Caracas Chronicles

• Digital observatory ProBox exposed the cooperation between the regimes of  Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua to position Twitter trends, manipulating the conversation and spreading misinformation. During the presentation of their report “Twitterzuela 2021: propaganda and disinformation as state policy,” ProBox director Mariví Vásquez explained that the regime generated the highest amounts of socio-political trends, and more information than the rest of the actors combined. The Communications Ministry and its platforms positioned 440 trends and posted more than 186 million tweets, which represents 83.4% of all messages in 2021. At least 22 hashtags trended in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua at the same time. ProBox also identified how chavista networks affect conversations in other countries. 
• 19.7 million people lived in multidimensional poverty in Venezuela until March 2022, reported HUM Venezuela in a study analyzing the impact of the complex humanitarian emergency after the lockdown. Some more findings:

1. 13.1 million people have problems with transportation. 
2. 8.8 million go without cooking gas for months.  
3. 5.9 million suffered severe power outages.  
4. 3.8 million live in inadequate homes.
5. 94.5% of the population doesn’t have enough income to cover food and other goods and services like housing, transportation, health, education, and clothing.
6. 12.3 million are in food insecurity and 10.9 million endure chronic hunger and nutrition deficit for lack of food consumption. The structural causes of the emergency don’t allow us to expect significant changes in the medium-term. The World Bank said that we won’t be able to eradicate extreme poverty in 2030, the date the UN had established.

• Belkisyole Noya, director of the UCV Tropical Medicine Institute denounced that they don’t have equipment or financing to replace it after they’ve been robbed several times. She emphasized they need a budget for important graduate programs like parasitology. 
• A new oil spill was detected in Falcón, coming from a PDVSA underwater pipe, from the Paraguaná Refinery. Professor Eduardo Klein, who keeps tabs on oil spills through satellite images reported that this spill started on October 2nd and it’s the 18th spill in the region in the last two years. 
• Leaders of the university sector and public workers called for a protest on October 6th to demand payments of salaries and bonuses by the regime. 
• 39 countries, including 13 with voting rights in the UN HUman Rights Council, supported renewing the mandate of the Fact-Finding Mission investigating crimes against humanity in Venezuela for two more years. The vote will be held on Thursday or Friday. 
• Human Rights Watch expressed that countries that vote in choosing the next members of the UN Human Rights Council should refuse granting a seat to Venezuela because of its track record. 
• The hearing of Juan Pablo Pernalete’s case was postponed for the sixth time because of the absence of several of the people charged with the crime. His mother tweeted that impunity is the order and that they’re trying to exhaust and mock the pain endured by his parents. 
• Athletes Jennifer Cesar and Orluis Aular won gold medals for cycling in the South American Games Asunción 2022.

Juan Guaidó sent a letter to the assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols, requesting details on Chevron’s expanded license to operate in Venezuela. He asked to be consulted before the U.S. makes any decision. 

• After a meeting with President Gabriel Boric, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Chilean counterpart Antonia Urrejola and celebrated Boric’s criticism of human rights violations perpetrated by Nicolás and Daniel Ortega’s regimes. 
• OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, announced they’d be cutting down supply by 2 million bpd starting November, which represents 2% of the global demand. The U.S. considered it a mistake. 
• Russian authorities recognized there was an alarming situation in Svatove because of the advance of Ukrainian troops. The Kremlin said that Russia would recover the territory that was re-conquered by Kyiv in the annexed regions. The EU agreed on new sanctions against Russia, the eighth round of sanctions since the start of the invasion. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke before the OAS and asked the countries in the region to support sanctions against Putin’s regime.