Thread: American coup in Venezuela

Originally Posted by foobar

So a dictatorship without a shred of democracy, dismembering a journalist with a bone saw, routine torture, oppressing women, mass murder in Yemen etc etc ...all ok in your book as long as their finances are in order?


An estimated 85,000 children under the age of five have starved to death over the last three years as a result of Yemen’s civil war, a report from Save the Children has found, as the charity urged an immediate ceasefire to prevent more loss of life.

The figure is a conservative estimate based on UN data on severe acute malnutrition, which the international body says has afflicted more than 1.3 million children since the conflict between Houthi rebels and the Saudi-led coalition that seeks to restore Yemen’s exiled government began in 2015.

Yemen makes Venezuelan seem like utopian paradise in comparison.

You raise an interesting point. Yeah, I don't give a shit.

Saudi are fighting Iran. While they're doing that, they're too busy to fuck up anyone else.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Originally Posted by foobar

So a dictatorship without a shred of democracy, dismembering a journalist with a bone saw, routine torture, oppressing women, mass murder in Yemen etc etc ...all ok in your book as long as their finances are in order?

An estimated 85,000 children under the age of five have starved to death over the last three years as a result of Yemen’s civil war,

The figure is a conservative estimate based on UN data on severe acute malnutrition, which the international body says has afflicted more than 1.3 million children since the conflict between Houthi rebels and the Saudi-led coalition that seeks to restore Yemen’s exiled government began in 2015.

Yeah, I don't give a shit.

Oh dear!

Originally Posted by foobar

Oh dear!

Mate if you weren't such a c u n t you'd be getting stuck into China which arms both sides in the Yemen war.

China has been selling arms to Iran since Bush Jr. was President, and it's been selling stuff to the UAE to use in Yemen.

Yet you're strangely silent about them. Another snivelling sycophant? I'm afraid that TD job is already taken.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Mate if you weren't such a c u n t you'd be getting stuck into China which arms both sides in the Yemen war.

That's why we like to highlight anything negative and ugly about China, unlike about some others (please no names here)...

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Mate if you weren't such a c u n t you'd be getting stuck into China which arms both sides in the Yemen war.

China has been selling arms to Iran since Bush Jr. was President, and it's been selling stuff to the UAE to use in Yemen.

Yet you're strangely silent about them. Another snivelling sycophant? I'm afraid that TD job is already taken.

The numbers don't lie...

Originally Posted by foobar

The numbers don't lie...

Aaaaaand fucknuts thinks Iran is not "intervening" in Yemen.

Your blinkered hatred of all things seppo makes you look very stupid.

An already volatile political situation in Venezuela escalated on January 23, as opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself interim president of the embattled South American country.


The move by Guaidó, who was head of the National Assembly when its legislative power was transferred to a new Supreme Justice Tribunal packed with lawmakers loyal to incumbent Nicolás Maduro in 2017, has led to domestic unrest and international divisions.

As head of the circumscribed former legislature, the US, Canada and some major Latin American economies - Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Peru and Chile - have recognised Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate leader.

Meanwhile, Russia condemned what it frames as his attempted power-grab and other countries, like Mexico, Uruguay and Germany, have called for a peaceful political negotiation that can lead to fresh elections.

Most invested in Venezuela is China, which has provided loans worth over 60 billion dollars since the turn of the century. At stake, they and Venezuela’s other backers say, is the country’s national sovereignty and governance free from foreign interference.


In a characteristically non-committal statement, Hua Chunying, a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, said: “We call on all parties involved to be calm and rational, and seek a political solution under the Venezuelan constitution through peaceful dialogue. China supports the Venezuela government’s efforts to protect national sovereignty, independence and stability. China has always adhered to the principle of non-interference and objects to external intervention into Venezuela’s internal affairs”.

China has provided political and financial support to Venezuela throughout its painfully slow descent into economic and humanitarian crises.
But Beijing’s refusal to acknowledge the role its loans and diplomatic support have played in the slow deterioration of events in Venezuela hold valuable lessons that its decision-makers, and its international partners, would be unwise to ignore.
Long time coming

In the spring of 2012, China’s biggest Latin America-focused think tank, the Beijing-based Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS, part of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) invited me to give a talk on political risk in Latin America.

The choice of topic was particularly intriguing given rising anxiety about the ‘Arab Spring’ and the threats it posed to China’s commercial interests in regions like Africa and the Middle East. Around the same time, China’s rapidly expanding oil, finance and diplomatic relationship with Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez roused some Chinese policy makers’ and think-tank researchers’ curiosity. Though political risk in the oil-rich country was new to me, I chose to present on the topic.

From rising social and political polarisation to politicisation and mismanagement of the oil sector to Chávez’s growing health concerns, it was clear Venezuela presented more formidable political risks for any investor or lender, including China, than any country in the Western Hemisphere.

Yet, although they noted the worrying trends in Venezuela, ILAS researchers ultimately felt China’s economic and diplomatic interests would not be adversely affected. Venezuela, they reasoned, had a lot of oil and China needed a lot of oil. China also had a lot of money to pay for it.


Fast forward over six years and Chavez’s anointed successor Nicolás Maduro is scarcely two weeks into his hotly disputed second term as he finds his legitimacy challenged. Profound economic and humanitarian crises grip the country.

The question of how China should understand and manage political risk in Venezuela has become one of the most important, if too often ignored, questions in China’s relationship with Latin America and in its broader efforts to be seen as development partner worldwide.

The relationship is one of superlatives: Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves, China is the world’s largest oil importer, China has lent more money to Venezuela than any other country in the world.

It has been characterised by larger-than-life personalities – at least on the Venezuelan side. It has long since become a debacle.
The deepening crisis has attracted global headlines and concern. Yet China has neither acknowledged its role and interests in Venezuela’s crisis, nor sought to address the plight of one of its closest allies in the Americas.

So how did we get here? And what does the current situation tell us about China’s ties with Latin America and its even more high-profile efforts at stimulating global development and South-South cooperation?

A perfect storm

On the surface, the China-Venezuela relationship fits into the broader pattern of raw materials-based trade, investment and financial ties with South America in the first decade or so of the 21st century.

The China-led commodity boom from around 2003-2013 ushered in massive new trade flows of agricultural (soy), mining (copper and iron ore) and energy (oil) commodities from South America to China. It rapidly became the number one trade partner for countries like Brazil, Chile and Peru. Venezuela, with the world’s largest oil reserves, seemed a perfect partner for the world’s largest crude oil importer.

Even as Venezuela has descended into crisis, China has at least officially continued to emphasise the natural “complementarity” of the relationship – a stabilising ballast amidst the storm.

Yet from the beginning, the China-Venezuela relationship has stood out among all of China’s ties to commodity-rich countries, not just in South America but globally.

Chávez and China’s “superbank”, the China Development Bank (CDB), together created a loans-for-oil and diplomatic partnership that aimed to showcase the possibilities of South-South cooperation ushered in by China’s emergence as a global actor. Instead, it serves as a cautionary tale of hubris and unintended consequences.

In Venezuela, Chávez saw China as a crucial partner in efforts to control the nation’s abundant oil supplies and implement radical domestic and foreign policy agendas.

Not only did expanding exports to China fit Chávez’s rhetoric of diversifying away from export dependence on the US, but massive loans-for-oil deals with the CDB (40 billion dollars prior to his death in 2013) provided a steady supply of economically and politically exchangeable funds that no other international creditors would or could provide.

By emphasising China’s socialist and revolutionary bona fides (faded or imagined as they may be), Chávez also found a convenient, if reticent, partner in his Bolivarian Revolutionary agenda at home and abroad.

On the Chinese side, another largely practical trade and investment relationship with a commodity-rich South American country soon turned into something quite different.

Instead of buying Venezuelan oil as India has done, China’s state-owned CDB set up a series of multi-billion dollar loans-for-oil deals. These loans still constitute China’s largest outlay of finance to any other country.


Part of the CDB’s eagerness to lend to Venezuela in the years under the leadership of Chen Yuan, the seemingly untouchable president and Chinese Communist Party scion, is explained by trying to establish its credentials as China’s principal financier of global energy deals.

It was no coincidence that the largest loans, including one for 20 billion dollars in 2010, came as huge new sources of liquidity sloshed around the Chinese financial system in response to the global financial crisis.

Chávez and the CDB convinced themselves that theirs was an economically and politically astute and viable partnership. But even in 2012, a growing sense of unease about Venezuela was spreading in Beijing, including concerns about Hugo Chávez’s ill health.

Chávez died in 2014 and was replaced by a leader in whom China had far less confidence. Add to that, the global price of oil had plunged. What has followed has been a disaster for the people of Venezuela and has also undermined every element of China’s interest in the relationship.

The near complete meltdown in Venezuela’s oil production means its government has been unable to service the original terms of the more than 60 billion dollar loans. There has been a de facto default and fewer than the agreed oil shipments to China.

Worse, Venezuela’s oil production crisis has contributed to a rise in global prices, raising China’s total oil import bill. From almost every possible angle, the China-Venezuela relationship has become completely dysfunctional for the governments, businesses and citizens of both countries.
Broader lessons

Unsurprisingly, neither the Chinese nor Venezuelan authorities publicly acknowledge that their relationship has failed to live up to the high expectations set over a decade ago.

China has dramatically scaled back the scope of its lending in recent years, but at each new sign of Venezuela’s further descent into crisis, Chinese foreign policy leaders make formulaic statements about their hopes for “stability” in Venezuela.


China has refused to play any public role in Latin American regional efforts, such as through the Lima Group, to help Venezuela find a more sustainable path forward. China has washed its hands of the crisis it first facilitated and then failed to help resolve.

Beyond what has gone wrong with China-Venezuela ties, their relationship has broader, too often underappreciated, implications.

It is clear Venezuela remains an important test case for how Chinese researchers as well as government and business officials understand, or misunderstand, political risk in Latin America and beyond.

There was a strong belief in China that complementary oil-based linkages, grounded in seemingly unshakeable ties between Venezuela’s paramount leader and one of China’s state-banking champions, could not be derailed.

Both parties believed that through loans-for-oil deals, China would both guarantee oil flows and loan repayments while remaining immune from any vicissitudes of Venezuelan economics or politics.

All these assumptions have been upended in Venezuela. Yet China has made similar choices in supporting other resource-rich developing countries in Africa and Asia.

It’s hard to find another equivalent of Chávez’s Venezuela, but Mugabe’s Zimbabwe or Hun Sen’s Cambodia offer parallels. The massive debt-based relationship that China built up with Venezuela is a warning sign for debtors and lenders alike as China seeks to extend its Belt and Road infrastructure plan.
Final thoughts

In the more than six years since that original ILAS presentation, I have been writing, speaking and teaching about the slow-motion train wreck that is China-Venezuela relations.

Certainly, the US has made bigger mistakes in Latin America and elsewhere, but something must change.

As a country that is working to improve climate governance both at home and abroad, China must engage with Venezuela to think of innovative ways to develop the country’s oil resources in a sustainable way.Given China’s growing role as an important energy and infrastructure lender, a more honest acknowledgement of its experience in Venezuela is required.

As I reflect on years researching and writing about China and Venezuela and of teaching in a Chinese university (I left Tsinghua University last summer), it strikes me that even though I gave what I viewed as a constructively critical view, not once have I been directly or indirectly challenged.

In fact, the opposite was true, even in think-tank conferences, media interviews and other fora. This may come as a surprise given China’s well-deserved reputation for sensitivity to criticism of its foreign policy or for the lack of intellectual freedom in public institutions.

They listened politely, but China’s foreign policy and bank officials should embrace a more sensitive and empathetic approach toward Latin America and other developing regions. Only then, might they avoid the same mistakes other global powers have made.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/democr...-perfect-storm

Ohoh and his wannabes fit this profile so perfectly.

The Left Keeps Getting Venezuela Wrong
Anti-imperialists prefer a Russian-backed dictator to a public revolt.


BY JAMES BLOODWORTH | JANUARY 28, 2019, 12:04 PM

Venezuela is engulfed in a government-inflicted economic crisis twice the size of the Great Depression, which has provoked the largest movement of refugees in the recent history of Latin America. Meanwhile, the regime that has presided over this catastrophe is morphing from a nasty autocracy to a potentially full-blown dictatorship.

The American right is already using the failure of Venezuelan socialism as a means to attack the socialist movement. Yet Venezuelans are starving, and to weaponize the fact merely to bash the left represents not only the height of bad taste but also the maximum of solipsism. The posturing of pundits is insignificant next to the suffering on the ground.

But while such criticisms are often made in bad faith, the Western left does need to take a serious look at itself over Venezuela—not least because of what it says about the health of leftist elements that, in Britain and elsewhere, are close to attaining real power.

If you’re familiar with Cuban politics, the so-called Bolivarian Revolution begun by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has been ringing alarm bells for many years now. The idolization of a charismatic leader, the unwillingness of the regime to brook any opposition, the gross economic mismanagement, and blaming every failure on the machinations of the United States—all are familiar tropes for Cuba watchers.

Yet much of the Western socialist left has persisted in ignoring the trajectory of Venezuela in order to sustain a fantasy of “21st-century socialism.” It’s reminiscent of the Western apologists for the Soviet Union that Arthur Koestler once compared to peeping Toms “who watch History’s debauches through a hole in the wall” while not having to experience it themselves.

This willingness to stand by a brutal dictator—albeit passively—belies a deeper sickness on the contemporary left.This willingness to stand by a brutal dictator—albeit passively—belies a deeper sickness on the contemporary left. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, few on the left have had much real idea as to what a contemporary socialist economic program would—or should—look like in practice.

Twenty-first century socialism in Venezuela was supposed to offer hope, but it turned out to represent yet another mirage, this time built on the back of exorbitantly high oil prices. As prices dropped, mismanagement of the state-run oil company, PDVSA, by the Chávez and Nicolás Maduro governments saw Venezuela’s oil output fall to 1.34 million barrels a day in June of last year—the lowest point in seven decades, excluding the 2002-2003 strike. This, together with ill-conceived price controls, has reduced the country to beggary.

However, this isn’t the most dangerous failing. Much of the Western left, including those who once had only kind words for Chávez and his successors, is treating Venezuela as an embarrassment best brushed under the carpet. Yet what is really frightening are those who, under the guise of anti-imperialism, consistently favor dictators—as long as they mouth anti-American platitudes.

To be sure, we should be wary of loose talk of regime change in Venezuela on the part of the Trump administration. While Donald Trump is correct in calling for Maduro to step aside, U.S. belligerence would be more hindrance than help for any route back to democracy. Not only is there a long history of U.S. intervention on the part of some of the worst right-wing actors in Latin America, American aggression is more likely to hand Venezuela’s ruling elite the excuse they need to wage a further crackdown on internal dissent than to aid an opposition that needs to prove its legitimacy at home, not abroad.

But it’s possible to oppose U.S. interventionism without making further excuses for the dictatorship in Caracas. The unequivocal statements put out by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders make a nonsense of the idea that the left has some duty to protect dictators simply because they purport to be socialists.

Sanders accused the Maduro government last week of waging a “violent crackdown on Venezuelan civil society” while warning of the possible dangers of U.S. aggression.

Sanders notwithstanding, much of the anti-imperialist left has had a bad habit of putting itself on the side of the powerful, as long as they conduct their atrocities at home. “A US backed coup in Venezuela is not a solution to the dire issues they face. Trump’s efforts to install a far right opposition will only incite violence and further destabilize the region,” tweeted Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, referring to Venezuela’s social democratic opposition. Meanwhile, Tulsi Gabbard, a 2020 U.S. presidential candidate and Democratic congresswoman, met with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2017, has labeled the entire opposition to Assad “terrorists,” and supported a bill to block Syrian and Iraqi refugees from resettling in the United States.

Take Euromaidan in Ukraine, the struggle against Assad in Syria, and the ongoing protests in Venezuela. In each case, many on the left failed to offer solidarity to the people of these countries as they risked their lives confronting brutal regimes. In fact, the opposite has occurred: In most cases, prominent leftists have rushed to smear the rebels as “fascists,” “head choppers,” and, in Venezuela, “right-wing extremists.”

Even last week, the far-left sought to portray events inside Venezuela as a coup, profoundly misunderstanding the dynamics at play. The nearest thing to a coup in Venezuela took place in 2017, when Maduro supplanted the democratically elected National Assembly with a complaisant rubber-stamping body. As Washington Post contributor Francisco Toro wrote, since his election in 2013, “Nicolás Maduro has pursued a merciless campaign to strip away democratic checks and balances, culminating in a monstrous Constitutional Convention rigged so only his supporters can win.” The 2018 presidential election in Venezuela, boycotted by the opposition, was described by former U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein as a vote that did not “in any way fulfill minimal conditions for free and credible elections.”

Under the guise of anti-imperialism, those on the far-left have made themselves useful idiots for actual imperialists—as long as they’re not American. They have used the specter of Western intervention to ignore or downplay real interventions on the part of other powerful imperial nations. This was true in Syria with Russian and Iranian interference, and it is true in Venezuela, where Russia has supplied Venezuela with billions of dollars’ worth of arms and flown in personal bodyguards for Maduro. Meanwhile, thousands of intelligence operatives from the dictatorship in Cuba help the Venezuelan regime to spy on the opposition and police dissent.

If imperialism is the “highest stage of capitalism,” as Vladimir Lenin once observed, then the perversion of anti-imperialism bandied about by the contemporary Western left is the most sordid incarnation of contemporary socialism. Activists, protestors, and opposition politicians in countries such as Venezuela and Syria are treated by the followers of this crude doctrine as if they possessed no agency at all and are merely the pawns of American capital. A center-left figure like newly recognized Venezuelan President Juan Guaidó—literally a member of the Socialist International—is smeared as a member of the “far-right opposition” simply because he’s backed by the United States. Trump doesn’t like Maduro; ergo, the latter’s crimes must be excused away or attributed to the actions of the United States.

The anti-imperialist left in the West is demanding that the United States refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of Venezuela. Fair enough. The trouble begins when you ask whether Venezuelans such as Luisa Ortega Díaz, Chávez’s former chief prosecutor-turned-dissident; Renzo Prieto, the student leader who spent four years behind bars for organizing a 2014 protest; or the country’s elected National Assembly should be entitled to meddle in their own internal affairs—and get back only a stony-faced silence.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/28...nezuela-wrong/

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

The plight of the Venezuelan people

Wasn't the plight of Afghani, Iraqi, Lybia (you name it) people the reason for their "liberation"?

Wondering when some power that be will be concerned about the plight of poor people in other countries? (please no names here)

Imagine being starving and seeing your bosses block access to food....

Caracas, Venezuela -- President Trump made little mention of the crisis unfolding little more than 1,000 miles from the Florida coast in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, but he reiterated his backing of "the Venezuelan people and their noble quest for freedom." Mr. Trump condemned the "brutality" of the embattled regime of President Nicolas Maduro, whom Washington has declared an illegitimate leader.


The U.S. and almost 30 other nations, along with several regional blocs, have backed the shadow administration of the self-declared "interim president," opposition leader Juan Guaidó. But a standoff between the two sides is still playing out, with major world powers China and Russia backing Maduro.

The Venezuelan armed forces are the kingmakers in the epic power struggle. Everyone in the country is waiting for a sign that the generals are ready to desert President Maduro.

CBS News spoke to some members of the rank and file. At great risk to himself, a junior officer from Venezuela's National Guard, one branch of the military, agreed to talk to on condition that we obscure his identity and voice.


"What we need is Maduro to leave. We must overthrow this government," the masked guardsman said.

It's the kind of treasonous talk Maduro doesn't want Venezuelans to hear. Without the armed forces' backing, his reign as leader is finished.


Pictures broadcast by state TV almost daily make it look as if the armed forces are still firmly on the president's side, but the truth is: the troops -- most paid about $6 a month -- have had enough.

"Because they are tired," the guardsman said. "We are suffering just like the people are. My family, for example, my salary isn't even enough to buy food."

Asked if he can discuss the complaints back in the barracks, he said, "Yes, we talk," but only with people they trust. The higher ranking officers are not privy to such discussions. He said that's why he insisted on wearing a mask -- "to protect myself. We have no freedom of expression."

The fact is soldiers can't feed their families. Like millions of their fellow citizens, they're scraping along in an economy ruined by corruption, neglect and mismanagement.

To convince them and their brass to defect to the opposition, Guaidó has offered them amnesty. But the rank and file need more than that.

"In the National Guard, all we need is a high-ranking general to lead the way," the masked guardsman said.

According to BBC News, some of the military's leadership is expected to stay loyal to Maduro because they themselves would be at risk of losing money and could face human rights violations.

The next big test for the armed forces will come as soon as this weekend, when humanitarian aid sent by the U.S. arrives on Venezuela's border. Maduro has ordered the army not to let it in. The national guardsman told CBS News there's every chance they won't obey that order.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/venezue...troops-fed-up/

Aerial view of the Tienditas Bridge on the Colombia border blocked with containers ahead of an anticipated aid shipment

Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaido has warned the army of its responsibilities after soldiers blocked a key border bridge, sparking demands from the US to allow access for desperately needed humanitarian aid.


Mr Guaido said in an interview on Colombian radio that the army had to choose between "a dictatorship that does not have an iota of humanity, or to side with the constitution" from which he takes his legitimacy.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Venezuela's military was deliberately blocking the aid with trucks and shipping containers "under Mr Maduro's orders."

"The Maduro regime must LET THE AID REACH THE STARVING PEOPLE," Mr Pompeo said in a tweet.


Mr Guaido claims that up to 300,000 people face death if the aid is not delivered, following years of economic crisis and shortages of basic food and medicines.

Tanker trucks and shipping containers were moved into position late on Tuesday on the Tienditas bridge, a key crossing point on the border with Colombia.

The 35-year-old National Assembly chief -- who stunned Venezuelans when he proclaimed himself president on 23 January -- is trying to force Mr Maduro from power, set up a transitional government and hold new presidential polls.

He has claimed legitimacy from the constitution as National Assembly leader, on the grounds that Mr Maduro's re-election last May, boycotted by most of the opposition, was "illegitimate."

Venezuela's powerful military -- which despite a few defections has remained loyal to Mr Maduro -- is seen as key to the outcome of the socialist leader's power struggle with his young rival.


In a bid to tip the balance, the US said it was prepared to exempt Caracas' army top brass from punitive sanctions if they recognised Mr Guaido.
US National Security Advisor John Bolton said Washington "will consider sanctions off-ramps for any Venezuelan senior military officer that stands for democracy and recognises the constitutional government of President Juan Guaido."

"If not, the international financial circle will be closed off completely," Mr Bolton said on Twitter, urging the officers to "make the right choice."
Mr Guaido has been recognised by more than 40 countries since declaring himself interim president on 23 January.

However, several countries including Italy and Greece have so far blocked an EU bid for tougher action against Nicolás Maduro's socialist regime.

Mr Guaido held talks with EU representatives in Caracas yesterday "to consolidate their support for the democratic transition" adding that he would send a delegation to holdout state Italy to present his "action plan to relaunch democracy."

Mr Maduro disclosed on Monday that he sent Pope Francis a letter seeking help in mediating the country's crisis. The pope told journalists on Tuesday that this would require agreement from both the government and the opposition.

Mr Guaido backed the idea yesterday, saying the Argentine pope could bring his "great moral authority" to bear on Mr Maduro to convince him to leave power.


Mr Maduro, who is supported by Russia, China, Turkey, Cuba and Iran, has refused all humanitarian aid shipments to Venezuela, which he says would open the way to allow a US military invasion.

He dismissed the need for aid yesterday as a "political show."

"Imperialism does not help anyone in the world," he told Russia Today.

In Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it was doubling its resources to cope with the crisis, where food and medicine shortages have pushed 2.3 million people to flee since 2015.

Mr Maduro, 56, has repeatedly accused the United States of fomenting a coup. And he called for the collection of 10 million signatures against what he called "Trump's interventionist action."


The US, which has not ruled out a military intervention in crisis-wracked Venezuela, was the first to recognise his rival as acting president, followed by a dozen Latin American countries.

Latin American and EU states have formed a "Contact Group" on Venezuela which will meet in the Uruguayan capital Montevideo today.

Russia has slammed what it called interference in the oil-rich but now poor Latin American country, saying it was an attempt to "legitimise usurped power."
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the EU of trying to "topple the government by violence and ruse."

Mr Guaido has nevertheless ramped up pressure on the regime with a series of mass protests, the next of which is scheduled for 12 February.

His fledgling alternative administration will hold talks in Washington on 14 February on responding to "the largest hemispheric humanitarian crisis in modern history."

https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2019/0...024-venezuela/

The usual individuals continue on in their blind, prejudicial, and ignorant fashion regarding "real" world affairs.

Ho hum....

Originally Posted by HuangLao

The usual individuals continue on in their blind, prejudicial, and ignorant fashion regarding "real" world affairs.

Ho hum....

We prefer just to say "Jeff's spouting shit from his mum's basement in Portland again".

TD's very own Lord Haw Haw spamming the usual nonsense.

It's only a matter of time before it's announced that Maduro's soldiers are looting the hospitals for baby incubators.

Originally Posted by foobar

TD's very own Lord Haw Haw spamming the usual nonsense.

It's only a matter of time before it's announced that Maduro's soldiers are looting the hospitals for baby incubators.

This is the kind of inane response I'd expect when a gullible retard doesn't like the truth staring him in his puffy-cheeked, indignant face.

Truth, indeed.
Eurocentric apologists need not apply.

It's not nice that some half (15) of the EU members still have had their arm twisted enough
How long will it take them to recognize the illegitimate Venezuela govt?

Originally Posted by HuangLao

Truth, indeed.
Eurocentric apologists need not apply.

Yeah, fuck off Jeff. Basement mummy's boys need not apply.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

a gullible retard doesn't like the truth staring him in his puffy-cheeked, indignant face.

Step away from the mirror, just for a moment 'arry. Projection can be cured without surgery nowadays. The puffy cheeks, with a better make-up regime.

Next time you get cosy with one of your "stewi friends" don't be afraid of raising the subject.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

mummy's boys need not apply

Only a "daddies" boy's opinion count eh?

Originally Posted by OhOh

Step away from the mirror, just for a moment 'arry. Projection can be cured without surgery nowadays. The puffy cheeks, with a better make-up regime.

Next time you get cosy with one of your "stewi friends" don't be afraid of raising the subject.

Empathising with your idiot friends again eh HoHo?

Originally Posted by OhOh

Only a "daddies" boy's opinion count eh?

Sounds rather like a good description for a snivelling sycophant like yourself actually.