Venezuela troubles (currency, economy and potential FAFO)

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The leaders of Guyana and Venezuela promised in a tense meeting that neither side would use threats or force against the other, but failed to reach agreement on how to address a bitter dispute over a vast border region rich with oil and minerals that has concerned many in the region.

Instead, a joint commission composed of the foreign ministers of both countries and other officials will address the problem, with a report expected within three months.

Guyanese President Irfaan Ali and Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro agreed to meet again in Brazil within three months or at another agreed-upon time, according to an 11-point declaration read at a press briefing late Thursday at which no questions were allowed.
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The U.S. government injected confusion into next year’s presidential election in Venezuela on Friday by incorrectly suggesting opposition leader Maria Corina Machado had filed an appeal to reverse her ban on running for office.

Machado subsequently sidestepped questions about whether she had been pressured by the Biden administration to appear before Venezuela’s highest court, but she made a veiled criticism of the U.S. comment, saying she wished she had been able to announce her actions herself.

A tweet from the U.S. government’s unit that oversees Venezuelan affairs praised Machado’s “courage and willingness” to appeal the ban. But as she left the country’s highest court Friday evening, she told reporters she did not file an appeal because she has not been officially notified of the ban announced against her in June.

“I am not going to resort to that procedure,” she said of the appeal process.

Instead, Machado, a longtime foe of the ruling party and winner of an opposition presidential primary, said she had established before the court a claim “that there is no disqualification” against her.

With her campaign’s attorney by her side, Machado said her legitimacy as a candidate comes from Venezuelan voters, not the government.
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Evil oil!

Apparently, Venezuela didn't get the memo?
 
"The leaders of Guyana and Venezuela promised in a tense meeting that neither side would use threats or force against the other."
And just like that, the threat of war is over.
Everyone knows government promises are good as gold.
 

Venezuela agrees to extradite Fat Leonard, key figure in massive military bribery scandal​

Venezuela has agreed to extradite Leonard Francis, also known as “Fat Leonard,” the mastermind of one of the largest American military bribery scandals, as part of a prisoner swap deal reached with the U.S., according to the Biden administration.

A senior Biden administration official said Francis is expected to be on a plane later Wednesday and headed back to the U.S., where he will be detained in a federal prison facility.

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U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Western Hemisphere Daniel P. Erikson is visiting Guyana on Monday and Tuesday in what the U.S. Embassy in Guyana referred to as a push for a “bilateral defense and security partnership in support of regional stability”. Erikson will be meeting with the Guyanese government and military leaders, as well as with the regional bloc, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

In December, Guyana and Venezuela vowed to avoid the use of force in the dispute, which escalated earlier last month after Maduro held a referendum to annex Essequibo, then vowing to force the exit of foreign oil producers who refused to comply.

The Venezuelan parliament has yet to pass a law establishing Venezuela’s jurisdiction over the Essequibo region, which represents two-thirds of the territory of Guyana and is where its oil riches are concentrated.

Maduro is facing elections this year, and there has been significant speculation that the subject of the rightful ownership of Essequibo–a popular topic among Venezuelans–is being used to create a state-of-emergency situation that could justify the postponing of the elections.
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Venezuela is ending its Petro cryptocurrency on Monday, more than five years after it was first launched, according to multiple reports citing a message displayed on the Patria Platform, the only website where the Petro was tradeable.
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Any remaining petros are being converted to bolivars, the ailing local currency, according to one report. The final nail in the coffin for the Petro was a corruption scandal over financial irregularities around using crypto assets for oil operations which led to the resignation of the petroleum minister Tareck El Aissami and a crackdown on bitcoin mining operations, AFP reported.
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Too much corruption in Venezuela for a state owned/managed commodity backed crypto to be trusted. I hope that Zimbabwe's experiment with their gold backed token doesn't suffer the same fate.
 
Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, has been in London, urging the new head of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to help out and get the South American nation’s tanker fleet back up and running.

US sanctions on Venezuelan shipping vessels are harming the country’s maritime transport, Rodriguez told Arsenio Dominguez, who has been in the IMO hot seat since January 1, during a meeting yesterday.

 
A U.S. court on Friday approved claims by 14 Venezuela creditors, including ConocoPhillips, Rusoro Mining and Koch Industries, to get proceeds from an auction of shares in the parent of Venezuela-owned oil refiner Citgo Petroleum, to satisfy claims for expropriations and debt defaults.

The list, which reduced the scope of the claims to $20.8 billion from the $24 billion sought by creditors, comes after a court officer excluded arbitration awards and court rulings that had failed to satisfy the court's requirements.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...gainst-venezuela-in-citgo-auction/ar-BB1gYvsL

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Javier Milei’s arrival to the presidency has caused a stir in geopolitical relations, particularly in relation to the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela. Just over a month after taking office, the two leaders engaged in a public confrontation. Maduro criticized Milei’s economic policies, especially his plan to drastically reduce the size of the State. He described Milei as a “fatal mistake” in the history of Argentina and Latin America during his annual message before the National Assembly in Caracas.

Milei responded to Maduro’s criticism, stating that he did not expect such praise and that Maduro’s comments confirmed that he was on the right path. Milei’s rise to power has led to a fracture in the relations between Caracas and Buenos Aires ...


If Maduro takes too many punches on the chin, he just might end up invading Guyana...
 

Why Venezuela wants to annex Guyana​

Jan 26, 2024

South America is teetering on the edge of an armed conflict. #Venezuela argues that the #Esequibo region of #Guyana was unlawfully taken when the border was established over a century ago.


15:43
 
Venezuela arrested three aides to opposition candidate María Corina Machado as the government increases pressure on its critics ahead of presidential elections.

Provincial leaders Juan Freites, Guillermo López and Luis Camacaro were detained for their alleged involvement in a recent plot to kill President Nicolás Maduro, Public Prosecutor Tarek William Saab said Friday. Machado had reported them missing since Tuesday.

Maduro has been taking an increasingly harder line as he prepares for another presidential campaign. On Thursday, one of his top allies confirmed he would be the ruling socialist party’s candidate in a bid for a third consecutive six-year term.

Machado — whose popularity in recent polls is twice as high as Maduro’s — is barred from running for public office and is awaiting a judicial decision on the matter. The Supreme Court said Friday it would release rulings in electoral disqualification cases throughout the afternoon.

The US has expressed concern with the Maduro government’s latest moves against the opposition and civil society, which come just a few months after the regime struck a deal aimed at creating conditions for a fairer vote in the second half of the year. After the so-called Barbados agreement was signed, the Biden administration announced a temporary easing of sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector and other key industries.
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"Venezuela arrested three aides to opposition candidate María Corina Machado as the government increases pressure on its critics ahead of presidential elections."

Delete the name of the country "Venezuela" and the name of the candidate "María Corina Machado".
Now read the sentence again.

"____________ arrested three aides to opposition candidate ___________ as the government increases pressure on its critics ahead of presidential elections."

Would you have filled in the blanks with "Venezuela" and "María Corina Machado"?

Or would your thoughts have brought you a little closer to home?

This is the kind of crap that happens in third world countries.

The U.S. is quickly devolving
 

Venezuela Activates Plan to Neutralize Coup Attempts​

President Maduro urged citizens to be alert to conspiratorial plans involving the far-right opposition.


On Tuesday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called for the activation of the "Bolivarian Fury," a plan to neutralize coup attempts and defend peace.

Addressing thousands of citizens participating in the march commemorating the 66th anniversary of the fall of the Marcos Perez Jimenez dictatorship on January 23, 1958, he assured that he would continue to govern the country with the support of the people.

"Nothing will stop me. I will continue in the streets and in the battle. I will continue to protect you, and... I will continue to govern this country with the support of the people," Maduro said, reiterating that the Chavista people will triumph again in the 2024 presidential elections.

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..."Nothing will stop me. ...," Maduro said, ...

ie76dJeem4xBDcf83e.webp
 
After constant jawboning for over two months, Venezuela is now backing up its threats to annex part of oil-rich Guyana and secure access to some of the world’s largest oil deposits by "moving light tanks, missile-equipped patrol boats and armored carriers to the two countries’ border", the WSJ reported noting that this is set to rapidly turn into a new security headache for the administration of the now officially senile US president.

The deployment, which was visible in satellite images made public Friday and in videos recently posted by Venezuela’s military on social media, is a "major escalation" in Caracas’s attempts to obtain some leverage over its neighbor’s newfound energy reserves, even though any military confrontation will result in an international response that promptly ousts Maduro. It comes despite a written agreement reached in December between the Venezuelan dictator and Guyanese President Irfaan Ali that denounced the use of force and called for a commission to address territorial disputes.
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I guess Maduro is getting desperate?
 
I wonder how many billion of our tax dollars are gonna find their way to Guyana.

Like the old saying - a billion here a billion there and pretty soon you're talking real money
 
I wonder how many billion of our tax dollars are gonna find their way to Guyana.

Like the old saying - a billion here a billion there and pretty soon you're talking real money
No matter how much we're talking - dollars are not real money.

Electronic notations, created off debt ledgers, are not real money. And they cost nothing to create...so quadrillions do not matter. MOAR WAR!
 

Venezuela Accuses Guyana of Giving Out Illegal Oil Licenses​

Venezuela has accused neighboring Guyana of issuing illegal exploration licenses to oil companies for the Essequibo region which is under dispute between the two countries.

According to Caracas, Georgetown had been issuing “illegal oil concessions ... in a maritime area that is indisputably Venezuelan.”

At the end of last week, Caracas made news when it ordered troops to the border with Guyana, which sounded the alarm on the buildup. Venezuela did not deny it but said it had the right to shore up its borders in response to U.S. military exercises in Guyana toward the end of the year and the presence of a UK anti-narcotics vessel that is in Guyanese waters.

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Venezuela’s government on Thursday ordered the local U.N. office on human rights to suspend operations and gave its staff 72 hours to leave, accusing the office of promoting opposition to the South American country.

Foreign Affairs Minister Yván Gil announced the decision at a news conference in Caracas, the capital. Gil’s announcement came on the heels of the detention of human rights attorney Rocio San Miguel, which set off a wave of criticism inside and outside the South American country.
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Venezuela’s troop buildup along its border with Guyana is a breach of international law, Guyana’s Foreign Minister Hugh Todd told the Financial Times Tuesday.

“We are following the rule of international law, Venezuela is violating it,” Todd said.
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The United States on Thursday accused the Venezuelan government of failing to deliver on some of its key commitments that resulted in U.S. sanctions relief last year, despite this week’s announcement of a July 28 date for a presidential election.

Speaking to a think tank in Washington, Brian Nichols, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro had taken a number of steps in the “wrong direction.” These measures, he said, include maintaining an election ban on Maria Corina Machado, the leading opposition candidate, and arresting dozens of opposition activists.

Washington has vowed to reimpose sanctions on the OPEC member-state’s vital energy sector by mid-April unless Machado is allowed to run and Maduro follows through on other promises made in a deal with the opposition in Barbados in October.
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So this has the potential to blow up before the US election. Maduro is playing with fire here IMO.
 
Venezuela is going BRICS with Brazil.
 
Perhaps, but there is a process and it takes time. Venezuela is not likely to become a member in 2024. Maybe in 2025.
 

Exclusive: Weak bids in Citgo auction spurs Venezuela to pitch alternative pay plan​

HOUSTON/MIAMI, March 14 (Reuters) - The highest bid received in a U.S. auction of shares that will decide the fate of Venezuela-owned oil refiner Citgo Petroleum was $7.3 billion, enough to cover only a third of court-approved claims, two people familiar with the matter said.

A federal court in Delaware is auctioning the shares of a parent of Venezuela's foreign crown jewel, Houston-based Citgo, that it found liable for the South American country's debt defaults and expropriations. Creditors have flocked to Delaware to press claims totaling $21.3 billion in a case first brought nearly seven years ago by miner Crystallex.

Results from the first bidding round in January, however, show a sales process that is unlikely to provide a satisfactory outcome for creditors or Citgo's current owners. Offers received thus far in a case that broke new legal ground in sovereign immunity would leave many claims unpaid, analysts and sources warned.

The court may have to revamp the sales process, or consider an alternative being drafted by Venezuela, which would offer creditors a larger payout with proceeds spread over several years, while retaining some of Venezuela's stake in the company, the people said.

Judge Leonard Stark, who is overseeing the case, has declined to consider Venezuela's payment proposals, the people said. It is unclear if he would reconsider with the highest offer in the initial bidding round covering only 14 of the 26 claims that he has accepted from 18 creditors.

The weak initial bids were below the $13 billion to $14 billion value specialists appointed by the court had estimated for the shares. That shortfall is prompting Citgo's parent companies and boards to reprise an offer presented earlier this year: a $10 billion payment funded over time from Citgo profits, equity and borrowings.

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