MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Venezuela blackout interrupts live-television broadcast from President Maduro
A blackout cut electricity in various parts of Venezuela on Friday and twice interrupted the live television broadcast of a speech by President Nicolas Maduro, who said authorities were seeking more information about the outage. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesSo glad I don't live in yet another socialist paradise.
Jun 28th, 2014 - 11:19 am - Link - Report abuse 0Spiderman strikes again...
Jun 28th, 2014 - 11:27 am - Link - Report abuse 0I am surprised he didn't claim the cause was their system of Alternating Current!
Jun 28th, 2014 - 12:01 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I am sure that his supporters, both foreign and domestic, would believe him.
Good thing they are a rich OPEC country. Imagine if they were poor.......oh yeah.......all that black gold and they are. If I were Venezuelan and compared my standard of living to that of someone from real OPEC nations.....I would be just a tad PISSED OFF.
Jun 28th, 2014 - 12:20 pm - Link - Report abuse 0How fortunate for Venezuelans. How long did they get “off”? Why don't more Venezuelans smash their TVs in protest at him getting him on there. Will the government be paying compensation?
Jun 28th, 2014 - 02:05 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Bread Riots
Jun 28th, 2014 - 02:16 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Country wide power outages
It must be the Americans
:)
Perhaps the little bird is shitting oh, sorry, sitting on the power lines. :o)
Jun 28th, 2014 - 05:06 pm - Link - Report abuse 0What else can you say about the whack jobs in charge, other than they should be whacked for real.
@6 I guess Venezuelans will thank the Americans for interrupting another Maduro speech :)
Jun 29th, 2014 - 04:07 am - Link - Report abuse 0I would like to order a power outage when that fat turd Alex Salmond is on my television too please.
Jun 29th, 2014 - 10:10 pm - Link - Report abuse 024000 violent deaths last year.
Jun 30th, 2014 - 09:51 pm - Link - Report abuse 016000 kidnappings.
Blackouts are commonplace and are now considered 'normal'. As are near constant shortages of basic goods and foodstuffs.
We have seen 2hr lines for bread, milk or chicken. It is impossible to buy all three items on the same day. Sometimes in the same week.
Toiletries and cleaning products are so scarce they cost x10 on the black market.
The pharmacies are empty of common medicines.
People suffering from both common illnesses and HIV are dieing every day because the government will not pay the dollar exchange.
Some of these 'old school' leftwing are deserting the current administration and accusing the Chavista Boligarchs of killing the very people they claim the represent.
The administration says they are traitors who should be executed. (I'll post links if requested).
Thousands of people have been incarcerated with out trial.
Malaria and Dengue Fever are massively on the increase again. Thousands may die.
Mercopress posts that one of the daily government propaganda broadcasts was interrupted, without providing any context.
Pathetic effort.
Between a.hole MADuro and the blackout, would prefer the latter...
Jul 03rd, 2014 - 11:23 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Norway and Venezuela have some things in common.
Jul 05th, 2014 - 03:48 pm - Link - Report abuse 0They both have oil and gas
They both have beautiful landscapes
They both have a minority of “First Nations” (Even if Sami and Native Americans had different interactions to the majority of the population, they also have many similar concerns)
Even so, as any visitor to both countries can tell you, these two countries couldn't be more apart. You can see wealth in Norway. It is, indeed a rich country. Venezuela is a poor country that insists it is rich because of its oil. Venezuela's population does not realise a country is only rich when the population has the productivity, the education and the organisation to use that oil or to generate wealth from other means. Norway's population reached, many decades ago, levels of education - literacy and numeracy, for instance - that haven't been attained in Venezuela to this day.
The murder rate in Norway is about 1/60 of what Venezuela has now (1/19 of what Venezuela had in 1998). There are no shortages of electricity or other goods in Norway (unless you count the sun as a good). Tourism is well organised in Norway. In Venezuela tourist infrastructure is extremely bad.
Most importantly, Norway has a rule of law and separation of powers.
Chávez came to power promising to reduce the number of ministries. He increased them and no one dared to tell him what a liar he was. The number went from about 10 to 31. The number is now between 30 and 33 depending on how you count. Even ministers in Venezuela are not sure what a ministry is anymore.
The Ministry for Government Administration hardly functions, although Planificación used to do a bit of that. The Ministry for Regions is not existent in Venezuela, although it is something carried out by a couple of the 111 viceministries Venezuela has.
They do have a ministry for electicity, and one for oil and mines.
Yet the blackouts are common and food is scarce.
Time to re-boot the whole system. The current one has failed.
@12, I was in Norway about 10 years ago, and after being accustomed to Latin America for decades, the contrast hits you like a ton of bricks... as you said, the only things in common are the oil & gas, and nature.
Jul 06th, 2014 - 03:51 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The fact that in VZ , Chavez raised the number of ministries from about 10 to 31, is well in line with South American politics....when Lula came to power in 2003, he increased the number of ministries from 16 to 35, 0r 36. Dilma added 2 more....after all, you've gotta give jobs to your 'comrades'...One of the ministries that Lula created was the “Racial Equality” Ministry......he appointed a black lady, who was kind of outspoken, to the point of declaring in public, that is was “alright for blacks to hate whites” (but not the other way round)....unbelieveable, but it wasn't enough to get her sacked. What did get her sacked a few months later, was that she was accused of charging all her personal and family expenses to her government credit card, meant to be used only for job-related expenses...when caught red-handed, she claimed she “had no idea” that the card could not be used for personal purchases . She was sacked, but did not have to return the money.
Am not even going to try to compare crime indices, as Brazil is unfortunately, if not the world's record holder, a close runner-up.
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