Caracas Chronicles

Want a peek at the future of how the government wants to control your financial life? Talk to your grandma, who’s now receiving her pension in phantasmagoric petros, with no obvious way to turn them back into bolivars.

Photo: Noticias Barquisimeto retrieved  Kim Yong-nam, president of the North Korean Supreme Popular Assembly (SPA) visited Caracas a couple weeks ago, as part of a...

Yes, having an income in dollars can go a long way. However, there are plenty of other factors at play in order to make it to the end of the month in this economy. Earning dollars, on its own, just won’t cut it anymore.

116 years ago this week, European gunboats blockaded La Guaira and Puerto Cabello, and the Monroe Doctrine was the only thing separating Venezuela from recolonization.

4,900 posts are up for election across Venezuela today. Well, “election.” Amid never-before-seen levels of voter disengagement, municipal council candidates struggle to get noticed. Hyperinflation, violence and the CNE killed the mood.

It's the debate that won't go away: what is it about chavismo that so thoroughly wrecked Venezuela? Is it Marxism? Crime? Incompetence? It's none of those. It's the populism

From the Cordonazo de San Francisco to Leopoldo López’s arrest, a stroll through the images that defined the second decade of revolution.

What was the first decade of chavismo like? Photographers know.

In 1998, Venezuela had no history of mass migration to speak of. Since then, we’ve witnessed three heaves of outflows: the latest one mass-based. How a peaceful country ended up shedding more migrants than Afghanistan.

The company that produces nearly all of Venezuela’s export earnings looks like a store the day after it’s been looted. How chavismo took an oil giant from world class to bankrupt-in-all-but-name in just two decades.

The first and most iconic of Chávez’ misiones, promised to create a world-class primary care network, not only failed at its immediate objective, it also syphoned billions from hospitals, mortally wounding them.

“I’m going to erase adecos from the face of the earth, I’m going to fry their heads in oil.” Everyone knows Chávez made that threat back in 1998. Except he didn't. A look at TWENTY years of fake news.

Venezuela had always been violent, but crime soared beginning in 1999. Waking up, late, to this reality, the government tried to fight crime with limitless violence. Two decades on, we’re the third most violent country on earth, and the second most murderous.

The story of the Chávez era is the story of dramatic events that changed the course of history again and again. From the 2002 Oil Strike to ¡Exprópiese! to the Death of Hugo Chávez, here are the twenty turning points that drove the Chávez era.

The plague is not made on a human scale, and so men always say that the plague is unreal, a bad dream that must pass. But it doesn’t always pass, and from one bad dream to the next, it’s the men who pass.

Venezuela will receive 9 million dollars from the UN’s CERF. Nicolás denies there’s a crisis, but the UN isn’t blind. Might have taken them a long time and that amount will only go a little way considering how many people are suffering, but hey, hungry Venezuelans will get some relief.

The basic infrastructure of State telecom company Cantv is in shambles as Reuters recently found out and of course, ordinary Venezuelans are the ones paying the price. Hugo Chávez’s home state of Barinas, knows first hand about the consequences of corruption, theft and disrepair caused by the revolution.

Pérez Jiménez, our last right-wing dictator, also disregarded the will of the people and the law of the land. He created that era’s Tibisay & Co., willing to rob Jóvito Villalba (and the nation) of his victory.

Machiques de Perijá is one of the most fertile areas in the country. Their plague? Livestock trafficking, smuggling, robberies and cold blooded murder in the hands of gangs acting like they’re in charge because, well, they are and nobody can stop them.

If you saw the University of Carabobo’s election two weeks ago as solid proof of the power of voting against deeply authoritarian regimes, the TSJ has something to remind you.

In Colombia, babies must be born from Colombian citizens or residents to obtain Colombian citizenship. What happens to babies with Venezuelan moms who face so many obstacles to have access to a Venezuelan birth certificate or a passport? Venezuelan babies without citizenship may become “an invisible generation” before the law.

Cubans used to say that all they needed to survive in Cuba was a lot of “FE,” meaning not faith, but “Familia en el Extranjero.” Venezuelans walk that trail today and there are plenty of ways you can help them... with crypto.

As the world’s largest oil importer, one would think China would bet on keeping Venezuela up and running. Turns out that, either way, they’ll turn a profit.

Did Raúl Gorrín finance opposition political parties? It’s very likely. Because chavismo made it nearly impossible for politicians to raise money without getting mixed up with regime cronies.