Chuck Boone posted:

Borneo Jimmy posted:

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Venezuela-to-Take-In-20000-Syrian-Refugees-20150908-0002.html

Phlegmish posted:

How do you think Maduro will respond to his party's near-inevitable loss?

punk rebel ecks posted:

While I am all for having more people vote (I'm a fan of mandatory voting ala Australia and Brazil), what could the PSUV possibly gain from having centers open? There is already record turnout.

CalmDownMate posted:

It strikes me as strange that Venezuela doesn't have oil refineries seeing as both Ecuador and Colombia do.

AstraSage posted:

Can you please elaborate on what do you mean by "books"?
Usually when we in Venezuela heard anything about importing from Uruguay, it was about food like Cheese, Soy-based Products or something like that.

Traveller posted:

How does that work? Does some random PSUV committee go out on the internet and decide that yes, shoving propaganda down goons' throats is a good way to spend money?

Somaen posted:

I've never read a bad thing about Mujica, what is your beef with him?

El Hefe posted:

Whatever Chavez did he did it because he was a totalitarian and he wanted unlimited power, he never did for the good of the people.

surrender posted:

This is probably a dumb question, but what are the possibilities for emigration to somewhere else in South (or Central) America? My cousin moved from Caracas to Bogota a couple of years back, but his wife already had Colombian citizenship through one of her parents.

Chuck Boone posted:

I went to a talk by a professor from a Trinidadian university who does research on crime surveys and public perceptions of crime. After his talk I chatted with him for a bit, and he told me that Venezuela comes up in the news there sometimes because it's seen as a drug export hub. He told me that the authorities in Trinidad trace both drugs and weapons to Venezuela, so the proximity to the country is causing some problems for Trinidad, apparently. Like fnox said, though, the fact that they speak English there makes Trinidad much more foreign and feel much further away than it actually is.

Also, a bit of a tangent on the MERCOSUR mention: there's a big controversy there now because Venezuela assumed the presidency of MERCOSUR on Saturday, and some of the other member states aren't having it. MERCOSUR's presidency rotates among its members every six months in alphabetical order. Uruguay had the presidency until Saturday, at which point Venezuela said "Alright thanks, it's our turn now". Paraguay said that it didn't recognize Venezuela's presidency, and later Uruguay and Argentina said the same thing. Now those countries are calling for a meeting to resolve the issue because they don't appear to be at all interested in having Venezuela had the organization given its continued human rights abuses.

Kurtofan posted:

Where does Chavismo still have the most support?

Chuck Boone posted:

MERCOSUR's non-Venezuela members (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) have unanimously decided to veto Venezuela from taking over the presidency of the organization for the next six months, and have instead agreed to share the post.

The organization has also given Venezuela until December 1 of this year to complete a series of steps necessary to become a full member. Venezuela originally had until August 12 of this year to complete the steps (which include meeting certain economic and human rights requirements), but it failed to do so. If Venezuela doesn't meet the requirements by December 1, it will be suspended from the organization.

Foreign Affairs Minister Delcy Rodriguez shot back at the move through her Twitter account, calling it the result of "political intolerance and desperate bureaucrats". She also said what's below, but if you told me that this sentence came out of North Korea I would believe you:

Ghost of Mussolini posted:

Bienvenido y buena suerte para vos y tu familia.

Personal anecdote but it certainly seems like the number of Venezuelans in Argentina is growing.

Sinteres posted:

I think the overly cautious opposition is part of why other countries don't give a poo poo. As long as they're still pretending they're operating in a democracy, what are other countries supposed to do? If the opposition forced a confrontation and the military actually moved against the people in the real way though, I don't think the US would be able to (or want to) ignore what's going on in its back yard anymore.

fnox posted:

Who exactly is gonna reform them? Are you in any way aware about the country you're talking about or did you just stumble onto this topic thinking this is about America?

Pharohman777 posted:

Wait, do they PREFER the soviet union!?
Saying a government was backed by the soviet union is not a glowing recommendation for a government!

Kokoro Wish posted:

It's not even just a tankie thing. You see papers all over the world with smatterings of reports about Opposition lynchings and burnings. Even from right wing papers like the Daily Mail you get the occasional story like that between stuff that's very anti-Maduro.

I do have a few questions to sate my own curiosity from those in the country. Is the Opposition as right wing as purported in certain areas. And I don't want equivocations about the current Government being worse, there's lenty of that in the thread already. I just want to know how potentially right-leaning these opposition groups are.

Has there been a spate of lynchings and burning of thieves or criminals? Are most of the Criminals black or of colour? Are most of the lynchers "white"?

Is there a seeming lack of certain essential good on the shelves of stores (flour, eggs, milk, etc.) whilst they remain stocked with other processed goods? Have these goods been horded away from stores by suppliers in order to push up prices, as happens in alot of conflict zones?

I ask these because this is stuff you see when you read around about the situation in Venezuela from an outsider's perspective. There's alot of talking points about the Chavistas being bad and Maduro being a dictator, etc. But then there's also this kind of thing about the opposition that raises eye-brows. What would a government under such opposition look like? There are those that would compare the situation as it is to Syria's endgame of Assad being bad, but the opposition being terrible also.

Chuck Boone posted:

fishmech posted:

Here's your article:
1) His cronies stole billions
2) Oil stopped being expensive

tekz posted:

Yeah I hope Brazil doesn't hit those lows. Temer needs to be booted out asap.

Chuck Boone posted:

We need more details! What was the stuffing? How would you describe the arepa dough (cold/lukewarm/hot? Was it dense and dry, or soft and chewie?) There are too many variables to consider!