Caracas Chronicles

• 23 out of 43 Venezuelan athletes who competed in Tokyo 2020 were received at the Simón Bolívar International Airport by their families, regime authorities, and the Venezuelan Symphonic Orchestra. 
  • The ministries of Sports and Communications censored private media outlets and said they didn’t have the credentials to cover the arrival. 
  • Maduro paraded the athletes from Miraflores, and decorated silver medalists Keydomar Vallenilla and Julio Mayora with the Francisco de Miranda Order and promised trainers, support for 2024, support for federations, and international advisors. 
  • He claimed the athletes’ victories as his own and assured that Venezuela’s best ever participation in the Olympics is because of his government. He said all the problems were because of the sanctions. 
• On Tuesday, there were partial electricity outages and floods in Caracas because of heavy rains. Metro stations, highways, and avenues flooded fast. Caracas didn’t need to be painted gray because it’s wrong to use resources to allegedly making the city more beautiful instead of using it for maintenance of the sewage system. 

#10Ago | La autopista Francisco Fajardo, en el tramo cercano al distribuidor Altamira, la avenida Libertador, así como otros sectores de Caracas, se anegaron luego de que se registraran intensas lluvias en horas de la tarde de este martes.

🎥: Cortesía pic.twitter.com/sdYEGur2ch

— El Carabobeño (@el_carabobeno) August 11, 2021

• Foreign minister Jorge Arreaza published a letter that he sent to EFE, complaining about the agency’s “information bias” against the regime. 
• Lara governor Adolfo Pereira denounced before the PSUV electoral commission the violent events on Sunday and said that the supporters of Ángel Prado and of current mayor Jean Ortiz were to blame. 

• The coalition of parties of the prêt-à-porter opposition reported that they weren’t invited to the dialogue and negotiation process that will take place in Mexico. In addition to saying they were “surprised,” they warned that they didn’t feel represented and demanded a transparent agenda. 

Dr. Julio Castro said that the lack of second doses of the Russian vaccine, Sputnik V, won’t be solved in the following months and estimated that around 600,000 Venezuelans are waiting to get it, so the authorities should make statements and explain to citizens what they should do. 

• • Castro assured that coronavirus will be around for one or two more years. He emphasized that the delta variant forces the country to reach a 90% vaccination rate to “cover the epidemic”. Castro highlighted that the figures of the delta variant infection rate are similar to the measles, “which is the highest infection rate we know.” 
• Médicos Unidos de Venezuela reported that during the week between July 26 and August 9, there were 8 deaths of health workers due to Covid-19, thus adding to a total of 722 people from the health sector during the pandemic.

Reporte #9Ago Se recibe información de 8 nuevos fallecimientos de personal de salud con criterios para Covid-19, para llegar a 722 fallecidos. Mientras voceros oficiales anuncian 3719 totales

Se reduce el número de fallecidos pero no debemos bajar la guardia.
Exigimos 2das dosis pic.twitter.com/d0oVNdZlZu

— Médicos Unidos Vzla (@MedicosUnidosVe) August 10, 2021

• Winder Rangel, 11 years old, died on Tuesday. He was a patient at the nephrology unit of the JM de Los Ríos Hospital. 
  • NGO Prepara Familia confirmed that 11 children and teenagers have died during 2021, even though they’ve been protected by a measure by the IACHR that the State hasn’t complied with. 

• The UN World Food Program reached 26,000 people in its first month of operations in the country. 
• Uruguay received Olympic athlete Eldric Sella, announced the OAS commissioner for the Venezuelan immigration crisis, David Smolansky: “We are thankful to the government of Uruguay for receiving him and to the UNHCR for interceding in the case,” he tweeted. Sella thanked Uruguay after the Trinidadian authorities forbade him from returning to Trinidad and Tobago after participating in the Tokyo Olympics. 
• After restoring MUD’s spot on the ballot and symbols, the authorities in charge, Ramón José Medina and José Luis Cartaya, issued a statement asking the opposition for a clear position on participating in the elections in November. They said that re-building the opposition’s unity is fundamental and can’t be postponed. They assume the elections and the negotiation as events that complement each other, so they propose a mechanism that would allow running in the elections with unitary candidates. 
• Costa Rica offered to host the negotiation process between Maduro’s regime and the opposition, said Foreign Minister Rodolfo Solano to representatives of the Assembly’s Delegate Commission who are on tour to promote the National Salvation Agreement. 
• President Joe Biden nominated Venezuelan lawyer Leopoldo Martínez as the U.S. executive director to the Interamerican Development Bank. 
• Commander of the U.S. Southern Command Admiral Craig Faller arrived in Trinidad and Tobago to strengthen cooperation in matters of security:  Saint Lucia confirmed it’s quitting the Lima Group. Foreign Minister Alva Baptiste said that the island is in a “diplomatic coma” and admitted that Hugo Chávez helped them during their financial crisis in 2011.