Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Venezuela gets worse

Johns Hopkins Prof. Steve Hanke tweets,

Venezuela: It’s Only Getting Worse – Oil Markets Daily

Summary

  • Venezuela’s oil production, according to secondary sources, stands at 1.987 million b/d.
  • With inflation rising and economic turmoil continuing, we expect Venezuela’s oil production to decline another 300k b/d this year.
  • Lower oil prices will continue to hamper high cost oil production globally, and our obsession over how much high cost production will decline is our main bullish long oil thesis.


Venezuelan Supreme Court Annuls Act of Congress, Parliamentary Immunity (emphasis added)

With the application of this ruling, the Supreme Court may annul any action of the National Assembly that violates Article 200 of the Constitution, which indicates that the deputies of the National Parliament “shall enjoy immunity in the exercise of their functions.”

Also, the ruling in question could lead to the prosecution of deputies for “treason to the mother country” in military courts, analysts report.

Over at the OAS,
Venezuela in showdown with OAS, U.S. over political prisoners

As expected, Venezuela pushes back against OAS suspension warnings. The Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS) has called for Venezuela to be suspended from the group unless it holds fresh elections. Ahead of a special OAS meeting, Caracas called the proposed move illegal

In this speech (5:30 into the podcast, in Spanish), OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro stated that the United States Treasury Department has frozen nearly US $3 billion of Venezuela Vice-President Tareck El Aissami’s assets, “an amount equivalent to half the cost of the country’s 2012 food imports.”

Post corrected for HTML error.



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Venezuela: Maduro fiddles on TV while Rome burns

Nero couldn’t fiddle while Rome burned, since, for starters, fiddles had not yet been invented, but Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro is still on TV attempting diversions from the country’s chaos. . . and failing,
Maduro’s awkward TV shows raise hackles amid Venezuela crisis

A girl complains that hungry classmates are fainting at school, and Maduro chides her for not doing more for them. A boy says he missed a big soccer game because he was hospitalized, and Maduro recommends he find it on YouTube.

The unpopular leftist president’s hours-long televised visits to clinics or schools are meant to soften his image, but foes say they instead highlight his disconnect from a national economic crisis in which millions of people are missing meals.

The facts (emphasis added):

Steeped in the fourth year of a recession, around 93 percent of Venezuelans cannot afford to buy sufficient food and 73 percent of them have lost weight in the last year, according to a recent study by three universities.

People protest that their local bakeries are closed.

Criminality is horrific: Venezuela shocked as children arrested for soldiers’ killings

The authorities in Venezuela say they have arrested six children in connection with the killing of two soldiers.

The soldiers, two sergeants from the national guard, were stabbed to death near a bar in the capital, Caracas, last weekend.

The crime has shocked the country, as the ages of the children now in custody range from six to 15 years.

They are said to belong to a gang called Los Cachorros (The Puppies).

At the OAS, secretary-general Luis Almagro

is lobbying the 34-nation, Washington-based body to oust Venezuela from its ranks unless President Nicolás Maduro permits elections and eases a clampdown on opponents and the press.

UPDATE
Linked to by Designs on the Truth. Thank you!

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OAS requests Venezuela suspension

OAS Chief Urges Suspension of Venezuela’s MembershipSecretary-General Luis Almagro calls on President Maduro to hold elections, take measures to support democracy to avoid possible suspension

The head of the Organization of American States on Tuesday recommended suspending Venezuela from the 34-nation body unless President Nicolás Maduro’s government moves quickly to hold general elections.

In a 75-page letter, OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro urged the Maduro administration to call elections within 30 days, free political prisoners, appoint independent Supreme Court justices and reinstate laws that were passed by the opposition-controlled congress but annulled by his government.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan dissident Lilian Tintori, wife of political prisoner Leopoldo López, was not allowed to enter Ecuador (link in Spanish), where she had been invited by opposition members.

“We are harassed by immigration at Guayaquil airport, we are taped and have our passport taken away. The Government of Ecuador violates our #HumanRights”

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Venezuela: OAS calls meeting on democratic charter

OAS Chief Calls for Meeting to Discuss Maduro’s Rule in Venezuela. Organization of American States’ Almagro criticizes threat to democratic principles

Luis Almagro, Uruguay’s former foreign minister, made the request Monday night for the meeting after submitting to the council a 133-page report on alleged human rights violations and the conflict of powers in Venezuela. The emergency meeting in mid-June, if approved, could eventually lead to Venezuela’s suspension from the hemisphere’s oldest and most important body.

Here’s the text of the Democratic Charter.

Roundup:
A must-read: Et tu, Macri? Why on earth is Argentina trying to block application of the Inter-American Democratic Charter in Venezuela? The tawdry story follows.

OAS Chief Calls for Emergency Meeting to Evaluate Venezuela

OAS head calls for vote on Venezuela’s ‘grave alterations’ to democracy

Venezuela: OAS head calls emergency meeting over crisis

OAS Calls Emergency Meeting on Venezuela’s Undemocratic Rule

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