Members of the Yukpa indigenous group from Venezuela’s western Sierra de Perijá held a rally in Caracas, protesting violent aggression against their communities by cattle ranchers.
In Venezuela as in the US, third-party candidates were roundly ignored by the media—including a veteran labor leader who challenged Hugo Chávez from the left.
Authorities from four countries cooperated in a months-long operation that led to the arrest in Venezuela of Daniel Barrera AKA "El Loco"—dubbed the "last of the great capos."
Venezuela and Bolivia reacted angrily to the fourth consecutive White House annual determination that they have "demonstrably failed" to combat narco trafficking.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights urged Venezuelan authorities “to conduct a thorough investigation” into claims of a massacre at a remote Yanomami setlement.
Venezuelan officials investigating the reported massacre of an isolated Yanomami community say they found no evidence of the attack—a claim dismissed by indigenous advocates.
An oil spill at a refinery operated by the Venezuelan parastatal PDVSA on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao threatens a nature reserve which is a critical flamingo habitat.
Venezuela’s opposition accused the state oil company of negligence after the deadly refinery explosion at Amuay, while the government says foreign subversion undermined safety.
Venezuelan authorities pledge to investigate breaking reports that outlaw miners comitted a “massacre” of an isolated Yanomami indigenous community on the Brazilian border.
In an egregious and all too revealing faux pas, Amy Goodman appears to have put a mouthpiece of the German far right on Democracy Now as a "former UN expert" to discuss Venezuela. This is one Alfred de Zayas, who is given Goodman's typical sycophantic treatment—all softballs, no adversarial questions. We are treated to the accurate enough if not at all surprising line about how the US is attempting a coup with the complicity of the corporate media. Far more interesting than what he says is de Zayas himself. Not noted by Goodman is that he is on the board of the Desiderius-Erasmus-Stiftung, a Berlin-based foundation established last year as the intellectual and policy arm of Alternative für Deutschland, the far-right party that has tapped anti-immigrant sentiment to win an alarming 94 seats in Germany's Bundestag. He has won a neo-Nazi following with his unseemly theories of Aliied "genocide" against Germans in World War II. (Image via Democracy Now)
World oil prices remain depressed despite an uptick this month, driven by the Venezuela crisis and fear of US-China trade war. Yet this month also saw Zimbabwe explode into angry protests over fuel prices. The unrest was sparked when the government doubled prices, in an effort to crack down on "rampant" illegal trading. Simultaneously, long lines at gas stations are reported across Mexico—again due to a crackdown on illegal petrol trafficking. Despite all the talk in recent years about how low oil prices are now permanent (mirrored, of course, in the similar talk 10 years ago about how high prices were permanent), the crises in Zimbabwe and Mexico may be harbingers of a coming global shock. (Photo via Amnesty International)
Trump, the great enthusiast for dictators, suddenly develops a touching concern with democracy in Venezuela, grasping at the opportunity for long-sought regime change. Predictably overlooked in the world media's Manichean view of the crisis are voices of Venezuela's dissident left that takes a neither/nor position opposed to both the regime and the right-wing leadership of the opposition. Also unheard are voices of indigenous dissent and resistance. In an episode that received little coverage, December saw protests in the remote Orinoco Basin after a leader of the Pemón indigenous people was killed in a confrontation with elite Military Counterintelligence troops. The military operation was ostensibly aimed at clearing the region of illegal mining—while the Pemón themselves had been protesting the mining. The indigenous leaders view the militarization of the region as intended to make way for corporate exploitation under the Orinoco Mineral Arc plan. (Photo: EcoPolitica Venezuela)
