Venezuela news

[TheReal_ND]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-40248450

Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has called on the international community to take action to avoid "a blood bath" in Venezuela. Sixty-seven people have been killed in protest-related violence in Venezuela since mass anti-government protests started on 1 April. The Peruvian president said there was "no democracy" in Venezuela. Mr Kuczynski also called on the Venezuelan government to allow humanitarian aid to be sent.

PERSON OF INTEREST

Tareck Zaidan El Aissami Maddah (Spanish pronunciation: [taˈɾek ˈsaiðan ˈel aisˈsami ˈmaða]; Arabic: طارق زيدان العيسمي مداح‎‎,[3] born 12 November 1974)[4] is a Venezuelan politician who has been Vice President of Venezuela since January 2017. The U.S. government added Venezuelan Vice President Tarek El Aissami to its sanctions list in early 2017, saying he “played a significant role in international narcotics trafficking” and he was accused of being a drug kingpin. Previously he was Minister of the Interior and Justice from 2008 to 2012 and Governor of Aragua from 2012 to 2017. El Aissami has faced allegations of participating in corruption, money laundering and drug trafficking[citation needed], all of which he has denied.

[Okeefenokee]

I wish there was a way to make you see yourself right now.

Btw I'm very self conscious. What do I look like to you?

Huh?

We are talking about Syria and Venezuela?

From the very start President Assad has used any means needed to keep his power regardless of the costs to the Syrians. The Syrian miltary actually started the shooting when it looked like the regime might fall to peaceful protests

Whatever the Venezuelan government has done doesn't even reach the ankles of Assad's evil.

ummm,

Venezuela death toll rises to at least 42
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venez ... SKCN18C1UN

What's hard to understand about a muslim government shooting protesters after three muslim governments were just overthrown by protesters?

I'm not condoning it, but I don't act like I don't understand it. Not putting down the protests is the less likely outcome, especially after governments in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya were just toppled.

[jbird4049]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-40248450

Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has called on the international community to take action to avoid "a blood bath" in Venezuela. Sixty-seven people have been killed in protest-related violence in Venezuela since mass anti-government protests started on 1 April. The Peruvian president said there was "no democracy" in Venezuela. Mr Kuczynski also called on the Venezuelan government to allow humanitarian aid to be sent.

PERSON OF INTEREST

Tareck Zaidan El Aissami Maddah (Spanish pronunciation: [taˈɾek ˈsaiðan ˈel aisˈsami ˈmaða]; Arabic: طارق زيدان العيسمي مداح‎‎,[3] born 12 November 1974)[4] is a Venezuelan politician who has been Vice President of Venezuela since January 2017. The U.S. government added Venezuelan Vice President Tarek El Aissami to its sanctions list in early 2017, saying he “played a significant role in international narcotics trafficking” and he was accused of being a drug kingpin. Previously he was Minister of the Interior and Justice from 2008 to 2012 and Governor of Aragua from 2012 to 2017. El Aissami has faced allegations of participating in corruption, money laundering and drug trafficking[citation needed], all of which he has denied.

Late response here, sorry.

I understand Madura is a bad man, but his level of evil is almost retail, consisting of the police beating and very occasionally shooting some protesters.

Bashar al-Assad does his evil wholesale, including mass hangings, torture, disappearances, rapes, and destruction of entire cities.

[TheReal_ND]

YOUVE RESPONDED TWICE IN TWO WEEKS TO THE SAME ISSUE AND ARE CLEARLY BIASED

OPINION DISCARDED

[jbird4049]

I wish there was a way to make you see yourself right now.

Btw I'm very self conscious. What do I look like to you?

Huh?

We are talking about Syria and Venezuela?

From the very start President Assad has used any means needed to keep his power regardless of the costs to the Syrians. The Syrian miltary actually started the shooting when it looked like the regime might fall to peaceful protests

Whatever the Venezuelan government has done doesn't even reach the ankles of Assad's evil.

ummm,

Venezuela death toll rises to at least 42
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venez ... SKCN18C1UN

What's hard to understand about a muslim government shooting protesters after three muslim governments were just overthrown by protesters?

I'm not condoning it, but I don't act like I don't understand it. Not putting down the protests is the less likely outcome, especially after governments in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya were just toppled.

True, but unlike the other governments, Syria's regime directly caused the war.

The most immediate case of the protests was the hardship caused by a multi year drought which was hurting the many small farmers, and their families. Hardship which could have been alleviated by using ground water. Ground water which was not a available because family and supporters of Assad's regime was pumping it all up and lowering the water table to a level the small farmers could not reach.

No water, no farm, no farm, no living, no money, no food.

I have not read anything that says people blamed the government for the drought. That's beyond its control. People did blame it for the water theft. And the Syrian government has ruthlessly crush any dissent for over 60 years, so people were not inclined to cause trouble. Rather than deal with the problems caused by the drought, like making ground water available or feeding people, the government chose to use battle tanks and helicopter gunships on protesters using protest signs and words. If one's family is hungry and the government's solution is to shoot you...?

That is what started the civil war.

[jbird4049]

YOUVE RESPONDED TWICE IN TWO WEEKS TO THE SAME ISSUE AND ARE CLEARLY BIASED

OPINION DISCARDED

Is nuance a problem here?

[TheOneX]

True, but unlike the other governments, Syria's regime directly caused the war.

The most immediate case of the protests was the hardship caused by a multi year drought which was hurting the many small farmers, and their families. Hardship which could have been alleviated by using ground water. Ground water which was not a available because family and supporters of Assad's regime was pumping it all up and lowering the water table to a level the small farmers could not reach.

No water, no farm, no farm, no living, no money, no food.

I have not read anything that says people blamed the government for the drought. That's beyond its control. People did blame it for the water theft. And the Syrian government has ruthlessly crush any dissent for over 60 years, so people were not inclined to cause trouble. Rather than deal with the problems caused by the drought, like making ground water available or feeding people, the government chose to use battle tanks and helicopter gunships on protesters using protest signs and words. If one's family is hungry and the government's solution is to shoot you...?

That is what started the civil war.

Minus the tanks and gunships that sounds an awful lot like what is happening in Venezuela right now. People still have water, but they don't have most other basic goods.

[TheReal_ND]

YOUVE RESPONDED TWICE IN TWO WEEKS TO THE SAME ISSUE AND ARE CLEARLY BIASED

OPINION DISCARDED

Is nuance a problem here?

NO JUST STOP QUOTING ME AND FOLLOW THE SYRIA THREAD

[Okeefenokee]

True, but unlike the other governments, Syria's regime directly caused the war.

...That is what started the civil war.

Yeah, that was the immediate issue prompting the protests, and there were other issues in the other nations that prompted their protests.

I think it's probably true that the initial rebellion was prompted by the crack down by the government as well.

You are Assad, and it's March of 2011.

You watched the Tunisian president get toppled in January by protests that started in December.

You saw Mubarak step down on 11 Feb after 18 days of protests led to the US withdrawing support for him staying in power.

Six days later, protests started in Libya, and by the end of the month rebels held numerous cities in eastern Libya.

On the same day the protests in Libya started, the king of Bahrain sent in the army to clear out a protest camp at pearl square.

15 March, protests start in Syria. Crackdown begins.

19 March, NATO intervenes in Libya to overthrow Gaddafi.

You don't have to condone the crackdown to see the reasoning behind it. Bahrain is the only one of those four nations that didn't have their government overthrown or forced to step down. Assad could have given some concessions, the king of Jordan did and ended up still in power, but I don't think anyone can say that it's guaranteed that allowing the protesters to continue wouldn't have led to violence anyway or the Assad regime staying in power.

[C-Mag]

An excellent page from Venezuela, with videos that are somewhat graphic
http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/

Here's a recent description of Venezuela from the site

Living in Caracas is now an ordeal. You need to try to do your business either early in the morning or on Tuesdays and Thursdays, days with, in general, lower intensity protest. After all, you need to get food, work enough to make sure your business does not go under, take your SO to his weekly treatments, etc. It does not matter how much you would like to protest and beat up a Nazional Guard, you still need to attend some of the basic life needs.

Taking care of these needs have taken a nasty downward turn in these months.

Potholes are looking like bombed Syria since repair squads, deficient at best, have disappeared altogether. Sidewalks are not fit even for normal people.

If you are living in opposition areas your Internet and light and water services have noticeably decreased in "quality", as if they ever had any in the first place.

There is no bread. I kid you not. On occasion you can find some sliced bread, awfully expensive, one per person. If you are out of money then you need to stand for hours in line at some bakeries that still produce a handful of loaves. But you can still find some pastries, which would rejoice Marie Antoinette. but not much , not very good and quite, quite expensive.

Some items are showing up again, on occasion, like milk of laundry detergent. But their prices have been updated at international levels so they just leave the shelves slowly. I did find a pound of wheat flour the other day, at 6% of my paycheck. It stayed on the shelf.

Medicine is getting dramatic. International press reports abound. You have HIV epidemic on the rise, no to unaffordable condoms and thus people dead from an opportunistic diseases simply because there is no antibiotic available.

Kids are so malnourished that in the pediatric wards of public hospitals you have measles epidemic. Yes, there is no more vaccines either. And let's not talk about oncogenic medicine...

If you are about to give birth a public hospital will hand you a list of all that you need to bring if you want to be taken care of. Basically everything as the hospital can only provide its hands, without gloves.

So, when you dealt with all of that crap, including maneuvering all sorts of back roads to bring back home your SO post treatment (amen of driving slow to avoid as many potholes as you can, a source of pain), when you have refilled the fridge and shelves for at least a week, when you got that pill for your mother in law, then you can go and protest. Only to be tear-gassed more and more. Even people of a certain age like me that stay well away from the front lines are now reached by the violence, gas and injured people around them.

You get home and reach for your tablet and Twitter, the lone source of information these days if you know who to follow and then you need to go to bed with an anti depressant. Which of course you had it brought from overseas because in Venezuela there are none left.

And I will spare you the anarchy, from the stores where people are fighting again to be first in line, to the lawless driving as red lights are either broken or plainly ignored. Amen of garbage strewn all around as now you see every fucking day people looking for food in garbage.

This is a fast sinking country, and that adds to the violence, makes the final outburst closer and closer.