Caracas Chronicles

Every morning, before I get out of bed, when my alarm goes off at 6:00 AM, I check my email for the news roundup from Venezuela.

I really should stop doing that. On mornings such as today’s, reading it gives me a knot in my stomach.

Here’s what I woke up to – what all Venezuelans woke up to – today:

• At 3:15 AM, the National Guard and the National Police attacked the student protest campgrounds in Baruta and Chacao. Many were detained.
• Warnings are raised about the quality of Caracas’ drinking water.
• Director of press freedom NGO Un Mundo Sin Mordaza is detained.
• Opposition radio show Plomo Parejo suspended from the air.
• Private school principals in Bolívar state are fired
• El Universal only has paper for a few more weeks.
• Failures in the Amuay Refinery stop gasoline plant.
• Maduro acknowledges 20% of Venezuela’s industries are not working.
• In 2014 there have been fewer dollars disbursed for imports than in the same period in 2013.
• Cheese industry about to go bankrupt due to a lack of packaging material.
• Venezuelan Chamber of Packaging (glass an aluminum for food) says the industry is paralized due to a lack of dollars.
• Steel industry has been on strike for fifteen days.
• $4 billion debt has airlines reconsidering leaving Venezuela altogether. They are contemplating international legal arbitration options.
• Government owes car assembly plants 2.8 billion.
• Electricity rationing in Zulia.
• Chacao businesses are geting their water from water trucks.
• Attempted mutiny in Los Teques leaves several wounded – prisoners and their relatives.

And that’s just a slow news day!

We’ll try and post more specifics on all of these topics. Try … because as soon as we catch up with the day’s events, a new day comes, bringing with it a fresh batch of badness. And so it goes…