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Amid severe scarcities of basic goods, some hotels here have begun rationing toilet paper. Crisis-battered Venezuelans on local escapes, meanwhile, have graduated from stealing towels to pocketing lightbulbs and even coffee makers. Some resorts force guests to sign contract-like inventory lists and submit to detailed room inspections at checkout.
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... But critics also tie the economic nosedive to maneuvers by Maduro — the handpicked successor of left-wing firebrand Hugo Chávez, who died in 2013 — to establish near-dictatorial powers.
Despite the government's iron hand, street crime is surging. *Locals who can afford it are outfitting their vehicles with bulletproof glass and armor, and traveling in caravans on the bandit-infested highways. In 2017, 53 people a day were killed in Venezuela, according to the Interior Ministry, making it one of the world's most dangerous countries.
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For those tourists who aren't put off by the crime, the shortages or the sight of people clawing through garbage cans for food, there is still one more problem: getting here.
Only 15 international airlines are still flying to Venezuela. More than 15 others have pulled out in the past two years, citing economic concerns and security troubles, including stolen luggage at airports. ...
You can't get $1 out of the bank in Venezuela. I tried.
Four hours. Four banks. Six cents.
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The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday warned that Venezuela's proposed "petro" cryptocurrency could violate sanctions against the OPEC nation's socialist government, a statement that could dent investor appetite for the soon-to-be-launched token.
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The Guyana government has been paying close attention to options available to Venezuela, following United Nations (UN) Secretary General, Antonio Guterres’ referral of the border controversy to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), a senior government official said.
Minister of State, Joseph Harmon told Demerara Waves Online News that reports that Venezuela had been planning an incursion into Guyana’s territory was being factored into government’s analysis. “Of course, as a nation, we have to take all of these things into consideration. We cannot disregard any reports like that,” said Harmon, a retired Lieutenant Colonel of the Guyana Defence Force and current member of the Defence Board.
Region One (Barima-Waini) Chairman, Brentnol Ashley said there was no evidence of increased Venezuelan presence on the border with Guyana since the UN Chief’s decision. “To date, we haven’t had any reports…we haven’t seen, nor have we received any reports to that effect,” Ashley said.
Word that Venezuela was exploring options to flex its military muscles against Guyana had coincided with a high-level visit to Guyana by Brazil’s Minister of Defence and several military chiefs earlier this month. “It is not by accident that such a large and high level delegation came to Guyana,” Defense Minister Raul Jungmann Pinto.
Brazil’s historical position, in support of Guyana’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, has always maintained that it would not support an alteration of its borders.
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Maduro faces a May 20 election with support from only about a fifth of the population and he is turning over swathes of the economy to the 160,000-member military, the strongest power in a failing state. Active and retired officers hold 14 of 32 cabinet posts. Soldiers have replaced many of the 80 state oil company leaders whom Maduro has imprisoned since August. The ports have been militarized and the Defense Ministry oversees the hungry nation’s food supply.
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A similar strategy that Trump seems to have adopted then ?
Ok he hasnt put soldiers in charge of commercial operations but he does seem to want a cabinet that is centered around individuals with military interests.
The European Commission will give the government of sanctioned Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro around $47 million.
The funds are designed to go to Venezuelans and countries receiving Venezuelan migrants, the European Commission said in a note on Thursday. Neven Mimica, Europe’s commissioner for international cooperation and development, said: "We are very concerned about the critical situation in Venezuela and its impact in neighboring countries such as Colombia. This package will improve the Venezuelan people’s access to food and nutrition, as well as basic services like water, sanitation and hygiene.”
Last year, Maduro rejected calling the crisis a humanitarian crisis, saying he would not apply for aid from the international humanitarian aid organizations. (He undoubtedly thinks nonprofits like Oxfam International are crawling with Yankee spies.)
Out of the funding announced today, $5.9 million will go to healthcare, food and water. Another $5.9 million will support conflict-prevention measures to reduce social tensions and violence and protect people displaced by the crisis, a crisis Maduro largely blames on Washington.
Some $22 million is going towards development assistance in Venezuela and to neighboring nations housing migrants. Another $8.3 million is supposedly going solely to meet the needs of migrants. The European Commission's humanitarian aid department has been providing emergency support to Venezuela since 2016. They did not say who specifically was getting the money. If it is going to the Venezuelan government, then one can safely assume that it is money gone to waste. The EC has been throwing money at Maduro and the ruling Socialists United of Venezuela (PSUV) for two years now and the food and medical supplies situation has only deteriorated.
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Faced with nearly incomprehensible inflation — 32,714 percent as of Wednesday — Venezuelan officials thought they had a solution: They changed the color of the bank notes and increased their denomination. Then they said they would lop off three zeros. And when that didn’t seem enough, they announced they would cut off two more.
The tactics have left Venezuelans like Yosmar Nowak, the owner of a coffee shop in Caracas, convinced that there is no solution in sight and that the government cannot even bring down the price of a cup of coffee, an eye-watering 2 million bolivars.
“I imagine if we keep like this we’re going to have to do the same thing in December,” said Nowak, who has been forced to raise prices in her cafe at least 40 times this year.
Slashing zeros from Venezuela’s inflation-cursed currency, the bolivar, is the tent-pole of a set of economic changes by President Nicolás Maduro as he tries to right his country’s capsized economy. The five-digit inflation has earned Venezuela comparisons to the hyperinflation of Zimbabwe and Weimar Germany from the International Monetary Fund.
The newly minted currency, which will be known as the “sovereign bolívar,” will be rolled out Monday. In addition, the president has ordered measures his United Socialist Party has been loath to consider in the past: An increase in gas prices for some drivers and a modest ease in the currency controls that have made dollars inaccessible to most Venezuelans for years.
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A toilet paper roll next to 2,600,000 bolivars, its price and the equivalent of 0.40 USD.
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Venezuela came to a standstill on Tuesday as the country tried to deal with its newly introduced currency.
Thousands of businesses closed in order to adapt to the "sovereign bolivar", and many workers stayed at home.
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The UN estimates that 2.3 million Venezuelans have fled since 2015 with Colombian authorities predicting 2 million more could follow by 2020. That would mean some 4.3 million people – 14% of Venezuela’s population – had taken flight.
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It's not the same as the famous photos of wheelbarrows full of cash, but it's pretty close:
More images: https://widerimage.reuters.com/story/venezuelans-rush-to-shops-before-monetary-overhaul
More: https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-latin-america-45262525
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/26/venezuelan-mass-exodus-continues-amid-economic-turmoil
Since the primary focus of the federal government SHOULD be national security, it makes total sense to me to have his advisors be 'experts' in security.
China agreed to extend a $5 billion credit line to cash-strapped Venezuela, said the Venezuelan finance minister, as President Nicolas Maduro headed to Beijing.
Minister Simon Zerpa told Bloomberg News that Venezuela would pay back the loan with either cash or oil. The countries were expected to sign what Zerpa described as a strategic alliance on gold mining.
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President Donald Trump signed an executive order authorizing new sanctions on Venezuela’s gold sector, in a bid to disrupt trade with Turkey that U.S. officials fear is undermining efforts to pressure the South American nation’s president, Nicolas Maduro.
The order, signed Wednesday by Trump and announced at a speech Thursday by National Security Adviser John Bolton, targets people operating corruptly within Venezuela’s gold sector. It’s expected to significantly impact the country’s economy, according to a senior administration official who requested anonymity to discuss the announcement before it was made.
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The Treasury Department is expected to outline implementation of the new Venezuela sanctions authority later Thursday. While the initial effort will focus on the country’s gold sector, Trump’s order gives the State and Treasury departments authority to target additional industries in the future.
“The new sanctions will target networks operating within corrupt Venezuelan economic sectors and deny them access to stolen wealth,” Bolton said. “Most immediately, the new sanctions will prevent U.S. persons from engaging with actors and networks complicit in corrupt or deceptive transactions in the Venezuelan gold.”
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Venezuela’s gold industry has been under scrutiny by U.S. officials in recent weeks, with the Treasury Department noting that many mines are run by criminal gangs, a situation that is environmentally disastrous. The sanctions are likely to have a particular effect on trade with Turkey, with tons of gold sent there annually for refinement and processing. Officials have also voiced concern that some of the gold may find its way to Iran in violation of sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
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Venezuela is seeking to repatriate about $550 million in gold bars from the Bank of England because of fears it could be caught up in international sanctions on the country, two sources with direct knowledge of the effort told Reuters.
Venezuela’s hard currency holdings have dwindled as existing U.S. financial sanctions have effectively blocked President Nicolas Maduro’s government from borrowing on international markets.
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Maduro’s government is seeking to bring 14 tonnes of gold held in the Bank of England back to Venezuela, according to two public officials with direct knowledge of the operation, who asked not to be identified.
The Bank of England has sought to clarify what Venezuela wants to do with the gold, one of the officials said.
Venezuela’s central bank did not respond to a request for comment. The Bank of England declined to comment.
The plan has been held up for nearly two months due to difficulty in obtaining insurance for the shipment, needed to move a large gold cargo, one of the officials said.
“They are still trying to find insurance coverage, because the costs are high,” the official said.
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The amount is equivalent to five times the total hard currency that Venezuela has sold in 2018 via hard currency auctions that are carried out under the country’s 15-year-old exchange control system, according figures compiled by local consultancy Sintesis Financiera.
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But even if Venezuela manages to repatriate the gold, the new U.S. sanctions could make selling it to raise hard currency difficult.
“If the government wants to carry out operations with the gold that it plans to bring, it would have to be done with allied countries because of the sanctions,” said Tamara Herrera, an economist with Sintesis Financiera.
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The country’s late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, citing the need for Venezuela to have physical control of central bank assets, in 2011 repatriated around 160 tonnes of gold from banks in the United States and Europe to the central bank in Caracas.
But some of Venezuela’s gold remained in the Bank of England. Starting in 2014, Venezuela used this gold for “swap” operations in which global banks lent Venezuela several billion dollars with the gold as collateral.
Venezuelan central bank statistics show the central bank’s gold holdings by June this year had dropped to 160 tonnes from 364 tonnes in 2014, as some of the swap agreements expired without Venezuela returning the funds - leaving the gold in the hands of the banks.
In 2017, such swap agreements became difficult due to U.S. sanctions, which blocked U.S. financial institutions from bankrolling any new financing operations.
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The Bank has refused to release the gold bars, worth about £420 million, according to sources. British officials are understood to have insisted that standard measures to prevent money-laundering be taken — including clarification of the Venezuelan government’s intentions for the gold.
There are concerns that Mr Maduro may seize the gold, which is owned by the state, and sell it for personal gain.
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President Trump moved this month to increase pressure on Caracas by signing an executive order sanctioning Venezuelan gold exports and banning U.S. citizens from dealing with anyone involved in “corrupt or deceptive” Venezuelan gold sales.
“The Maduro regime has used this [gold] sector as a bastion to finance illicit activities, to fill its coffers and to support criminal groups,” National Security Advisor John R. Bolton said in a Nov. 1 policy speech in Miami.
Mr. Bolton said Venezuela was among a “Troika of Tyranny” with Cuba and Nicaragua. He said those nations collectively threaten U.S. interests in the Western Hemisphere in a way that justifies “direct action” by the administration “against all three regimes.”
South America observers say the urgency to thwart Venezuela’s gold exports is driven from within the Treasury Department’s office combating illicit finance.
Marshall Billingslea, Treasury’s assistant secretary for terrorist financing, has drawn specific attention to the dangers of the Maduro government’s dealings in gold and accused the Venezuelan president of looting his country.
“This gold is being removed from the country without any of the customary safeguards that would ensure the funds are accounted for and properly cataloged as belonging to the Venezuelan people,” Mr. Billingslea told an audience late last month at the Brookings Institution.
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Venezuelan opposition leaders are asking the Bank of England to keep 14 tons of Venezuelan bullion safely locked up in Britain rather than return it to the administration of President Nicolás Maduro because he’s likely to steal or squander it amid the country’s economic collapse.
In a letter sent Friday, former National Assembly President Julio Borges and the political coordinator for the Voluntad Popular party, Carlos Vecchio — both in exile — asked bank governor Mark Carney to refuse Venezuela’s request for the gold.
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The Times of London has reported that the Bank of England is dragging its feet — and perhaps refusing — to send the gold back. The bank has not made any public statements about the issue.
The bank holds about 400,000 gold bars for central banks around the world, making it the second-largest depository of the metal after the New York Federal Reserve. For it to refuse a request from one of its clients would be highly unusual.
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... Caracas Capital Markets, which tracks Venezuela’s finances, says that in 2011, the country had $21.3 billion in gold reserves. But “after a rash of selling gold,” the country had just $6.8 billion as of August, the firm said. ...
Venezuela’s central bank sent key economic data to the International Monetary Fund last week to avoid penalties in the most significant trove of statistics compiled for the lender in about two years, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The official figures admit that inflation spiraled out of control to 860 percent in 2017 while the economy contracted 15.7 percent, the fourth straight year of recession, according to one of the people who isn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter. After Venezuela suspended the publication of growth and inflation data in the midst of the unprecedented crisis, the IMF warned of possible sanctions for withholding statistics and the central bank complied by sharing the figures Nov. 20, the people said.
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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro insists that national gold exports should continue despite sweeping US sanctions targeting the industry. It comes after the UK refused to release around $550 million in gold owned by Caracas.
“Venezuela has the right to sell what it produces. We are moving forward with the plan on gold output as the new source of prosperity,” Maduro stated, as cited by media, after the meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday.
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“This gold is being removed from the country without any of the customary safeguards that would ensure the funds are accounted for and properly cataloged as belonging to the Venezuelan people,” Mr. Billingslea told an audience late last month at the Brookings Institution.
We are moving forward with the plan on gold output as the new source of prosperity
Venezuelan authorities have offered Russian companies to take part in gold exploration and gold mining in the country, according to Russian Ambassador to Venezuela Vladimir Zaemsky.
“As for Russia’s participation in gold-mining or other mining projects, Venezuela has made a wide range of interesting proposals that are currently under consideration by interested Russian operators,” the ambassador said.
The official added that Caracas is deeply interested in cooperating with Russia in the sector of exploration of the country’s solid extractable resources, including gold, diamonds and coltan, which is used for the extraction of elements such as niobium and tantalum.
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A committee from Venezuela is set to arrive in Turkey to discuss a gold refining deal between Ankara and Caracas, pro-government Yeni Şafak daily reported.
The group sent by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro will visit Turkey’s central province of Çorum, where it’s looking to conduct bilateral trade talks and refine thousands of tons of Venezuelan gold as part of an inspection of Turkey’s gold refining facilities, the newspaper said.
The delegation arrives as Turkey continues to set up joint ventures with the Venezuelan government for gold and coal exploration and has started investing in the country’s oil industry.
Venezuela’s central bank began refining gold in Turkey in 2018. Gold, worth $834 million in the first 7 months of 2018 alone, is being shipped to Turkey for refinement and procession, with U.S. officials alleging that some may be making its way onto Iran in a violation of sanctions.
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Venezuela’s gold holdings in the Bank of England have jumped after it closed out a gold swap deal with Deutsche Bank, according to two sources, as Britain remains reluctant to release gold held for the troubled OPEC nation.
The government of Nicolas Maduro has since last year been seeking to repatriate about $550 million in gold from the Bank of England on fears it could be caught up in international sanctions on the country.
Its holdings at the bank more than doubled in December to 31 tonnes, or around $1.2 billion, after Venezuela returned funds it had borrowed from Deutsche Bank AG through a financing arrangement that uses gold as collateral, known as a swap, one of the sources said.
Under the deal struck with Deutsche Bank in 2015, Venezuela put up 17 tonnes of gold in exchange for a loan, according to one of the sources who asked not to be identified because it is not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.
The country’s gold holdings fell to 134 tonnes in November compared with 150 tonnes at the start of 2018, according to central bank statistics.
This is in part because Venezuela last year started carrying out gold barter operations with Turkey to import food following U.S. sanctions that have made international banks reluctant to handle Venezuelan transactions.
The motivation for paying back the funds from the Deutsche swap was not immediately evident. But redeeming the swap would give Venezuela more gold for barter operations with Turkey.
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