Caracas Chronicles

• Maduro announced the appointment of  Nahum Fernández as chief of government for the Capitol District. That’s how he fired Jacqueline Faría, who has held the office for five months. Faría proposed to Maduro’s AN incorporating the Chacao, El Hatillo, Baruta and Sucre municipalities to the Metropolitan Area under her jurisdiction. Miranda governor, Héctor Rodríguez, rejected Faría’s offer and said that the region had to remain geographically and politically united. Rodríguez said that violence had decreased, but neighbors of  El Paraíso can’t say the same: last night there was a shootout for over two hours,  at La Cota 905. Journalist Roman Camacho said that four PNB officers were ambushed by the gangs controlled by El Coqui, Garbis and Vampi, and there was a clash between rival gangs. 
• Sudeban forbade banks issuing credits in foreign currency and warned that they have to be authorized by the superintendency and by the BCV to offer and promote their products and services. Maduro’s regime is forcing banks to work using bolivars. 
• Maduro’s AN approved the change of the internal debate rules and created a permanent commission for developing communes, second vice presidencies for 15 commissions and the merger of the Interior and Penitentiary Services commissions.
• José Gregorio Correa proposed a permanent commission for health and chavismo rejected the proposal. 
• Maduro’s Education minister, Aristóbulo Istúriz, announced that there will be an investigation about the fire in the ministry’s office. He called the fire a “strange event”.
• UN Secretary General António Guterres denounced the lack of solidarity regarding COVID-19 vaccines and the inequality that the pandemic caused. He demanded urgent actions for these problems. 
• A Zulian court didn’t allow the measure of revision and release of five Azul Positivo workers. 
• A group of Venezuelan immigrants in Buenos Aires, Argentina, marched to the Justice Palace to demand justice in the case of an 18-year-old Venezuelan migrant who was raped on Saturday. The victim’s mother, Thays Campos, asked the authorities for justice. The rapist, Irineo Humberto Garzón Martínez, is awaiting a sentence out of prison. 
• The Venezuelan Observatory of Finance 41.7% in the last quarter of  2020, compared to the same period in 2019. The sectors that were most affected were the financial sector, with a 60% drop, the public sector, 42%, and the oil sector, 41%, said Alfonso Marquina, deputy of the 2015 AN. Marquina said that the Venezuelan economy contracted by 90% since Maduro Maduro took office in 2013.
• Amnesty International assured that the deployment of military on the Peru – Ecuador border jeopardizes the human rights of migrants and refugees and demanded both governments to limit the use of armed forces for migration control. 
• The Ecuadorian Defense minister Oswaldo Jarrín said that he’d reinforce military deployment and will add around 20 tactical vehicles to broaden the mobility of patrol on the Peruvian border, for surveillance and the decrease of flow of migrants using illegal pathways. 
• Julio Borges considers that this won’t stop the diaspora, on the other hand, militarizing borders will strengthen groups who exploit migrants and transnational crime. Borges sent a letter to the Peruvian Foreign Ministry asking for protection for Venezuela migrants. 
• Caricom expressed “concern for the escalation of tensions” between Guyana and Venezuela and the bloc exhorted chavismo to respect Guyana’s sovereignty. 
• EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell ruled out negotiations between the government and the opposition anytime soon since everyone is waiting for more clarity on the position of the Biden administration. 

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TV host Winston Vallenilla said at Maduro’s AN that streaming platforms “promote anti-values to destroy families, society and to colonize countries.”