Diesel for Cuba, Darkness at Home
- While PDVSA is sending a vessel with 190,000 barrels of diesel to Cuba (as reported by Reuters), the agricultural sector is begging for a better fuel distribution system. There has been a significant fuel shortage in Cuba since December, when Venezuela made a significant cut in its dispatches to the island.
- On Tuesday, April 19th, the 212th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Nicolás Maduro gathered with his ministers to celebrate what they say are similarities between “their causes” and the historical events of 1810. Maduro celebrated the 9th anniversary of the first time he was sworn in, but it’s not as relevant as the first anniversary of the agreement with the World Food Programme (WFP) establishing their presence in the country, irrefutable evidence of the complex humanitarian emergency that chavismo denied for so long. The WFP is providing aid to vulnerable people with a program of food for schools for over 12,000 people in states like Falcón, Barinas, Trujillo, and Yaracuy. In addition, preparations are being made to incorporate Anzoátegui, Monagas, Delta Amacuro, and Sucre.
- SENIAT will sell fiscal equipment that stores can buy to implement the tax on large financial transactions (IGTF), which will calculate transactions in dollars.
- FANB officers neutralized two planes allegedly tied to a drug trafficking group from Colombia, according to Commander Domingo Hernández Lárez: “We’ve done five of these in April in our fight against drug trafficking,” he tweeted.
- According to the Inter-American Press Association, in the last six months, Venezuela underwent raids, threats and persecution of journalists who were investigating cases of corruption. They also registered the arbitrary and discretionary blocking of news outlets like El Nacional, La Patilla, and Efecto Cocuyo.
- On Monday, the Prosecutor’s Office posted a video in which 72-year-old Olga Mata issued an apology for her video, making jokes about public officers and different kinds of arepa stuffing. They charged her under the Anti-Hate Law. The government’s answer to Mata’s joke was som scandalous and abusive that it got coverage in foreign outlets like The Washington Post.
The UN Platform for Inter-Agency Cooperation (R4V) confirmed that there are over 6.1 million Venezuelan migrants.
- Amnesty International sent a letter to Argentinean president Alberto Fernández contradicting his statement, he had said that Venezuela’s problems have been dissipating. Amnesty International emphasized that there are still systemic violations of human rights, a complex humanitarian emergency, and no access to social or economic rights and that the repression policy continues, which is why, if he wants to support a democratic way out of the crisis, Fernández has to be able to structure a responsible diagnosis.
- CICPC director Douglas Rico reported that Crisbelis Sarmiento, a young woman who went missing on April, 9th in Puerto La Cruz (Anzoátegui), was murdered for refusing to have sex with Jesús Alcalá Romero, who has been arrested already.
- SENIAT might be selling machines to charge the tax, but doubts about how to apply the IGTF persist, according to the president of the National Hotel Federation, Alberto Vieira. Unlike Delcy Rodríguez’s quick assessment, Vieira said that they don’t have the exact figures for hotel occupancy during Easter break, even though the sector has reported a small recovery in 2022.
Venezuelan officials and politicians asked for a referendum to approve or reject the new historical symbols of Caracas, which were imposed by chavismo.
- The Spanish Audiencia Nacional authorized Colombian Supreme Court Justice Cristina Lombana to interrogate former chief of intelligence Hugo “el Pollo” Carvajal, who’s been tied to the alleged financing of Gustavo Petro. Carvajal confessed that the regime has “illegally financed leftist movements for at least 15 years.”
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