Following his speculation that capitalism may have destroyed a previous Martian civilization, he warned that water supplies on this planet are dwindling.

On Earth, "where there were great forests hundreds of years ago or less, there are now deserts, where there were once rivers, now are deserts," he said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704461304576217060217916894.html

--------------------

Not wrong mate...

As seen in an encyclopedia of the 1920s... but we, of course, know better. see toon at top:

 

The Austerity Delusion

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Portugal’s government has just fallen in a dispute over austerity proposals. Irish bond yields have topped 10 percent for the first time. And the British government has just marked its economic forecast down and its deficit forecast up.

What do these events have in common? They’re all evidence that slashing spending in the face of high unemployment is a mistake. Austerity advocates predicted that spending cuts would bring quick dividends in the form of rising confidence, and that there would be few, if any, adverse effects on growth and jobs; but they were wrong.

It’s too bad, then, that these days you’re not considered serious in Washington unless you profess allegiance to the same doctrine that’s failing so dismally in Europe.

It was not always thus. Two years ago, faced with soaring unemployment and large budget deficits — both the consequences of a severe financial crisis — most advanced-country leaders seemingly understood that the problems had to be tackled in sequence, with an immediate focus on creating jobs combined with a long-run strategy of deficit reduction.

Why not slash deficits immediately? Because tax increases and cuts in government spending would depress economies further, worsening unemployment. And cutting spending in a deeply depressed economy is largely self-defeating even in purely fiscal terms: any savings achieved at the front end are partly offset by lower revenue, as the economy shrinks.

So jobs now, deficits later was and is the right strategy. Unfortunately, it’s a strategy that has been abandoned in the face of phantom risks and delusional hopes. On one side, we’re constantly told that if we don’t slash spending immediately we’ll end up just like Greece, unable to borrow except at exorbitant interest rates. On the other, we’re told not to worry about the impact of spending cuts on jobs because fiscal austerity will actually create jobs by raising confidence.

How’s that story working out so far?

Self-styled deficit hawks have been crying wolf over U.S. interest rates more or less continuously since the financial crisis began to ease, taking every uptick in rates as a sign that markets were turning on America. But the truth is that rates have fluctuated, not with debt fears, but with rising and falling hope for economic recovery. And with full recovery still seeming very distant, rates are lower now than they were two years ago.

But couldn’t America still end up like Greece? Yes, of course. If investors decide that we’re a banana republic whose politicians can’t or won’t come to grips with long-term problems, they will indeed stop buying our debt. But that’s not a prospect that hinges, one way or another, on whether we punish ourselves with short-run spending cuts.

Just ask the Irish, whose government — having taken on an unsustainable debt burden by trying to bail out runaway banks — tried to reassure markets by imposing savage austerity measures on ordinary citizens. The same people urging spending cuts on America cheered. “Ireland offers an admirable lesson in fiscal responsibility,” declared Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute, who said that the spending cuts had removed fears over Irish solvency and predicted rapid economic recovery.

That was in June 2009. Since then, the interest rate on Irish debt has doubled; Ireland’s unemployment rate now stands at 13.5 percent.

And then there’s the British experience. Like America, Britain is still perceived as solvent by financial markets, giving it room to pursue a strategy of jobs first, deficits later. But the government of Prime Minister David Cameron chose instead to move to immediate, unforced austerity, in the belief that private spending would more than make up for the government’s pullback. As I like to put it, the Cameron plan was based on belief that the confidence fairy would make everything all right.

But she hasn’t: British growth has stalled, and the government has marked up its deficit projections as a result.

Which brings me back to what passes for budget debate in Washington these days.

A serious fiscal plan for America would address the long-run drivers of spending, above all health care costs, and it would almost certainly include some kind of tax increase. But we’re not serious: any talk of using Medicare funds effectively is met with shrieks of “death panels,” and the official G.O.P. position — barely challenged by Democrats — appears to be that nobody should ever pay higher taxes. Instead, all the talk is about short-run spending cuts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/opinion/25krugman.html?_r=1&ref=homepage&src=me&pagewanted=print

Mars is a dry, frigid, dusty, nearly airless place. A couple of billion years ago, though, it wasn't much different from Earth. A string of space probes have proven that the Red Planet once sported rivers that carved huge canyons across the landscape — and even oceans, whose shorelines are still visible from orbit. Open water couldn't have existed without a relatively thick atmosphere, and most of that Martian atmosphere leaked out into space long ago.

But some of that ancient atmosphere, it turns out, headed in the other direction. A series of measurements with ground-penetrating radar mounted on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed a massive deposit of frozen carbon dioxide (CO2) — a Lake Superior's worth of dry ice — buried under a layer of ordinary ice near the Martian south pole. "We knew there was some CO2 at the pole," says Roger Phillips of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., lead author of a report on the discovery in the current issue of Science, "but there's about 30 times more than we thought."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2067286,00.html#ixzz1Kb191UjH

The broad-brush conclusion of a new federal report [USA] on the future impact of climate change on water in the West is a bit familiar. Throughout the West, there will be less snow, and what snow there is will melt faster. The dry Southwest is going to get drier, and the wet Northwest wetter, as a diagram in the report (above) shows.

The 122-page report includes original research — “including state-of-the-art climate modeling,” as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said during a conference call on Monday — but also harks back to peer-reviewed scientific literature on seven river basins: the Columbia, the Klamath, the Sacramento-San Joaquin, the Colorado, the Missouri, the Truckee and the Rio Grande.

The report, jointly produced by the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers, offers not just some interesting details on individual basins but a revealing window on how the administration of President Obama, who did not even mention climate change in his last State of the Union address, deals with the subject in general.

The report and the conference call send a clear message: the West is getting warmer, and while the effects vary depending on geography, the places that are feeling water stress now are going to feel more in the future because snow will melt faster, bringing a decline in summertime stream flows.

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/a-21st-century-water-forecast/?hp

Mars formed in record time, growing to its present size in a mere three million years, much quicker than scientists previously thought.

Its rapid formation could explain why the Red Planet is about one tenth the mass of Earth.

The study supports a 20-year-old theory that Mars remained small because it avoided collisions with planetary building material.

The new finding is published in the journal Nature.

In our early Solar System, well before planets had formed, a frisbee-shaped cloud of gas and dust encircled the Sun.

Scientists believe that the planets grew from material pulled together by electrostatic charges - the same force that's behind the "dust bunnies" under your bed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13567381

Mr Chavez said this was "very strange" but stressed that he was thinking aloud rather than making "rash accusations".

But he said the instances of cancer among Latin American leaders were "difficult to explain using the law of probabilities".

"Would it be strange if they had developed the technology to induce cancer and nobody knew about it?" Mr Chavez asked in a televised speech to soldiers at an army base.

Who next?

Mr Chavez noted that US government scientists had infected Guatemalan prisoners with syphilis and other diseases in the 1940s, but that this had only come to light last year.

And he joked that he would now take extra care of the presidents of Bolivia and Ecuador - Evo Morales and Rafael Correa - lest they also be diagnosed with cancer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-16349845

It looks like a freeze dried desert now, but this image taken by the Mars Curiosity rover is proof that the red planet once had regular wet seasons, and was capable of supporting life.

This layered rock photographed by the Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover shows thick-laminated, evenly-stratified sandstone layers, which are commonly found on Earth where river deltas flow into lakes and seas.

The suspended material in the water then settled onto the ancient lake bed and gradually, over years, built up the many layers, which are now exposed in this rock outcrop.

These multiple layers of sedimentary deposits are evidence that there were regular cycles of water carrying plumes of river sediments flowing into the lake which once filled Gale crater.

read more and see photo at: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2014/12/15/4146178.htm

We may be captivated by the thought of organisms on another planet, but we seem to have lost interest in our own. The Oxford Junior Dictionary has been excising the waymarks of the living world. Adders, blackberries, bluebells, conkers, holly, magpies, minnows, otters, primroses, thrushes, weasels and wrens are now surplus to requirements.

In the past four decades, the world has lost 50% of its vertebrate wildlife. But across the latter half of this period, there has been a steep decline in media coverage. In 2014, according to a study at Cardiff University, there were as many news stories broadcast by the BBC and ITV about Madeleine McCann (who went missing in 2007) as there were about the entire range of environmental issues.

Think of what would change if we valued terrestrial water as much as we value the possibility of water on Mars. Only 3% of the water on this planet is fresh; and of that, two-thirds is frozen. Yet we lay waste to the accessible portion. Sixty per cent of the water used in farming is needlessly piddled away by careless irrigation. Rivers, lakes and aquifers are sucked dry, while what remains is often so contaminated that it threatens the lives of those who drink it. In the UK, domestic demand is such that the upper reaches of many rivers disappear during the summer. Yet still we install clunky old toilets and showers that gush like waterfalls.

read more http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/29/water-mars-intelligent-life-earth-nasa

see toon at top and also: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/27529

 

The United States and their allies are preparing in silence a brutal plan to « put an end to the dictatorship » in Venezuela. This « Master Stroke», which is already well under way, will see its first instalment become operational before the next elections, and, if they are unable to eliminate President Nicolás Maduro during the offensive, which will be accompanied by the total machinery of propaganda, the medias, and certain acts of violence « for the defence of democracy», then Plan B is ready, and will implicate several countries, in order to impose a « multilateral force » for military intervention.

Panama, Colombia, Brazil and Guyana will play a key role, with the support of Argentina and other « friends », under the control of the Pentagon. Neighbouring countries will provide bases for the combat forces, and direct support, including hospitals and stocks of supplies for the soldiers - everything is ready.

All this is set out in an 11-page document which bears the signature of Admiral Kurt Walter Tidd, the current Commander-in-Chief of US SouthCom, but has not yet been made public [1].

The document analyses the current situation and validates a war of counter-insurgency against Venezuela, supported by the paraphernalia of psychological warfare, revealing the use of persecution, harassment, belittlement, and lies used as means to get rid not only of the popular leaders, but also the People as such.

The report affirms that « the Venezuelan Chavista dictatorship staggers as a result of its frequent internal problems, there is a great shortage of foodstuffs, an exhaustion of the sources of foreign currency and a rampant corruption. The international support, won with petrodollars, becomes scarcer each time and the purchasing power of its national currency is in a constant downfall ».

They admit having created this situation out of whole cloth, with shocking impunity, and consider that it will not change. They justify their actions by claiming that the Venezuelan government will take new « populist » measures in order to stay in power.

We may be amazed at the treatment reserved for the opposition, which is manipulated, advised and paid for by the United States, because in the report we read that « Maduro’s corrupt regimen will collapse but regrettably, the divided opposing forces, legitimate defenders of democracy and the well-being of their people, do note have power enough to put an end to the Venezuelan nightmare », because of their internal quarrels, and a « corruption similar to that of their rivals; as well as the scarcity of rooting, do not grant them the opportunity to make the most of this situation and to give the necessary step to overturn the state of penury and precariousness in which the pressure group, that exercices the leftist dictatorship has submerged the country ».

They consider that we are facing « unprecedented criminal action in Latin America », although the government of Venezuela has never acted against its neighbours, but rather demonstrates intense solidarity, at both the regional and international level. The US plan claims that « democracy spreads out in America, continent in which radical populism was intended to take over ». Argentina, Ecuador and Brazil are given as examples of this. « This rebirth of democracy has the support of the most valuable determinations, and the conditions in the region run in its favour. It is the time for the Unites States to prove, with concrete actions, that they are implicated in that process, where overthrowing Venezuelan Dictatorship will surely mean a continental turning point ».

They are also pushing US President Donald Trump to act, on the grounds that « It is the first opportunity of the Trump Administration to bring forward its vision in reference to security and democracy. Showing its active commiment is crucial, not only for the administration, but also for the continent and the world. The time has come to act ».

This implies – apart from the definitive eradication of Chavism and the expulsion of his representative – working to « encourage popular dissatisfaction, by increasing scarcity and rise in price » in order to make the rejection of the current dictator irreversible.

If we should seek to understand the art of counter-insurgent perversion, it would suffice to read the part of the document which recommends « to besiege [President Maduro], ridicule him and to pose him as symbol of awkwardness and incompetence. To expose him as a puppet of Cuba ».

The document also suggests exacerbating the divisions between certain members of the group in power, by underlining the differences in the quality of life of the population compared with that of their leaders, and making sure that these differences are amplified.

The idea consists of carrying out lightning operations, in the same way that Mauricio Macri in Argentina and Michel Temer in Brazil had taken certain measures in their own countries. These two valets obey the orders of Washington, and are both corrupt, but now, by imperial grace, they are presented as « examples of transparency» - within a matter of hours, they took measures to ensure the destruction of nation states with the precision of a missile strike.

The document, signed by the head of SouthCom, demands that Maduro’s government be made unbearable, in order to force him to hesitate, negotiate or flee. This plan, which is intended to get rid of the alleged dictatorship of Venezuela in short notice, calls for an « increase the internal instability to a critical level, by intensifying the undercapitalization of the country, the leaking out of foreign currency and the deterioration of its monetary base, bringing about the application of new inflationnary measures ».

Another objective - « fully obstructing imports, and at the same time discouraging potential foreign investors in order to make more critical the situation for the population ».

We may also find in this 11-page plan « appealing to domestic alllies as well as other people inserted from abroad in the national scenario in order to generate protests, riots and insecurity, plunders, thefts, assaults and highjacking of vessels as well as other means of transportation with the intention of deserting this country in crisis through all borderlands and other possible ways, jeopardizing in such a way the National Security of neighbouring frontier nations ». It would also be useful to create « victims » and accuse the leaders for this by magnifying the dimensions of the humanitarian crisis before the eyes of the whole world - for that, it will be necessary to deal in lies, and talk of generalised corruption amongst the leaders and link the government to narco-trafficking in order to dirty its image not only on the internal level, but in the eyes of international opinion - without forgetting to « promote fatigue inside the members of the PSUV [Unified Socialist Party], inciting the annoyance and nonconformity among themselves, for them to break noisily away from the line of the Governement, for them to refuse the measures and restrictions which also affect them […] making it as weak as the opposition is. Creating frictions between the PSUV and "Somos Venezuela" ».

That’s not all. It is also necessary to structure « a plan to get the profuse desertion of the most qualified professionnals from the country, in order to "to leave it with no professionnals at all", which will aggravate even more the internal situation and along these lines putting the blame on of Government ».

Military interference

Just like in a suspense novel, the document calls for « using the army officers as an alternative for a definitive solution » and « continuing hardening the conditions inside the Armes Forces to carry out a coup d’état before concluding 2018, if the crisis does not make the dictatorship to collapse and the dictator does not decide to move aside ».

Considering that all of the above may not succeed, and with outright contempt for the Venezuelan opposition, the plan suggests « continuing setting fire to the common frontier with Colombia. Multiplying the traffic of fuel and other goods. The movement of paramilitaries, armed raids and drug trafficking. Provoked armed incidents with the Venezuelan frontier security forces » and besides this, to « recruit paramilitaries mainly in the campsites of refugees in Cúcuta, La Guajira and the north of Santander, areas largely populated by Colombian citizens who emigrated to Venezuela and now return, run away from the regimen to intensify the destabilizing activities in the common frontier between both countries. Making use of the empty space left by the FARC, the belligerency of the ELN and the activities in the area of the Gulf cartel ».

And here is the template for the final blow - « to prepare the involvment of allied forces in support the Venezuelan army officiers or to control the internal crisis in the event they delay too much in taking the initiative. Establishing a speedy time line that prevents the Dictator to continue winning control on the international scenario. If it is necessary, act before the elections stipulated for next April ».

In fact, these elections will be held on 20 May, and the United States and their associates refuse in advance to recognise the result. The crux of the matter is « to get the support of the cooperation of the allied authorities of friendly countries (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Panama and Guyana); to organise the provisionning, relief of troops, medical and logistic support from Panama. Making good use of the facilities of electronic surveillance and signals intelligence, the hospitals and its deployed endowments in Darien [in the Panamanian jungle], the quipped airdromes for the Colombian Plan, as well as the landing fields of the old-time military bases of Howard and Albrook [Pananma], as well as the one belonging to "Rio Hato" in addition, the Humanitarian Regional Center of the United Nations, designed for situations of catastrophes and humanitarian emergency, which has an aerial landing field and its own warehouse ».

We are faced with the setting up of an intervention which includes « the basification of combat airplanes and choppers, armored conveyances, intelligence positions and specail military and logistics units (police, and military district attorneys and prisons) ». […] It will be necessary to « develop the military operation under international flag, patronized by the Conference of American Armies, under the protection of the OAS and the supervision, in the legal and media context, of the General Secretary, Luis Almagro ». lt will also be necessary to « declare the necessity that the continental commandement be strengthened to act, using the instrument of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, in order to avoid the democratic rupture », and above all it will be necessary to « bind Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Panama to the contribution of greater number of troops, to make use of their geographic proximity and experience in operations in forest regions. Strenghtening their international condition with the presence of combat units from the United States of America and the other named countries, under the command of a Joint General Staff led by the USA ».

One is astounded by the impunity in which all this is being plotted, behind the backs of the People, in absolute illegality, revealing as it does the reasons for recent US military manoeuvres at the border between Brazil and Venezuela (Brazil, Peru, Colombia), and in the South Atlantic (United States, Chile, United Kingdom, Argentina) – in the case of Argentina, these plans have been progressing since October-November 2017 without the slightest authorisation of the National Congress.

« Use the facilities of the Panamanian territory for the rear guard and the capacities of Argentina for the securing of the ports and the maritime positions, 
 Lean on Brazil and Guyana to make use of the migratory situation that we intend to encourage in the border with Guyana. 
 Coordinate the support to Colombia, Brazil, Guyana, in Aruba, Curaçao, Trinidad and Tobago, and other States, in front of the flow of Venezuelan immigrants in the event of the crisis ».

It is also planned to favour international participation in this effort, as part of the multilateral operation with the contribution of states and non-governmental and international organisations, and furnish whatever is necessary in terms of logistics and intelligence – it will also be necessary to « anticipate, specialy, the most vulnerable points of Aruba, Puerto Carreño, Inirida, Maicao, Barranquilla and Sincelejo in Colombia, as well as Roraima, Manaos and Boavista in Brazil ». So here we have laid out before us the map of an announced war of intervention.

Strategic Information

As far as the strategic perspective is concerned, it will be necessary to « silence the symbolic presence of Chavez-representative of unit and popular support » while pursuing the harassing of the dictator « as the only responsible, in the first place, for the prevaling crisis due to his inability to find the way out that the Venezuelans are in need of » as well as his closest executives, who will be blamed for the crisis and the impossibility of recovery.

In another paragraph, the text calls for the intensification of « the denouncement toward Maduro’s regimem, […] high-lighting the incompetence of the mechanisms of integration created by the regimens of Cuba and Venezuela, specialy the ALBA [Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America] and Petrocaribe».

As far as the medias are concerned, the plan drawn up by the United States calls for an increase in the broadcasting, inside the country, by local media and foreign media, of invented messages based on witness reports and publications from the country itself, making use of all means of dissemination, including the social networks, of messages « claming, though the mas media, the need to put an end to this situation because of its unsustainable essence ».

In one of the last paragraphs of the document, there is mention of claiming or showing the use of violent means by the dictatorship, in order to gain international support, by using « all the capacities of the psychological war of the US ARMY ».

In other words, this means setting up the same scenarios based on lies, news montages, falsified photos and videos, everything that was used during the colonial wars of the 16th century.

Another question, « The United States should entirely back up the OAS, strenghtening the image of the OAS and offer multilateral institutions of the inter-American system, as instruments for the solution to regional problems. Promoting the respect of the dispatch of the UNO military force for the imposition of peace, only Nicolas Maduro’s corrupt dictatorship is defeated ».

Stella Calloni

Translation 
Pete Kimberley

Read more:

http://www.voltairenet.org/article201159.html

 

Read from top.

 

(CNN) Inmates have revolted and taken control of a notorious prison in Venezuela, as the volatile country braces for presidential elections decried as illegitimate by regional leaders.

Men identifying themselves as prisoners posted videos online saying they had taken over a detention center in the Helicoide ("the Helix"), the headquarters of intelligence agency Sebin in the capital, Caracas, because of torture and human rights violations.
Footage posted on social media purported to show prisoners walking freely inside the facility, breaking cell locks and demanding their immediate release.
The US embassy in Venezuela expressed concern over the incident, after an American political prisoner Joshua Holt, a former Mormon missionary from Utah, posted a video on social media saying he feared for his life.
Read more:

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/17/americas/venezuela-prison-riot-maduro-intl/index.html

Read comment above and read from top...

Read also: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/8530

Now you know why Chavez is dead ( he swore his cancer was induced by the USA — which it could have been), Gaddafi has been eliminated (you know La Femme Hillarious Clinton), Mugabe has been pushe aside gently (not so gently) and Kabila is still hanging on despite efforts by the empire to get him removed...

If you want to know the untold history of the U.S.A., then a good place to start is with the history of US imperialism in Asia from the mid-19th century until today. Not only will that reveal the history of the criminality of US foreign policy, but it will also reveal the true nature of U.S. capitalism, imperialism, fascism and U.S. wars of aggression: past, present and future.

For centuries the U.S. has preached that it believes in democracy, freedom and self-determination, but its actions towards other countries speak louder than words. Internationally the U.S. is a predator and a bully. It subjugates small countries, corrupts them by backing right-wing dictators, and enables death squads to commit mass murder of all suspected dissidents. During the First Cold War leftists, anti-colonialists, nationalists and intellectuals were called “communists” and imprisoned, tortured and executed. Now they are called “terrorists”. 

The foreign policy interests of the U.S. are to promote the neocolonial interests of U.S. corporations, and to project the financial and military power of the U.S. internationally. If the U.S. cannot bully a head of state into collaborating then it backs a military coup d’etat, stirs up internal violence with divide and conquer strategies, and covertly uses mercenaries to start civil wars. If all else fails it will find a pretext or a false flag to invade and overthrow an unfriendly government.

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2018/05/17/on-u-s-imperialism-capitalism-and-fa...

-------------------

Time and time again we see history repeating itself where, in the name of freedom and peace, wars have been provoked and fought for special interests. Through no fault of their own, the people of the Middle East find themselves caught up in the political rivalries and religious and ethnic tensions fueled by Western countries, whose constant games of tug-of-war are focused solely on their self-interests.

As Americans, we strive to be the best at all we do and we have a president in office who I am certain has the best interests of his people at heart. Yet I am certain that all actions made and taken by those appointed to his administration are not a reflection of the true wishes or values of the American people!

In a meeting that was closed to journalists this Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo boasted about the "essential rightness" that the US has when it comes to global affairs. The State Department released excerpts of his remarks, urging demoralized US diplomats to act firmly and aggressively as they carry out the Trump administration's foreign policies, reassuring them that the US cause is just.

But how just is the US when it’s constantly contributing to the Arab-Israeli conflict, rather than creating solutions? Pompeo went on to suggest that it’s the administration’s task to preserve our civilization of human dignity, individual liberty, democracy, national sovereignty, and the rule of law, and to challenge anyone seeking to take it down. He would be right were this actually the case. Yet it’s obvious that the reality of the current events speaks for itself – that’s why he feels the need to have this conversation with his staff. No amount of entitlement can justify the killing of innocents.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/427007-us-foreign-policy-meddling/

The US has criticized the upcoming Venezuelan elections as 'fake,' and rushed to support 'democracy' by slapping a top ruling-party member with new sanctions and accusing President Nicolas Maduro of drug-trade profiteering.

The "second most powerful man in Venezuela," Diosdado Cabello, immediately brushed aside the accusations and new US sanctions introduced against him for allegedly heading a drug ring. He said such slander would only strengthen the ruling party's candidate, Maduro, to win Sunday's elections.

"In truth I feel liberated, that imperialism is busy persecuting this humble soldier and his family, strengthens me, forces me every day to continue fighting for the causes that I believe and to be faithful and loyal to our beloved people," Cabello, who is vice president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), said in a tweet after the US Treasury slapped him – as well as two members of his family, and his "front man" – with sanctions ahead of the election.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/427173-venezuela-sanctions-drug-profiteering/

 

Read from top...

Canada bans Venezuelans living on its territory from electing their president

Canada has just notified Venezuela’s ambassador of the prohibition on organizing polling stations for the Venezuelan Presidential elections.

This decision contravenes the Vienna Treaty on Consular Relations. France and Germany mirrored this action in 2014: both these states violated the aforementioned treaty when they prohibited Syrian ambassadors from organizing polling stations when the Syrian Presidential election took place in June 2014 [1].

Canada, France and Germany are claiming to defend democracy by opposing presidential elections from being held. The Pentagon has drawn up a plan to destroy, one by one, the States and societies of the “Enlarged Middle East”, followed by those in the Caribbean Bay, with the first on their list being Venezuela [2]. Voltaire Network has published the SouthCom’s plan against Venezuela [3].

Translation 
Anoosha Boralessa

 

Read more:

http://www.voltairenet.org/article201194.html

 

Read from top.

How to Win an Election in Venezuela: Control the Food

Subsidized eggs and frozen chickens may help to explain why President Nicolás Maduro stayed in power.

By BRENT McDONALD and ORA DeKORNFELD 

• Neighbors Reject Election Result and Trump Adds Sanctions
  
  Making promises of anything or whatever has been the political mana for yonks... Nothing wrong promising food (and delivering) to poor people rather that promising more capitalism in their underpants with lies added...
   ... Be real NYT... Fuck you all.
  

The top US diplomat in Caracas, Venezuela and his deputy have been ordered to leave the country after allegedly conspiring against the government, President Nicolas Maduro announced.

"I have declared him persona non grata and I announce the exit of the US chargé d'affaires in 48 hours," Maduro said on Tuesday, referring to Todd Robinson. His deputy, Brian Naranjo, was also expelled.

The expulsion comes after Washington denounced Maduro’s victory in Venezuela’s elections on Sunday as a “sham.” Maduro won 4 million votes more than the second-placed opposition candidate Henri Falcon, but the turnout was just over 46 percent.

Washington insists that Maduro is running a socialist dictatorship, with US Vice President Mike Pence calling the election “neither free nor fair” and saying the “fake process” was a blow to the “proud democratic tradition” of Venezuela.

The Trump administration sanctioned all purchases of Venezuelan debt on Monday, but stopped short of blocking oil sales.

Maduro slammed the sanctions as “arbitrary and unilateral measures” that constitute a “crime against humanity.”

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry also criticized the “systematic campaign of aggression and hostility” from the United States, which it said was aimed at punishing the Venezuelan people “for exercising their right to vote.”

The EU has followed Washington’s lead in condemning the Venezuelan elections, saying that the presidential and regional polls "went ahead without a national agreement on an electoral calendar and without complying with the minimum international standards for a credible process.”

The US has been piling on punitive measures against the Venezuelan government while claiming to be looking out for the people of that Latin American country. On Friday, the US Treasury blacklisted influential Maduro supporter Diosdado Cabello, his wife Marleny and his brother Jose, alleging they were running a “corruption network” based on illegal drug trade. Cabello, the vice president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), has rejected the accusations as false.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/427462-maduro-us-diplomat-expel-conspiring/

 

Read from top.

The hidden stakes behind Venezuela’s presidential election

by Thierry Meyssan

Formally speaking, the level of abstention during the Presidential election in Venezuela does not allow us to validate the democratic character of the victory of Nicolás Maduro. However, the amount of participation is easily sufficient, in the middle of an economic war, to illustrate popular support for national institutions. Indeed, far more than the Chàvists’ hold on power, what was in play was the future of the country faced with ongoing aggression.

The Presidential election in Venezuela was supposed to be the occasion for launching a new stage in preparations for the destruction of the « Caribbean Basin ». At least, that was what SouthCom was hoping [1].

There are several ways of looking at the crisis currently affecting Venezuela. For the Western nations, it is the result of poor management by President Maduro and his Socialist dream. For the army, observing the military preparations in Panama, Colombia, Bazil and Guyana, it is on the contrary the result of a terrible war – for the moment exclusively economic – which is being waged against the country under the command of the United States. Nonetheless, the Gross Domestic Product has fallen 15 % per year, and inflation has reached vertiginous heights (18,000 % since the beginning of the year). Although the Maduro administration is still able to distribute foodstuffs and avoid famine, it has so far failed to halt the descent into hell.

For no valid reason, and in advance, the 14 member states of the Lima Group contested the legitimacy of the vote [2]. Like in Syria, in 2014, one of them deliberately violated the Vienna Convention concerning consular relations by forbidding the Venezuelan embassy to organise voting facilities in its consulates. This time, it was Canada, (member of the Lima Group ), and not France and Germany (who are not members of this Group [3].

Like in Syria, the pro-US opposition had called for a boycott on the vote. Then it organised a transport strike, which prevented voters from the countryside and the suburbs from reaching the polling stations.

The level of abstention was therefore abnormally high. Particularly since one and a half million Venezuelans had left the country because of the difficult living conditions, and had been unable to re-register to vote at foreign embassies.

And yet 46 % of the twenty million voters did in fact manage to vote, and 67 % of them supported the Chàvist candidate, Nicolás Maduro.

Electoral analyses attest to the fact that the level of participation was all the higher where the constituency represented the poorer voters.

The same studies show that only voters above the age of forty actually went to the polls - younger voters were almost entirely absent. This indicates that the young expressed their lack of interest for politics or had followed the instructions of the pro-US opposition, while those who knew Venezuela before the Bolivarian Revolution were motivated to vote.

And indeed they had to be motivated, not only to make the journey to the polling stations, but to support Nicolás Maduro despite the general collapse of the economy! The most disadvantaged, those people whose monthly salary no longer allows them to buy a kilo of meat, were proportionally the most numerous voters. This means, contrary to what the United States had hoped, that the Venezuelans do not hold the Maduro administration responsible for their economic catastrophe. They are continuing the combat engaged by Hugo Chávez to liberate their country from US imperialism.

This anomaly is the consequence of the sense of national solidarity which developed during the 18 years of the Bolivarian Revolution. It makes any foreign military intervention into the country difficult.

Besides that, the fact that a serious candidate, Henri Falcón (ex-Governor of the state of Lara), announced on the morning of polling that the vote was rigged and would not permit his victory, and that it was not worth going to the polling stations. Nonetheless, his declaration did not prevent close to two million voters from making the journey to vote for him. Their decision can only be interpreted as a double intent - to defend their country, and to appeal to the entire political class for reconciliation in face of the on-going aggression.

A sign of growing despair, close to one million people voted for evangelical pastor Javier Bertucci, who sees no other solution for the salvation of his country than collective repentance and divine intervention.

Even before the results of the vote were published, Washington announced the promulgation of a « Presidential decree forbidding certain supplementary operations concerning Venezuela » [4] and the G7 [5] had prepared a declaration for the « rejection of the electoral process » [6].

Faced with the reality of the result, there was silence. What possible pursuit could be undertaken to advance the plan for the destruction of states and societies in the region? Would it not be dangerous to launch an attack on Venezuela, as had been undertaken in Syria, at the risk of meeting fierce resistance? In short, should the attack be made now, or should the Venezuelans be impoverished and divided even more before the attack was launched?

Apart from that, and contrary to diplomatic habit, Russia had reacted in advance to the declarations of the Lima Group by stating that they consisted of interference in interior affairs [7]. This suggests that Moscow is not being fooled by the situation. And in case NATO should intervene, will Russia once again get involved?

It is too soon for SouthCom to decide. During this period of evaluation, the Pentagon will have to « work » on the youth of Venezuela, who hardly participated in the election. It could also bring more pressure to bear on other states of the Caribbean basin, notably Nicaragua.

Thierry Meyssan

Translation 
Pete Kimberley

 

Read more:

http://www.voltairenet.org/article201289.html

 

See also: 

the world, according to the US navy...

In a climate of dire economic war/crisis and foreign aggression, Venezuelans took to the polls to elect their president and regional legislative councils. Chavismo won big in both contests, with president Maduro securing a second term until 2025. The international reaction from the US and its allies was already pre-scripted, and the dishonest coverage from the mainstream media was also to be expected. We take a look at the election, how the electoral system works, these reactions, and also share some observations after witnessing events on the ground.

 

Incumbent president Nicolás Maduro won in a landslide, taking nearly 68% of the vote, while his closest rival Henry Falcón could only muster 21%. With all the votes tallied, Maduro totalled a little over 6.2M votes. Amidst a devastating economic crisis and increasing imperialist aggression this is a very significant victory, but it nevertheless falls very short of previous totals in chavista victories, and very short of the 10M votes that Maduro “demanded” during the campaign (1). Falcón had distinguished himself by defying the mainstream opposition’s call for boycotting the elections, only to fall back to the familiar tune of not recognising the results after losing.

Participation in these elections was just 46%. This number was historically low… for Venezuela! In the most recent presidential elections in Chile and Colombia, to name just two examples, participation was respectively of 49 and 48%, and nobody even floated the possibility of questioning their legitimacy. So if the low turnout is going to be mentioned, it should only be because Venezuela is (rightly) held to a higher standard than the regional US allies.

We had the chance to witness the electoral process on the ground as a member of the international accompaniment mission (acompañante electoral), alongside the Venezuelanalysis team. Our observations pretty much mirrored what the results would later show. Popular and working-class neighbourhoods (barrios), such as Catia, El Valle or Petare, had a very decent turnout, starting from the early morning hours. By contrast, voting centres in middle- and upper-class neighbourhoods such as El Paraiso and Chacao, traditional opposition strongholds, had very few people.

Read more:

https://www.investigaction.net/en/venezuelan-elections-chavismo-still-in...

 

Reality Check on Venezuela: Debunking John Oliver's Shoddy Show on Washington's Number One Enemy in Latin America

 

Read from top.

Read above, then cruise below:

Try this thought experiment: imagine moving abroad as a comedy journalist, where much of your reporting amounts to mockery of the host country. Imagine, too, that residents of that country find your ridicule so funny that they reward you with a television program, where you are free to pontificate on all of their social and political ills. Broadcast to millions of viewers, this soon makes you a fixture of public life (and by extension, quite wealthy).

Does such a scenario seem a little ridiculous and outlandish? What nation in its right mind would behave this way? Yet that’s precisely what America has allowed with British comedian/journalist John Oliver, host of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight.”

In one sense, Oliver’s popularity is a reflection of American humility and our capacity for introspection. Perhaps because of the still-palpable influence of Christianity—with its robust conception of sin, personal responsibility, and pricked consciences—we remain capable of enduring reminders about our errors and flaws. Though pilloried the world over for our pride and arrogance, from manifest destiny to military interventionism, we Americans routinely agree to having our neighbors extract the splinters (and sometimes even logs) from our own eyes.

 

Read more:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/time-to-dump-john-oliver...

 

John Oliver is funny most of the times and has been a stalwart in exposing US corruption of the system, but he has fallen slowly into the trap of loosing his grip on reality... His piece on Venezuela was atrocious and as bad as a militarised invaion of the place. Get a grip, Oliver. The people who feed you shit have managed to kill your brains...

 

“The Venezuelan President will not set foot on our soil or enter the air space of Peru”. This is what the President of Peru, correction, former President of Peru, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, declared just a little while ago. Trapped in a scheme of international corruption which binds him to the now famous “Odebrecht Case”, Kuczynski will not attend the Summit of the Americas scheduled to take place in Peru mid-April. For Julio Yao, the Panaman and Diplomatic Analyst, the resignation of the Peruvian President, which occurred only a few hours ago, is endangering the manoeuvre plotted around the so-called Lima Group against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, whose President, Nicolas Maduro, playfully asked this Thursday, in a televised appearance: “Who then is going to receive me in Lima?”

 

VOLTAIRE NETWORK | PANAMA (PANAMA) | 7 JULY 2018 

With the Peruvian President, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (PPK), leaving office, a massive void of legitimacy is created in the so-called Lima Group. This Group was created to ensure that Venezuela’s right to self-determination was not realized. This is part of the war that the United States is waging to destroy sovereignty, a war which sees every possible measure being harnessed.

The Lima Group is made up of at least half the countries that are members of the Organization for American States (OAS). However, the resignation of Peru’s President, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, charged with corruption, shakes the foundations of the VIII Summit of the Americas (to be held on 13 and 14 April 2018), which now are crumbling like a sandcastle. Somewhat paradoxically, the theme of the Summit was, “democratic governance and corruption”. Its host was the Peruvian leader.

If the United States was claiming to use the Eighth Summit of the Americas to increase its resource base for going into Venezuela (the US banned the Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from entering the Summit), then the hegemon experienced a double failure. PPK is absent both from the Presidency of Peru and the VIII Summit. This lays bare the democratic fragility and moral and political orphancy of several of its dining partners (Peru, Mexico, Honduras, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Panama, just to mention some), which have stood out for similar or greater corruption than that which buried Kuczynski and can be qualified as Failed States, according to US South Command’s latest dictionary of the.

From the time it was formed, pursuing unlawful objectives, the Lima Group violated the OAS Charter and International Public law- which enshrines the duty not to intervene, not to threaten and not to attack. The Lima Group was expressly formed from the declared, public intentions of the United States to invade Venezuela by the use of force. For this reason its members are clearly complicit with its aggression.

Colombia is the US’s pet in Latin America. It has already received from Washington fabulous sums to rent out its territory to destabilize, attack and to serve as a launching pad for the invasion against Venezuela. Will Colombia be able to say no to the US?

The Declaration that created the Lima Group, in August 2017, loses its raison d’etre on account of the binding report of the independent investigator of the UN Human Rights Council, the US jurist and historian, Alfred-Maurice de Zayas. He was removed from sight and cursed by Western media scaffolding for declaring that “there is no humanitarian crisis” which could justify a “humanitarian intervention” (read armed intervention”) [1].

According to Zayas, a Harvard graduate, yes, Venezuela is suffering from “lack of supplies and shortages, naturally occasioned by economic and trade war”. This is the product of a violent opposition against its people, propped up from abroad, and not internal oppression [2].

Apart from an artificial “humanitarian crisis”, the United States has recently applied “sanctions” (a clear misnomer), both on high officials and the state of Venezuela. But such “sanctions” are in actual fact restrictive and coercive measures that constitute crimes injurious to humanity (embargoes, financial sieges, economic and trade asphyxiation, boycotting the Petro [3]) and are substitute measures or complementary to the illegitimate use of force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

The United States, speaking through its President Trump, has threatened Venezuela with an imminent armed invasion [4] if it does not submit to US orders. Submission implies Venezuela gifting US transnational corporations its resources and riches. But these “sanctions”, which do not deny the Venezuelan people its right to exist, can form the basis of claims before the International Criminal Court, regardless of the fact that this tribunal, with all due respect, has lost much of its marble(s).

Because there is no humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, it is impossible to apply the Democratic Charter of the OAS. This is the principal aim of the Lima Group. The serious stumbling block of the Eighth Summit of the Americas leaves the United States without the essential regional curtain (read complicity) that is required to destroy the Bolivarian Republic.

If the Lima Group does not represent the OAS which lacks a Security Council to authorize its actions; if the Lima Group does not represent the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) nor any other regional group; if the Lima Group cannot take action by itself to further its interest, in violation of the OAS’s Charter, without risking being expelled from this organization; if the Lima Group violates the UN Charter, then what is this group, who does it serve and what is the legal foundation of its action?

The Lima Group is a band of delinquent states – bandits and mercenaries. The Group is opposed to the Peace Zone declared in the region, which serves the US South Command. It lacks legality. Indeed this frustrated banquet of vultures, could be more appropriately, the funeral of forgotten national dignity.

Julio Yao Villalaz

Translation 
Anoosha Boralessa

 

Read more:

http://www.voltairenet.org/article201854.html

 

Read from top

 

 

Facebook has announced that it has withdrawn the English accounts from TeleSur, a pan-American television channel.

On August 7, 2018, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s director, personally coordinated with Apple, Google, Spotify and YouTube (but not Twitter) the deletion of Alex Jones and InfoWars accounts for "conspiracy". He also wants to suppress "communist propaganda" (sic).

Created at the initiative of President Hugo Chávez, TeleSur was a public continuous news channel shared by Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela. However, in recent years, Argentina and Ecuador have pulled out.

In 2005, following the Axis for Peace Congress organized by Thierry Meyssan in Brussels, TeleSur, then headed by Aram Aharonian, envisioned a partnership with Al-Jazeera. But it was at this point that the Qatari chain changed its editorial line to become the spokesperson for the Muslim Brotherhood. Since then, an agreement has been concluded with Angola, Guinea Bissau and Mozambique for programs in Portuguese, and a program exchange is being conducted with the Lebanese channel Al-Mayadeen.

TeleSur also produces information in English that Mark Zuckerberg intends to eliminate from the web. It is indeed essential for the US command of Latin America (US SouthCom) to prevent the Venezuelan authorities from communicating their vision of the crisis which crosses their country to the American citizens [1].

During the attack on present-day Serbia in 1999, NATO bombed Yugoslav television. During the attack on Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush had planned to bomb Al-Jazeera in Qatar, but British Prime Minister Tony Blair had announced that he would take over the chain with the Muslim Brotherhood. During the Israeli attack on Lebanon in 2006, Western states banned the Hezbollah Al-Manar chain and the IDF bombed it. In 2011, NATO bombed the Libyan national channel.

Translation 
Roger Lagassé

 

Read more:

http://www.voltairenet.org/article202487.html

 

-------------------------------

 

Since then:

The English language page of the Latin American channel Telesur has reappeared on Facebook after two days. The social network offered a vague technical explanation for the move that sparked concerns of censorship worldwide.

"The team informs me that there was instability on the platform, which caused this problem, but now everything should be in order," Telesur quoted a support technician at Facebook as saying soon after the page was restored.

Telesur’s page had disappeared Monday evening, as Facebook sent a form letter informing the network it might have violated the platform’s terms of use – without specifying which ones and how.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/436057-telesur-restored-facebook-block/

 

Read from top.

 

The rightwing press is stiring the Jolly Roger flag... Ignoring the savage pirates on the Potomac river who calls themselves congressmen, congresspersons and congresswomen, the putrid rightwing press — with the smelly liberal/left press of the Empire, that together hate socialism more than dog turds on the pavement— is warning about the spirit of Chavez flying high in the masts of the Venezuelan coast-guards...

 

Vessels sailing in the vicinity of Trinidad and Tobago are now under threat of being the victims of piracy for the first since the 1700s. According to a report from the Washington Post, in the wake of Venezuela’s economic and societal collapse, criminals desperate to earn a living have taken up the centuries-old crime and are attacking yachts and fishing vessels along the coast of South America.

Jeremy McDermott of Insight Crime, a nonprofit that studies organized crime in the region told the Washington Post that “It’s criminal chaos, a free-for-all, along the Venezuelan coast.”

Although there hasn’t been much research into piracy in the Caribbean, one study from the nonprofit group Oceans Beyond Piracy found that pirate attacks in the region rose by 163 percent between 2016 and 2017. Some experts fear that pirate activity and other crimes in the Caribbean Sea will increase as conditions in the socialist country continue to deteriorate.

“This reminds me of how the problems started off the coast of eastern Africa said Roodal Moonilal, a politician from Trinidad and Tobago while speaking to the Washington Post. “What we’re seeing – the piracy, the smuggling – it’s the result of Venezuela’s political and economic collapse.”

 

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2018/08/13/venezuelan-pirates-spread-fear/?

Don't bother, the Daily Caller is an ultra-neoconservative rag that will do anything to sabotage Venezuela's independence from the obnoxious pirates of the Potomac sewer.

 

Read from top.

The BBC is running a damn the Venezuelan government for an economy collapse when US sanctions are responsible for the trouble with "prices hitting the roof"... For example this image of banknotes and a toilet roll with the caption: "Last Thursday, a toilet roll cost 2,600,000 bolivars."

 

Obviously, one would have better use of the bank notes and not buy a toilet roll. With the banknotes you could do far more wiping of your butt than with a toilet roll. Easy. Save on having to pay the "middleman" who is in the pocket of the US administration:

inflation

 

Read from top.

 

One solution for this problem is to make banknotes with the face value of 1,000,000,000 and 10,000,000,000 and the big one at 1,000,000,000,000... Easy. Or import toilet rolls from Russia. The Russian paper is stronger than the flimsy US toilet rolls for whimps.

An earthquake in Venezuela saw a pro-Western opposition leader, invited by the BBC to criticize the country’s socialist government over inflation, swapped at the last minute. Ironically, his replacement blamed US sanctions.

The act of divine providence occurred after the start of Tuesday night’s Newsnight program, where a report on the introduction of a new currency by Nicolas Maduro’s government was earlier billed with being followed by an interview with a pro-West “senior Venezuelan opposition leader.”

However, the interview was scuppered at the last minute, with presenter Evan Davis explaining that only minutes before, an earthquake had struck the South American nation causing the guest to flee the studio in Caracas.

READ MORE: Iran, Venezuela & Turkey reveal gold’s true value when paper money becomes worthless – analyst to RT

Enter journalist and activist Gregory Wilpert, who instead of giving an anti-government tirade, pointed to the crippling effect US-imposed sanctions had on the country.

For Wilpert, while President Maduro did not move quickly enough to institute “a new economic policy in a timely manner,” the “very harsh” financial sanctions imposed by the US government made it impossible to refinance its debt.

“You could arguably say that this was the straw that broke the camel’s back that led to hyperinflation,” Wilpert concluded before Evans wrapped up the interview.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/436599-venezuela-us-sanctions-guest-bbc/

 

 

Meanwhile on the ubiquitous "toilet paper" (read comment above) front:

 

Hawaii residents flocked to stores to stock up on bottled water, canned food, toilet paper and other supplies this week as Hurricane Lane, which is currently classified as a dangerous Category 4 hurricane, is expected to hit the Big Island in the central Pacific with tropical storm winds around 160 miles per hour as early as Wednesday night.

According to the National Weather Service (NWS), the Central Pacific cyclone is a threat to the entire island; a hurricane warning was extended Wednesday to the island of Maui. A hurricane watch is still in effect for Oahu and other smaller islands.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/environment/201808221067399180-hawaii-braces-its...

 

Note: Gus is a fierce atheist... The present debate between "god and science" in Australia brings back a great number of furphies about the great ape (god is a male) in the sky...

 

 

... not initially announced a date, the Venezuelan president finally said that this measure would be effective September 1.

While the new minimum wage is expected to be 34 times the minimum monthly wage in force today, the head of state said the government would make up the wage difference "in small and medium-sized industry" for 90 days, thereby committing to help small and medium-sized enterprises experiencing difficulties in paying the new minimum wage to their employees.

This policy for the poorest is also reflected in the area of ​​taxation. If the government announced that the value added tax (IVA) would increase by 4%, its standard rate from 12% to 16%, this increase will not affect the essential consumer goods that have a direct impact on the household consumption basket.

Adjustment of prices of goods and services

...

Behind the numbers, the economic question is a particular issue in Venezuela. Indeed, several analyzes oppose to explain the causes and the implications, the French media usually refrain from relaying that of the government.

The Venezuelan president, commenting on the inflation rate that reached 82,700% in July 2018, said: "They dollarized prices, I oil wages," implicitly referring to the economic war that Venezuela regularly accuses the United States to deliver him.

For its part, Venezuelan economist Pascualina Curcio explains the phenomenon of inflation among other things by "manipulation of exchange rates". Professor of Economics at Simon Bolivar University, Pascualina Curcio says, in a column of the sociologist Romain Migus on speculation and rising prices in Venezuela: "The manipulation of the exchange rate is the most powerful weapons of the economic war. "To this is added the impact of the black market of the national currency on its course, but also the dramatic consequences of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by some Western countries, including France, which regularly denounce the authoritarian drift "of Nicolas Maduro.

 

Read more:

https://francais.rt.com/international/53482-ils-ont-dollarise-prix-je-pe...