A teenage boy and a woman died after being shot Wednesday during massive protests in Venezuela against President Nicolas Maduro, bringing to seven the number killed this month in a mounting political crisis.
Riot police fired tear gas to force back stone-throwing demonstrators as tens of thousands of people joined protest marches in Caracas and several other cities.
The opposition has accused Maduro of letting state forces and gangs of armed thugs violently repress demonstrators as he resists opposition pressure for him to quit.
Despite Wednesday’s deadly violence, his opponents upped the ante by calling for fresh protests on Thursday.
I’m surprised it’s taken this long.
Not that it matters now. Venezuela’s Maduro to provide guns to 400,000 loyalists amid peaking tension
Daniel Duquenal, trained as a biologist in the USA and other than that excursion, has lived in Venezuela most of his life:
“What we have experienced today in Caracas is terror. Even yours truly got gassed, not much but truly. But I am not the one who suffered the most, by far. So I will start this entry with pictures that show clearly the terror the regime deliberately forced upon us, at an enormous risk of lives lost. Four pictures to say it all.”
http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.ca/2017/04/terror-in-caracas.html
Fransisco Toro, raised in Venezuela, trained as an economist, now in Montréal…
Video from Colombian cable news network NTN24
“March days have their own rhythm, their own regularities, their own normality. The day ends with two dead, many tear gassed, news blacked out, and a regime that looks every bit as hopeless but also every bit as strong as it did this morning.
It was, in other words, a normal march.
And that’s the worst of it: this sense that the oceans of tear gas, the routine sadism and the occasional murder are our new normal. That everything we saw today is part and parcel of the system, more than it’s a challenge to the system.”
https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/04/19/venezuela-march-updated-feeds/
May God grant them a peaceful resolution.
The current exchange rate, has seen movement in the past few weeks, after stalling below the Bolivar 4000:1 US dollar rate for some months…
now at 4600:1
https://dolartoday.com
Last summer, (northern summer months) the crew had some difficulty measuring data for the exchange rate, as there wasn’t enough of certain products in the stores to accurately gauge the exchange rate.
Of course, the government won’t quit. It’ll insist that it has to stay in power until it gets it “right”. By then, it will have alienated enough of the population that it could well be overthrown and Maduro meets a Ceaucescu-like end.
I wonder how many of them voted for this?
At least they know Hollywood has their back.
http://nypost.com/2016/06/05/hollywoods-chavez-cheering-stars-venezuelas-victms/
I’m guessing there is no private ownership of firearms in Venezuela.
mid island mike >
Guess no longer –
https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/venezuela-confiscates-guns-arms-socialist-regime/
Private ownership of firearms was effectively banned a few years ago. When I was there, many people I met had privately owned guns, including the people I stayed with. One slept with a single shot, shotgun pistol, that appeared to be made to spray a doorway from 10 feet away… he said spraying the doorway was the plan, as in the middle of the night he wouldn’t know who he was shooting at.
The military, police, and the “colectivos” that were armed by Chavez with some Iranian guidance, and armed with the same calibre and style of AK47’s as the FARC terrorists use in Colombia, are the only ones permitted to be armed in Venezuela.
related links, at this link… https://faustasblog.com/2017/04/venezuela-arming-the-thugs/
… and where did the Venezuelans learn the tactics of how to hold power?
Cuban and FARC links are here:
http://panampost.com/panam-staff/2015/06/24/venezuelan-paramilitaries-wreak-havoc-with-cuban-farc-support/
Disarm the public. Arm your goons. Not just the Venezuelan variety.
Deja vu all over again, in the quest for socialist nirvana, the constant g, like c, always results in mass overtaking velocity, of money in the case of g.
Value is their fly in the ointment. They have none of it, so must confiscate it from the productive, always resorting to coercion.
In Canadaland, we can look forward to losing part of our principal residence capital gains exemption on account of our mortgage helper income.
Which we duly reported on our tax trap returns. Just like our primary residences 2016 onwards. Increase capital gains taxes? Not until after the election.
The media are already preparing their cover. Soon they’ll be road testing O’Leary is Trump so therefore Hitler.
Here in the last bastions of liberty, tell government if they want to increase tax revenues, they must cut them by an equal amount elsewhere.
Oh was my “extreme right wing” voice? Oh your pollsters say that’s not “what Canadians want?” Nuts to that.
How Deep, Señor Trudeau?
Trudeau’s tweet ‘reckless’
“It’s an issue that’s very prominent in their minds and now with the MO [modus operandi] of individuals crossing the border seemingly changing, it’s more of a real concern, and it’s something the government needs to act quickly and decisively on.”
Falk is calling on the federal Liberals to use Article 10 of the Safe Third Country Agreement to close the existing loophole allowing people who walk across the border to claim refugee status.
Read full coverage of Refugees Crossing U.S. Border Into Manitoba
Canada is a signatory to the United Nations Refugee Convention, so those who sneak through the border at an unofficial point of entry can legally make a claim here, and they won’t be prosecuted for the illegal entry.
“The careless and reckless response from our PM when he tweets out, ‘Welcome to Canada, no matter who you are and where you come from, there’s a place for you in Canada,’ that message is resonating with people who are opportunistic, and in this case, it looks as though we’re seeing people who are actually fleeing the law,” Falk said.
Hundreds of asylum seekers have crossed the international border so far this year at Emerson, Man. The union representing border patrol officers says half of them in the last month have been detained for serious criminal records. (Karen Pauls, CBC News)
In Question Period on Thursday, Conservative MPs asked Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale why RCMP and CBSA officials were only providing information on illegal border crossers once a month.
“Individuals on the ground are saying this gag order came from Ottawa,” Falk said.
“The public deserves to know how many people are illegally crossing the border into Canada,” added Conservative MP Michelle Rempel. “Covering up these numbers will not make problems go away for the Liberals. Without these numbers, local officials cannot plan to cope with the situation and the government cannot be held to account by us.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/illegal-border-crossers-criminal-records-cbsa-union-1.4069820
So Venezuela has its own version of the SA brown shirts, light brown or tan that is.
Sorry Mack, hopefully the people finally get up enough nerve to hang the Marxists from the lampposts.
socialism/communism at it’s very best. We dumb Canadians have been marching in this general direction all my life. I am not sure how many more third world welfare cases it will take to break us but it will happen.
…will not end well, another blood soaked “Revolution” like the French one…
Bottom line is that the majority were all for the goodies that the Commies were handing out. Now that they are starving they don’t like it so much.
My initial thought was to airlift the cream of that society to Canada as they could counter the influx of Syrians who are taking over neighbourhoods in Ontario. After all the Venezuelans have gone through they might have a better idea of what good government should be. On reflection maybe they learn to hold their hands out for Turdeau goodies just like the majority in this country.
Curious, how does one remove a tyranny through peaceful action?
GM just pulled out of that craphole as the politburo just “nationalized” the GM plant there, and took all the cars, to boot.
Sounds a lot like Canada, in particular High River. We can all feel complacent but how far away from this stuff in Venuzuela are we really? This could have serious ramifications if we ever get an intelligent and ambitious Prime Minister.