Post: #451

(05-06-2017 10:36 AM)Pollito Wrote:  

(05-06-2017 09:12 AM)Going strong Wrote:  

(04-27-2017 01:10 PM)Mekorig Wrote:  Maduro is getting desperate. He lost two big local allies (Kirchnner and Rousseff) and his other allies (Correa and Morales) have enough internal problems to give him any real support. His other two foreign allies (China and Russia) are letting his hand off. That only left Cuba as his only ally. The economy sink depper with each second, and the hunger grows in the populace. The last protest left a good amount of death people, and now the OEA have grown some balls and are demanding some declaration about that.

As for a military intervention, i dont see it posible....yet. If shit finally hit the fan, i can see Brasil and Colombia trying to put some order, with Argentina, Peru and Chile support.

When the (Venezuelan) fruit finally is ripe, I can picture a certain Alpha-male foreign president, one with a yuuuge and high-energy military, who could save the day, with a quick and almost painless intervention (think Marines VS Noriega's Panama here). The whole world would have to thank him for saving hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan women and children from starving...

Vladimir Putin?

In all seriousness, the fact that Venezuela has the world's largest proven petroleum reserves would make this a complicated proposition. Who might care? OPEC... OPEC member states motivated by individual interests (Russia and Saudi Arabia in particular)... globalist puppet masters who have only seen their hegemony in SA grow over the past several decades... corporations heavily invested in shale gas infrastructure in North America... the list goes on. Might even have the potential to become the western hemisphere's own Syria in some respects.

the potential to become the western hemisphere's own Syria in some respects: and maybe, that's the whole point here, my River Plate pollito friend: after all, isn't Syria great for the business of selling weapons. And big industrial countries (USA, France, UK, Israel, Russia, China, Austria, etc) need to sell weapons, now, don't they?...

Post: #452

With Tareck El Aissami as vice president they already have a Syrian element in their government. A few years ago there was also a special flight from Teheran via Damaskus to Caracas once a week.

Post: #453

(05-06-2017 12:56 PM)FlyHigher123 Wrote:  With Tareck El Aissami as vice president they already have a Syrian element in their government. A few years ago there was also a special flight from Teheran via Damaskus to Caracas once a week.

Interesting that you brought that up. The links between Iran, Syria and Venezuela run quite deep.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_in...#Venezuela

http://www.breitbart.com/national-securi...stability/

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/12915

http://world.time.com/2013/08/30/assads-...s-the-u-s/

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/08/30/...bells.html

Hence the US Senate rushing through a bill allocating $20m for 'democracy promotion'.

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/US...-0011.html

Something tells me that this wont end well.

It's Euromaidan Mk II but without the cookies.

Post: #454

Post: #455

(05-08-2017 07:02 PM)budoslavic Wrote:  

Looks great until the military starts driving armoured cars over them.

In other news, the New Dork Times has finally confirmed what we were all talking about:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/06/world....html?_r=0

Quote:Even as Venezuela sinks into chaos, with clashes between protesters and the police escalating, why have its powerful political and military elites stuck by President Nicolás Maduro?

The country would seem to be a prime candidate for something scholars call an “elite fracture,” in which enough powerful officials break away to force a change in leadership.

Long-mounting rage against Mr. Maduro’s government exploded this past week when he called for a new Constitution, widely seen as the latest in a series of a power grabs. Demonstrators have overwhelmed city streets, so far undeterred by a police crackdown in which hundreds have been arrested and dozens killed.

The violence deepens a monthslong crisis marked by food shortages, economic collapse and Mr. Maduro’s fumbling attempts to consolidate authority. In quasi-democratic systems like Venezuela’s, such pressures have often led elites to force a change, and have provided them an excuse to do so.
Continue reading the main story
Related Coverage

Opponent of Venezuela’s Ruler Is Barred From Holding Office APRIL 7, 2017
Venezuela Muzzles Legislature, Moving Closer to One-Man Rule MARCH 30, 2017

“The fact that it hasn’t happened in the last two years is the biggest puzzle of all,” said Steven Levitsky, a Harvard University political scientist. “If it happens next week, all of us will say, ‘Yeah, it was bound to happen.’”

Still, splits are beginning to emerge, as a few figures in major institutions signal opposition to Mr. Maduro, hinting at growing dissatisfaction and the government’s inability to silence it.

Recent actions by both elites and the government suggest they take the possibility of fracture seriously — maneuvering in a high-stakes contest that is potentially decisive but whose outcome remains uncertain.

Elite fracture operates as a kind of game in which each player tries to figure out what the others are about to do. Stay loyal to a failing government too long and you risk going down with it. But if you break with the government and others don’t, you’ll pay a high price for disloyalty.

This may be as old as politics itself. Plato, the 4th-century B.C. Greek philosopher, wrote that a united elite could resist popular uprisings, but that when the ruling class fractured, power could change hands.

Members of the elite, in this game, try to test one another over where they stand, as well as the government’s strength, in order to decide whether to remain loyal. If enough believe they have achieved critical mass to force a leadership change, they will all push at once.

Luisa Ortega, the attorney general, conducted such a test, whether she intended to or not, in late March. When the pro-Maduro Supreme Court moved to seize many of the legislature’s powers, Ms. Ortega condemned the ruling as a “rupture of the constitutional order.”

The government faced a dilemma. Tolerating Ms. Ortega’s dissent would signal that elites could more freely break with Mr. Maduro, making action against him easier. But punishing her would risk backlash from any elites who shared her view.

Ms. Ortega went unpunished, and the ruling was reversed.

“It’s a sign of enormous weakness inside the ruling clique that Luisa Ortega took the position that she did and kept her job,” said Francisco Toro, a Venezuelan political scientist who edits the Caracas Chronicles website. “That’s never happened before.”

Rapid policy changes can open such fissures by forcing elites to decide whether to go along. In 2015, for instance, Mr. Maduro seemed to consider halting legislative elections, but ultimately agreed to hold them.

They tried to go too far,” Mr. Levitsky said. “That created too much conflict within the regime.”

This is why periods of crisis can heighten risks of elite fracture, as governments make rapid changes to keep up.

The deciding vote in these situations is often cast by the military, which has the power to break a deadlock among elites and, often, the popular legitimacy to lead a transition.

In Venezuela, some are already calling on the military to step in.

Luis Ugalde, a prominent Jesuit leader, said at a forum in February that Mr. Maduro’s government had shown “dictatorial character.” He called for a transitional government modeled after the 1958 military coup that then installed democracy.

Such statements can hardly force change. But by conferring pre-emptive legitimacy, they signal to potential coup leaders that they would enjoy at least some elite support.

Still, the government has been preparing its defenses since 2002. That year, amid major protests, Hugo Chávez, Mr. Maduro’s predecessor, ordered the military to impose order. It instead removed him in a coup that was quickly reversed.

After that, Mr. Chávez packed the military with allies.

But 2002 also provided a warning that authoritarian leaders have learned repeatedly throughout history. Even a loyal military, when forced to resolve a political crisis, might decide against the leader who called it in.

The impossibility of fully predicting how the military might decide in another crisis, along with growing unrest that could again test it, has left the government nervous.

Last year, Cliver Alcalá, a retired major general, called for a referendum to unseat Mr. Maduro. Though Mr. Maduro ordered his arrest, Mr. Alcalá remains free and a vocal critic, although still under pressure. He recently claimed that rifle-wielding intelligence officers had tried to raid his home.

In March, a video spread on social media showing three lieutenants who said they no longer recognized Mr. Maduro’s authority. The next month, they turned up in Colombia, where they requested asylum.

The Venezuelan government has publicly demanded their return, which Mr. Levitsky called “pretty clear evidence that the government is worried about some sort of conspiracy” within the ranks.

Because the government cannot be sure whether these voices represent wider opposition within the military, it has to guess at how severely to silence them — a guessing game it cannot afford to get wrong.

But Mr. Maduro can also play this game. He has enabled loyalists to profit from corruption and patronage, giving them a financial stake in the government’s survival.

Loyalty was once purchased with oil revenue, but today, Mr. Toro said, the most valuable resource in Venezuela is access to favorable exchange rates. By leveraging official government rates, which value the bolívar considerably higher than the unofficial rate, someone with the proper connections can generate a small fortune out of thin air.

Drug and food smuggling also generate revenue, including for the military.

But as the economy worsens, elites compete over a smaller pie.

“When elites begin to compete among themselves, usually somebody defects,” Mr. Levitsky said, using the formal term for an elite who turns against the government.

Venezuela is also growing internationally isolated, forcing elites to fear they could face foreign sanctions or even criminal charges if they remain loyal and the government falls.

As threats mount, Mr. Levitsky said, “even actors who were bought off with patronage tend to worry.”

This is part of what makes the lack of widespread defection, amid Venezuela’s economic collapse, so unusual.

Pressed to explain Mr. Maduro’s resilience, Mr. Levitsky cited one of the only forces more powerful than economic self-interest: ideological polarization.

Mr. Chavez’s hypercharged populism succeeded in so dividing society that crossing over remains, for many, unthinkable. And so ideological dedication remains widespread, including among elites.

“Defection is harder when the other side isn’t just some guy you disagree with about tax policy but rather is the enemy,” Mr. Levitsky said. “Moving to opposition, calling for Maduro’s fall, is still akin to treason. That atmosphere makes defection much harder.”

Zimbabwe, Mr. Levitsky said, might be the only other country whose government survived similar collapse. Its leader, Robert Mugabe, maintained elite support by framing his fight against dissent as a continuation of the revolutionary movement he had led against the white-supremacist colonial regime in Rhodesia.

That same fervor could create an opportunity for dissidents, however. Venezuela’s few defecting elites have tended to portray themselves as the true guardians of Mr. Chávez’s cause and Mr. Maduro as the traitor.

This past week, Ms. Ortega told The Wall Street Journal that Mr. Maduro’s move for a new Constitution was an attack on “Chávez’s Constitution” — portraying Mr. Maduro as the one who had betrayed the system.

The country’s widespread shortages of food and medicine could also provide an opening for Ms. Ortega and other defectors to claim that the government is not fulfilling its socialist mission.

And younger, second-tier Chávistas may worry about Mr. Maduro’s damage to the cause and its longevity.

“These guys have a stake in preserving some semblance of political capital in Chávismo,” Mr. Levitsky said.

This is why coups are often led by colonels or civilians of equivalent rank, who also enjoy fewer fruits of patronage and so face less downside in defecting.

But movement can come only when elites, junior or senior, are sure they have the numbers to win. And any contest over ideological loyalty will tilt toward the status quo. The rules of the game still favor Mr. Maduro, even if the state of play does not.

In sum:

(1) The elites aren't starting any civil wars any time soon.

(2) In hyperinflation, he with the best exchange rate wins.

(3) SouthAm Marxist tards are gonna tard even when they're starving.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #456

It's amazing how things have escalated/deteriorated even in the year this thread has been up.

Post: #457

(05-08-2017 07:02 PM)budoslavic Wrote:  

How many of these dudes voted for Chavez, I wonder?

Post: #458

(05-08-2017 07:43 PM)Gmac Wrote:  It's amazing how things have escalated/deteriorated even in the year this thread has been up.

It is frightening how things are deteriorating worse and worse there. When ever I see an update to this thread I fear the government has begun shooting down the opposition.

It is also frustrating how most of the US media is ignoring the situation in Venezuela. They built up Chavez as a hero and model for years and now can't possibly admit they were wrong.

(05-08-2017 07:45 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  How many of these dudes voted for Chavez, I wonder?

Considering how popular Chavez was, probably 75 to 85% of them.

Post: #459

(05-09-2017 08:10 AM)username Wrote:  

(05-08-2017 07:43 PM)Gmac Wrote:  It's amazing how things have escalated/deteriorated even in the year this thread has been up.

It is frightening how things are deteriorating worse and worse there. When ever I see an update to this thread I fear the government has begun shooting down the opposition.

It is also frustrating how most of the US media is ignoring the situation in Venezuela. They built up Chavez as a hero and model for years and now can't possibly admit they were wrong.

(05-08-2017 07:45 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  How many of these dudes voted for Chavez, I wonder?

Considering how popular Chavez was, probably 75 to 85% of them.

Chavez is an idol and will probably remain an idol. He, temporarily, took the majority of people out of extreme poverty. He did not make them rich, but raised their life quality. Naturally it had a price, first loss of economic freedom, then loss of civil liberty. And of course, it was all dependent on the oil. So when the oil price came crashing down, it was just a matter of time until extreme failure.

It's such a wonder to see how quickly well intent socialism always turns into full-mode dictatorship. The moment economic freedom is gone, the civil liberty quickly follows.

Lesson to Bernie Sanders, Melenchon, Tsipras, Podemitas and other pseudo commies around the world: It doesn't work. And if it seems like it's working, don't put all your eggs in one basket.

Post: #460

Socialism has 1 fundamental flaw. The pyramid set up of our species favours the strong and nowhere in history do the strong suffer the weak or want to be like them.

Hoping the guy at the top is equal to everyone else is like saying a fully tooled up marine is equal to man with just a stick.

The government, police and military will seek blood in ever increasing numbers soon enough.

Post: #461

Venezuelans lose an average of 19lbs. due to food crisis: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...95081.html

On the plus side, no fatties. Has anyone gone to Venezuela recently? I'd imagine, would be dangerous. But could be amazing gaming...

Post: #462

(05-09-2017 09:52 AM)_Cicero Wrote:  Venezuelans lose an average of 19lbs. due to food crisis: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...95081.html

On the plus side, no fatties. Has anyone gone to Venezuela recently? I'd imagine, would be dangerous. But could be amazing gaming...

Post: #463

(05-09-2017 09:52 AM)_Cicero Wrote:  Venezuelans lose an average of 19lbs. due to food crisis:

The US desperately needs one of these.

Post: #464

(05-09-2017 02:29 PM)TigerMandingo Wrote:  

(05-09-2017 09:52 AM)_Cicero Wrote:  Venezuelans lose an average of 19lbs. due to food crisis:

The US desperately needs one of these.

Yeah, but for an average of 57 lbs.

Post: #465

(05-09-2017 02:46 PM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

(05-09-2017 02:29 PM)TigerMandingo Wrote:  

(05-09-2017 09:52 AM)_Cicero Wrote:  Venezuelans lose an average of 19lbs. due to food crisis:

The US desperately needs one of these.

Yeah, but for an average of 57 lbs.

It would be interesting to see what problem glasses look like on a thin person for once.

Post: #466

It sounds like things are shitty there and about to get even shittier:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/venezuelans-p...20429.html

Quote:
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's opposition protests on Wednesday may be the messiest in a six-week wave of unrest as demonstrators prepare to throw feces at security forces, adding to the customary rocks, petrol bombs and tear gas.
The new tactic has been dubbed the "Poopootov" in a play on the Molotov cocktails often seen at streets protests in Venezuela.
"They have gas; we have excrement," reads an image floating around social media to advertise Wednesday's "Shit March."

Post: #467

(05-09-2017 11:10 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  It sounds like things are shitty there and about to get even shittier:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/venezuelans-p...20429.html

Quote:
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's opposition protests on Wednesday may be the messiest in a six-week wave of unrest as demonstrators prepare to throw feces at security forces, adding to the customary rocks, petrol bombs and tear gas.
The new tactic has been dubbed the "Poopootov" in a play on the Molotov cocktails often seen at streets protests in Venezuela.
"They have gas; we have excrement," reads an image floating around social media to advertise Wednesday's "Shit March."

(1) Monkeys fling shit when they're fighting.

(2) Yet another justification for the 2nd Amendment. "They have gas, we have AR-15s, M-60s, Glocks, Desert Eagles, M-16s, , squirrel guns, fucking muzzle loaders and arquebuses" would be rather more impressive as a protest banner.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #468

(05-09-2017 08:10 AM)username Wrote:  

(05-08-2017 07:43 PM)Gmac Wrote:  It's amazing how things have escalated/deteriorated even in the year this thread has been up.

It is frightening how things are deteriorating worse and worse there. When ever I see an update to this thread I fear the government has begun shooting down the opposition.

It is also frustrating how most of the US media is ignoring the situation in Venezuela. They built up Chavez as a hero and model for years and now can't possibly admit they were wrong.

It is more than that - the globalists want the communist model recreated under a Chinese-style framework, so of course the leftists will not admit that their models are crap.

They are happy to intervene when a true nationalist takes over though.

Post: #469

Sounds like it wouldn't be that difficult to air drop in some "care packages" to the protesters. Crates like guns, armor, meds, food and the like would go over well especially if they had messages like, "De Trump con amor"written on them!

Post: #470

I for one am willing to step up and do my part by agreeing to host a few Venesolana refugettes in my home.
I can't help it, I'm a giver like that.

Post: #471

Venezuela now putting most of the protesters it arrests before military tribunals:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/L...0-16-54-15

Quote:CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Jhonny Reyes' son left the house to join students in an anti-government protest a few days ago, one of hundreds of thousands of angry people who have flooded Venezuela's streets in demonstrations often blocked by police and soldiers. He wound up in front of a military tribunal, accused of inciting rebellion and facing up to 30 years behind bars.

Reyes, who is blind, found himself pleading for information outside Punto Fijo naval base with relatives of 17 other young adults detained in the same demonstration in the western city of Coro. Many had obtained private attorneys, but none was allowed inside to defend the detainees, mostly students studying music and medicine. Instead, the youths were given a public defender and ordered transferred to a military jail near Caracas, a more than six-hour drive away.

"What I can't understand is why they're putting him in a military tribunal when he's a civilian," Reyes said, his voice hoarse with exasperation.

Human rights activists say more than 250 detained protesters have been put before military justice over the last week - a sudden upsurge in use of a practice they say violates Venezuela's constitution, which limits military courts to "offenses of a military nature." Some lawyers and opposition leaders put the number far higher.

"The growing use of military tribunals to judge civilians demonstrates the absolute determination of Venezuelan authorities to asphyxiate the growing protests and terrorize any person who contemplates the possibility of expressing opinions," said Erika Guevara Rosas Americas director for Amnesty International.

President Nicolas Maduro's administration says the courts are part of emergency measures necessary to ensure national security against what they decry as foreign-backed attempts to violently oust the socialist government from power.

"Security agencies are deployed in Carabobo to find those responsible for instigating rebellion and crime," wrote Antonio Jose Benavides Torres, commander of Venezuela's Bolivarian National Guard, on Twitter after a week of looting and protests in the central Venezuelan state, where the bulk of the military tribunals thus far have taken place.

Many rights activists see the increasing reliance on military tribunals to try civilian protesters as an echo of the dark days of the 1970s and 1980s, when military dictatorships in Chile, Brazil and elsewhere bypassed civilian jurisdictions to prosecute political opponents accused of being national security threats tied to international communism.

"The governments of Latin America have experienced this in the past, we have fought against impunity and we have said, 'Never again,'" said Luis Almagro, secretary general of the Organization of American States. "We cannot remain silent in the face of such obvious abuse of the basic human rights of Venezuelans."

Venezuela recently announced plans to withdraw from the Washington-based group, accusing it of unjustly intervening in the nation's domestic affairs.

At least 38 people have been killed in more than a month of protests demanding new elections and in anger over triple-digit inflation, vast food and medical supply shortages and soaring crime. The demonstrations have frequently ended with police or troops launching rubber bullets and plumes of tear gas at protesters, some of whom have thrown rocks and even human excrement back at police.

Hundreds have been injured and more than 1,300 detained.

Some opposition leaders believe the use of the military tribunals reflects Maduro's weakening grip on power and a desire to circumvent someone who's become a surprising irritant: Venezuela's semi-autonomous chief prosecutor Luisa Ortega, who has shown signs of unusual independence.

She was the first official to denounce a March ruling by the loyalist Supreme Court that stripped the opposition congress of its last powers, calling it a "rupture" of the constitutional order, helping prompt the court to back off the ruling.

While many officials have indiscriminately denounced the demonstrators, she ordered at least 38 detained protesters to be freed for lack of evidence. On Tuesday, her office requested that 14 people in Zulia, another state where demonstrators have been submitted to military tribunals, be processed in civilian courts.

The crimes those in Zulia are being accused of don't constitute military offenses, her office wrote in a statement, "and furthermore, those being tried are not military officials, for which reason it could be wrong to try them in that jurisdiction."

Nearly all of those facing military courts face the same two charges, according to attorneys: Inciting rebelling and vilifying military officials. Most of those cases so far are in the northern state of Carabobo, where looters took off with crates of beer and boxes of pasta last week and one protester was killed. Military officials have activated an emergency protocol there known as Plan Zamora, few details of which have been made public.

Amnesty International said Wednesday more than 250 people have been detained and placed in the hands of military justice. Alfredo Romero, executive director of Foro Penal, a lawyers' cooperative that defends activists, told National Assembly members Tuesday that 118 people in Carabobo alone have been put before military tribunals, where he said nearly a dozen soldiers armed with automatic weapons are posted in the courtroom as cases are heard. He said one man who had stolen some ham had been charged with inciting rebellion and insulting officials.

"He wasn't charged with robbery," Romero said.

In Falcon, a state west of Caracas along the nation's coast, 19 young adults, most between the ages of 18 and 21, were detained Friday in the capital city of Coro following a protest near Francisco Miranda University, where many of them are students.

Isleiker Polanco, 19, Reyes' son, is not a student and suffers from a mental disability, his father said. Nonetheless, he was prompted to take to the streets after watching the struggles of his family and others. A neighbor recently died from malnutrition, and despite going blind after a motorcycle accident more than a year ago, Reyes said he has been unable to purchase a cane. His son decided to go out and protest because, "This is desperation."

After his detention, the family found a private attorney and waited outside the naval base where he and the others were transported by bus Sunday. About 100 relatives were gathered there Tuesday afternoon, seeking information.

A wall of national guardsmen in green uniforms blocked them from approaching. Reyes cried out, his blind eyes squinting as relatives tried to hold him up.

"Please," he pleaded. "I need to know something about my son!"

He was eventually allowed in to visit his son briefly, only to find that the youth had already gone before a judge, without the presence of the family's attorney. Though he couldn't see his son, Reyes could feel his fear. When they embraced, his son was shaking.

As noted, Chile and Brazil did this shit back in the 70s and 80s. You can't teach an old SouthAm new tricks.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #472

It looks like Venezuela is going to be another example of the interest paid on delayed suffering.

Every day you wait to crush a hostile government will yield an increase in suffering when you are finally forced to deal with the problem.

The protesters tossed in front of a military tribunal are coming to understand this now, and if the West cannot turn things around then we're going to learn the same lesson here too.

Post: #473

Its like watching a train crash in slow motion. The worst is that here in Argentina there is still lefties that defends the regime.

Post: #474

(05-11-2017 02:18 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  It looks like Venezuela is going to be another example of the interest paid on delayed suffering.

Every day you wait to crush a hostile government will yield an increase in suffering when you are finally forced to deal with the problem.

The protesters tossed in front of a military tribunal are coming to understand this now, and if the West cannot turn things around then we're going to learn the same lesson here too.

I don't think it really matters who is in charge over there. Until oil goes back up Venezuela economy will be crap. Doesn't matter whether they are socialist, communists, republic, etc. That's the issue here. America has plenty of industry to work with. The issue they are facing is not what we are dealing with.

Post: #475

(05-09-2017 09:52 AM)_Cicero Wrote:  Venezuelans lose an average of 19lbs. due to food crisis: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...95081.html

On the plus side, no fatties. Has anyone gone to Venezuela recently? I'd imagine, would be dangerous. But could be amazing gaming...

Despite some of the reactions in this thread, this phenomena was actaully seen and studied in Cuba in the 90s.

"Cubans became virtual vegans overnight, as meat and dairy products all but vanished from the marketplace."

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...ed/275080/

Here is a link to the study from BMJ.

http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f1515

"Rapid declines in diabetes and heart disease accompanied an average population-wide loss of 5.5 kg in weight, driven by an economic crisis in the mid-1990s. A rebound in population weight followed in 1995 (33.5% prevalence of overweight and obesity) and exceeded pre-crisis levels by 2010 (52.9% prevalence). The population-wide increase in weight was immediately followed by a 116% increase in diabetes prevalence and 140% increase in diabetes incidence. Six years into the weight rebound phase, diabetes mortality increased by 49% (from 9.3 deaths per 10 000 people in 2002 to 13.9 deaths per 10 000 people in 2010). A deceleration in the rate of decline in mortality from coronary heart disease was also observed."

Regarding the effect on the price of oil in the current crisis, it's certainly a major factor. It's actually impressive how much they were making off oil before the price droped, concidering how incompetently the state run oil monopoly eventually was. It wasn't just political elites that Chavez drove out; he also purged top admistrative and technical talent from the oil industry. I can't think of a better example of biting the hand that feeds you as Chavez firing his most experienced technicians and petroleum engineers. The levels of incompetence are truely stunning.