South America's beauty

Some view from the Amazon...yeah, the Amazon people are destroying.

Venezuela-Germany trade

Last year Venezuela exported to Germany for €538,743,000. It imported products and services from Germany for €903,911,000. That's what the Statistisches Bundesamt tells you.


Germany has a clear trade surplus with Venezuela, so I reckon that is a reason to keep low profile with the Chavetadas.

Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Peru are clearly more important for Germany right now than the Land of Grace. Uruguay and Ecuador are catching up. I will later try to find out how this has evolved through time.

Two very different questions

1) What happened to the US American who was detained last August in Western Venezuela and was accused of spying or somehow plotting against the Chávez government? Chávez announced the whole thing. The US confirmed one of its citizens had been detained. After that, neither the Venezuelan nor the US government have discussed the issue.

2) What has happened to the process against Boligarc Arné Chacón (the brother of top honcho and military man Jesse Chacón) for corruption? He was set free in December 30 because he had been in prison for 2 years without any trial taking place. Will there be a process? Who will know about its results? Can the public see any of it? Didn't he steal hundreds of millions? 

Schnee von gestern? Water under the bridge? ¿Pasó a la historia?

The caudillo is back in Venezuela

Yes, he is. To die?

He admitted he "trusts in his doctors". He twitted for the first time since November. But how long will he live? Keeping secrecy in Venezuela will be much more difficult than in Castro Island.

He had to arrive again in the wee hours of the night, just like a certain character of a book written by Bram Stoker.

Jorge Arriaza, Chávez's son-in-law and minister for "the Popular Power of Science and Innovation", announced fireworks will be use to celebrate the arrival...this really sounds like in North Korea.

Ígor Sechin, el guardián de los intereses rusos en Venezuela

No quiso conformarse con ser profesor de francés y portugués

Quiero agregar un par de detalles a esto.

Ígor Ivanovich Sechin es el silovik por excelencia. Nació el 7 de septiembre de 1960 en Leningrado, actual San Petersburgo. Estudió filología románica en la Universidad de Leningrado y concluyó sus estudios en 1984 (con 24 años) en la especialidad de docencia de portugués y francés. Esa es la misma universidad de donde salió Putin, que se graduara mucho antes.

De 1984 a 1987 Sechin trabajó en Mozambique como intérprete para la empresa soviética Tejnoeksport, que era una cobertura para las fuerzas especiales soviéticas allí y también de manera más claramente abierta para las fuerzas militares rusas en Angola que apoyaban al gobierno comunista de ese país. El mismo Putin lo expresó así. Estuvo en el momento de mayor intensificación de la guerra civil de Angola, cuando tanto la URSS y Cuba por un lado como Estados Unidos y Suráfrica luchaban en la zona.

Trabajó en el departamento de extranjería de la Universidad de Leningrado. No descartaría que allí también trabajase para la KGB con el fin de reclutar extranjeros que trabajasen para la URSS.

De 1988 a 1991 trabajó en el Parlamento de Leningrado, del 91 al 96 en la Alcaldía de San Petersburgo.

De 1996 a 1998 trabajó en la oficina de Control Principal del gobierno de la Federación Rusa. Terminó un PhD en economía en 1998. A partir de 1999 fue secretario de la Administración de la Federación Rusa.

De 2000 a 2008 fue vicepresidente de dicha Administración y ayudante del presidente de Rusia. Básicamente organizaba casi todos los encuentros de Putin. Algunos dicen que a partir de entonces liderizó los ataques de los aliados de Putin contra Yukos.

De 2006 a 2011 fue presidente del Consejo de Directores de NK Rosneft'. De mayo de 2008 a mayo de 2012 fue vicepresidente de la Federación Rusa (elegido por Putin).

Escribió el libro Problemas del Desarrollo de la Exportación de Petróleo y Productos Petrolíferos de la Federación Rusia y Formación de Proyectos Regionales.

Algunos de los viajes a Venezuela:

2008: fue con el fin de preparar tercer encuentro entre Chávez y Putin. Firmó un montón de acuerdos junto a Ramón Carrizales (el mismo que a comienzos de 2010 renunciase como ministro de Defensa y vicepresidente de Venezuela "por razones personales" y que actualmente es gobernador de Apure). Sechin le regaló a Chávez una edición recién salida de la biografía de Fidel Castro y Chávez se revanchó al regalarle un busto de Francisco de Miranda

Octubre de 2011 volvió a Venezuela un par de días después de que Chávez hubiese estado en Moscú. Aparentemente no quería dejar pasar el tiempo. Estuvo enj Caracas para que se firmase un acuerdo con el que Venezuela se endeudó por 4 mil millones de dólares para comprar armas a Rusia.

Septiembre de 2012: en nueva visita a Chávez, le dio un cachorro de parte de Putin. El cachorro es un tipo de labrador ruso también conocido como Stalin.

Fuentes:

RIA

Newsru

Global Security

Otras fuentes referidas en este blog

Sechin está casado y tiene una hija mayor.

Venezuelas Führer lebt...dafür muss er die Zeitung halten

Die Chávezpresse musste den Caudillo zeigen. Titel des staatlichen (d.h. des Regierungs-)senders? Chávez lebt und lächelt mit seinen Töchtern. Es gab zu viel Druck, eine ganze Gruppe Studenten protestierten vor der kubanischen Botschaft und verlangten Lebenszeichen vom ehemaligen Putschisten. 

Chávez musste die Zeitung halten, um zu beweisen, dass das Foto  aktuell ist. Das tun nur noch die Entführten, wenn die Entführer zeigen wollen, dass die Menschen unter ihrer Kontrolle noch am Leben sind...so wie bei Gilad Schalit.

Der Minister der Volksmacht für Information sagte, dass der Führer durch eine Trachealkanüle atmen muss. Dann sprach der Schwiersohn des Caudillos und Minister der Volksmacht für die Technologie, Arriaza. Dieser war derjenige, der die Fotos mit Zeitung gezeigt hat. 

Viel interessanter ist dies: Arriaza erklärte hier, dass Chávez palliative Care bekommt (Zeit: 9:30).

Petrol for free for Venezuela's neighbours and for the better-off

Petrol smuggling has been a business for thousands of people in and around Venezuela's border for the last decade. The price of a litre petrol was between 2 and 3 cents of a dollar.

Now, with devaluation of the Bólivar, the incentive for petrol smuggling from Venezuela into Colombia, Brazil, Guyana, Trinidad-Tobago and other Caribbean islands has increased by about 32%. The chart below tries to convey the magnitude of the imbalance: it is the price of a litre petrol in Venezuela and the neighbouring countries.

Price of petrol for Venezuela and neighbouring countries based on World Bank Data

The head of PDVSA, Rafael Ramírez, has said petrol prices will be kept. He even said: "petrol will still be not cheap but for free". He simply said they would just have to avoid "waste".

Most Venezuelans simply do not understand the lunacy of the whole situation. They haven't thought through the simple fact that converting crude oil into petrol takes a lot of time and resources. They haven't thought for a moment that one has to spend money even for bringing water from rivers or reservoirs to your tap at home. No opposition leader is ready to talk about the issue either. Everybody fears there would be a new Caracazo as in 1989.

Other people have already written extensively about how regressive this attitude is. We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars the government prefers to give to the better off and to the smugglers than to schools, hospitals, research centres and roads.

The Iran-Venezuelan money laundering scheme

Spiegel just published more details about former minister Masaheri, who was caught in Düsseldorf with a Venezuelan cheque for the equivalent of 52 million euros. The guy was going from Teheran through Istambul and Germany to Venezuela. As Spiegel says, he was discovered in late January and he is already back in Iran. Masaheri apparently has a GmbH, a limited company, in Düsseldorf. The company is specialized on raw materials and machinery and it is located in the posh street Königsallee. He said he had an address in another posh area but the only thing journalists could find there was a mailbox with his name.

And here the rub: German authorities are not sure they will be able to incriminate the Iranian in anything: there is disagreement among legal experts on whether a financial instrument that is only valid in a country needs to be declared at all. Apparently, we will have more news about this in about a week's time.

I will be updating this soon.

Masaheri also owns a nice company in a chic area of Düsseldorf.

Hat off to Heike!

Venezolanische Währung entwertet - zu wenig, zu spät

Heute hat die Chávezregierung die von uns seit einer Ewigkeit empfohlene Entwertung des Bolívars angekündigt. Venezuela hat eine für Dummen strenge Währungskontrolle, die aber von Bonzen und Kumpeln der Bonzen benutzt wird, um jede Menge Geld zu verdienen. 

Wie seit Jahrzehnten: immer spät nur ein bisschen Druck abgebaut

Die Regierung kriegt jetzt mehr Geld, um für die Gemeindewahlen Mitte Juni Geschenke zu verteilen. Die Inflation wird aber damit weiter erhöht.

Die Währung ist immer noch zu teuer. Warum? In Venezuela wird einfach kaum was produktiert, es gibt zu viele Bolívares für zu wenige einheimische Waren. Der Staat gibt viel Geld ohne Plan aus und das nur für seine Bonzen, seine Freunde und für staatlichen Institutionen, die von Inkompetenten geleitet werden und Waren importieren. Dies erzeugt einen Teufelskreis. Einheimische Firmen haben es immer schwieriger, zu überleben. Man importiert weiter. Es fehlt an Dollar.

Die Chavezregierung hat ein bisschen Druck aus dem Drucktopf für einige Wochen abgebaut. Das ist alles. Schade nur, dass der Oppositionspolitiker Henrique Capriles schon wieder das Falsche sagt: dass man keine Entwertung nötig hat. Ist er wirklich so ignorant oder denkt er nur, dass man dem Volk nie die Wahrheit sagen soll? Dass man nie dem Volk beibringen muss, wie verkehrt die Wirtschaft des Landes wirklich geführt wird? Was Venezuela nicht braucht ist eine solche bescheuerte Währungskontrolle.

Chavismo celebrating a murderous act

Today, the military regime in Venezuela celebrates the failed but bloody coup its leaders carried out 4 February 1992. Back then Hugo Chávez and his fellow military chaps carried out an attack against a democratically elected government. The coup mongers used the Caracazo, the violent repression of rioters three years earlier, as an excuse for their murderous coup.

The excuse was silly, of course, as

1) the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez was due to end in 1994 anyway and Carlos Andrés Pérez could not be re-elected (that was what the constitution back then required, as anywhere else where there is a presidential system)

2) that government was democratically elected and although it had incurred in human right violations, 3 years had passed and it was not as if the bloody military action prevented or stopped anything. If anything the military should have demanded an investigation. They didn't want as 

3) they knew the killers were among their lot: the ones who perpetrated the human violations of the Caracazo were not just Carlos Andrés Pérez and a handful of generals but a lot of military close to Chávez

4) the Chávez government has refused to enable an independent investigation of what happened in 1989

5) the Chávez government claims there were up to 5000 dead in 1989 and yet there is no list of missing people that goes much over the 270 officially reported dead.

We have a government of psychopaths.  This is the government people from the Far Left and the dogs of war abroad support. They are not a bit better than the Far Right.

We will remember.

On the top of the Amazon

This Heterodoxa is endemic to a specific tepuy (table top mountain or tüpü in Pemon) in South-Eastern Venezuela. It grows at 2000 metres over sea level and higher.

Venezuela importing maize from the Evil Empire

We are always topping ourselves in the Quest for Underdevelopment.

Cachapas: soon to be imported from Ohio?

Thirty thousand tons of yellow maize just arrived at Puerto Cabello from the United States of America. And it's so laughable: the pseudo-revolutionaries of the Venezuelan government talk all the time about "food independence" and the fight against the Empire (id est USA, never China) and the way in which Venezuela is about to become a superpower. In reality the current government can only sustain itself by weakening local producers and letting petrodollars pay for all kinds of imports. The only way Chavismo knows is to make everyone a beggar for imported products paid by oil, lots of oil.

We are importing now not only coffee from Nicaragua or black beans from the Dominican Republic but also more maize from the United States . We had been importing at one time or the other some basic things we could produce ourselves, but never ever at this rate, never ever at this level. We used to export a lot of our coffee and even some maize at times when the country was already mostly an oil economy. Caracas Chronicles gives you (mostly quoting in Spanish) another take on the subject of mismanagement.