Richard Blanco, an opposition legislator and deputy president of opposition Alianza Bravo Pueblo party, stressed that the number of violent deaths in Venezuela has skyrocketed by 483% since Chavezism took office in 1998. He claimed that high crime rates have been recorded even though Chavezism has implemented 22 different security plans and changed the minister of the interior and justice 12 times. The politician explained that some 4,000-5,000 people died annually in the country as a...

The general director of the Scientific, Criminal and Forensic Investigation Agency (Cicpc), José Gregorio Sierralta, confirmed on Thursday the detention of seven individuals allegedly involved in the robbery and murder of Venezuelan actress and former beauty queen Mónica Spear and her partner, Thomas Berry. The individuals have also been held accountable for the injuries caused to the couple's five-year-old daughter. The shooter was identified as 19-year-old Jean Carlos Colina...

Information published by ABC regarding negotiations between Nicolás Maduro's staff-when he was foreign minister-in an FMLN drug trafficking operation in El Salvador, has corroborated suspicions that existed in Venezuelan political and diplomatic circles. "This news confirms what many already knew about the significant and growing presence of drug trafficking in Venezuela and its important relations with the top echelon in the government and the Armed Forces," former...

Two months before the presidential elections in El Salvador, new links between the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and international drug trafficking have come to light. After chavista aid failed to secure the Honduran presidency for the Zelayas two weeks ago, the reelection of the ruling FMLN would entail a radicalization of the political environment in El Salvador and its integration into the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), the international bloc promoted by the...

Iran has built an infrastructure of terror in Central and South America in order, among other goals, to target Israelis and Jews there and have a base from which to attack the US, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Monday. Ya’alon, meeting with Guatemalan President Otto Fernando Perez Molina, himself a former director of military intelligence, warned that Iran, which operates the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah as a proxy, was using diplomatic cover to spread terror in the...

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro congratulated his Colombian counterpart, Juan Manuel Santos, and Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) for the agreements reached in the peace talks taking place in Havana, Cuba. During a public event the Venezuelan president said he had talked to Santos to congratulate him for the progress made so far, and stressed that Venezuela fully supports Colombia's peace process, AVN reported.

Colombian authorities blamed the rebel Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) for an attack with explosives on Wednesday against a Colombia-Venezuela gas pipeline, official sources reported. The attack took place near the Maicao municipality, in La Guajira department (northeast Colombia), a few kilometers away from the Venezuelan border, hitting a gas pipeline transporting gas from that area to Zulia state, west Venezuela, DPA reported. Cira Ortiz, leader of a Wayúu indigenous...

Once again, the Barrios family, 10 members of which have been killed by alleged Aragua state police officers, have been victims of new threats and harassment. On September 13, agents of the Scientific, Criminal and Forensic Investigation Police Agency (Cicpc) broke into the residence of Lilia Ysabel Solórzano Barrios without a warrant, and threatened to kill Víctor Daniel Cabrera Barrios. Víctor Daniel Cabrera Barrios is the son of Eloisa Barrios, who has been denouncing...

Non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch requested the founding members of the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) to persuade Venezuela to revert its decision to withdraw from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The petition was made by José Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch's Americas division, in four separate letters issued to the presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Vivanco stated that withdrawal is "particularly problematic...

Protests were reported on Thursday morning at Venezuela-Colombia border, particularly across the international bridges connecting Venezuela's south-western Táchira state with Colombia. Apparently, Colombian smugglers, also know as "maleteros," gathered to protest against the controls the Venezuelan National Guard has been implementing in the border to avoid food and commodity smuggling into Colombia. The smugglers burned two vehicles and tires across the Simón...