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Venezuela, by the numbers, resembles a country hit by civil war. Its economy, once Latin America’s richest, is estimated to have shrunk by 10 percent in 2016, more than Syria's. Its inflation that year has been estimated as high as 720 percent, nearly double that of second-ranked South Sudan, rendering its currency nearly worthless. In a country with the world’s largest proven oil reserves, food has grown so scarce that three in four citizens reported involuntary weight loss, averaging 19 pounds in a year. City streets are marked by black markets and violence. The last reported murder rate, in 2014, was equivalent to the civilian casualty rate in 2004 Iraq. Its democracy, long a point of pride, became the oldest to collapse into authoritarianism since World War II. Power grabs, most recently to replace the Constitution, have led to protests and crackdowns that have killed dozens just this month...READ MORE 
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The opposition leader talks about challenging Maduro's government and the worst poverty crisis in Venezuela's history...READ MORE
Venezuela released public health statistics for the first time in nearly two years this week, revealing skyrocketing infant and maternal mortality rates and a boom in the spread of diseases like malaria. Diphtheria, a disease Venezuela had fully eradicated by the 1990s, has returned...READ MORE  Latin America has a good deal of experience in how to make the transition to democracy, but that takes dialogue and mutual recognition among political opponents...READ MORE
President Nicolas Maduro has overseen an unprecedented depreciation in his country’s currency since taking office, with the bolivar now down 99.5 percent to 5,100 per dollar in the black market that everyday Venezuelans use...READ MORE  A night of looting in a former bastion of Venezuela's socialist government reveals how the government of Nicolás Maduro is losing its support among the poor...READ MORE  Mariana Mejias can't afford to buy a bag of rice in Venezuela.She lives in Mariche, an extremely poor neighborhood in the country's capital, Caracas, which suffers from severe food and medical shortages like the rest of the country....READ MORE  |
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