Venezuela’s vice-president Jorge Arreaza recently heard directly from CARICOM chairman, Barbados’ Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, that the regional grouping is backing Guyana in the territorial dispute between the two South American neighbors. Stuart met last Friday with Arreaza who was visiting the island as part of a regional tour to discuss Venezuela’s territorial and maritime claims in the region.
The United States on Tuesday called on Venezuela to reverse a ban on opposition members from holding office and participating in the 6 December parliamentary elections. Washington made the request after opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said she had tried to register on Monday as a candidate but her application was rejected.
Venezuelan election officials rejected a high-profile opposition leader's attempt to register as a candidate Monday for upcoming congressional elections. Former congresswoman Maria Corina Machado announced that the National Elections Council had rejected her attempt to register to run in the Dec. 6 elections and called it a grotesque violation of her rights.
An ExxonMobil rig that re-ignited a maritime boundary dispute between Guyana and Venezuela has now left the area, a Guyanese official said on Monday, but denying it was because of Venezuelan pressure.
One person was killed and dozens were detained on Friday following looting of supermarkets in Venezuela's southeastern city of Ciudad Guayana, the state governor has said, amid the ongoing food shortages in the Mercosur-Unasur nation.
Venezuela's largest food distributor on Thursday denounced the government occupation of a Caracas warehouse amid accusations that the company is hoarding goods. Soldiers took over the warehouse complex used by Empresas Polar late Wednesday just as Venezuela's federation of brewers announced that Polar's beer manufacturing subsidiary is shutting two of its six plants because of a lack of imported barley.
Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro said he asked U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for U.N. mediation in his country's century-old border dispute with neighboring Guyana. The controversy was discussed by Maduro and Ban at a meeting Tuesday morning in New York.
Guyana's territorial dispute with neighboring Venezuela represents a threat to its very survival, President David Granger warned Friday in Washington. After a recent offshore oil find, the row between the two countries has escalated, with Venezuela laying claim to a huge swathe of Guyana's territory.
Guyana on Sunday warned it would “stoutly resist” plans by Venezuela to register residents in Essequibo and issue them identification cards for the neighbouring Spanish-speaking nation. Venezuela claims the region and has launched an aggressive campaign at domestic and international level calling president David Granger a 'provocateur”.
Guyana is no longer interested in the UN Good Offices Process as a means to settle its century-old border dispute with Venezuela, Foreign Minister Carl Greenidge said on Monday in a news briefing live-streamed online.