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If we were in the business of betting, we wouldn’t give any odds to Jorge Rodriguez's threat against Juan Carlos Escotet. Rodriguez is meant to be upset for something Escotet did, and claimed recently that he was coming after him. He accused Escotet of belonging to a group of "banqueros ladrones" that have everyone on payroll, as if that is something that just hit him and not standard operating procedure in Venezuela. Rodriguez knows where Escotet's bodies are buried, of course, but he stands no chance of inflicting any damage whatsoever.

New development in the extortion racket led by DEA-informant Martin Rodil: Nervis Villalobos, Carlos Aguilera, Javier Alvarado Ochoa, Rafael Reiter, Raul Gorrin, Carmelo Urdaneta Aqui and Moris Beracha bought Rodil's "protection" in Spain to stay out of trouble. Rodil's Spanish network included disgraced Police Chief José Manuel Villarejo and his partner José Aliste as per fresh reports.

What kind of self respecting and established journalist in the employ of a reputed media outlet sends draft of unpublished work -for edit / suggestions / feedback- to people completely unrelated to his employer? The Franklin Foer kind. What kind of a well established media allows a professional journalist to get marching orders from spin doctors retained by the worse Russian and Venezuelan criminality?

The case of Nynas qualifies as one of the most brazen corporate raids seen in Venezuelan owned assets. Before Trump administrations' sanctions, PDVSA was Nynas' majority shareholder with a stake of over 50%. The rest was owned by Finland's Neste group. Treasury sanctions on PDVSA caused a great deal of disruption, which pushed Nynas to the brink of bankruptcy.

Developing story: GUNVOR COLOMBIA SAS, a subsidiary of Gunvor, has been caught participating in an elaborate trade scheme involving PDVSA crude. The crude produced in Venezuela was being exported as "residual oil" to Curaçao and Panama, and then delivered to Swiss Terminal's (subsidiary of Houston-based SGR Energy) storage in Barranquilla. On the import side there were Petroworld SAS, La Operadora SAS, Krystal Energy SAS.

There is one record that distinguishes the administrations of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro with previous governments in Venezuela: amount of international lawsuits brought against PDVSA. Reasons are varied, but it all comes down to yet another unique characteristic of both Chavez and Maduro: total disregard for contracts and its legally binding aspects. Law is not something that was ever going to stand in the way of the Bolivarian Revolution. If it could not be amended on the fly to suit revolutionary needs, it would just be ignored.

Once upon a time some countries in Europe shifted energy production policies. Coal and nuclear were to be replaced by renewables. Hydrocarbons would be phased out as soon as practically possible. The problem with such calculus is that output of renewables is nowhere near that of traditional hydrocarbons-based sources. Environmental concerns at the local level were appeased by shutting down "polluting" energy production in Europe.