Venezuela (2019 onwards)

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Caracas (AFP) - Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaido vowed Tuesday to take Nicolas Maduro's place in the presidential palace "very soon," as thousands of people took to the streets of Caracas to protest.

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Venezuela's state prosecutor, Tarek William Saab, told reporters he would place Guaido under investigation for "his alleged involvement in the sabotage of the Venezuelan electric grid."

It is the first government move against the US-backed Guaido since his return to Venezuela last week after defying a travel ban to visit several allied South American leaders.

- 'Electricity war' -

Maduro has blamed a devastating multi-day blackout plaguing Venezuela on Washington, and declared "victory" in what he called an "electricity war" triggered by the Pentagon.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/guaido-ma...062726034.html

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Socialism at work.

Infectious Diseases Spike amid Venezuela’s Political Turmoil
Scientists say the rise in illnesses is due to a combination of government suppression of research, a lack of disease data and climate change

Venezuela was once a leader in vector-borne disease prevention and control. In 1961 the World Health Organization certified the South American nation as the first in the world to eliminate malaria from the majority of its territory; in fact the WHO used the malaria-eradication program Venezuela developed in the 1950s as a public health model. That and other efforts reduced the prevalence of many vector-borne diseases to manageable levels through the 1990s. But in recent years a confluence of events—some political and economic, others environmental—has reversed these gains.

Here's the take-away.

The review co-authors warn the crisis could spark an epidemic in neighboring countries, as Venezuelans are emigrating by the millions. The authors say Venezuelan migrants suffered 45 and 86 percent of malaria cases in the bordering northern Brazilian municipalities of Pacaraima and Boa Vista, respectively. But it is difficult to ascertain how many migrants may have brought disease with them, and how many were infected after they reached host countries. Co-author Martin Llewellyn, an epidemiologist at the University of Glasgow, acknowledges this uncertainty, and adds his team plans to conduct molecular epidemiology studies to determine the origins of infection.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...tical-turmoil/

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CARACAS (Reuters) - Two Russian air force planes landed at Venezuela's main airport on Saturday carrying a Russian defense official and nearly 100 troops, according to media reports, amid strengthening ties between Caracas and Moscow.

A flight-tracking website showed that two planes left from a Russian military airport bound for Caracas on Friday, and another flight-tracking site showed that one plane left Caracas on Sunday.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-a...171301378.html

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In the second city of Maracaibo, the crippling blackout sparked a terrifying rampage that police seemed unable to control
Some liken the damage wrought on Venezuela’s second city to a natural disaster. Others suspect satanic intervention.
“El demonio,” says Betty Méndez, a local shopkeeper, by way of explanation for the wave of looting and unrest that convulsed Maracaibo earlier this month.

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Most, however, describe the mayhem in psychiatric terms: a collective breakdown that shocked this lakeside city to its core and offered a terrifying glimpse of Venezuela’s possible future as it sinks deeper into economic, political and social decline.

“Horror, fear, despair,” said María Villalobos, a 35-year-old journalist, weeping as she relived three days of violence that many here call la locura – “the madness”.

“I thought it was the start of a civil war.”

Her husband, Luis González, nodded grimly in agreement as they recalled watching hundreds of looters – some wielding axes, sledgehammers, machetes or even pistols – move into nearby warehouses, shops and even a church to begin a frenzy of wrecking and theft. “It was as if they were possessed,” the 39-year-old driver remembered.

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Maracaibo’s “madness” began on the night of 10 March – three days after a catastrophic blackout plunged almost the entire nation into darkness. But it had been long in the making thanks to years of economic and political neglect.

The 1.6 million residents of Maracaibo – an oil capital once celebrated as Latin America’s answer to Houston – complained of shortages of water, electricity and fuel and a worsening public transport system even before Venezuela’s crisis began to accelerate in 2016, with the onset of hyperinflation.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ricity-looting