Caracas Chronicles

It will take several generations of educated citizens to fix our country, but schools are forbidden to increase tuition fees, and still parents can’t afford private education anymore. Also, teachers leave the classrooms to make more money elsewhere, and students drop out because of the high cost of uniforms and school supplies.

Venezuelan senior citizens are subjected to humiliation and shortages. Some of them depend on their children abroad to survive. After a lifetime of being productive members of society, it takes a toll on their psyche. Maduro accuses them of supporting the Colombian mafia by reselling the cash from their hard earned pension, too.

More than 1,500 people entered The Economist’s Open Future essay contest and one of its four finalists in the Open Borders category was our very own Juan Carlos Gabaldón. Here’s his essay for you.

A group of Venezuelan citizens, including several former government officials, have been charged of laundering two billion dollars from PDVSA contracts in Andorra.

The Venezuelan diaspora has a vital role that isn’t often mentioned. Sending money, food or medicine, is only part of it. But our diaspora can help by offering moral support, advice, words of encouragement and a virtual shoulder to lean on, too.

Turns out there are several requirements in order for chavismo to crumble and there’s only one thing we’re missing. It has proved to be the hardest of them all.

The way Henrique Capriles Radonski is being accused of corruption, sans evidence or trial, is horrendous and reactionary, and we have a former caprilieber to tell us why.

Almost two years ago, the Dr. Pastor Oropeza Venezuelan Institute of Social Security in Barquisimeto stopped receiving Aldurazyme, the medicine used to treat Hurler Syndrome in children from Lara and Portuguesa states.

The most recent editorial in the New York Times about Venezuela, argues that Trump should just stay out of it. It’s a nice try but it falls flat because of the weak and naive arguments it presents. Hey, it’s the thought that counts!

AD is, to this day, one of the strongest Venezuelan political parties. It has overcome many obstacles over the last 77 years, but how much do we know about its founders and origins?

Broadcasting authority Conatel informed four journalists of website Armando.Info that they’re now legally gagged. They can’t say or report anything related to CLAP businessman Alex Saab.

Photojournalists are jailed, injured or robbed for committing what the government perceives to be the worst of crimes: truthfully reporting this country’s reality.

A raid in Caracas where eight people were killed has put the spotlight on the special police group FAES. Along accusations of using excessive force, it has started to expand operations

Ortega Díaz is nothing but a reformed criminal, now cooperating with the good guys. Her reward for working with the opposition should be a lesser prison sentence, not a successful political career.

It doesn’t matter if you come to Venezuela often, for business or pleasure, every time you return you’ll see how everything gets harder, even the most basic errands. It’s like an obstacle race you can never win.

Out of dollars, the government tries to entice Venezuelans to bring their own.

Humanitarian crisis and large-scale human rights violations are usually enabled by insufficient response from the international community. Venezuela is no exception. Those who once behaved as the silent accomplices of the Venezuelan regime, are now struggling to handle the massive influx of immigrants determined to escape the country’s crisis.

A big story in The New York Times tries to show American connivance in a dastardly plot… and it just shows the utter uselessness of Venezuela’s military leadership.

In July, an Anthropology and Archeology congress that took place in Barquisimeto, brought together 106 Venezuelan and 40 international attendees. How was this accomplished? How did international speakers feel as they faced the country’s collapse?

Farmers mining bitcoin, pranes using digital traces to kidnap people, hackers in shantytowns at the service of the secret police, chieftains paying for bots, biopolitical control and a presidential assassination attempt using drones. My country is a bad sci-fi movie.

Long lines are back. They never left entirely, but they did become a rare sight. After Maduro’s paquetazo, panicked citizens are buying everything they can. Food, medicine, gas and cash are scarce, but fear and anguish are not.

On the same day that chavismo said that Venezuela was the second South American country welcoming more immigrants, Human Rights Watch published a report preaching the hard truth about the horrid Venezuelan migrants crisis.

Henrique Capriles went from public idol to political orphan. His alleged shady relationship with Odebrecht has hurt what little was left of his dying leadership. Capriles stands alone, while a headless opposition cries for help amidst social and economic collapse.

Chavismo tries to pay lip service to highbrow art with a heavily politicized week-long Picasso event where, in fact, the 149 pieces displayed were anything but political. How political can a blocky coffee pot be?