Briefing

Police Brutality on Dr. Arrieta

Juan Guaidó led the event to honor dead healthcare workers; Ana Rosario Contreras, president of the Nurses’ Collegiate, criticized the attention centered around next December's “election”

Naky Soto
Will the arresting officers face prosecution?

Photo: Qué Pasa en Venezuela

  • On Thursday, traumatologist José Gregorio Herdez and psychiatrist Marlon Cabaña died of coronavirus. NGO Médicos Unidos de Venezuela reported that, counting the seven most recent deaths, a total of 150 healthcare workers have died.
  • AN Speaker and caretaker President Juan Guaidó led an event to honor these workers at the Venezuelan Medical Federation headquarters. He thanked them for their hard work and asked citizens to battle the dictatorship like these people fight COVID-19. 
  • The president of the Venezuelan Medical Federation, Douglas León Natera, assured that patients are dying in their homes for fear of going to hospitals. He estimates that because of this under-reporting, the real death toll could be a lot higher than the one we have. 
  • The president of Caracas’ Nurses Collegiate Ana Rosario Contreras, questioned that the attention is on the “elections” in December and said that they should be buying “vents, protective gear and not electoral machines”. 
  • Delcy Rodríguez reported tonight on Twitter that there were 1,072 new cases of coronavirus yesterday, for a total of 57.823 cases they’ve admitted to. She also reported 9 deaths, for a total of 461
  • Nicolás decided to respond to the coronavirus status and study presented by the Academy of Sciences yesterday. He didn’t talk about under-reporting, or the low amount of PCR tests and that the virus is in its expansive phase, according to the experts. Nicolás trusts that playing with the quarantine and flexibilization every week he’ll be able to “flatten the curve between September and October,” the same curve that he said was under control a few months back. The reality points to the opposite situation. He took the opportunity to blame the U.S. for complicating the process to buy medicine, he said that he has bought “Remdesivir for every case” and that they give it out for free. This clashes with reality, because every day, hundreds of Venezuelans ask on social media for donations of this medicine. Main pharmacies have it and sell it. He assured that Venezuela is capable of producing the vaccine that Russia or China discover. Yes, this oil country that doesn’t produce oil and that only has three labs analyzing tests. He thinks that his figures show a better handling of the pandemic than Colombia and other places in the region, even though we know they’re not showing the exact numbers. 
  • Henrique Capriles reiterated on Thursday that we must fight to obtain electoral conditions and not give away the National Assembly to Nicolás. He reiterated that the caretaker government’s plan has run out. Even though he assumes that breaking inertia has been a hit, he wasn’t able to say what he’ll do after January, 5th, 2021. The summary of his offer is: if we vote, we have the right to denounce abuse. He put a lot of responsibility on the role that an observation delegation from the EU could have, even though he said that this delegation wouldn’t have time to come. Stalin González said this faction of the opposition led by Capriles, could boycott the elections: “We must fight until we achieve free elections (…) We can’t rule out the vote as a tool in this battle.” He added that he and Capriles have talked to everyone who’s willing to collaborate in the process, including Chinese, American and Russian officers. 
  • Dr. Williams Arrieta had a blunt force trauma to the head, fractured ribs and other injuries after PNB officers beat him for peacefully protesting against corruption in the way they were supplying gas in Puerto Ordaz, Bolivar state. He was also beaten in his cell after he was arrested. One day later, Arrieta got his freedom in his first hearing at court. He’s innocent, he never should have been arrested and the PNB violates human rights when officers hit people they arrest. The Public Ministry, because of the nationwide scandal and the notoriety of the case, requested arrests for some of the officers involved. If they’ll do it or not is a different topic, but we still have to demand it. 
  • There was a new oil spill in the Falcón coast, a leak in an oil pipe that’s part of Cardón refinery. The new environmental disaster started affecting Arajó and Maraguay inhabitants on September, 5th. Professor Eduardo Klein was able to confirm with a satellite image, that the stain is around 13 km² wide in the Río Seco sea. 
  • Nicolás’s Foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, who prayed for humanitarian measures for Colombian citizen Alex Saab, mocked on Thursday “the victimization by the media of the pardoned,” offended because the press has presented them as “suffering, persecuted saints.” Before that, he deleted a tweet dedicated to the Chilean Foreign Minister where he blames deputy Freddy Guevara for the deaths in 2017 protests.
  • Rodolfo Marco Torres, Aragua governor, reported that nobody died when the El Limón River overflowed, but stores and homes suffered damages, affecting at least 250 families. Néstor Reverol reported that they delivered 26 tonnes of supplies to the affected families. 
  • Luis Pacheco, who was the president of PDVSA’s ad hoc board, resigned on Thursday. He led the board for 18 months and his role was crucial in defending the country’s assets. 
  • Nicolás’s regime keeps the commitment to pay its debt with Spanish oil company Repsol. El Confidencial said that they’re delivering oil in ships, as trade off. In July, PDVSA made its largest delivery in over five years, the only oil activity that Spain maintains with Venezuela. 
  • Iván Freites, from the Oil Workers Union, assured that the problem with the gas supply won’t be solved anytime soon, because production at refineries “is very unstable and there’s practically no imports.” He said it’s unlikely that more tankers with gas will arrive, and said that “what’s happening with PDVSA is a collapse” and estimated that gas production could resume by the last week of September. Reuters insists on the information provided by Trader Tankers and that Iranian tankers already passed Africa via the Atlantic, that they turned their transmitters on and that they should arrive to Venezuela by the end of the month. 
  • New information about Delcygate! The CEPS Foundation (from Spanish political party Podemos) regularly took money from Nicolás’s regime and one of the key people in the payments was Delcy Rodríguez, because she was in charge of directly assigning one third of around 30 contracts that chavismo gave them and was also in charge of approving the payments to the foundation in the different positions she held between 2006 and 2014. The total figure (what they can prove for now) received by the foundation is 1,856,850 euros, as shown on the documents that OkDiario has.
Briefing

Naky Soto

Naky gets called Naibet at home and at the bank. She coordinates training programs for an NGO. She collects moments and turns them into words. She has more stories than freckles.

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