Category: Venezuela

Venezuela’s central bank president acknowledged on Sunday that his country was undergoing an "economic crisis" but said measures like a new market-based currency mechanism would help bring rapid improvements. The announcement came amid continuing street protests against the government of President Nicolas Maduro. Unrest has been fueled by a 56 percent annual inflation rate and regular shortages of consumer goods. Late Saturday, Maduro warned protesters in Caracas to clear a square they have made their stronghold , or face eviction by security forces. Plaza Altamira, in upscale east Caracas, has been a focus of anti-government protests and violence during six weeks of unrest around Venezuela that has killed 28 people. "I’m giving the Chuckys, the killers, just a few hours," Maduro said, using the name of a murderous child-doll in a horror film to describe anti-government demonstrators who have made the normally genteel 1940s square a base of operations. "If they don’t […]

Click here to view full article at america.aljazeera.com

The World Bank said it won’t reconsider Venezuela’s request to review last year’s decision against it for seizing assets of ConocoPhillips in 2007. Venezuelan energy company Petroleos de Venezuela , known as PDVSA, said a 2013 ruling it failed to act in good faith in talks to compensate Conoco for assets seized in 2007 was unfair. The World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes said Wednesday it was upholding the September decision. "The majority of the tribunal concludes that it does not have the power to reconsider," the ruling states in part. Former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2007 moved to put the state in control of several oil projects in 2007. PDVSA said the September decision for compensation was unjust and ICSID said in its ruling it would take that matter up "in due course." There was no statement from PDVSA […]

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

A university student, a National Guard captain and a third man were shot to death in separate incidents on Wednesday during anti-government protests in the central city of Valencia. Three National Guardsmen and several protesters were wounded. Two of the deaths occurred in the opposition-dominated neighborhood of Isabelica, where residents dissatisfied with the scarcity of basic items and rising unemployment have protested for weeks by blocking streets and throwing rocks at police officers.  The opposition has accused the government of supporting armed civilian thugs who attack protesters. A month of student-led demonstrations in a number of Venezuelan cities has left at least 25 people dead, according to the government.

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

The gunmen descended a street on Monday night toward a park taken over by student demonstrators in the western city of San Cristóbal, the crucible of the protests that have shaken Venezuela . They opened fire, and a 23-year-old student leader, Daniel Tinoco, fell. Hit in the upper body, he died before he got to a hospital, fellow protesters said. Less than a week earlier, in Caracas, someone opened fire and killed a 25-year-old soldier, Acner López, who was riding on a motorcycle. Residents said he was in a group of soldiers shooting tear gas at demonstrators and apartment buildings. The shot that killed him, investigators believe, came from someone in one of the apartments. These two deaths, among more than 20 that the government says are linked to over a month of protests, are emblematic of a spiral of violence that people on both sides […]

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

People in the western Venezuelan city of San Cristobal, where the current eruption of anti-government unrest began early last month, say National Guard troops have attacked and dismantled barricades that protesters had raised at key intersections. Local TV journalist Beatriz Font and other witnesses say guardsmen fired a lot of tear gas, including at nearby residential buildings, according to The Associated Press. They say the attack began before midnight and continued into early Monday. Font said the guardsmen broke windows and several people reported from apartment buildings near the intersections that children and elderly people were being affected by the gas. The disturbance began a day after hundreds of National Guardsmen in riot gear and armored vehicles prevented an "empty pots march" from reaching Venezuela’s Food Ministry on Saturday to protest now-chronic food shortages. President Nicolas Maduro’s government, meanwhile, celebrated an Organization of American States (OAS) declaration supporting its […]

Click here to view full article at america.aljazeera.com

A Venezuelan soldier and a motorcyclist died in a confused melee sparked by the opposition’s barricading of a Caracas street, officials said on Thursday, boosting the death toll from nearly a month of violence to 20. Demonstrators have for weeks staged rallies and set up barricades to demand the resignation of President Nicolas Maduro, leading to clashes with security forces and government supporters. Motorcycle drivers clearing a barricade in the middle-class neighborhood of Los Ruices were attacked by residents from nearby buildings who threw rocks and later shot at them, National Guard Gen. Manuel Quevedo told Reuters. The motorcyclist who was killed, Jose Cantillo, who was in his early twenties, was shot in the neck, Quevedo said. "Make no mistake, the National Guard and the armed forces are going to continue patrolling the streets to restore order," he said in an interview at the scene of […]

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

Venezuela’s President, Nicolas Maduro, has broken diplomatic relations and frozen economic ties with Panama. The decision comes after the Central American nation requested a meeting at the Organization of American States (OAS) to discuss Venezuela’s crisis. Mr Maduro was speaking to other Latin American heads of state at events to mark the first anniversary of the death of the Venezualan leader Hugo Chavez. At least 18 people have died in anti-government protests in the last month. "I’ve decided to break political and diplomatic ties with the current government of Panama and freeze all trade and economic relations from this moment on," Mr Maduro told the presidents of Cuba, Raul Castro, Uruguay, Jose Mujica, and Bolivia, Evo Morales, among other leaders gathered around the tomb of Mr Chavez. ‘Conspiracy’ Panama’s President […]

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

Venezuela’s President, Nicolas Maduro, has broken diplomatic relations and frozen economic ties with Panama. The decision comes after the Central American nation requested a meeting at the Organization of American States (OAS) to discuss Venezuela’s crisis. Mr Maduro was speaking to other Latin American heads of state at events to mark the first anniversary of the death of the Venezualan leader Hugo Chavez. At least 18 people have died in anti-government protests in the last month. "I’ve decided to break political and diplomatic ties with the current government of Panama and freeze all trade and economic relations from this moment on," Mr Maduro told the presidents of Cuba, Raul Castro, Uruguay, Jose Mujica, and Bolivia, Evo Morales, among other leaders gathered around the tomb of Mr Chavez. ‘Conspiracy’ Panama’s President […]

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

Thousands of opposition demonstrators in Venezuela have marched through the streets of Caracas in new protests against the government. At the end of the march, activists clashed with police in the opposition strongholds of Chacao and Altamira. President Nicolas Maduro extended the traditional carnival holidays until the end of this week and asked Venezuelans to rest and celebrate peace. At least 17 people have been killed in more than three weeks of unrest. Opposition leaders have asked people to ignore the carnival season, when many Venezuelans traditionally go to the seaside. They are demanding the release of dozens of demonstrators and activists arrested since last month, including high-profile politician Leopoldo Lopez. The opposition blames the left-wing policies of Mr Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, for […]

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

At a conference that annually celebrates–for the most part–the explosion of North American supply, a panel that featured two PDVSA alumni turned into a bleak review of an almost unfathomable crisis gripping the Venezuelan oil industry. The strife in the streets of Caracas, and the lines of people waiting to buy the basic stuff of life, are almost secondary to the fact that, as the panelists noted, the Venezuelan government has mortgaged the future of its oil industry. Waiting for the country’s rapidly sinking ship of state to be righted by an increase in production, and maybe a boost in prices too, increasingly appears to be a pipe dream. The two panelists discussing this on day two of the Platts Crude Oil Market-Americas conference in Houston were Alberto Cisnernos Lavalier, CEO and president of Caracas-based Global Business Consultants, and Ramon Espinasa, the lead oil and gas specialist in the […]

Click here to view full article at blogs.platts.com