Venezuela sin Chávez: The Nicolas Maduro Thread

[byu71]

Somewhere we will find a Bernie Sanders style of government working.

[wuapinmon]

This saddens me. Venezuela is a beautiful country with a shitload of lousy leaders.

Pretty much since independence.

[Topper]

This saddens me. Venezuela is a beautiful country with a shitload of lousy leaders.

[snowcat]

Yellow Water, Dirty Air, Power Outages: Venezuela Hits a New Low

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...hits-a-new-low

“The water is coming out very yellow, very bad quality,” said Ana Carvajal, an infectious disease specialist at the Universitario Hospital in Caracas. “We’re seeing an uptick in different illnesses, especially diarrhea. The lack of clean water is causing skin problems like scabies and folliculitis. There’s no medicine. All we can do is prescribe sulfur soap.”

In 2015, Venezuela’s economy -- largely dependent on the sale of oil -- contracted by 5.7 percent and is expected to shrink by an additional 8 percent this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. The currency has lost 98 percent of its value on the black market since Maduro took office in 2013. Inflation is projected to rise to nearly 500 percent.
All of this has made Maduro not a very popular leader. His opponents won an overwhelming victory in legislative elections in December. But nearly every attempt by the new legislature to take the country in a new direction has been blocked by Maduro and a Supreme Court he appointed right after the elections.
"We voted and we won," said Mendoza, the hairdresser, as she choked back tears. "But now we see that all has been for nothing."

[wuapinmon]

Venezuela gets 70% of its electricity from one hydro project which may have to shut down due to an El Niño drought. InMaduro has recommended that Venzuelan women stop using hair dryers and run their fingers through their hair.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a6976246.html

I still can't believe he's held on this long.

[wuapinmon]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35019111

The opposition in Venezuela has won a majority of seats in the National Assembly, overturning nearly two decades of dominance by the Socialists of President Nicolas Maduro.
Five hours after polling ended, the National Electoral Council announced the opposition had won 99 seats.
President Maduro has admitted defeat, recognising "these adverse results".
It is the worst-ever defeat for the leftist movement founded by former leader Hugo Chavez in 1999.
The Socialists have gained 46 seats, with another 22 yet to be declared.

[wuapinmon]

Holy mackerel! 98% of Venezuelan exports are from oil, aluminum, and iron. I predict a full-fledged civil war within 18 months

[wuapinmon]

Colombia closes border with Venezuela: http://www.dw.com/en/border-closures...ela/a-18681714

Also, this happened: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-0...arket-stampede

An 80-year-old Venezuelan woman died, possibly from trampling, in a scrum outside a state supermarket selling subsidized goods, the opposition and media said on Friday.

The melee at the store in Sabaneta, the birthplace of former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, was the latest such incident in the South American nation where economic hardship and food shortages are creating long queues and scuffles.

The opposition Democratic Unity coalition said Maria Aguirre died and another 75 people were injured - including five security officials - in chaotic scenes when National Guard troops sought to control a 5,000-strong crowd with teargas.

"Due to the shortage of food ... the desperation is enormous," local opposition politician Andres Camejo said, according to the coalition's website. It published a photo of an elderly woman's body lying inert on a concrete floor.

Camejo said thieves had also attacked the crowd, members of which were seeking to buy cheap food on offer at an outlet of the state's Mercal supermarket chain in Barinas state.

[wuapinmon]

This is a well-written article: http://www.economist.com/news/americ...ime-revolution

[snowcat]

Projected GDP change for 2015 -7%. Projected inflation rate 64% (official number, likely 100% plus). The oil price drop is killing Venezuela.

[wuapinmon]

[snowcat]

Venezuela's 'socialist paradise' turns into a nightmare: medical shortages claim lives as oil price collapses

For Jose Perez, a Venezuelan taxi driver from Caracas, the hardest part about watching his wife die from heart failure was knowing just how easily she could have been saved.


The surgeons at the Caracas University Hospital were ready to operate on 51-year-old Carmen, but because of the shortages of medicines now ravaging Venezuela, they had no stocks of the prosthetic artery that would have saved her life.


For a day, the family enjoyed a glimmer of hope after a nationwide search uncovered one such device, but Carmen needed two and a second one was nowhere to be found. She died two days later.

In another consulting room, we listened as the father of a boy with leukaemia was told that the hospital had only three of the five chemotherapy drugs his son needed, and that one of those was a substitute that would cause horrible side effects. As a young doctor pointed out though, the boy was lucky to be getting anything at all.

Such is the speed of Venezuela’s downward slide that policy analysts, Western diplomats, economists and opposition activists interviewed by The Telegraph this week all admitted that no one knows where, or when, it will end.

At the hospital they know only that if things don’t improve fast, more lives will be lost.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...collapses.html

[snowcat]

Mormon Missionaries Leaving Venezuela Amid Unrest

The Mormon church has announced that it will pull 152 missionaries out of Venezuela because of unrest in the country.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a statement late Monday saying missionaries who aren't Venezuelan citizens will be moved to other locations in South America.

The Venezuelan missionaries will stay in frequent communication with their supervisors, and the church is making "every effort" to keep them safe, the church said.

Venezuelan government forces and protesters have faced off for the past month in demonstrations that have at times turned deadly. The Mormon church has one temple and nearly 158,000 members in Venezuela, church statistics show.

Earlier this month, the church pulled 22 missionaries from Ukraine due to civil unrest there. The Salt Lake City-based church has several hundred missionaries and some 11,000 members in Ukraine.

The church said missionaries set to serve in Ukraine who are still in U.S. training centers will be assigned elsewhere pending developments.

Worldwide, the church has about 15 million members and 84,600 missionaries, more proselytizers than at any time in its history.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireSto...nrest-22953932

[wuapinmon]

This one says, "ULTIMATUM:EITHER YOU GO OR WE COME GET YOU IN MIRAFLORES (Venezuelan White House equivalent)."

The talk of pacifism is waning.

[wuapinmon]

Today in Caracas.