Venezuelan Minister of Popular Power for Communication and Information, Jorge Rodríguez, presented evidence linking the opposition deputy Juan Guaidó with the theft of regulatory weapons from the Bolivarian Republic that were used in the coup attempt on April 30.

Speaking to the press from the Miraflores Palace, Rodríguez said that after the events of April 30 different lines of investigation were generated, one of which was the follow-up to the stolen weapons to perpetrate the coup d’état.

Rodríguez denounced the carrying of war weapons by security personnel of Juan Guaidó from the gun park assault on April 30.

Several weeks after publishing explosive reports about a key member of Brazil’s far-right government, U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald was called before a congressional committee to face hostile questions.

“Who should be judged, convicted and in prison is the journalist!” shouted congresswoman Katia Sastre, an ally of President Jair Bolsonaro.

And by some accounts that wasn’t an empty threat: A conservative website reported that federal police had requested that financial regulators investigate Greenwald’s finances. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and his Brazilian husband also say they have been receiving detailed death threats, calls for his deportation and homophobic comments in an increasingly hostile political environment.

A Brazilian state judge on Tuesday convicted mining company Vale SA for damages caused by the deadly rupture of a tailings dam in January that killed at least 240 people.

Judge Elton Pupo Nogueira ruled that Vale is responsible for fixing all the damages, although he did not set a monetary value for compensation, the Minas Gerais state court said on its website. It “is still not possible to quantify solely by technical-scientific criteria,” the statement said.

The value “will not be limited to the dead, but also effects on the local and regional environment, in addition to economic activity in the affected regions,” the statement quoted Nogueira as saying.

The wave of wishful thinking articles, including some by friends of mine whose judgment I usually respect was entirely wrong. President Donald Trump has not fired John Bolton for the failed fiasco of his latest inept attempt to topple the legitimate democratically-elected government of Venezuela: At least not yet.

SOURCE: TELESURENGLISH.NET

Social leader Tatiana Paola Posso Espitia, 35, was shot twice in the head Wednesday morning in front of her house in El Copey located in the Department of Cesar when two men on motorcycles fired at the activist and fled the scene.

The assassination occurred just as Espitia’s taxi driver, Wilson Ortega Palomino, arrived at her home to take the social leader to work, according to local media reports. The bad timing resulted in Ortega also being shot four times by the hitmen. He is in critical condition at a nearby hospital.

The National Network for Democracy and Peace in Colombia published a communique on its Twitter account firmly condemning the murder.

“Posso Espitia was a social activist committed to humanitarian aid, helping vulnerable people and victims of the armed conflict that continue to affect Colombia,” said the report.

Venezuela used to be an “oil republic,” which made oil executives from the United States and the wealthy class in Venezuela very rich. That lasted until the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998 when the Bolivarian Process began and oil profits were used to provide for basic needs of all the people. Ever since then, the US and its allies have used everything they have to overthrow the revolution, but like Cuba, the people have resisted, despite great suffering being inflicted on them, and the US has failed.

"We will continue to implement projects in various areas, to hold events within the existing agreements that would strengthen the military potential of this country’s armed forces."

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov stated on Friday that his country will continue to develop international cooperation with Venezuela, which includes strengthening military defense capabilities.

On July 2, millions of people people in South America will witness the day turn into night for a few minutes as the moon passes in front of the sun.

The so-called "Great South American Eclipse" will be the only total solar eclipse of 2019. During the eclipse, the moon will cast a dark shadow over parts of Chile and Argentina as it blocks out the sun. Neighboring countries will be able to see a partial eclipse.

Here is Space.com's complete guide to the "Great South American Eclipse," including viewing maps, timetables and useful tips for skywatchers and photographers. We will continue to update this page as we post more information about the eclipse.

Venezuela claims it has foiled a coup attempt against Nicolas Maduro - alleging that America was behind the plot.

Government ministers claim that the U.S. colluded with Colombia and Chile in a plot to assassinate Maduro and install an army general in his place.

Naming Donald Trump ally John Bolton as one of the conspirators, Caracas said at least six alleged plotters had been arrested.

Honduran military police opened fire at protesters outside the national university, injuring five people. Authorities said live ammunition was used in response to molotov cocktails which injured officers.

Protests demanding the resignation of the country's president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, have intensified in recent weeks as momentum gathers against privatization and austerity measures targeting the health and education sectors.

SOURCE: JOAQUIN FLORES VIA THE STRATEGIC CULTURE FOUNDATION
They say hindsight is 20/20, and nothing exemplifies that more than the kind of post-mortem that can be done on the failed attempt by the US to overthrow the government of Venezuela. Working through the lack of options that the US has in terms of regime-change in Venezuela, should lead towards a higher degree of investor confidence in the Bolivarian Republic.

We understand that there are ultimately only three ways to attack a target state until it collapses:

Supporting an internal coup/revolution or terrorism;

Economic embargo perhaps leading to or justified by 1, and;

Military invasion justified by the government’s reaction to 1

The Honduran government announced the nationwide deployment of military forces on Thursday, amid intensifying nationwide protests against President Juan Orlando Hernandez.

Mass demonstrations began nearly two months ago, when teachers and medical professionals took to the streets to protest a series of decrees they say facilitate the further privatisation of health and education.

The movement quickly evolved into nonstop multi-sector nationwide protests and blockades demanding "Fuera JOH" (Out With JOH), using the acronym for the president's name.

At least three protesters have been killed and more than 20 wounded in the last four days alone.

What was supposed to be Guaido’s watershed moment has instead turned out to be a public-relations failure far worse than his quickly quelled attempted military coup, which MintPress News reported caused even the New York Times to describe Guaido as “deflated.”

What happened in Colombia appears to be so damning that not only is the Colombian intelligence service leaking documents exposing wrongdoing by Popular Will representatives appointed by Guaido, but the Organization of American States (OAS) — which is typically just as pro-opposition as the Colombian government — has called for an investigation.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is looking into whether or not Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro has been trafficking Nazi gold that includes ingots made from fillings taken from Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

The Center said in a statement on Wednesday that it’s studying information exposed by the Wall Street Journal indicating that Maduro has managed to hold onto his regime through selling some 73.3 tons of gold valued at $3 billion, to Middle East and Turkish companies between 2017 and February 2019.

Ecuador has agreed to allow US military planes to operate from an airport on the Galapagos Islands, reports say.

US aircraft will be able to use San Cristobal airport, Ecuador's defence minister Oswaldo Jarrin has been quoted as saying.

They will "fight drug trafficking" under a deal with Ecuador's government, Mr Jarrin said.

The reported deal has prompted concerns over the potential impact on the environment and Ecuador's sovereignty.

The political party of Juan Guaido — Voluntad Popular (Popular Will) — was never all that popular to begin with. The sixth largest political party in Venezuela, Popular Will is heavily financed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Now, a recently exposed embezzlement scandal in Colombia risks to further alienate the party from the Venezuelan people.

What was supposed to be Guaido’s watershed moment has instead turned out to be a public-relations failure far worse than his quickly quelled attempted military coup, which MintPress News reported caused even the New York Times to describe Guaido as “deflated.”

What happened in Colombia appears to be so damning that not only is the Colombian intelligence service leaking documents exposing wrongdoing by Popular Will representatives appointed by Guaido, but the Organization of American States (OAS) — which is typically just as pro-opposition as the Colombian government — has called for an investigation.

LAST SUNDAY, THE INTERCEPT and The Intercept Brasil published a series of exposés that has created a major political earthquake in Brazil that has only grown and intensified throughout the week. In less than a week, the once-revered justice minister of President Jair Bolsonaro’s government, Sérgio Moro, now faces widespread calls to resign from the same large Brazilian media outlets that spent years transforming him into an untouchable icon of integrity and uncritically applauding his every move.

Sen. Lindsey Graham has suggested President Trump "put military force on the table" by invading Venezuela (and possibly Cuba) in order to scare North Korea and Iran into doing what they're told. What could possibly go wrong?

"Give Cuba an ultimatum – without Cuba, Maduro doesn’t last one day – tell Cuba to get out of Venezuela. Do what Reagan did in Grenada – put military force on the table!" Graham told a Fox News host, going from zero to invasion in ten seconds flat in response to a question about how Trump should handle his foreign conflicts.

"We need points on the board," the South Carolina senator insisted. "Start with your own backyard… Fix Venezuela and everybody else will know you’re serious." North Korea and Iran, he implied, would fall right into line after Venezuela was put in its place.

The freezing of Venezuelan gold by the Bank of England is a signal to all countries out of step with US interests to withdraw their money, according to economist and co-founder of Democracy at Work, Professor Richard Wolff.
He told RT America that Britain and its central bank have shown themselves to be “under the thumb of the United States.”

“That is a signal to every country that has or may have difficulties with the US, [that they had] better get their money out of England and out of London because it’s not the safe place as it once was,” he said.

Argentina and Uruguay woke up in darkness Sunday after an unprecedented power failure cascaded across their shared electrical grid, affecting millions of people.

The Edesur electric utility tweeted that "a massive failure" left Argentina and Uruguay without power. The BBC reported that parts of Paraguay were also affected.

Edesur's spokesperson Alejandra Martinez told Argentinian media "something like this never happened," according to the BBC.

By about 12 noon local time, Edesur tweeted that it had restored service to 450,000 customers, with hospitals and health centers a priority.

A hawkish Republican senator has suggested that the United States should take military action against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro so countries opposing the US are intimidated and surrender to Washington's demands.

To handle foreign conflicts “we need points on the board,” Senator Lindsey Graham, who is a close ally of President Donald Trump, was quoted as saying on Friday by Fox News.

The warmonger from South Carolina told Fox News that the US needed to resolve its issues with other countries using military actions.

US journalist Glenn Greenwald said Thursday he has received "grotesque" threats also targeting his husband and children after publishing leaked chats showing Brazil's justice minister conspired to keep leftist icon Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva out of the 2018 presidential race.

Greenwald told AFP "political violence is a reality" in Brazil and he would not leave the country after The Intercept investigative website he co-founded released explosive material that has cast doubt on Sergio Moro's impartiality when he was an anti-corruption judge.

SOURCE: THE INTERCEPT

FORMER BRAZILIAN PRESIDENT Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva should be released from prison and his conviction should be annulled, said Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, on Tuesday. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., meanwhile, is calling on the Trump administration to investigate the case that imprisoned the former president on corruption charges, following The Intercept’s exposé that showed Judge Sérgio Moro plotted with prosecutors to convict Lula and prevent the Workers’ Party from returning to power.

The website The Intercept received a massive archive of communications between prosecutors and judges, involving Brazil's corruption cases. Initial analysis reveals that former president Lula da Silva's prosecution and conviction were politically motivated. Mike Fox discusses the ramifications

The US Treasury Department has announced a hardening of measures against Venezuela’s oil industry.

In an amendment to the Venezuela sanctions published on Thursday, Washington stated that the existing licenses, which allow certain companies to continue dealing with Venezuela state oil company PDVSA for a given period, “do not authorize transactions or dealings related to the exportation or reexportation of diluents, directly or indirectly, to Venezuela.”

Venezuela relies on imports of diluents to blend its heavy crude into exportable grades, as well as produce gasoline and diesel for internal consumption.

Venezuela’s declining oil production was significantly worsened by the impact of US economic sanctions, with crude output dropping by 30 percent, from an average of 1.911 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2017 to 1.354 million in 2018, following the August 2017 financial sanctions imposed by the Treasury Department.

The decision was a painful blow to the families of the men who were initially heartened by news their loved ones would have the chance to profess their innocence in court after judge Gil had canceled 15 previous hearings giving little reason.

"After more than one and a half years of delayed due process, today's preliminary hearing was a sad spectacle and a travesty of justice," the family of Tomeu Vadell, Citgo's vice president of refining, said in a statement.

"Venezuela is depriving an innocent man, a deeply loved husband and father of his freedom," they added. "We will continue to demand his immediate and unconditional release."

The families of the "Citgo 6" — five of them, like Vadell, American citizens and all with deep roots in Texas and Louisiana — complain the men are being held in inhumane conditions, sharing overcrowded basement cells in a military counterintelligence prison and suffering severe weight loss in a country plagued by food shortages.

Confirmed Internet outage in Venezuela affecting Digitel (total) and Supercable (partial) from 3:00 pm UTC / 11:00 am VET following four hours of instability; sources report fiber cut .

The Kremlin says Russian specialists are operating in Venezuela as usual, after US President Donald Trump claimed in a tweet that Moscow has pulled its people out of the crisis-hit nation.

The thick layer of mud which buried 270 people in Brumadinho has barely dried. Certainly, the scars of Brazil's worst mining disaster are still raw.

Yet, within just four months, another community in the south-eastern state of Minas Gerais faces being obliterated from the map by a torrent of mining waste.

The monitors in the hastily-assembled civil defence headquarters in Barão de Cocais display real-time images of the stricken mine, Gongo Soco, and the associated Sul Superior dam about 1.5 km (one mile) from it.

All eyes in the room are nervously fixed on the mine as it teeters on the brink. Mining company Vale, which owns the complex, warned last week that the embankment could collapse at any time this week.

Somewhere Hugo Chavez, who several years ago successfully repatriated much of Venezuela's gold, is spinning in his grave.

It started in March, when Venezuela's embattled leader Nicolas Maduro defaulted on a $1.1 billion gold-backed loan with Citi, in the process losing several tons of gold placed as collateral by Venezuela’s central bank after the deadline for repurchasing them expired. Now, Bloomberg reports that Venezuela has also defaulted on a gold swap agreement valued at $750 million with Deutsche Bank, prompting the German bank to seize the precious metal which was used as collateral, and close out the contract.

Brazil's right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro received the diplomatic credentials of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido's envoy to Brazil, formally recognizing her as the ambassador of the neighboring country.

Ambassador Maria Teresa Belandria had said on Friday that the Brazilian government withdrew its invitation to present her credentials at the presidential palace. But her spokeswoman told Reuters on Tuesday the government had changed its mind.

Nicolas Maduro’s embattled Venezuelan regime, desperate to hold onto the dwindling cash pile it has abroad, was stymied in its bid to pull $1.2 billion worth of gold out of the Bank of England, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Bank of England’s decision to deny Maduro officials’ withdrawal request comes after top U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, lobbied their U.K. counterparts to help cut off the regime from its overseas assets, according to one of the people, who asked not to be identified.

GRAHAM: Yes, really. So here’s the deal. We are being tested in North Korea, Iran, Syria, Assad is going into it Idlib now. There’s a lot of pressure on the Trump administration. And Trump said rightly, Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela, the entire region supports the Trump approach that Guaido is the legitimate leader. He wouldn’t be in power without 6,000 or 7,000 Cuban security forces in Venezuela.

I would do exactly what Reagan did. I would give Cuba an ultimatum to get out of Venezuela. If they don’t, I would let the Venezuelan military know, you got to choose between democracy and Maduro, and if you choose Maduro and Cuba, we are coming after you. This is in our backyard.

Protesters burned and looted some 30 shipping containers marked with the logo of the Dole Food Company in Honduras on Sunday, a military official said, in the second attack on symbols of U.S. power in the Central American nation in recent days.

Protests against U.S.-allied Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez have been building in recent weeks over planned reforms that Hernandez’s critics argue will lead to the privatisation of public services.

The attack on the convoy of trucks took place in rural Honduras early on Sunday on a road passing through a village known as Guadalupe Carney, some 330 km (205 miles) from the capital, Tegucigalpa, senior military official Fernando Leiva said in an interview posted by Honduran media.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that Rostec – who train Venezuelan troops and offer advice on weapons contracts – cut their numbers to just a few dozen as crisis grips the nation. While there were up to 1000 staff in Caracas, the report goes on to say that a loss of trust in Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro was a key factor in the mass withdrawal. However, in response to the article, Russian ambassador to Venezuela Vladimir Zaemsky told Russian news outlet Sputnik: "This is another piece of 'news' which has absolutely nothing to do with reality.

Data from the newspaper The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the presence of employees of the state corporation Rostec (Russian Technologies) are exaggerated, Sputnik told a source of the press service of the Russian company.

On June 1, the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal reported, quoting an anonymous source close to the Russian Ministry of Defense, that Rostec decreased its staff in Venezuela from 1,000 to a few dozen.

According to the media, the retreat of Rostec employees, responsible for training Venezuelan troops, has intensified in recent months.

“The figures published in the Wall Street Journal article regarding the presence of Rostec employees in Venezuela are exaggerated dozens of times,” a source said in response to the Journal’s claims.

Darkness fell over the São Paulo skyline. Like most cities, dusk brings the evening commute, but this one is a little different. One by one, all across the business district, helicopters lifted off buildings and roared into the humid night sky.

São Paulo has one of the largest private helicopter fleets in the world. Usually they are ferrying wealthy businessmen home, but sometimes a trip can include discreet female companionship and a hop to a nearby club. It has been this way for years. When the city still allowed electronic billboards, people said it reminded them of the movie Blade Runner.

“My favorite time to fly is at night, because the sensation is equaled only in movies or in dreams,” said one local businessman. “The lights are everywhere, as if I were flying within a Christmas tree.”

SOURCE: THE NEW AMERICAN
Reprinted with permission from TheNewAmerican.com.

Venezuela’s Marxist dictator Nicolás Maduro hasn’t paid Rostec, Russia’s state-controlled military contractor, for months, so the company is pulling the plug, according to the Wall Street Journal. That contractor has been providing vast military armaments and other materiel to Maduro’s regime, including Kalashnikov rifles, helicopters, tanks, and aerial defense systems. It has also, until recently, had about 1,000 technicians in place to train Venezuelan military personnel how to maintain that high-tech equipment. Now, said the Journal, that number has been reduced to just a few dozen.

U.S. sanctions, particularly on Maduro’s Central Bank of Venezuela, have made it all but impossible for the bank to sell off what remains of the country’s gold reserves to raise the cash to pay Rostec’s bills.

Venezuela’s inflation has been soaring dramatically and reached 130,060 percent in 2018, the country’s central bank said in its first report on key economic indicators since 2015.

The latest data from the watchdog released on Tuesday means that an item that cost 1 bolivar in 2017, cost 1,300 bolivares a year later. Even compared to the huge inflation spike in 2017 of 862.6 percent, last year was disastrous for the country's economy.

Venezuela’s central bank published its previous report three years ago. Before the latest release, inflation data and forecasts were published by the opposition-controlled National Assembly and some international organizations. For example, the International Monetary Fund projected an inflation of over 10 million percent for this and next year.

The U.S. State Department told Breitbart News in a statement Tuesday the Trump administration believes any talks between Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and President Juan Guaidó must “include Maduro’s departure as a precondition for elections.”

Guaidó admitted this week that he had agreed to send envoys to Norway to meet with Maduro cronies for “mediation” that he insisted was neither talks or “negotiation.” Norway continues to recognize Maduro as the president of Venezuela despite the expiration of his last term in January, raising concerns about that government’s partiality in the matter.

Many of Venezuela’s opposition leaders reacted to the news with outrage, noting that Maduro has engaged in four other attempts at negotiation with the opposition in the past five years and used them to reinforce their control of the military and kill, imprison, and otherwise repress political dissidents.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has pointed the finger at the United States and allies in "imperial aggression" for waging a "sabotage" campaign against vital fuel shipments as well as humanitarian aid being sent to the country after multiple tankers and shipments were reportedly damaged.

Maduro is reported to have told a meeting with the political leadership of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) in Caracas this week that vessels carrying food “were sabotaged and did not leave the ports where they were going to leave.”

"Last week, sabotage was committed against ten tankers [with gasoline] to prevent them from reaching the Venezuelan coast. In any case, this problem is being dealt with and we are stabilizing the situation," Maduro said late on Monday.

“You can’t blame the Maduro government, but as for the United States, this Donald Trump is mean. He’s mean and he’s blocked a lot of things. We have to support each other and this U.S. blockade has to end.” -- Yolimar Contreras

From May 10 to 17, the United States imported 49,000 barrels of Venezuelan crude oil. This is the first time that the country imports its neighbor's oil in weeks and the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, María Zajárova, has commented on the figure, published in the weekly report of the US Energy Information Administration.

Zajárova recalled that in March the press reported that the special envoy of the United States Government for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, had said that the United States was seeking "the complete isolation of President Nicolás Maduro on the international stage and, above all, the cessation of any commercial transaction of banks, companies and companies with Venezuela that would be beneficial for Maduro ".

Zajárova countered Abrams' words that the US has resumed Venezuelan oil imports . 49,000 barrels a day.

"And so always, first they encourage everyone to do something and then they change their maneuver 180 degrees, leaving those who gave in," he said.

We might chalk it up to stating the obvious, but by and large the media has moved on from Venezuela, however, the coup plotters in Washington have not. Apparently the Kremlin also wishes to remind the world of this, given its ongoing support to Maduro and his army, and given that the Russian foreign ministry has remained vocal on the issue, announcing this week that "US-backed attempts to stage a coup in Venezuela will continue."

Venezuela hopes to develop a nationwide 4G system with the help of Russian and Chinese technology, particularly from the Asian country’s Huawei, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said.

The Venezuelan president stated that Caracas is aiming to develop its satellite technologies.

"There are a lot of things that I should address. The first one is the creation of a telecommunications corporation… I have ordered to make an investment and, together with China's technologies, Huawei technologies and the technologies of Russian companies, bring telecommunications [to a new level] and make a nationwide 4G network a reality in Venezuela to ensure Venezuela has fast communications, internet, and telephony", Maduro said in an address published on Twitter late on Thursday.

The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the Venezuelan Emergency and Democracy Development Assistance (Verdad) Act that would give $400 million in “humanitarian aid to Venezuela,” Sen. Bob Menendez said in a statement.

“Update: VERDAD Act passes out of committee”, Menendez said via Twitter. “This is the most comprehensive effort to confront the crisis in Venezuela. We’ve set up the structure for the Trump [administration] to boost [Venezuela’s] democracy movement — doubling humanitarian aid [and] expanding sanctions against [President Nicolas] Maduro’s officials”.

Menendez explained that the measure would also reaffirm US support for Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido and the opposition-led National Assembly, and establish US policy to pursue “a peaceful, diplomatic solution to the Venezuelan crisis”.

SOURCE: DEEPSTATEBLOG.ORG

The United States is seeking to shut down Venezuela’s emergency food aid program, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The stated goal of U.S. policy is combating the corruption of the Venezuelan government. The unstated reality is that the Trump administration is doing exactly what it accuses the Maduro government of doing: weaponizing access to food.

The emergency food program—known by its Spanish initials, CLAP—is the main food source for an estimated 15% of Venezuelans and a critical supplement for a far larger percentage of the population. Officials in the Maduro government, including top military brass, “are using the CLAP program to steal from it, launder money, and for political control,” the senior Treasury official said. “Corrupt Maduro continue to seek illicit revenue streams, even as the Venezuelan people and economy sink deeper into despair,” said another senior Treasury official, Sigal Mandelker, the undersecretary for sanctions.

The U.S. government is preparing to levy sanctions against officials associated with Venezuela’s food subsidy program known as CLAP, the latest in a long list of unilateral coercive measures against the country.

The new sanctions follow a report by the Center for Economic Policy Research, which stated that 40,000 Venezuelans have died because of sanctions imposed by the Trump administration that prevent life-saving medicines and food from getting into the country.

“The sanctions are depriving Venezuelans of lifesaving medicines, medical equipment, food, and other essential imports,” Mark Weisbrot, who co-authored the report, wrote in a press release.

The US Press is spreading a false narrative of the events in Venezuela and the rise of tension between Washington and Teheran. Given the contradictory declarations of both sides, it is almost impossible to discern the truth. After having checked the facts, we need to deepen our analysis and take into account the opposition between the different political currents in these countries.

The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov remarked last Thursday in Moscow that no contacts between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump are expected at the G20 summit in Japan on June 28-29. “An encounter is not planned so far and there is no talk about a meeting,” Peskov said.

This remark was made in the run-up to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s forthcoming visit to Russia on April 12-14. There has been much speculation in the US media that a summit meeting between Trump and Putin was likely among Pompeo’s talking points with the Russian leadership.

Ecuador's move to turn items and documents belonging to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange over to the US emphasizes the power that the Trump administration can exert over the famed publisher, activist and comedian Randy Credico told Sputnik.

"It's completely outrageous," Credico told Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear on Monday of the development. "I don't see the legal basis for that. This was done without any kind of court hearing."

"How they could turn that stuff over — his personal belongings — to the US, not even to the Brits, but to the US… it just shows you the level of control that the US government, the [US] State Department [and] every other agency has over [Ecuadorian President] Lenin Moreno, who has totally sold out."

The New York Times is known for selecting photos from places of misery, could be slums from anywhere in the world, and placing them where it is most convenient to propagate a lie story – a story meant to demean a country in the public opinion, a country that the empire wants to subdue by bashing and insulting it – so the public – the brain dead western public, notably in the US and Europe, will tolerate or even scream for a “humanitarian invasion” from the friendly US of A.

Why don’t you NYT’s shameful liars tell the full truth?

Who is responsible for the collapse, the lack of food, medicine, blackouts – actually for all of the collapses that you described in your manipulating master piece of deceit and propaganda? – And many more ‘collapses’ that you don’t even mention?

The Venezuelan Ambassador to Russia, Carlos Rafael Faría Tortosa, said Tuesday that despite the ongoing blockade by the United States, his country has found ways to defeat them and continue to advance his nation's economic development.

U.S. oil and petrochemicals makers are warning President Donald Trump that proposed oil sanctions against Venezuela could hurt domestic companies and consumers.

In a letter sent to Trump and published in La Tabla.com, the head of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, Chet Thompson, wrote that the measures would not help to solve the problems in the South American nation.

Venezuela now sells more than 700,000 barrels of oil a day to the U.S. out of a total production of roughly two million barrels a day, or just over 2 percent of world production.

The document indicates that some 20 U.S. refineries are supplied with heavy Venezuelan crude, for which they have made substantial processing adjustments.

It says there are practically no other sources of supply for this type of oil.

Washington’s bid to “destroy Venezuela” is wrecking the international laws governing relations between all states, Venezuela’s ambassador to Britain Rocio Maneiro warned today.

“Nobody really understands the danger” of the precedent set by the decision by some countries to recognise would-be usurper Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s leader in contravention of all international norms, she warned.

At a press conference in central London, Ms Maneiro said her country was “under siege,” noting that a blockade designed to “break the nation” had already cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives and that “if the nation resists the US military stands ready to act.”

Ms Maneiro detailed the “net” cast by the US to trap Venezuela, including by oil sanctions that cost the country an estimated $6 billion (£4.7bn) in revenues in the first year from August 2017.

The United States banned all air transport with Venezuela on Wednesday over security concerns, further isolating the troubled South American nation…

A disinterested historian — Herodotus raised from the dead — would see this as just the latest volley in a siege tale. America has been trying for ages to topple the regime of President Nicholas Maduro, after trying for years to do the same to his predecessor, Hugo Chavez.

The new play in the Trump era involves recognizing Juan Guaidó as president and starving and sanctioning the country. Maduro, encircled, has been resisting.

The American commercial news landscape, in schism on domestic issues, is in lockstep here. Every article is seen from one angle: Venezuelans under the heel of a dictator who caused the crisis, with the only hope a “humanitarian” intervention by the United States.

Soldiers oversaw rationing of gasoline at service stations in several parts of Venezuela on Sunday as worsening fuel shortages forced angry drivers to wait for hours to fill their tanks, prompting protests in some areas.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro released a video of his first-ever meeting with the representatives of the International Contact Group (ICG), during which the impact of US sanctions on the South American country was discussed.

In early May, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said that the bloc-backed group, leading efforts to stabilize the crisis in Venezuela, would be considering sending a political mission to Caracas.

The Trump administration has been trying to engineer an unlawful coup and regime change in Venezuela. After U.S. puppet Juan Guaidó declared himself “interim president” of Venezuela on January 23, high Trump officials quickly ratified his declaration. The U.S. government seeks to illegally install Guaidó and a new ambassador in the D.C. embassy as part of its coup attempt.

After cutting off electricity and refusing to allow food and water to the protectors, agents from the Secret Service, State Department and Washington, D.C., police tried to raid the embassy on May 13. They read from an unsigned piece of paper titled “Trespassing Notice,” which stated that the U.S. government recognized Guaidó as president of Venezuela and Carlos Vecchio as Venezuelan ambassador to the United States.

SOURCE: ALJAZEERA

Blood-soaked body of Francisco Romero, fifth journalist to be killed this year, was found on a pavement in his hometown.

A Mexican journalist enrolled in a federal protection programme has been shot dead, the fifth reporter to be killed this year in one of the most dangerous countries for the press.

The blood-soaked body of crime reporter Francisco Romero was found on a pavement outside a nightclub in his hometown of Playa del Carmen along Mexico's Caribbean coast on Thursday, authorities said.

Romero ran a Facebook-based news site called "Ocurrio Aqui" (It Happened Here) that covers local politics and crime and had more than 17,000 followers. He also worked for one of the state's leading newspapers, Quintana Roo Hoy.

The state prosecutor's office opened a homicide investigation, saying Romero had filed a complaint on April 12 over threats he had received. The source of those threats was not specified.

The four remaining "Embassy Collective" activists who were remaining from among dozens of anti-war protesters who had been holed up in the embassy for the prior few weeks were arrested, according to local accounts.

The group had been defending the embassy since April 10 from what they described as a hostile and illegal potential takeover from pro-Guaido opposition supporters camped outside. The Maduro-supporting collective had the blessing of Venezuelan diplomatic authorities.

Subsequently, Carlos Vecchio - the Guaidó-appointed ambassador - tweeted his congratulations that the embassy had been "liberated," further thanking the "Venezuelan diaspora" for helping.

The intimidation tactics by the pro-coup embassy besiegers not only failed to deter the peace activists around the embassy, they left Venezuela’s D.C.-based opposition with a serious PR problem. After a week of hateful outbursts, a handful of marketing strategists emerged as de facto spokespeople for the mob.

After a rough and revealing start, the reins of the campaign to seize Venezuela’s embassy in Washington are being taken over by a group of well-connected marketing and online strategists.

Since Juan Guaido declared himself Venezuela’s interim president, rhetoric emanating from Washington has grown increasingly familiar.

It echoes the bombastic & hollow humanitarian-crisis type of war propaganda which has been used repeatedly in resource-rich nations, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya to Syria. And now we’re seeing it in Venezuela.

The regime-change recipe is straightforward: demonize the leadership and those who defend the country; support an opposition that is inevitably violent and whitewash their crimes; sanction the country & attack the infrastructure to create unbearable conditions; create fake news about humanitarian issues; possibly wage false flag incidents to incriminate the government; control the narrative; and insist that intervention is necessary for the well-being of the people.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had a telephone conversation with Venezuelan President Juan Guaidó on Tuesday. Trudeau’s office said Guaidó “conveyed his commitment to holding free and fair elections as soon as possible, in line with the Venezuelan constitution.”

“Canada remains committed to free and fair elections in Venezuela, and we’re working with the Lima Group to strengthen international support for Venezuelans,” Trudeau said on social media after the phone call.

The Lima Group is a coalition of Latin American states and Canada organized in 2017 to find a resolution to the Venezuelan political crisis. The group has expressed support for Guaidó and urged the Venezuelan military to stop propping up socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro. The Lima Group’s February declaration of support for Guaidó was not signed by three of its members, namely Guyana, St. Lucia, and Mexico.

Authored by Dave Lindorff via Counterpunch.org,

American media still refer to Juan Guaidó, America’s hand-picked “legitimate leader” or “legitimate president” of Venezuela, as having an “administration.”

The truth is that his “administration” - consisting of advisors and other opposition leaders - are all either arrested and being held by the government, hiding, seeking asylum in various foreign embassies (Spanish, Italian, Brazilian and Argentinian) in the capital of Caracas, or have fled to other countries like Brazil and Colombia.

Guaidó, apparently a government of one, has so far avoided arrest probably because the elected Venezuelan President Maduro doesn’t want to give the US an excuse to try and rescue him, or to launch military actions of some kind against Venezuela as the White House keeps threatening to do.