Free Republic

The much anticipated OPEC meeting in Vienna on June 2 ended pretty much as expected: the group once again failed to put any production targets in place. Without a ceiling on output, all OPEC members will continue to produce as they see fit, leaving the oil market to sort itself out. The result was largely anticipated, given the lack of agreement at several prior meetings. However, the meeting in Vienna was not without some news. OPEC members managed to agree on several small bore issues, which could be viewed as a modest success, especially after the apparent hostility on display...

Why should the enemies of our country be forced to take the trouble to actually hack into our systems when Obama can just give them the grand tour, as Fausta reports. Valdés is not someone you’d expect to see as an honored guest of the U.S. military. As chief of investigations for Cuba’s National Revolutionary Police, a part of the military-controlled Ministry of the Interior, he plays a key law enforcement role in a state where beating and arresting human rights activists is considered law enforcement. Yet there he was at a U.S. naval air base in Key West, Fla.,...

Venezuela is running out of just about everything. Food, medicine, electricity, toilet paper, condoms -- you name it. ( Full title ). And over the weekend at least two large international airlines -- Lufthansa and LATAM -- said they will suspend service to Venezuela in the coming months due to the economic crisis. The widespread scarcities and fleeing businesses reflect a country in crisis. "There's a shortage of everything at some level," says Ricardo Cusanno, vice president of Venezuela's Chamber of Commerce. Cusanno says 85% of companies in Venezuela have halted production to some extent. Venezuela's economy is spiraling into...

May 31, 2016 Jeff_Berwick It seems barely a day passes now without some big name person warning of imminent collapse. The latest is Alan Greenspan. In an interview on Thursday he told Fox News that Venezuela is now under martial law and that “America is next.” He said that what was happening in Venezuela was inevitably going to take place in the US. I agree with this. In fact, we said this exact thing just last week with our article, “Venezuela Descends Into Chaos… Europe and US Next.” Funny enough, a few brainwashed sheeple said we were crazy for saying...

By Jonas Sundgaard Havana’s roads received a new layer of asphalt along the beautiful Prado Boulevard and the colorful buildings in Old Havana were shining brighter than ever prior to Barack Obama’s visit to Cuba. The decay and poverty in the city, however, is too prevalent and pervasive to be hidden by a quick make-over in honor of the first visit by a US president in 88 years. Cuba offers exotic beaches, magnificently colored American vintage cars from the 1950’s, joyous salsa rhythms and iconic cigars. But this is largely a façade, behind which lies a very different reality. During...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtMODsO2NZ4

South Africa’s parliament has approved a bill that would see the government make compulsory land purchases from rich whites and redistribute it more fairly to address racial disparities, two decades after the fall of apartheid. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) has the August elections to consider, and the party has promised to ramp up the series of measures with its Expropriation Bill, South Africa’s Mail & Guardian reports. Having passed the National Assembly, which added changes on Thursday, the bill will now head to President Jacob Zuma’s desk for signing. The bill combines a series of measures that would...

Centuries ago, a native Central American people terrified of a witch believed to live deep in the earth used to sacrifice children and young women to Nicaragua's Masaya volcano. Today, the crater southwest of the capital Managua is an international tourist magnet, where photo-snapping visitors scramble among sulfurous fumes to get views of its bubbling lava—a rare sight. The only volcanoes in the world to boast lakes of incandescent magma are Masaya, Hawaii's Kilauea and Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of Congo, explained a Nicaraguan geographer and environmentalist, Jaime Incer.

That much of the world (in partnership with U.S. “elites”) treats the hapless American taxpayer about like Mr Haney treated Oliver Douglas, Bernie Maddoff treated his clients and the world treats Rodney Dangerfield has become a campaign theme of enormous popularity and consequence. I think you know for which campaigner.Well, there’s one issue one which the American taxpayer can look across the oceans, touch his nose with his thumb, extend his hand, and fan his fingers while snickering “NEENER!...NEENER!...NEENER!--You SUCKERS!” You see, amigos: the taxpayers of nations from France to Spain to Germany, from South Korea to Japan and from...

The Obama administration is secretly preparing to transfer up to 24 prisoners out of the U.S. military detention center Guantánamo Bay in Cuba by the end of the summer, the Guardian and Fox News report, citing unnamed sources. As the first news outlet to shed light on the plans, The Guardian notes that the transfer to multiple countries is expected to occur by the end of July. Currently, there are 80 prisoners detained at the Guantánamo facility, down from the 242 when President Barack Obama took office.

I have recently heard reports on the news and read articles in newspapers and magazines concerning the current situation in Venezuela. To hear the reporters talk, the only problem is the death of Chavez. Seemingly, were the right dictator found all would be well. The most interesting thing, in all the mainstream media, I have yet to hear mention of what type of government is starving its people in Venezuela. None dare call it communism.

Venezuelans on Tuesday woke up to discover that the government-controlled price of corn flour -- used to make corn patty arepas, a staple of local cuisine -- has risen 900 percent. The socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro had kept the price of corn flour frozen for 15 months at 19 bolivares a kilogram (two pounds).

Marxist Marketing Gimmick Cannot Overturn Murderous, Racist Legacy Nicolás Márquez is a lawyer, journalist, political analyst, and native resident of the coastal city of Mar Del Plata, Argentina. Above all, Márquez is a writer. Perhaps inspired by the fresh sea air that permeates the city, Márquez wrote El Canalla (The Scoundrel): The True Story of Che, where he brings to the surface the man beneath the myth, the Argentinean behind the Latin American, and the murderer underneath the façade of a righteous man. Márquez speaks slowly and possesses the enviable vocabulary and oratory skills of man who has been immersed...

May 23 (Reuters) - The Venezuelan bottler of Coca-Cola has halted production of sugar-sweetened beverage due to a lack of sugar, a Coca-Cola Co spokeswoman said on Monday. Venezuela is in the midst of a deep recession, and spontaneous demonstrations and looting have become more common amid worsening food shortages, frequent power cuts and the world's highest inflation.

About the same time I was listening to those girls sing “Imagine,” this item came across my news feed: By morning, three newborns were already dead. The day had begun with the usual hazards: chronic shortages of antibiotics, intravenous solutions, even food. Then a blackout swept over the city, shutting down the respirators in the maternity ward. Doctors kept ailing infants alive by pumping air into their lungs by hand for hours. By nightfall, four more newborns had died. “The death of a baby is our daily bread,” said Dr. Osleidy Camejo, a surgeon in the nation’s capital, Caracas, referring...

Take a Walk Down the Atrocity Covered in Wallpaper "The simplest explanation is usually the correct one." ~ Occam’s razor "Why can’t you get things? It is very difficult to explain. I understand you are upset, but you can’t give the oligarchy the upper hand. It’s a matter of being united … another economy is an option, the community economy, the one stemming from small producers … do not give these racketeers (the entrepreneurs) resources. You have to wait in line with us as well, but at least in the end you don’t pay as much." The above message is...

The U.S. Embassy in Venezuela has temporarily stopped scheduling appointments for first-time visa seekers because of the consular staff is insufficient to serve the overwhelming demand, the consular office announced. The measure applies to all new tourist and business visas, for which an average of 1,800 applications were being filed daily. "We had to make this decision because in the last eight months [Venezuela's] Foreign Ministry hasn't responded to various requests to increase personnel," said Lola Petrova, the embassy spokeswoman. She said that with the current number of employees they can handle 800 daily appointments at the most. In an...

In 2004, Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro launched the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our Americas, a regional alliance of leftist leaders designed to subvert a hemispheric free trade agreement that the United States had been pushing for a decade. Today Latin America's leftist ramparts appear to be crumbling because of widespread corruption, a slowdown in China's economy and poor economic choices. For the most part, leaders failed to create diversified economies capable of withstanding slumps. The welfare and pension programs that kept voters loyal proved unsustainable. Leaders in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia flouted democratic traditions by expanding or...

Cautionary tale: When socialism is instituted democratically, it’s a good indication that your days of making decisions democratically may be numbered With Venezuela spinning out of control, it’s said that U.S. officials fear a military coup. We ought to ask “Why?” Democracy on the brain can be a dangerous condition. George W. Bush pursued his unwise “nation-building” policies under the assumption that, as he put it, “democracies don’t go to war with each other.” (Note: technically we’re speaking of “republics,” not democracies.) So WWI was the “war to end all wars,” and now there’s the political system to end all...

Venezuela arrests business owner because he somehow managed to acquire enough toilet paper to properly stock his employees’ bathrooms According to this article from the Atlantic, in Venezuela, a labor union at a private business has a clause in its contract which says that the bathrooms must always have toilet paper. I agree with the union on this.Since price controls caused a shortage of toilet paper, the only way the employer could get enough toilet paper was to illegally buy it on the black market for a price that was higher than the government controlled price.Now the government is accusing...