Venezuela Bans Magazines From Publishing Photos Of Women In Bikinis

While Venezuela’s embattled government struggles with the fallout from being declared officially in default by ISDA after delaying a principal payment on the Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, bond that matured Nov. 2, its Supreme Court has been busy robbing the country’s downtrodden public one of the few small pleasures still available in a country that has been deprived of seemingly every necessity, from food to medicine.

Local media reported that Venezuela’s Supreme Court on Friday ruled that magazines that circulate to the general public can no longer feature images of scantily clad women on their covers.

The decree specifically mentions “pornographic” content, yet includes many mainstream magazines: According to the court, “images of nude or partially nude women in compromising and suggestive poses that stimulate sexual arousal for commercial ends” are now banned from magazines, regardless of whether the photos are editorial content, or found in advertisements.

 

Foto contraportada diario Meridiano hoy 16 de agosto. Mil gracias a Edgar Àlfaro por la deferencia. Es para ustedes pic.twitter.com/rXBQOtct5o

— Merineth Vegas (@MerinethVegas) August 16, 2013

 

The decision was a response to a complaint filed by a citizen against weekly sports publication El Heraldo, a subsidiary of 6° Poder. The complaint requested that the government prohibit the “publication of any example, be it digital or printed, including private subscriptions, of images with sexual content … whether it be by way of a photograph, other image, advertisements or links that could be accessed by children and young people."

The court claimed that when such images go public, the publishers aren’t aware of their responsibilities as “media outlets in society to transmit appropriate content” seen by both adults and children.

This ruling directly affects the country’s primary publications Meridiano and Líder, both of which make use of images of women in bathing suits on their covers.

“These types of sexual images don’t come with a warning, which could bring about negative consequences with respect to people’s baser instincts, and thereby put at risk the constitutional rights of the most vulnerable, namely children and young people,” the court’s ruling continues.

Venezuela’s Supreme Court has regularly kowtowed to the whims of the Maduro government, most famously when it certified a Maduro-approved directive to disband the country’s Congress, a ruling that led to the successful (if rigged) referendum vote to create a new National Assembly to help Maduro change the country’s Constitution to cement his long-term grip on power - and marginalize political dissidents who have been rallying in the streets of the country’s cities for months.

Venezuela’s economy has been locked in a vicious downward spiral after falling oil prices and years of mismanagement by Maduro and his predecessor, President Hugo Chavez have spurred inflation rates above 2,000%.

Given these endemic economic troubles, it would appear women in bikinis are the least of the societal ills plaguing Latin America’s favorite Socialist Paradise.
 

Venezuelans Are Now Paying 1000 Times More For US Dollars Than They Did In 2010

The hyperinflationary-hell in Venezuela’s currency is deepening as a crippling dollar shortage and a threat of oil sanctions (amid President Maduro"s attempts to rewrite the constition to maintain his grip on power) take their toll on the economy.

Venezuela’s Latin American neighbors urged President Nicolas Maduro to refrain from actions that might exacerbate the country’s political crisis in a disappointment to some regional governments that favored more direct and forceful criticism. As Bloomberg reports, Mercosur, South America’s largest trade bloc, called on “the government and the opposition not to carry out any initiative that could divide further Venezuelan society or aggravate institutional conflicts,” in a joint statement issued at the end of a summit in Mendoza, Argentina. Member countries Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay were joined by Chile, Colombia, Guyana and Mexico in signing the statement.

International condemnation of the Maduro government’s plan to rewrite the country’s constitution to maintain its hold on power is gathering pace after the U.S. said it would impose sanctions on Venezuelan officials if Maduro goes ahead.

As we noted earlier in the week, The Trump administration is mulling over sanctions against senior Venezuelan government officials, and additional measures could include sanctions against the country’s oil industry, such as halting imports into the U.S., according to senior Washington officials who spoke to media.

The goal of the sanctions is to prevent the Nicolas Maduro government from having things its way at a July 30 election for a Constituent Assembly that, the U.S. administration believes, would serve to cement Maduro’s power and turn Venezuela into a “full dictatorship.”

The Constitutional Assembly vote was proposed by the government as a means of tackling the political crisis that Venezuela slid into last year, after the election of a new parliament where the opposition had a majority that put it at odds with the government. A Constituent Assembly can rewrite the country’s constitution, and many observers see the move as an attempt to strengthen the current regime’s hold on power.

After months of often violent protests, the opposition has now called a 24-hour national strike after conducting an unofficial referendum that, Al Jazeera reports, suggested overwhelming opposition to the idea of voting for a Constituent Assembly and equally overwhelming support for transparent parliamentary elections.

And as protests escalate and international pressure builds, the black market price for dollars in Bolivars has gone vertical. In fact, Venezuelans are now paying 1000 times more for a US dollar than they were in 2010...

Visualized a little differently, as Bloomberg notes, the black-market rate for the bolivar traded weaker than 8,700 per dollar for the first time, according to dolartoday.com on Friday, compared with the official rate of around 10 and a more widely used alternative rate of 2,757.

In fact, the last 3 months have seen the currency collapse by 30% as the hyperinflationary endgame of socialist utopias once again ends in bloodshed and a nation torn apart...

As AP reports, thousands are gathering in the Venezuelan capital for a march toward the embattled nation"s Supreme Court in an escalating push to stop President Nicolas Maduro from proceeding with his plans to rewrite the constitution.

The opposition is calling on frustrated Venezuelans to take to the streets to support a slate of Supreme Court judges appointed by the National Assembly on Friday but quickly rejected by the government-stacked court.

Organizers hope Saturday"s protest in Caracas will be one of the largest before a scheduled July 30 election for a special assembly to rewrite Venezuela"s charter. Maduro is facing mounting international pressure to cancel the controversial vote.

Nearly four months of anti-government protests have left at least 97 people dead, and thousands more have been injured or detained.

National guard troops in Venezuela"s capital have launched tear gas at protesters, clouds of white gas and rows of officers on motorcycles are blocking the demonstrators in Caracas.

The violent protests ate instigated from both sides (pro- and anti-Maduro), alleged supporters of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro stormed the opposition-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly in Caracas earlier this month, injuring several journalists and law makers in the process.

 

In a move aimed at proving a vision of a possible post-Maduro government, Bloomberg reports that Venezuela’s opposition-controlled National Assembly swore in 33 Supreme Court judges in a largely symbolic move as it protests President Nicolas Maduro’s plan to rewrite the constitution.

The existing Supreme Court, appointed by a previous assembly that supported the ruling socialist regime, has been the focus of protests over the past four months. It has sought to limit lawmakers’ power, and pre-emptively ruled today’s Congress session null. The standoff between the rival groups of jurists is likely to increase institutional instability in the country.

“The National Assembly has taken this important measure to signal the future of the country and to have a court that serves the people and not a political party,” Julio Borges, president of the National Assembly, told opposition deputies and spectators assembled in eastern Caracas.

“There won’t be true democracy until we have a strong court. A court without political colors, and where all Venezuelans are equal before the law”

About 7.5 million opposition supporters rejected Maduro’s plan in an unofficial referendum Sunday, and 24-hour strike paralyzed the country Thursday. The opposition is building on momentum as the July 30 vote to name members of a constitutional assembly vote approaches.

Has Venezuela's Crisis Reached A Tipping Point?

Authored by William Burke-White and Dorothy Kronick via Knowledge@Wharton,

Venezuela’s ongoing economic and humanitarian crisis has assumed graver proportions over the past five weeks and pressure is mounting for a regime change, even as doubts persist over the likelihood of the next presidential elections, originally set for October 2018. Fresh protests broke out after President Nicolas Maduro earlier this month signed an order aimed at forming a new constituent assembly of some 500 members and rewriting the country’s constitution to reshape his powers and those of legislators.

Many Venezuelans clearly saw Maduro’s ruling as a way to snatch powers from the opposition-led National Assembly and consolidate it in a constituent assembly over which he might have a better hold. “[Maduro] tried to do this as a way to unite the country, but it was seen as an attempt to retain power and sparked the latest round of protests,” said William Burke-White, director of the Perry World House and professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Venezuela’s crisis has probably hit a tipping point and Maduro’s days in power are numbered, said Burke-White. “The path forward is Maduro will be pushed out of power, or there will be a repressive, horrible crackdown where the death tolls keep mounting,” he noted. “It may be better to be moving in that direction [towards Maduro’s ouster] than be in an ongoing political quagmire that we have been in for the last few years.”

According to Dorothy Kronick, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania, “The best way forward for Venezuela would be elections and having a new government in power.” She noted that 2017 is the fourth consecutive year of negative GDP growth for Venezuela; last year, its economy contracted by more than 17%. “There are devastating shortages of food and medicine, and inflation is above 300%. And there is tremendous suffering.”

Burke-White and Kronick discussed the scenarios likely to emerge in Venezuela in the foreseeable future on the Knowledge@Wharton show on Wharton Business Radio on SiriusXM channel 111. (Listen to the podcast at the top of this page.)

Move to Consolidate Power

The recent crisis had its first flash point on March 29, when the country’s Supreme Court passed a ruling to assume the functions of the National Assembly, but strong protests forced it to subsequently backtrack. Meanwhile, protestors continued calling for elections and a regime change. Maduro, who was elected in 2013 after the death of Hugo Chavez, signed the executive order to form a new constituent assembly and rewrite the constitution on May 1. “We must modify this state, especially the rotten National Assembly that’s currently there,” he had said.

Opposition leaders are pressing for a removal of the Supreme Court justices who issued the March 29 ruling, general elections in 2017, the creation of a humanitarian channel for medicine imports and the release of all political prisoners, according to a BBC report.

Burke-White did not expect elections to happen anytime soon. He noted that Maduro had indicated that fresh elections would be held as part of the new constitution. “His [United] Socialist Party [of Venezuela] would lose those elections if they were held today,” he said. “Much of this is a move to push those elections out indefinitely.”

Maduro’s plan for the new constituent assembly is to have about half of its 500 members elected directly from among all sections of Venezuelan society, including workers, youth, women, peasants and indigenous people, according to a CNN report. The other half would be made up of delegates chosen from among businesses and workers’ collectives. Kronick noted that the provisions in the rewritten constitution would “undoubtedly … favor the government.” She also predicted that the Maduro government would try to ensure that the convention “is full of delegates that are its supporters.”

Even so, with Maduro’s low approval ratings, Maduro is taking a big risk, according to Kronick. “His approval ratings are so low that even with electoral rules that are extremely favorable to the government, the opposition could potentially gain control of this constitutional convention,” she said. “That could be very dangerous to the government and lead to regime change.”

With growing protests, Maduro had his back against the wall, according to Burke-White. “He didn’t have many cards left,” he said. “This was a tactic that was legal within the constitutional structure — that the president can call for a new constitution — which you wouldn’t undertake if you weren’t in this moment of desperation.”

An Economy Embattled

Along with those political uncertainties, Venezuela’s economy is also in a sorry state. Oil accounts for 96% of the country’s exports, according to World Bank data, and low oil prices have taken a huge toll. Venezuela has the world’s largest proven supply of oil reserves, but much of that oil has high extraction costs, noted Burke-White. “When oil prices fall, those are the first to cease production because it is economically unviable to do so.” What makes that situation worse is the country has lost both technical talent (fired by the Chavez and Maduro governments) and investors, after foreign investments in the sector were nationalized. “They have lost a great deal of oil extraction capacity, which has both increased the cost of production and decreased the ability to keep production up,” he said. “The oil industry is no longer able to provide the economic support that Maduro needs to consolidate, or buy off, power.” Added Kronick: “Chavez had a windfall when oil prices rose, and raked in hundreds of millions of dollars, but they were not well invested and were squandered.”

In addition to low oil prices, the Maduro government’s decisions “to maintain some destructive and expensive exchange control measures, and price controls” are responsible for the food and medicine shortages, Kronick said. “Economists have been urging Maduro to introduce “common sense” reforms for years such as lifting price controls, she added, noting that “price controls create shortages.”

Pressures Closing in on Maduro

Meanwhile, Maduro could face other threats as he tries to cling to power. For one, it is critical for him to ensure the military’s support. However, as the economic misery widens, it also affects the families of members of the military, Burke-White noted. “It is much harder to maintain a military-based regime when you have to point your guns at your own people,” he said. “Maduro realizes that that’s the support base he can’t let slip, and if it does slip, it could well be the end of his regime.” Kronick noted that a popular chant during protests translates from Spanish to English as: “Soldier, listen. Join the protest, join the fight.”

Expectations run high that the Trump administration could impose sanctions on the Maduro government. Sanctions might not work well on an economy that is “already devastated,” and “very much isolated and closed from the rest of the world,” Burke-White said. However, if sanctions are targeted at specific individuals or supporters of the Maduro regime, they might work, he added. “Many of those people have bank accounts and condominiums in Miami, and getting them to feel some of the pain a little bit more might work.” However, targeted sanctions against Maduro’s supporters “could raise exit costs for members of the regime” said Kronick. “If they were to leave power, they won’t be able to go to Miami and enjoy their post-government life, and that could actually make regime change more unlikely.”

The U.S. does not seem to have sufficient “diplomatic capacity” to engage with Venezuela, given the understaffed State Department, said Burke-White. But he did note Thomas A. Shannon, Jr., undersecretary for political affairs, is well versed with the region’s problems. In February, Donald Trump and Mike Pence met with Lilian Tintori, the wife of jailed Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López. “The Trump administration is much more willing to be much more openly critical of Venezuela than the Obama administration was,” he added.

U.S. involvement in working with the Venezuelan opposition or trying to influence a regime change could backfire and strengthen Maduro’s hand, Kronick said. “Certain actions [the U.S.] might take against the government help [Maduro] to be able to more credibly say, ‘This is the imperialist U.S. that is responsible for the problems of the country.’”

Pressure could build up on Maduro also within the region. Venezuela has been an important trading and energy partner in the northern part of South America, and it has provided aid to many countries in the region in the form of oil or cash. But its current status has left it unable to drive economic growth in the region. It has socialist-leaning countries as neighbors, including Cuba, “but those countries are leaning in different directions at the moment,” said Burke-White. He expected Cuba to be more susceptible to U.S. pressure “not to be as supportive a trading, economic or even health care partner for Venezuela” as it has been in the past. Kronick said pressure could come on Maduro from regional forums such as the Organization of American States.

Indeed, some of that has begun. Burke-White noted that the Argentine foreign minister has openly criticized Maduro’s call for a new constitution. “That is unusual given that Latin American and South American states have traditionally been hesitant to criticize one another,” he said. “We’re starting to see the edges of that tacit alliance begin to crack.”

The Inflection Point: Venezuela's Military Begins To Defect, March With Protesters

One month ago, when discussing the latest "explosive" turn in Venezuela"s political situation, we predicted that the worst case for president Nicolas Maduro who has so far managed to keep the army on his side even as Venezuela faces now daily violent and in some cases deadly protests, would be the start of the local army turning on the regime, and defecting to join the protesters. Overnight, according to Thor Halvorsen of the Human Rights Foundation, this "inflection point" appears to have arrived when he observed in a Tweet that "the military in parts of Venezuela has begun to defect. They are now marching *with* the protesters. Dozens of soldiers are under arrest."

The military in parts of #Venezuela has begun to defect. They are now marching *with* the protesters. Dozens of soldiers are under arrest pic.twitter.com/iJd8ZoFCz7

— Thor Halvorssen (@ThorHalvorssen) May 6, 2017

Touching on this topic, overnight the NYT mused why have Venezuela"s "powerful political and military elites stuck by President Nicolás Maduro", noting that "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."

“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.’”

The NYT further notes that 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. The military also gained vast patronage streams, which some local officials say include control over gold mining.

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.

All that may now be changing. 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.

The latest open army defections threaten to further splinter what until recently was a united front among the "elites" supporting the crumbling Maduro regime.

Meanwhile, as the death toll from the recent protests approaches 40, women banged on pans and some stripped off their shirts on Saturday protesting Venezuela"s government in an event the opposition billed as a "women"s march against repression."

Thousands of women marching in Caracas today. Feels like people are prepared to keep protesting almost indefinitely https://t.co/HSMAkzHHYD pic.twitter.com/KzFRvfFjuT

— Hannah Dreier (@hannahdreier) May 6, 2017

As they marched, local media carried a video showing people toppling a statue of the late President Hugo Chavez the day before in the western state of Zulia, the Associated Press reported. The local media reported that students destroyed the statue as they vented their anger with the food shortages, inflation and spiraling crime that have come to define life here.

"Several young men could be seen bashing the statue that depicted the socialist hero standing in a saluting pose, as onlookers hurled insults as the late president."

Describing the women"s protest, AP writes that thousands of women took over streets in major cities all around the South American country.

Wearing the white shirts of the opponents of country"s increasingly embattled government, the women sang the national anthem and chanted, "Who are we? Venezuela! What do we want? Freedom!"

Some sported makeshift gear to protect against tear gas and rubber bullets. Others marched topless. One woman came in her wedding dress.

Meanwhile, as has been the case almost every day for the past five weeks, police in riot gear again took control of major roads in the capital city. Clashes between police and protesters have left some three dozen dead in the past month.

And as has also been the recurring case, on Friday Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez denounced the protest movement, and said opposition "terrorists" were attempting a kind of nonconventional warfare. 

For now, the protest movement, which has drawn masses of people into the street nearly every day since March, shows no sign of slowing. On Saturday, some of the women marchers approached soldiers in riot gear to offer them white roses and invite them to join the cause. "What will you tell your kids later on?" one woman asked.

As Reuters reported earlier in the week, embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Monday announced the creation of a new popular assembly which demonstrators decried as a power grab aimed at sidelining the National Assembly. Borges responded by calling on Venezuelans to rebel.

According to Bloomberg, on a call with the president of Peru, U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the deteriorating situation in Venezuela. A statement from the White House"s Office of the Press Secretary said Trump underscored to President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski that "the United States will work together with Peru in seeking to improve democratic institutions and help the people of Venezuela." The administration added that it is monitoring Venezuelan instability, and believes there is a strong need to bring weeks of anti-government protests in the country"s capital Caracas to a quick and peaceful conclusion.

“We are deeply concerned about the Maduro government’s violent crackdown on protestors in Venezuela. President Maduro’s disregard for the fundamental rights of his own people has heightened the political and economic crisis in the country,” said Nikki Haley, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in a statement. “The Maduro regime must respect Venezuela’s constitution and the voice of its people. We are particularly concerned that the government is failing to provide basic food and medical needs to the Venezuelan people,” Haley said.

H.R. McMaster, U.S. President Donald Trump"s national security adviser, met on Friday with Julio Borges, the president of Venezuela"s opposition-led National Assembly, about the civil unrest which has been near-daily for five weeks, the White House said on Saturday.

Finally, assuring that daily protests are only set to escalate further, on Saturday Borges, the leader of the left-wing party in Venezuela called for open rebellion as well as Maduro"s resignation, while rejecting any "dialogue" with the administration.

Venezuela Protests As Maduro Blocks 'Opposition' For 15 Years

Opponents of President Nicolas Maduro are calling on demonstrators to flood the streets of Caracas on Saturday as part of a weeklong protest movement that shows little sign of losing steam, after Venezuela’s embattled socialist government stepped up its campaign against the opposition by banning Henrique Capriles, two-time presidential candidate and governor of Miranda state, from holding public office... for 15 years.

Capriles wrote on Twitter Friday...

“I am informing the country and international community that they are notifying me at the moment of a disqualification for 15 years,”

A spokesperson for the Comptroller’s office, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the decision without providing details.

Bloomberg reports that Maduro’s opponents have rallied their supporters on the streets in recent days after the country’s top court tried to quash the nation’s opposition-controlled congress. One protester was shot and killed Thursday in a clash with the National Guard and police after a thousands rallied in the capital earlier that day. The opposition wants the authorities to hold fresh elections and purge institutions of socialist party loyalists.

Speaking at a news conference in his home state of Miranda Friday evening, Capriles said the government’s decision to ban him “gives more reason, more strength to take to the streets of Venezuela,” adding that he would use all legal measures to challenge the ruling.

"The only disqualified one here is Nicolas Maduro," he said, flanked by members of the opposition of alliance.

“The dictatorship wants to choose its own opposition,” National Assembly Vice President Freddy Guevara wrote on twitter. “Are we going to let them? No! Tomorrow we’ll press on!”

Long seen as one of the more moderate voices in the opposition alliance, Capriles has taken a much more strident tone in recent weeks, joining the demonstrations and traveling abroad to met foreign leaders critical of the Maduro government.

Bloomberg further reports that the Venezuela government isn’t just clamping down on Capriles. The head of a small, conservative opposition party took refuge in the Chilean Embassy this week after being called to appear in a military court for alleged treason, while local rights groups say over 80 protesters have been arrested across the country since the wave of demonstrations began last week.

AP notes that past demonstrations were sometimes planned weeks in advance to guarantee high turnout. But now the almost-daily churn of events in what"s being called the "ongoing coup" - the government"s alleged moves to accumulate more power - has energized and united the normally fractious opposition leading up to Saturday"s march.

As is now customary, authorities shut down the city"s subway in what"s widely seen as an attempt to discourage people from joining the protests, many of which have ended in scores of arrests, tear gas and rubber bullets. In another intimidation tactic, police also posted on social media mugshots of protesters taken undercover at recent demonstrations with a request for information about the whereabouts of the unidentified "generators of violence."

Together with jailed hardliner Leopoldo Lopez, Capriles is the most-popular opposition leader. With both seemingly out of the running, the government may be trying to manipulate the electoral playing field to leave the opposition with less viable options should the government bow to pressure and call presidential elections before they"re scheduled in 2018, analysts said.

"However, it is a risky strategy that will probably backfire," Eurasia Group said in a report Friday. "The opposition is clearly fired up and this will further their cause."

Venezuela In Dire Straits As Oil Production Falls Further

Authored by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,

Venezuela’s economic crisis continues to deepen. The South American OPEC member is thought to be sitting on nearly 300 billion barrels of oil, far more than any other country in the world, including Saudi Arabia (estimated at 268 billion barrels). But the economy has been in freefall for several years, with conditions continuing to deteriorate.

The economic crisis has morphed into a full-blown humanitarian disaster. Just this week the Wall Street Journal reported on Venezuelan women traveling to neighboring Colombia to give birth because the state of Venezuela’s hospitals are horrific, with shortages of medical supplies and trained staff. Infant mortality is worse than in war-ravaged Syria.

Food and other essential items are also painfully scarce, leading to long lines at shops. Tensions run high because there is not enough to go around.

Now even gasoline is running low in Caracas, Reuters reports, an unusual development for the capital city.

Gas shortages suggests problems for Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PDVSA are deepening. The government depends on oil production for more than 90 percent of its export revenues, and the collapse of oil prices back in 2014, coupled with a long-term slide in output, have ruined the company’s finances.

That, in turn, puts even more pressure on PDVSA. A shortage of cash is straining the company’s ability to import refined products as it falls short on bills to suppliers. PDVSA needs to import refined products to dilute its heavy crude oil, but without enough cash, tankers are sitting at ports unable to unload their cargoes. Reuters also says that “many tankers are idle because PDVSA cannot pay for hull cleaning, inspections, and other port services.”  

Separately, Bloomberg reported that Venezuela’s largest port at Puerto Cabello is quiet, with satellite imagery showing no vessels arriving or departing. “If you can see a country’s economic decline from space, you know it’s in big trouble,” Graham Stock, the head of emerging-market sovereign research at BlueBay, told Bloomberg on March 19. 

The economic malaise has Venezuela’s cash reserves plunging to $10.4 billion, according to the latest estimates, which is equivalent to only 10 percent of the country’s outstanding debt. Graham Stock told Bloomberg that he puts Venezuela’s odds of a default this year at 50 percent.

Inflation is likely over 700 percent annually, but in February the central bank decided to stop publishing money supply data, which surely doesn’t bode well. "If they are not publishing, you know it must be skyrocketing," Aurelio Concheso, director of the Caracas-based business consultancy Aspen Consulting, told Reuters in an interview.

The economic meltdown and humanitarian crisis has sparked anger across the country, and opposition to the incompetent management of President Nicolas Maduro is growing. That has been met with a clenched fist by the Maduro government, which has jailed political prisoners, weakened the National Assembly and indefinitely delayed gubernatorial elections. In response, 14 Latin American nations plus the United States and Canada are pushing a resolution in the Organization of American States calling on the Maduro government to hold elections and back off his nationwide crackdown. The efficacy of such a move is uncertain, but for a dozen nations in Latin America to intervene in such a way is a testament to how far Venezuela’s stock has fallen. “It’s one more step in the increasing isolation of Venezuela,” Javier Corrales, a professor and Latin American expert at Amherst College, said in a WSJ interview. “It’s a very important step in a region that realizes one of its members is in violation of the democratic precepts of the OAS charter.”

Venezuela’s predicament has ramifications for the oil market. The South American nation was desperate for collective production cuts from OPEC members, and has enthusiastically supported the deal. Venezuela pledged output cuts of 95,000 bpd from October levels, promising to average 1.972 million barrels per day between January and June. Early data shows that Venezuela has not yet followed through on those cuts – Reuters says it is achieving only a 7 percent compliance rate. But the government has ordered cuts from some PDVSA operations in Orinoco Belt, a sign that the Maduro government has intensions to follow through on its pledge. Non-compliance could rattle the resolve of other OPEC members, ultimately leading to an unraveling of the deal, which would likely push oil prices much lower and worsen Venezuela’s crisis.

However, production cuts also run the risk of exacerbating the economic depression that Venezuela finds itself in. Lower production means much less revenue. On top of that, Reuters says that some of the cuts will affect joint ventures that PDVSA has with Eni and Rosneft, two partners that won’t be too happy about being ordered to reduce output.

The bottom line is that Venezuela’s oil output might be heading down whether or not President Maduro wants it to. Fitch Ratings says that a default on PDVSA’s debt is “probable” this year, with an estimated $10 billion in debt payments falling due and only $2 billion in cash on hand. And the company would need much higher prices in order to boost production at any point in the near-term. “Giving the tight liquidity, prices need to be significantly higher to revive output,” Lucas Aristizabal, a senior director at Fitch, told Bloomberg in February. “At least more than $100 to start with.”

As Millions Of Venezuelans Try To Flee The Country They Run Into A Problem

While shortages of basic foods, medicines, and toilet paper may be a major societal problem, the people of Venezuela face an even more existential problem: the nation now lacks the materials to meet the soaring demand for new passports – making it almost impossible to leave the socialist utopia.

"People used to move to Venezuela from all over the Americas, Europe and Asia and now they are all trying to leave," Sonia Schott, the former Washington, D.C., correspondent for Venezuelan news network Globovisión, told Fox News.

While estimates of how many passport requests the socialist government received last year vary from between 1.8 million to 3 million, only 300,000 of the elusive documents were doled out.

Everyday, hundreds of people line up outside the passport agency, known as Saime, in the capital of Caracas in the hopes of obtaining one.

It’s an ironic, and yet sad situation, for a country that used to be one of Latin America’s wealthiest and one that was used to seeing people flock to, not away from.

Tomás Páez – author of “The Voice of the Venezuelan Diaspora” – told Bloomberg that since Chávez took power in 1999 nearly 2 million Venezuelans have fled the country and hundreds of thousands are marking their time until they obtains the funds and the passport that will allow them to leave.

Maduro has acknowledged the issue of the chronic shortages in passports and last week launched a new “online” option that will rush a passport to customers within 72 hours for about double the price of waiting in line. The website, however, has crashed numerous times and it is unclear how many passports have been expedited through this process. Saime has stated that the backup in processing passport applications is because the agency lacks enough “materials,” but did not specify what that means. Observers say that while the government may not be able to afford the paper to make the passport. Paper products in the country, including toilet paper, are in short supply in Venezuela. But skeptics think the Maduro government may also be trying to keep people from leaving the beleaguered nation.

“People with the means to get out want to, but the problem is you need a passport and you can’t get it,” Cynthia Arnson, the director of the Latin American Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center told Fox News.

“It’s kind of an excuse by the Venezuelan government that they don’t have materials, because they know the real reason people want a passport is to leave the country.”

Most of Venezuela’s 30 million resident, however, don’t have that kind of money as the monthly minimum wage in the country comes to less than $30 a month on the black market.