Tag Archives: Venezuela

A Note from Ecuador – Proposed: “A Marshall Plan for South America and Africa”

17 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, South America

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The poor countries from Latin America and Africa need an international bailout plan such as the Marshal Plan to Europe after the world war, with economic loans at low bank interest of 1% and 2% and more than 40 years to pay, which is could extend to 60 years term to pay and up to 80 years term, not as now happens with the perversion of the capital market with economic loans to 7% and 8% bank interest with only 5 year to pay to poor countries due to moral degeneration of Wall Street people who lives in Park Avenue … it is also necessary to allow the transfer of technology from rich countries to poor countries to build cars, trucks, buses, industrial machinery, tractors, televisions, computers, cell phones, build nuclear power plants and ensure that poor countries can grow at 5% of GDP per year over the next 50 years to reduce poverty, violence, migration, pay the foreign debt also and maintain world peace…

Source of the above will remain unattributed.

Below: recent documentary coverage of the collapse of Venezuela’s economy.

https://youtu.be/uW_qBQC0WVY

Posted to YouTube May 15, 2017

Posted to YouTube May 14, 2017

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Correa Refuses Maduro Meeting, Source Says

18 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Ecuador, International Development, Politics, South America, Venezuela

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Ecuador’s president Raphael Correa will not meet with Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro this month, says a BackChannels source.

The decision, if true, follows on a rapid economic decline in Venezuela involving increasingly visible dictatorship and political repression and a kind of stink that devoted socialist leaders, either in heart or speech, may apparently wish to avoid.

Only three months ago, Maduro visited with Iranian president Hassan Rouhani in Tehran and then in Saudi Arabia with then Crown Prince Salman (twelve days later, the same would become King Salman) to navigate some way between opposition to the west and cooperation with Iran’s opponents in exchange for loans:

“We’re finalizing a financial alliance with important banks from Qatar that will give us sufficient oxygen to help cover the fall in oil prices and give us the resources we need for the national foreign currency budget,” Maduro said, adding that the two nations had also “strengthened the ties of cooperation to open paths for cultural and touristic exchange.”

http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/11157 – 1/12/2015.

Recent related faux socialist grandstanding by President Correa:

. . . the US “Has ‘double standards’ and sustains good relations with absolute monarchies, without democracy” while Venezuela has to face the usual elites causing interference to see if they can destabilize the government. “When will they understand that Latin America has changed. Here you will find sovereignty, dignity, unity,” he said.

He called Washington’s position “a disgrace” and stressed that “Latin America must speak out in opposition to such arrogance, unilateralism and imperialism.”

http://www.pressenza.com/2015/03/president-of-ecuador-highlights-meeting-of-unsaur-in-quito-to-discuss-the-position-of-venezuela/ – 3/16/2015.

Bloomberg Business comments:

Correa, who has long allied himself with Chavez’s socialist ambitions and declared three days of mourning to mark his death, is now deviating from policies that saw him use Ecuador’s oil wealth to finance record spending. Maduro’s refusal to break with the currency controls and gasoline subsidies embraced by Chavez is deepening concern that Venezuela, which gets about 95 percent of its export revenue from oil, will run out of money as soon as this year.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-15/bondholders-spurning-chavezs-venezuela-disciple-andes-credit – 1/14/2015.

Since late February, Maduro’s course in political repression has been making headlines: Washington Post – “Venezuela and Cuba: Partners in repression”; Yahoo! Maktoob News – “Venezuelan teen dies after being shot at anti-Maduro protest”; Wall Street Journal – “Venezuela Cracks Down on Dissent”; NPR – “Venezuela’s President Sees Only Plots as His Economy Crumbles”, etc.

From the NPR piece:

. . . in blaming the U.S. for nearly all his problems, Maduro is crying wolf, says Xabier Coscojuela, editor of the Caracas newspaper Tal Cual.

“I’ve lost count of the number of alleged plots to overthrow or kill the president,” Coscojuela says. “It’s something like ten over the past two years. But there is no credible evidence in any of these cases.”

http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2015/03/08/391549844/venezuelas-maduro-sees-only-plots-as-his-economy-crumbles – 3/8/2015.

Several terms coined or simply put to use on this blog might apply: “Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy”; “Malignant Narcissism”; “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation”.

The politician as feudal lord, “state capitalist”, or incredibly privileged socialist (or nationalist) has to enjoy the psychological fruit of his own excesses — none of these presidents (for life) live in shacks (or pass time at spinning wheels) — and the results in real politics of a state-enforced magical economics that turns out entirely piratical.

This too comes from NPR:

Simon Nobile, 72, runs the Capri pasta factory in the capital Caracas, which was founded by his Italian-born father in 1940. Capri’s two plants crank out 11 million pounds of pasta per month.

They could produce nearly twice that much. However, Nobile says a government policy designed to help the poor forces him to sell half of his inventory for just five cents a pound.

“There is no incentive because price controls mean that you lose money. So the more you produce, the more money you lose,” he says.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2015/02/07/384331225/rich-in-oil-venezuela-is-now-poor-in-most-everything-else – 2/7/2015.

While “inclusion” numbers among the six primary global virtues promoted by this blog, it takes some careful planning to channel much needed cash to the floor of an economy and sustain that traffic across time.

It doesn’t happen by magic.

The process need not dehumanize, humiliate, or subjugate, but it may need to be responsive and responsible to labor involved and the many productive capacities and cultural and environmental boundaries of place.

The drop in oil prices was the deep voice of international capital speaking, which irrupted as if from nowhere and in counterpoint to the rhythms of local and visible Venezuelan politics. When international capital spoke, it dashed all the local plans, because the slow time-frame of the Bolivarian government’s plans for economic diversification and the turtle steps of the Venezuelan opposition’s march towards the upcoming elections suddenly were no longer viable.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11264 – 3/11/2015

Chris Gilbert’s mention of “economic diversification” plays up that will-o’-the-wisp — there is always talk of it, but when one goes to find it, it’s less there than it should be — facing at least several autocratic governments reliant on mineral proceeds for fueling their economies.

In 2012 it looked like the politician’s spectacular career was winding down. Suddenly, he was back on top. People With Money reports on Tuesday (March 17) that Maduro is the highest-paid politician in the world, pulling in an astonishing $96 million between February 2014 and February 2015, a nearly $60 million lead over his closest competition.

http://en.mediamass.net/people/nicolas-maduro/highest-paid.html – 3/18/2015.

Chavez’s family now reportedly owns 17 country estates totaling more than 100,000 acres in the western state of Barinas, as well as assets of $550 million stored in various international bank accounts. Residents in the same region wait as long as three hours for basic provisions at grocery stores.

National Assembly Speaker Diosdado Cabello, a close confidant of Chavez and member of Maduro’s United Socialist Party, has allegedly amassed “a private fortune” through corruption and ties to regional drug traffickers. The Miami Herald reported accusations last week that Cabello received at least $50 million in bribes to overlook lucrative public contracts that were overpriced, according to a recent lawsuit.

Maduro said those who distort events in Venezuela are “on the side of the 1 percent.”

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/nicolas-maduro-fact-check/ – 4/2/2014.

The politics of foreign despots at a glance . . . the reason I find what I do (with simple search terms like “Maduro, wealth”, and a click of the mouse) is because I know the anchors of the image — the image of post-socialist now neo-feudal dictators AKA “malignant narcissists” — have their record in yesterday’s news and the factual data conveyed through it.

A joint new study by three leading Venezuelan universities — Andres Bello Catholic University, Central University of Venezuela, and Simon Bolivar University — shows that 48.4 percent of Venezuelan households were below the poverty line in 2014, up from 45 percent of households in 1998, before late radical leftist President Hugo Chávez took office and benefited from nearly a decade of soaring world oil prices.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/andres-oppenheimer/article9311450.html – 2/4/2015.

Venezuela has some of the world’s largest proven oil deposits as well as huge quantities of coal, iron ore, bauxite and gold.

Yet most Venezuelans live in poverty, many of them in shanty towns, some of which sprawl over the hillsides around the capital, Caracas.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-19649648 – 3/11/2015

Poverty is no joke: no dignity; no freedom; no growth; no future.

Whether the “unit of analysis” is individual, family, or community makes no difference. The restraints and punishments (for political dissent) suffocate soul and spirit.

To redress grievance and repair requires some accurate — not paranoid — comprehension of involved economic, political, and psychological forces and variables, starting with the character of the leadership in place: as it stands today, the feudal-medieval principle continues to invite to its portals conflict and revolution, the differences between a 12th Century despot, a 19th Century czar, and a 21st Century dictator yielding the same result in economic and social modeling across geopolitical space and time.

However, social — and perhaps liberal, humanist, and socialist — expectations have changed markedly since medieval days, and people become simply more rapidly aware of their own potential — and the potential of where they live as a base for living and producing for themselves and others (at fair rates) — and equally apprised of real cultural, political, and social impediments to achievement, and those same may include a piratical nobility.

“We used to produce rice and we had excellent coffee; now we produce nothing. With the situation here people abandoned the fields,” says Jesús López, in reference to government-seized land that sits idle. “Empty shelves and no one to explain why a rich country has no food. It’s unacceptable,” adds the 90-year-old farmer from San Cristóbal, on the western state of Táchira, bordering Colombia.

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/sep/26/venezuela-food-shortages-rich-country-cia – 9/26/2013.

The so-called “socialist” scapegoating of the west, the Jews, the capitalists, and so on simply runs into its own true common feudal Orwellian political reality: dens of thieves, after all.

According to this measure, the number of Venezuelans classified as poor shot up in the last year by 1.8 million people. Roughly 6 percent of all Venezuela’s 30 million people became poor in the last year alone. The situation is even direr when one looks at extreme poverty, i.e., the number of people whose income cannot even buy a representative basket of food and drink. In the last year alone, the number of extremely poor Venezuelans rose by 730,000. They now reach close to three million people, or roughly 10 percent of the population.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/06/04/poverty-shoots-up-in-venezuela – 6/4/2015 –i.e., published almost a year ago, and, for sure, things cannot have gotten better.

Related Reference

http://lainfo.es/en/2015/03/17/presidents-arrive-in-venezuela-for-alba-meeting/ – 3/17/2015

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/venezuelas-president-nicolas-maduro-center-addresses-leaders-during-photo-001757098.html – 3/17/2015.

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Venezuela – Maduro Obtains Absolute Power

15 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, South America, Venezuela

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Waiting for me on Facebook: a rumor of war (grammar removed, ellipses added):

Venezuela  . . . soldiers from Russia and Vietnam . . . training population . . . civil war . . . Ukraine . . . urban combat . . . confrontation in the jungle like . . . Vietnam . . . .

While Reuters reported yesterday on amped up Venezuelan military activity involving the mobilization of 80.000 soldiers and 20,000 civilians as part of a drill, and Dissident Voice has has issued a denial about anything being unusual, certainly nothing that would pose a threat to U.S. “national security and foreign policy” — that may be true, but it’s not so good for the people of Venezuela who have been impoverished by the privileged of the socialist class — Maduro has picked up the right to “legislate by decree” for the next nine months.

Related:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/15/us-venezuela-maduro-idUSKBN0MB0XI20150315 – 3/15/2015

While Putin and Maduro met and moaned about oil prices back in January, I haven’t yet seen mainstream media mention of foreign military advisors or troops engaged with Maduro’s now undeniably obvious dictatorship, for rule by the leader’s decree is what dictatorships do.  The news, however, turns up recent trade agreements between Venezuela and Vietnam involving “oil deals”, asphalt, and textile plants.

WASHINGTON – The Venezuelan government’s close ties to Cuba and Iran pose a real threat to its sovereignty, and to the security of the hemisphere, retired Brig. Gen. Antonio Rivero, a former insider in the government of Hugo Chávez, told Fox News Latino during a visit to Washington, D.C., this week.

Rivero held high-profile positions under Chávez – from 2003 to 2008, he was the director of the Civil Protection and Disaster Relief agency – until he refused to chant “Socialism, Fatherland or Death,” a pledge emblematic of the Cuban Revolution that was imposed unexpectedly as part of the official military salute.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2015/03/13/iran-had-military-presence-in-uranium-rich-area-venezuela-former-general-says/ – 3/13/2015.

Put together with Karen Dawisha’s work on Putin’s management of Russia, the reversion to “state capitalism” in both Russia and Venezuela — and for Iran, the Khamenei brothers appear to be a $60 billion duo — seems to line up with this blog’s emerging thesis that in the battle between the medieval and modern, neo-feudalism appears to be making its dismal autocratic and disingenuous (about empowerment of the people, human rights, and modification of the distribution of wealth toward social ends) mark.

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Revived Arcs of Dictatorship – Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela

24 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by in Asia, China, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Politics, Regions, Russia, South America, Ukraine, Venezuela

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To Russian and Syrian officials and their supporters, the Syrian war and the standoff over the Crimean Peninsula are essentially part of a single, larger battle, against post-Cold War American unilateralism.

Unity Coalition for Israel.  “Russian Defiance Is Seen as a Confidence Builder for Syria’s Government.”  March 24, 2014.

When Putin’s Russia pledged $10 million to Syrian relief while spending $52 billion to host the winter games in Sochi, it told the world unmistakably what it was going to be about: the greatness of the Great Leader.

Why shouldn’t Bashar al-Assad continue what he’s doing while “encouraging” votes to reelect him as their Great Leader?

Why should Vladimir Putin halt the expansion of either mafia enterprise or Russian hegemony in Crimea?

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Six documents stamped with the seal of the Venezuelan army show that as far back as December 2001, agents of then president Hugo Chavez — Maduro’s mentor — sought to build a paramilitary. What is more, the recruitment efforts targeted military bases in order to incorporate army personnel into this non-uniformed militia. In other words, the Chavez government was looking for trained professionals who could handle weapons.

O’Grady, Mary Anastasia.  “Sanctioned killers make a mockery of ‘democracy’ claims.”  The Wall Street Journal, March 24/25, 2014.

I read the above in hard copy at the coffee shop an hour ago, so it has been out today, Monday, March 24.

Venezuela’s axis may be counterpoised to Russia, as I recall the note of a South American friend: “You can see the oil rigs of the Chinese from Miami.” [1]

The business would seem to come along with the way of doing business – or perhaps dictatorships simply understand one another in the way of crooked and sociopath elites:

The challenges facing most of the Caribbean nations are neither unique nor entirely isolated. They include high unemployment and migration levels, unsustainable levels of government debt and increasingly high costs of energy. In fact, the high costs of energy have led some small Caribbean island nations to join Hugo Chavez’s radical ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas) in exchange for cheap Venezuelan petroleum. When a powerful nation such as China comes on the scene and offers loans, credits and investment, local actors take substantial notice, especially when the traditional hegemon, the United States, seems preoccupied elsewhere.

Menéndez, Fernando.  “China Comes to the Caribbean.”  China – U.S. Focus, January 25, 2014.

To spell in schematic, “Putin-Assad-Khamenei” and “Putin-Yanukovych” (so sorry it didn’t last) seems to me perfectly sensible, and then to suggest a similar but Chinese-oriented path for Chavez seems not unreasonable.

The line may be missing a dot or two, but the dots are there and whether intentionally among the Bond-villain set — in the post-00s of the 21st Century, these already have their nukes — or unconsciously by way of the anomic lust for money that produces the policy that pipes out Sudanese oil while ignoring the Darfur Genocide, for example — hardly matters: free Europeans say “hello” to the new old bosses, the old familiars, the kind that talk kindly while select suspect associates are thrown off the roofs above their heads and the children of their constituents are barrel bombed into dead certain compliance with their will.

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Related on BackChannels: “Draw Near, the Next World Order — China and Russia Hang Together.”  March 3, 2014.

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Venezuela – Into Darkness

20 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by in FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Politics, Regions, South America, Venezuela

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http://youtu.be/x5NUGCTTSTo

Momento que policia de venezuela matan estudiante y modelo Génesis Carmona ! – YouTube – 2/19/2014.

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Once-defiant Venezuelan TV goes quiet amid opposition protests | Reuters – 2/19/2014.

Cameras Taken At Gunpoint In Venezuela – 2/20/2014.

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. . . since 2005, Venezuela has purchased more than $4 billion worth of arms from Russia.[1] In September 2008, Russia sent Tupolev Tu-160 bombers to Venezuela to carry out training flights.[2] In November 2008, both countries held a joint naval exercise in the Caribbean.[3] Following Chavez’s two visits to Moscow in July and September 2008, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin arrived in Venezuela to pave the way for a third meeting within five months between their two presidents.

Russia–Venezuela relations – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – as viewed 2/20/2014.

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This, however, was a significant improvement over media coverage of the violence during the Feb.12 march (see David’s comments in the Financial Times).

That day when the student’s protests turned increasingly violent, private television stations stopped their live coverage of the incidents. Globovisión, the news channel that used to be considered the main pro-opposition media but is now owned by a business group said to be close to the government, had initially given ample – but not live – coverage to the protests. But as soon as violence erupted in the afternoon, they switched to a fashion program.

How are Venezuela’s media covering the protests? – CSMonitor.com – 2/19/2014

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From a correspondent within the awesome conversation (2/20/2014):

The government of Venezuela is very stronger, have many people that support them and the soldiers have many business in the government.

The media try to present that the government are on the brink of fall, but this is not true, only the soldiers can make a Coup State, and the soldiers give support to the government.

China is the first investor in Cuba, at the end, Venezuela is a poor country also, Venezuela can’t give support to Cuba, they send a single ship of oil to Cuba per week, nothing more, and Cuba give assistance to Venezuela with health aid, doctors and assistance to the poor people, at the end Cuba is a poor country also…

China have many investments in Cuba, they are install offshore oil platforms in Cuba in the offshore of Miami, the people can see the oil platforms of China from the coast of Miami.

China invest in Nicaragua and other countries from the Caribean Sea, they will never allow a Coup State in Venezuela, because this can damage their business with Venezuela government, and China have many influence over U.S. government to keep the peace in the region.

The military force in Venezuela have business with oil, and sell oil to China… the military force can make a Coup State only, but they give support to the government to make business with China…

Venezuela, what this means, the soldiers, send twenty oil ships per day with oil to China and U.S., to sell oil to China and U.S.

They are friends and make business together…

American influence / (Chinese+Russian Influence) : god = capital, patronage, return.

That above I would call the newest world order.

Where people would appear to want a political voice, a say in their fate, some guarantees about dignity, freedom, and human rights, The Money has no conscience, no moral code other than to drift where it pays to go or otherwise directly into piratical networks.

No wonder Putin did not want Khodorkovsky running Russia’s oil business.  And China?  China’s quietly going about its business with banking, manufacturing, and mining, and it too seems immune to criticism.

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(Reuters) – Venezuelan security forces and demonstrators faced off in streets blocked by burning barricades in several provincial cities on Thursday as protests escalated against President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government.

Venezuela protests rumble as demonstrators, troops face off | Reuters – 2/20/2014.

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His wife, Lilian Tintori, placed a crucifix around his neck. He climbed down into a crowd gone wild with chants of ¡Sí, se puede! (Yes, we can!) and proceeded to turn himself over to the authorities . . . .

Leopoldo Lopez, the Venezuela Opposition’s New Hero – Businessweek – 2/20/2014.

Leopoldo Lopez, the Venezuela Opposition’s New Hero – Businessweek

Related: BBC News – Venezuelan opposition leader Lopez ‘to stay in custody’ – 2/20/2014.

Additional Reference

Genesis Carmona : The Two-Way : NPR – 2/20/2014.

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http://youtu.be/tIqG8jeCiZo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIqG8jeCiZo – 2/20/2014.

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Maduro asked the minister of Communication and Information, Delcy Rodríguez to inform CNN that “an administrative process has begun to take them off the aire if they do not mend their ways.”

Related: Maduro: If CNN do not correct reports, they are out of Venezuela – BuenosAiresHerald.com – 2/20/2014.

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FNS – Fast Scan

16 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Politics

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Brief

What to say to Pandora: “Don’t open the box!  Don’t look!”

The “fast scan” takes about an hour at human speed, ignores specific situations, and gets an “ah hah!” moment when one realizes that for causes that are often neither meaningful nor justifiable by those blowing themselves up, pulling triggers, and waving knives (is that still done?), conflict would seem just another natural cause of death.

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, people just plain don’t like other people.

Dress up the hate with poetry or scripture, crude talk, politico talk, lies, or a whole lot of truth, somebody’s got it in for somebody else by clan, class, ethnicity, nationality, race, or religion — no need to get personal: just box it, label it, and tear it apart!

Afghanistan

Afghanistan frees suspected Taliban prisoners over U.S. objections – The Washington Post – 2/13/2014.

Afghan forces have proved surprisingly effective – 2/15/2014.

Burma

The truth is, as Phuketwan first revealed on October 21, that Thai authorities pretend to deport the Rohingya, taking their names and fingerprints for the record, then actually deliver them into the arms of people traffickers.

Sordid Deception Fails to Hide Truth – Phuket Wan – 2/14/2014.

I don’t know what the sordid truth is out of Burma, but I know it’s bad and should be — now has — a place on the open source conflict overview circuit.

Central African Republic

Christian threats force Muslim convoy to turn back in CAR exodus | World news | theguardian.com – 2/14/2014.

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“If you want to disarm the anti-balaka, it is better to first disarm the Seleka,” said resident Ngaro Nadine. “It is the Seleka who have been massacring and killing. Now it is the anti-balaka who are strong.”

Foreign troops round up 10 in crackdown on CAR militias – UPI.com – 2/16/2014.

Egypt

Brig. Gen. Alaa Mahmoud said 33 tourists from South Korea were on the bus and had visited the Greek Orthodox Monastery of St. Catherine’s, in the Sinai Peninsula. The bus was headed to Israel and was waiting in line near a border crossing, he said.

Tourist bus blast kills 4, wounds 14 in Egypt – CNN.com – 2/16/2014.

Taba, Sinai, was the location of the bombing of a Hilton in 2004.

Related: Egypt bomb attack kills four on tourist bus – 1/17/2014.

Iraq – Fallujah and Anbar Province

UN envoy concerned about Fallujah deteriorating situation : Aswat Al Iraq – 2/14/2014.

Iraq PM makes historic visit to Anbar « ASHARQ AL-AWSAT – 2/16/2014.

Pakistan

Clashes over Valentine’s Day celebration in Pakistan leaves 4 injured – Khaama Press (KP) | Afghan News Agency – 2/14/2014.

Militancy and politics in the shadow of a ceasefire – Daily Times – 2/17/2014.

* * *

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A faction of the Pakistani Taliban said Sunday that it executed 23 paramilitary soldiers who have been held captive since 2010, even as other elements of the militant group continue preliminary peace talks with the country’s government.

Pakistani Taliban says it executed 23 captured Pakistani soldiers – The Washington Post – 2/16/2014.

Syria

“They can’t have it both ways,” the senior official said of the Russians. “They can’t say they’re in favor of negotiations in Geneva and a transitional governing body with full executive authority and humanitarian access and have a happy Olympics, and then be part and parcel of supporting this regime as it kills people in the most brutal way.”

U.S. official takes Russia to task for its role in Syrian conflict – The Washington Post – 2/15/2014.

Can negotiations resolve the Syrian conflict? – Inside Syria – Al Jazeera English – 2/16/2014.

Syrian rebels or international terrorists? – The Hindu – 2/17/2014.

Tunisia

The ministry said a National Guard patrol was sent to investigate reports that a civilian and a prison warden had been shot dead at a roadblock set up by armed men in Jendouba.

“Upon their arrival, terrorist elements opened fire,” killing two policemen and wounding another two, it said.

Ministry: Jihadists kill 4 in Tunisia – Al Arabiya News – 2/16/2014.

Turkey

Turkey has spent at least $2.5 billion on serving these guests since the war began and hosts around 600,000 Syrian refugees – around a quarter of all Syrian refugees. While many reside in the camps, a little over half have opted to settle in urban settlers and make their own living.

Turkish refugee camp ‘nicest’ in the world | General | Worldbulletin News – 2/14/2014.

Earlier this month, the Turkish army opened fire on a convoy of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) – a jihadist group active in Iraq and Syria. This was in retaliation for a series of cross-border strikes that hit Turkish soil. Turkey has also warned of possible terrorist attacks in Istanbul after receiving intelligence that al-Qaeda-linked jihadists were planning to disrupt the Syrian peace talks.

Why Turkey needs to stand up against al-Qaeda | neurope.eu – 2/16/2014.

Ukraine

Ukraine protesters end two-month occupation – 2/17/2014.

Venezuela

Venezuela split by pro- and anti-Maduro protests — The Tico Times – 2/16/2014.

Venezuela Anti-Government Protests: Security Forces Search For Opposition Leader | Fox News Latino – 2/16/2014.

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http://youtu.be/ATLiO5VPmDY

RAW VIDEO OUT OF VENEZUELA PROTEST MARCH AND SHOOTING AT PROTESTERS —- 2-16 – YouTube – 2/16/2014.

Yemen

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but Yemen is grappling with a growing threat from one of al Qaeda’s most active wings, which has killed hundreds of people in assaults on state and military facilities in the past two years.

Attack on prison in Yemeni capital kills 11 | Reuters – 2/14/2014.

Zimbabwe

allAfrica.com: Zimbabwe: Violence Rocks MDC-T Harare Meeting – 2/15/2014.

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