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Unrest over food shortages spreads through the country SAN CRISTOBAL/BARINAS, Venezuela, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Hungry mobs ransacked a food collection center, and a supermarket in Venezuela's western Andean state of Merida on Thursday and reportedly even slaughtered cattle grazing in a field as unrest over food shortages spread through the country. An opposition lawmaker from Merida, Carlos Paparoni, said four people had died and 10 were injured in the chaos over the last two days, but he did not specify the circumstances. Four years of recession and the world's highest inflation have plunged millions of Venezuelans into poverty, and...

With hospital shelves bare and the government stumped on how to settle $5 billion in arrears to pharmaceutical companies, cash-strapped Venezuela recently offered some foreign suppliers alternative compensation: diamonds, gold and coltan, the rare metal used to make cellphones and Playstations. The proposed exchange perplexed the pharma representatives, whose companies had no policies on accepting precious gems and metals as payment, according to three people familiar with the meeting last month where Venezuela’s health minister made the offer. While it isn’t clear if any of the companies accepted it, the proposal underscores how Venezuela’s economic collapse is forcing President Nicolás...

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...

Caracas (AFP) - Inside a locked room in an office building in Caracas, 20 humming computers use their data-crunching power to mine bitcoins, an increasingly popular tool in the fight against Venezuela's hyperinflation. In warehouses, offices and homes, miners are using modified computers to perform complex computations, essentially book-keeping for digital transactions worldwide, for which they earn a commission in bitcoins. While practiced worldwide, Bitcoin mining is part of a growing, underground effort in Venezuela to escape the worst effects of a crippling economic and political crisis and runaway inflation that the IMF says could reach 720 percent this year....

Unconstitutional nature of Nicolas Maduro’s administration, its unwillingness to hold democratic elections and its systematic violation of human rights A key Venezuelan opposition leader is accusing Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs of “aiding and abetting the country’s dictatorial regime” by purchasing its government-issued bonds. The allegation, of course, is completely accurate and comes after two months of bloody unrest caused by the failing socialist economy presided over by President Nicolas Maduro. The amoral agenda-setting elitists of Goldman Sachs reportedly purchased $2.8 billion in Venezuelan debt. That apparently includes an $865 million transaction involving debt from state-run oil company PDVSA,...

The fate of Venezuela, which has the largest oil reserves in the world, ought to be the final lesson conclusively proving that socialism is a delusion that impoverishes those it purports to help.  An entire nation is starving, unable to feed itself, generate enough electricity, or produce toilet paper.  In the midst of boundless opportunity, its economy is grinding to a halt because of socialism. The fate of Venezuela, which has the largest oil reserves in the world, ought to be the final lesson conclusively proving that socialism is a delusion that impoverishes those it purports to help. An entire...

U.S. multinationals with plants in Venezuela are likely on edge Thursday, after American automaker General Motors (NYSE:GM) pulled the plug on its operations in the poverty-stricken country, following a government takeover of its plant amid large-scale violent protests. “All foreign companies, and especially U.S. firms, should be concerned with the increasingly extreme and aggressive behavior of the Venezuelan regime,” Ian Vasquez, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, told FOX Business. American beverage company Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO), however, indicated to FOX Business Thursday it didn’t have any plans to pull its operations from the distressed South American...

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 –...

The Venezuelan Supreme Court may have amended part of its explosive decision to take over the opposition-led congress, but it still gives embattled leftist President Nicolas Maduro broad new powers over the OPEC nation's vast oil wealth. The reversal on Saturday came after political leaders worldwide and street protesters at home accused the pro-government court of effectively making Maduro a dictator.

Venezuelans are blocking highways and taking to the streets in response to an apparent Coup d’Etat. Though Maduro’s regime arranged anti-riot measures in several Venezuelan cities, hundreds of Venezuelans turned out to express their opposition to the Supreme Court’s ruling that dissolved the powers of the country’s congress. Caracas, Los Teques, Vargas, Carabobo and Anzoátegui are just some of the states where protests are taking place. In Urbina, Caracas — a popular area that has traditionally been faithful to Chavez —  is now flooded with protesters. “No more dictatorship,” they are reportedly chanting. “We want freedom.” During the protests, members of the student movement were pushed back...

CARACAS— Venezuelans are rushing to the banks this week in a desperate attempt to protect their savings from the government’s latest spasm of reckless financial policymaking. On Tuesday morning thousands of people across Venezuela played hooky from work to line-up outside banks and deposit bundles of cash into their savings accounts after the government gave everyone a 72-hour countdown to turn in all their 100 bolivar notes before they’re removed from circulation. “I’ve been saving for so long, withdrawing money every week and for what? Nothing!” complained José Orozco, who was holding a backpack full of money as he stood...

President Nicolas Maduro announced Monday night that he's closing the country's border with Colombia for 72 hours as Venezuelans rush to exchange bills before they become invalid later this week. He accused "mafias" of moving Venezuelan money into Colombia. It's the latest twist in a crisis that symbolizes Venezuela's severe economic depression, which is having a brutal impact on its citizens' lives. The Venezuelan government said in a statement that shutting the border with Colombia was necessary "to counteract the criminal attacks against our currency." Some Venezuelans are going to border towns in Colombia to exchange their currency, the bolivar,...

... The march, which follows opposition-led mass protests and a general strike last week, is slated to take place even as Vatican-mediated talks between the government and the opposition Democratic Unity coalition (MUD) began on Sunday. ...

Venezuela’s embattled socialist government is steadily moving the country toward the abyss, and the escalating crisis is taking on increasingly ominous tones. Venezuelans are caught in a fast-spinning economic spiral that has already devastated living standards and created a large-scale humanitarian crisis. But as Venezuelans take to the streets, so far the government has responded with measures that exacerbate tensions and make a peaceful political solution increasingly difficult. President Nicolas Maduro, the heir to the late President Hugo Chavez, was elected by popular vote in 2013. But the Venezuelan system of government can no longer be called a democracy. The...

Venezuela’s government, slammed by hyperinflation has finally thrown in the towel, and is planning to issue new bills in December with larger denominations—up to 200 times higher than the current biggest bill, according to people familiar with the plans. The move marks an implicit acknowledgment by the government that skyrocketing prices have slashed the value of the currency The new coins and notes will go up to 20,000 bolivars, according to people close to the central bank, the finance ministry, the country’s banks and bill suppliers. This would make the biggest note worth $15 on the black market. And since...

When 18-month-old Royer Machado died from malnutrition in Zulia, Venezuela, the authorities did not arrest his mother. The child had gone more than 72 hours without eating, but his mother lived in extreme poverty and couldn’t get the resources she needed; that was just the nature of Venezuela today. The boy’s mother told officers she ran out of money, and then out of food. The baby continued to cry, so she wrapped him in a rag, gave him water and rocked him to sleep. After several days, the crying stopped. He was no longer breathing. Officers interrogated the boy’s mother,...

The question of whether Socialism can be an effective economic system was famously raised when Margaret Thatcher said of the British Labor Party, "I think they've made the biggest financial mess that any government's ever made in this country for a very long time, and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything." â—¾There are dire reports of people waiting in supermarket lines all day, only to discover that expected food deliveries never arrived and the shelves are empty. â—¾There...

During a broadcast this weekend promoting new socialist food distribution policies, Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro jokingly referenced a popular nickname for the nation’s dire food shortages, telling a crowd, “Maduro’s diet gets you hard – no need for Viagra!”

Things are not looking good at all for socialist paradise Venezuela. President Nicolas Maduro declared a state of emergency a couple days ago due to unrest and a shortage of supplies, including flour. It’s so bad, some U.S. officials told Reuters they don’t expect Maduro to stay in power that much longer. They said one “plausible” scenario would be that Maduro’s own party or powerful political figures would force him out and would not rule out the possibility of a military coup. Still, they said there was no evidence of any active plotting or that he had lost support from...

BARCELONA, Venezuela - 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 to the toll from Venezuela’s collapsing hospitals. The economic crisis in this country has exploded...