Venezuela

• Friday, April 7th 2017 - 10:39 UTC

  Mercosur and Pacific Alliance summit will address potential convergence and Trump's protectionism

  

  Mercosur and Pacific Alliance foreign ministers are scheduled to meet this Friday in Buenos Aires, on an Argentine initiative to advance in a possible political and trade confluence with the prospect of a regional alliance in the near future. The controversial Venezuela case will also be on the table, but attendants have anticipated that they won't let this issue dominate the agenda or cast a shadow on the purpose of the summit.

• Thursday, April 6th 2017 - 06:08 UTC

  Maduro blows up last bridge with Mercosur and causes deep rift in Uruguayan ruling coalition

  

  Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro seems to have blown up the last bridge to Mercosur when he launched a barrage of accusations against Uruguay's foreign minister which triggered an immediate reaction from president Tabare Vazquez, who demanded evidence of the charges or a public retraction from the embattled Maduro. But the conflict has also openly exposed the deep rift inside the Uruguayan ruling coalition regarding the Bolivarian revolution “anti imperialist” regime.

• Tuesday, April 4th 2017 - 09:55 UTC

  Maduro gained his true objective: sweeping authority to cut oil deals on behalf of PDVSA

  

  Venezuelan Supreme Court reversal decision to take over the opposition-led congress seems to have yielded to domestic and international pressure, but it still gives embattled populist President Nicolas Maduro broad new powers over the country´s vast oil wealth, which now appears to have been his true target.

• Saturday, April 1st 2017 - 23:12 UTC

  Domestic (military) and foreign pressure force Maduro to revoke annulment of Congress

  

  Venezuela's pro-government Supreme Court on Saturday revoked its controversial annulment of the opposition-led Congress amid international condemnation and protests against populist president Nicolas Maduro. Unprecedented pressure from other Latin American nations and dissent within its own ranks, and the military, appear to have been the catalyst for the court reversing its Wednesday ruling.

• Saturday, April 1st 2017 - 09:09 UTC

  Chavism divided: Chief prosecutor says there has been a ”rupture of constitutional order

  

  Venezuela's chief prosecutor broke with the government on Friday and rebuked a Supreme Court decision stripping Congress of its last vestiges of power, showing a crack in the unity of the embattled populist government of President Nicolas Maduro as it came under a torrent of international condemnation over what many decried as a major step toward dictatorship.

• Friday, March 31st 2017 - 07:20 UTC

  Venezuelan Supreme Court closes Legislative gives all power to Maduro: world condemnation

  

  The Venezuelan Supreme Court's decision late Wednesday to take control of the opposition-controlled legislature has set off a wave of outrage, with some hemispheric neighbors, including the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Peru and Argentina, denouncing the measure as a threat to democracy.

• Saturday, March 25th 2017 - 09:44 UTC

  Maduro asks United Nations to help with supplies of medicines

  

  Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has asked for help from the United Nations to boost the country's supplies of medicines. Maduro said the UN had the expertise to normalize the supply and distribution of drugs in the country.

• Friday, March 24th 2017 - 11:02 UTC

  Maduro desperately selling assets to pay US$ 3.7bn in debts

  

  In an effort to handle its overdue debts, Venezuela is all but giving away oil assets. President Nicolás Maduro is reportedly so desperate to pay the US$ 3.7 billion in debts that he is selling off the assets to Russia.

• Friday, March 24th 2017 - 10:54 UTC

  Venezuela paralyzed because of gasoline shortage: supplies rushed in from Houston

  

  Although Venezuela has 18 refineries throughout the world and six on its own soil, on Thursday most states face a shortage of gasoline that has led to long lines at gas stations around the country. Venezuelans have spent hours in such lines, as they await a product that has been in short supply for several days in different cities across the country.

• Thursday, February 23rd 2017 - 09:35 UTC

  Venezuelan vice-president publishes full page in New York Times rebuking drug trafficking charges

  

  Tareck El Aissami, the recently appointed vice president in Venezuela, took out a full-page in The New York Times on Wednesday to rebuke sanctions against him and other Venezuelan officials leveled by the US government over drug trafficking charges. El Aissami, who was named alongside an alleged associate, was declared by the US Treasury Department to be a specially designated narcotics trafficker for allegedly “playing a significant role in international narcotics trafficking.”