Venezuela

Venezuela’s Delcy Rodríguez defends ‘endless’ benefits of her oil deal with Trump

Venezuela’s Delcy Rodríguez defends ‘endless’ benefits of her oil deal with Trump

Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has defended her government’s highly controversial energy deal with Donald Trump, insisting the South American country will maintain ownership and sovereignty over its massive oil reserves.

Rodríguez, who assumed power in January after Trump ordered the abduction of the president, Nicolás Maduro, took to the airwaves on Saturday to push back against criticism of what the US president has called “the biggest oil deal in world history”.

“The benefits are endless,” claimed Rodríguez, a former vice-president whom Trump backed after ordering Maduro’s capture during a special forces raid on the capital, Caracas.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA, Venezuela

Inside Trump’s Plan to Give the Pentagon a Stake in Venezuela’s Oil Riches

Inside Trump’s Plan to Give the Pentagon a Stake in Venezuela’s Oil Riches

President Trump spent months declaring his ouster of Venezuela’s leader had secured the country’s oil for America. When U.S. energy companies resisted investing at the speed and scale he wanted, his administration devised an extraordinary solution to turn his vision into reality: make the U.S. government itself an investor.

The agreement announced Friday evening would transform the U.S. government from a broker of American oil investments in Venezuela to an investor itself.

It would give Washington a direct financial stake in a private company that would be granted centurylong rights to some of the world’s largest proven oil reserves—and tie the U.S. more closely to the unelected government that is granting those rights.

CANADA BEWARE – Trump’s Massive Venezuela Oil Gambit is Also Another Massive Wake-Up Call for Canadian Energy

If Washington secures access to 90 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil, Canadian producers could face a powerful new competitor in their most important market. Ottawa can no longer afford to delay pipelines, regulatory reform or the investment conditions needed to diversify Canadian energy exports.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Canada - USA Tariff Wars", Venezuela

Could Trump’s Venezuela Oil Deal Crush Democrats’ Midterm Strategy?

Could Trump’s Venezuela Oil Deal Crush Democrats’ Midterm Strategy?

As my PJ Media colleague Sarah Anderson reported Friday night, President Donald Trump dropped one of the biggest energy announcements of his second term on Friday evening, revealing that the United States and Venezuela had signed what he called “the biggest oil deal in world history.” The agreement hands America majority control over more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s proven oil reserves, and Trump wasted no time celebrating.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA, Venezuela

Trump hails ‘historic’ deal for US to control 65bn barrels of Venezuela’s oil

Trump hails ‘historic’ deal for US to control 65bn barrels of Venezuela’s oil

The US has reached a deal with Venezuela to control more than 65 billion barrels of its proven oil reserves, President Donald Trump announced.

“This Historic Transaction MORE THAN DOUBLES American Oil Reserves, greatly increases our Oil Supply, and will substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans,” Trump posted on social media.

Venezuela’s interim President, Delcy Rodriguez, hailed the agreement as one that would help her nation’s economic revival.

Venezuelan opposition up in arms over reports US wants big stake in oil and gas

Reports that the US is preparing to claim a big stake in Venezuela’s massive energy reserves have sparked an outcry, with critics describing the move as “predatory” and a “rapacious” land grab.

Several media outlets this week reported that the Trump administration – which abducted Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, in January and has steered the South American country ever since – hopes to secure long-term access to its oil and gasfields.

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves with an estimated 303bn barrels, compared with Saudi Arabia’s 268bn and Iran’s 208bn.

Hmmm.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA, Venezuela

CIA Files Raise New Questions About Smartmatic and Venezuela’s Elections

CIA Files Raise New Questions About Smartmatic and Venezuela’s Elections

The CIA has declassified its files on the Venezuelan electronic voting machine company, Smartmatic, appearing to confirm widely held suspicions that the company used complex algorithms to fix election results that helped keep Venezuela’s leftist regime in power for two decades. The firm that’s been newly based in the UK now provides election machines for California’s populous Orange County.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCIA, Venezuela

‘God is punishing the politicians’: anger at earthquake response grows in Venezuela

‘God is punishing the politicians’: anger at earthquake response grows in Venezuela

Public anger at what many perceive as the Venezuelan government’s botched response to twin earthquakes that killed nearly 4,500 people is growing, with one grieving mother caught on camera berating the son of former president Nicolás Maduro.

Maduro’s politician son received a hostile reception while visiting a semi-destroyed social housing project named after his father’s late mentor Hugo Chávez.

“I didn’t lose a kitchen! I lost a daughter!” the woman, named as Damely Yaneth Díaz, can be seen shouting at congressman Nicolás Maduro Guerra in scenes captured by the Norwegian broadcaster TV2 last week.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Mother Nature Hates You", Venezuela

A revolution in ruins: fury amid the rubble of a housing project in quake-hit Venezuela

A revolution in ruins: fury amid the rubble of a housing project in quake-hit Venezuela

Even before two powerful earthquakes reduced the OPPE 25 government housing project to an anarchy of shattered concrete and broken lives, the foundations of Hugo Chávez’s populist “Bolivarian” revolution were shaking in what was once a hotbed of support.

Gabriel González remembers his elation when, in 2013, he received the keys to his freshly completed apartment in one of the 12-floor tower blocks El Comandante had ordered to be built in an affluent corner of the resort town of Caraballeda.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inVenezuela

With little help, Venezuelans try to rescue themselves: ‘We have only each other’

With little help, Venezuelans try to rescue themselves: ‘We have only each other’

When the ground shook in Venezuela, Alejandro Palombizio was home in Los Palos Grandes, a wealthy Caracas neighborhood. He heard a jarring noise, looked out, and watched the twin towers of an apartment complex fold into a cloud of dust.

The 29-year-old carried an elderly neighbor down the stairs, ran back up to get medicine for another and loaned his phone to people trying to reach family. He stayed at it for most of the next 72 hours. “These were my neighbors,” he said. “People I saw every day. I have to be here.”

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Mother Nature Hates You", Venezuela

Trump says leader of Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang killed in US strike

Trump says leader of Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang killed in US strike

The US military has killed a leader in the Venezuelan street gang Tren de Aragua, Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, with the help of Venezuela, Donald Trump announced on Friday.

“At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Niño Guerrero, the infamous leader of Tren De Aragua, one of the most bloodthirsty Terrorist Organizations on Planet Earth,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA, Venezuela

Venezuela inmates occupy prison roof and set fire to mattresses to highlight alleged abuse

Venezuela inmates occupy prison roof and set fire to mattresses to highlight alleged abuse

Inmates at Venezuela’s western Barinas prison staged a protest on its roof on Sunday, piling flaming mattresses and calling for the removal of the facility’s director, whom they accused of overseeing guards as they shot unarmed prisoners.

“We want justice. They are shooting us, the guards and the wardens,” a prisoner said in a video shared by the Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons, a local NGO, on X, in which a man is seen with a bullet wound in his chest.

Inmates said they were peacefully protesting when prison staff opened fire and left some wounded.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inVenezuela

Maduro’s billionaire ‘bag man’ deported to US despite Biden pardon

Maduro’s billionaire ‘bag man’ deported to US despite Biden pardon

A billionaire tycoon accused of being a “bag man” for Nicolás Maduro, the deposed Venezuelan dictator, has been deported in the United States.

Alex Saab faces trial and another spell in a United States prison less than three years after he was pardoned and freed by Joe Biden as part of a prisoner swap.

His deportation continues Delcy Rodríguez’s ongoing purge of senior apparatchiks in the Maduro regime.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA, Venezuela

US prosecutors argue Maduro ‘plundered’ Venezuelan wealth in court battle over legal fees

A judge appeared sympathetic on Thursday to legal arguments that ex-Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cillia Flores should be allowed to use Venezuelan government money to fund their defence.

Maduro and Flores’s attorneys asked the judge to dismiss the narco-terrorism case against the pair because the US has denied them use of the funds due to sanctions in place against the Latin American country.

Prosecutors argued Maduro “plundered” Venezuela’s wealth and should not be able to use its money for legal fees.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA, Venezuela

Venezuela: The Good, the Bad, and the… Code Pink?

As I’ve stated several times in recent weeks, the MSM isn’t bothering to keep up with Donald Trump and Marco Rubio’s wins in Venezuela, as we attempt to stabilize our important southern neighbor. When something goes wrong, they’ll happily report on it all day long and claim nothing is working, everything is moving slowly, etc. That’s a lie at worst, a semi-maybe-half-truth missing a lot of nuance at best.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA, Venezuela

Was the raid on Venezuela real?

From the very start, there was something weird about Operation Absolute Resolve. The official story went something like this: after a whirlwind air attack, which included the use of suicide drones for the first time, special operators from the US Army’s renowned but shadowy SFOD-D unit (“Delta Force”) were helicoptered into the Fuerte Tiuna military complex in the south of Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. They defeated the local garrison, used “massive blowtorches” to breach heavy metal doors in a fortress-like residential site within the base, captured the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, then spirited them back to the helicopters and flew them out to face charges in the United States. Donald Trump said it had been “an assault like people have not seen since World War Two.”

Painfully real for Maduro I’m betting.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA, Venezuela