Free Republic

MOSCOW, February 26 (RIA Novosti) – Russia is planning to expand its permanent military presence outside its borders by placing military bases in a number of foreign countries, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday. Shoigu said the list includes Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, the Seychelles, Singapore and several other countries. “The talks are under way, and we are close to signing the relevant documents,” Shoigu told reporters in Moscow. The minister added that the negotiations cover not only military bases but also visits to ports in such countries on favorable conditions as well as the opening of refueling sites for...

<p>Venezuela's chief prosecutor says five more members of a national intelligence agency have been arrested on murder charges related to the shooting deaths of two people in anti-government street demonstrations.</p> <p>In a statement Wednesday, the office says the five agents were present at protests Feb. 12 in Caracas where 24-year-old university student Bassil Da Costa and government supporter Juan Montoya died. They were among the first of at least 16 killed in the protests.</p>

The latest headlines from the English language page of the Venezuelan newspaper "El Universal" "UN concerned about arrest of Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez" "Young man killed amid looting of supermarket in north Venezuela" "Venezuelan former boxing champion Antonio Cermeno kidnapped and killed" "Closure of roads causes eastern Caracas to collapse" Blogger Daniel offers his analysis in the "Venezuela News and Views" blog. "The deep cause of all this is that after 15 years of chavismo people are finding out that they have no future. Students will have no jobs once they graduate. Employees are seeing their employer go bankrupt...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is expressing concern about Venezuela's escalating political crisis and wants to meet with leaders on both sides in an upcoming trip. Carter, a mediator of past political conflict in the deeply polarized South American nation, made the offer in private letters he sent this week to President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Henrique Capriles. Expressing "grave concern" about the loss of life in recent protests and the risk of more conflict ahead, Carter in the letter to Capriles said that for dialogue aimed at easing tensions to succeed both side must...

It's happening in Ukraine, Venezuela, Thailand, Bosnia, Syria, and beyond. Revolutions, unrest, and riots are sweeping the globe. The near-simultaneous eruption of violent protest can seem random and chaotic; inevitable symptoms of an unstable world. But there's at least one common thread between the disparate nations, cultures, and people in conflict, one element that has demonstrably proven to make these uprisings more likely: high global food prices. Just over a year ago, complex systems theorists at the New England Complex Systems Institute warned us that if food prices continued to climb, so too would the likelihood that there would be...

SAN CRISTOBAL,Venezuela--As dawn broke, the residents of a quiet neighborhood here readied for battle. Some piled rocks to be used as projectiles. Others built barricades. A pair of teenagers made firebombs as the adults looked on. These were not your ordinary urban guerillas. They included a manicurist, a medical supplies saleswoman, a schoolteacher, a businessman and a hardware store worker. As the National Guard roared around the corner on motorcycles and in an armored riot vehicle, the people in this tightly knit middle-class neighborhood, who on any other Monday morning would have been heading to work or taking their children...

The bloodbath in Venezuela directly effects a large part of West-Indie but most of all, the 17 members of Caricom, and the Petrocaribe-oil alliance. The population of Venezuela is revolting because the socialist State of Venezuela is out of money, rather out of dollars, and since most consumptions is imported ( 80%) and not locally produced, out of food and everything else. The Bolivarian Revolution of Hugo Chavez spent more money than its economy produced and the shortfall could only temporarily be bridged by international loans, mostly from China, and the money press. The latter caused dramatic inflation ( 58%),...

The country has awakened a mess. A delivery I was sending was returned because it could not pass through the Moron area. I have no details yet, waiting for the driver to return to San Felipe but that area which never voted less than 75% Chavez is able to see a barricade speaks volumes. And this is the problem the regime is facing, even chavista areas are starting to get upset as food is more and more absent. Even PDVAL, the state food distribution system, announced that people will be limited to one day shopping a week. Food ration card...

Anti-government demonstrators set up barricades and started fires in Venezuela's capital on Monday despite calls from within the opposition to rein in protests in which at least 12 people have died in the OPEC nation. Traffic slowed to a crawl around Caracas, and many people stayed home, as protestors burned trash and debris along main avenues a day after opposition leader Henrique Capriles called on them to keep demonstrations peaceful. "We know we're bothering people but we have to wake up Venezuela!" student Pablo Herrera, 23, said next to a barricade in the affluent Los Palos Grandes district of Caracas....

With three principal exceptions -- Panamá, Colombia and Chile -- Latin American governments are oriented toward the far left. An article at Huff & Puff by a self-proclaimed leftist, Carlos González, argues than leftists should not automatically support dictators, even those "democratically elected" (whatever that may mean), when their actions traumatize their slaves citizens massively and unnecessarily. His article, published on February 24th, is titled Venezuela and the hypocrisy of the international left. As students and the middle class protest for almost two weeks in the streets of Venezuela, the international left remain silent. Why is this wide swath of Venezuelan...

Entrepreneur Bill Moore was in his Austin, Texas, office last Thursday, watching explosive growth for his company’s walkie-talkie app, Zello, inside Venezuela. Zello had become the favorite app of protest organizers there after recently hitting the mark as the most popular app in Ukraine. Over the past few days in Venezuela, the protests ballooned following rapidly rising food prices, controversy over President Nicolas Maduro’s economic policies, public dissatisfaction over crime and multiple other factors. Moore was finding that in Venezuela that popularity had a price. Shortly after 9 p.m., his Twitter feed blew up with messages from users inside the...

SNIPPET: "The arrest of a woman accused of hiding more than 10,000 diamonds inside her body when she landed at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport comes amid warnings that Canada is one of the countries where illicit diamonds have been used for money laundering." SNIPPET: "The woman had landed at Pearson on a Feb. 3 flight from Trinidad and Tobago, when she came to the attention of a Canada Border Services Agency officer, according to CBSA spokeswoman Vanessa Barrasa. The RCMP said the woman was found to have carried 10,202 stones inside her. The 1,500 carats (about 300 grams) of rough...

Retired Gen. Angel Vivas, whose arrest was ordered by President Nicholas Maduro on charges of inciting violence in the protests that met in Venezuela nearly three weeks, resisted this Sunday, standing on the roof of his house......

U.S. Investigates Voting Machines’ Venezuela Ties By TIM GOLDEN Published: October 29, 2006 The federal government is investigating the takeover last year of a leading American manufacturer of electronic voting systems by a small software company that has been linked to the leftist Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chávez. Enlarge This Image Tim Boyle/Getty Images A touch-screen machine by Sequoia Voting Systems was used this month during early balloting in Chicago. Politics Blog News, updates and insights on the midterm elections, the race for 2008 and everything in-between. Go to Election Guide More Politics News The inquiry is focusing on...

President Nicolas Maduro is taking a page out of the Castro playbook to violently oppress Venezuelans who are demanding an end to his disastrous rule. February 21, 2014 (202) 228-7561 WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz released the following statement regarding the crisis in Venezuela:"As opposition protests drag into their second week in Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro is taking a page out of the Castro playbook to violently oppress Venezuelans who are demanding an end to his disastrous rule. Activists have been detained and abused, and even shot dead in the streets. Opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who has emerged...

Venezuelan police and opposition demonstrators have clashed at the end of a march that gathered tens of thousands of people in Caracas. Several people were injured, as police fired tear gas and activists hurled stones in the Altamira district....

Caracas (AFP) - President Nicolas Maduro said Saturday that remarks by US Secretary of State John Kerry on the unrest in Venezuela gave violent groups a "green light" to carry out attacks. In a tweet, Maduro also slammed the remarks made by Kerry late Friday as "arrogant" and "insolent." "John Kerry threatens Venezuela with more violence, with his statements gives the green light to violent groups to attack our people," Maduro wrote.

The protesters in Venezuela do not seek anything extraordinary: They demand to be secure in their homes and their persons, they demand an end to current shortages of staple foods and other goods in the country, and they demand the right to free speech. That these things should be considered a challenge to the Maduro regime is what is extraordinary, along with the regime’s brutal response to the protests — both speak to the character of the current Venezuelan government. If honoring such basic human decencies requires a regime change in Caracas, that is more a reflection on the current...

With intensifying unrest and the Maduro regime fighting a losing battle for survival, it appears that Hugo Chávez’s ‘Bolivarian revolution’ will outlive him by about a year. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is fighting a losing battle to salvage his regime, and student demonstrations that will continue today are only one of his problems. As details of his government’s bankruptcy are made public, his political base will continue to splinter. And as he follows Cuban advice to use brute force against peaceful demonstrators, the nationalist military will find the growing violence intolerable. In short, Maduro’s condition is terminal.According to a source...

Venezuela's Socialist government has warned it will suspend the passports of arrested protesters for five years amid a hardening crackdown on the bloody unrest that has spread nationwide in recent weeks, threatening to consume the volatile oil-rich nation. Anger erupted among demonstrators in Caracas, as news broke on Friday night of the Interior Ministry resolution that anyone detained for disturbing the peace and the public order or participating in acts of violence would be barred from leaving the country. "We're turning into Cuba", government opponents wailed as they once again took to the streets for the daily protests that have...