January 03, 2019

Oil & Energy

Venezuela oil exports slump to a 28-year low

Venezuela, once Latin America’s largest oil exporter, ended 2018 with a whimper as overseas sales dropped to the lowest in nearly three decades. Home to the world’s biggest crude reserves, the country exported 1.245 million barrels a day last year, the lowest since 1990, as production tumbles amid an economic and humanitarian crisis. Falling exports compound the pain, as oil is the country’s main source of revenue and bankrolls the regime of president Nicolas Maduro. The country’s crude production fell by more than half in the past five years to a daily average of 1.346 million barrels this year, according to OPEC secondary source data. The country is also bracing for more sanctions, as the Trump administration is said to mull new actions against Venezuela by Jan. 10, when Maduro’s current term expires. (Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-02/venezuela-oil-exports-slump-to-28-year-low-on-falling-output)

 

Venezuela: A real threat to Guyana's oil boom

The day after the Guyanese government fell after a no-confidence vote Venezuela’s navy approached two Norwegian vessels conducing seismic work in Guyanese waters on December 22, forcing the ships to flee to safer waters. The ships, under contract by EXXONMOBIL, are surveying the area and working to develop massive oil discoveries that could transform Guyana. Venezuela says the activity is illegal because it is in disputed territory, but Guyana, and much of the world, views the harassment by Venezuelan ships as illegitimate. The move comes as EXXONMOBIL and its partner HESS Corp. are spending heavily to develop a string of oil discoveries off the coast of Guyana. The discoveries encompass some 5 billion barrels of oil reserves, and offshore Guyana has quickly jumped to the top of the priority list for EXXONMOBIL. As such, Guyana – a very small and poor country on the northern coast of South America – is home to one of the most active and attractive offshore plays in the world. The fact that Guyana stands at the center of one of the largest oil companies in the world illustrates the size of the prize. Over the past half-decade, EXXON has made discovery after discovery in Guyanese waters, repeatedly revising up its estimate for how much oil might lie beneath the seabed. As recently as early December, EXXON and HESS hiked their estimate for Guyana’s offshore reserves by 25% after announcing their tenth discovery. That has the Maduro regime seething. Venezuela claims ownership over some of the maritime territory in which EXXONMOBIL is working, but Guyana says that the territorial dispute was settled over a century ago. Venezuela has held outstanding claims over some territory in Guyana for quite a long time, but the disagreement was dormant for decades. EXXONMOBIL was forced to suspend exploration activities after the move by Venezuela and Guyana has referred the case to the United Nations. Despite the attempt by Venezuela’s navy to disrupt drilling operations in Guyana, the move is unlikely to have a lasting impact on EXXON’s developments in the country. Indeed, on Wednesday, EXXON said that its operations were unaffected, despite the retreat by the seismic ships a few days earlier. The episode is mostly a distraction from the larger story unfolding in Venezuela. Oil export revenues fell by a fifth in 2018 from a year earlier and are likely set to continue to decline. Harassing oil vessels in neighboring waters won’t change that dynamic. (Oil Price: https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/South-America/Venezuela-A-Real-Threat-To-Guyanas-Oil-Boom.html)

 

Commodities

Raising cattle, a risky business for Venezuela ranchers

Rotting hides on the road are all that is left of three butchered cows. Such carnage is common in Venezuela's cattle country, where thieves, squatters and government policy threaten a vital food resource. Venezuela's severe economic crisis is felt keenly in cities — where food sources are limited — but it's also cutting a swath through what should be the country's food basket. Farmers in the cattle-rearing region of San Silvestre, in the western state of Barinas, say they are in a state of siege — from squatters, gunmen and government price controls that make their farms unprofitable. "I can't sleep on the farm anymore because I'm scared," said Jose Antonio Espinoza, owner of a 600-head herd in San Silvestre. "They have come around here and tied people up, and then stolen everything — chainsaws, water pumps, cattle." He said as many as 74 bulls have been stolen over the past year from his family farm. Cowboys on horseback herd his traditional Venezuelan Brahman and Carora breeds, as well as buffalos, to and from their fertile grazing land. But they are powerless when the rustlers strike. Meat produced in Venezuela now barely accounts for 40% of domestic consumption, less than half the 97 percent of two decades ago, according to the National Federation of Cattle Ranchers. Per capita meat consumption went from 20 kilos per year in 1999 to only seven kilos at present, the federation says. Even then, farmers can't fulfill demand. Venezuela, a country of more than 30 million people, raises less than 10 million head of cattle, the federation says; in 1999, when the population was 20 million, there were 14 million cattle. Dwindling resources makes meat more expensive in the capital Caracas, 560 kilometers (350 miles) away, where it costs the equivalent of the minimum monthly wage to buy two kilos of meat. The socialist government has expropriated five million hectares (12.4 million acres) of agricultural land, the cattle rancher federation says. Price controls mean farmers get little for the meat they produce. Land invasions are another problem. Emboldened by government policy, armed squatters invaded a large maize farm in San Silvestre and ransacked it in the space of three days. In border areas, farmers can be even more exposed, regularly becoming the target of extortion by armed groups, engaged in running contraband or drug trafficking. Late last month, the government took over the running of a score of slaughterhouses. Officials accused their owners of speculation and promptly slashed prices by two-thirds. There have also been cases of pro-Maduro state governors demanding that farmers sell part of their production, setting the prices themselves, to distribute to their supporters at low cost. (VOA: https://www.voanews.com/a/raising-cattle-a-risky-business-for-venezuela-ranchers/4724800.html)

 

Economy & Finance

Venezuelans had a brutal year. The outlook for 2019 isn’t any better, experts say.

Venezuelans said goodbye Monday to one of their worst years ever. And 2019 could be even worse, according to analysts who predict a deeper collapse of the economy and higher levels of violence and repression. Venezuela was bad enough in 2018. The economic collapse that started with Nicolás Maduro’s presidency finally exploded last year with an inflation rate of nearly 1 million percent, sharp shortages of food that have more than a third of Venezuelans eating only once a day and 5,000 citizens leaving the country daily. More than 3 million Venezuelans have already abandoned their country in an exodus described as the worst immigration crisis in the history of Latin America. The forecasts for the coming year are even worse. Estimates by the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations and other multilateral organizations point to an inflation rate of more than 10 million percent in 2019; an 18% drop in the Gross Domestic Product; a deeper collapse of the oil industry; an increase in the already high levels of violence; and the departure of another 2 million Venezuelans. Experts also predict new and tougher foreign economic sanctions on the Maduro regime starting Jan. 10, when he starts a new term in office won in elections rejected by much of the international community because of broad evidence of fraud and other illegalities. He was first elected president in 2013. One of the key concerns is Venezuela’s plummeting oil production, once the principal motor of its economy, that could drop to 500,000 by the end of 2019. That low production and the continuing drop in private economic activity could lead to the collapse of the health system, the power network and the water and other public services — areas already hard hit by the economic crisis. The economic crisis and the international pressures all but guarantee that 2019 will be a year of great turbulence. The future will depend on what proportion of the armed forces will continue supporting Maduro on his road to a Castro-styled dictatorship, or if at some point they will decide to stop supporting him. (The Miami Herald: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article223796500.html)

 

Maduro claims Venezuela lost US$ 20 billion in 2018 due to sanctions

President Nicolás Maduro claims US economic sanctions have caused Venezuela the loss of some US$ 20 billion: “There are multimillion losses. Our bank accounts are persecuted, our purchases of any product are persecuted worldwide: food, medicines – it is a savage persecution, what they are doing against Venezuela is criminal”, he says. Maduro says that all of this has been denounced with the UN and its Secretary General, along with several international organizations, “and no one says anything”. More in Spanish: (El Universal, http://www.eluniversal.com/economia/29542/maduro-venezuela-perdio-20000-millones-en-2018; AVN; http://www.avn.info.ve/contenido/sanciones-internacionales-le-hicieron-perder-venezuela-20-mil-millones-d%C3%B3lares-2018)

 

OP-ED: Venezuela may reach a 10 million percent inflation rate — and 10 million refugees, by

Andres Oppenheimer

After several decades of writing about Latin American affairs, I thought I couldn’t surprised by anything anymore. But when a leading international economist told me that Venezuela is likely to have a 10 million percent inflation rate in 2019, I almost choked. Alejandro Werner, director of the Western Hemisphere department of the International Monetary Fund,    says: “Yes, 10 million percent, because prices in Venezuela are doubling or tripling every month. And that, when you take it to 12 months, generates an exponential inflation rate”. He added that the Venezuelan economy collapsed by 18% in 2018, for a total contraction of 50% over the past four years. And he projected that it will fall by 5% more in 2019. If the latest IMF and World Bank projections materialize, hunger and violence will escalate even further in Venezuela, and millions more will try to flee the country. According to a Brookings Institution study released this month, 8.2 million Venezuelans — including the 3 million who have already left the country — will flee over the next two to three years. But Luis Almagro, secretary general of the 34-nation Organization of American States, told me last week that the Venezuelan exodus may be even larger than estimated in the Brookings report. That would be a much larger migration disaster than the Syrian refugee crisis that has shaken the European Union, and that contributed to the rise of right-wing anti-immigration governments and political parties across Europe. It certainly would be an unprecedented mass exodus in Latin America in recent times. Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro may be more than happy with the prospect of millions more leaving his country and being left with a mass of impoverished people who can be easily controlled with government food subsidies and receive U.S. dollars from their relative abroad. Cuba started doing that nearly six decades ago, and it has allowed Cuba’s dictatorship to remain in power ever since. But Maduro may not get away with it as easily. There is no way that Colombia, Brazil and other countries in the neighborhood will agree to absorb 8 million to 10 million Venezuelan refugees. If projections of 8.2 million to 10 million refugees materialize, Venezuela will become an international hot spot like the Middle East. (Twin Cities Pioneer Press: https://www.twincities.com/2018/12/28/andres-oppenheimer-venezuela-may-reach-a-10-million-percent-inflation-rate-and-10-million-refugees/)

 

Politics and International Affairs

Maduro's second inauguration puts U.S., other foreign critics in conundrum

During his first term as president, Venezuela’s oil production has dropped to 1947 levels, the currency has lost 99.99997% of its value, the U.S. and Europe sanctioned a growing number of top government officials, and millions of desperate residents fled the country, sparking refugee and humanitarian crises in several neighboring states. Nevertheless, on Jan. 10, Nicolas Maduro is set to be sworn in for another six years in power in Caracas. The embattled leftist’s second inauguration, the result of a May election widely considered fraudulent, presents a conundrum for the Trump administration and governments across the region, which are now trying to weigh whether the crisis is best addressed by cutting off diplomatic ties or by continuing to engage with his regime. In a Dec. 20 meeting in Bogota, the informal “Lima Group” of Maduro critics — whose key members include Argentina, Brazil, Canada and Mexico — agreed that it would no longer recognize Mr. Maduro as Venezuela’s head of state after Jan. 10, though it tabled more concrete decisions until a meeting of foreign ministers later this week. But cohesion within the group has been complicated by the electoral victory of leftist Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Lopez Obrador had invited Maduro to his own Dec. 1 inauguration, and his top adviser for regional affairs, Maximiliano Reyes Zuniga, insisted in Bogota that Mexico would not break off diplomatic relations with Venezuela under any circumstances. In his own end-of-year address to the nation, Mr. Maduro sounded almost chipper, saying he would press for a renewed dialogue with the political opposition and the business community and touting the government’s six-year economic plan through 2025. The Trump administration, which blasted the May election as a “sham,” has been largely mum on what might be in the cards for Maduro in his second term. Just how much he will get away with in the first year of his second term, though, depends on just how fast Venezuela continues to disintegrate. At least for the time being, Maduro still benefits from a fractured opposition, allies whose political survival depends on unity — or the appearance thereof — and an international community unsure of just what to do with him. Ultimately, his 15 percent approval rating underlines that it is force, not popular support that will propel him to his second oath of office on Jan. 10. (The Washington Times: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/1/nicolas-maduro-venezuela-president-defies-critics-/)

 

Pompeo, Brazil's new government target Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discussed supporting a return to democracy in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua with Brazil’s new government on Wednesday, in a joint effort against what he called authoritarian regimes in Latin America. Pompeo and Brazil’s Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo considered deepening cooperation in the region at a meeting in Brasilia following Tuesday’s inauguration of President Jair Bolsonaro. They discussed “supporting the people of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua in restoring democratic governance and their human rights,” State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino said. Pompeo later met with Bolsonaro, and also broached the question of “reinforcing democratic governance and human rights” in those three countries. Speaking to reporters in Brasilia, Pompeo said Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua were countries that do not share the democratic values that unite the United States and Brazil. “We have an opportunity to work alongside each other against authoritarian regimes,” he said at a news conference. In response, Venezuela’s foreign ministry said in a statement it “categorically rejected” Pompeo’s “interventionist attitude,” accusing him of seeking to rally support among Latin American countries for “forcible regime change” in Venezuela. Cuban Communist Party leader Raul Castro on Tuesday blasted the Trump administration for returning to an outdated path of confrontation with his island nation and of intervening in Latin America, in a speech marking the 60th anniversary of Cuba’s revolution. Pompeo did not address a reporter’s question on whether military intervention would be an option. (Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-brazil-venezuela/pompeo-brazils-new-government-target-cuba-venezuela-nicaragua-idUSKCN1OW0VQ; Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-brazil-venezuela/u-s-s-pompeo-discusses-venezuela-with-brazils-new-right-wing-government-idUSS0N1XG014)

 

US, Colombia aim to restore Venezuela's 'democratic heritage'

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Colombian President Ivan Duque discussed Wednesday how to help restore democratic rule to crisis-wracked Venezuela and reject its "dictatorship." Pompeo followed up a trip to Brazil to meet with new far right President Jair Bolsonaro with a visit to Colombia for talks on the migrant exodus from neighboring Venezuela, and its regime led by President Nicolas Maduro. "Our conversations today covered how we can collaborate with regional and international partners to help those fleeing and help Venezuelans recover their democratic heritage," Pompeo said from the Caribbean city of Cartagena. He described Colombia as "a natural leader on regional efforts to support democracy and the rule of law in Venezuela," its neighbor. Duque said that "all the countries that share the value of democracy should unite to reject the Venezuelan dictatorship and do everything necessary to restore democracy and constitutional order." Pompeo praised Colombia for its support of the 1 million Venezuelans that have crossed the border and "fled the crisis caused by the Maduro regime's authoritarian misrule." During his visit to Brazil, Pompeo agreed with his Peruvian and Brazilian counterparts to increase the pressure on Maduro, with Venezuela's government reacting by decrying interference. (AFP: https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/01/03/19/us-colombia-aim-to-restore-venezuelas-democratic-heritage)

 

Greenidge meets US official on Venezuela border controversy

Guyana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Greenidge, on Tuesday in Brasília met with Senior director of the United States National Security Council’s Western Hemisphere Affairs, Mauricio Claver-Carone. The meeting, a release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, was held on the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony for the President-elect of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro. The discussions centered on the Guyana/Venezuela controversy, particularly the Venezuelan Navy’s recent interception of an Exxon contracted vessel conducting seismic surveys in Guyanese waters on December 22, 2018. The US State Department issued a statement following the incident, “Guyana has the sovereign right to explore and exploit resources in its Exclusive Economic Zone.” They further urged Venezuela to respect international law and the rights of its neighbors. (Stabroek News: https://www.stabroeknews.com/2019/news/guyana/01/02/greenidge-meets-us-official-on-venezuela-border-controversy/)

 

Maduro calls Guyana EXXON Oil ship incident “outrageous”

President Nicolas Maduro says an incident between a Norwegian ship doing oil exploration work for US oil giant Exxon and a Venezuelan Navy warship was “outrageous”, claiming the event was part of a strategy to “weaken and divide” Venezuela. His statements come more than a week after the incident in Guyana coastal waters December 22nd, Venezuelan media was quick to note also Friday. “They want to weaken Venezuela in order to put their claws on our country and steal oil and riches from us,” Maduro told his second military parade this month. “And there’s a token to demonstrate (the incident). That was outrageous. When I was informed…I ordered Commander Remigio Ceballos and the Navy to proceed and apply all of the protocols, no matter what the cost and that’s what we did.” (Latin American Herald Tribune, http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=2472276&CategoryId=10717)

 

OP-ED: Is Venezuela willing to start a Caribbean war? by Scott B. MacDonald

On December 22, 2018, the Bolivarian Navy of Venezuela “intercepted” the ExxonMobil research ship, the Ramform Tethys, in the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana. The ship is flagged by the government of the Bahamas and was contracted to conduct seismic work by ExxonMobil and has a crew of seventy. Relations between Guyana and Venezuela have deteriorated considerably since Nicolas Maduro came into office in 2013. This incident could be the beginning of a more sustained push by the authoritarian Maduro regime to stir up nationalism in the run-up to the beginning of a new presidential term in January 2019. Guyana and Venezuela have a longstanding border dispute, dating back to the early nineteenth century but since settled by international arbitration. Venezuela has periodically challenged that settlement, claiming about half of the country. The recent discovery of large quantities of oil off the shore of Guyana conducted by major oil companies, in particular EXXONMOBIL, has led to a new oil rush for the Caribbean country. The Guyanese government is deeply concerned that Venezuela could continue to push on the border issue. On paper, the Venezuelan military is much larger than Guyana’s. However, the terrain through which any large-scale Venezuelan incursion would proceed is challenging. Would the Venezuelan military be ready and able to make war against Guyana? The answer is probably no; the preference would be more likely to conduct bullying operations, such as the seizure of oil exploration ships. Making the situation more complicated is the involvement of the major powers in the region. Both China and Russia have been and continue to be actively engaged in keeping the Maduro regime in power, although it is questionable that Beijing or Moscow would favor backing Caracas in a shooting war with Guyana. If Venezuela were to escalate the situation from the seizure of an oil exploration vessel to a land grab or an attempted naval blockade of the offshore oil fields, the situation could turn ugly. The United States has already let it be known that it disapproved of the Venezuelan action and stands behind Guyana. How far does the Maduro regime want to take this? In December, the previous government fell and Guyana heads toward new elections in three months. Central to the election is how the projected oil money will be spent. Venezuela's action cast a dark shadow over this; something no doubt calculated in Caracas. Indeed, ExxonMobil has suspended operations. Considering the unpopularity of the Maduro regime, its need of military support and assistance from Cuban security personnel, a foreign policy distraction could be seen in Caracas as just the right thing to take people’s minds off the socioeconomic chaos and misery that their country has become under the socialist banner. Although the odds of an actual war are not likely, there is room for escalation, something that in the short term could help Maduro begin his new term. The Caribbean has long been off the U.S. radar, but China’s and Russia’s growing role in the region means that can no longer be the case. Guyana could be a test case of U.S. resolve to maintaining its strategic dominance in the Caribbean. (The National Interest: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/venezuela-willing-start-caribean-war-39987)

 

Venezuela offers help probing alleged planned attack on Colombia president

Venezuela’s government is willing to help investigate a plot to assassinate Colombian President Ivan Duque, in which three Venezuelan nationals arrested in Colombia may be suspects, foreign minister Jorge Arreaza said. The alleged assassination attempt comes amid tense relations between the two neighboring South American countries. Duque has been a strong critic of the socialist government of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, who he calls a “dictator,” and Maduro regularly accuses Duque of plotting to overthrow him. In a late Saturday night statement, Arreaza said Venezuela was willing to provide “the necessary police and intelligence cooperation” and had asked Colombian authorities for more information on the three Venezuelans arrested. (Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-colombia-duque/venezuela-offers-help-probing-alleged-planned-attack-on-colombia-president-idUSKCN1OT0GU)

 

Spiraling Venezuela crisis threatens to infect entire region, analysts say

 “It first started as a trickle, but really in the last year, it became a wave of people fleeing both for reasons of persecution and simply because they could no longer sustain themselves,” Todd Chapman, the U.S Ambassador to Ecuador, told Fox News. “People don’t leave their children behind because they want to. It is because of the dire circumstances on the ground in Venezuela are causing people to take this consequential and dangerous and desperate decision to seek a better life elsewhere.” The depth of the catastrophe threatens to unravel the stability and wreak financial havoc beyond just Latin America - with little end in sight. It's quite simply "the worst crisis the region has seen in modern history," according to Moises Rendon, associate director and fellow for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “You have a humanitarian and economic collapse, mass immigration and the government cracking down along with institutional collapse,” he said. “Combine all these aspects together, and Venezuela is fast becoming a threat for the civility of the whole region.” Response for Venezuelans, the coordination platform for refugees and migrants, documents at least 16 countries that now need assistance in tending to the ever-burgeoning mass migration flow. Neighboring countries have subsequently been forced to deal with spikes in crimes, sex, and drug trafficking, and criminals – both from Venezuela and from home nations – seeking to take advantage of those most desperate amid the calamity. Although more than 3.3 million Venezuelans are estimated to have left the country since 2015, only a small portion has applied for asylum. “Many just can’t feed their children so their focus is on just getting a job, anything until they can go home again,” explained UNHCR’s Representative in Ecuador, María Clara Martín. “I have rarely seen a Venezuelan who says they don’t want to return.” Antonio Ledezma, a former political prisoner, mayor of Caracas and opposition leader now exiled in Spain, told Fox News more than 64% of the migrants are below 30 years of age, and more than 52% have received higher education. The impasse has torn families apart – with some migrant describing how certain members had gone to Chile or Colombia, while others ventured to Peru or Argentina – all i bid to send whatever they could home to their other loved ones, sick and starving in their homeland.  Both government and non-governmental professionals tending to the regional calamity concurred that this year there has been a “profile shift” in those fleeing. In the first few years of the meltdown, which gained momentum in 2015, those with some finances and education were able to buy plane tickets out. But as the situation has slowly deteriorated, those from poorer backgrounds started to escape.  The number of Venezuelans fleeing is expected to reach 5.3 million by the end of 2019, according to the United Nations, “in what has become the largest exodus in modern Latin American history.” (Fox News: https://www.foxnews.com/world/political-infection-how-venezuela-crisis-threatens-to-unravel-the-whole-region; BBC News: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46524248)

 

A lonely quest for survival, the elderly left behind in Venezuela

If life in Venezuela is tough, it’s even worse for the elderly. The nation is plunging deeper into economic crisis fueled by corruption, failed socialist policies and lower oil prices, generating historic levels of hyperinflation that has left the old and infirm scrambling to find and pay for vital medicines. They face standing in hours-long lines to cash pension checks that don’t adequately cover nutrition. Many have watched as their families have left this oil-rich country, leaving them to face lonely quests for survival. Nationwide, the elderly are confronting major shortages of medicines that are indispensable for their age, even as their purchasing power has fallen around 90% in 2018. (The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-sight/wp/2018/12/28/a-lonely-quest-for-survival-the-elderly-left-behind-in-venezuela/)

 

Venezuela on track to be Latin America's most violent country in 2018

Venezuela is expected to become Latin America's most violent country in 2018 after reports show the nation's homicide rate surpassed that of Honduras and El Salvador, according to an organization's report. "We will clearly become the most violent country in Latin America and the one with the most homicides worldwide," Roberto Briceno, director of the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence said in a report. This year, Venezuela has had a rate of 81.4 homicides per 100,000 people, he said. What is more worrisome, Briceno said, is that of these deaths, 7,523 correspond to people killed "resisting authority." That means that a third of the violent deaths in the country can be attributed to the country's security forces, he said. Briceno said that the Venezuelan government has not only increase repression of its population but also, starting in 2015, carried out actions that appear to indicate it has adopted a policy to exterminate criminals, rather than fight crime. There is also growing rural violence as criminal gangs take over highways and move from town to town to commit thefts. Theft on highways is so prevalent, particularly in the east of the country, that trucks go escorted, if they have cargo, and when they are not carrying cargo, they open doors to show they are empty. (UPI: https://www.upi.com/Venezuela-on-track-to-be-Latin-Americas-most-violent-country-in-2018/1701546018259/#ixzz5bYFvnRUo)

 

The following brief is a synthesis of the news as reported by a variety of media sources. As such, the views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Duarte Vivas & Asociados and The Selinger Group.