Venezuela

In midst of an interesting and wide-ranging discussion on the Joe Rogan Experience, Democratic congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard said that if elected president she would drop all charges against NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

“What would you do about Julian Assange? What would you do about Edward Snowden?” Rogan asked in the latter part of the episode.

“As far as dropping the charges?” Gabbard asked.

“If you’re president of the world right now, what do you do?”

“Yeah, dropping the charges,” Gabbard replied.

Rogan noted that Sweden’s preliminary investigation of rape allegations has just been re-opened, saying the US government can’t stop that, and Gabbard said as president she’d drop the US charges leveled against Assange by the Trump administration.

(Article by Caitlin Johnson, republished with thanks from https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/05/14/gabbard-says-shed-drop-all-charges-against-assange-and-snowden/.)

John Bolton wants US oil
corporations, instead of
PDVSA, which is owned
by the Venezuelan people,
to be able to extract,
export & sell Venezuela's
natural wealth (see
embedded video).

The most recent of many attempts by the United States to overthrow the government of Venezuela has also failed, but not without a terrrible cost. According to a 27 page report by economists Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs (pdf here) the sanctions imposed on Venezuela since 2017 and theft of billions of dollars of Venezuela's gold and bank deposits have cost the lives of 40,000 Venezuelans, yet, in spite of all these hardships, ordinary Venezuelans, including members of the armed forces, rallied to defeat the attempted coup of 30 April.

The United States government leaders have made little effort to conceal their motives for having caused this much death and suffering. Watch below, National Security adviser John Bolton (pictured above), explain to Fox News on 29 January 2019 how United States' oil corporations will soon be able to able to take over the extraction and export of Venezuelan petroleum once their actions against Venezuela achieves their goal of having their appointed 'President' Juan Guaido take over from from the elected President Nicolas Maduro.

From CNN And Washington Post Demand That Trump Further Escalate Tensions With Russia (1/4/2019) by Caitlin Johnstone:

Fareed Zakaria says that Donald Trump must now 'prove' that he is not Putin's puppet by risking nuclear war to overthrow Venezuelan President Maduro.

CNN has aired a segment (embedded below within this article) in which pundit Fareed Zakaria tells the network's audience that the US president has "been unwilling to confront Putin in any way on any issue” and asks "will Venezuela be the moment when Trump finally ends his appeasement?" The segment is a near-verbatim reading of Zakaria's Washington Post column from a couple of days prior, so that’s two massive prongs through which this false and pernicious narrative is being driven into mainstream consciousness claiming that the Trump administration has been far too dovish toward Moscow, rather than dangerously hawkish as is actually the case.

Article continues here.

The Black Alliance for Peace joined activists from peace organizations based in the United States to embark as a delegation to Venezuela to uncover the truth. They are reporting to you on march 15, 2019, the day they were supposed to fly back to the United States. While American Airlines refuses to fly to Venezuela because of so-called danger, this delegation found the embattled country pleasant and safe.

At 1:00pm on Sunday 10 May outside the State Library in Swanston Street Melbourne, supporters of investigative journalism, free speech and human rights will rally to demand that the Australian government act to free journalist Julian Assange from the arbitrary imprisonment he has faced inside the London Ecuadorian embassy since October 2012 when he sought asylum, that is more than 6 years ago.

Assange's living conditions inside the narrow confines of the Ecuadorian Embassy were already poor. They have been deliberately made worse by the new Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno. This is consistent with President Moreno's treatment of the Ecuadorian people to whom he made many promises in the election 19 February 2017, which he subsequently broke.

As described below by John Pilger in his address to the Sydney rally of last Sunday 3 March, Assange's health and even his life are now at risk. So, the need for the Australian government to act to protect one of its citizens is even more urgent.

While the world’s attention was focused on the Venezuelan opposition, as it tried to transport US aid into Venezuela against the government’s will, a major protest took place in Caracas that was opposed to US intervention in Venezuela.

Video and commentary first sourced at https://therealnews.com/stories/massive-protest-in-support-of-the-bolivarian-revolution-largely-ignored

The crisis in Venezuela will not be solved by sanctions that “can lead to starvation”, a UN-appointed rights expert said on Thursday. Special Rapporteur Idriss Jazairy, who reports to the Human Rights Council, issued the warning against the background of widespread suffering in the South American country, linked to spiralling economic woes and deep political uncertainty. (Article first published at United Nations site 31 January 2019.)

Guaido supporters attempt to intimidate Venezue-
lan Army soldiers who are defending their
country's border

The attempt by supporters of American puppet 'President' Guaido to take across the Venezuelan border truckloads of supposed humanitarian aid - and, who knows what else? - has failed, according to a report before 9:30pm Venezuelan time (UTC-8).

The soldiers of the Venezuelan Army stood firm and prevented the truck and its acompanying Guado supporters from crossing the bridge (except for three who had commandeered an armoured car and had recklessly driven that armoured car into a crowd of soldiers and civilians who were defending the border, injuring at least one female civilian).

See also : Venezuela crisis: Border clashes, ‘masked thugs’, torched ‘aid’ & fake Red Cross (24/2/19 | RT, ‘PR stunt to justify intervention in Venezuela’: Experts slam US regime change ‘gangsterism’ (23/2/19 | RT, Australian Venezuela Solidarity Network Facebook page

UPDATED: On 20 February 2019, I attended the meeting with the Venezuela Consul at Trades Hall. Every seat was occupied and it was difficult to move around the hall due to the crowd, which included members of the local Venezuelan and spanish-speaking communities.

Trump made naked threats to invade Venezuela made on 19 February, in a speech truly evocative of Hitlers'. Instead of threatening Jews, Trump is threatening people he perceives as 'communists'. The unquestioning crowds, the dumbed-down US elite cheering war on, show the result of an American education system and press entirely given over to propaganda. US Congress, mostly robots under control by Neocon money, has to authorise any military action - but will they even try to stop it?

Spirit of Eureka condemns the Morrison government and the ALP Opposition’s compliant endorsement of the US intervention and preparations for a “regime change” in sovereign Venezuela. This points to the urgent need for an independent Australian foreign policy that upholds and promotes the sovereignty and independence of countries to determine their own destiny.

The next Meeting of IPAN in Victoria will be on 20 February, Level 4 Trades Hall at 5.30 pm. This meeting will commence earlier due to a small overlap with a meeting on Venezuela on the same night, at 7pm in the Trades Hall, at which the Venezuelan Consul will be speaking. IPAN meeting will be at 5.30pm – 7pm to enable people interested to learn more about the situation in Venezuela to attend.
Just when you thought all your co-citizens were asleep at the wheel on Australian Government support for America's latest regime change initiative, the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) has issued a response. IPAN reminds us that this is not our decision, nor the USA's to make, but is a decision for the Venezuelan people. IPAN has made several recommendations, including that Australian needs to develop an independent foreign policy.

Venezuela’s problems are not the result of the government issuing money and using it to hire people to build infrastructure, provide essential services and expand economic development. If it were, unemployment would not be at 33 percent and climbing. Venezuela has a problem the U.S. does not, and will never have: It owes massive debts in a currency it cannot print itself, namely, U.S. dollars. When oil (its principal resource) was booming, Venezuela was able to meet its repayment schedule. But when the price of oil plummeted, the government was reduced to printing Venezuelan bolivars and selling them for U.S. dollars on international currency exchanges. As speculators drove up the price of dollars, more and more printing was required by the government, massively deflating the national currency.

1973 saw many oil producing countries become independent and nationalise their oil. Some succeeded and others, like Australia, were brought to heal. Ever since 1973, the US and Europe have been trying to reverse these nationalisations. Venezuela is a case in point.

In a gesture befitting Lewis Carol's Queen of Hearts, the United States has suddenly abandoned all pretences of lawful procedure and common sense by officially declaring that opposition leader, Juan Guaidó is the real president of Venezuela, not Nicolás Maduro Moros, who was actually elected President by Venezuelans.

To put things in perspective: Getting rid of President Maduro because the 2015 parliamentary election placed his own party in the minority would be like making President Trump step down because the Democrats are now in the majority in Congress - to paraphrase Venezuela's diplomat to Russia.[Article by Sheila Newman with James Sinnamon]

Republished from TelsurTV (18/4/15). See also: Global Research | "US Human Rights Abusers Not Welcome in Venezuela." President Maduro Calls for "Global Rebellion Against US Imperialism" (2/2/15) and other related articles. Julian Assange has joined a range of other prominent Australians in condemning the sanctions on Venezuela.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has added his name to a growing list of Australian journalists, academics, politicians, trade unionists and solidarity activists calling on U.S. president Barack Obama to revoke his executive order against Venezuela.

Vale Hugo Chavez died Tuesday, March 7, 2013, aged 58. Inside there is a stirring song on video about Chavez, his life and work.