The National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) and state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) will soon start to revamp the Paraguaná Refining Center (CRP), Venezuela’s largest refining complex, to restore its fuel production capacity, Reuters reported February 3. NIORDC and PDVSA are expected to sign a $460 million agreement [ … ]
In its Annual Report 2022, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States indicated that Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela closed the year with 1,476 people, including service members and civilians, imprisoned for political reasons. “This leaves an extremely weakened social system,” Daniel Varnagy, a political [ … ]
After almost two years of inter-guerrilla conflict between the National Liberation Army (ELN) and factions of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombia and Venezuela’s borderlands remain war-torn and an epicenter of the drug trade in the Americas. Inconsistencies in official data for Venezuela’s drug seizures in 2022, [ … ]
Independent digital media and civil society organizations in Venezuela have joined forces to confront disinformation through the recently created Coalición Informativa C-Informa (Informative Coalition). “Venezuelan citizens are each day becoming more and more victims of disinformation,” whether due to the regime censorship of traditional or digital media, the forced disappearance [ … ]
The U.S. Defense Department unveiled its newest bomber aircraft, the B-21 Raider, December 2, 2022 in Palmdale, California. As the first strategic bomber in more than three decades, the U.S. Air Force’s B-21 will serve as the backbone of America’s bomber force, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III [ … ]
According to the Rule of Law Index 2022 from international organization World Justice Project (WJP), published in October, the rule of law has declined globally for the fifth year in a row. Venezuela and Nicaragua are the countries that showed the most deterioration. “We are facing the dismantling of polyarchic [ … ]
Nicaragua’s National Assembly approved a set of reforms to the National Cinematheque Act and to the Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts Act to prohibit the “creation, public exhibition, and commercialization of cinematographic and audiovisual products, as well as the confiscation of these.” With these reforms, lawyers and filmmakers warn, the Daniel [ … ]
Venezuela’s intelligence agencies are committing crimes against humanity as part of a plan orchestrated by the Nicolás maduro regime to repress dissent, warns a mid-September United Nations (U.N.) report. The repression is carried out “including through the commission of extremely grave acts of torture,” the U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission [ … ]
The Community-Military Brigades (Bricomiles) created by the Nicolás Maduro regime in late June to repair and refurbish the country’s public schools and health centers are raising suspicions that soldiers with the brigades may get involved in educational matters. Members of the Bolivarian Armed Forces (FANB), the ruling United Socialist Party [ … ]
Narcotrafficking operations, gold and gasoline smuggling, and corruption in Venezuela’s ports and customs have increased in recent years as the South American country became a hub of organized crime in the region. These were some of the findings of a study by the Venezuelan branch of nongovernmental organization Transparency International, [ … ]
The presence in Chile of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang of Venezuelan origin has put authorities in the region on alert, especially in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. “The Tren de Aragua has logistics that allow it to extend its networks and actively participate in organized crime such as [ … ]
Mining operations in the southernVenezuelan states of Bolívar and Amazonas, with the support of the Nicolás Maduro regime, represent the greatest threat to the human rights, habitat, cultures, and territories of indigenous populations, globalnews agency IPS Noticias reported. In these regions of the Amazon, mafias, traders, sindicatos (gangs originally linked [ … ]
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