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To Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro, the harsh economic sanctions, coupled with Trump's threat to use force, sounded like a bid for regime change. But it's a longer and more complex process, say analysts. WASHINGTON—The Trump administration slapped tough sanctions on Venezuela last month that for the first time aimed to restrict the teetering southern neighbor’s access to international financial lifelines. And it raised a smoldering question: Is the United States gunning for regime change? For some – including embattled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro – any doubts as to the answer were erased by President Trump himself. He punctuated the sanctions...

CARACAS, Venezuela — Food shortages were already common in Venezuela, so Tabata Soler knew painfully well how to navigate the country’s black market stalls to get basics like eggs and sugar. But then came a shortage she couldn’t fix: Suddenly, there was no propane gas for sale to do the cooking. And so for several nights this summer, Ms. Soler prepared dinner above a makeshift fire of broken wooden crates set ablaze with kerosene to feed her extended family of 12. “There was no other option,” said Ms. Soler, a 37-year-old nurse, while scouting again for gas for her stove....

PARIS (Reuters) - Venezuela’s opposition-led congress leaders met on Monday with French President Emmanuel Macron to press for humanitarian aid to their crisis-hit nation, on the first leg of a European tour seeking support against President Nicolas Maduro. Maduro’s government has been criticised by the United Nations, Washington and other governments for failing to allow the entry of foreign aid to ease a severe economic crisis, while it overrides Venezuela’s opposition-led congress and jails hundreds of opponents. “I stressed the urgency of opening up the door to humanitarian aid in Venezuela,” congress President Julio Borges said, adding that Macron had...

Hugo Chávez's populist government had expropriated the property from its longtime owners Among the once-productive farms put out of business earlier this decade was this 33,606-acre ranch in Cojedes state owned by the Vestey Group, a British company. El Charcote used to turn out 3.3 million pounds of beef a year, making it one of the country's top 10 producers. Today, the 13,000 head of cattle that once roamed here are gone. New farm machinery, painted the government's trademark red, gathers dust in a lot on the outskirts of this town. Officials, including Chávez, had previously announced that they have...

Reporting confrontation between PFP and students in Oaxaca The cordon of federal agents fell back about 200 meters and they returned to the starting point, the terminus of University Avenue Jorge Octavio Ochoa, Alejandro Torres & David Aponte/Correspondents El Universal (Mexico City) Oaxaca City, Oaxaca Thursday 2 November 2006 11:20 a.m.   A confrontation between students of the Benito Juarez Autonomous University of Oaxaca (UABJO) and elements of the Federal Preventive Police (PFP) is being reported. The uniformed officers are being practically bombarded by a rain of stones, sticks, molotov cocktails, and fireworks, from the interior [of the University] to...

It must be pointed out; it is up to us to do so. The corporate media are hopelessly deficient in their coverage and explanations of how strategic objectives for national security are being delivered through a Trump Doctrine via economic leverage. The results are stunningly effective, yet few have noticed, and even fewer seem willing to articulate...... The sanctions against Venezuela, while targeted, are only one small outcropping of a much larger geopolitical strategy that U.S. President Trump has initiated for the past eight months with jaw-dropping success: From OPEC (Saudi Summit) to the EU and Baltic States (Poland Pre-G20);...

(Videos at site) Venezuela kicks off two days of military drills on Saturday in response to US President Donald Trump's threat of military action and newly announced sanctions on the crisis-stricken nation. Trump warned on August 11 that the United States was mulling a range of options against Venezuela, "including a possible military option if necessary." His Vice President Mike Pence later played down the threat, insisting that Washington was prioritizing a diplomatic solution and economic sanctions. National security advisor HR McMaster followed suit, saying "no military actions are anticipated in the near future." But tension only surged again when...

The Trump administration on Friday slapped tough new economic sanctions on Venezuela aimed at slowing the South American dictatorship’s steady slide into totalitarianism. President Trump signed an executive order that bans US companies and individuals from dealing in new debt and equity issued by the government of Venezuela and its state oil company. It also prohibits dealings in some existing bonds owned by the Venezuelan public sector, as well as dividend payments to the government of Venezuela, headed by President Nicholas Maduro. “The Maduro dictatorship continues to deprive the Venezuelan people of food and medicine, imprison the democratically elected opposition,...

Well, if you want to lose faith in humanity and see the stupidity of hipster liberals in New York City, this is the video for you. Ami Horowitz took to the streets to talk about income inequality with some of the most insufferable people on the planet: progressives. Of course, they all felt it was a critical issue. One man was a member of the Working Families Party in the state. So, which country can we look to for guidance in solving this issue? How about socialist hellhole Venezuela?  It’s the nation with rolling blackouts, inadequate medical supplies, no toilet...

Leftists like British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn have long had warm words for Venezuela's chavistas. But as famine has racked the country and President Nicholás Maduro has turned dictatorial, those words are coming back to bite them. PAMPLONA, SPAIN—An inspiration, a hero: these are the words leftists in Europe lavished on the late Hugo Chavez for his “Bolivarian revolution” in Venezuela. For British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and left-wing parties like Syriza and Podemos in southern Europe, Chavez’s ascendance was long the clearest challenge to inequality in Latin America, neoliberalism in Washington, and austerity at home. Today, it's a decidedly...

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called Tuesday for Pope Francis's support against a "military threat" from the United States, as international pressure mounts over the deadly political crisis Caracas is facing. "May the pope help us prevent Trump from sending troops to invade Venezuela," Maduro told a news conference. "I ask for the pope's help against the military threat from the United States." Maduro has faced months of deadly mass protests by opponents who blame him for an economic crisis and are demanding elections to replace him. International pressure has also grown, with US President Donald Trump even saying this month...

MIAMI — After four years of sending monthly shipments of medicine and food for hospitals and needy people in Venezuela, Move Org, a non-profit based in Miami, abruptly stopped three weeks ago. Move Org had been sending up to five to seven pallets of donations monthly to help alleviate the burden that the economic and political crisis gripping the South American nation has had on its people. But recently, the Venezuelan government banned the import of a series of items they deem “war material.” Some of the products banned are… medical products such as first aid kits, eye drops, antacids,...

Now under Maduro we have a new prohibition, importing anything that protects against riot police such as gas masks, bullet proof vests, metal balls and marbles (could be used as projectiles), knives, sports padding gear, helmets, etc But it goes even further: Banned first aid stuff: Antacids, gauze, cream to treat burns, bandages, eye drops, bicarbonate, etc.

Venezuela's ousted chief prosecutor and her husband — two of President Nicolas Maduro's most outspoken critics — fled the country and landed Friday afternoon in Colombia. Luisa Ortega Diaz and German Ferrer arrived in Bogota aboard a private plane traveling from Aruba, Colombian migration authorities said in a statement. The couple didn't request asylum, according to a senior Colombian official speaking on condition of anonymity because he's not authorized to discuss the politically sensitive case. Ortega and Ferrer have long been aligned with Venezuela's ruling socialist party but recently broke with Maduro, publicly denouncing his push to convene a constitutional...

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s new pro-government Constituent Assembly formally moved Friday to assume the powers of the opposition-dominated congress, completing what critics call a power grab that effectively puts all branches of government under the control of President ­Nicolás Maduro. The Constituent Assembly, created in a July 30 vote decried as fraud by the opposition and a host of nations, had begun to assume the role of the National Assembly, whose members were democratically elected in 2015. But in a move likely to spark further international condemnation, the motion Friday formalized the arrangement. The body was also poised to pass...

MARACAIBO, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela authorities are investigating the theft of animals from a zoo in western state of Zulia that were likely snatched to be eaten, a further sign of hunger in a country struggling with chronic food shortages. A police official said two collared peccaries, which are similar in appearance to boars, were stolen over the weekend from the Zulia Metropolitan Zoological Park in the sweltering city of Maracaibo near the Colombian border. "What we presume is that they (were taken) with the intention of eating them," Luis Morales, an official for the Zulia division of the National...

BOGOTA, Colombia A handful of Venezuelan soldiers — armed and in uniform — were caught in neighboring Guyana last week begging for food, local police reported, another sign of Venezuela’s deepening hunger crisis. Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article167335697.html#fmp#storylink=cpy Guyanese Police Inspector Christopher Humphrey said he’d gone to the border along the Amacuro river, which divides the two nations, to investigate reports that the Venezuelan military was stealing food from locals. But the three soldiers he encountered — two carrying military assault rifles — said they had come to beg for meals and hadn’t harmed anyone.s Humphrey said the men had crossed...

CUCUTA, Colombia (AP) — Under a scorching sun just a short walk from Colombia's border with Venezuela, hundreds of hungry men, women and children line up for bowls of chicken and rice — the first full meal some have eaten in days. An estimated 25,000 Venezuelans make the trek across the Simon Bolivar International Bridge into Colombia each day. Many come for a few hours to work or trade goods on the black market, looking for household supplies they cannot find back home. But increasingly, they are coming to eat in one of a half-dozen facilities offering struggling Venezuelans a...

Vice President Mike Pence, speaking from Colombia, emphasized today the U.S. has "many options" when it comes to dealing with the crisis in Venezuela. "What's appropriate is for the United States of America to make it clear that we have, as the president said, many options on Venezuela," Pence said in an interview with NBC News. "We're simply not going to tolerate seeing Venezuela collapse into dictatorship." "President Trump has made it clear - we’re simply not going to stand by while Venezuela crumbles," he continued. Venezuela has recently been rocked by violent protests and political unrest. In a controversial...

Our glitterati’s favorite socialist paradise has, like so many similar experiments, become a murderous den of oppression and privation. Venezuela’s self-destruction has embarrassed more celebrities than has National Enquirer. Our glitterati’s favorite socialist paradise has, like so many similar experiments, become a murderous den of oppression and privation, and none will speak on its behalf. However, Venezuela’s collapse has dashed fantasies far older and more sincere than Sean Penn’s. Hugo Chávez’s election in Venezuela realized a dream that festered in left-wing hearts for decades: a revolutionary socialist regime, with the sovereignty and resources to fulfill decades’ worth of pledges from...