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White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki repeatedly shut down questions about President Joe Biden potentially cutting a deal to import oil from socialist Venezuela on Monday after rumors of such a move, fueled by a U.S. delegation to Caracas, prompted international outrage. Psaki temporarily ruled out importing Venezuelan oil shortly after polling released in the past week showed a dramatic collapse in support to the Democrats from Hispanic Americans that began during the 2020 election, fueled by concerns that socialists friendly with, among others, the Venezuelan regime had become too powerful within the Party. Biden sent a delegation to Caracas...

Kenyerber Aquino Merchán was 17 months old when he starved to death. His father left before dawn to bring him home from the hospital morgue. He carried Kenyerber’s skeletal frame into the kitchen and handed it to a mortuary worker who makes house calls for Venezuelan families with no money for funerals. Kenyerber’s spine and rib cage protruded as the embalming chemicals were injected. Aunts shooed away curious young cousins, mourners arrived with wildflowers from the hills, and relatives cut out a pair of cardboard wings from one of the empty white ration boxes that families increasingly depend on amid...

The Venezuelan Supreme Court may have amended part of its explosive decision to take over the opposition-led congress, but it still gives embattled leftist President Nicolas Maduro broad new powers over the OPEC nation's vast oil wealth. The reversal on Saturday came after political leaders worldwide and street protesters at home accused the pro-government court of effectively making Maduro a dictator.

Venezuela can’t pay its millions of dollars in debt to Indian pharmaceutical companies, say Indian officials, so officials are considering a proposal that would see the Latin American company swap oil for its drug debts. After an unlucky gamble on India’s part that Venezuela’s emerging economy would be a good place to hawk Indian pharmaceuticals, the debt is now mounting and poor crisis management coupled with the long-running oil price slump has left Venezuela too cash strapped to pay up. Already, according to Indian media, India’s Dr Reddy’s pharmaceutical company has written off US$65 million in debt in the first...

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro declared a 60-day state of emergency on Friday due to what he called plots from within the OPEC country and the United States to topple his leftist government. Maduro did not provide details of the measure. A previous state of emergency, implemented in states near the Colombian border last year, suspended constitutional guarantees in those areas, except for guarantees relating to human rights.

For the last 30 years the heavy oil deposits of the Orinoco river area in Venezuela have been developed at a snail's pace. Although the area has been known to contain over 200 billion barrels of recoverable oil since a study made by Venezuelan geologists J. A. Galavis and H. Velarde was presented at the World Petroleum Congress in Mexico City, in 1967, production from this is still very modest, as compared to reserves.