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Ardennes posted:Granted, it is arguably it is more of a three part ownership of China-Russia-US hedge funds at this point. The US by sanctioning Venezuela (if anything) also ironically will give Russia and China a deeper edge and will almost certainly allow them to pick up Venezuelan infrastructure even cheaper. Ahh, but after Maduros government comes toppling down the next government nationalized everything, china and Russia lose all their capital gains while walking away with whatever cash they could have, and the new Venezuela is once again beholden to the US banking system for its sole line of credit, the same line of credit who's high level functionaries would have encouraged the nationalization. America wins!? Imperial overlords and all that
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Aug 25, 2017 21:24
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M_Gargantua posted:Ahh, but after Maduros government comes toppling down the next government nationalized everything, china and Russia lose all their capital gains while walking away with whatever cash they could have, and the new Venezuela is once again beholden to the US banking system for its sole line of credit, the same line of credit who's high level functionaries would have encouraged the nationalization. Eh, I don't think China and Russia are walking away man especially China. I mean why should they?
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Aug 25, 2017 22:32
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Ardennes posted:Eh, I don't think China and Russia are walking away man especially China. I mean why should they? Because once Maduro falls they have no one to enforce their interests in the region. Paperwork and ownership are very lose during chaotic regime changes. Unless they're going to ship all that equipment and assets out of country in the next month, or liquidate it for what they can.
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Aug 25, 2017 22:52
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BeigeJacket posted:My favorite Bob LM moment from the thread was when he asked a bunch of Venezuelans (a people without enough food to eat and with a lovely, collapsed currency) to crowdfund his holiday. Wait, WHAT?!
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Aug 26, 2017 00:46
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when, shockingly, he wasn't showered with several billion Bolivars.
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So some other US news is actually tangentially pretty important for Venezuela. Hurricane Harvey is probably going to shut down gulf refineries for at least a week. That seems like a rather nasty blow on top of the sanctions against lending PDVSA money without a really good reason.
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Aug 26, 2017 02:29
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Feinne posted:So some other US news is actually tangentially pretty important for Venezuela. Hurricane Harvey is probably going to shut down gulf refineries for at least a week. That seems like a rather nasty blow on top of the sanctions against lending PDVSA money without a really good reason. Something something HAARP
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Aug 26, 2017 02:40
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M_Gargantua posted:Because once Maduro falls they have no one to enforce their interests in the region. Paperwork and ownership are very lose during chaotic regime changes. Unless they're going to ship all that equipment and assets out of country in the next month, or liquidate it for what they can. Eh China and Russia working together have more than enough ways to enforce their interests, if one government doesn't want to pay up then they will find another one that will. Also, it isn't going to enforceable to only pay bond holders HQ'ed in the US.
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Aug 26, 2017 03:01
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Wait, WHAT?! I offered to set up a crowdfunding page when posters in this thread kept insisting that I should visit Venezuela to get murdered by thugs or whatever, but they were a lot less intent on me going after that.
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Aug 26, 2017 04:13
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Bob le Moche posted:I offered to set up a crowdfunding page when posters in this thread kept insisting that I should visit Venezuela to get murdered by thugs or whatever, but they were a lot less intent on me going after that. Wow, they didn't want to spend their small reserves of hard currency on giving you a spite vacation?! What a bunch of losers!
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Aug 26, 2017 04:16
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Wow, they didn't want to spend their small reserves of hard currency on giving you a spite vacation?! What a bunch of losers! I know right?
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Aug 26, 2017 04:20
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How much is a one way ticket from where you are at?
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Aug 26, 2017 04:31
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A ticket into Venezuela is much cheaper than a ticket out. None of us are gonna give you free money so you can go visit the country people are desperately trying to leave, if all, get a job like the rest of us. Those of us that left worked hard for our plane tickets and you didn't help us one loving bit.
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Aug 26, 2017 09:10
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also tbf most of the posters in this thread aint venezuelan right? so saying that bob wants the money from poor venezuelans might not really be the correct way to view it.
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Aug 26, 2017 10:39
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Zombiepop posted:also tbf most of the posters in this thread aint venezuelan right? so saying that bob wants the money from poor venezuelans might not really be the correct way to view it. A bunch of us are, actually. Chuck left Venezuela a long time ago, Hugoon Chavez left a couple years back, I left a year ago. Labradoodle and a couple others are still residing in Venezuela. Lots more have Venezuelan family members and are trying to get them out.
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Aug 26, 2017 11:00
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Even in the off-chance that Bob wanted to go, people were willing to fund him, and he actually went through it, what's the payoff? It's not like he denies that Venezuela is suffering a huge crisis like Borneo Jimmy, he just blames the United States and Western Imperialism and "right wing radicals" in Venezuela for everything instead of the PSUV's incompetence/malice. Going to Caracas in person doesn't really seem like it would yield and first-hand experience to counteract that. I mean, going to some protest (which anyway don't seem to happen anymore) isn't going to convince anyone that the opposition is not run by right-wing extremists. Even if everyone he talks to is socialist/chavist then it will just provide evidence that the right wing extremists are clever at pulling strings to make the plebs protest for them. Also Zombiepop I think a lot of the posters are Venezuelan (not me), but most have left Venezuela either recently or years ago, except Labradoodle.
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Aug 26, 2017 14:11
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Yo in case it's not clear I do think it would be really stupid for anyone to spend their money on sending me to Venezuela when there are so many other better ways they could spend it. I was responding to people literally wishing death & abuse upon me with a troll proposal. I didn't expect anyone to believe I was serious and the thread to be derailed by this multiple pages later ffs
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Aug 26, 2017 14:20
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Bob le Moche posted:Yo in case it's not clear I do think it would be really stupid for anyone to spend their money on sending me to Venezuela when there are so many other better ways they could spend it. I was responding to people literally wishing death & abuse upon me with a troll proposal. I didn't expect anyone to believe I was serious and the thread to be derailed by this multiple pages later ffs Your Western intervention didn't work as planned and caused unforeseen long-term harm, you say? 
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Aug 26, 2017 15:53
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fnox posted:A bunch of us are, actually. Chuck left Venezuela a long time ago, Hugoon Chavez left a couple years back, I left a year ago. Labradoodle and a couple others are still residing in Venezuela. Lots more have Venezuelan family members and are trying to get them out. Well yeah that's a bunch, and it's probably more than I would have guessed. Makes sense tho, since the thread is (most of the time) very good and educational. I should keep more attention to names!
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Aug 26, 2017 22:59
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the op is out of date, can anyone living there post an up-to-date overview if you ever have time?
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Aug 27, 2017 11:36
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Feinne posted:So some other US news is actually tangentially pretty important for Venezuela. Hurricane Harvey is probably going to shut down gulf refineries for at least a week. That seems like a rather nasty blow on top of the sanctions against lending PDVSA money without a really good reason. US imperialism strikes again.
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Aug 27, 2017 15:41
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Vice had an episode on Venezuela this week (can watch it http://mywatchseries.to/episode/Vice_(2013)_s5_e23.html just have to click through a bunch of annoying pop up ads, IME Gorillavid works nicely). Unsurprisingly they're critical of Maduro's regime. What happened to that guy who claimed to be there for the Vice crew and have on-the-ground news unlike the rest of this thread, and then was like 'lololollll that was a joke lol ¡viva chavez!". Of course it's no surprise that those right-wing neoimperialist pro-interventionist people at Vice are criticising Maduro right. (Edit: /s) Saladman fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Aug 28, 2017 |
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Aug 28, 2017 11:37
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How bad is the flooding in Texas, and associated refinery outages, going to gently caress Venezuela?
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Aug 29, 2017 18:14
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Sinteres posted:How bad is the flooding in Texas, and associated refinery outages, going to gently caress Venezuela? Extremely, because Venezuela relies on the US refinery capacity to handle most of their domestic refined oil supply at favorable rates from Citgo as the subsidiary of PDVSA.
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Aug 29, 2017 18:35
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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41091745 The constituent assembly is putting the opposition leaders on trial for treason, apparently. Wow.
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Aug 30, 2017 12:51
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The Venezuelan army has entered Colombia twice in the last week, both times near the Paraguachon area in northeastern Colombia. The first incursion happened over the weekend, and it involved Venezuelan soldiers shooting their rifles in the air and firing tear gas at Colombian residents. I can't find the link to this right now, but I read yesterday that there were also reports that the soldiers had robbed Colombian residents. The second incursion happened yesterday and was caught on tape. It involved one (possibly two) National Guard helicopters flying over the border into Colombia for some reason. The video below was shot in Colombia, just about 150 meters from the Venezuelan border. The helicopter is flying back from Colombia into Venezuela. The helicopter may have flown as far as the city of Maicao, which is about 5 kilometers from the border: https://twitter.com/EmisorAtlantico/status/902575757116899328 Silver2195 posted:http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41091745 Yup. This is exactly what we feared the Constituent Assembly would do: destroy dissent in Venezuela and cement the dictatorship. The Assembly is also working on a "hate speech" law that would target the media and individual citizens who share anti-regime sentiments online. Elvis Amoroso, the vice president of the Assembly, said during a session last week that "the press and [social media networks] promote hatred among Venezuelans", and an Assembly member by the name of Esther Quairo suggested that WhatsApp chats could also be regulated for anti-regime chatter. Remember that Maduro sold the Constituent Assembly as the only way to save the country, to reverse the economic collapse, etc. The Assembly has been sitting for about a month now and it's done absolutely nothing but work on attacking the regime's political opponents Sinteres posted:How bad is the flooding in Texas, and associated refinery outages, going to gently caress Venezuela? SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:the op is out of date, can anyone living there post an up-to-date overview if you ever have time? I don't live here but I'll try to update it as best as I can in the coming days. School is starting up again in two weeks so I'll try to have it done by then. EDIT: Caracas felt what appears to be a small earthquake at around 10:10 AM this morning. The USGS website doesn't show seismic activity near Venezuela today, and Globovision is showing regular programming, so I don't think that it could have been very big. My relatives in Caracas are all telling me they clearly felt it, though. EDIT 2: El Nacional is reporting the epicenter was in Vargas state (near Caracas), and the magnitude is being reported as 4.6 Chuck Boone fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Aug 30, 2017 |
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Aug 30, 2017 15:11
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Chuck Boone posted:The Venezuelan army has entered Colombia twice in the last week, both times near the Paraguachon area in northeastern Colombia. What in the ever-loving gently caress was the point of this? What could this possibly accomplish?
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Aug 30, 2017 18:53
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Nucleic Acids posted:What in the ever-loving gently caress was the point of this? What could this possibly accomplish? A group of heavily armed men who are underpaid with no oversight go rob a nearby town? This is one of those things where nobody is playing chess and this isn't big picture, they're just looting for the gain of it.
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Aug 30, 2017 18:58
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Nucleic Acids posted:What in the ever-loving gently caress was the point of this? What could this possibly accomplish? Just think of all the drugs you could ferry across the border with that helicopter. You wouldn't even need to bribe anybody.
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Aug 30, 2017 19:06
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M_Gargantua posted:A group of heavily armed men who are underpaid with no oversight go rob a nearby town? Well, that is more likely. I guess I'm surprised no civilians have been killed yet (to my knowledge.)
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Aug 30, 2017 19:12
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The New Yorker has an excellent Article on the current state of affairs.
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Aug 30, 2017 21:52
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I think they nailed some of the most bizarre parts of the Venezuelan crisis. It's hard for foreigners to understand just how counterintuitive the whole situation is, most of the time, dictatorships are not associated with rampant crime, and the idea of how Chavez became a dictator through elections is also not very easy to understand. It also goes very in depth in why is the Venezuelan economy suffering like it is, why is it that it is the worst performing economy in the world, and how can it still be this bad despite oil prices rebounding. Kind of a shame that it's a year old though. fnox fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Aug 30, 2017 |
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Aug 30, 2017 22:29
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Silver2195 posted:http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41091745 It was a little over a year ago when Maduro said "The National Assembly lost its political validity. It’s only a matter of time before it disappears"
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Aug 31, 2017 07:04
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Chuck Boone posted:The first incursion happened over the weekend, and it involved Venezuelan soldiers shooting their rifles in the air and firing tear gas at Colombian residents. I can't find the link to this right now, but I read yesterday that there were also reports that the soldiers had robbed Colombian residents. I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this but under the Geneva convention tear gas is classified as a chemical weapon when used in wars. This is a straight up war crime.
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Aug 31, 2017 09:06
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Furia posted:I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this but under the Geneva convention tear gas is classified as a chemical weapon when used in wars. This is a straight up war crime. I don't think that brigandry is usually classified as invasion. Also based at how commonly tear gas is used internationally by police forces, I expect the possibility of getting prosecuted by the UN for it is approximately zero. While maybe technically correct, calling that a war crime kind of diminishes the meaning of war crime to me. Like, it's not really on par with bombing a hospital like Assad does, or blockading hospitals and slowly killing all of its residents and patients, like the Venezuela government is doing.
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Aug 31, 2017 10:35
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That is a fair assessment on the situation, specially the fact that it is too "light" to be a war crime (which while based on a technicality as you say is an important technicality to have). However, the response will likely also be guided by how the Colombian government reacts to the event, and given that their previous position on recent events in Venezuela it's not entirely unlikely that this will be used to escalate political pressure.
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Aug 31, 2017 12:54
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The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report yesterday outlining the gross human rights violations committed by regime forces in the repression of the protests this year. The report contains horrific accounts of some of the torture and ill-treatment that protesters were subjected to by security forces. I'll copy and paste two bits from III A.3, which is called "Torture and ill-treatment of persons detained in the context of the protests": quote:Many detainees interviewed were severely beaten, including with sticks, metal bars, pliers, helmets, baseball bats and weapons, all over their bodies, including their genitals. Some detainees were wrapped in mats to prevent the beating from leaving marks. National guards handcuffed and suspended one man from a water tank pipe for nine hours; only the tip of his toes touched the floor. During this time, he was continuously beaten and was not given water or food. The guards then handcuffed him to a window and beat him throughout the night. A lawyer told OHCHR how his client was burnt with a cigarette and the burning cannon of a gun. Other detainees were forced to kneel for long periods of time and some were forced to listen to pro-Government songs and slogans for hours. The report also makes it clear that children were subjected to torture as well, since approximately 400 out of the 5,000 people arrested during the protests were underage. It's an important read. I highly recommend it. Furia posted:That is a fair assessment on the situation, specially the fact that it is too "light" to be a war crime (which while based on a technicality as you say is an important technicality to have). Colombia filed a formal complaint with the Venezuelan ambassador over the first incursion (the one that may have involved tear gas). It's likely that they have also/will also file a formal complaint about the second incursion, because I don't see Colombia just sitting back and taking this silently.
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Aug 31, 2017 13:24
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There's a very rarely spoken component of the crisis that I've been recently reminded of, after reading about a Venezuelan who smuggled 300 people into Chile. Venezuela has become a major hub for human trafficking, something that started to become reality once Maduro took power. I mean, it makes sense for a place as poor and lawless as Venezuela to become a hotspot for predators and smugglers. Venezuelan culture has been shaped for decades by its fixation with beauty pageants and general chauvinism regarding women, aptly demonstrated by the country's obsession with plastic surgery, extending to even mannequins having impossible proportions. Women being shipped off to other countries to be forced into prostitution is not something that the average Venezuelan would find unusual. The desperation brought forward by the crashing economy makes basically any attempt at getting dollars fair game in the eyes of society. Venezuela is regarded to be tier 3, the worst possible ranking, in the US State Department 's 2016 Trafficking in Persons report, placing it in the same league as countries like Sudan in terms of human trafficking volume. I know of more than one of my former schoolmates who has become an escort, many more acquaintances who have become internet camgirls and have nude photos of them plastered all over the internet, things they've done in a bid to make enough cash to get off the country. There's even been reports of child abuse rings being set up in Margarita for foreigners, and of children sold into sexual slavery in the Colombian border. fnox fucked around with this message at 14:09 on Sep 1, 2017 |
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Sep 1, 2017 07:17
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The big news this week has had to do with Lilian Tintori, who is a human rights activist and the wife of Leopoldo Lopez, the opposition leader who was sentenced to 14 years in prison back in 2015 (and is currently serving that sentence under house arrest). On Tuesday, attorney general Tarek William Saab said that police had "decommissioned" Bs. 200 million from Tintori after they stopped and searched her vehicle. Tintori was not arrested. She claims that she got the cash to pay for "urgent expenses" related to the prolonged hospitalization of her uninsured 100-year-old grandmother. Bs. 200 million is approximately $11,300 at the current black market exchange rate. Tintori went to a police station Friday to give a statement about the case, and told the police that it was her money and her car, and that having money in your car is not a crime. While she was giving her statement at the police station, she received a summon to appear in court on Tuesday in connection with the case. Tintori was not arrested. There have been no charges laid against her. She is not accused of committing a crime. The regime is working solely off insinuation and suggestion here. Why did she have all that money? What was it doing it in her car? Where was she going? In a completely unrelated and super coincidental coincidence, Tintori was set to leave Venezuela yesterday for Europe, where she was set to meet personally with Emmanuel Macron, Theresa May, Angela Merkel and Mariano Rajoy. The purpose of the trip was to discuss the ongoing Venezuelan crisis with the European leaders. When Tintori attempted to board the plane yesterday at the Maiquetia airport, she was presented with a travel ban. She was not able to leave the country.
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Sep 3, 2017 15:13
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Well, at least they didn't "find" a bunch of C4 and AK-47s and whatever other bullshit they plant in cars these days. It might be true, although it's weird that Tintori would have cash with her at all. Wouldn't you need a forklift to move 200m BsF? I guess if the 20,000 BsF note is real that's "only" 10,000 bills (probably around 5-20 kg, no idea what BsF weigh but $1US is 1 gram). Still, last I remember seeing on this thread no one had seen anything larger than a 500 BsF note? I don't know why anyone would think it's weird that someone like her (i.e. from a very wealthy background) would have $10,000 anyway. Saladman fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Sep 3, 2017 |
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Sep 3, 2017 16:02
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She gave them the perfect excuse. How could she be so reckless? Is it really her money or is there a chance that it was planted? You're all right when you say that there's practically no recourse in your country. lovely government, awful opposition.
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