Looks like the central government will have something to celebrate these days, as the Simon Bolivar biopic “Libertador” made the shortlist of nine films for the Best Film in a Foreign Language category in the upcoming 87th Academy Awards. It’s the first time ever for a Venezuelan film. But it still has to wait until…
Caracas has been hosting a music festival in the last few days, courtesy of the Mayor of western Caracas (Libertador Municipality) Jorge Rodríguez. The former CNE president/Vice-President/head of both Chavez & Maduro’s recent presidential campaigns has made this a pet project of his. Suena Caracas isn’t your traditional festival in the style of Woodstock or Glastonbury.…
Last Sunday was a dark day for Venezuelan football: there were violent clashes between the fans of Portuguesa F.C. and C.D. Lara inside and outside the José Antonio Páez Stadium in the city of Acarigua, leaving one person dead and fifty injured. The game was delayed for half an hour but was eventually completed. Lara won 4-0.…
If you want to know more about Venezuela’s economy, politics and history (and a little extra about Latin America), you should subscribe to the “Seis Por Derecho” videoblog. This is an initiative of Daniel Raguá (@danielragua), a good friend of ours, who happens to be a terrific young economist from Venezuela. Seis Por Derecho is…
I’m in Uganda just now, doing some nothing-to-do-with-Venezuela research. I suppose travelogues can be terribly tiresome, but who knows, maybe some of you are interested in reading what staying in a barrio in Kampala feels like to an east-side caraqueño. My little stab at it is here.
The dubious honor of having the slowest Internet in South America isn’t something to be proud of, but that has been the awful truth for quite some time. But why? What is making our Internet so slow that even Bolivia is beating us (even if just by a very narrow margin)? BBC Mundo’s Daniel Pardo…
A little photo essay from the Shoprite supermarket on Entebbe Road in downtown Kampala, Uganda, this morning. As a term of abuse, “africanización” is doubly noxious: at once luxuriating in its own casual racism and then, on top of that, just plain inaccurate. The facile lament that “vamos a terminar como Africa” serves only to signpost one’s ignorance…
Oh, Conviasa… Just when you had finally paid the debt with the Italian company that leases you a Boeing 767 for your Madrid and Buenos Aires routes, now you have another aircraft retained for lack of payment. Sigh. In this case, an Airbus A340 is being held in Bordeaux, France (where it was under maintenance)…
No explanation is needed to see how hard everyday life is for many Venezuelans. Reports like this, from Puerto La Cruz, pretty much say it all. People were waiting in line for powdered milk in a local supermarket (some had been in line for eleven hours, since 3 am) when a few people tried to skip the line,…
It’s been two weeks to the day since the central government decided to evict those living in the the infamous “Torre de David”. So far, only around 25% of the premises have been vacated. The question that many are asking is what to do with the former Centro Financiero Confinanzas. Officials want to refute the whole…
Last week, the passengers of state-owned Conviasa flight 3013 from Madrid to Caracas found themselves trapped into a nightmare: the flight was suspended, and no immediate back-up plan was in place. They got stuck in a hotel for several days, left mostly to their own devices (at least they had lodging and food). Prodavinci’s Daniel Fermin…
One week after a press report mentioned the possible sale of the high-rise slum “Torre de David” to the Chinese (and, consequently, the eviction of the 1,200 families that currently live there), the Minister of the Transformation of Caracas (yes, that’s a Ministry, given to the guy who lost the election for Caracas mayor) Ernesto Villegas…
Passengers using Caracas’s Maiquetía Airport will heceforth be charged an additional Bs.127 tax for the privilege of…breathing air. We. Shit. You. Not.
PDVSA is in a financial pickle, so lately they have been asking for loans all around the globe. From Russian and European oil companies to Halliburton (yes, that Halliburton), they have extended their hats in the hope of benefitting from the kindness of strangers, not only to keep paying their own bills but also the ones of…
Isolation has become the keyword in Venezuela: the heavy debt owed by the government to foreign companies, from airlines to credit card companies and any number of service providers are causing serious problems to both the country’s economy and its reputation. The telecom sector is no different, as national postal service Ipostel has put on hold all…
Caracas Chronicles 