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A fund in which the Vatican’s Secretariat of State has invested tens of millions of euros has links to two Swiss banks investigated or implicated in bribery and money laundering scandals involving more than one billion dollars. The fund is under investigation by Vatican authorities. The fund, Centurion Global Fund, made headlines this week that it used the Vatican assets under its management to invest in Hollywood films, real estate, and utilities, including investments in movies like “Men in Black International” and the Elton John biopic “Rocketman.” Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra reported that the Centurion Global Fund has raised...

Asdrubal Chavez, chief executive of Houston-based Citgo Petroleum Corp, boarded the Venezuelan-owned firm's corporate jet in Caracas on Jan. 30, after meeting with top officials of the embattled administration of socialist President Nicolas Maduro about the latest U.S. oil sanctions. Upon landing in the Bahamas - where Chavez has worked for about a year after being denied a U.S. visa - he had received word from Houston that it would be his last trip on a company plane and that his Citgo email account had been shut off. Day-to-day control of the company had passed to Citgo's top U.S. executive,...

The Trump administration will sanction Venezuela's state-owned oil firm, Petroleos de Venezuela, a move the White House has long put off for fear that it would raise oil prices and hurt American refiners. The move comes after a turbulent week for Venezuela that has created a standoff over the country's leadership. Last week, the opposition leader of Venezuela's National Assembly, Juan Guaido, named himself interim president amid street protests. President Donald Trump soon recognized Guaido as the nation's leader and his administration has been marshaling international support for the opposition figure since then. However, socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro, having recently...

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro called on his nation's military leaders Tuesday to prepare for war against the U.S. days after the Trump administration banned Venezuelan officials from entering the nation. "We have been shamelessly threatened by the most criminal empire that ever existed and we have the obligation to prepare ourselves to guarantee peace," said Maduro, who wore a green uniform and a military hat as he spoke with his army top brass during a military exercise involving tanks and missiles. "We need to have rifles, missiles and well-oiled tanks at the ready....to defend every inch of the territory if...

The Fusion GPS news-for-hire scandal has not only led to the public identification of the source of the “Trump Dossier”—a for-profit company that provides opposition research to whoever could write big checks, which is staffed by four former Wall Street Journal reporters led by Glenn Simpson. The scandal has also lifted the lid off a sewer of corporate information warfare and opposition research that the flailing institutions of the mainstream press now regularly re-package as news, without ever saying where it came from—or who paid for it. While the idea that the products of paid opposition research are being main-lined...

Business and Economics Editor Published 3/13/2002 8:16 PM QUERETARO, Mexico, March 13 (UPI) -- An uneasy calm returns to Venezuela. Beneath it, like water running underground, a host of separate currents are undermining the shaky reign of President Hugo Chávez. A week ago Guaicaipuro Lameda, ex-General, ex-head of the state-run oil company, PdVSA, ex-admirer of Chávez, said that the government's economic policies were condemning the country to worsening poverty and challenged the planning minister, Giordani, to a public debate. In Venezuela the planning ministry, it should be said, is more important than it sounds. The planning minister holds central responsibility...

Two major U.S. credit ratings agencies on Tuesday warned of debt defaults by both U.S. energy companies and oil-dependent Venezuela amid crashing petroleum prices. Fitch Ratings said it expects the default rate for U.S. energy junk bonds to rise from 0.7 percent over the next few years, though it didn’t forecast a specific rate. It said more than $78 billion in the U.S. energy sector’s so-called junk debt is rated at Fitch’s “weak” B- rating – just one spot above the “very weak” CCC rating. That’s up from $55 billion at the end of 2013. Over the past five years,...

NAIGUATA, Venezuela (AFP) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced a 16-billion-dollar deal with China to drill for oil in the resource-rich Orinoco basin. "Yesterday (Tuesday), a deal was signed in Beijing for the Orinoco basin. It sets out a Chinese investment of 16 billion dollars over the next three years," Chavez said at a public event. He gave few details of the pact and did not name the Chinese companies involved, but said they would form a joint venture with state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) to produce 450,000 barrels a day of extra heavy crude. Venezuela, a founding member of...

CARACAS -(Dow Jones)- Venezuela on Wednesday formalized its takeover of almost three dozen oil service companies now affected by President Hugo Chavez's nationalization campaign. A new list of 35 companies appeared in the latest Official Gazette, the second such list published this month. State oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, PdVSA, has now taken over assets from 74 companies, according to the lists. The latest batch of companies include water injection technology for oil wells in the SIMCO venture, controlled by the Scotland-based Wood Group Plc (WG.LN), Houston-based Exterran Holdings Inc (EXH) and other partners. Dozens of other firms mostly...

UNTIL a few weeks ago, the Venezuelan government was encouraging private investment in oil services. But in a sudden about-turn, President Hugo Chávez changed the law to make the whole industry a preserve of the state. On May 8th the National Guard began to occupy dozens of drilling rigs, docks and boats operated by private contractors, both local and foreign, hired by PDVSA, the state oil company.

Economy The current insolvent status of state-run oil holding Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) due to falling oil prices and declining income has prevented it from paying its debts to contractors and providers. Payment in arrears also reaches mixed companies –former operators- as they have not been paid for oil sales. Under the agreements prepared by the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, and entered into by the Venezuelan Petroleum Corporation and domestic and foreign private oil service companies in 2007, upon the conversion of former operational agreements, there is an article which binds mixed companies to sell Pdvsa all their production...

State corporations' liabilities reportedly exceed USD 8 billion Economy While government officials say that they have enough resources to tackle the income gap resulting from falling oil prices, liabilities with contractors and workers continue to grow. The Venezuelan state is in default with contractors which, in turn have failed to pay their employees. The companies providing services to state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) and the Venezuelan Guayana Corporation (CVG) are going through the most critical situation. The boards of directors of the state companies are negotiating with suppliers to settle debts, but the liabilities of both the oil...

CARACAS, Venezuela — For the better part of a decade, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has spent billions of dollars of his country's oil revenue to challenge U.S. interests, build influence around the world and fund a self-styled socialist revolution at home. Yet as Chavez moves from one international crisis to another— most recently a near military confrontation with neighboring Colombia , an important U.S. ally— many wonder how long his oil-funded wild ride will last. Not long, analysts in Venezuela and abroad said, if production continues to decline at the country's state-run energy company, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. , known...

LONDON (AFP) — A London High Court judge on Tuesday suspended a court order which froze 12 billion dollars (7.6 billion euros) of assets owned by Venezuela state oil firm PDVSA in a dispute with US energy giant ExxonMobil. Judge Paul Walker, announcing his ruling at the High Court, said he would publish a "short document" later in the day to outline his reasoning before releasing a longer document on Thursday. The public hearing was brought before the High Court at the end of February but Walker said that some of the arguments were heard in private. ExxonMobil declined to...

Chavez threatens to halt oil sales to US By SANDRA SIERRA, Associated Press Writer 13 minutes ago CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez on Sunday threatened to cut off oil sales to the United States in an "economic war" if Exxon Mobil Corp. wins court judgments to seize billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets. ADVERTISEMENT Exxon Mobil has gone after the assets of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA in U.S., British and Dutch courts as it challenges the nationalization of a multibillion dollar oil project by Chavez's government. A British court has issued an injunction "freezing" as much...

CARACAS, Venezuela – The Venezuelan government on Friday denied any link to a businessman who was stopped at an Argentine airport carrying a suitcase filled with nearly $800,000 in cash. The Venezuelan businessman, Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, carried the money from Caracas to Buenos Aires on a flight chartered by the Argentine government, and the undeclared funds were seized by customs agents last weekend. “We don't have anything to do with that plane or with that trip ... nothing to do with that businessman,” Venezuelan Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas told reporters. The incident has shaken the Argentine government, prompted one...

By ELIZABETH M. NUNEZ, Associated Press Writer Thu Nov 2, 11:04 PM ET CARACAS, Venezuela - Opponents of President Hugo Chavez released a video Thursday showing Venezuela's oil minister urging state oil company workers to support Chavez's re-election bid. The opposition said the comments were political coercion. ADVERTISEMENT During the 14-minute video, the minister Rafael Ramirez said the 40,000-member work force at Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, firmly stands behind Chavez ahead of the Dec. 3 vote. His comments were allegedly made during a closed-door meeting at the company's headquarters in the capital Caracas. "It's a crime, a counterrevolutionary...

SANTOME, Venezuela - (AP) -- Venezuela and Iran are planning to help construct a petroleum refinery in Syria capable of processing 150,000 barrels a day, Venezuela's oil minister announced Monday. ''We're studying an oil refinery in Syria,'' said Rafael Ramírez, during an official visit to Venezuela by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Venezuela's relations with Iran and Syria have strengthened under President Hugo Chávez, who views the Middle Eastern nations as important allies in his efforts to build what he calls ''a multipolar world'' no longer dominated by the United States. Venezuela -- the world's fifth largest oil exporter -- has...

Venezuela and Mexico are among the potential strategic partners for joint operations in the fields that used to be developed by oil corporation Oxy. The corporate agreement to drill oil in the Ecuadorian Amazon was made null and void, the Ecuadorian Government disclosed Tuesday. "There is the possibility of forming a strategic alliance with a state company, as set forth in the regulations," Ecuadorian Minister of Energy Iván Rodríguez said. Additionally, there is the possibility of "contracting directly a state company of a foreign country to reinforce technically Petroproducción. The subsidiary of state oil company Petroecuador will be responsible for...

One of Ecuador’s most popular TV talk show hosts last week noted an odd news item, uttered with all the sincerity of a professional wrestler, citing a phony poll claiming that 96% of Ecuadoreans `want’ and support ongoing oil strikes, ostensibly in solidarity with the attacks on Ecuador’s two main oil pipelines. Solidarity with the pipeline attackers requires some dissection. Twice in six months, Ecuador has lost millions, possibly close to a billion (about 1/9 its total GNP) from these strikers. These strikers, however, are not your standard garden variety environmentalists but are well paid political protesters and paramilitary squads...