International Venezuela, The Socialist Dystopia, v2: The region's worst humanitarian crisis in decades

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- Thank you for your service!

You know that socialism is shitty when you award your soldiers with toilet paper.
 
Venezuela hands China more oil presence, but no mention of new funds



Venezuela gave China another stake in the OPEC nation’s oil industry and signed several other deals in the energy sector, but Beijing made no mention of new funds for Caracas during President Nicolas Maduro’s visit to his key financier on Friday.

Maduro’s leftist government sold a 9.9 percent stake in the low-cost Sinovensa joint venture, where China National Petroleum Corporation has a 40 percent share, to China, it said in a statement.

The statement also said China and Venezuela had signed a “memorandum for cooperation in Ayacucho bloc 6,” located in Venezuela’s vast oil-rich Orinoco Belt, without elaborating.

China will drill 300 wells in Ayacucho and extend $184 million in financing for the joint oil venture Petrozumano, the statement added. A source at PDVSA, who asked to remain anonymous because he is not allowed to speak to media, said oil services and procurement at Sinovensa would be handled by Chinese companies.

It was unclear what China, which has ploughed more than $50 billion into Venezuela through oil-for-loan agreements, was giving in return.

PDVSA and Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not respond to a request for information about the deal. Maduro said on Thursday he was going to China on a four-day trip with “great expectations” and promised to return with “big achievements.”

Premier Li Keqiang told Maduro that Beijing was willing to provide the crisis-hit country with what help it can, according to Chinese government statements on Friday.

But there was no reference in Chinese state media or in Chinese government statements to new funds for Venezuela, which is struggling with a fifth year of recession and an economy wracked by hyperinflation.

Over a decade, oil-for-loan agreements helped China secure energy supplies for its fast-growing economy while bolstering an anti-U.S. ally in Latin America.

The flow of cash halted nearly three years ago, however, when Venezuela asked for a change of payment terms amid falling oil prices and declining crude output that pushed its state-led economy into a hyperinflationary collapse.

Venezuela’s finance ministry in July said it would receive $250 million from the China Development Bank to boost oil production but offered no details. Venezuela previously accepted a $5 billion loan from China for its struggling oil sector but has yet to receive the entire amount.

In a separate meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Maduro said Venezuela was willing to “explore effective financing methods” with China and strengthen cooperation in the energy sector, Chinese state media said, citing Maduro without elaborating.

Xi told Maduro China would, as before, support the Venezuelan government’s efforts to seek stability and development.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...=topNews&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=Social
 
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Well well well, what do we have here...


Venezuela is handing over oil fields to private companies for the first time since the 1990s
Irina Slav, Sep. 15, 2018​



Caracas is preparing the return of oil contracts with private companies that were last used in the 1990s before the Chavez era that made PDVSA the one and only operator of oil fields. Reuters reported this week it had seen a draft of the contract stipulating the state oil company will give control over several fields to a set of local companies for a period of six years. The companies will have to commit to boosting production, funding field maintenance, and purchasing whatever equipment they need to do all this. In exchange, PDVSA will pay them a fee for the oil they extract.

It smacks of privatization, albeit temporary, but how successful it would be remains an open question. Sources close to the developments told Reuters the draft document was the foundation of a production-boost plan announced by President Nicolas Maduro at the end of August. The plan, PDVSA's head, Manuel Quevedo, said later, would involve investments of US$430 million to increase oil production by 641,000 bpd. The company picked 14 companies to take part, but the names of only seven have been made public.

Most, Reuters reports, are oilfield service providers, which means they don't necessarily have oil production experience. Five of them are Venezuelan, one is based in Panama, and one is Chinese. According to the draft contract, in addition to the fees they receive for the oil they produce, the companies will also be reimbursed for the investments they make in the fields. Can the plan work?

There are a lot of "ifs" here. Anything is theoretically possible, even a reversal of Venezuela's sliding oil production, especially if it is urgently necessary. This is precisely the case: with booming hyperinflation, hundreds of millions in delayed payments to creditors by PDVSA, and, most recently, a decision by Caracas to cut fuel subsidies, Venezuela is teetering on the brink of total collapse. Oil is Venezuela's biggest asset. It makes sense it would try to use it better. The problem seems to be the choice of field operators. And the other problem is that Caracas does not really have a choice.

Foreign companies were driven out of the country by the Chavez government. Now, even if they would like to come back, they couldn't because of the severe U.S. sanctions against Caracas. Even if there were no sanctions, a return of Big Oil to Venezuela would be questionable: the Chavez nationalization must have left a bad taste. So, Venezuela really does not have any other options, but to entrust its planned production boost to local companies. And it really needs this boost.

According to OPEC's secondary sources, Venezuela's oil production in July dropped to below the 1.3-million-bpd mark—at 1.278 million bpd, plunging 47,700 bpd from June. This compares with an average of 2.154 million bpd in 2016, and an average of 1.911 million bpd in 2017. Some analysts expect production to fall to below 1 million bpd by the end of this year. The production problem, in other words, is getting more urgent by the day.

Yet, another problem could outshine it very soon. Media covering the proposed fuel subsidy curb recall the last time a Venezuelan government tried to raise prices at the pump. It was in 1989 and it led to riots and an attempted coup. Cutting fuel subsidies, in other words, is a desperate move that might not end well for the government in Caracas, even if it manages to boost oil production with the help of the seven private companies.

https://www.businessinsider.com/oil-price-venezuela-return-oil-contracts-with-private-company-2018-9
 
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Desperate for cash, Venezuela threatens to sue its neighbors
By Jim Wyss | September 14, 2018

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A crowd of Venezuelans waited to cross the Simon Bolivar Bridge into Colombia


As Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro spends the weekend in China nailing down a $5 billion emergency loan, his cash-strapped administration is floating another money-making scheme: suing its neighbors.

In recent days, Maduro and his cabinet have said they might sue Colombia, Ecuador and Perú for their “xenophobic” treatment of Venezuelan migrants. And on Tuesday, Maduro ordered his justice department to sue Colombia to claw back money he says his administration has spent providing social services to millions of Colombians living in Venezuela.

The legal threats come as Venezuela seems increasingly desperate for cash. Once wealthy, the country is being slammed with chronic food and medicine shortages. Its foreign cash reserves are at their lowest levels since the 1980s. And oil output, the country’s lifeblood, is down to levels not seen since a 2002 oil-worker strike. In addition, U.S. sanctions have been keeping the country from finding fresh funds.

That could change this weekend, with Maduro in Beijing finalizing a $5 billion loan the government says it will use to boost crude production.

That Venezuela is talking about suing neighbors for reparations is just one more sign of how dire the situation has become in Caracas.

Speaking at a youth rally for the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela early this week, Maduro said Venezuela had provided millions of Colombians, who had fled their nation’s violence, food, health and housing aid over decades. And now he wants that money back.

“I have authorized the [country’s] legal teams to prepare a lawsuit against Colombia so we can be reimbursed for the 5.6 million Colombians in Venezuela,” Maduro said. “They need to reimburse us in American dollars.”

Also this week, Venezuelan Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez said “elites” in Colombia, Ecuador and Perú were luring Venezuelans there with false promises and then paying them slave wages.

“If we have to ask for compensation from the governments of Colombia, Ecuador and Perú, we’re going to demand it,” he said.

The statements come as the region is increasingly alarmed by the estimated 1.6 million Venezuelans the United Nations says have swarmed across the Venezuela border since 2015 amid the country’s economic collapse.

Maduro says the migration numbers are being exaggerated to destabilize his government and set the stage for an invasion under the guise of “humanitarian intervention.” He also accuses his neighbors of trying to profit from the crisis, as they seek international aid.

Instead, he says it’s Venezuela that deserves the money, and recognition, for harboring migrants, in particular for providing food, health and housing aid to Colombian residents.

It’s true that millions of Colombians sought refuge in Venezuela amid this nation’s half-century conflict. But researchers say Venezuela is exaggerating the numbers. At its height, there were never more than 3.6 million Colombians living in Venezuela — a figure that included their Venezuelan-born children, who must be considered Venezuelan nationals, said researchers at the Venezuelan Observatory, a think tank at Colombia’s Rosario University.

Venezuela’s most recent census, in 2011, found there were just 721,791 native-born Colombians living in Venezuela. And in February 2017, the U.N. Refugee Agency said there were 174,000 Colombians living in Venezuela in a “refugee-like situation.”

Ronal Rodriguez, the head of the Venezuelan Observatory, said Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, welcomed Colombians, and other migrants, like few other leaders in the region.

But it was as much about politics as goodwill, he said. Chávez gave millions of immigrants, from Colombia and elsewhere, residency and allowed them to vote ahead of a 2004 presidential recall referendum. He narrowly won that vote and stayed in power until 2013, when he died from an undisclosed form of cancer.

Since then, Maduro has turned on the Colombian population, often blaming them and the government in Bogotá of being behind the country’s problems. In 2015, more than 20,000 Colombians were either deported or fled, as Venezuela cracked down on smuggling along the border. Since then, Colombians, and their Venezuelan families, have been leaving in droves amid the mass migration.

Maduro’s contention that the country should be reimbursed for supporting the population is “pure propaganda,” Rodriguez said.

“They’re trying to present themselves as the victims when they are very clearly the victimizers,” he said.

It’s unclear whether Venezuela is serious about the lawsuits. In 2015, after the United States declared Venezuela a threat to the region, Maduro said he would sue to have the designation overturned. That never happened. Even so, on Tuesday, Maduro tasked his communications chief with spearheading the new lawsuits.

So far, Venezuela’s neighbors don’t seem perturbed. Colombia reiterated this week that it wouldn’t assign an ambassador to Venezuela until the country becomes a democracy again. And Ecuador’s Foreign Minister José Valencia said there was “no basis” for Venezuela’s legal threats.

“What Ecuador has done, and the world is our witness, is work, collaborate and give everything of itself” to deal with the migrant crisis, he told Ecuador’s Ecuavisa television. “Including during this period of financial austerity that we’re going through, Ecuador has opened its arms.”

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article218324270.html
 
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I dont know what people in Venezuela are waiting for

time to revolt is now (and has been for some time) - there's over 30mil people in that country, but all of them are under the mercy of an idiot dictator who is content with driving his country into the ground?

south america is fucked - only few countries in there that arent overrun with corruption/incompetence - and now those countries will get fucked as well due to the unchecked migrations

all the more reason to admire what East/SE Asian countries accomplished - rising from poverty into becoming world players (hong kong, taiwan, singapore, japan, s. korea, china)
 
South America should just invade Venezuela and carved it up among themselves.
 
I dont know what people in Venezuela are waiting for

time to revolt is now (and has been for some time) - there's over 30mil people in that country, but all of them are under the mercy of an idiot dictator who is content with driving his country into the ground?

south america is fucked - only few countries in there that arent overrun with corruption/incompetence - and now those countries will get fucked as well due to the unchecked migrations

all the more reason to admire what East/SE Asian countries accomplished - rising from poverty into becoming world players (hong kong, taiwan, singapore, japan, s. korea, china)

I’d say the proximity to the US would be a contributing factor. The US has been fucking around in SA for quite some time.
 
As Venezuelans Starve, Maduro Feasts on Steak at Salt Bae Restaurant in Turkey
By Patricia Laya | September 17, 2018




On his way back home from a trip to Asia, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro stopped off in Turkey to dine at one of butcher sensation Nusret Gökçe’s Nusr-Et restaurants where he sampled steaks and smoked cigars from a personalized box.

Maduro visited Nusr-Et, known for its $100 rib-eye, after making an official trip to China in hopes of securing financing for cash-strapped Venezuela. In videos posted by Nusret to Twitter and Instagram, Maduro is seen eating steak next to his wife, Cilia Flores, while also holding a cigar and trying on a t-shirt depicting Nusret, also known as Salt Bae and famous for how he prepares and seasons steaks.

Venezuela is in the throes of a deep humanitarian and economic crisis, following years of misrule that have led to hyperinflation, power blackouts, water outages, as well as dire shortages of food and medicine. A survey by three leading Venezuelan universities estimated 87 percent of households were living in poverty in 2017 while 64 percent of Venezuelans lost weight last year, 11.4 kilograms on average.

Nusret, who has close to 16 million Instagram followers, deleted several videos showing Maduro’s visit to the restaurant from Instagram shortly after posting them.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-feasts-on-steak-cigars-at-nusr-et-restaurant
 
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I dont know what people in Venezuela are waiting for

time to revolt is now (and has been for some time) - there's over 30mil people in that country, but all of them are under the mercy of an idiot dictator who is content with driving his country into the ground?

south america is fucked - only few countries in there that arent overrun with corruption/incompetence - and now those countries will get fucked as well due to the unchecked migrations

all the more reason to admire what East/SE Asian countries accomplished - rising from poverty into becoming world players (hong kong, taiwan, singapore, japan, s. korea, china)

People of Venezuela dont revolt because

a) They would rather flee.

b) Communists are pretty good at squashing revolts.
 
As Venezuelans Starves, Maduro Feasts on Steak at Salt Bae Restaurant in Turkey
By Patricia Laya | September 17, 2018




On his way back home from a trip to Asia, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro stopped off in Turkey to dine at one of butcher sensation Nusret Gökçe’s Nusr-Et restaurants where he sampled steaks and smoked cigars from a personalized box.

Maduro visited Nusr-Et, known for its $100 rib-eye, after making an official trip to China in hopes of securing financing for cash-strapped Venezuela. In videos posted by Nusret to Twitter and Instagram, Maduro is seen eating steak next to his wife, Cilia Flores, while also holding a cigar and trying on a t-shirt depicting Nusret, also known as Salt Bae and famous for how he prepares and seasons steaks.

Venezuela is in the throes of a deep humanitarian and economic crisis, following years of misrule that have led to hyperinflation, power blackouts, water outages, as well as dire shortages of food and medicine. A survey by three leading Venezuelan universities estimated 87 percent of households were living in poverty in 2017 while 64 percent of Venezuelans lost weight last year, 11.4 kilograms on average.

Nusret, who has close to 16 million Instagram followers, deleted several videos showing Maduro’s visit to the restaurant from Instagram shortly after posting them.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-feasts-on-steak-cigars-at-nusr-et-restaurant


Maduro needs to be Gaddafied at this point, he is reaching Un's level of cynicism.

That being said, is China still throwing money on that bottomless pit?
 
As Venezuelans Starves, Maduro Feasts on Steak at Salt Bae Restaurant in Turkey
By Patricia Laya | September 17, 2018




On his way back home from a trip to Asia, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro stopped off in Turkey to dine at one of butcher sensation Nusret Gökçe’s Nusr-Et restaurants where he sampled steaks and smoked cigars from a personalized box.

Maduro visited Nusr-Et, known for its $100 rib-eye, after making an official trip to China in hopes of securing financing for cash-strapped Venezuela. In videos posted by Nusret to Twitter and Instagram, Maduro is seen eating steak next to his wife, Cilia Flores, while also holding a cigar and trying on a t-shirt depicting Nusret, also known as Salt Bae and famous for how he prepares and seasons steaks.

Venezuela is in the throes of a deep humanitarian and economic crisis, following years of misrule that have led to hyperinflation, power blackouts, water outages, as well as dire shortages of food and medicine. A survey by three leading Venezuelan universities estimated 87 percent of households were living in poverty in 2017 while 64 percent of Venezuelans lost weight last year, 11.4 kilograms on average.

Nusret, who has close to 16 million Instagram followers, deleted several videos showing Maduro’s visit to the restaurant from Instagram shortly after posting them.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-feasts-on-steak-cigars-at-nusr-et-restaurant


Hahaha look at that....it’s incredible no? His people starving and he’s there enjoying a fine meal with his wife. The comments to that video on YouTube are both hilarious and sad

People of Venezuela dont revolt because

a) They would rather flee.

b) Communists are pretty good at squashing revolts.

This. It’s why I’ve stayed away from the revolt topic. My family did the same.....why shed blood if nothing will come of it. It’s better to fuck off into greener pastures. In Cuba for example we have to play the long game. The youth have internet now and realize that life is so much bigger outside of their little island. Change can come but it won’t be with an AK and a machete in my opinion
 
That little Saltbae dude is disgusting. Sleazy little fucker would never spray salt on my plate.

Maduro probably owns shares to his restaurant, dictators have to laundry their money somehow.
 
Venezuela doubles down on Chinese money to reverse crisis
By The Associated Press | Sep 18, 2018

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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said Tuesday that new investments from China will help his country dramatically boost its oil production, doubling down on financing from the Asian nation to turn around its crashing economy.

Already a major economic partner, China has agreed to invest $5 billion more in Venezuela, Maduro said following a recent trip to Beijing, adding that the money would help it nearly double its oil exports to China.

"We are taking the first steps into a new economic era," he said. "We are on track to have a new economy, and the agreements with China will strengthen it."

A once-wealthy oil nation, Venezuela is gripped by a historic crisis deeper than the Great Depression in the United States. Venezuelans struggle to afford scarce food and medicine, many going abroad in search of a better life.

Venezuela's inflation this year could top 1 million percent, economists predict.

After two decades of socialist rule and mismanagement, Venezuela's oil production of 1.2 million barrels a day is a third of what it was two decades ago before the late President Hugo Chavez launched the socialist revolution.

Maduro says under the deal, Venezuela will increase production and the daily export of oil to China to 1 million barrels a day.

However, China is taking a strong role in its new agreements. Over the last decade China has given Venezuela $65 billion in loans, cash and investment. Venezuela owes more than $20 billion.

The head of the National Petroleum Corporation of China will soon travel to Venezuela to finalize plans on increasing oil exports.

Russ Dallen, a Miami-based partner at brokerage Caracas Capital Markets, said the influx of money appears to be investments China will control.

"The Chinese are reluctant to throw good money after bad," Dallen said. "They do want to get paid back. The only way they can get paid back is to get Venezuela's production back up."

Venezuela also agreed to sell 9.9 percent of shares of the joint venture Sinovensa, giving a Chinese oil company a 49 percent stake. The sale will expand exploitation of gas in Venezuela, the president said.

Maduro also recently launched sweeping economic reforms aimed at rescuing the economy that include a creating new currency, boosting the minimum wage more than 3,000 percent and raising taxes.

Economist Asdrubal Oliveros of Caracas-based firm Econalitica said he doubts that Venezuela can reach the aggressive goal to boost oil exports to China to one million barrels a day given problems faced by the state corporation PDVSA.

"Increased production I see as quite limited," Oliveros said. "The Chinese companies alone have neither the muscle nor the size to prop up production."

https://abcnews.go.com/Internationa...doubles-chinese-money-reverse-crisis-57916630
 
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Maduro needs to be Gaddafied at this point, he is reaching Un's level of cynicism.

That being said, is China still throwing money on that bottomless pit?

Maduro,Un and Ping should be hanged!

These could be the top 3, Worst leaders of this decade.
 
As Venezuelans Starve, Maduro Feasts on Steak at Salt Bae Restaurant in Turkey
By Patricia Laya | September 17, 2018




On his way back home from a trip to Asia, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro stopped off in Turkey to dine at one of butcher sensation Nusret Gökçe’s Nusr-Et restaurants where he sampled steaks and smoked cigars from a personalized box.

Maduro visited Nusr-Et, known for its $100 rib-eye, after making an official trip to China in hopes of securing financing for cash-strapped Venezuela. In videos posted by Nusret to Twitter and Instagram, Maduro is seen eating steak next to his wife, Cilia Flores, while also holding a cigar and trying on a t-shirt depicting Nusret, also known as Salt Bae and famous for how he prepares and seasons steaks.

Venezuela is in the throes of a deep humanitarian and economic crisis, following years of misrule that have led to hyperinflation, power blackouts, water outages, as well as dire shortages of food and medicine. A survey by three leading Venezuelan universities estimated 87 percent of households were living in poverty in 2017 while 64 percent of Venezuelans lost weight last year, 11.4 kilograms on average.

Nusret, who has close to 16 million Instagram followers, deleted several videos showing Maduro’s visit to the restaurant from Instagram shortly after posting them.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-feasts-on-steak-cigars-at-nusr-et-restaurant

"Let them eat cake." -Celia Flores
 
China navy ship visits Venezuela for the first time as Nicolás Maduro cozies up to Beijing
September 22, 2018

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Venezuela's Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez attends the arrival ceremony of the China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy hospital ship Peace Ark at the port in La Guaira, Venezuela on September 22, 2018


A Chinese naval ship has traveled to Venezuela for the first time, following a visit by President Nicolas Maduro to Beijing this month, where he had been looking to gain China's support for the Latin American nation's struggling economy.

The naval medical ship, known as the "Peace Ark", arrived on Saturday at the Venezuelan port of La Guaira for an eight-day period of "friendly visits" to the country, the official Xinhua news agency said on Sunday.

Maduro, whose leftist government is under fire in Venezuela as the economy struggles with a fifth year of recession and hyperinflation, visited China earlier in September. China's leaders pledged to help but made no reference to extending him new funds.

China has been a major backer of Venezuela over the years, with more than a decade of oil-for-loan agreements that helped China secure energy supplies for its fast-growing economy while bolstering an anti-U.S. ally in Latin America.

However, the flow of cash halted nearly three years ago, when Venezuela asked for a change of payment terms amid falling oil prices and declining crude output that pushed its state-led economy into a hyperinflationary collapse.

Venezuela's finance ministry said in July it would receive $250 million from the China Development Bank to boost oil production but offered no details. Venezuela previously accepted a $5 billion loan from China for its struggling oil sector but has yet to receive the entire amount.

Xinhua said that during the visit the Chinese commander of the ship would visit military and political officials and inspect Venezuelan military and medical facilities.

https://www.businessinsider.com/r-c...-visit-to-venezuela-after-maduro-visit-2018-9
 
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