The Jim Bakker Show

Venezuela vote dispute escalates foreign sanctions threat

Venezuelan citizens wait in line at a polling station during a nationwide election for new governors in Caracas, Venezuela. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes

By Alexandra Ulmer and Deisy Buitrago

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition cried foul on Monday over the ruling socialists’ win in gubernatorial elections, raising the threat of more foreign sanctions following the vote in what the United States called “an authoritarian dictatorship.”

President Nicolas Maduro’s candidates took 17 governorships, versus five for the opposition, in Sunday’s nationwide poll, according to the pro-government electoral board.

The socialists’ strong showing came despite devastating food shortages, triple-digit inflation, and a collapsing currency. Polls had suggested the opposition would easily win a majority.

Dismayed leaders of the Democratic Unity coalition demanded an audit after citing a litany of abuses, including multiple voting, state food handouts on the day of the poll, forced attendance at gunpoint and suspicious phone and power outages.

The opposition fell short of offering detailed evidence of outright fraud, however, and there were no conventional foreign observer missions to verify claims of vote-rigging.

“This is a process of electoral fraud without precedent in our history,” said opposition spokesman Angel Oropeza. An estimated 1 million voters were blocked from voting, he said, referring to claims the election board skewed results by relocating hundreds of polling places away from opposition strongholds.

Many dispirited opposition supporters now see foreign pressure as their only real hope of hurting Maduro ahead of next year’s presidential vote.

The United States condemned the elections as neither free nor fair and vowed to keep up pressure on Maduro for the erosion of democracy in the South American OPEC nation.

“As long as the Maduro regime conducts itself as an authoritarian dictatorship, we will work with members of the international community and bring the full weight of American economic and diplomatic power to bear in support of the Venezuelan people as they seek to restore their democracy,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.

The Trump administration has already imposed sanctions on Maduro and top officials, including election board head Tibisay Lucena. Washington has also struck at the government’s ability to raise more funds via foreign debt.

The European Union could also take measures against Maduro, who was narrowly elected to replace the late leader Hugo Chavez in 2013.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who has also branded Venezuela a dictatorship, expressed concern at claims of “serious irregularities” and “lack of transparency” in the gubernatorial vote.

“France deplores this situation and is working with its EU partners to examine appropriate measures to help resolve the serious crisis,” the French foreign ministry said.

POOR TURNOUT

Venezuela’s government, which insisted in advance of Sunday’s vote that it would demonstrate its commitment to democracy, still retains significant support in poorer, rural settings. And it seems unlikely that supporters of the elite-led opposition, which has struggled to capitalize on discontent over the economy, will return to the streets en masse after months of grueling protests earlier this year.

The protests failed to pressure the government into holding an early presidential election, freeing scores of jailed activists or accepting foreign humanitarian aid.

At least 125 people died, while thousands were injured and arrested in violence.

“Obviously, this was a brutal fraud,” said David Osorio, 21, who lost an eye when he was hit by a gas cannister in the clashes. “But I don’t know if going back to the streets is best … because the same will happen and many are simply not willing.”

A few hundred opposition protesters massed in front of the electoral council in the southern Bolivar state, where results were still not given by Monday evening. The National Guard used tear gas to scatter the crowd, according to a Reuters witness.

Various opposition leaders acknowledged disillusionment and people staying home had played a big role.

“We shot ourselves in the foot,” legislator Jose Guerra said, noting record turnout of 74 percent in a 2015 congress vote, which the opposition won, versus 61 percent on Sunday.

Flanked by his powerful wife, soldiers, and red-shirted party members, a jubilant Maduro painted the opposition as sore losers. “When they lose they cry fraud. When they win they shout ‘Down with Maduro,'” said Maduro, 54.

The opposition pocketed governorships including the turbulent Andean states of Merida and Tachira and the oil-producing region of Zulia.

The government, which had previously controlled 20 governorships, took states across Venezuela’s languid plains and steamy Caribbean coast. It won back populous Miranda state, which includes part of the capital Caracas, and also won in Barinas, Chavez’s home state, where his younger brother retained the top job.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Cawthorne, Andreina Aponte, Diego Ore, Eyanir Chinea, Corina Pons, Girish Gupta in Caracas, Isaac Urrutia in Maracaibo, William Urdaneta in Ciudad Guayana and Arshad Mohammed in Washington D.C.; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer and Girish Gupta; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Tom Brown)

No visas, bad jobs: Venezuelan emigrants reluctantly return home

By Andreina Aponte and Anggy Polanco

CARACAS/SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (Reuters) – Early last year, Leandro Colmenares sold his car and his apartment and fled Venezuela’s profound economic crisis, joining a wave of emigration to other Latin American countries.

Colmenares, a medical equipment repairman, first set up in Panama with $7,000 in hand. When he could not get a visa and struggled to find work, he ended up with odd jobs like painting houses and doing electrical wiring for $25 a day.

“In Venezuela, I was rubbing shoulders with doctors. Months later I was mopping the floor in a Panama furniture shop,” said Colmenares, who has two sons, including one who is disabled.

He then tried his luck in Colombia, where he again took odd jobs, mostly cooking. He opened a small cafe with other Venezuelans but it failed.

“It was bad, I was going hungry. On weekends I ate once,” he said. And once again, he could not get a visa.

Crushed and having run out of money, Colmenares decided in February he had no choice but return to Venezuela empty-handed and by bus – one of an apparently growing number of Venezuelan emigrants forced to go home after failing to start a new life elsewhere in Latin America.

These recent migrants are often poor, hopping on buses to Latin American capitals with as little as a few hundred dollars and scant prospect of finding a decent job.

“The country I left was bad. When I came back it was worse,” said Colmenares, noting steep prices and ever less food on store shelves. He spends his days in his home in poor central Caracas, scraping out a living making dough for corn patties.

For decades after World War II, Venezuela’s flourishing oil economy made it a destination for mass immigration from southern Europe, with Portuguese bakeries and Spanish bars a common sight across Caracas.

But during 18 years of Socialist rule, an increase in crime, economic decay and political protests have prompted emigration to Miami, Madrid, and the rest of Latin America.

Sociologist Tomas Paez estimates over 2 million Venezuelans have left the country of 30 million, accelerating in the last two years as the OPEC member’s recession has worsened, leading to shortages of vital medicines and food, runaway inflation and lack of formal jobs.

While the early diaspora was mostly a middle-class phenomenon, recent migrants are more likely to be poor, heightening the chances that they will struggle.

There is no data on returnees but Reuters interviewed 10 Venezuelans who had emigrated after President Nicolas Maduro took office in 2013 only to return.

“ALL YOU DO IS SURVIVE”

For Miguel Blanco, a Caracas-based sociologist, the degree of poverty among people now leaving the country has led to more of them returning.

“When migration is triggered by push factors, it can lead the migrant to fail because of lack of money,” said Blanco.

Pockets of Venezuelan economic migrants, once a relatively rare sight in South America, have sprung up in cities from Bogota to Santiago de Chile. They are often seen hawking traditional corn patties on the streets or offering door-to-door beauty treatments.

Panama’s head of migration said in August that some 2,000 Venezuelans were setting up there every week, compared with about 500 to 600 before August, when Maduro’s government created a legislative superbody that was widely condemned by the opposition and other countries as a power grab.

With about 60,000 Venezuelans already in Panama, the government has implemented visas as an entry requirement.

Peru has estimated that in the first half of 2017 some 40,000 Venezuelans entered the country.

Venezuelan government supporters have said the extent of emigration has been exaggerated. Maduro’s administration scoffs at those who leave as selfish and unpatriotic. The Information Ministry did not respond to a request for data.

Colombia, which shares a porous border of some 2,219 kilometers with Venezuela, has estimated that about 36,000 Venezuelans enter daily, and that some 2,000 do not immediately return to their country.

Gerson Lopez, a 30-year-old graphic designer, said he was paid less by a Colombian beauty product company because he did not have legal documents.

“Informal work there is very exploitative,” said Lopez. “Venezuelans are doing the work Colombians don’t want to do.”

Lopez was broke when he returned to Venezuela in late January after being unable to find good work in Bogota.

“You have to think very hard if you’re going to leave,” he said, adding bitterly, “(But) here you don’t have any opportunities. All you do is survive.”

(Additional reporting by Marco Aquino in Lima, Fabian Cambero in Santiago and Anthony Boadle in Brasilia; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Dan Flynn)

After bloodshed, Venezuelan government and foes battle for votes

By Andrew Cawthorne and Francisco Aguilar

BARINAS, Venezuela (Reuters) – Tirelessly traversing the lethargic plains of Venezuela, a brother of former leader Hugo Chavez and an ally of a famous opposition detainee vie for votes.

The governorship race in Barinas state – the Chavez family’s stronghold – is the most emblematic of state elections taking place nationwide on Sunday just weeks after opposition-led protests that shook Venezuela and claimed at least 125 lives.

“At every rally, Hugo Chavez is out front, showing us the way,” enthuses Argenis Chavez, 59, an electrical engineer and incumbent governor, jumping on a bike and evoking his late elder brother at every campaign stop.

“In Barinas, defeating the government means defeating the Chavez family who have wielded power at whim for 18 years,” counters opposition rival Freddy Superlano, 41, wearing a shirt with the image of his arrested party leader Leopoldo Lopez.

This year’s prolonged protests failed to bring down the government of President Nicolas Maduro, but they hardened global opinion against the ruling socialists and led to U.S. sanctions.

Now, opposition leaders want their demoralized supporters to turn out en masse at the gubernatorial polls to overturn Maduro’s majority in 20 of Venezuela’s 23 states.

The government, in turn, wants to minimize seemingly inevitable losses, and trumpet the election as proof against accusations of autocracy in Venezuela.

“Look at our ‘dictatorship’ then: an election where most candidates are from the opposition!” Chavez ironically told Reuters, as red-shirted supporters danced around him at a rally.

With voters angry over a crushing economic crisis, polls show the opposition coalition would win handily in normal circumstances. One recent survey gave the coalition, which aspires to win 18 governorships, 44.7 percent of voter intentions versus 21.1 percent for the government.

SKEWED PLAYING FIELD?

Circumstances are far from normal in Venezuela, however, and the government has threatened to ban any candidates linked to violence in protests.

Furthermore, as in past elections during the ruling “Chavismo” movement’s 18-year grip on Venezuela, state resources are being mobilized heavily for official candidates.

Distribution of subsidized food at government rallies is commonplace, state-run companies lend transport for the events, and state media give Maduro’s candidates unfettered air-time. One opposition candidate’s brother has been arrested for alleged car theft in what the coalition says is an attempt to intimidate its ranks.

Perhaps the biggest disadvantage for the opposition is the electronic ballot sheet itself.

Despite primaries to choose a single opposition candidate per state from the plethora of parties within the Democratic Unity coalition, the pro-Maduro election board is declining to modify the ballot list to narrow it down to one name.

All initial candidates from before the primaries are listed on the ballot instead, something that could confuse opposition supporters and dilute their vote, benefiting the ruling Socialist Party’s candidates.

Further stoking opposition supporters’ skepticism, the election board is using a new vote machine provider after long-term partner Smartmatic accused it of inflating numbers in July’s controversial election of a Constituent Assembly super-body.

“OPPOSITION WANTS WAR”

On a walkabout in an unpaved shantytown on the outskirts of Barinas city, Superlano told Reuters government candidates were using helicopters to campaign while he and other opposition aspirants spent hours on the road to reach remote communities.

The government was also exploiting Venezuelans’ hunger, during a period of unprecedented scarcity, by handing out food bags in return for promises of votes, he said.

“It’s a macabre plan,” said Superlano, a lawmaker from Lopez’s Popular Will party who won the opposition primary in Barinas. “Even with all that, they are losing!”

Having dealt a hugely symbolic blow to “Chavismo” by winning five of six congress seats for Barinas in 2015 elections, the opposition now wants to end 18 years of nearly unbroken control of the governorship by Chavez family members.

While there is widespread discontent over food shortages, idle land and rising malnutrition in a fertile region that should be Venezuela’s bread basket, the government is running a rigorous campaign and painting Superlano as “the candidate of the violence” in reference to this year’s protests.

Maduro supporters say the opposition, backed by Venezuela’s elite and the U.S. government, is intent on taking power by force to seize control of the nation’s oil riches.

“They want war for Venezuela. We want peace,” said 65-year-old retiree Ramon Alvarran, proudly wearing a red T-shirt depicting the eyes of Hugo Chavez at a rally for his brother.

Elsewhere though, resentment against Maduro is palpable.

“My kids don’t have a crumb in their stomachs yet today,” said Daris Gonzalez, 36, whose three children had not eaten by lunchtime. Like many in her poor and once staunchly “Chavista” neighborhood, Gonzalez is now leaning toward the opposition.

“There has to be change. We cannot go on like this.”

Offsetting such sentiment, many young grassroots opposition supporters feel their leaders have sold out – and betrayed the memory of slain protesters – by entering an election on an unfair playing field. Abstentions could hurt their numbers.

Should the opposition triumph on Sunday, the government can limit the impact by restricting funding and taking authority away from the governors’ offices, as it has done in the past when offices have fallen to opponents.

Any overt dirty tricks, however, risk bringing more international sanctions or torpedoing an already fragile, foreign-led mediation with the opposition that Maduro needs to improve his international image.

Following the gubernatorial election, the opposition wants to shift attention to demanding a date, and guarantee of free conditions, for the 2018 presidential election to advance their ultimate goal of ending socialist rule.

“People are very angry and their anger has a face: Maduro,” said Carlos Ocariz, an opposition candidate trying to hold Miranda state for the opposition against a rising star on the government side, Hector Rodriguez.

(Reporting by Andrew Cawthorne and Francisco Aguilar; Editing by Alexandra Ulmer and Tom Brown)

Venezuela’s January-September inflation 536 percent: National Assembly

People buy food and other staple goods inside a supermarket in Caracas, Venezuela, July 25, 2017. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

CARACAS (Reuters) – Inflation in Venezuela’s crisis-hit economy was 536.2 percent in the nine months to September, largely due to the rapid depreciation of the local currency on the black market, the opposition-controlled National Assembly said on Friday.

The government stopped releasing price data more than a year ago, but congress has published its own figures since January and they have been close to private economists’ estimates.

As well as the alarming Jan-Sept cumulative rise, the legislative body – which has been sidelined by President Nicolas Maduro’s government – put monthly inflation at 36.3 percent for September, compared with 34 percent in August.

Opponents say Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, have wrecked a once-prosperous economy with 18 years of state-led socialist policies from nationalizations to currency controls.

The government says it is victim of an “economic war”, including speculation and hoarding, by pro-opposition businessmen.

The country’s bolivar currency has weakened sharply in recent weeks on the widely-watched black market rate.

On Friday, $1 was worth nearly 27,000 bolivars on the black market, versus 22 when Maduro took power in April 2013 and 18,500 at the start of September this year.

Opposition lawmaker and economist Angel Alvarado said the government’s restriction of dollars available via official currency exchange mechanisms had pressured prices in September.

“The government strategy is only making Venezuelans poorer by the day,” he said, adding that families were now spending 80 percent of income on food.

Prices in Venezuela, which has long had one of the highest inflation rates in the world, rose 180.9 percent in 2015 and 274 percent in 2016, according to official figures, although many economists believe the real data was worse.

(Reporting by Caracas newsroom; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Venezuela’s unrest, food scarcity take psychological toll on children

By Alexandra Ulmer

LOS TEQUES, Venezuela (Reuters) – Venezuelan siblings Jeremias, 8, and Victoria, 3, were in their pajamas and preparing to go to bed when a tear gas canister smashed through their family’s kitchen window in early July.

National Guard soldiers were pelting the building in this highland town near Caracas with tear gas canisters as they searched for opposition activists who had been protesting against unpopular President Nicolas Maduro for over three months.

Amid screams and insults from neighbors, soldiers stormed the building and arrested dozens of youths, according to the children’s mother, Gabriela.

Gabriela and her husband Yorth hid the kids in their bedroom closet as the apartment filled with thick gas after seven canisters crashed in. The guards did not enter their apartment, but the family was unable to sleep that night and the apartment reeked for days.

After that, the kids changed.

Jeremias cried and begged to leave Venezuela. His younger sister, previously not even scared of the dark, was terrified every time she heard a loud sound – an object falling, a truck, or thunder.

“She would say: ‘The soldiers are attacking us’ and cry,” said Gabriela, 30, a nurse by training. “That was the trigger for us that we had to get the kids out of here, otherwise it would be even worse for them psychologically.”

A month after the incident, the family sold what it could, packed three suitcases, and left Venezuela by bus with around $250 in their pocket, joining droves fleeing the country.

Out of fear of reprisals, Gabriela asked that their surname and country of residence not be published.

Her children’s case highlights the lasting psychological toll the OPEC nation’s economic and political crisis is having on its youngsters.

Venezuela, home to the world’s largest crude oil reserves, has spiraled deeper into chaos in recent years as Maduro – the narrowly-elected successor of leftist firebrand Hugo Chavez – has cracked down harder on the opposition amid a painful recession blamed by economists on his socialist government’s interventionist policies.

Recently, months of protests demanding early elections interrupted schools, leaving kids holed up at home or exposed to violence. A crippling recession has spawned shortages of products like milk and diapers, while rapid inflation means toys or school uniforms are unaffordable for poor families.

There is no recent data examining the psychological effects of the deprivations on children, but teachers, psychologists, rights activists and two dozen parents interviewed by Reuters suggest it could have a heavy toll.

“From a young age, children are being forced to think about survival,” said psychologist Abel Saraiba at Caracas-based child protection organization Cecodap. He said around half of his 50 patients have symptoms linked to the crisis.

Children are more prone to anxiety, aggression and depression, and could also struggle to relate with peers because they see the outside world as hostile. That could be another hurdle in Venezuela’s eventual reconstruction.

Maduro blames the opposition for traumatizing children and others via protests that often turned violent, with hooded demonstrators throwing stones and Molotov cocktails.

He says his government, which did not respond to a request for comment, has done more for children than previous administrations, pointing to youth orchestras, sports programs and vacation camps.

Yennifer Padron kisses her baby in her house at Petare slum in Caracas. REUTERS/Andres Martinez Casares

“MOMMY, WHEN IS THE FOOD BOX COMING?”

It is lack of affordable food – a kilo of rice costs around 20 percent of a monthly minimum wage – that is putting the most strain on children from poor families.

Some low-income families have little choice but bring their children to rough food lines at supermarkets or send them to work or beg. Parents say childrens’ games include pretending to find food at the supermarket.

In the most dramatic cases, kids suffer malnutrition and disease.

High up in Caracas’ sprawling Petare slum, waiter Victor Cordova juggles three jobs while his wife Yennifer cares for their three daughters and a baby boy in their tiny home.

The girls sometimes wake their parents in the middle of the night asking for food, and spend much of the day inquiring when government-subsidized food boxes will arrive.

“They’re always asking me: ‘Mommy, when is the food box coming? Will the food box have milk?’ I can’t get it out of their heads,” said Yennifer, 26, rocking little Aaron.

“I tell them they’re too little to worry about that, that they should only worry about studying. But they’re little sponges, they absorb everything.”

A minority of parents, appalled by once-booming Venezuela’s collapse into misery, try to hide the crisis from their kids.

Accountant Suset Gutierrez tells her two sons in the decaying industrial town of Ciudad Guayana that nighttime gunshots are fireworks from parties or exploding car tires.

“I’ve had to vary the stories because they’ve wanted to know about the parties,” said Gutierrez, 47, whose kids also asked why they don’t have more milk or pasta at home.

“I’ve had to invent that it’s because the cows have fallen ill or because heavy rains in other countries mean there’s no wheat.”

Outside Venezuela, Gabriela and her husband, who used to work as a company administrator, have found work selling flowers and at a cafe. They see their children steadily improving.

Once the family gets more economic stability, Gabriela said she will seek psychological help for them.

“They’re happy. The eldest tells me, ‘Look, there’s candy here!'” said Gabriela, laughing. “But if someone even suggests the possibility of going back to Venezuela, he starts to cry.”

(Additional reporting by Maria Ramirez in Puerto Ordaz, Anggy Polanco in San Cristobal, Mircely Guanipa in Punto Fijo, Francisco Aguilar in Barinas; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Girish Gupta, Daniel Flynn and Jonathan Oatis)

Venezuela opposition won’t attend scheduled talks with government

Luis Florido (C), lawmaker of the Venezuelan coalition of opposition parties (MUD) attends a news conference at the National Assembly building in Caracas, Venezuela, September 26, 2017. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes

By Diego Oré and Andreina Aponte

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition said on Tuesday it will not join scheduled talks with President Nicolas Maduro’s government, undercutting a dialogue effort that has been viewed with suspicion by many adversaries of the ruling Socialist Party.

The government has eagerly promoted the talks amid global criticism that Maduro is turning the country into a dictatorship, while the opposition has always insisted the talks should not distract from the country’s economic crisis.

The two sides held separate exploratory conversations with the president of the Dominican Republic earlier this month. But the opposition said the government has not made enough progress on issues such as human rights to warrant full bilateral talks.

“Negotiation is not to go and waste time, to look at someone’s face, but rather so that Venezuelans can have immediate solutions,” opposition leader Henrique Capriles told reporters.

“We cannot have a repeat of last year’s failure,” he said, referring to Vatican-brokered talks in 2016 that fell apart after the opposition said the government was simply using them as a stalling tactic.

The Information Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The opposition wants a date for the next presidential election, due by the end of 2018, with guarantees it will be free and fair. It is also calling for freedom for hundreds of jailed activists, a foreign humanitarian aid corridor and respect for the opposition-led congress.

With Spain pushing for the European Union to adopt restrictive measures against members of the Venezuelan government, Maduro may be hoping to dodge further sanctions.

The United States has issued several rounds of sanctions against Venezuela, primarily in response to the creation of an all-powerful super body called the Constituent Assembly that was elected in a July vote the opposition labeled fraudulent.

Many countries have refused to recognize the assembly, which Maduro insists has brought peace to the country of 30 million. He says opposition leaders are coup-plotters seeking to sabotage socialism in oil-rich Venezuela under the guise of peaceful protests.

Amid a fourth straight year of recession, millions of Venezuelans are suffering food shortages and rampant inflation, which the government blames on an “economic war” led by the opposition and fueled by recent sanctions.

(Reporting by Diego Ore and Andreina Aponte, Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; editing by Diane Craft and Dan Grebler)

Venezuela doctors in protest urge stronger WHO stance on health crisis

People hold letters which read "Hunger" during a protest outside the World Health Organization (WHO) office in Caracas, Venezuela September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes

By Alexandra Ulmer

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s doctors, fed up with what they called the World Health Organization’s passive attitude toward the country’s deep medical crisis, protested at the agency’s Caracas office on Monday to demand more pressure on the government and additional assistance.

Venezuela is suffering from a roughly 85 percent shortage of medicines, decrepit hospital infrastructure, and an exodus of doctors during a brutal recession.

Once-controlled diseases like diphtheria and measles have returned due in part to insufficient vaccines and antibiotics, while Venezuelans suffering chronic illnesses like cancer or diabetes often have to forgo treatment.

Malnutrition is also rising, doctors say.

Rare government data published in May showed maternal mortality shot up 65 percent while malaria cases jumped 76 percent. The former health minister was fired shortly after the bulletin’s publication, and it has not been issued since.

In the latest protest by an umbrella group of health associations, dozens of doctors and activists gathered at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the WHO’s regional office, urging the agency step up pressure on Nicolas Maduro’s leftist government and provide more aid during its 29th Pan American Sanitary Conference this week.

“There’s been a complicit attitude because they haven’t denounced things,” Dr. Rafael Muci said during the rally.

“This is an unlivable country, and no one is paying attention,” he said, adding he earns about $8 a month at a state hospital.

In a statement on Monday, PAHO stressed its main role was to provide “technical cooperation” and highlighted recent help in providing vaccines.

The Venezuelan government, which accuses activists of whipping up panic and the business elite of hiding medicines, did not respond to a request for comment.

Venezuelans seeking certain drugs often have to scour pharmacies, seek foreign donations or turn to social media.

Sociologist Maria Angelica Casanova, 51, has struggled to find psychiatric medicines for a year. “Sometimes they come, sometimes they don’t. It’s serious,” she said, as passers-by shouted “Down with Maduro!”

Measles, which were controlled after a mass immunization in the 1990s, has returned to Venezuela’s jungle state of Bolivar, PAHO data show.

As the crisis stokes emigration, Venezuela’s health problems could be exported, doctors warned.

“We don’t know how many people who are emigrating could have some of these pathogens in incubation period,” said Andres Barreto, an epidemiologist who had participated in the measles vaccination drive.

(Reporting by Alexandra Ulmer; Additional reporting by Johnny Carvajal; Editing by Richard Chang)

Trump slaps travel restrictions on North Korea, Venezuela in sweeping new ban

International passengers wait for their rides outside the international arrivals exit at Washington Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia, U.S. September 24, 2017.

By Jeff Mason and Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Sunday slapped new travel restrictions on citizens from North Korea, Venezuela and Chad, expanding to eight the list of countries covered by his original travel bans that have been derided by critics and challenged in court.

Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia were left on the list of affected countries in a new proclamation issued by the president. Restrictions on citizens from Sudan were lifted.

The measures help fulfill a campaign promise Trump made to tighten U.S. immigration procedures and align with his “America First” foreign policy vision. Unlike the president’s original bans, which had time limits, this one is open-ended.

“Making America Safe is my number one priority. We will not admit those into our country we cannot safely vet,” the president said in a tweet shortly after the proclamation was released.

Iraqi citizens will not be subject to travel prohibitions but will face enhanced scrutiny or vetting.

The current ban, enacted in March, was set to expire on Sunday evening. The new restrictions are slated to take effect on Oct. 18 and resulted from a review after Trump’s original travel bans sparked international outrage and legal challenges.

The addition of North Korea and Venezuela broadens the restrictions from the original, mostly Muslim-majority list.

An administration official, briefing reporters on a conference call, acknowledged that the number of North Koreans now traveling to the United States was very low.

Rights group Amnesty International USA condemned the measures.

“Just because the original ban was especially outrageous does not mean we should stand for yet another version of government-sanctioned discrimination,” it said in a statement.

“It is senseless and cruel to ban whole nationalities of people who are often fleeing the very same violence that the U.S. government wishes to keep out. This must not be normalized.”

The American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement the addition of North Korea and Venezuela “doesn’t obfuscate the real fact that the administration’s order is still a Muslim ban.”

The White House portrayed the restrictions as consequences for countries that did not meet new requirements for vetting of immigrants and issuing of visas. Those requirements were shared in July with foreign governments, which had 50 days to make improvements if needed, the White House said.

A number of countries made improvements by enhancing the security of travel documents or the reporting of passports that were lost or stolen. Others did not, sparking the restrictions.

The announcement came as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear oral arguments on Oct. 10 over the legality of Trump’s previous travel ban, including whether it discriminated against Muslims.

NORTH KOREA, VENEZUELA ADDED

Trump has threatened to “destroy” North Korea if it attacks the United States or its allies. Pyongyang earlier this month conducted its most powerful nuclear bomb test. The president has also directed harsh criticism at Venezuela, once hinting at

a potential military option to deal with Caracas.

But the officials described the addition of the two countries to Trump’s travel restrictions as the result of a purely objective review.

In the case of North Korea, where the suspension was sweeping and applied to both immigrants and non-immigrants, officials said it was hard for the United States to validate the identity of someone coming from North Korea or to find out if that person was a threat.

“North Korea, quite bluntly, does not cooperate whatsoever,” one official said.

The restrictions on Venezuela focused on Socialist government officials that the Trump administration blamed for the country’s slide into economic disarray, including officials from the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service and their immediate families.

Trump received a set of policy recommendations on Friday from acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke and was briefed on the matter by other administration officials, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a White House aide said.

The rollout on Sunday was decidedly more organized than Trump’s first stab at a travel ban, which was unveiled with little warning and sparked protests at airports worldwide.

Earlier on Sunday, Trump told reporters about the ban: “The tougher, the better.”

Rather than a total ban on entry to the United States, the proposed restrictions differ by nation, based on cooperation with American security mandates, the threat the United States believes each country presents and other variables, officials said.

Somalis, for example, are barred from entering the United States as immigrants and subjected to greater screening for visits.

After the Sept. 15 bombing attack on a London train, Trump wrote on Twitter that the new ban “should be far larger, tougher and more specific – but stupidly, that would not be politically correct.”

The expiring ban blocked entry into the United States by people from the six countries for 90 days and locked out most aspiring refugees for 120 days to give Trump’s administration time to conduct a worldwide review of U.S. vetting procedures for foreign visitors.

Critics have accused the Republican president of discriminating against Muslims in violation of constitutional guarantees of religious liberty and equal protection under the law, breaking existing U.S. immigration law and stoking religious hatred.

Some federal courts blocked the ban, but the U.S. Supreme Court allowed it to take effect in June with some restrictions.

(Additional reporting by James Oliphant, Yeganeh Torbati, and Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Canada to impose sanctions on Venezuela’s Maduro and top officials

FILE PHOTO: Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro speaks during his weekly broadcast "Los Domingos con Maduro" (The Sundays with Maduro) in Caracas, Venezuela September 17, 2017. Miraflores Palace/Handout via REUTERS

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada will impose targeted sanctions against 40 Venezuelan senior officials, including President Nicolás Maduro, to punish them for “anti-democratic behavior,” the foreign ministry said on Friday.

Canada’s move, which followed a similar decision by the United States, came after months of protests against Maduro’s government in which at least 125 people have been killed. Critics say he has plunged the nation into its worst-ever economic crisis and brought it to the brink of dictatorship.

“Canada will not stand by silently as the government of Venezuela robs its people of their fundamental democratic rights,” Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a statement.

The measures include freezing the assets of the officials and banning Canadians from having any dealings with them.

The actions were “in response to the government of Venezuela’s deepening descent into dictatorship,” Canada said.

There was no immediate reaction from Caracas, where the government established a pro-Maduro legislative superbody that has overruled the country’s opposition-led Congress.

Maduro has said he faces an armed insurrection designed to end socialism in Latin America and let a U.S.-backed business elite get its hands on the OPEC nation’s crude reserves.

The United States imposed sanctions on Maduro in late July and has also targeted around 30 other officials.

The Canadian measures name Maduro, Vice President Tareck El Aissami and 38 other people, including the ministers of defense and the interior as well as several Supreme Court judges.

Canada is a member of the 12-nation Lima Group, which is trying to address the Venezuelan crisis. A government official said Freeland wanted to host a meeting of the group within the next 60 days.

Cyndee Todgham Cherniak, a trade sanctions expert at Toronto law firm LexSage, said although limited in scope, the Canadian measures were symbolic.

“When you join other countries … it makes the message louder,” she said by phone.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday he believed there was a chance for a political solution.

“This is a situation that is obviously untenable. The violence … needs to end and we are looking to be helpful,” he told reporters at the United Nations.

Experts say individual measures have had little or no impact on Maduro’s policies and that broader oil-sector and financial sanctions may be the only way to make the Venezuelan government feel economic pain.

U.S. President Donald Trump last month signed an executive order that prohibits dealings in new debt from the Venezuelan government or its state oil company.

Earlier this month, Spain said it wanted the European Union to adopt restrictive measures against members of the Venezuelan government.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Jonathan Oatis)

China offers support for strife-torn Venezuela at United Nations

FILE PHOTO: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (L) shakes hands with United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres prior to their meeting at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 18, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

BEIJING (Reuters) – China believes that the Venezuelan government and people can resolve their problems within a legal framework and maintain national stability, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Venezuelan counterpart at the United Nations.

At least 125 people have been killed in four months of protests against President Nicolás Maduro’s government, which has resisted calls to bring forward the presidential election and instead set up a pro-Maduro legislative superbody called a Constituent Assembly that has overruled the country’s opposition-led Congress.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he wanted democracy restored soon in Venezuela and warned that the United States might take additional measures to apply pressure on the oil-producing nation.

China, a good friend of Venezuela’s, has brushed off widespread condemnation from the United States, Europe and others about the situation in the country.

Wang told Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza on Tuesday on the sidelines of a U.N. meeting that the two countries have an all-round strategic partnership, Chinese state news agency Xinhua said on Wednesday.

“China’s policy towards Venezuela will not change,” the report cited Wang as saying.

China has always upheld the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, and believes Venezuela’s government and people have the ability to resolve problems via talks within a legal framework and protect national stability, Wang added.

“The international community should take a fair and objective stance and play a constructive role,” he said.

China and oil-rich Venezuela have a close diplomatic and business relationship, especially in energy.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Michael Perry)

Sign up for Jim Bakker Show