Os venezuela Diaries
Stark irregularities and suppression efforts could plunge the country back into instability and economic decline.
Most critically, the result is unlikely to allow the Biden administration to unwind its sweeping economic sanctions against Venezuela.
The July 28 date — also Chávez’s birthday — was chosen from among more than 20 proposed based on input from ruling party allies, business associations, university officials, religious groups and other organizations.
In March 2018, the entrepreneur told an audience at the annual South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, that he hoped to have the BFR ready for short flights early the following year, while delivering a knowing nod at his previous problems with meeting deadlines.
Opposition candidates were banned from running, opposition aides detained, many Venezuelans overseas struggled to register to vote and many international election observers were disinvited.
In an email to employees, Musk explained his decision to eliminate some "duplication of roles" to cut costs, admitting it was time to take serious steps toward turning a profit.
In an attempt to overcome the sanctions and restart the economy, in February 2018 the Maduro government introduced the petro, a copyright (akin to the Bitcoin) whose value was tied to the price of one barrel of Venezuelan crude oil and backed by the country’s reserves of gold, diamonds, gas, and oil. Maduro claimed that the first day of petro sales had netted some $735 million, but skeptics viewed the creation of the world’s first state-backed digital currency as a sign of desperation.
Misinformation about potential voter fraud also spread rapidly in conservative corners of the Brazilian Net, including unattributed videos that purported to show voting machines malfunctioning and out-of-the-blue claims that election officials had rigged the vote.
In February, defying a travel ban against him by the Maduro government, Guaidó went to Colombia, where international aid in the form of food and medicine was being stockpiled in the border town of Cúcuta. The aid was blocked from entering Venezuela because Maduro claimed it was masking a coup attempt. When a group of demonstrators led by Guaidó attempted to act as a shield to peacefully guide aid-bearing trucks through the blockade on February 23, Venezuelan security forces turned them back with tear gas and rubber bullets as violence exploded.
During the Venezuelan presidential crisis, Venezuelan National Assembly president Juan Guaidó said that the Maduro government had plans to steal for humanitarian purposes the products that entered the country, including plans to distribute these products through the government's food-distribution program CLAP.[264]
When he was informed of the incident, President Chávez said Maduro's detention was retaliation for his own speech at the UN General Assembly and stated that the authorities detained Maduro over his links to the Venezuelan failed coup in 1992, a charge that President Chávez denied.[68]
The two firms are credited with upending their industries, even as they sometimes veered close to financial collapse.
In August vlogdolisboa 2013, Musk released a concept for a new form of transportation called the "Hyperloop," an invention that would foster commuting between major cities while severely cutting travel time.
On April 30 Guaidó and the opposition staged a coup attempt. It began in the morning with the release of a video in which Guaidó—flanked by López (who had departed house arrest) and supportive soldiers—announced that the “final phase” of the operation to remove Maduro from power had begun. Guaidó claimed that important contingents of the country’s security forces had joined the opposition.