The main coalition of opposition parties, Democratic Unity Table (MUD), made this Friday a self-critical statement on its balance of 2017 in which it admits not having reacted efficiently to the people suffering, in addition to not having been able to accompany the people who have protested these days for lack of food and other items
This Thursday, the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence (VVO) published its annual report, in the hands of its director, the sociologist Roberto Briceño León, which shows a 2017 full of irregularities by the State and a high rate of abuse of the same and towards it.
Brazil maintains that the settlement of the Guyana/Venezuela Border is final and must be respected, according to the country's Foreign Minister Carl Greenidge. Following his attendance at the recently concluded Mercosur Summit held in Brazil, Greenidge said Brasilia has been updated on Venezuela’s contention that the 1899 Award is null and void, and remains resolute to its original position.
Brazil has declared Gerardo Maldonado, Venezuela’s top diplomat in the country, persona non grata in a tit-for-tat move that comes just days after Caracas expelled the Brazilian ambassador.
“Venezuela: God and Christ gave us the victory. Lets go to the streets to take our freedom” says Oscar Pérez, an ex-inspector of the CICPC, the national police force in a new video diffused by himself with a group of rebellious officials. In the video he calls on the population and the national security agencies to join them in the fight and rebel against the regime of Nicolás Maduro.
It is paradoxical how a country with the largest oil reserves in the world has a shortage of gasoline. Of course, Venezuela does not produce gasoline as such, but sells crude oil and imports gasoline, so with the sanctions imposed by various nations and the very crisis that PDVSA (State Company) suffers - which according to the unions works approximately 13% of its capacity- complicate the problem.
When it comes to getting medical treatments, temporary work, migration for a short time, buying food or making more money, Cúcuta has been the better option, if not the perfect one, it is the most practical, for many Venezuelans.
The Brazilian foreign ministry has no plans to send a new ambassador to Venezuela, after Ruy Pereira was declared “persona non grata” by the government of Nicolás Maduro. With the ousting of ambassador Ruy Pereira the embassy will be the responsibility of the highest ranking diplomatic in Caracas, who is the business attaché. He is the second most senior and who has spent more time in Venezuela behind the ambassador.
Canada has announced it is expelling Venezuela's ambassador to Ottawa, Wilmer Barrientos Fernández, and its charge d'affaires, Ángel Herrera. Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said the move was in retaliation for the expulsion of its most senior diplomat from Caracas over the weekend.
Officials in Venezuela took the first step on Saturday toward expelling top diplomats from Brazil and Canada who have been accused of meddling in the country’s politics. National constituent assembly president Delcy Rodriguez declared both Brazil’s ambassador and Canada’s charge d’affaires as persona non grata, a move which does away with their diplomatic credentials.