Category: Latin America

Peter Phillips, Jamaica’s finance minister. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg (Bloomberg) — Jamaica is in talks with financial institutions on a plan to pay off debt it owes Venezuela for oil it received through the Petrocaribe energy program, Finance Minister Peter Phillips said. The talks come less than two months after the Dominican Republic struck a deal to pay $1.9 billion for nearly all of the $4.1 billion it owed Petroleos de Venezuela SA, which administers Petrocaribe. Phillips said a similar deal makes sense for Jamaica, but he declined to provide details on how the deal would be structured or how soon an agreement could be reached. “We certainly have valued and continue to value the Petrocaribe arrangement,” Phillips said Wednesday in an interview at the Jamaica Investment Forum in Montego Bay. “We are mindful of the particular needs of our Venezuelan counterparts and in that space there is some prospect […]

Click here to view full article at www.bloomberg.com

CARACAS (Reuters) – President Nicolas Maduro was seeking special decree powers from Venezuela’s parliament on Tuesday in response to new U.S. sanctions, drawing opposition protests of a power-grab. If as expected the government-controlled National Assembly approves his request for an "Enabling Law", it would be the second time the 52-year-old successor to Hugo Chavez has gained these expanded powers since winning election in 2013. "I’m going to ask for an anti-imperialist Enabling Law … to preserve the nation’s peace, integrity and sovereignty," Maduro said in a speech late on Monday night, without specifying further what decrees he might use it for. Opposition leaders slammed Maduro, saying he was using the worst flare-up with Washington of his nearly two-year rule to justify autocratic governance, sidetrack parliament and distract attention from Venezuela’s grave economic crisis. "Nicolas, are you requesting the Enabling Law to make soap, nappies and medicines appear, to lower […]

Click here to view full article at www.reuters.com

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro facing internal pressure as nation’s economy gets squeezed by sanctions and low oil prices. (UPI Photo/Mohammad Kheirkhah) While an official in Caracas said sanctions are an act of war, a top U.S official said the measures will have no direct impact on oil revenue for Venezuela. President Barack Obama issued an executive order Monday that sanctions seven Venezuelan officials for human rights offenses. A White House spokesman said the Obama administration is "deeply concerned" by the culture of political intimidation in Caracas. "Venezuela’s problems cannot be solved by criminalizing dissent," the spokesman said. President Nicolas Maduro has faced mounting pressure from his opponents at least since taking the reins in Caracas after his predecessor Hugo Chavez died in 2013. María Corina Machado, a former assemblywoman who helped lead protests against Maduro last year, recently called on Pope Francis to step in to a fracturing Venezuela. […]

Click here to view full article at www.upi.com

CARACAS, Venezuela — He thunders about conspiracies and assassination plots. He says that he sleeps with both eyes open. Few Venezuelans even know where he lives. But no matter the dangers, President Nicolás Maduro says that no one will scare him, fool him or divert him from carrying out the mission that the “eternal Commander Chávez” has given him “until the end of the end of the roads, now and forever.” Mr. Maduro came into office seeking to imitate his charismatic predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chávez , in nearly every way : the way he talked, the way he dressed and in his fulminations against American imperialism. But now, two years after the death of Mr. Chávez, with his country sinking deeper into an economic crisis, what was once Mr. Maduro’s greatest advantage — his absolute loyalty to the late leader — may have become his greatest handicap. “The […]

Click here to view full article at www.nytimes.com

CARACAS, Venezuela — An association of South American countries on Friday urged the region to help Venezuela keep basic goods on the shelves. The 12-nation UNASUR group called on every country in Latin America to do what they can to ensure Venezuelans have access to staples after a delegation met with President Nicolas Maduro. Secretary General Ernesto Samper said UNASUR would create a special commission to strengthen distribution chains. Pantry and cleaning basics like dish soap, detergent, milk and cooking oil, chronically in short supply in recent years, have become been even harder to find in the socialist-governed country since the year started. The meeting between South American foreign ministers and Venezuelan officials in Caracas had been expected to address the more abstract problems of rising tension between the administration and the opposition. Maduro recently accused opposition leaders of conspiring with the U.S. to bomb the presidential palace, while […]

Click here to view full article at www.startribune.com

CARACAS, Venezuela — With diplomatic relations fraying rapidly between the United States and Venezuela , the government of President Nicolás Maduro has given the American Embassy here 15 days to come up with a plan to drastically shrink its staff, Venezuela’s foreign minister announced Monday. Mr. Maduro has repeatedly accused the United States of backing a plot to overthrow him, and on Saturday he announced a series of diplomatic measures that he said were intended to halt American meddling. He said the United States would have to reduce the number of American officials at its embassy to a number similar to the staff at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington. He said there were 100 American officials here and just 17 Venezuelan officials in Washington, although those numbers have not been verified by the State Department. “Regarding the reduction to 17 officials with which the Embassy of the United States […]

Click here to view full article at www.nytimes.com

NEW YORK/MANAGUA (Reuters) – Venezuela, once a proud exporter of premium coffee, has been reduced to swapping crude oil for growing volumes of Nicaraguan coffee beans to make sure worsening economic turmoil does not prevent people from getting their caffeine fix. For the first time on record, coffee imports this year will exceed the bean output of Venezuela’s centuries-old coffee industry, according to U.S. government estimates. The South American country’s shift from net coffee exporter to substantial importer has altered flows in regional markets, boosting prices for some varieties of coffee. It is also another sign of how the collapse in crude oil prices, and resulting pressures on an already deeply troubled Venezuelan economy, has forced the government of the OPEC member to take extraordinary measures to keep supermarket shelves stocked with basic goods. Falling coffee production and near-record demand has forced it to buy more higher-priced foreign beans, according to Nicaragua’s export figures and interviews with producers and traders in Venezuela […]

Click here to view full article at www.reuters.com