Caracas Chronicles

• Economist Omar Zambrano, director of Think Anova, presented an investigation titled “Remittances, poverty and income distribution in Venezuela.” They found that only 24.3% of Venezuelan homes (2.1 million) receive remittances, for an average of $65.8 per month but it’s a broad range: poorer homes receive an average of $26 and wealthier homes receive almost $130 per month, and with time remittances have impacted Venezuelans’ socio-economic conditions, so the poverty rate for homes that receive them is 22.6 points below homes that don’t.
  • Think Anova foresees that “the flow of remittances will become one of the largest external financial sources of the impoverished Venezuelan economy,” because they already are an important component of families’ income and well-being. The OAS reiterated that the 6 million people who migrated represent the second largest migration crisis in the world.
• Freddy Bernal, governor of Táchira, reported he held a meeting with five Colombian businessmen who want to invest in the state that spends up to 14 hours without power.
• FANB Commander Domingo Hernández tweeted that they destroyed “clandestine runways” in Apure, as part as the fight against drug trafficking.

Armando.Info published a piece on the new Supreme Tribunal of Justice: out of 259 pre-candidates, 147 are members of PSUV, 42 have had contracts with the State and 30 out of 32 current justices are seeking reelection, violating the law establishing that there’s a 12-year cap on their service in the branch.

• There were over 11,000 reports of electricity failures during the first 15 days of March. On average, there were 733 per day. Zulia and the Andean states are the most affected.
• After the 2019 blackout, the National Hospital Survey started monitoring the amount of deaths that could be attributed to the electricity problem. In 2019, 17 patients died, 75 patients died in 2020 and 141 died in 2021.
• Members of the criminal gang led by El Koki in La Cota 905 recruited children and teenagers, according to an investigation titled “Enslaving to commit crimes,” published by CECODAP.
• Fundaredes reported that there were at least 317 clashes in Amazonas, Apure, Bolívar, Falcón, Táchira and Zulia in 2021 and 439 people were killed.
• Matthew Heath, former American marine who’s been in prison since September 2020, decided not to go to his trial because it isn’t possible to get justice in the courts controlled by Maduro’s regime.
• “Futuro” is the name of the new political party founded by prêt-à-porter opposition politician Henri Falcón. He said his party was “unequivocally opposition” from his official launch press conference at state-owned Alba Caracas Hotel.
• Former political prisoner and former San Cristóbal mayor Daniel Ceballos announced that he’s joining the faction of Voluntad Popular (VP) that the TSJ controls. VP posted messages calling Ceballos a traitor. “From being a victim of the dictatorship to an accomplice of perpetrators of crimes against humanity,” tweeted VP.
• Members of the opposition delegation confirmed to Efecto Cocuyo that the negotiation is “in the ICU” after the “re-formatting” process that chavismo did by including other members in its delegation. Norwegian representatives flew to Venezuela last week, and according to Nicolás’s National Assembly deputy Francisco Torrealba, they reached out to chavismo.

Economist Asdrúbal Oliveros warned that the tax on large transactions (IGTF) can halt economic growth and warned about the dangers it represents when the country is barely over hyperinflation.

• In Istanbul, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said the negotiations haven’t made any progress. Russia said that they’re regrouping their military forces in northern Ukraine. Ukraine denounced that Russian troops are using nuclear facilities as bases and command centers because they know they can’t be bombed. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights warned that “bombings and indiscriminate attacks by Russia (…) could qualify as war crimes.” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked the Norwegian Parliament that European countries block the access of Russian ships to their ports. China confirmed its strong relation with Russia after a meeting between their foreign ministers.
• There are over 4 million Ukrainian refugees. Over 2.3 million are in Poland, according to the UN.
• The Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office, 145 children have died and 222 have been injured.
• Hubble telescope detected the farthest star ever observed. They named it Eärendel in honor of J.R.R. Tolkien and it’s 12.9 billion light years away.