The US Embassy informed that the country is prepared to provide humanitarian aid to Venezuela when the Venezuelan government allows it.

"The United States is ready to offer emergency assistance in food and medicine to the people of Venezuela if only the Maduro government accepts it," the Embassy said on its Twitter.

The US entity explained that despite having carried out sanctions against members of the government of Nicolás Maduro, they allow them to send food and medicine to the country.

This week, some Venezuelan citizens received medical attention in Riohacha, Colombia, on the Comfort hospital ship that was sent by the US government.

Caracas, November 30 - The Vice President of the Economic Area, Tareck El Aissami, announced that on Monday, December 3, the list of new agreed prices for 29 items will be published in the Official Gazette.

In statements offered this Friday at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, he highlighted that they have met through working groups with various productive sectors to agree on the new prices.

"There are more than 52 companies that are part of the agreed price policy that we have established as part of the Recovery, Growth and Economic Prosperity Program, with each one of its representatives holding meetings that yielded positive results," he said.

He explained that to achieve the agreement, the cost structure was determined with its incidents and variables.

In this regard, he recalled that the National Executive, since August 20 assumed the payment of the minimum wage of the private sector so that there was no direct impact on the price of the product.

He also called on the people to empower themselves in the Official Gazette and enforce prices.

"That the people are empowered of this information to avoid speculation, bachaquerismo or any type of irregular activity that denies the access to these products", emphasized.

He called on the country's productive sector and the marketing chain to comply with agreed prices.

"Whoever violates the new prices published in the Official Gazette will be severely sanctioned," El Aissami warned.

He stressed that the National Government has established with the producers a progressive review, with the objective of adjusting the price of the items.

Yalezsa Zavala / photo: @ VTVcanal8 / 30 Nov 2018.- The Vice President of the Economic Area, Tareck El Aissami, announced on Thursday that 21 slaughterhouses were occupied for 180 days, renewable to guarantee the supply of meat and avoid the "kidnapping" to which , in his opinion, they had submitted the product.

In a press conference El Aissami said that one of the issues that "was disturbed" in the meetings of the Executive with the companies and production chains, was precisely that of meat.

"Today we have begun the temporary occupation by 21 slaughterhouses, public and private, which have repeatedly violated the agreed price policy," he said.

He explained that this occupation is for 180 days renewable and is done through the Grand Mission Sovereign Supply and in coordination with the Bolivarian governorates.

He also said that a call was made to correct these "distortions", but the owners of slaughterhouses ignored them.
"Unfortunately the meat plan worked for several weeks, but then the owners of the slaughterhouses started a boycott, sabotage to divert the meat to other sectors, mainly to smuggling, to extraction, to marketing outside the agreed price policy, etc, "he said.

"What is the objective of temporary occupation? First, prohibit the diversion of products and counteract the smuggling of meat, to ensure that it reaches the marketing chains, the Clap fundamentally. Second, guarantee the agreed prices. We have established prices, even subject to international standards. There is no excuse on the part of these gentlemen to have kidnapped, stolen and denied the people their right to animal protein, "he explained.

He added that the occupation measure guarantees the labor stability of the workers. "To our dear compatriots workers of these 21 slaughterhouses our message of solidarity, of commitment. You know that the worker president Nicolás Maduro has been paying their salary, we will continue to pay their salary and we will guarantee job security in these slaughterhouses. But we are not going to allow that patron thief who has tried to steal from the people, keep doing his thing", he said.

He informed that the Public Ministry was requested to initiate criminal investigations to determine the responsibility of the owners of these 21 slaughterhouses.

Pedro García Otero / November 29, 2018.- Three months and ten days after the implementation of the "Economic Recovery Program", the same had to be submitted to a "correction factor"; and although Nicolás Maduro talks about the fact that with the program launched on August 20, "Venezuela is going to stabilize the economy," the announcements made on Thursday show that the government is far behind hyperinflation. And that this one is going to run even harder.

Throughout his speech, in addition, Maduro has not mentioned two key factors of the economic recovery program announced in August: Not an allusion to fiscal discipline (on the contrary, food re-fuels the hyperinflationary bonfire) nor did he name the issue of the price of gasoline, currently given, and to which Maduro, three months ago, promised to put in international prices.

In addition, the president, who had spoken of "free fluctuation" and "market mechanisms" for the currency market, has again said that it is the "criminal dollar" responsible for "much of the damage of the economic war" , although it also made a very important correction in the price of the so-called "Dicom dollar", which has been distancing itself from the price of the currency in the parallel market, which marked the economy.

The most repeated phrase throughout the speech was "correction": And although he announced the "relatization" (actually slowdown) of inflation (a slowdown that is only seen in Miraflores, but that the president was useful for justify the figures presented to the IMF that speak of inflation of 860% for 2017), the truth is that prices are accelerating, and inflation estimated by banking this year is approximately 480,000%.

In short, Maduro's ads, which can be grouped into six major categories or codes, show that the Venezuelan economy is simply worse; that the Government has no interest in correcting itself, nor in correcting the mother of all the imbalances, which is the fiscal deficit and the inorganic emission of money; on the contrary, it reinforces and accelerates the dissolving effect of hyperinflation.

In addition, the ads seem aimed at winning the president something of good will for the January 10, date mentioned on several occasions throughout the radio and television in which he announced the "correction factor." A kind of "launch" of his next government, which, as is known, is being described as illegitimate by the Venezuelan opposition and a large part of the international community.

He assured that every day he receives "thousands of blessings from the Venezuelan people ..."

November 29, 2018.- 100 days after the launch of the Economic Recovery Plan, President Nicolás Maduro announced on Thursday, November 29, that the petro passed to 9,000 bolivars and that the minimum wage was set at 4,500 sovereign bolivars.

The national president indicated that as of December 1, the value of the national minimum wage and pensions will be 4,500 sovereign bolivars, the equivalent of half a petro.

"The correction factor I am going to make today is to improve the life of the people, what I am going to announce today is the first correction factor in a set of actions (...) that will take us to a level of economic stability" , affirmed at the beginning of the presidential address from Miraflores.

He said that the beneficiaries of the card of the Homeland will charge a single bonus of Bs. S 2 thousand.

Venezuela’s central bank sent key economic data to the International Monetary Fund last week to avoid penalties in the most significant trove of statistics compiled for the lender in about two years, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter.

The official figures admit that inflation spiraled out of control to 860 percent in 2017 while the economy contracted 15.7 percent, the fourth straight year of recession, according to one of the people who isn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter. After Venezuela suspended the publication of growth and inflation data in the midst of the unprecedented crisis, the IMF warned of possible sanctions for withholding statistics and the central bank complied by sharing the figures Nov. 20, the people said.

Venezuela has used the fund’s special drawing rights to bolster its international reserves in the past. The IMF’s press office declined to comment. A spokesperson from Venezuela’s central bank didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

While Venezuela’s inflation admission trails the IMF’s 2017 forecast of 2,818 percent -- and Bloomberg’s Cafe con Leche Index estimate of 1,718 percent -- the data confirms the sizable collapse of the OPEC member’s economy now wracked by shortages, a crumbling oil industry and a breakdown in public services. In the absence of official statistics, investors and economists have relied on figures from multinationals, think tanks and even indicators that track the price of staple goods such as eggs and coffee.

President Nicolas Maduro insists his country’s woes are the result of “economic sabotage” at the hands of his adversaries at home and abroad, while economists largely blame hyperinflation and hunger on a complex system of price exchange controls that breeds corruption.

The compilation of the inflation statistics was handled by central bank director Sohail Hernandez Parra, the people said. An economist by training, Hernandez was a long-time diplomat who worked directly below Maduro in his previous role as foreign minister.

After adjusting preliminary figures, the data set sent to the IMF points to staggering declines in 2017 across all major areas of the economy. The central bank will also send data for the first half of 2018, which is still being compiled, according to the people.

2017 Gross Domestic Product -15.7%
Oil Sector -15%
Manufacturing -25%
Construction -53%
Financial -32%
Public Imports -27%
Private Imports -51%

Germán Ferrer, a deputy to the National Assembly, warned that possibly (the PSUV) will try to advance the swearing in of Nicolás Maduro, which is scheduled for January 10.

The information was disseminated by the deputy through his Twitter account, @ GermanFerrer23, which has become a matter of public opinion.

https://twitter.com/GermanFerrer23/status/1067849133615210496

"While political factors are concerned with the election of the new Board of the AN, the ruling bandits want to advance the de facto swearing-in of the tyrant Maduro for the last days of December," said Ferrer.

A "tip for services rendered" of 99,980 euros to a hotel worker in Paris was the beginning in 2010 of the investigation in Andorra of the "Salazar group", a group of Venezuelans related to former Minister of Energy Rafael Ramírez investigated by he plundered the oil company PDVSA.

Venezuelan justice details the germ of Andorran research in extradition requests, to which Efe has had access, of some of these investigated, such as the former energy minister Nervis Villalobos and Luis Mariano Rodríguez Cabello.

Both are in Spain pending the resolution of the delivery requests to the South American country.

Another one of those investigated in Spain is José Ramón Sánchez Rodríguez, formerly of Petróleos de Venezuela ( PDVSA ), whose extradition the National Court rejected today for fear that he will be subjected to degrading treatment in Venezuela.

This country accuses the "Salazar group" of diverting billions of euros from the state oil company when it was chaired by Ramírez (from 2004 to 2014), who was Venezuela's representative to the UN. He went into exile, is now unaccounted for and reported being a victim of political persecution by the government of President Nicolás Maduro.

The lawyer Ismael Oliver, defender of Rodriguez Cabello and Sánchez Rodríguez, points out that the request for extradition by Caracas is based, above all, on the documents that Andorra sent in 2010 in a request for information and in reports from the small European country who have never been in possession of Venezuelan justice.

All this supposes that "one traffics with the confusion", says the lawyer.

In Brazil, details of the creation of the Mais Médicos (Más Médicos) program have been known with the participation of the Cuban regime. The filtering of telegrams that reconstruct the negotiations carried out between the Government of Havana and Brasila have revealed unknown details such as the antiquity of the talks, which began at least a year before presenting the program, or the petition of Cuba to receive $ 8,000 per month for each doctor.

Under the management of Dilma Rousseff (PT) negotiations were secretive, dark, to avoid reactions of the Brazilian medical class, according to the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo

According to the leaked documents, in March 2012 a Cuban mission visited Brazil and proposed from "the sending of doctors and nurses" to advising "for the construction of hospitals" and for the development of health systems", at advantageous prices, according to Alexandre Peña Ghisleni, official of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry assigned to the Brazilian Embassy in Cuba.

In October 2011, Cuba created corporations, private companies linked to the government. One is the Cuban Medical Services Distributor (SMC), which exports labor and medical supplies. Medical services are one of the main elements of the Cuban foreign trade agenda, with agreements in 60 countries.

On April 4, 2012, representatives of the Federal Council of Medicine, the Brazilian Medical Association and the National Federation of Physicians went to the Planalto Palace to protest these agreements, then still in the shade, but President Rousseff did not confirm them... although she did not deny them either.