On Friday José Gregorio Hernández, doctor, scientist, university professor and pioneer of bacteriology, will be beatified, a step toward sainthood in the Roman Catholic church, after 72 years of efforts by Venezuela’s Catholics
Continue reading...Category Archives: Venezuela
‘Momentous error’: Italian businessman mistakenly blacklisted by Trump to sue
Alessandro Bazzoni’s bank account was closed after he faced sanctions in a case of mistaken identity
A small business owner in Italy is preparing to sue the US Treasury after accidentally being put on a sanctions blacklist before Donald Trump left the presidency.
Alessandro Bazzoni, who owns a graphic design company in Sardinia, has been unable to trade since 19 January, when his business was slapped with sanctions as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on blacklisted Venezuelan crude oil.
Continue reading...‘In the middle of a war zone’: thousands flee as Venezuela troops and Colombia rebels clash
Nearly 5,000 refugees holed up in small Colombian town of Arauquita, having fled intense and continuing battles
Lizeth Iturrieta, a journalist in the small town of La Victoria on Venezuela’s western border with Colombia, was woken by the rumble of armoured vehicles rolling past her home. Hours later the sounds of gunfire and explosions shook the walls, and she and her husband dived for cover.
“Out of nowhere we were in the middle of a war zone,” Iturrieta said in a video call from a refugee camp on the Colombian side of the frontier. “After a day of hiding at home in absolute silence, we ran for our lives to the boat to Colombia. We almost fell into the river in the panic.”
Continue reading...‘The heart of darkness’: neighbors shun Brazil over Covid response
Latin American countries scramble to protect themselves from a country where nearly 60,000 people are expected to die in March alone
It has long been regarded as a soft power superpower, the sun-kissed, culturally blessed land of Bossa Nova, Capoeira and Pelé.
But Brazil’s shambolic response to coronavirus under far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has cast Latin America’s largest country in an unfamiliar and unpleasant role: that of a Covid-riddled, science-shunning, politically-unstable outcast on whom many regional neighbors are now shutting the door.
Continue reading...Venezuelan women forced to risk online pill market in face of abortion ban
The socialist-led country has little sex education, acute shortages of contraceptives and one of Latin America’s most restrictive laws
Sofía was 20 years old and coming out of an emotionally abusive relationship when she found out she was pregnant.
Her ex-boyfriend called her a “slut” for having conceived and claimed that he was not the father. Appealing to Sofía’s conservative family for help was not an option, since they had long warned that they would disown her if she ever got pregnant.
Continue reading...Pro-choice protests in Warsaw and Myanmar coup: 20 photos on human rights this week
A roundup of the best photography on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Algeria to Uganda
Coronavirus live news: New Zealand puts Auckland in level 3 lockdown; Australia to receive first Pfizer vaccine delivery this week
Victoria’s Holiday Inn outbreak rises to 16 cases on second day of state lockdown; Boris Johnson urges G7 leader to unite against virus. Follow the latest updates live
- Johnson ‘optimistic’ about easing some England lockdown measures
- Children as young as six to be tested for Oxford vaccine efficacy
- ‘A very dangerous epoch’: historians try to make sense of Covid
- See all our coronavirus coverage
The press conference in Wellington, held in response to the discovery of three community cases in Auckland, has now finished. As of 11.59PM tonight Auckland will be placed under tougher restrictions, at level three, while the rest of the country will be moved to level two restrictions. (Details of the alert levels can be found online here).
Ardern said she was asking the public “to be strong and to be kind”:
I know we all feel the same way when this happens, we all get that sense of - not again. But remember we have been here before and that means we know how to get out of this again, and that is together. If you know someone in Auckland reach out, please check on them. If you are in Auckland please check on your neighburs and ensure they are looked after and supported.
Related: New Zealand Covid outbreak: Ardern puts Auckland into three-day lockdown
Dr Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand’s director-general of health, said officials were working under the assumption that the new Auckland cases were one of the new variants of Covid-19. “Regardless of where people have come from, these are the common variants and we do know they are more transmissible,” he said.
Ardern said that the decision to introduce tougher restrictions was “not taken lightly”. However, the cost to the economy would be far greater, she said, if the country was slow to react.
Continue reading...France hospitals in ‘crisis organisation’ – as it happened
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Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro sends oxygen to tackle Brazil’s Covid crisis
- President orders convoy to border in politically charged gesture
- Patients in Amazon city of Manaus reportedly ran out of oxygen
Venezuela’s strongman president, Nicolás Maduro, has sent an emergency shipment of oxygen to his country’s border with Brazil in a politically charged gesture he said was to help alleviate “Jair Bolsonaro’s public health disaster”.
In recent days the Brazilian state of Amazonas, which borders southern Venezuela, has been plunged into coronavirus chaos for the second time in under a year.
Continue reading...¡Populista! review: Chávez, Castro and Latin America’s ‘pink wave’ leaders
BBC reporter Will Grant has produced an excellent look at the group of strongmen who came from left field
If there was ever a surreal start to a trip to Cuba, it was the one that coincided with the news Fidel Castro had died. That was what I woke up to on 26 November 2016, hours before my husband and I were due to fly to Havana. A day later, we found ourselves in what seemed like an endless queue under a blazing autumn sun, waiting to enter Castro’s memorial at the Jose Martí monument in the Plaza de la Revolución.
Related: Sisters in Hate review: tough but vital read on the rise of racist America
Continue reading...The world in 2021 – how global politics will change this year
Donald Trump’s departure will alter the face of geopolitics. The climate crisis and Covid response will affect all nations – while others face very particular challenges. Observer correspondents examine the 12 months ahead
A potent mix of hope and fear accompanies the start of 2021 in most of the world. Scientists have created several vaccines for a disease that didn’t even have a name this time last year. But many countries, including the UK and the US, are still stumbling through the deadliest period of the pandemic.
The shadow of Covid will not begin to lift, even in richer countries, for months. Britain was the first to approve a vaccine and has secured extensive supplies, yet Boris Johnson’s suggestion that life might be returning to normal by Easter is widely seen as optimistic. Other countries, particularly in the south, face a long wait to get vaccines, and help paying for them. The rebuilding of economies shattered by Covid everywhere will be slow; even countries that managed to contain it have taken a hit, from Vietnam to New Zealand.
Continue reading...Alarm at Colombia plan to exclude migrants from coronavirus vaccine
President Iván Duque says undocumented Venezuelans will be denied access in a move denounced as unethical and impractical
Colombia will refuse to administer coronavirus vaccines to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan refugees within its borders, President Iván Duque has announced, in a move which stunned public health experts and prompted condemnation from humanitarian groups.
Speaking to a local radio station on Monday, Duque that only Venezuelans with dual nationality or formal migratory status will have access to the vaccine when it is eventually distributed in the country.
Continue reading...Maduro tightens grip over Venezuela with win in boycotted congress vote
National assembly was only institution not commanded by ruling Socialist party
Nicolás Maduro tightened his grip over Venezuela on Sunday in legislative elections that some believe effectively marked the end of Juan Guaidó’s US-backed campaign to topple the South American strongman.
The bulk of Venezuela’s beleaguered opposition boycotted the contest for the 277-seat national assembly, calling it a sham designed to lend Maduro’s authoritarian regime an air of democratic legitimacy.
Continue reading...‘Immense suffering’: older people worldwide being failed by aid agencies – report
‘It’s much easier to get funding for children’ says one charity, as 11-country survey finds systematic failings ‘tantamount to neglect’
Older people around the world are being “systematically failed” by aid agencies, leaving them unable find enough food or access medicine, research has found.
Interviews with almost 9,000 older people affected by natural disasters, conflict or socio-economic crises in 11 countries, including Yemen, South Sudan and Venezuela, found a “one size fits all” aid approach which leaves out older people, according to a joint report published on Thursday by HelpAge International and Age International.
Continue reading...‘What a spectacle!’: US adversaries revel in post-election chaos
From Iran to Venezuela to Russia, once-chided national leaders enjoy the sight of US democracy in action
Rivals and enemies of the US have come together to revel in the messiest US election in a generation, mocking the delay in vote processing and Donald Trump’s claims of electoral fraud in barely veiled criticisms of Washington’s political activism abroad.
“What a spectacle!” crowed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “One says this is the most fraudulent election in US history. Who says that? The president who is currently in office.”
Continue reading...UK court overturns ruling on $1.8bn of Venezuelan gold
Appeal court sets aside ruling that gold could not be released to Nicolás Maduro-backing bank
A battle for the control of more than $1.8bn worth of Venezuelan gold stored at the Bank of England has swung in favour of the government of Nicolás Maduro after an appeals court in London overturned an earlier high court ruling concerning whom the UK recognised as Venezuela’s president.
The court of appeal granted an appeal by the Banco Central de Venezuela (BCV) and set aside July’s high court judgment, which had found that Britain’s recognition of the opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the “constitutional interim president of Venezuela” meant the gold could not be released for the Maduro-backing bank.
Continue reading...Venezuela pardons 110 people including Maduro opponents as election nears
- Government frames decree as pre-election goodwill gesture
- Guaidó-led opposition says conditions for vote are not fair
The Venezuelan government has announced pardons for more than 100 people, including political opponents who are in prison, have taken refuge in foreign embassies in Caracas or fled the country.
Related: 'They think they’ll be left to die': pandemic shakes already fragile Venezuela
Continue reading...Venezuela using coronavirus as cover to crack down on dissent, report claims
Human Rights Watch says it has found a ‘very, very disturbing’ pattern of intimidation and persecution of government critics
Venezuelan security forces are using the coronavirus pandemic as cover to wage a disturbing “full force” campaign against dissenters, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch.
The New York-based human rights group said that dozens of journalists, health professionals, human rights lawyers and government opponents had been arbitrarily detained and prosecuted since President Nicolás Maduro declared a Covid-19 state of emergency in mid-March.
Continue reading...‘They think they’ll be left to die’: pandemic shakes already fragile Venezuela
Venezuela’s official Covid-19 death toll stands just over 300, but hospital employees suggest the true situation may be far worse
As they are hauled into Maracaibo’s University hospital, pale, wheezing and panicked, a recurring cry emerges from the mouths of coronavirus patients in this bedraggled Venezuelan metropolis.
“Save me!” they plead as they enter A&E, according to hospital staff too scared to give their names. “Please don’t let me die!”
Continue reading...Venezuela jails former US soldiers for 20 years over botched bid to overthrow Maduro
Two ex-Green Berets hired to oust president were sentenced in a secretive hearing that their lawyers say breached their right to a defence
A Venezuelan court has sentenced two former US special forces soldiers to 20 years in prison for their part in a blunder-filled beach attack aimed at overthrowing president Nicolás Maduro.
Lawyers for the former Green Berets, Luke Denman and Airan Berry, said they were barred from the secretive jailhouse proceedings Friday night in what they consider a violation of their constitutional rights to a defence.
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