Venezuela

CARACAS, June 27. /TASS/: Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido has refuted accusations of trying to stage a coup voiced earlier by Minister of Communications and Information Jorge Rodriguez.

"Journalists have alreadt lost count of how many times such accusations were put forward. Our call which we have made and will continue to make is directed toward the military as they need to take the side of the constitution," Guaido told AFP.

22 June 2019; DW: At the end of a three-day visit to Venezuela, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said she had appointed two delegates to stay behind to advise the government and monitor abuses.

Her trip, at the invitation of embattled President Nicolas Maduro, came amid a deepening crisis that has caused crippling food and medicine shortages across the country. Rights groups say hundreds of political opponents have been jailed, while millions of people have fled abroad.

CARACAS, June 19. /TASS/: Venezuela has received 25 tons of humanitarian aid from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Tuesday, Healthcare Minister Carlos Alvarado told Venezolana de Television.

"Together with this batch, the volume of the aid provided by the ICRC stands at 48 tons. Together with medicines and surgical materials delivered from Russia and China, the volume of humanitarian aid stands at 569 tonnes," Alvarado said. "This helps us overcome the blockade imposed by the US," he added.

CARACAS, June 18. /TASS/: International payment systems Visa and Mastercard will operate on the territory of Venezuela until 20 March 2020, President of the Bank of Venezuela Jose Javier Morales said on Monday.

"The license issued by the US Department of the Treasury for Visa and Mastercard to work in Venezuela, expires on 20 March 2020. We don't know what will happen after that," Morales said.

MARACAIBO, Venezuela (AP) — Wilfido Briñez considers himself lucky to live with the roar of electric generators outside his front door in Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second largest city and ground zero for the nation’s rolling blackouts.

While many of his neighbors sit in the dark waiting for the lights to come back on, the university professor charges his phone and grades students’ papers on his laptop. Food in his refrigerator stays cold and the air conditioner hums.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — In Venezuela, the financial hopes of Eliset González are riding on a niche trade.

Each day, González sits at a market kiosk in Caracas and repairs broken lightbulbs for people who can’t afford new ones in the crisis-torn nation.

“I feel that with this I help the community, because these lightbulbs are super expensive nowadays. I help myself as well,” said González, who learned how to disassemble and rewire a bulb while spending several years in prison for theft.

CARACAS, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela's rich natural sources, specifically mineral reserves, allow investors to recoup their investment, a Venezuelan minister said.

"If you make an investment, it is surely going to be recovered because we have minerals, gold, coltan, diamonds and with enough reserves to recover any investment," said Venezuelan Minister of Ecological Mining Development Victor Cano in an interview with Xinhua.

8 June 2019; DW: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced the decision to open the border post with Colombia, near where international aid refused by his government has been accumulating. 

"In exercising our sovereignty I have ordered the opening of the border crossing to Colombia in the state of Tachira on Saturday," Maduro wrote on Twitter.

"We are a peaceful people, who determinedly defend our independence and self-determination," he continued.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan leader Juan Guaidó said Friday that the opposition’s demand for presidential elections is not negotiable, slowing mediation efforts by Norway aimed at resolving Venezuela’s political crisis.

“A new meeting isn’t planned at the moment, we can get what we’ve proposed on the agenda” Guaidó said at an event in the central city of Valencia, dismissing earlier comments from Russia’s foreign ministry that a third round of exploratory talks with representatives of Nicolás Maduro would take place next week.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The feared street gangster El Negrito sleeps with a pistol under his pillow and says he’s lost track of his murder count. But despite his hardened demeanor, he’s quick to gripe about how Venezuela’s failing economy is cutting into his profits.

Firing a gun has become a luxury. Bullets are expensive at $1 each. And with less cash circulating on the street, he says robberies just don’t pay like they used to.

For the 24-year-old, that has all given way to a simple fact: Even for Venezuelan criminals it’s become harder to get by.