venezuela

An electoral event is rising on Venezuela's horizon: primaries that will determine the opposition's candidate. The main premise is that said opposition will present just one candidate against incumbent Nicolas Maduro in 2024's presidential elections. Maria Corina Machado is leading the primaries race. Manuel Rosales, Henrique Capriles, and others less known figures are also participating.

There is a tired debate regarding sanctions. Naturally both camps disregard data inconvenient to their stance. Proponents see sanctions as perfect non-violent measures that bring economic hardship to targets. Opponents see it as demonstrably inefficient tools that invariably end up punishing the wrong people. Both sides are simultaneously right and wrong. Cuba is the perfect case study. Years of U.S. sanctions have achieved precisely nothing against the dictators in power.

The case of Cuba, and how decades of failed U.S. foreign policies never brought intended objective of dislodging that dictatorship, should be mandatory reading not only with all "customer-facing" State Department's diplomats, but with senior Congressmen, Senators and relevant American policy-making folk.

It really is hard to figure the calculus here: "The United States continues to recognize the authority of the democratically elected 2015 National Assembly as the last remaining democratic institution and Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s interim president.

Starbucks recently opened a shop in Caracas. It was an instant hit. Social media got inundated with the news, as sure sign that Venezuela is back on the mend. In other news, many sources report that Caracas looks different. There are bodegones (delis) popping all over the place. Restaurants and night clubs are filled with beautiful people. Some avenues in East Caracas are lit again, as part of a beautification effort launched by local authorities. The greenback is king... 

On 10 December this site revealed Roger Carsten's visit to Caracas:

@StateDept’s @StateSPEHA flew to Caracas aboard “Ebola plane” #N173PA to negotiate release of some political prisoners of @NicolasMaduro

When it comes to foreign policy blunders that can't be hidden from view, it doesn’t really matter who inhabits the White House: Venezuela is a source of endless embarrassment.

UPDATED 15/10/2021 - Juan Guaido, the U.S. Department of State's designated "interim" President of Venezuela is in a bit of a pickle. So is his boss / handler, Leopoldo Lopez. People that claimed to propugn democracy and adhere to its core tenets will know that legitimacy isn't something the State Department can conjure and bestow on others. Legitimacy is something that only democratically elected officials have. When was the last time Juan Guaido won an election? When he did win, that last election, under which system / authority he got elected? How about Lopez?

As per Reuters: "The United States, Britain and other large, rich nations reached a landmark deal on Saturday to squeeze more money out of multinational companies such as Amazon and Google and reduce their incentive to shift profits to low-tax offshore havens.