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It’s fashionable these days to blame everything that goes wrong with anything on human interference with the climate, and we had yet another example last week when President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela fingered drought, El Niño and global warming as the reasons Venezuela’s lights keep going out. In this post I show that his Excellency has not a leg to stand on when he makes these claims, but that because no one ever looks at the data everyone believes him.

International Business Times: Venezuelan Leader Blames El Niño And Global Warming For Nation’s Energy Crisis

The fierce El Niño event under way in the Pacific Ocean and warming global temperatures have helped create the brutal drought now racking Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro said Wednesday night. Venezuela is facing its worst drought in almost half a century. The nation depends on hydropower for nearly two-thirds of its electricity, but the reservoirs that fuel its facilities are evaporating. Power outages in recent weeks have forced factories to send workers home early, slowing production, and many residents are now scrambling to secure enough drinking water supplies.

The fierce El Niño created the brutal drought now racking Venezuela, the worst in almost half a century. No pulling of punches. Boiled down to essentials, however, there are three issues here – a) is there really a “brutal” drought in Venezuela, b) if so, did the “fierce” El Niño cause it and c) has global warming made it worse? We’ll take a look at these issues shortly, but first it’s important to note that about 70% of Venezuela’s electricity comes from one massive installation, the Guri dam on the Caroni River (officially the Simon Bolívar Hydroelectric Plant) which holds back a 4,000 square kilometer lake, about the same size as Rhode Island or Somerset.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Venezuela Runs Out Of Electricity, Will Shut Down For A Week, El Nino Blamed

March 17, 2016

Venezuela Runs Out Of Electricity, Will Shut Down For A Week, El Nino Blamed

When last we checked in on our favorite socialist paradise, Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro’s opponents “had gone crazy.”

Or at least that’s how Maduro described the situation in a “thundering” speech to supporters at what he called an “anti-imperialist” rally in Caracas last Sunday.

Meanwhile, thousands of demonstrators held counter-rallies calling for the President’s ouster. Maduro angered the opposition – which dealt Hugo Chavez’s leftist movement its worst defeat at the ballot box in history in December – last month when he used a stacked Supreme Court to give himself emergency powers he says will help him deal with the country’s worsening economic crisis.

“Now that the economic emergency decree has validity, in the next few days I will activate a series of measures I had been working on,” he said, following Congress’s declaration of a “food emergency.”

Needless to say, Maduro’s “measures” didn’t do much to help the situation on the ground, where Venezuelans must queue in front of grocery stores and where 90% of medicine is scarce.

Venezuela is the world’s worst performing economy and barring a sudden (not to mention large) spike in crude prices, the country will in all likelihood default this year as 90% of oil revenue at current prices must go towards debt service payments.

But that hasn’t deterred Maduro, who has vowed to remain defiant in the face of (loud) calls for his exit. “Let them come for me,” he bellowed on Sunday. “I will hang on to power until the final day.”

Maybe so, but one place that’s not “hanging onto power” is the Guri Dam, which supplies more than two-thirds of the country’s electricity. As The Latin American Herald Tribune writes, the dam “is less than four meters from reaching the level where power generation will be impossible.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

In Venezuela, “Savage Suffering” Takes Hold Amid Frightening “Food Emergency”

February 13, 2016

In Venezuela, “Savage Suffering” Takes Hold Amid Frightening “Food Emergency”

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has been working on some “measures.”

“Now that the economic emergency decree has validity, in the next few days I will activate a series of measures I had been working on,” he said Thursday, in a televised statement meant to address a “food emergency” declared by Congress.

The “validity” Maduro references comes from a high court ruling that gives the President expanded powers to tackle a deepening economic crisis that’s left hospitals without medicine and grocery stores bereft of food.

“The controversial move by the Supreme Court, which critics say is packed with supporters of Mr Maduro’s socialist government, potentially sets the scene for a bitter institutional crisis amid claims that the national assembly is being undermined,” FT notes, underscoring the extent to which opposition lawmakers – who in December won 99 of 167 seats that were up for grabs in what amounted to the worst defeat in history for Hugo Chavez’s leftist movement – feel as though last year’s election victory may have been a ruse designed to lend legitimacy to a system that is, and likely always will be, deeply undemocratic.

“This is a tyranny, which has been very successful in disguising as a democracy, and has even allowed itself to lose an election,” Moisés Naím, a former Venezuelan minister and fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said.

Thanks to the Supreme Court decision, Maduro doesn’t need the assembly’s permission to intervene further in business, to allocate funds for imports, and to introduce new capital controls. The opposition is furious and says it will speed up efforts to usurp Maduro once and for all. “In the next few days we will have to present a concrete proposal for the departure of that national disgrace that is the government,” opposition leader Henry Ramos told reporters on Friday.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Venezuela isn’t looking too hot

October 7, 2015

Venezuela isn’t looking too hot

If anarcho-capitalists should move to Somalia, then socialists – especially, “social democrats” — should move to Venezuela. The country is a complete disaster. But don’t take my word for it, read what a Caracas homemaker said after she tried to buy three cans of sardines and was ordered to put one back due to food rationing: “This is a disaster.”

Food shortages, rising prices, inflation, corrupted incentives, and rampant crime are all symptoms of a primordial problem: socialism. Just because the Socialist Party was democratically elected does not mean that the economic calculation problem has been solved. It’s as if the gods needed one more example to shove down the throats of Western leftists. Economic chaos, food rationing and a complete break down of the social order aren’t lessons of a misguided dictatorship of the proletariat, but a fundamental reality of socialism, whether democratic or not.

Democracy is just an insidious form of communism and the Venezuelan December 6th legislative elections won’t likely loosen the power the Socialists hold over the judiciary and government watchdog agencies. But since street protests led to more state violence, the Venezuelan people have retreated to a electoral solution.

Like Canada, where government workers prefer to vote for the party that offers more tax-funded goods, it’s assumed that in Venezuela, the government-controlled TV and radio stations will convince enough people to vote for the Socialists.

Pollster Luis Vicente Leon said that over 16 years in power, first Chavez and now [President Nicolas] Maduro have mastered the electoral arts. “They fiercely control the institutions and the money which allow them to become stronger through electoral engineering even when their support is flagging,” Leon wrote in the Caracas daily El Universal.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Amid “US Coup”, Venezuela Takes Another $5 Billion Loan From China

March 20, 2015

Amid “US Coup”, Venezuela Takes Another $5 Billion Loan From China

The people of Venezuela can rejoice… not so fast. Amid paranoid-sounding (though not unlikely) rantings about US-created coups (and blaming ‘economic’ war for his nation’s Socialist utopia hyperinflation), it appears President Maduro just got another life-line (or more rope to hang himself). After begging China’s leader Xi early in January for moar money (and getting it), China – which is already Venezuela’s biggest creditor with over $50 billion loaned since 2007 – as Reutersreports, is said to plan on signing another $5bn loan to Venezuela for “wide-ranging” projects like “mature oil fields.” So, it appears China is enabling Maduro to hollow out his economy even more.

As Reuters reports,

China is poised to lend Venezuela around $10 billion in coming months, half as part of a bilateral financing deal and the other half for development of oil fields, a senior official at state oil company PDVSAsaid on Thursday.

The first $5 billion loan, part of the Joint Chinese-Venezuelan Fund, is due to be signed this month and will be destined for wide-ranging projects in the OPEC country, said the official.

The other separate $5 billion loan is set to be clinched in June and will likely stipulate contracting Chinese companies to boost production in PDVSA’s mature oil fields, the source added.

“China wants to decisively back investments in areas like mature oil fields so that PDVSA can rapidly increase its production,” said the source, who asked not to be identified.

* * *

Maybe it’s time to stock up on condoms and toilet paper?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

MAYBE OBAMA’S SANCTIONS ON VENEZUELA ARE NOT REALLY ABOUT HIS “DEEP CONCERN” OVER SUPPRESSION OF POLITICAL RIGHTS

March 13, 2015

MAYBE OBAMA’S SANCTIONS ON VENEZUELA ARE NOT REALLY ABOUT HIS “DEEP CONCERN” OVER SUPPRESSION OF POLITICAL RIGHTS

The White House on Monday announced the imposition of new sanctions on various Venezuelan officials, pronouncing itself “deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government’s efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents”: deeply concerned. President Obama also, reportedly with a straight face, officially declared that Venezuela poses “an extraordinary threat to the national security” of the U.S. — a declaration necessary to legally justify the sanctions.

Today, one of the Obama administration’s closest allies on the planet, Saudi Arabia, sentenced one of that country’s few independent human rights activists, Mohammed al-Bajad, to 10 years in prison on “terrorism” charges. That is completely consistent with that regime’s systematic and extreme repression, which includes gruesome state beheadings at a record-setting rate, floggings and long prison terms for anti-regime bloggers,executions of those with minority religious views, and exploitation of terror laws to imprison even the mildest regime critics.

Absolutely nobody expects the “deeply concerned” President Obama to impose sanctions on the Saudis — nor on any of the other loyal U.S. allies from Egypt to the UAE whose repression is far worse than Venezuela’s. Perhaps those who actually believe U.S. proclamations about imposing sanctions on Venezuela in objection to suppression of political opposition might spend some time thinking about what accounts for that disparity.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Overt Media War Against the Maduro Government

February 8, 2015

The Overt Media War Against the Maduro Government

The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.

– Malcolm X

On January 30, 2015, El Universal, one of the big three media set on overthrowing the elected government in Venezuela published an article with the bold headline, Poverty hits 48.4% of households in Venezuela. The formula has been in place for the last 15 years. Venezuela’s private opposition newspapers and television channels, the attacks come in an unrelenting barrage against the Bolivarian Government which is then fed to Reuters and Associated Press, picked up by the likes of the Miami Herald, New York Times, Washington Post and other publications and spread around the world. We’ve decided to examine a recent attack by El Universal which along with El Nacional publishes venom against the government every single day.

This El Universal article targets one of the core achievements of the Chavez and Maduro governments in the Bolivarian Revolution. In war, it’s common for insurgents to seek out the weak positions of their stronger enemy from rear and harass and bite at the flanks with sneak attacks.

But in this case, a sworn enemy of the government uses the tactic of a full frontal attack in the media war, choosing to undermine and neutralize one of the Venezuelan governments finest and unassailable achievements: it’s dramatic reduction in poverty during the last 15 years, recognized by the United Nations, human rights groups, generally undenied by the corporate media and most importantly supported by the majority of the Venezuelan people. Unlike military battles, in media-wars the insurgents can attack the strongest positions of their enemy with the powerful weapon of illusion used to confound the unwary reader. The only way to fight them off is to expose their lies and disinformation, the purpose of this counter-attack.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Exporting Fascism: US Imperialism in Latin America

January 26, 2015

Exporting Fascism: US Imperialism in Latin America

The US sanctions against Venezuela, signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 18, 2014, resulted from charges of protestors’ rights being violated by the socialist government of President Nicolás Maduro.

The sanctions allow the Obama administration to deny visas and freeze the assets of Venezuelan officials accused of violating the rights of anti-government groups. These groups, comprised mainly of the right-wing opposition, have been leading violent protests in Caracas since last February. US leaders blame the Venezuelan leadership, headed by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, for the deaths of 43 people during such demonstrations, which included both government supporters and opponents.

This charge has been widely disputed as an attempt for the American Eagle of Imperialism to dig its talons into Venezuela. As reported by Al-Jazeera, “Despite the widely accepted and facile media narrative about the government’s culpability for the origins of the protests and the ensuing violence, there is convincing evidence that Venezuela’s right-wing antagonists bear much of the blame.”

It is no secret that right-wing antagonists in Venezuela have been receiving US support. In New Eastern Outlook, journalist Caleb Maupin reported, “The so-called ‘Venezuelan opposition,’ which includes many open admirers of fascist dictators Francisco Franco and Augusto Pinochet, has received over $100 million in funding from the United States over the last twelve years.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Thousands march against Venezuelan president

January 25, 2015

Thousands march against Venezuelan president

Protesters rally against sky-high inflation and shortages of food in Caracas, demanding President Nicolas Maduro resign.

Thousands of protesters have marched in the Venezuelan capital banging pots and pans over shortages of food and demanding an end to President Nicolas Maduro’s term in office.

Demonstrators poured on to the streets of Caracas on Saturday rallying against sky-high inflation and shortages of food and consumer goods.

Opponents say Venezuela’s economic crisis is a consequence of 15 years of socialist policies, begun by Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez, who ruled from 1999 to 2013 before his death from cancer.

“Maduro must step aside for Venezuela to be able to unite in a national reconstruction process,” opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, a deposed politician who was jailed after deadly riots last year said.

“The government needs to be changed urgently,” Machado argued, at what opposition activists called the “March of Empty Pots.”

“I am protesting because in my country there is nothing, no food, no nourishment, no medicine,” protester, Maria Carolina Nolia told the Associated Press news agency.

Maduro is facing a dismal 22-percent approval rating, and three quarters of the population oppose his government, recent polls show.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oil Falls as Goldman Cuts Outlook While Venezuela Seeks Recovery

January 12, 2015

Oil Falls as Goldman Cuts Outlook While Venezuela Seeks Recovery

Oil fell to the lowest level in more than 5 1/2 years as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. reduced its price forecasts andVenezuela called on OPEC producers to work together to spur a recovery.

Futures slid as much as 3.3 percent in London after a seventh weekly drop. Crude has to “stay lower for longer” if investment in shale is to be curtailed to re-balance the global market, according to Goldman analysts. Prices need to return to $100 a barrel for economic equilibrium, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said in Iran during a tour of Middle Eastern members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Oil slumped almost 50 percent last year, the most since the 2008 financial crisis, amid a supply glut estimated by Qatar at 2 million barrels a day. OPEC is battling a U.S. shale boom by resisting production cuts, signaling it’s prepared to let prices decline to a level that slows the fastest pace of American output in more than three decades.

“We are yet to see any material indications in fundamentals to support a rebound in crude prices,” Miswin Mahesh, an analyst at Barclays Plc in London, said in a report. The “surplus is expected to expand” going into the second quarter.

Brent for February settlement dropped as much as $1.66 to $48.45 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange and was at $48.74 at 11:22 a.m. London time. The contract lost 85 cents to $50.11 on Jan. 9, the lowest close since April 2009. The European benchmark crude traded at a premium of as little as $1.38 to U.S. marker grade West Texas Intermediate, the least since Oct. 16.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Venezuela, Iran Leaders Join to ‘Neutralize Schemes Against OPEC and Stabilize Oil Price’

January 11, 2015

Venezuela, Iran Leaders Join to ‘Neutralize Schemes Against OPEC and Stabilize Oil Price’

TEHRAN, Iran—Iran and Venezuela vowed Saturday to work together to stabilize falling global oil prices as Iran’s supreme leader accused “enemies” of using crude prices as a political weapon.

With Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by his side, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani urged OPEC members to “neutralize schemes by some powers against OPEC and help stabilize an acceptable oil price in 2015.” Maduro also called for OPEC’s cooperation in stabilizing oil prices.

Both Iran and Venezuela rely on oil prices to boost their respective economies. Oil prices have plunged more than 55 percent since June to less than $50 a barrel, placing a severe strain on the two countries.

Maduro is touring several OPEC nations to drum up support for a production cut to boost prices. He is to visit Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, to discuss the oil market slump.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Now There’s Not Even Soap” Maduro Heads To China To ‘Save’ Socialist Utopia Venezuela | Zero Hedge

January 4, 2015

“Now There’s Not Even Soap” Maduro Heads To China To ‘Save’ Socialist Utopia Venezuela | Zero Hedge.

Social media is awash with striking images of #EmptyShelvesInVenezuela (#AnaquelesVaciosEnVenezuela) as the evaporation of basic human staples such as toilet paper has now been hyperinflated to total chaos at warehouses and supermarkets. As President Maduro decries the loss of $100 oil “stability”, vowing to return oil prices to their rightful places (and heads to China for help), lines reach for miles for milk and soap… and the people defy governmental bans on photographing empty market shelves… “We couldn’t find shampoo, so we washed our hair with soap. Now there’s not even soap.”

* * *

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro begins a trip to China and OPEC member countries in search of financial support as his country reels from falling oil prices and a tattered economy.

*MADURO SAYS TO WORK ON ECONOMIC, FINANCIAL MATTERS W/ CHINA
*MADURO SAYS WILL VISIT VARIOUS OPEC COUNTRIES ON TRIP
*MADURO SAYS PLANS ON DEVELOPING OIL PRICE STRATEGY ON TRIP
*VENEZUELA TO RESTORE `NATURAL’ PRICE FOR OIL, MADURO SAYS
*OIL MARKET MECHANISMS AT $100/BARREL WERE STABLE: MADURO

As AFP reports,

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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