#News | Dozens of Venezuelan corn and rice producers staged a protest in Caracas on Thursday to demand state-led responses to a number of issues.

Small and midsize campesinos have denounced practices from agroindustrial groups and a lack of government policies that endanger their ability to produce.

Organizers reported around 200 participants in the mobilization, mostly coming from the agricultural states of Barinas, Guárico and Portuguesa.

A commission of spokespeople met with officials from the Agriculture Ministry. However, the gathering did not produce an agreement, only a commitment to hold further assemblies and set up working groups with government, campesino and agroindustry representatives to discuss crop prices, fuel subsidies, credit instruments and other matters.

Venezuelan campesinos have repeatedly raised alarm bells in recent weeks and demanded more regulation. Protests have included the blocking of major highways and a symbolic dumping of corn outside the facilities of major food conglomerate Polar.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15665

#News | Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro denounced the parliamentary coup against democratically elected President Pedro Castillo in Peru.

Castillo who was ousted by parliament and subsequently detained Wednesday after announcing the dissolution of Peru’s Congress in an attempt to outmaneuver the legislative body.

“[Peruvians] elected a teacher to the presidency, Pedro Castillo, and from the first moment of the election they [the opposition] didn't want to recognize his victory. In the end, compelled by reality, they had to recognize his triumph as president [but] once sworn in on July 28th 2021, the conspiracy for a parliamentary coup begins,” said Maduro during a television broadcast Thursday.

The ouster of Castillo came days after an Argentine court sentenced Vice President Cristina Fernández to six years in prison and ordered her political disqualification from office for life. The case against Fernández has been widely labeled a “lawfare” campaign aimed at neutralizing political candidates.

Commenting on the attempts to use lawfare and parliamentary coups to weaken leftist rivals, Maduro warned that the far right was sending a message.

“This is the message the extreme right is sending to the popular movements, to the progressive movements, ‘We are not going to allow you to govern’,” the Venezuelan president stated.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15666

As'ad Abukhalil is a leading Middle East expert, w/ principled and uncompromising stances against imperialism. He's an absolute go-to source and his endorsement means a lot to us.

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John Pilger is a legend in this line of work, a prime example of a journalist/filmmaker who always fought against imperialism and in defense of the just causes, Palestine chief among them. To say we're honored is an understatement!

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#News | The government of Colombia and the National Liberation Army (ELN) successfully concluded on Monday the first round of peace talks held in Caracas, Venezuela.

Representatives from both delegations signed a joint statement highlighting the “respectful, transparent and cordial” atmosphere in the negotiations.

In addition to outlining the agenda and procedures for the dialogue with ”clear rules”, the joint declaration also specified a series of humanitarian measures in areas of the country most affected by armed conflict, as well as a communications strategy that the parties are calling “pedagogy and communication for peace”.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro celebrated the positive development in peace talks in neighboring Colombia.

“For our country, its people and its government, it has been an event of transcendental importance to have been able to serve as the host of this first round, which concludes with highly positive results, contributing to the development of peace talks promoted by the government of President Gustavo Petro,” read a statement from the Venezuelan government.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15667

#News | Venezuela’s crude production continues to hover below 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) as the industry enters its sixth consecutive year under US sanctions.

Despite the output standstill, exports increased moderately with 619,300 bpd of crude and refined products shipped in November, 16 percent more than in October, but still below August's peak of 813,000 bpd, as registered by Refinitiv Eikon.

Another surge in exports is expected by year-end as US corporation Chevron is reportedly ready to ship one million barrels of Venezuelan crude to US refineries in the Gulf of Mexico by late December. This would be the first US-bound shipment since 2018 following Washington’s financial sanctions against PDVSA the year prior.

Currently, Chevron and PDVSA’s joint oil ventures are producing a reported 20,000-50,000 bpd, a significant· fall from the 160,000 barrels a day pumped in 2018 and well below the 200,000 bpd maximum capacity.

Although there is room for an increase, Chevron officials have discarded an immediate boost in output. Earlier this month, the firm’s Chief Executive Michael Wirth said the company will not invest in exploration and production in the next six months, with the company instead focusing on shipping a reported 1.79 million barrels of exportable crude it has in stock to US refiners.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15668

Vijay Prashad really needs no introduction. If you're amidst a popular struggle, chances are you'll bump into him or into something he's written about it. A great comrade and a great reference.

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With the year drawing to a close, we recorded a special podcast episode. We chose our "top stories" for the year to take stock of the Venezuelan political landscape and marked some of the issues to keep an eye on in 2023.

Listen here (early access): https://www.patreon.com/posts/75942263

#Interview | Nested in the working-class El Valle barrio in Caracas, the 5 de Marzo Commune is a project that explores new ways to empower an urban community. With a group of young people at the helm, including many university students, this commune has developed a feminist discourse that is often missing in other communal spaces.

Here, two spokespeople tell us about the challenges of commune-building in a large city. 👇

https://venezuelanalysis.com/interviews/15669

🎙Special #podcast episode! The Venezuelanalysis team picked some top stories from 2022 to take stock of Venezuela's current political+economic+social context. There was also time to single out some 2023 developments to keep an eye on.

Listen here: https://venezuelanalysis.com/audio/15670

Chris Gilbert takes a look into the creative ways communards operate in urban centers and how these projects intersect with the much-needed transformations required for a grassroots and socially integrated ecology.

"Recycling exists all around the world now, and the separation of waste has become a sort of global norm, with color-coded trash cans found in most major cities. However, the work here in this commune has more social substance and economic importance than the recycling operations (or, for that matter, most community gardens) of the Global North. A visitor can see how the communards here have adopted the globalized slogan, “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” painting it on the commune’s walls. The connection to a worldwide movement is likely meaningful for these communards. However, it is important to recognize that these terms mean something more substantial in this commune. In the context of a Venezuelan commune—where reducing is imposed by the crisis and the blockade, reusing is a productive undertaking, and recycling an existential necessity—the slogan also goes hand in hand with new social relations."

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/15671

🧵It's probably curtains for self-proclaimed Guaidó if even the corporate media are calling it. But the Associated Press will not waste a chance to print out an industrial dose of shameless propaganda. It's amazing just how naturalized these lies and biases are (thread)

https://twitter.com/venanalysis/status/1606349304003645442

#Opinion | Looking ahead to the new year, VA columnist Jessica Dos Santos takes stock of economic inequalities and the challenges for the Venezuelan people.

"Amidst all the economic contradictions, we don’t really know what should be celebrated, what is cause for concern, or when we should just lie down and weep. It is totally unclear that something good for the government, the business sector, trade relations, global geopolitics, will also translate into something positive for us down here.

I’m sure I’m not alone in wishing that negotiations go beyond the release of high-ranking relatives in exchange for US executives jailed in Venezuela, and move towards big objectives that we can all follow and identify with.

With all the uncertainty, we have learned to treasure small joys. For example, seeing our (Olympic gold medallist triple jumper) Yulimar Rojas tear everything in her path, or Venezuelan baseball players from the MLB coming back to play in the Venezuelan league playoffs after being authorized by the US Treasury Department."

https://venezuelanalysis.com/tales-resistance/15672

#News | Florida judge Robert Scola has rejected a motion to dismiss criminal charges against Venezuelan government envoy Alex Saab by ruling against claims to diplomatic immunity.

In his decision published Friday, the district magistrate argued that the United States' non-recognition of the Maduro government should disqualify Caracas' appointees' diplomatic status. In January 2019, the Trump administration supported opposition politician Juan Guaidó’s self-proclamation as “interim president.”

Scola reached his conclusions after evidentiary hearings on December 12 and 13 and oral arguments on December 20. The judge also sided with federal prosecutors who brought up alleged inconsistencies in the documents submitted by Saab's lawyers in recent months to back up his position as a special envoy.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15673

Venezuelan human rights organization Fundalatin recently announced the death of Gabriel Cisneros, a Venezuelan child who could not receive a liver transplant because Washington’s murderous sanctions continue to paralyze the state-funded program that covered these procedures.

Gabriel is sadly one more in a long list of victims of the US economic war. The Simón Bolívar Foundation is the social program of US-based Venezuelan oil subsidiary CITGO. It was created in 2006 by former President Hugo Chávez to help patients with rare cancers, especially children with leukemia, receive transplants and other life-saving treatments in hospitals abroad when these were not available in the country.

However, financial sanctions imposed in 2017 against Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA, CITGO’s parent company, blocked the Venezuelan government from using the international financial system, thus impeding payments for kids' treatments. The situation was later compounded when Washington seized CITGO in early 2019 and put it under the control of the US-backed self-proclaimed “interim government” led by Juan Guaidó.

Meanwhile, deadly sanctions and opposition funding remain high on the US agenda. On December 19, the US Senate approved the 2023 spending bill which includes $50 million for "democracy programs” for Venezuela, upping from the $33 and $40 million allotted in previous years.

Read the full article 👇

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/15674

In 2022, the Venezuelan government carried out strong international activity to continue challenging Washington’s blockade designed as part of the strategy to isolate the Caribbean country and overthrow President Nicolás Maduro.

Breaking this international exclusion required learning, developing and implementing an adequate methodology and intelligent work scheme that abandoned some of the traditional methods of diplomacy, in order to successfully grasp the new opportunities that surfaced last year when the isolation policy against Venezuela in the international arena began to crumble.

Some radical measures included reducing the role of the Foreign Affairs Ministry by appointing two low-profile ministers with modest political backgrounds: Félix Plasencia (August 2021 - May 2022) and Carlos Faría (incumbent) in order to centralize foreign policy issues amidst the country’s difficult times. Since early 2021, President Maduro alongside Vice President Delcy Rodríguez and National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez have planned and executed international relations.

It is no secret that Venezuela's main foreign policy task right now is to fully reestablish relations with the United States. However, the Bolivarian government has reiterated that this can only be done on the basis of mutual respect and non-interference. In order to advance along this path, Venezuela has demanded the elimination of the 763 sanctions as well as 900 other measures that comprehend the 1,600 unilateral coercive measures imposed by Washington against the Venezuelan people.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/around-world-60-days/15675

PLOT TWIST! Self-proclaimed Juan Guaidó throws a hail mary. He pulls out all the stops: the pointless hand gestures, three Venezuela flags, a poorly lit portrait of Bolívar. It's a potpourri of sheer nonsense, but there's not much else going on, so let's have some fun! (thread)

https://twitter.com/venanalysis/status/1608649797011116038