reporters, Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez, said, “The national government's action prevented a massacre. Snipers looked to assassinate citizens to sell to the world a not so nice image of our country. And we have been perpetually denouncing this. The top and elite of the Venezuelan opposition is spraying this to the world, discrediting Venezuela.”
Irked by food crisis protestors chase Venezuelan president at local political event
“There is a high risk he will remain in detention,” Erika Guevara-Rosas, the group’s Americas director, told CNSNews.com. The Maduro government has “co-opted” the judiciary to attack its opponents, she said, noting that students detained after anti-government protests last year were still sitting in jail awaiting trial. “We are very concerned that we are seeing another case of someone who is being detained for politically motivated reasons,” Guevara-Rosas said. “The detention of opposition leaders is putting the country in a very serious human rights crisis.” “The situation is very critical given the humanitarian crisis the country is facing.” Jatar, director of the news website Reporte Confidencial (Confidential Report) on Margarita Island, was seized Sept. 3 by the Venezuelan intelligence service and accused of money laundering, according to the Inter American Press Association (IAPA).
Authorities arrested Jatar on his way to work a day after a large crowd of angry citizens banging pots and pans confronted and then chased Maduro as he left an official event on foot in the island’s small town of Villa Rosa. According to Foreign Policy, Jatar posted online a video of the confrontation which he had filmed on his cell phone. The government initially denied it had detained Jatar, finally acknowledging his arrest 12 hours after he was secretly transferred from Margarita to a jail in Caracas, Guevara-Rosas said. His family and lawyers still do not have physical access to him and there’s a “question mark as to what is going to happen,” she added. Jatar holds both Chilean and Venezuelan citizenship, and the Chilean government demanded that the authorities reveal his location and respect “minimal norms,” the BBC reported. Brazil also condemned his detention, calling it a “clear” failure by Maduro’s government to respect fundamental liberties.
While Jatar remains in custody, 30 people arrested following the confrontation with Maduro on Margarita have all been released, the BBC reported. Jatar’s arrest follows a longstanding pattern of harassing journalists and denying freedom of expression that began when Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, was first elected in 1999, according to Ricardo Trotti, executive director of the Inter American Press Association. “This is not new. It’s been like this since the beginning of the Chavismo era,” Trotti said by phone from Miami. “It’s not getting worse, because it’s always been like that,” he said. According to the IAPA, the Maduro government denied entry to numerous foreign journalists seeking to cover a massive Sept. 1 march in Caracas organized by the opposition, including reporters from NPR, the Miami Herald, Al Jazeera and the French newspaper Le Monde.
IAPA said the Colombian television broadcaster NTN24 “complained that its news, technical and production team in Venezuela has received verbal threats from self-styled ‘pro-government collectives.’” The publishers of the Venezuelan newspapers El Nacional, Tal Cual, and LaPatilla were all convicted of defamation after reporting that the president of Venezuela's National Assembly was being investigated by U.S. authorities for drug trafficking, according to Trotti. El Nacional publisher Miguel Otero is in self-exile in Miami. “He knows he is going to be arrested and thinks he doesn’t have any chance with the judicial system” in Venezuela, Trotti said, describing Venezuela as “one of the worst Latin American countries” for journalists. In Mexico, Trotti said, the problem is censorship enforced by organized crime. In Venezuela, it’s the state. “That’s the big difference between the two.”
Venezuelan Govt. Continues to Harass Press Amid Worsening Human Rights Crisis
The Democratic Unity coalition is running out of options to force a plebiscite this year to trigger a presidential election should Maduro lose. If a referendum is held in 2017 and he loses, the vice president would take over for the second half of Maduro's six-year term, ensuring the Socialists stay in power. Maduro, 53, has seen his popularity plummet with the failing economy and is determined to stop a referendum this year that polls show he probably would lose. The election board said a meeting to organize the next stage of the referendum process - the collection of 20 percent of voter signatures, or about 4 million - was postponed to Monday because of "threats" to the institution.
That was a reference to the opposition's latest street rallies on Friday to protest foot-dragging by the election board, which it accuses of bias. Despite a Sept. 1 march that drew an estimated 1 million people, only hundreds turned up on Friday due to a mixture of fatigue, apathy and the need to stand in line for food. Opposition leader Henry Ramos said given the last-minute call for protests and that people were facing a "dictatorship," the mobilization was still a success.
Venezuela's 30 million people are suffering shortages, triple-digit inflation and a third year of recession. That has led to looting, fights in lines and spontaneous demonstrations that could be a bigger threat to Maduro than the coalition-organized rallies. "The situation is intolerable. I'm sick of lines, I can't find food or medicines," homemaker Edelmira Flores, 59, said as she waved a banner in a Caracas square on Friday.
One of the opposition coalition's parties, Justice First, said five of its activists had been arrested overnight in Zulia and Anzoategui states, amid what activists say is a wave of repression by the Maduro government. Officials say the increased opposition militancy masks a U.S.-backed coup plan, and have been displaying stashes of weapons and explosives to try and prove that. "If we don't defend the revolution, we're finished," said Martha Rojas, 44, at a pro-Maduro rally in Caracas also attended by just a few hundred people.
Venezuela opposition running out of options to force 2016 Maduro vote
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has touted the 17th meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement as one that would "be remembered for centuries," as the unpopular leftist seeks to bolster his international legitimacy. Yet the turnout from the 120-nation Cold War-era bloc has paled compared to past meetings, including the previous summit in Iran in 2012, attended by some 35 heads of state. Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Iran's Hassan Rouhani and Palestine's Mahmoud Abbas, as well as regional allies from Cuba, Ecuador and Bolivia are among the few heads of states who have landed on the Caribbean island of Margarita.
The half-century old movement formed by nations wanting to avoid aligning with the United States or Soviet Union has dwindled in relevance over the years. But it appears that heads of states' attendance at the summit in recession-stricken Venezuela is particularly low, possibly even in single digits, although the government did not respond to a request for a list of attendees. Venezuela's opposition, vying to remove Maduro in a recall referendum, has jumped on low attendance as a sign of his isolation. "Millions of dollars of Venezuelans' money spent for the government's ego," said opposition leader Henrique Capriles. "Many of the countries didn't come to the show!"
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe (C) walks next to Venezuela's Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez (R) as he arrives to the 17th Non-Aligned Summit in Porlamar, Venezuela
In one glaring absence, co-founder and key member India did not send Prime Minister Narendra Modi, only the second time the country's head of state has missed a summit since its 1961 founding. Venezuela is undergoing a major economic crisis that has sparked worsening food shortages and triple-digit inflation. Margarita was once known as the 'Pearl of the Caribbean,' a tourist hub that drew visitors from around the world, but hotel occupancy is under half what it was last year and some islanders recently humiliated Maduro by chasing him in a poor neighborhood, banging pots and pans.
The delegates who did come complained privately of a lack of organization, delays and shabby hotels, despite Venezuela's efforts to make Margarita shine by repainting roads, stocking supermarket shelves and boosting security on the crime-ridden island. Venezuela unveiled a statue of Chavez near the summit on Friday, took over the group's presidency on Saturday, and, in a series of speeches, leaders from Mugabe to Cuba's Raul Castro lambasted imperialism and pledged their support to Maduro. And the summit's final document was set to express solidarity with Maduro, according to a draft seen by Reuters. "The Venezuelan people are full of emotion and pride," Maduro said in a speech on Saturday.
Venezuela summit draws few leaders in blow to Maduro
Police this week issued an order barring protests in the capital Harare, but campaigners on Friday vowed to challenge the ban through the courts, which overturned a similar order earlier this month. A coalition of opposition parties under the banner of the National Electoral Reform Agenda is demanding reform ahead of the 2018 election, when Mugabe, now aged 92, plans to stand again. Mugabe has vowed a crackdown on dissent and blasted judges for “reckless” rulings allowing previous demonstrations.
Promise Mkwananzi, spokesman for the protest group Tajamuka, said they would march yesterday despite the police order. “The constitution and the high court allow for peaceful demonstrations,” he said. “The police are promoting lawlessness in the country by banning peaceful demonstrations.”
Two weeks ago, police detained scores of people including activists and bystanders following violent protests in the capital. “Tensions have been visibly mounting and the momentum for more protest is growing,” the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies said in a report this week. “The state has a limited repertoire of options to respond with, so far falling back on its traditional modes of repressive policing.”
Mugabe has vowed to end the wave of recent protests, last weekend warning marchers that they were “playing a dangerous game.” Unemployment is about 90 percent in Zimbabwe, which has been gripped by a cash shortage worsened by a severe regional drought.
Zimbabwe police on alert for election reform protesters - Taipei Times
The health group said the suspected diphtheria cases occurred in Venezuela's Bolivar state, where the children presented symptoms. Diphtheria, caused by the bacterium Corynebacterium diphtheriae, leads to a thick covering in the back of the throat that can lead to difficulty breathing, heart failure, paralysis and death. Diphtheria is easily prevented through a vaccine. The group has urged Venezuela's health authorities to warn the public of a possible diphtheria outbreak in Bolivar and to supply prophylactic antibiotics and vaccines to children near where the suspected cases occurred, El Nacional reports.
The group also called on the Venezuelan government under President Nicolas Maduro to expand healthcare to cover vaccination plans that include diphtheria in children. "Diphtheria once was a major cause of illness and death among children. The United States recorded 206,000 cases of diphtheria in 1921 and 15,520 deaths. Before there was treatment for diphtheria, up to half of the people who got the disease died from it," the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement. "Starting in the 1920s, diphtheria rates dropped quickly in the United States and other countries with the widespread use of vaccines."
The CDC said that there were 7,321 reported cases of diphtheria worldwide in 2014. Venezuela is facing an economic crisis in which food, basic goods and medicines are either in short supply or not available.
Diphtheria, eradicated in Venezuela in 1940s, may have killed 3 children
No, this isn't Venezuela but rather nearby Suriname, a multi-ethnic former Dutch colony where the economy is in freefall amid collapsing global commodity prices and the local currency's resulting slide against the U.S. dollar. Life has become exceedingly difficult in this isolated country of about 540,000 people on South America's northeastern coast, which the World Bank says now has the world's third highest rate of inflation, behind Venezuela and South Sudan. "I am absolutely worried my country is becoming another Venezuela," said Umar Nazier, who closed his Texas-style grill restaurant in June because the cost of ingredients had doubled. "I had no other choice but to adjust the prices on my menu, but these new prices scared the customers away."
The International Monetary Fund, which authorized a $478 million loan to Suriname in May, expects the economy to contract 2 percent this year. Suriname's Bureau of Statistics says inflation is running at an annualized 64 percent, up from an average 4 percent in 2013-2015. The main reason for the collapse is falling prices for Suriname's main exports, gold and oil, and last year's closure of the Alcoa aluminum refinery, long a pillar of the economy. President Desi Bouterse likely also contributed by spending heavily before the May 2015 election, exhausting currency reserves. Bouterse has frozen retail fuel prices and backed away from energy price increases, against the IMF's budget-protecting recommendations. He has also vowed to stabilize the exchange rate of the Surinamese dollar, which has fallen by more than half against the U.S. dollar over the past year.
The president said at a news conference Tuesday that the IMF requirements are "very harsh" and that his government may move to withdraw from the loan agreement and seek support from other sources such as the Islamic Development Bank. "The IMF is cold and only thinks about the numbers and the deadlines we had agreed to," Bouterse said. "If the agreement with the IMF becomes too difficult to follow, if we risk becoming victims of the agreement ourselves, we will have to look for other options." As in other import-dependent countries, health care has been hit particularly hard. Doctors at the Academic Hospital Paramaribo, the country's largest, recently posted a YouTube video pleading for help from Surinamese living abroad, saying they lacked such things as sterile tubes. "We have reached the point that people will die an avoidable death," one said.
Hospital officials and doctors declined interview requests but accounts of shortages are widespread. Amanda Palis said she visited four pharmacies seeking a medicine to treat nausea and vomiting for her 2-year-old daughter before giving up and trying something else recommended by a pharmacist. "I eventually gave my daughter medication that was not prescribed for her," she said. "What else could I do?"
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Supreme Tribunal of Justice, or TSJ, through its Constitutional Hall, issued the injunction -- or recurso de amparo -- that opposition parliamentarians refrain from carrying out a proposed "political judgment" against President Nicolas Maduro or any other act deemed "unconstitutional."
The TSJ's ruling comes after the Democratic Unity Roundtable opposition coalition vowed this week to bring Maduro to trial. The National Assembly in late October said Maduro would stand trial -- a symbolic trial that was later delayed -- after the opposition's efforts to carry out a recall referendum were suspended by the National Electoral Council, which is accused, along with the TSJ, of favoring Maduro. The opposition lawmakers said Maduro staged a coup d'etat by ordering unconstitutional actions, referring to the suspension of the referendum. Muñoz last week said the National Assembly's assertion that Maduro staged an unconstitutional coup d'etat and its intent to make Maduro stand trial are grounds for legal repercussions -- prompting him to file the now-approved injunction.
Despite the TSJ's ruling, the opposition said it will continue with the trial. Maduro was asked to attend the trial in Caracas's Federal Legislative Palace in person to face the unicameral legislature's charges before it was delayed. "Absolutely null the new decision by the 'TSJ Unconstitutional Hall' declaring cautious favor for Maduro promoted by the cheap attorney general of the republic," Henry Ramos Allup, leader of Venezuela's National Assembly legislature, said in a statement. "'TSJ Unconstitutional Hall,' fraudulent, designed to violate the Constitution, may give instructions to its gangs of minions but not to the National Assembly elected by the people."
Venezuela's high court forbids parliament from holding Maduro trial
During his weekly television program Sunday, Maduro said Venezuela will once again formally petition Obama to repeal the decree. Maduro said he will bring up the matter with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. "President Obama, you can win the admiration of the people of Venezuela if you have the courage to sign a decree repealing that infamous decree that says our beloved homeland Venezuela is a threat to the United States," Maduro said.
In March 2015, Obama signed an executive order declaring a national emergency to protect human rights and democratic institutions in Venezuela and to protect the U.S. financial system from illicit capital flows from the country. The executive order also imposed sanctions against seven Venezuelan officials.
Maduro said the decree, which was extended in March, is "an atrocity that I hope Barack Obama corrects before he leaves office." Venezuela is facing an ongoing economic and political crisis under Maduro's leadership. In September, Kerry and Maduro met in Colombia. Though the officials did not reveal what they discussed, Kerry said that the Obama administration is "deeply concerned about events in Venezuela," but added that, "We want to be constructive. We are not looking for conflict."
In a positive note between U.S. and Venezuelan relations, Obama sent Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas A. Shannon, Jr. to Caracas earlier this month to aid in mediation efforts during negotiations between Maduro's regime and the opposition. "Ambassador Shannon will meet with senior government officials, members of the political opposition, and representatives of civil society," the U.S. Department of State said in a statement. "His visit will underscore our support for the ongoing dialogue process, and our interest in the well-being of the Venezuelan people."
Maduro asks Obama to take back calling Venezuela a national security threat
