Venezuela, a country with only $10 billion left in reserves to run on, is in trouble. As the currency hyperinflates to new record lows against the dollar...
James Holbrooks points out that the people are starving. The government has gone full-on authoritarian, and now desperate human beings are dying in the streets. From an Associated Press report on Friday:
Venezuela's ongoing protests against the Maduro regime took tragic turn when at least 12 people were killed overnight during looting and violence in Venezuela's capital. Most of the deaths took place in El Valle, a working class neighborhood near Caracas' biggest military base where opposition leaders say a group of people were hit with an electrical current while looting and trying to steal a refrigerator from a bakery.
With Venezuela holding a massive protest today dubbed the "Mother Of All Protests" to challenge the rule of president Maduro, who meanwhile has ordered the army into the streets, while summoning a counterprotests, violence seemed inevitable and moments ago Reuters reported that a young protester was shot in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas.
#19Abril OTRO HERIDO MAS ...víctima de la Represión del Dictador Colombiano en #Venezuela pic.twitter.com/Rz3fw8H2Eh #19VzlaEnLaCalle
It was almost exactly two years ago when a cash-strapped Venezuela quietly conducted its first, little-noticed gold-for-cash swap with Citigroup, as part of which Maduro converted part of his nation's gold reserves into at least $1 billion in cash courtesy of the US bank. As Reuters reported then, the motive was simple: convert $1 billion of the country's gold into much needed dollars to fund imports and keep the economy from sinking.
With the world's attention focused on Syria and North Korea in recent weeks for obvious reason, another geopolitical hotspot is on the verge of eruption. According to AFP, after weeks of increasingly more violent protests, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has ordered the army into the streets as the insolvent nation braces for what the opposition has vowed will be the "mother of all protests" on Wednesday.