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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Monday accused Colombia’s government of giving its consent to a plan to assassinate him as both countries try to rally regional support in a border dispute exacerbating tensions between the two neighbors. Maduro said during a visit to Vietnam that the conspiracy has the consent of Colombia’s government. Maduro, who frequently accuses Colombia of trying to topple his government, didn’t present any details or evidence to back the claim but said he would soon. Officials in Bogotá didn’t immediately respond. The president’s remarks come as diplomats from 34 Western Hemisphere nations gather at the Organization...

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.

LA SIBUCARA, Venezuela—Hours after they looted and set fire to a National Guard command post in this sun-baked corner of Venezuela earlier this month, a mob infuriated by worsening food shortages rammed trucks into the smoldering edifice, reducing it mostly to rubble. The incident was just one of numerous violent clashes that have flared in pockets around the country in recent weeks as Venezuelans wait for hours in long supermarket lines for basics like milk and rice. Shortages have made hunger a palpable concern for many Wayuu Indians who live here at the northern tip of Venezuela’s 1,300-mile border with...

At least 1,500 extra Venezuelan troops are being sent to the border The Venezuelan president has declared a state of emergency in a border region near Colombia following an attack by smugglers in which three soldiers and a civilian were injured. Nicolas Maduro said there would be 60 days of martial law in five municipalities in the state of Tachira. He also said the closure of the border, announced on Thursday, would be extended until further notice. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has criticised the move. Mr Santos said ordinary people on both sides of the border, including children, would...

Newly-minted parents at Venezuela’s Dr. Luis Razetti Hospital in Anzoátegui are denouncing its maternity ward for killing 17 babies in a week, the victims of sanitation so poor the ward is overtly inhabited by a swarm of opossums. One relative of a dead newborn told El Tiempo that, upon challenging hospital officials regarding the opossums, she was told “the appearance of possums is something normal in the hospital..." ... the reason opossums are so common, says one employee at the hospital, is that sanitation employees have run out of cleaning liquids and necessary maintenance items, leaving them impotent in the...

America’s government has gradually watered down its economic data over time, thereby painting a rosier picture of conditions on the ground than actually exists. Consulting economist John Williams has dedicated his life in fact to exposing its manipulation of economic data and backing into the real numbers. But you will know when America has really hit full on panic mode when the feds stop printing figures altogether, and the only way to measure price inflation is through tracking the daily price increase of say, cronuts, or some other confection. This is the position sadly but all-too-predictably in which Venezuela finds...

An image is going round that sums up just how ridiculous Venezuela's economy has become. A Reddit user uploaded a picture on Monday of a man using a 2 bolivar note to hold an empanada. According to Venezuela's official bolivar-dollar exchange rate, the man using his money as a napkin is wasting about $0.31 (£0.20). But on the black market, the reality is completely different. You can get 676.88 bolivars to the dollar, according to dolartoday.com. That means holding food with a 2 bolivar note costs the holder less than a third of one US cent. Read more: http://uk.businessinsider.com/venezuelas-currency-is-now-so-worthless-that-people-are-using-it-as-napkins-2015-8#ixzz3jAmKI3sP .

There’s an image going round that sums up just how ridiculous Venezuela’s economy has become. A Reddit user uploaded a picture on Monday of a man using a 2 bolivar note to hold an empanada. According to Venezuela’s official bolivar-dollar exchange rate, the man using his money as a napkin is wasting about $US0.31 (£0.20). But on the black market, the reality is completely different. You can get 676.88 bolivars to the dollar, according to dolartoday.com. That means holding food with a 2 bolivar note costs the holder less than a third of one US cent.

Mike BirdAugust 17,2015 There's an image going round that sums up just how ridiculous Venezuela's economy has become. A Reddit user uploaded a picture on Monday of a man using a 2 bolivar note to hold an empanada. According to Venezuela's official bolivar-dollar exchange rate, the man using his money as a napkin is wasting about $0.31 (£0.20). But on the black market, the reality is completely different. You can get 676.88 bolivars to the dollar, according to dolartoday.com. That means holding food with a 2 bolivar note costs the holder less than a third of one US cent.(snip)

Protests are underway in Brazil as hundreds of thousands take to the streets to call for the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff. Here's Bloomberg: An estimated 25,000 protesters in Brasilia marched toward Congress, chanting against Rousseff and corruption, carried a long banner demanding “Impeachment Now.” Rouseff monitored proceedings from her official residence, due to meet with some of her cabinet in the afternoon, said Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo. Protest in #Rio #Brazil: "Military intervention is not a crime" via @tariqpanja UNBELIEVABLE. pic.twitter.com/S8kcJmUJnq— juliana barbassa (@jbarbassa) August 16, 2015 Background: was chairwoman from 2003 to 2010. When the world’s foremost...

What Obama is pursing in Iran and Cuba isn’t peace.....The list of countries designated by the United States as state sponsors of terrorism is a pretty exclusive club, a veritable Legion of Doom populated by the likes of North Korea and Syria. The Obama administration has, for reasons that seem to be mainly political, shown extraordinary solicitude toward two countries that were on the State Department’s list when he became president: Cuba and Iran. Cuba has been removed from the list — “Cuba meets the statutory criteria for rescission” was the State Department’s bloodless explanation — and John Kerry has...

Venezuela's ongoing economic crisis has hit the Church in a unique way: the production of Hosts fell 60 percent during the past month, affecting three states in the South American country. Giovanni Luisio Mass, prior of the Order of Poor Knights of Christ of the Temple of Jerusalem, explained to local media that the shortage of unleavened wheat flour needed to make Hosts has been acute for a month now. According to Caracol TV, the monthly production of Hosts has dropped from 80,000 to 30,000. This drop, Mass indicated, has affected every parish in three Venezuelan states. He added that...

No link....could not find it on site. But I just tuned in to the Miami Fox station.....they are running STATE DEPARTMENT INTERVIEWS with some vets who are going to be in Havana today for the flag raising dog and pony show in Cuba. The Obama worship runs deep.

The daughter of Hugo Chavez, the former president who once declared 'being rich is bad,' may be the wealthiest woman in Venezuela, according to evidence reportedly in the hands of Venezuelan media outlets. Maria Gabriela Chavez, 35, the late president's second-oldest daughter, holds assets in American and Andorran banks totaling almost $4.2billion, Diario las Americas reports. ... Others close to Chavez managed to build up great personal wealth that was kept outside the petrostate. Alejandro Andrade, who served as Venezuela’s treasury minister from 2007 to 2010 and was reportedly a close associate of Chavez, was discovered to have $11.2billion in...

Cash-strapped Venezuela is pushing for an emergency OPEC meeting and joint coordination with Russia to stem a tumble in oil prices, President Nicolas Maduro said on Tuesday night. "We're working towards a special OPEC meeting, in coming days we'll announce .... We're making contacts with OPEC governments," Maduro said during an hours-long televised broadcast. "We're evaluating the possibility that a very high ranking OPEC meeting be called, and that in coordination with the Russian Federation, President Vladimir Putin, we can advance in taking a series of actions to defend the oil market in the face of this latest fall," he...

"In defense of the homeland" is President Nicolas Maduro's renewed public speech, reframed in a manner to evoke patriotic emotions and divert the attention from the domestic emergency. Venezuela is suffering an economic meltdown with chronic food shortages and nearly 120% inflation (this year alone) fueling outbreaks of street violence. Companies operating there are facing increased political risks. After days of unrest and turmoil, with mobs looting supermarkets in search for living goods and food in several cities, the government has announced the expropriation of Nestlé distribution warehouses and depots, the country's biggest food company, as well PepsiCo, Cargill, and...

With crucial legislative elections less than four months away, Venezuela is tilting toward a major social crisis. Endemic food shortages have plagued Venezuela for years, worsening with the decline of global oil prices in late 2014. Now they are the norm across the country. This has stoked public discontent and led to the isolated looting of food stores and supermarkets.

Apparently all of that “anti-imperialist” rhetoric from Caracas was just a farce for public consumption. As Venezuela’s economy implodes amid skyrocketing inflation and crippling shortages of practically everything, Socialist strongman Nicolás Maduro (shown) has a new plan to prop up his imploding regime: annex two thirds of neighboring Guyana’s territory and almost one third of its population. The area eyed by Maduro’s autocracy is especially noteworthy now that potentially lucrative oil deposits have been discovered offshore. Unsurprisingly, a powerful alliance of the region’s socialist strongmen and their allies has sided with the regime in Venezuela. Talk of war is escalating....

It’s the law of the jungle in Venezuela, as shopping for groceries becomes an increasingly dangerous activity. As the shortage crisis worsens, more and more angry mobs are raiding the nation’s supermarkets, looting whatever basic goods they can find.+ During the first half of 2015, the Venezuelan Observatory for Social Conflict (OVCS) registered no fewer than 132 incidents of looting or attempted looting at various stores throughout the country. In addition, Venezuelan consumers staged over 500 protests that condemned the lack of available products at state-run grocery stores, markets, and pharmacies.+ The OVCS has documented at least 132 incidents of...

It was in Macaracuay, in front of a small shopping center called CC Macaracuay which has the misfortune of its grocery store (former C.A.D.A.) become a public shop, Bicentenario after the expropriation of EXITO chain. I drove in front around 7:30 and the line was much bigger. Driving in front again around 10 AM I was so surprised at the remaining extent of the line that I filmed it.