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Venezuela is doing something completely unprecedented. Some even say illegal. As part of an attempt to stop skyrocketing inflation, the country is issuing a new fiat currency called the "sovereign bolivar," which will be backed by a cryptocurrency. But that cryptocurrency, called the "petro," does not trade, and Venezuela's own parliament says it's being illegally used to mortgage the nation's cash-strapped oil reserves. "This is a smoke-and-mirrors operation typical of Venezuela — I'll believe it when I see it," said Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University and one of the world's leading experts on hyperinflation. "The...

Kenyerber Aquino Merchán was 17 months old when he starved to death. His father left before dawn to bring him home from the hospital morgue. He carried Kenyerber’s skeletal frame into the kitchen and handed it to a mortuary worker who makes house calls for Venezuelan families with no money for funerals. Kenyerber’s spine and rib cage protruded as the embalming chemicals were injected. Aunts shooed away curious young cousins, mourners arrived with wildflowers from the hills, and relatives cut out a pair of cardboard wings from one of the empty white ration boxes that families increasingly depend on amid...

The media is downplaying, and in most cases ignoring, the extreme nature of the crisis currently going on in socialist Venezuela under the Maduro regime.  Most of the cries for help are from people begging the international media to cover their plight. Some of the video and photography are stunning as millions of people take to the streets to protest a collapsing economy and food shortages while being met with tanks, guns and rogue militias hired by the government. Some of the targeted citizens appear chosen at random.  Some of the citizens are also desperate and fighting back. Warning –...

Venezuela is stuck in a doom loop that's become a death spiral. Its stores are empty, its people are starving, and its government is to blame. It has tried to repeal the law of supply and demand, and, in the process, eliminated any incentive for businesses to actually sell things. The result is that the country with the largest oil reserves in the world now has to resort to forced labor just to try to feed itself. It gives new meaning to the revolution devouring its own.

Alvaro Ybarra Zavala puts it bluntly: “Venezuela has become hell.” The photographer had just returned from one of his latest trips to the South American nation when he talked to TIME, and he was visibly affected by the chaos he had witnessed there. “There’s a complete collapse of society,” he said. Once an example for the continent, Venezuela is now a country in freefall. “It’s hard to find food, there’s no medicine,” said Ybarra Zavala. “If you have to have surgery, you need to bring everything with you: the bandages, the gloves, everything. There are no anesthetics.” Ybarra Zavala was...

Doctors Now Have to Steal Food From Hospitals to Feed Their Own Families The increasing shortage of food and other basic products in Venezuela, on top of inflation, is now takingits toll on the health of the nation — most notably, on its malnourished children. Children frequently arrive to the San Felipe Central Hospital after having fainted from malnourishment, officials told the PanAm Post, and are given medicine to take three times a day, Mothers tell physicians they don’t have enough food in their homes, even after rationing. “Children under five months of age come in here with diarrhea and...

The force that is driving Venezuela into the ground is socialism. I've had a front-row seat to the consequences of socialism, watching the hardships of my friends and family in Venezuela. I read the messages telling me they had to go to five different markets that day to find bread. Even basic staples like Harina-Pan are missing from the shelves or skyrocketing in price. I've heard them break down crying because they lack basic needs like toilet paper. And I hear the fear of not knowing what's next or when these struggles will end. In the midst of this chaos,...

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...

The courts? Closed most days. The bureau to start a business? Same thing. The public defender’s office? That’s been converted into a food bank for government employees. Step by step, Venezuela has been shutting down. This country has long been accustomed to painful shortages, even of basic foods. But Venezuela keeps drifting further into uncharted territory. In recent weeks, the government has taken what may be one of the most desperate measures ever by a country to save electricity: A shutdown of many of its offices for all but two half-days each week. But that is only the start of...

The Democrats’ socialist candidate for President of the United States, Bernie Sanders, was seriously tripped up this week in an interview with Univision’s León Krauze. When asked to explain the failure of socialist governments in Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil, Sanders completely clammed up, saying he has an opinion on the subject, but was unwilling to share it, as he is “focused on my campaign.”

Venezuela’s gold reserves have plunged to their lowest level on record after it sold $1.7 billion of the precious metal in the first quarter of the year to repay debts. The country is grappling with an economic crisis that has left it struggling to feed its population.

When socialist Hugo Chavez became president of Venezuela after the 1998 election, he promised a path he described as "revolutionary," the same word Bernie Sanders uses for his "movement" to fight "income inequality." Useful American idiots like actors Sean Penn and Danny Glover, who got rich making movies for capitalist Hollywood, sang Chavez's praises. Penn described him as "one of the most important forces we have had on this planet." Glover praised Chavez as "a social champion of democracy, material development, and spiritual well-being." Chavez promised to help finance films for Glover. The Venezuelan National Assembly even reportedly gave Glover...

Venezuela is in the midst of a stunning social, political, and economic collapse. The country of 30 million people is facing dire food and medicine shortages, frequent power outages, serious political unrest, the world’s highest inflation rate, rampant violent crime, and one of the world’s highest murder rates. Earlier this month, Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, declared a state of emergency.

Caracas (AFP) - 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.

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).

They call them bachaqueros. Venezuela’s army of black market shoppers descend every day at dawn outside Caracas’s biggest stores. They stand for hours in the blistering heat, motivated not by hunger, but profit. Half-empty shelves in most shops means goods bought at government-controlled prices can be sold at a significant mark-up.[snip]Led by Hugo Chávez, the country’s firebrand former president, the country embarked on a wave of expropriation and redistribution with the charismatic leader offering cut-price fridges, appliances and even new homes to poor Venezuelans. Chávez wanted to create a socialist paradise, an ideology that has been reinforced by his successor...

Venezuela can’t pay its millions of dollars in debt to Indian pharmaceutical companies, say Indian officials, so officials are considering a proposal that would see the Latin American company swap oil for its drug debts. After an unlucky gamble on India’s part that Venezuela’s emerging economy would be a good place to hawk Indian pharmaceuticals, the debt is now mounting and poor crisis management coupled with the long-running oil price slump has left Venezuela too cash strapped to pay up. Already, according to Indian media, India’s Dr Reddy’s pharmaceutical company has written off US$65 million in debt in the first...

Coca-Cola is halting production in Venezuela of its namesake beverage due to a sugar shortage brought on by the country's grinding economic crisis. The Atlanta-based company said in an emailed statement Friday said that its production of sugar-sweetened beverages will be suspended in the coming days after local suppliers reported they had run out of the raw material. Sugar-free beverages are not affected and the company said its offices and distribution centers remain open in Venezuela.

As opposition to Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro intensifies, the country is now preparing for the biggest military exercises in its history this Saturday – an opportunity to flex its military muscle ahead of possible violent street protests spurred by civilian unrest. Maduro, who is facing a recall referendum, has warned that he may declare a “state of internal commotion” if a coup occurs, according to the Latin America Herald Tribune. The state of internal commotion would allow the government to bypass normal legislative procedures in order to impose stricter security measures.

President Maduro Deliberately Causes Shortages to Cow Venezuelan Citizens into Submission Even with the collapse of the price of oil, Venezuela’s total export revenue this year will yield a similar amount to Peru’s total exports. Peru and Venezuela have the same population, and the world knows there are no food lines in Peru and no one is dying for lack of medicines in that country. Unfortunately, most reporting by the international press on Venezuela’s current crisis, while mentioning the Chavista regime’s mismanagement and corruption, also places the blame on the economic crisis that befell the country after oil prices collapsed...