Chavistas insist on making life really difficult for those of us who want to support dialogue. The Foreign Minister of Ecuador, Ricardo Patiño, said some seemingly innocuous things today that, beneath the surface, are deeply incendiary. As a member of the overseers of the “dialogue” “process” between the government and the opposition, he had this to say…
Ibsen Martínez is a Venezuelan playwright and essayist who needs no introductions. His latest OpEd for the New York Times links the Spear murders, telenovela productions, Teodoro Petkoff, and scarcity to paint a smorgasbord of the surreal reality of Venezuela’s TV industry. The money quote: This violence seems far away from the sleek air-conditioned studios where our telenovela…
The ongoing saga between international airlines and the Venezuelan government continues. Just when you thought airlines were going to get their money, the government is now suggesting they will only get paid in part, and at a much higher rate than previously thought. According to El Mundo, the government is playing hard ball as usual,…
On Thursday, March 27th, in Costa Rica, the girls from the Vinotinto U-17 made history. The faced Canada, a formidable foe, in the World Cup U-17 in the quarter finals. They won and got a shot at the semifinals. They lost, and ended in fourth place overall. Coach Kenneth Zseremeta scouted Venezuela with a fine tooth…
Memo to Maria Corina, Ledezma, and the rest of the Intransigents: who ever said that sitting down and talking with the government meant abandoning the streets? Can’t we do both things? The Israelis and the Palestinians have always sat down while their forces on the ground were doing their thing. It’s the way conflicts…
As more visible forms of pressure against the media are gaining in prominence, the newsprint shortage faced by most newspapers in Venezuela (which I coined Newsprint-geddon) is still on the march. On Sunday, El Universal announced that it would reduce its printed edition from Mondays to Saturdays, starting April 15th. Weeks ago, Barquisimeto’s El Impulso said that…
Right now, the current debate in the opposition seems to be on whether protests are convenient or not. I think we should focus more on the type of protest that we engage in. Democracy rests on a few basic principles, one of which is that people have a right to free assembly. Right now, free…
