Feb bulletin 2018 by Venezuelan Embassy in Nairobi

Bulletin Bolivarian Government of Venezuela

Ministry of People’s Power for Foreign Affairs

Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

How cryptocurrencies will change the world. i) Venezuela’s Cryptocurrency for the World: ‘Presale of PETRO begins’ ii) Venezuelan Presidential Election date Set for April 22 iii) The Significance of the Feb. 4, 1992 Coup iv) 'Humanitarian Intervention' and Imperialism v) World Urban Forum vi) Who was Augusto César Sandino? vii) Malcolm X speaks truth to power through time and death

Volume 6, Issue 2- 2018

Editorial

Content

Currently, the year 2018 has been marked as the time of the sinking of the dollar, the bond crisis, the deﬁnitive bursting of the huge American debt, in short, the return of another global ﬁnancial crisis much more devastating than the previous one.

1) Editorial 2) Venezuela’s Crypto-currency for the World: 3) Pluripolar world declares war on the dollar in a large-scale rebellion

Faced with this panorama, the industrialized countries are prepared to resist these dark omens, for this reason they have increased their bellicosity, unleashing aggressions all over the globe, accentuating the attempts to impose a univocal vision of the societies, the economies and the cultures. Particularly, the countries of the Third World have been the victims, especially those who have drawn an independent line and have tried to free themselves from economic and cultural subjection. Africa, Asia and Latin America, in recent years, have suﬀered a disproportionate attack, marked by the direct military threat, indiscriminate bombing, invasions, selective killings, and in general all the stratagems of the brute Western force that heed It ignores the international laws that these same powers claim to defend.

4) How cryptocurrencies will change the world 5) Oil Prices in Chinese currency, shunning the U.S Dollar' 6) In the face of American Imperialism 7) Venezuelan Presidential Election Date Set for April 22 8) Chavismo closes ranks ahead of presidential elections 9) U.S attempts to push a Coup d'état in Venezuela 10) The Signiﬁcance of the Feb. 4, 1992 Coup 11) US issues 731 statements against Venezuela

So, when American senators and top political leaders invoke the overthrow of governments under the Monroe Doctrine ("America for Americans ... from the North") in the style of then US President Theodore Roosevelt known for his Big Stick policy, which we thought had disappeared, we see the case of the absolute denial of any authentically democratic attempt. But the people have increased their consciousness and they face all these attacks with courage.

12)Rex Tillerson's Latin America Tour: Threats of Militarization and Oil 13) China and Latin America's New Era of Globalization 14) Chomsky: 'Humanitarian Intervention' and Imperialism 15) The tour of the south-south dignity:- Why Venezuela and Africa

At the forefront of this current and necessary struggle is the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, militarily threatened, ﬁnancially enclosed through an economic blockade, accused of being a "dictatorship", despite being a country where 24 elections have been held under an electoral system that, in the words of former President Jimmy Carter, is "the most reliable in the world."

16) The Arab League and Venezuela analyze issues of cooperation and relations with Latin America 17) Venezuela denounces before UNHRC interference by the U.S and the EU 18) UN Secretary General receives Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza

After the failure of multiple attempts to overthrow the Democratic Government of President Nicolás Maduro, a non-existent "humanitarian crisis" has recently been invented and moreover without the opinion of an accredited UN rapporteur. Alfred De Zayas, who visited Venezuela denied the so called ‘’humanitarian crisis’’ in Venezuela. This clearly aﬃrming that "whoever has worked for decades in the UN, knows that in Venezuela there is no humanitarian crisis.

19) Malaysia: 9th World Urban Forum 20) Asia's Factory Workers Will Struggle to Adapt to an AI-Driven World 21) Nicaragua: Who was Augusto César Sandino? 22) Malcolm X speaks truth to power through time and death

Venezuela’s Cryptocurrency for the World: Presale of ‘PETRO’ begins

Venezuelan Cryptocurrency, the PETRO, begins to circulate along with a set of economic measures made by President Nicolas Maduro. A first presale phase for the PETRO was released by Venezuela seeking to break the dependence of its foreign commerce with the dollar. The Minister of Information, Jorge Rodriguez, admitted that President Maduro will make important economic announcements. The PETRO is the first Cryptocurrency in the world with the backup of more than 5.3 billion barrels of oil. According to the Venezuelan government each PETRO will be emitted with a value equivalent to one barrel of oil. President Maduro, announced last week that in the first phase 38. 4% of all PETRO’s in circulation will be released. According to the experts’ estimates, the percentage on sale will be equivalent to more than $ 2.3 billion. It is estimated that another 44% of PETRO’s to be emitted by Venezuela with a nominal value of $2.7 billion will be offered to the public later. According to cryptocurrency Superintendent Carlos Vargas, Venezuela expects to attract investors from Qatar, Turkey as well as countries in the Middle East, Europe and the United States. www.telesurtv.net www.dw.com

Venezuela to Launch Second Cryptocurrency: 'Petro Gold' sanctions and thus create legal risk for U.S. investors, several firms and investors from Brazil, Poland, Denmark, Honduras, Norway and the Middle East have said they are open to receiving Petro as payments for goods or investing in the currency. The president said the goal of the Petro and now the Petro Gold is to combat sanctions and the "economic war" waged by the U.S. government and its junior partners against his country, and advancing "on issues of monetary sovereignty, to make financial transactions and overcome the financial blockade." The launch of the Petro was announced in December. It is regulated by the Superintendence of Cryptocurrencies and Related Activities, as well as the Blockchain Observatory. Cryptocurrencies typically are not backed by any government or central bank, nor are they regulated. However, the U.S. Security and Exchanges Commission has been increasingly tracking digital currencies, classing some tokens as securities, thus making them subject to oversight.

The new digital currency, which follows the successful launch of the Petro, will be backed by gold and other precious metals. After launching the oil-backed cryptocurrency Petro, the Venezuelan government is now preparing a new digital currency called the Petro Gold or 'Petro Oro,' which will be backed by gold and other precious metals. President Maduro announced that US $735 million had been raised in just one day during the pre-sale of the Petro.

Maduro said: "We have taken a giant step into the 21st Century... We are on the world's technological vanguard."

While the U.S. Treasury Department has warned that Venezuelan cryptocurrencies could violate

www.telesurtv.net

Pluripolar world declares war on the dollar in a large-scale rebellion Igor Sechin who chairs the oil company Rosneft, in an interview with Bloomberg, openly invited all the oil companies of the country to move to the Mercantile International Exchange of St. Petersburg (SPIMEX) to end the North American Brent market and generate a "free and just " cost for gas and oil as rubles. Spimex will seek not only to increase the cost of crude, but also to increase income from the sale of the "Urals", which is a recognized oil brand but is sold with discounts for the predominant existence of the aforementioned Brent. Sechin says that other companies in the market such as Lukoil and Gazprom strongly support the idea and can become market makers. The idea seeks to encourage the ruble and encourage businesses that are processed in this currency, as well as significantly reduce all oil transactions that are made in Panama. "The goal is to create a system where Russian crude is quoted and sold fairly and frankly," Alexei Ríbnikov, president of the St. Petersburg Mercantile Exchange (SPIMEX), told Bloomberg. It should be noted that not only Moscow is the promoter of this idea, countries like China, Venezuela and Iran would be close to announcing - in the remainder of the year - their change also from the dolár to an external currency to combat the fall in the price of black gold The views and opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Embassy

Operators believe that the fall of the dollar will continue in 2018 For the almighty dollar, 2017 was plain and lousy. This year could be even worse. Despite the recent rebound, analysts and investors say they could lose more ground against the euro and the yen as the outlook for strong economic growth and a tighter monetary policy outside the United States more than offset the higher interest rates at local level. The dollar fell more than 7 percent compared to the major world currencies this year, more than ever in a decade. The economic growth that "we are seeing in Europe, in emerging markets and the rest of the world is likely to lead to a new wave of dollar sales," said Erin Browne, head of asset allocation at UBS Asset Management, which is responsible for about 770,000 million USD. As for what central banks could do in Europe and Japan, "it has been little taken into account." Browne says that the euro could reach US $ 1.30 in 2018, which represents an advance of 10.7 percent against the dollar. This would add to a recovery of approximately 12 percent this year. It also expects more increases in the yen. The dollar was at US $ 1,1743 per euro and 113.33 per yen. It should not be like that, supposedly. At the beginning of this year, the strategists were almost all bullish for the dollar as the operators adhered to the election of President Donald Trump and his promises to encourage growth with lower taxes and higher spending on infrastructure. The Federal Reserve was also ready to raise rates, providing more support for the currency. But much of that optimism vanished right away. Yes, the Fed raised rates as twice, but the recovery never materialized given that lackluster inflation and pessimism regarding the ability of Trump and his Republican colleagues to fulfill their legislative promises had Its cost. By Lananh Nguyen with the collaboration of Chikafumi Hodo and Jacob Bourne. The views and opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Embassy

By now you’ve probably heard of Bitcoin. If you are young and internet savvy, or you keep up to date with the tech world, there’s a good chance you at least know what it is, even if you don’t understand how it works or why it’s important. But the rest of you may be completely clueless, as I was until recently.

Fiat currencies are controlled by central banks. A central bank controls the value of a ﬁat currency by regulating quantity, which they can do through several methods. The most obvious is by printing more money. This is something they usually don’t like to do because it devalues the currency.

Well, it’s time that you learn about Bitcoin, because Bitcoin (or something like it) will dramatically change the world and the way that we live.In fact, it already is. Stick around and I will tell you why.

They can also change the amount of money that banking institutions have to keep in reserve. Most economies use a fractional-reserve banking system. The lower the reserve requirement, the more money banks can loan out. If the reserve requirement is 10%, a bank can loan out $100 million for every $10 million it has in storage. Drop this to 5% and the bank can loan out an additional $100 million without increasing its stores. As you might imagine, dropping this reserve % too low is dangerous, as there is a risk that the banks won’t have enough money to cover withdrawals.

Pay close attention, because I’m about to introduce you to some words and phrases that you never thought you’d need to know. But you do need to know them.

What are cryptocurrencies? Bitcoin is something called a cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrencies are virtual currencies. This does not mean that they are not real. They are just as real as any other currency. But they exist purely in the digital world. You will never be able to hold a Bitcoin in your hand.

If a bank is having a diﬃcult time, it can happen that many customers get scared of losing their money and try to withdraw at the same time. The bank may not have enough money to cover everyone’s withdrawals. Then even more people will get scared and try to withdraw. This is called a bank run. If it happens to multiple banks at once, as it can during severe economic crises like the Great Depression, it’s called a bank panic.

Traditional currencies that you are familiar with, such as the American dollar and the Euro, are called fiat currencies, or fiat money. Unlike commodity money such as gold and silver, they have no value beyond that given to them by government regulations. Fiat money was first used by China in 1000 AD, and became dominant throughout the world in the 20th century.

The central bank can also change the federal funds rate (the interest rate they charge when they lend money to other banks), buy or sell government bonds, or do something called quantitative easing, where they create money and use it to buy back bonds 6

from other banks, thereby increasing bank reserves, which in turn allows the banks to loan out more money. To learn more about how central banks work, click here.

Traditionally, financial transactions (e.g. an online VISA purchase) involve some amount of trust. Trust that the amount of money being offered, bet or spent actually exists in the account of the one promising. Trust that they will follow through and actually make payment. Trust that the bank will execute the transaction properly instead of blocking it or freezing the account(s) of those involved. Trust that no in-between person or institution will run off with the money. Trust that the sender will not cancel the transaction.

Cryptocurrencies are not controlled by central banks. In fact, no banks are necessary at all. They are decentralized. Transactions occur directly from person to person, person to business, or business to business. There is no mediator or third party needed. And there is no need to keep your cryptocurrency in a bank account because there is no risk that anyone can steal it by traditional means (it can be stolen by hackers, but a bank won’t help with that. More on that topic later).

Sometimes this trust is broken and fraud is committed or mistakes are made in the process by the bank. The blockchain solves this problem. There is no middle man. No transaction can take place unless the money exists in the account of the sender, and when it does take place, it happens quickly and irreversibly, and the records are publicly available for anyone to check (the downside of all this is that if you make a mistake, e.g. send money to the wrong account, there may be no way to get your money back).

This may already give you a clue as to one way in which cryptocurrencies can change the world. Removing the need for central banks, or indeed any banks, is revolutionary.

How cryptocurrencies work The term ‘crypto’ comes from the fact that cryptocurrencies use cryptographic techniques for security. When you own cryptocurrency, it is stored in a digital ‘wallet’ and you get a very long password called a key. Without the key, no one can access your cryptocurrency, including you.

How blockchain technology works The blockchain is so called because it is literally a chain of transaction ‘blocks’. A blockchain can be centralized, but the blockchains used by Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies are decentralized. This means they are stored on a large number of computers distributed throughout the world. Taking Bitcoin as an example, every person that owns Bitcoin has a wallet with two keys, one public and one private. When a new transaction is executed, the user sending Bitcoin uses his private key to access his wallet and tell the network to send Bitcoin to another wallet.

Every cryptocurrency transaction is recorded forever on a public ledger called the ‘blockchain’. The identity of the sender and receiver are encrypted, so although anyone can access the ledger, no one can see who sent or received the cryptocurrency. It is this blockchain technology, more than cryptocurrency itself, which is the true world-changer.

The Blockchain The blockchain is the key to everything, so it’s important to understand how it works and why it is such a game changer.

A string of text describing his transaction, along with his public key, are then sent out to the network. The transaction is received by computers, or ‘nodes’ on the network, and combined with other transactions to form a ‘block’. But in order for this block to be added to the chain, a complex mathematical problem must ﬁrst be solved.

Blockchain technology solves a very signiﬁcant problem related to transactions between one party and another: the problem of trust.

Mining This is done by Bitcoin ‘miners’, independent users or companies who use powerful computers dedicated to solving the math problems. They all compete across the network to solve the problems and are rewarded for their eﬀorts by the production of new Bitcoins. Every time a mathematical problem is solved, a new block of transactions is added to the chain, and some Bitcoin is created and given to the miners. This 7

incentive ensures that there will always be miners to keep the network running, and that there will always be new Bitcoin created to replace what is lost when, for example, people lose access to their Bitcoins by losing their passwords.

If you store your Bitcoins on your own hardware that is disconnected from the internet, you are mostly protected from hacking. But if you lose the hardware, your Bitcoins are also gone. For most of us, safely transacting with cryptocurrencies will require learning more about digital security. So let’s talk about how these technologies will change the world.

This process of solving mathematical problems to add blocks to the chain is called proof of work (some cryptocurrencies use other types of ‘proof’ which are arguably better, but that is beyond the scope of this article). It is very important for a trustless system to have some kind of proof method for adding transactions, because this is what prevents fraud.

The rise of cryptocurrencies If you’ve been paying attention to the news, you’ve probably heard something about the recent meteoric rise in value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. When Bitcoins were ﬁrst introduced, each coin was worth less than a penny. There is a now famous story of a man who spent 2000 Bitcoins to buy a pizza. Today each Bitcoin is worth many thousands of dollars.

Once a block has been added to the chain, it is considered valid because of the work that went into adding it. If there is any conﬂict, the block which took the most work to generate is considered the correct one. Therefore, since each block is veriﬁed by competition through the network, replacing a transaction with a fraudulent one would require more computing power than exists throughout the entire network of miners.

Anyone who has been holding Bitcoins since the early days of the currency is likely a millionaire by now (that was a very expensive pizza). But Bitcoin is not the only coin to experience such a spectacular rise in value. Many people have gone from poor to rich in an extremely short time by investing in cryptocurrencies. Some of these coins have risen thousands of percent within months or even weeks.

The mining process also ensures that the chain is built correctly. Because the blockchain is on a distributed network, it would be a common problem that new transactions would be added in different orders on different nodes, thus resulting in disagreements between computers about the exact structure of the blockchain. The mathematical problems are so difficult to solve that they will not be solved at the exact same time by different nodes. Thus each block will be added in an agreed-upon order.

There have always been such occurrences in the stock market here and there, but the speed and extent of this is more extreme even than the dot-com bubble. This has led many people to believe cryptocurrencies are a giant bubble waiting to burst. They may be right. But there are two things to keep in mind. 1) The bursting of the dot-com bubble made a lot of people poor overnight and destroyed a lot of companies, but it was not the end of dot-com companies. It merely got rid of the losers and allowed the winners to rise to the top and dominate the market. Look at Google and Microsoft today.

Security This is considered a trustless system because there are no humans or institutions involved, making decisions. Everything happens by mathematical algorithm. Of course, it can be argued that there is still trust involved, as one needs to trust the algorithm or the system. But the longer it operates and the more transactions are successfully executed, the easier this will be. Because there are thousands or millions of computers holding copies of the blockchain, it is protected from attack by extreme redundancy. The ledger itself cannot be altered or hacked. As I alluded to earlier, though, it is possible for hackers to steal Bitcoins. For example, they can put malware on your computer that changes the account number that you are sending the Bitcoin to. Or they can hack into your computer and ﬁnd your password. They may also hack into the exchange (a place where Bitcoin is bought and sold in exchange for other currencies) where you are holding your Bitcoins.

2) Cryptocurrencies will replace fiat currencies over time. This means that all of the value currently associated with fiat currencies is going to end up in cryptocurrencies. So far the total value of cryptocurrencies is only a tiny fraction of fiat currencies. That means that while there may be a bubble pop in the short term, in the long term cryptocurrencies are going to rise far, far more than they already have.

The new wild west Another diﬀerence between cryptocurrencies and the stock market is the lack of regulation. Registering an account to trade stocks is a process that generally requires some sort of veriﬁcation of income and 8

signing of documents, etc. And stock trading (at least on the major exchanges) is regulated by organizations like the SEC.

Loss of government and institutional control

The trading of cryptocurrencies currently has no regulating body. Anyone can open an account, transfer money, and start trading within minutes. This makes it more risky, but it also means there are more opportunities. Banks and governments are not making the rules (yet). A 13-year-old can turn his 20 dollar allowance into 10,000 dollars trading in his bedroom. A janitor can become rich investing the few extra dollars of his paycheck each week. This is the wild west.

Cryptocurrencies could mean the end of government and institutional control over money. This is not something to be taken lightly. The effects will not be sudden. Governments will not fall like dominoes. Banks will not start shutting down, at least not right away. But they will slowly begin to lose control. As cryptocurrencies rise, fiat currencies will drop. Banks are already starting to realize the problem and are starting to get on board with cryptocurrencies. This may aid or ensure their survival. But it is likely that they will still lose control. With the world’s monetary value moving to decentralized global currencies, banks don’t get to make the rules. Many of them are investing in a centralized cryptocurrency called Ripple, in an effort to maintain some control. It remains to be seen how that will turn out.

Global opportunity Cryptocurrencies are global currencies. A poor farmer in Uganda can earn, hold and use Bitcoin as well as a rich American lawyer. This oﬀers unprecedented opportunities for the equalization of wealth across nations.

Banks won’t be able to control interest rates on loans, because people will form globalized networks and loan to each other. This will keep rates competitive and reasonable, and ensure that anyone has the chance to get or give a loan. Such communities already exist, but they will surely become more common as cryptocurrencies gain traction.

Imagine a collective trading network where people produce goods or art or information and receive payment in Bitcoin or some other global cryptocurrency. This currency has the same value everywhere. Artwork produced by the poor Ugandan farmer will have the same value as artwork produced by the rich American lawyer.

Without the need for centralized banks and with the value being transferred out of national currencies, governments will lose control of the money system. Without central banks, they won’t be able to control the value or quantity of currencies. Further, with transactions being anonymous, they will not have an easy way to control or keep track of the ﬁnancial transactions of citizens.

An example of the possibilities oﬀered by cryptocurrencies is the social network called Steemit. Here tens of thousands of users post stories, blogs, videos, pictures, digital artwork, music, etc, and are paid in Steem Power, a cryptocurrency. The payment takes place by other users ‘upvoting’ their content. The more upvotes and the more Steem Power owned by those upvoting, the more the poster gets paid. Anyone from any country can participate. Money is not paid directly by those upvoting, but from the community pot. The whole system works because people invest in the currency, giving it value.

This will be an aid to criminals, who can do their business anonymously. It will also make tax auditing far more difficult. Governments may run into a number of financial troubles if fiat currencies disappear. Without control over the money system, they may not be able to control their own budgets.

Of course, not everyone gets paid according to the quality, or even the popularity, of their contributions. If you produce high quality content but have no followers you won’t get paid. And having just a couple of followers rich in Steem Power will mean you get paid more than someone with a lot of comparatively poor followers.

Those governments which decide to outlaw cryptocurrencies in an attempt to maintain control may ﬁnd that underground economies of unprecedented size operate throughout the country and are nearly impossible to shut down. The whole monetary system is going to change. Governments. Banks. Individuals. Economies may rise or fall. The worldwide balance of money and power will change. Equality may increase, or riches and power might just shift around, as is often the case with revolutions. Nothing is certain. But there will be change.

Nonetheless, the potential is clear, as one’s location or status has little bearing on payment. They are paid because people ﬁnd value in the content they produce, no matter where in the world they come from or what their background is or how rich or poor they might be. 9

Since the rise of the internet in the mid-90’s, our lives have changed to the point that most of us can barely imagine living without it. The blockchain has the potential to do the same. It’s not a fad. It’s not some obscure technology that you don’t need to know about. It’s a life-changing, world-changing revolution, and it’s not going away. The only question is: what are you going to do about it?

Conclusions If you knew nothing about cryptocurrencies and the blockchain before reading this article, you may ﬁnd a lot of my claims to be unbelievable, just fantasy talk. So I encourage you to take some time to educate yourself. Do your research. Think about the implications. I’m not a cryptocurrency expert. I’m still struggling to understand all this myself. But it’s real, and those who refuse to acknowledge that fact will be left behind, just like those who refused to learn how to use the internet.

www.shawndove.com The views and opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reﬂect the oﬃcial position of the Embassy

The insanely fast rise of cryptocurrencies is a good reason to exercise caution if investing in them. It is not a good reason to ignore or dismiss them. They, and especially the blockchain they are built upon, are here to stay.

Oil Prices in Chinese Currency, Shunning the U.S Dollar'

The price per barrel for the week ending Friday was 306.26 yuan, equivalent to $46.76 based on the exchange rate listed in a footnote. That is up from the previous week’s price of 300.91 yuan, or $46.15 based on the corresponding exchange rate. The ministry did not respond to an email seeking additional details. “Nobody is changing contracts for now,” said one oil trader consulted about the issue who asked not to be identiﬁed.

Venezuela published the price of its oil and fuel in Chinese currency on Friday in what it called an eﬀort to free the socialist-run country from the “tyranny of the dollar,” echoing a plan recently announced by President Nicolas Maduro.

“Oil is a commodity that is traded almost exclusive in dollars. PDVSA’s debts, for example, are still denominated in dollars ... and that’s how they’ll have to pay bondholders,” the trader said, referring to the state oil company.

Maduro last week said his government would shun the dollar after the United States announced sanctions that blocked certain ﬁnancial dealings with Venezuela on accusations that the ruling Socialist Party is undermining democracy.

Venezuela’s Dicom currency system on Wednesday temporarily suspended the sale of dollars in order to incorporate other currencies. Late socialist leader Hugo Chavez during his 14-year rule repeatedly vowed to back away from the dollar, which he said was being printed indiscriminately and was destined to lose its place as the world’s dominant currency.

The global oil industry overwhelmingly uses the dollar for pricing of products. A weekly Oil Ministry bulletin published on Friday listed September prices in yuan, while including prices from previous weeks and months in dollars.

But Venezuela remains dependent on the greenback given that it conducts ample commercial trade with the United States both through exports of oil and imports of U.S. food and consumer products.

“This format is the result of the announcement made on Sept 7 by the president ... that Venezuela will implement new strategies to free the country from the tyranny of the dollar,” the ministry wrote in a statement released after the bulletin.

Sanctions by the administration of President Donald Trump blocked U.S. citizens from buying new debt from Venezuela or its state oil company, but did not directly interrupt import and export operations.

Venezuela’s yuan-based prices appear to be the result of multiplying dollar prices by the dollar/yuan exchange rate.

www.reuters.com The views and opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reﬂect the oﬃcial position of the Embassy

In the face of American Imperialism

that of 2008. But world capitalism learned that it can not aﬀord to face such an unprotected cataclysm. And it is preparing to face it. The only support it has is to continue and deepen the looting and plundering the people of Africa, Asia and Latin America. The Soviet Union, after the victory against Nazi-fascism in World War II and the anti-imperialist struggle for the liberation of the people, gave a respite to some Third World countries, because with their action it cushioned the global imperialist looting. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the imperialist countries, led by the United States, have returned. They intensify their rapacity and extend their tentacles all over the world trying to contain or annihilate through violence any attempt at imbalance that risks the project of spoliation, the basis of their societies, an irreplaceable pillar of the standard of living that the industrialized countries enjoy today, as a historical consequence of colonialism.

"We can conceive a world dominated by an invisible tyranny that uses forms of democratic government" *Kenneth Boulding .A North American economist with origin from the Uk,poet,educationalist and an activist for peace and freedom. The structural crisis of capitalism erupts on September 5, 2008. The housing bubble of subprime or speculative mortgage loans with high risk of default causes an earthquake. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest real estate companies in the world go bankrupt. Several banks fall, including the investment bank Bear Stearns. Revolts Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the most important ﬁnancial institution in the world. They also break the American Home Mortgage, one of the most important mortgage banks in the USA and the National City Home Equity. There is panic. In that same month the crisis moves to all the world's stock exchanges. In Europe, BNP Paribas, a French bank, falters. The German Deutsche Bank suﬀers large losses that terrorize bankers and savers.

For this year 2018, the sinking of the dollar and the new global ﬁnancial crisis with the issue of bonds and the huge debt of the US government are announced. The bases of the North American power shake again and increase their aggressiveness. Since the beginning of the year 2000 a brutal attack of the World Trade Center begins that left 3,000 dead as Thierry Meyssan writes in his book "The great imposture", where he denounces with incontrovertible data a frightful crime of false ﬂag . Pretext to unleash the war in Afghanistan. The invasion of Iraq and then Libya, also under false positives: the weapons of mass destruction never found (Hans Blixs, advisor to the US government, would regret that his government "fabricates false evidence"); and the staging, in a huge study,

The US and the European Union resort to injecting mountains of money to prevent the bankruptcy of the global ﬁnancial system. Citigroup, the largest ﬁnancial group in the world, announces multi-million dollar losses. Merrill Lynch follows on the verge of bankruptcy. Its president confesses that he has uncollectable debts for billions of dollars. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley fall in the same whirlwind, but are rescued by the American Federal Reserve. This shook world capitalism ten years ago. What awaits them sooner rather than later, according to very respectable predictions, will be greater than 12

Simultaneously American imperialism rushes to clean up the terrain: in 2008 a parliamentary coup in Paraguay dismisses Fernando Lugo in less than 24 hours through an "express political trial", as Argentine journalist Juan Manuel Karg maintains. Then in 2009 another coup in Honduras overthrew Manuel Zelaya. There were coup attempts in Bolivia and Ecuador. All under the shadow of the CIA. Then in Brazil, Dilma Rousseﬀ is dismissed under another parliamentary coup. The ﬁerce campaign of discrediting through the Argentine media in the hands of unscrupulous businessmen, Cristina Fernández de Kirschner loses the elections.

of indiscriminate bombings in the city of Bengazi. NATO intervention, inhumane killings, destruction of part of Tripoli. The epilogue to that blood orgy culminated in the hanging of Saddam Hussein and the brutal murder of Muammar Gaddafi. Only in Iraq is there a million deaths that will provoke the laughter of Mrs. Clinton in light of the slaughtered corpse of the Libyan leader. USA trains and arms mercenaries for war in the Middle East in a schizophrenic display of simulated struggle between allies under the umbrella of the so-called Islamic State in order to overthrow the legitimate government of Bashar al-'Asad and occupy Syria. But it is defeated after the intervention of the Federal Republic of Russia together with the Syrian army. There is despair over the war lost in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria after the millions of deaths. AFRICOM intensifies in the black continent to stop the definitive independence. Imperialism then aims to recover the lost ground in Latin America after the emergence of the Bolivarian Revolution under the leadership of Commander Hugo Chávez and the advent of progressive governments in Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Honduras. It is then proposed to annihilate what they consider the protective ring of the Bolivarian Revolution, the real danger to their interests. His designs are obvious: we must overthrow it definitively.

To this the betrayal of Lenin Moreno in Ecuador is added that finally opens the compass for intervention in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the true objective. To this it is necessary to add the judicial harassment against Cristina Fernández and Lula to prevent their participation in the elections in their respective countries. In a word, US Imperialism is not willing to allow the return of social leaders who question its dominance in the region to the point of an imminent military threat against the Bolivarian Revolution in order to recover the certified oil fields as the largest proven reserve in the world. All these maneuvers against President Nicolás Maduro have failed. The American Empire is impatient. It stimulates the failure of the dialogue with the extreme right. It resorts to the direct military threat from President Trump. But the approach of the financial crisis and the imminent fall of the dollar pushes it to accelerate its plans more. Venezuela decides to use the yuan to sell oil in the face of financial harassment. The crypto currency Petro was born as an answer. Imperialism takes off the democratic mask. The OAS and American senators openly call for the coup d'état and the overthrow of a democratically elected government and move on to its final phase: the military aggression opened after Rex Tillerson's tour of some Latin American countries and the presence of Kurt Tidd, Chief of the Southern Command, in Colombia, using his privileged ally, Juan Manuel Santos. The dialogue between government and opposition is broken after a North American order.

The military coup against Chávez took place in 2002, orchestrated in complicity with the CIA, oil sabotage, extreme right-wing street violence, constant threats, etc. Once Commander Hugo Chávez was assassinated, imperialism believed that it was possible to deﬁnitively leave the "Chavista dictatorship". Besides, Media points out a "dictatorship" and a "humanitarian crisis" through the ruthless attack on the Venezuelan currency and induced inﬂation. The resistance of the Venezuelan people under the bold and skilled leadership of President Nicolás Maduro has prevented it: it deepens democracy by calling the National Constituent Assembly and holding elections for governors and mayors of the country that result in an overwhelming victory for the revolutionary forces . All of Gene Sharp's "gentle stroke" techniques that have been put into practice in Venezuela, all the assassination attempts, the sabotage, the mobilization of the underworld with the supply of weapons of war, the bombs in embassies and the selective assassinations have been crashed against the will of the revolutionary leaders to preserve peace and avoid civil war, stimulated by the internal right and imperialism. All these attempts have been defeated one by one. 13

The precedent can not be more obscure and bloody. It is about the resurgence of the Monroe Doctrine, "America, for the (North) Americans" that had imposed a string of dictators in Latin America: Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua, Marcos Pérez Jiménez of Venezuela and Rafael Leónidas Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, among others. That is to say the return of the policy of the "Big stick" of the president Theodore Roosvelt. The coup d'état in the twentieth century show a glaring example:

1953, overthrown Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala. 1961, Invasion in Cuba. Defeated in Playa Girón. 1964, Blow in Brazil against Joau Goulart. 1965, Invasion in the Dominican Republic and Overthrow of Juan Bosch. Coup in Chile in 1973. Assassination of the constitutional president Salvador Allende. And as an epilogue, recently mobilization of the Colombian army to our borders. 1976 Operation Aries, Coup in Argentina against María Estela de Perón. 1983, Invasion in Granada and murder of Bishoﬀ. 1989 Invasion and bombing in Panama. Destruction of “El Chorrillo” neighborhood. Several invasions to Haiti since 1915.

Now more than ever we must be on general alert and international solidarity to prevent the 100-year war in all of Latin America, predicted by Commander Hugo Chávez in case the US government dares to step on Venezuela.

By: Mr. Alfredo Lugo First Secretary, Embassy of Venezuela in Nairobi The views and opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reﬂect the oﬃcial position of the Embassy

Venezuelan Presidential Election Date Set for April 22 Venezuela’s National Electoral Council has conﬁrmed April 22nd as the oﬃcial date for the country’s upcoming presidential elections.

In addition, candidate substitutions must be carried out by March 2 and oﬃcial campaigning can begin on April 2 and will ﬁnish on April 19.

CNE President Tibisay Lucena made the announcement following a period of absence that has seen her withdraw from public life for several months due to an undisclosed illness.

Current President Nicolas Maduro Moros is set to stand for re-election on behalf of the leftist We Are Venezuela party, the Socialist Uniﬁed Party (PSUV), and other smaller leftist parties allied to the government party.

“Elections are convoked for April 22nd of 2018,” said Lucena.

Venezuela's Supreme Court Justice recently ruled that the country’s oﬃcial opposition coalition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable, could not run on a unity ticket for the elections as it has previously done, citing double party membership as the reason for its decision. However, individual opposition parties are expected to announce their candidates soon. The leader of Progressive Advance, Henri Falcon, has publicly conﬁrmed that he will put himself forward as a presidential pre-candidate for the opposition.

The CNE head also added that the body had been in “permanent session” “analysing dates and working through different scenarios”. Earlier this year, Venezuela’s National Constituent Assembly voted to bring forward presidential elections scheduled to be held in late 2018 to the first four months of the year. As well as announcing the presidential election date, the CNE also made public an official calendar for electoral procedures leading up to the vote.

venezuelanalysis.com The views and opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reﬂect the oﬃcial position of the Embassy

According to the CNE schedule, voters will be able to enrol and change their details on the electoral register up until February 20, while presidential candidates will need to put themselves forward on February 26-27.

Chavismo closes ranks ahead of presidential elections The Venezuelan people are preparing for the presidential elections, called by the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) before the first quarter of 2018. Faced with this scenario, Chavismo officially announced its candidate: Nicolás Maduro, who is also the current president, he will run for re-election and thus becomes the designated figure to ensure the continuity of the Bolivarian process.

Many names and little noise Many names are heard in the opposition: Henrique Capriles, Ramos Allup, Henri Falcón, Leopoldo López and even the businessman who subsidizes the government itself, Lorenzo Mendoza. On the contrary, Chavismo goes to the presidential elections with only one candidate who was selected as part of the PSUV, the largest political organization in the country.

Ministers, governors, mayors, constituents and other public oﬃcials, members of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), unanimously approved Maduro's candidacy. "These are crucial moments for the Bolivarian Revolution and although the threats and sanctions against Venezuela continue, there is a people willing to do whatever is necessary to defend their sovereignty (...) today we need to conﬁrm and ratify the candidacy for the re-election of President Nicolás Maduro and I know we will do it, "said Adán Chávez, brother of former president and commander of the Bolivarian revolution, Hugo Chávez.

The act took place at the iconic Poliedro de Caracas, with thousands of people from diﬀerent guilds and age groups that are part of that political awning, gathered inside and outside the hall in demonstration of their support for the candidacy of the hard working president for the next Presidential period 2019-2025.

U.S attempts to push a Coup d'état in Venezuela

The Venezuela Government demanded Washington to “immediately stop all assaults and threats” against the Venezuelan people, repeating Venezuela was a free and sovereign country, defending its right to peace, stability and democracy.

If they really want to be humanitarian saviors, the US regime should stop bombing the countries in Africa and the Middle East, and dedicate themselves to improving the living conditions of their surviving populations, which have been victims of their destructive imperial desires.

“The Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela rejects the statements of the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Aﬀairs, Francisco Palmieri, who once again pretends to exercise an authority that no one has granted him in order to ignore our legitimate, democratic and constitutional institutions with the objective of promoting a change of Government.

And if they do not want to go very far, then focus on addressing the social and economic problems that exist in Puerto Rico after the passage of Hurricane Maria, and where, to this day, thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes due to the contempt with which the American white supremacist regime has treated them. More than four months later, most of the island lacks electricity and potable water service, turning its survivors into true displaced persons and refugees in need of urgent humanitarian assistance.

Neither the US regime nor its regional subordinates have any legal or moral competence to pretend to shape the future of Venezuelans, and even less when they are the ones directly responsible for the problems that aﬄict the citizens of our country, by imposing coercive unilateral sanctions that hinder our national development and interfere with the right of Venezuelans to exercise their democratic rights , generating to devastating eﬀects on the economy and the population leading to what should be considered as crimes against humanity.

Venezuela demands the immediate cessation of all aggressions and threats of the US regime against our people and reiterates that it is a free and sovereign country, and as such will defend its peace, stability and democracy.” www.mppre.gob.ve www.telesurtv.net

The Significance of the Feb. 4, 1992 Coup

If there is any useful reminder from Chavez’s coup of Feb. 4, 1992, it is that the Venezuelan monopoly of power has not ceased to exist, it just moved to Washington and other colonial capitals. Can an event of the past give us a warning about current events today? The answer is affirmative if we believe that history is a teacher. When we look at an important historical event we usually tend to remember the factual information surrounding the event - the actual facts that took place at the time. As we are fond of marking anniversaries, that is essential. But we must also be challenged to re-examine the event for new meaning and new insight on the relevance of the event. In history books, facts are usually accurate; official documents will testify to them. However, the analysis of those facts that will be recorded in the history books will depend on the correct interpretation of the actions as they were intended to be when they were carried out. The accuracy of the evidence including a balanced reporting of the analysis must be preserved. At this time we remember the anniversary of the attempted coup by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela on Feb. 4, 1992. In a region where symbolism marks important events, that day was declared as “Venezuela’s National Dignity Day”. We have already referred in a previous article to what aspects of Simon Bolivar’s thinking may have inspired Chavez, and we have a good idea of what was Chavez’s reason for the coup, but we also need to ask, what is the implication for Venezuela today, 26 years later? Chavez believed that the “Bolivarian project”, as he called it, had not been completed, since Venezuela and the rest of Latin America had not achieved full independence – neither politically nor economically - and were still under a neo-colonial domination. He justified his actions in these words: “the same system, in economics and politics, the same denial of human rights and the right 18

of the people to determine their own destiny (was still in place) … Venezuela was suﬀering a terminal crisis, ruled by a dictatorship dressed up in democratic clothing.”

But that failure did not stop Chavez from fulﬁlling his promise made ten years before in 1982: “I swear for the gods of my parents; I swear for my country; I swear for my honour that I will not give peace to my soul nor rest to my arms until I see broken the chains that oppress my people under the will of the powerful.”

The “democratic clothing” was a reference to the appearance of a multi-party system when in reality the two dominant parties had signed a pact to form a centre-right monopoly of power controlled by the interests of the Venezuelan oligarchy, to the exclusion of the people, which did not allow a challenge to the policy consensus. Chavez referred to this monopoly as “Puntoﬁjismo” after the location where the Pact of Punto Fijo was signed in Caracas.

The political reason he gave and his personal determination brought him to run for president and win the election in 1999 on a platform that promised to break the long stretch of Puntoﬁjismo that lasted from 1958 to 1999, and bring about a profound transformation of Venezuelan society. Chavez saw the social problems in Venezuela as a consequence – not as a coincidence - of the exploitation of its wealth by foreign corporations in complicity with the national oligarchy.

The failure of the coup in 1992 turned into an unexpected success since it gave Chavez the opportunity to attain exposure and to instigate a population that was ready for a wake up call to the contradiction of a rich country with 80% of the people living in poverty. A large majority of Venezuelans supported the rebellion.

Chavez believed that Venezuela needed to gain total control of its oil industry so its revenues would benefit all Venezuelans equally and fairly in a process guided by the state through social programs. At the same time, and in order to do that, he would fulfill Bolivar’s dream of true independence from all colonial powers not only for Venezuela but also for Latin America through fair trade integration of all countries into la Patria Grande – as he called it – the Great Homeland. Chavez’s life was cut short by his premature death in 2013 but his legacy is captured in a single word, Chavismo. The intention that moved him to the action of Feb. 4, 1992 is still alive and necessary today. The majority of Venezuelans have called on President Nicolas Maduro to bring forward the Bolivarian Revolution. The presidential elections to take place before April 30 of this year will again express the popular will of Venezuelans - freely, democratically and sovereign. However, there has been a concerted effort to stop the Bolivarian project since its inception. Those who have inherited the political drive of Puntofijismo attempted a coup against Chavez in 2002 that was much too soon to be used as a declaration of failure of his project, and, as history must record, it was against the majority of the people who in fact restored him to power. 19

As we write, a dialogue is taking place in Dominican Republic between government and some opposition representatives in order to advance with the constitutional process. We can regret that it has come to this point, but we must celebrate the show of political will of the parties involved.

The tools of this pact have included the promotion of violence and terrorist actions, the string of relentless threats to Venezuela’s sovereignty, sanctions by the U.S., Canada and the EU, and the ﬁnancial blockade imposed on Venezuela’s resource sector aﬀecting essential imports.

Unfortunately, powerful governments have tacitly signed another pact - akin to an international Puntoﬁjismo whose headquarters are clearly and overtly located in Washington, not in Caracas. This is a new pact to form an international monopoly of power controlled by the interests of the international oligarchy that is ready to reinstall the original holders of Puntoﬁjismo in Venezuela, if not a more perverse version of it.

If there is any useful reminder from Chavez’s coup of Feb. 4, 1992, it is that the Venezuelan monopoly of power has not ceased to exist, it just moved to Washington and other colonial capitals. And if there is any implication for Venezuela it is a warning that the new president will have to embrace more ﬁrmly Chavez’s legacy and embark in dismantling the Washington “Puntoﬁjismo” by challenging its devastating international policy consensus By: Nino Pagliccia www.telesurtv.net

The civic-military coup attempt of 4 February 1992 was a response to the growing social discontent in Venezuela against the system of controlled or “pacted” democracy known as the Punto Fijo system, which had reigned over the country since the overthrowing of the Marcos Jimenez dictatorship in 1958. Specifically, the uprising was seen as a response to the Caracazo in 1989, an explosion of mass rioting and protest in response to the implementation of a neoliberal structural adjustment package by the presidency of Carlos Andres Perez. Rioting and protest were quashed by state repression, with up to 3000 civilians killed. Spurred into action, a progressive movement within the Venezuelan armed forces called the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement (MBR 200) and their civilian allies launched a coup attempt against the Perez government on 4 February 1992. The uprising was led by Hugo Chavez, an army paratrooper at the time. Fourteen people died in the fighting, according to official figures. While the coup failed, Hugo Chavez was given the opportunity to speak on national television to urge his comrades still fighting to put down their arms, as the main objective of taking the presidential palace in Caracas had not been achieved. His public acceptance of responsibility for the coup’s failure, as well as his now famous catchphrase that the movement’s objectives had not been achieved “for now” gained him a national profile. Chavez was imprisoned from 1992 until 1994, when the next president, Rafael Caldera, freed him. Chavez went on to form an electoral movement and win the presidency in 1998 with 56% of the vote. Here, Venezuelanalysis.com publishes a set of original photos of 4 February 1992. They are from the Venezuelan National Library, and were first featured on Venezuelan news website Text by Ewan Robertson for Venezuelanalysis.com

Pictorial A Gaze into History: Original Images of Venezuela’s 4 February 1992 Coup Attempt

President Carlos Andrez Perez praying (National Library)

Rebelling military and civilian ﬁgures carry one of their wounded (National Library)

A policeman involved in the combat (National Library)

A police oﬃcer and soldier ﬁghting against the rebels (AP)

A man seeking cover behind a jeep of newspaper El Nacional (National Library / El Nacional)

Hugo Chavez detained after the attempt to take Caracas failed (AP)

Hugo Chavez telling comrades to lay down their arms and that the movement’s objectives had not been achieved “for now”. Just under seven years later he would be elected Venezuelan president. (AP) www.enezuelanalysis.com/tag/february-4-1992

VENEZUELA Report NEWS BULLETIN FROM THE BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA

VENEZUELA OBSESSION Study reveals strategy of diplomatic harassment and media aggression

US issues 731 statements against Venezuela An investigation published recently by the Foreign Ministry of Venezuela shows that the South American nation is the target of an aggressive campaign of diplomatic, political and media harassment, directed from the US, with strong support in Europe and Latin America. The research, based on a review of the communiqués and statements issued by Donald Trump’s administration, the Governments of the European Union and the Venezuelan news coverage during 2017, endorses the repeated allegations of Nicolas Maduro’s Government regarding the aggressions that his country is enduring. According to the research, while President Trump – who in 2016 threatened Venezuela with a military intervention – imposes a set of strong sanctions, which in practice represent a ﬁnancial blockade against Venezuelan economy, the anti-Venezuelan rhetoric is increasing in Europe and within the so called Grupo de Lima (Lima Group). Such actions – which are illegal according to the Charter of the United Nations – are disseminated in the media as “concerns of the international community”, a need to “pressure the Venezuelan dictatorship” and an alleged intention to help Venezuela overcome the “humanitarian crisis”. This constitutes a serious threat to the principles of sovereignty, non-interference and selfdetermination. The research shows that American spokespersons, from President Trump, Vice-president Pence, Secretary of State Tillerson, to the UN Ambassador, Haley, along with some congressmen, issued a total of 731 hostile statements against the Venezuelan Government in 2017. This means two daily statements, twelve per week, against the Venezuelan democracy. Likewise, it shows that the European Union bowed before Washington’s strategy. The European Union issued 242 statements on Venezuela in 2017, of which 78% were negative. The European Parliament made up to 18 statements against the Venezuelan democracy. Only the Spanish Government issued 89 statements against the legitimate Government of Venezuela. A few weeks ago, the crisis reached its limits when Venezuela, fed up with Mariano Rajoy’s assaults, expelled the Spanish Ambassador.

The research characterizes the aggression endured by Venezuela as the most serious aggression against a sovereign State in the America continent, after the campaign which overthrew Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973. As the history reveals, the Government of the National Unity of Chile, since it was elected in 1970, was subjected to an outrageous campaign to force its overthrow. This campaign included the infiltration within the military class, an economic sabotage, shortages, cash flight, hyperinflation, attacks against the international price of copper, and a disgraceful discrediting strategy led by the transnational company ITT, the UPI agency and the Chilean newspaper “El Mercurio”. According to the research, the antiVenezuela crusade led by the United States reaches a dimension comparable to the economic blockade and the aggression campaign that the Republic of Cuba has endured for more than 50 years. The campaign against the Government of Nicolas Maduro, elected in 2013, is rousingly supported by some Latin American Foreign Ministries which comprise the so called Grupo de Lima, and multilateral agencies such as the OAS General Secretariat, Mercosur, the European Union, the European Parliament and some UN instances such as the Human Rights Council. The strategy aims at delegitimizing the Venezuelan Government, denying the existence of democratic institutions, rendering the electoral processes invisible, and criminalizing the country as a dictatorship that violates human rights, thus generating a situation that warrants an international action.

Democracy and the Venezuelan people are not only demonized in the world press. Their struggles and successes are invisible.

Some of the data and conclusions of the research titled: “Imperial violence, the political and media assault against Venezuela” are presented hereunder.

Washington attack strategy communiques/statements by the United States against Venezuela

731 communiques/ statements

149

97 58

jan.

Feb.

Mar.

35 Apr.

May

Jun.

Jul.

Aug. Sept. Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

Statements by US spokespersons against Venezuela increased in April at the beginning of street political violence and increased with the election of the National Constituent Assembly. There is no international issue that has deserved such a high level of attention on Washington's agenda, not even its confrontation with the Democratic Republic of Korea

Almost half of the 731 statements against Venezuelan democracy were made directly by the US government. Four out of ten statements came from the Congress, particularly from the anti Cuban lobby: Congressmen Díaz Balart, Menéndez, Ross-Lethinen and Rubio.

A total of 87 statements against Venezuela made the congresswoman from Florida,Ileana Ross Lethinen tightly winning antichavism leader, senator Marco Rubio, who made 81. The measurement of the antivenezolanism ranking allows to identify who ﬁnances and promotes the overthrow of the Government of Nicolás Maduro.

The Bloomberg agency, the Miami Herald and Breibart News Steve Bannon´s blog, top the list of the media that misinform Venezuela. The Washington Post and FOX follow, beating The New York Times and CNN. All transnationals in the communication sector against a country.

The European Union follows the strategy of Washington with 242 statements or statements questioning Venezuelan democracy. Only Spain, commissioned by Trump to do work in Europe, issued 89 pronouncements.

REUTERS is by far the agency that most inﬂuences the publication of negative news about Venezuela in the US press.

The media of Mexico, Colombia and Chile are awarded the ﬁrst three places in terms of their anti-Venezuelan fervor. The Inter-American Press Association (SIP) operates as the great coordinator of the strategy

In 2017, the US press published 3880 news about, and essentially against, Venezuela. Bias, fake news and manipulation were the central feature of the media attack.

The private press in Latin America did not stay behind. Almost 12 thousand negative news in the great South American press and 8,300 news in the Central American press about Venezuela. Regional monopolies operate as local extensions of the matrixes of the American press.

Two curious cases in Europe: the Spanish news agency EFE issued more than 3 thousand news stories about Venezuela, with an overwhelming percentage (75%) negative. EFE works as a model for the rest of the European press. The Spanish newspaper "El País" put Venezuela in 249 of its 365 editions. The subject Venezuela occupied the attention of the editors of the newspaper "El País" once every 36 hours.

Rex Tillerson's Latin America Tour:

Threats of Militarization and Oil

interests that, in perspective, under the Trump administration, is shaping a neo-fascist global police state.

The Tillerson model for hemispheric relations embodies the traditional war diplomacy of Washington. In the context of a geopolitical dispute with extracontinental capitalist competitors (China, Russia and European Union) challenging the empire's hegemony within its traditional inﬂuence areas, the recent tour of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Colombia and Jamaica had a clear expansionist projection based on two main axes: security and energy.

In this context, fractions of the largest capital most prone to 21st-century fascism are located in the speculative ﬁnancial sector, the military-industrial-security-media complex and in the extractive industries, interwoven with high-tech / digital capital. Given the magnitude of the crisis of capitalism, its global reach, the social deterioration and the degree of ecological degradation that it generates, in order to contain real or potential protests or rebellions, the dominant plutocracy has promoted diverse systems of social mass control, repression and war (open or clandestine), which are also used as tools to obtain proﬁts and continue accumulating capital in the face of stagnation. This is what Robinson calls militarized accumulation or repression.

As a member of the transnational capitalist elite, Tillerson, a former executive director of the American private oil corporation Exxon-Mobil, the fourth largest company in the world after state-owned Aramco (Saudi Arabia), NIOC (Iran) and CNPC (China), according to Jorge Eduardo Navarrete, Tillerson used a primitive mercantile approach, anachronistic as the Monroe Doctrine on which he based his speech at the University of Texas, in Austin, one day before his arrival in Mexico.

Such categorization refers to the Achilles heel of capitalism: overaccumulation. The growing gap between what is produced and what the market can absorb. If the capitalists can not sell their products, they do not make a profit. Given the enormous concentration of wealth -with its correlative levels of social polarization and unprecedented global inequality-, the transnational capitalist class needs to find profitable productive exists to discharge huge amounts of accumulated surpluses.

The Tillerson model for hemispheric relations embodies the traditional war diplomacy of Washington, emphasized due to the structural and legitimacy world crisis of the capitalist system. William I. Robinson has characterized the strategy as a fusion between reactionary political power in the State, right-wing forces, authoritarian and neo-fascist in civil society, and transnational corporate capital. A triangulation of 25

Hence, the energy and extractivist complexes resort to the intensification and deepening of neoliberalism via the privatization of road, port, airport, railroad, pipelines and electricity infrastructure (eg, Pemex and the Federal Electricity Commission in the Mexican case); the labor super-exploitation and precarization of work (subcontracting, outsourcing), and policies of total deregulation and greater subsidy to transnational capital. Said policies of capital relocalization, reindustrialization and accumulation by depriving others of territories, as well as raw materials in dependent economies, have been occurring in Mexico, Central and South America via mild blows, the de facto imposition of a permanent state of emergency and the establishment of police states, whose support are the militarization of civil society and different modalities of endless tactical warfare, camouflaged as an anti-drug fight or against internal enemies - say the Mapuches by Mauricio Macri's government -, with advanced weapons driven by artificial intelligence, including sophisticated monitoring, tracking, security and surveillance systems.

Given that hydrocarbons are a central component of Donald's militarized neocolonial strategy and energy security both for Trump and the corporations of the economy sector - within the context of conservative restoration and defense of its hegemony -, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA, ﬁfth largest oil company in the world) was another central objective of the Tillerson tour. That is why he instructed the secessionist collaborationist governments of Enrique Peña Nieto, Mauricio Macri, Pedro Kuczynski and Juan Manuel Santos, the new modalities that they will have to carry out in order to intensify the military, economic and ﬁnancial siege against the constitutional government of Nicolas Maduro, including a possible oil embargo as a new precipitator of a humanitarian crisis that will eventually justify a multilateral military intervention.

Produced in the Permian and Louisiana Basin, to the Asian market (Japan, China, India , South Korea, Taiwan), via the ports of Manzanillo and the Coatzacoalcos / Salina Cruz axis, on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, taking advantage of Pemex's installed infrastructure will give energy corporations advantages, using less time and lower transportation costs than if they did this through the Panama Canal.

www.telesurtv.net

THE TOUR OF THE SOUTH-SOUTH DIGNITY:WHY VENEZUELA AND AFRICA

Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza with his Nigerian counterpart Geoﬀrey Onyeama

Chancellor Jorge Arreaza with President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema

Minister Jorge Arreaza meets President of the Republic of Congo, Denis Sassou-Nguesso

Minister Jorge Arreaza meets with his Ethiopian counterpart Workneh Gebeyehu

Venezuela is phenotypically and genotypically a country where more than 50% of the population is Afro-descendant, awarded internationally by the (International Conference-Treaty of Durban (South Africa) against Racism and Discrimination - 2001), as the correct one to group the descendant populations of the great masses of enslaved Africans during the nefarious colonial period, this characteristic oﬀers the country an ethnic identity that historically and ancestrally binds Venezuela.

Minister Arreaza and Egyptian representatives paying tribute to Hugo Chavez at his bust in Cairo, Egypt

THE TOUR OF THE SOUTH-SOUTH DIGNITY Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is usually underestimated and for that reason the false matrices fall on Venezuela and his own political sagacity, his facet as a great statesman and international strategist is no exception. His position prior to the Vice Presidency and Presidency was that of Chancellor, where he precisely performed exceptional victories and stabilized the diplomatic doctrine of Venezuela, one of peace and respect that in the midst of constant attacks and threats, perhaps because of this nature, its sweetest fruits .

These indelible ties, as well as the political, ideological and geopolitical ones, are the genuine basis on which the natural links of the African continent with Venezuela were resumed, in the hands of President Hugo Chávez himself and the then Deputy Minister for Africa Reinaldo Bolívar, who they manifested with the respective agendas Africa, and the platform of the South America-Africa Summit (ASA) and an absolute turn towards complementarity, solidarity, cooperation and diplomacy of the peoples, as an antonym to the chrematistic, utilitarian and dangerous links that Other states pursue in Africa. It is important to highlight that this international policy is continuing through President Maduro, the current Minister for Foreign Aﬀairs Jorge Arreaza and the Vice Minister for Africa Yuri Pimentel.

Chancellor Jorge Arreaza's management reaﬃrms the position of respect left to those whose vein and Eurocentric intellectual domination in Venezuela and Our America seek to discredit the weight and importance of the "Tour of South-South dignity" (#GiradelaDignidadSurSur). It should be illustrated that for Venezuela, in addition to the main ethnic and political ties with all of Africa, the countries Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Angola are strategic members of OPEC. Nigeria is also the main economy of the continent; economically speaking it has a population of more than 180 million people and with it an avid market of products and services, where the main food, telecommunications and textile transnationals ﬁght incessantly participation quotas. 27

the position of Secretary of the United Nations (UN), the diplomatic world observed as a reluctance and without positive results such an enterprise failed, another recent stumble could be observed from the pre-announced summit ISRAEL-AFRICA, which produced not only the cancellation of any attempt and the mixture of a popular rejection to the government of Togo, but the conformation of solid positions of a very important and numerous group (almost majority) of African countries with respect to the crimes and belligerent actions of the regime of ultra right that occupies the Israeli government, of This way, the whole diplomatic agenda designed by Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu himself baptized "The V return to Africa, "in order to try to reverse the setbacks and resolutions that whip Israel to stop the invasion of the Palestinian territories and the policies of repression, kidnapping, imprisonment and bombing of the Palestinian people.

Equatorial Guinea, being the only country with “Spanish " as the official language, is the most recent member of OPEC, year after year it exceeds its production records and is in a great process of modernization of the energy production system, national infrastructure and administrative reorganization of the State. Angola for its part after the presidential renewal and the advance of a mineral industry that not only caters for oil (Gas - Oil and derivatives), but also reaches the production of gold and other strategic minerals with a performance and use technology of great importance in the world. It is also a large producer of diamonds and chairs the Kimberley System for diamond certification (The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme), where it advised and accompanied Venezuela in its inclusion processes and the development of the Mining Arc. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo are other destinations that were covered by the Minster of Foreign Affairs, allies of great importance to Venezuela, with whom it has developed high levels of cooperation in educational, commercial and administrative matters of which its empowerment have already been announced. The development and long-standing experience in heavy industry processes, water resources, the imposing territorial extension in the continent and its consequent borders and influences over a large number of African states, in addition to the potential in strategic mineral resources, such as the Coltan , which it shares with Venezuela and Brazil as the largest and almost only reservoirs (deposits), are only a few examples of the potential and importance of this friendship.

Such a Netanyahu company failed and it also required settling for the timid and perhaps unpleasant support of other governments in Africa in order to leave through the back door. These attempts by their nature and gross purposes, very much like the oligarchy and supremacist arrogance of the world right, ignoring the importance of Africa, are unaware of the real value of African people and the real needs of the continent, that point to cooperation and political agreement, not the establishment of new colonialisms or the purchase of perks and votes in the various forums, mainly the one of the United Nations where Africa owns 33%. The dignity of the peoples of Africa is not for sale.

Then Ethiopia, home to more than one hundred million inhabitants, a fundamental condition for the stability of the sub region and the continent itself, the headquarters of the African Union (AU), an organization (unlike other continents) whose respect, cohesion and daily executive policy , makes a big diﬀerence with respect to other continental organs and where precisely Venezuela has a privileged position as an observer State, which a greater number of states and groups of power would like to occupy. And ﬁnally Egypt, the seat of the League of Arab States.

The narrative results in a staggering and overwhelming reality, the facts, the reciprocity, love and brotherhood of the treatment given to the Venezuelan people and government are obvious, only an absolute myopia, a visceral hatred or a total ignorance can explain, the denunciations or accusations of "isolation" from the people and the Bolivarian process, when in fact there is majority solidarity among the peoples of Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, when Venezuela presides over the intergovernmental body with the largest number of members in the world such as the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries, or even more so when we preside over the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization, and ﬁnally when the incessant amount of nonsense and sanctioning initiatives have run with the same fate as the adventurous interested in Africa, the failure .

There are many examples and parallels of how various centers of power have tried unsuccessfully to win the will and solidarity of the African continent, especially trying to emulate the China-Africa, Russia-Africa, Turkey-Africa Summits and the portent of the ASA Summits. To name just two of them we can remember how in August 2016, the then Foreign Minister of Argentina Susana Malcorra, scheduled an incipient and unsuccessful tour of the African continent, in a hurried way to try to achieve the votes she needed to take over

Author: OG Media Observatory of the African, American and Caribbean Knowledge Center www.mppre.gob.ve

The Arab League and Venezuela analyze issues of cooperation and relations with Latin America

The Minister for Foreign Aﬀairs, Jorge Arreaza, and the Secretary General of the Arab League, Ahmed Abul Gheit, spoke on Sunday in Cairo, Egypt, on issues of cooperation, the relationship between Latin America and this organization in the Middle East, as well as other strategic aspects based on respect for the principle of non-intervention and the self-determination and sovereignty of the peoples.

Abul Gheit made public their rejection to the terrorism in the world ﬁnanced from the Government of the United States. "The solution to the problems will always be dialogue, democracy and peace; not terrorism ﬁnanced from the United States, "said Arreaza. After this meeting, the Venezuelan diplomacy spokesman participated in an event in homage to the commander of the Bolivarian Revolution, Hugo Chávez, and also honored the Father of the Fatherland, Simón Bolívar, before his statue erected in the center of Cairo. This activity was attended by the grandson of Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was the president of Egypt, noted for his struggle for equality between peoples and the construction of Arab socialism.

"With the secretary general of the Arab League, we were reviewing Venezuela's historic cooperation with the Arab League, the relationship between Latin America and the Arab League, as well as the strategic issues of our regions and the world," the Venezuelan foreign minister reported on Twitter. With this meeting Arreaza began his work agenda in Egypt, as part of the so-called South-South Dignity Tour, which took him to Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, the Congo and Ethiopia to strengthen the bonds of brotherhood and solidarity.

"We continue moving towards the balance of the universe, multipolar world of peace and mutual respect," Arreaza tweeted.

"The secretary general thanked the mutual respect we have exercised for years and respect for the principle of non-intervention that we have always maintained," said Arreaza.

www.saberesafricanos.net

Both oﬃcials also discussed issues of Venezuela, including the presidential election process to be held on April 22, "and how last year we were able to overcome diﬃcult times through elections," said the foreign minister. In the meeting, Arreaza and Ahmed 29

Venezuela denounces before UNHRC interference by the U.S and the EU

The Minister for foreign aﬀairs of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Jorge Arreaza, denounced on Monday before the Human Rights Council of the United Nations (UN), based in Geneva, the "inadmissible" actions of interference by the United States Government and countries of the European Union (EU) in the internal aﬀairs of the South American country.

announced that his government will ignore the will of our people, which will be freely expressed in the presidential elections on April 22, 2018, as if I was assisted by some faculty to recognize or ignore election results in my country, "he added. In parallel, Chancellor Arreaza ratiﬁed Venezuela's commitment to guarantee and defend human rights, and to the Council.

During his speech in the High Segment of the 37th session of the main organ of the United Nations, the minister recalled that in 2017, spokesmen for the government and the US Congress, including the highest in the hierarchy, issued 735 pronouncements on Venezuela. In the ﬁrst months of 2018, of which 10 are documented.

"We hope to continue working on the strengthening of its institutional framework, also on the mechanism of Universal Periodic Exams," he emphasized.

"In 2017 President Donald Trump threatened Venezuela with a military intervention, imposed illegal sanctions to harm our economy, and our people, ﬁnanced and supported the violent terrorist actions of the Venezuelan radical opposition that brought loss of lives, injuries, brought pain and unquantiﬁable material damage, "he recapped.

www.mppre.gob.ve www.saberesafricanos.net

In his speech, the Minister for Peoples Power for Foreign Affairs also evoked the call for a military coup in Venezuela proffered by the Secretary of State of the United States, Rex Tillerson. "He publicly called the Venezuelan military to overthrow the democratic government of President Nicolás Maduro. Immediately, our respected and anti-imperialist Bolivarian National Armed Forces gave him a dignified and timely response (...) Tillerson

UN Secretary General receives Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza

The Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), Antonio Guterres, received on Monday 26th February 2018 the Chancellor of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Jorge Arreaza, in an official meeting that took place in the context of the High Segment of the 37th session of the Council of rights. At the meeting, the Minister of Foreign Affairs transmitted to the Secretary General a message sent by President Nicolás Maduro, and explained the current situation of the South American country on the eve of the presidential elections of April 22, 2018. The meeting was part of the agenda of the Venezuelan diplomat at the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, based in Geneva, Switzerland. During his speech in the High Segment of the 37th session of the Council, Chancellor Arreaza ratified the commitment of the Bolivian Republic of Venezuela with the guarantee and defense of human rights with that body of the UN. "We must shield this Council as relevant, given the pressures and interventions of powerful countries, to influence their opinions, reports and positions," he urged. www.mppre.gob.ve

China and Latin America's New Era of Globalization Latin American leaders are increasingly aligning their economies with China, and the United States seems worried. Chinese President Xi Jinping has pushed to integrate Latin America into the Belt and Road Initiative, and governments across America have ﬁrmed up infrastructure and resource deals with China. Chinese partnerships with Latin American governments and companies, to construct roads, hospitals, trains, and develop both renewable and fossil energy resources indicate to many an epochal shift that could see the United States left behind.

peoples and leaders in the South that have consistently found themselves under the force of the North's “big stick.” Cuba's state newspaper Granma quickly moved to condemn what they see as the “return of the Monroe Doctrine” under Trump, explaining that it is a reaction to a broader “geopolitical turn.”

There is no doubt that the rise of a multipolar global economy has opened up new options for governments around the world who prefer not to tie themselves too deeply to the United States, with its long history of “big stick” unilateralism in foreign relations.

“The geopolitical turn toward other emerging actors such as the Asian giant (China) and Russia hurts Washington's dream,” the paper said.

For many leaders, the Chinese model of foreign relations is a welcome breath of multilateralism and respect for sovereignty. China, unlike the United States, has not installed military bases in those countries it does business with, or intervened in their political systems.

Latin American governments of various political tendencies have often praised the beneﬁts of greater sovereignty and development that increased trade with China has resulted in. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, a vocal critic of U.S. interventionism against his country, said in December “Thank God humanity can count on the People's Republic of China to guarantee peace or at least less conﬂict.”

Meanwhile, the ﬁrst year of the administration of President Donald Trump has only seen the United States bolster its unilateral approach to foreign relations by imposing further sanctions on Venezuela, souring relations with Cuba against international opinion, pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, and attempting to bully its way through North American Free Trade Agreement, or Nafta, renegotiations.

At the recent China-Celac meeting, Chilean Foreign Minister Heraldo Munoz said that Chinese cooperation “represents a categorical repudiation of protectionism and unilateralism.”

Latin America and China against the Monroe Doctrine?

Bolivia's ﬁrst Indigenous President, Evo Morales, has praised Chinese investments for not imposing extra conditions, unlike those of the United States and International Monetary Fund, or IMF.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson angered many during his recent tour through South America by praising the notorious Monroe Doctrine, saying that the policy that oversaw a century of U.S. intervention in the South is “as relevant today as it was the day it was written.” Seemingly unaware of the irony that many perceived, Tillerson proceeded to decry Chinese-Latin American relations as “imperial.”

“If we accommodate IMF loans, we would have to submit to privatization policies and lose our national heritage,” Morales said. “The American empire does not want to see the presence of China and Russia (in Bolivia),” Morales said last year, like Cuba referring to a “geopolitical war” underway.

However, talk of “imperial powers” coming from Mr. Tillerson, has not carried much weight for

www.telesurtv.net

Chomsky: 'Humanitarian Intervention' and Imperialism "Almost every aggressive act by any great power is justiﬁed on humanitarian grounds," says U.S. intellectual Noam Chomsky in an exclusive interview.

Wesley Clark, the general in charge of U.S. and NATO forces during the Kosovo war, warned Washington that a U.S. attack on Yugoslavia would only escalate atrocities: unable to attack the United States, Yugoslavia would be forced to retaliate on the ground.

In an exclusive interview with teleSUR, renowned intellectual and political activist Noam Chomsky addresses the concept of "humanitarian intervention," which he says is being used to justify violent military intervention by leading global powers, most notably the United States.

NATO then launched Operation Allied Force, the codename for the bombing of Yugoslavia, ostensibly to prevent further atrocities. This escalated the Yugoslavian response and caused yet more suﬀering, eventually leading to the trial of Slobodan Milosevic at a U.N. international criminal tribunal.

"From the point of view of the aggressor it's a humanitarian intervention, but not from the point of view of the victims. Probably, if we had records from Attila the Hun, we might ﬁnd the same thing," said Chomsky.

"If you look back at the discussion, the way it's framed... it was a humanitarian intervention because they had to stop Serbian atrocities, and that's the way it's presented in the West: they have to keep quiet on the fact that the Serbian atrocities were a predicted and expected consequence of the invasion," said Chomsky.

NATO in Serbia The ﬁrst time the term 'humanitarian intervention' was widely discussed both in international law and by global organizations was in the wake of NATO intervention in Serbia.

International lawyers and analysts later decided the invasion had been "illegal but legitimate," said Chomsky: "Illegal because of an obvious violation of international law, but legitimate because they had to stop the horrible atrocities which followed the invasion, so they simple inverted the chronology, which is what is usually done... (The United States) invaded in order to prevent atrocities that were cause by the invasion."

In 1996, secessionist groups in Kosovo, supported by the Albanian army, carried out terrorist attacks on Yugoslavian territory, which in turn triggered reciprocal attacks by Yugoslavia. The United States and NATO countries then used that as an excuse to invade and bomb Serbia. 33

The attacks destroyed most of Libya's infrastructure and killed about 10,000 people, leaving Libya defenseless "as it is today, in the hands of worrying militias."

The discussion about what constitutes "humanitarian intervention" and how that concept can coexist with sovereignty began after the genocide in Rwanda and the Srebrenica massacre, but the events in Serbia ultimately resulted in international agreements.

Chomsky says this enabled the latest Islamist militias to emerge: Libya represented a proxy for the ﬂow of arms and Jihadis into the Levand and West Africa, "which has now become the major source of radical terrorism in the world – largely a consequence of so-called humanitarian intervention in Libya.

The U.N. General Assembly then came up with a resolution regarding the "responsibility to protect," stating that military action cannot be taken unless authorized by the Security Council. This, in eﬀect, prioritizes the application of diplomatic pressures in order to ensure governments don't violate the rights of their own people.

"You look at case after case and ocassionally you can ﬁnd an example that maybe you can argue is humanitarian intervention," and yet genuine humanitarian cases remain "bitterly opposed" by the United States.

Another legal deﬁnition came from the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), led by Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun, and including representatives from Canada, United States, Canada, Russia, Germany, South Africa, Philippines, Switzerland, Guatemala and India.

Iraq and Afghanistan Chomsky argues that U.S. intentions in Iraq and Afghanistan, however, were very diﬀerent: "In the case of Afghanistan, I suspect it was just revenge. It's probably just as Abdul Haqq said: they wanted to 'show their muscle'. You know, 'somebody attacked us, we're gonna show the world that we can attack somebody even more harshly.'"

The commission further reﬁned "responsibility to protect," adding a clause allowing regional groups to intervene "in case the Security Council doesn't agree to authorize intervention," but "subject to subsequent approval by the Security Council." Which regional grouping can intervene? As Chomsky says: "There's one: it's called NATO, and what this is saying is that even though the U.N. Security Council doesn't authorize it, NATO is justiﬁed in intervening."

This mentality is echoed in Trump's nuclear comment to North Korea about having "a bigger button than you do." As Chomsky points out, there was "no strategic or other purpose behind it."

In other words, every time the United States or NATO say military intervention is legal under international law with Security Council approval, what they actually mean is that it's legal under the ICISS report and not the U.N. General Assembly agreement.

Iraq, he says, is a diﬀerent story: "Iraq is a country (the United States) wanted to invade," because of its resources and strategic location in the middle of the world's biggest oil-producing region. "That you can understand on traditional imperial grounds, but I suspect Afghanistan really was pretty much what Abdul Haqq said."

"That's a beautiful example of how propaganda operates in a well-functioning powerful system," says Chomsky. Following this reasoning, the bombing of Libya could be considered "humanitarian intervention" per the concept of "responsibility to protect": the U.N. Security Council approved a no-ﬂy zone for Libya and Gaddaﬁ's government agreed to a truce, but when his army continued towards Bengazi, the United States, Great Britain and France launched a bombing campaign.

www.telesurtv.net

Malaysia: 9th World Urban Forum

The World Urban Forum (WUF) is the world’s premier conference on urban issues. It was established in 2001 by the United Nations to examine one of the most pressing issues facing the world today: rapid urbanization and its impact on communities, cities, economies, climate change and policies.

Assembly resolution 70/210 as the ﬁrst session to have a thematic focus on the implementation of the New Urban Agenda adopted at the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, Habitat III.

WUF10

Organized and convened by UN-Habitat, the Forum has become one of the most open gatherings on the international arena, for exchanging views and experiences on urban challenges. The inclusive nature of the Forum, combined with high-level participation, makes it a unique United Nations conference and the premier international gathering on urban issues.

The Tenth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF10) will take place in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates in 2020. The oﬃcial announcement has been made in March 2017 after the conclusion of the bidding process, which took place in 2016. WUF10 will be the ﬁrst Forum to be held in the Arab region and it will be another opportunity to review the implementation of the New Urban Agenda. WUF11 bidding process

Objective of the Forum

The World Urban Forum has the following objectives: Raise awareness of sustainable urbanization among stakeholders and constituencies, including the general public;

The selection process for the Eleventh session of the World Urban Forum to be held in 2022 has started with a call for expression of interest for cities that would like to host the event. The deadline for receiving the expressions of interest is 30 July 2017. The WUF11 selected host city/country will be announced during the WUF9 in Kuala Lumpur in February 2018. More information on the Call for Expressions is available here.

Improve the collective knowledge of sustainable urban development through inclusive open debates, sharing of lessons learned and the exchange of best practices and good policies; and Increase coordination and cooperation between diﬀerent stakeholders and constituencies for the advancement and implementation of sustainable urbanization.

unhabitat.org The views and opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reﬂect the oﬃcial position of the Embassy

WUF9 The Ninth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF9), took place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in February 2018, has been recognized by the General

OPINION:

Asia's Factory Workers Will Struggle to Adapt to an AI-Driven World

The age of AI and automation is upon us. This may be music to the ears of technologists, businesses, and investors, but Asia’s factory workers will be severely aﬀected when computers and robots take over labor-intensive jobs. To help workers navigate the new economy, governments and businesses should invest in social safety net programs and education.

Beneﬁting capital at the expense of labor? These are exciting times for technologists, businesses, and investors. While robotics and automation are increasingly being used by manufacturers to replace humans in “doing,” AI is enabling computers to replace humans in “thinking.” As AI goes through its processes, it generates a treasure trove of data that helps improve goods and services. Automation and robotics allow factory owners to shrink their labor costs, reduce labor risk, and increase quality, eﬃciency, and capacity. A factory owner facing rising labor costs and increasing demands for speed may look upon automation and digital manufacturing as a godsend.

Today in China, technology is removing the need for service staff in the most casual of experiences. Cameras equipped with facial recognition technology are being used in public toilets to ensure that there is no "abuse” of toilet paper. Smart cameras are being used to track and charge cars entering parking lots, eliminating the need for attendants and barriers. Alibaba has announced plans to spend US$15 billion on research into AI, machine learning, and cloud computing. Tencent and Baidu are also spending big to ensure AI leadership. Global management consulting firms McKinsey and PwC have said that AI could add over a percentage point of growth to global GDP annually, boost Chinese GDP by 26 percent in 2030, and transform industries such as manufacturing, agriculture, retail, and finance. 36

The eﬀect of automation and AI on jobs is uneven. Some technologists point to previous technological breakthroughs where initial fears of job loss were overblown—such as the advent of the ATM machine, which took over some of tellers’ more tedious tasks. Today, tellers are fewer in number, and have a wider range of responsibilities and skills. Meanwhile, banks have created other jobs requiring completely diﬀerent skill sets.

turing sector. Today, given these experiences, and with the looming prospect of AI, Asian governments and businesses need to think carefully about how to create better paradigms for development, ones that will return upward mobility to the center of growth outcomes.

Asian low-skilled jobs More understanding of how technology drives shifts in employment is sorely needed in developing Asia, where labor-intensive export manufacturing supports millions of jobs that are low-skill and repetitive, and therefore at risk of automation. A recent International Labor Organization report estimated that 137 million jobs, or 56 percent of the total, in ﬁve Southeast Asian countries — Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, and the Philippines — are at risk of automation, with large portions of those coming from the garment and textile, electronics, and automotive industries.

Inventing Tomorrow’s Safety Net One obvious way to do this is to strengthen the social safety net, which can protect workers during periods of change. A social safety net measure could be something as simple as a direct cash transfer, school lunches or meals, or fee waivers (e.g. for government procedures); none of these costs very much, and may be temporary, but they give workers time to adapt and transition to another stage in their careers. The temporary loss of a job shouldn’t permanently set a worker back and remove them from the workforce.

These are the very industries that have provided developing Asia with a path out of poverty for the past 20 years. If industrialization in the future does not drive job creation, there will be a big gap in national poverty alleviation strategies. For factory workers, automation, robotics, and AI represent a steep set of challenges, particularly at lower skill levels. First, there will be fewer jobs to go around, and second, the jobs that remain will require data and analytical skills that today’s factory workers are not likely to have. More young Asians than ever are going to school, but in some countries, achievement in the early years, primary, and secondary levels continue to lag behind global averages, and some Asian countries are still dealing with serious illiteracy problems. What happens to these workers when factories go digital? Will they have the skills to ﬁnd alternative employment? Are we naïve to hope that they will be able to navigate the gig economy or engage in entrepreneurial ventures?

According to the World Bank, transition and developing economies spend, on average, 1.6 percent of their GDP on social safety net measures. But this ﬁgure drops to 1.2 percent when looking only at East Asia and the Paciﬁc, and 0.8 percent when looking only at South Asia. If governments are willing to spend millions to attract and grow AI and digital manufacturing, it is not unreasonable to ask that they also increase funding for social safety net programs to help the poor navigate through the economic changes that these will bring. We know that technology is bringing about massive and accelerating change in manufacturing worldwide; we should be actively preparing workers for the jobs of tomorrow, and enable them to keep learning as those jobs evolve. Many businesses are now reshaping their training and development processes, but we are only beginning to understand just what “continuous learning” looks like on a societal level.

These concerns are serious given that Asia is already suﬀering from worsening levels of income inequality. GDP per capita in both China and India may have risen dramatically on average, but at a granular level, the gains of growth have been disproportionately captured by the wealthiest. In India, for instance, from 1980 to 2014, the average growth in income was 187 percent, but the bottom 50 percent of the population had income growth of just 89 percent, whereas the top 1 percent experienced income growth of 750 percent, and the 0.1 percent at the very top experienced income growth of 1,138 percent. China’s ﬁgures are similarly skewed: incomes at the top grew 1,534 percent while those in the bottom half experienced income growth of just 312 percent.

Although it’s a truism, public services and public infrastructure are indeed critical to the quality of life of the majority of citizens in every country. When utilized well, they can help citizens advance their fortunes. One needs only to look at Jakarta’s traffic congestion—which is said to cost the country US$2 billion per annum—to understand that ill-planned public infrastructure affects the poor and wealthy differently. The wealthy are more able to mitigate the impact of bad traffic on themselves, through having better cars and the ability to choose when they travel. The poor, on the other hand, are tied to public transportation. Similar situations exist with regard to public health services in Asia, which tend to be underfunded even while states invest heavily to support private hospitals to serve medical tourism.

In the U.S., automation in manufacturing during the 1990s and early 2000s gave the economy a “net gain” through increased productivity. But it hit factory workers hard, contributing to the loss of millions of jobs and the hollowing out of the manufac37

In short, there is a range of straightforward, proven measures that governments and businesses can take to improve the prospects of low-income and less educated workers in navigating the emerging digital economy. Automation and AI are coming, but the beneďŹ ts they bring should be enjoyed responsibly, with the societal good in mind, lest they exacerbate inequality.

The sooner we start building systems and institutions to help workers, the more chance Asia will have to create that new paradigm for technological and economic change. www.international.thenewslens.com The views and opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reďŹ&#x201A;ect the oďŹ&#x192;cial position of the Embassy

Nicaragua: Who was Augusto César Sandino? The President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, on behalf of the Venezuelan people, extends a revolutionary greeting to the heroic Nicaraguan people on the commemoration of the 84 years of the assassination of Augusto Cesar Sandino, the General of Free Men and Women, who is a Latin American example of dignity and tireless struggle for sovereignty and national self-determination. The murder of Sandino, plotted by the counterrevolutionary forces, embodied by Anastasio Somoza and the United States government, represented by Ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane, reveals a recurrent practice by the imperialism intending to suppress -by any means- the hope of the Latin American peoples and their resolution to be protagonists of their own destiny. However, the feat of General Sandino, the love for his people and his deep Latin Americanist sentiment, went beyond this devious action and become inspiration for the Nicaraguan revolutionary struggle, as well as for the rest of the people´s libertarian struggles. That is why his calm and ﬁrm voice still resounds when he stated that: "We will go towards the Sun of freedom or towards death; and if we die, it does not matter, our cause shall continue to live. Others will follow us."

Augusto César Sandino was born in 1895 and murdered in 1934 by National Guardsmen acting on the orders of the dictator Anastasio Somoza Garcia. Somoza later installed himself as president of Nicaragua. Somoza subsequently admitted to carrying out this crime with the backing of the US Ambassador.

The path of Sandino is still in construction through each victory of our peoples, in each defeat of the imperialism. From the Bolivarian Revolution, we patriotically and with solidarity spirit greet and embrace the Commander President Daniel Ortega and the Comrade Vice President Rosario Murillo, with the ﬁrm intention of continuing to jointly advance in the construction of Our America, one that is based on the thoughts of Bolivar, Marti and Sandino.

From 1926 until his assassination in 1934 Sandino defied the military might of the US whose Marines had occupied Nicaragua since 1909 and finally, in 1933, the last contingent left Nicaragua. Six years of combat by a handful of workers and campesinos had made a significant contribution to that victory. Sandino was not only a fighter but a prolific writer and gifted orator. Throughout the 34-year period of US-backed Somoza dictatorships, and ever since, ‘Sandinismo’ has become the rallying cry for freedom, self-determination and non-intervention, not only for Nicaragua but for liberation movements across Latin America.

Today, Sandino's legacy is the driving force for building a future of freedom for our Latin American and Caribbean peoples; it remains alive and unyielding, as the thoughts and actions of men like Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, and we, inspired by his unwavering commitment to justice, raise our ﬁst high once more for reaﬃrming the vocation for freedom and sovereignty of our peoples. Long live General Augusto Cesar Sandino! www.nicaraguasc.org.uk www.mppre.gob.ve

Malcolm X speaks truth to power through time and death A skilled orator, Malcolm passionately advocated for freedom, justice and equality ‘By any means necessary’. Unlike the mainstream civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and James Farmer, he stressed the need for black Americans to arm themselves in self-defense. Speaking the night his house was bombed, Malcolm explained his misconstrued violent philosophy:

“We declare our rights on this earth to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being, in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.”— MALCOLM X “I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner unless you eat some of what's on that plate.”—MALCOLM X

“I have never advocated any violence; I’ve only said that black people who are the victims of organized violence perpetrated on us by the Klan, the citizen’s council, and many other forms, we should defend ourselves. And when I say that we should defend ourselves against the violence of others, they use their press skillfully to make the world think that I’m calling on violence, period. I wouldn’t call on anybody to be violent without a cause”—Words from the frontline; delivered February 14, 1965.

This is why each time I read about the atrocities, injustices and degradation of human life being perpetrated under the guise of race, tribe, religion or neo-imperialism, although I am left with nothing but sadness inside of me, what gives me a ray of hope is the way and manner the 20th century Negro Clerics used their pulpits to denounce racism and embraced black pride.

It’s been ﬁfty three years since the Black activist and human rights leader, Malcolm X was killed as he stepped on the podium to give a talk at the gathering of the Organization of Afro-American unity (O.A.A.U) at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York City.

Our 21st-century black pastors and imams hypocritically claim to be pro-masses while they rank top on the table of world richest clerics. Just a few decades ago, we could observe that the ﬁght for civil rights, human rights, economic rights and voting rights were neither fought by the Negro teachers nor were they spearheaded by the doctors; on the contrary, the diverse nature of people who have made the US home today could not have dreamt to live within such a reality had the reverends, the pastors, the shepherds, the evangelists and the Muslim ministers not sacriﬁced

Born Malcolm Little on 19th of May, 1925, the life of Malcolm X followed a similar pattern of a typical black Negro—one lived in despair, fear, hustle, frustration, and servitude to the white man. Going through several transformations in his life from the ghetto Malcolm Little to the racist Malcolm X and ﬁnally, to El-Hajj Malik Shabazz, the life of Malcolm X stands as a vivid example of the redemptive power of man. 40

Although, Malcolm X had been under surveillance by what The Afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti would later call “Government Chicken Boys”, the FBI and CIA, he had not grown into a full-ﬂedged thorn in the ﬂesh of racist America until his travels. Unlike Dr. King, Malcolm never minced words to expose the hypocrisy of the United States who gloat about the protection of the human rights of people across the world yet denies the 22 million blacks within her basic rights. He wrote this from Ghana:

their lives leading protests, fighting battles, defying court orders and even faced water hoses and police dogs. As Malcolm puts it rightly in his April 1964 speech: “And when we realize that Adam Clayton Powell is a Christian minister, he’s the- he heads Abyssinian Baptist church, but at the same time, he’s more famous for his political struggling. And Dr. King is a Christian minister, in Atlanta, Georgia, but he’s become more famous for being involved in a civil rights struggle. There’s another in New York, Reverend GalamisonI don’t know if you’ve heard of him out here- he’s a Christian minister from Brooklyn, but has become famous for his fight against a segregated school system in Brooklyn. Reverend Clee, right here, is a Christian minister, here in Detroit. He’s the head of ‘Freedom Now Party’. All of these are Christian ministers, but they don’t come to us as Christian ministers. They come to us as fighters in some other category. I’m a Muslim minister- the same as they are Christian ministers- I’m a Muslim minister. And I don’t believe in fighting today in any one front, but on all fronts. In fact, I’m a black nationalist freedom fighter.”—The Ballot or the Bullet.

“I arrived in Accra from Lagos, Nigeria. The natural beauty and wealth of Nigeria and its people are indescribable. It is full of Americans and other whites who are well aware of its untapped natural resources. The same whites, who spits on the faces of blacks in America and put their police dogs upon us to keep us from ‘integrating’ with them, are seen throughout Africa, bowing, grinning and smiling in an eﬀort to ‘integrate’ with the Africans—they want to ‘integrate into Africa’s wealth and beauty. This is ironical”. Stressing the importance of education and the need for Negroes to control the economy of the black community, he founded the Organization of Afro-American unity aimed at bringing restoration, reorientation, education and providing economic security. He said: “You and I build churches and let the white man build schools. You and I build churches and let the white man build up everything for himself. Then after you build the church you have to go and beg the white man for a job, and beg the white man for some education.”

According to Wikipedia, Malcolm X beliefs centered on the following: “that the black people were the original people of the world, that the white people were devils and that the demise of the white race was imminent.” But on his return from the pilgrimage in 1964, Malcolm X denounced the racial beliefs he upheld while in the Nation of Islam.

Although criticized by some of his contemporaries, the passage of time had presented the whole world a great opportunity to come to realize and accept Malcolm X as an individual that stands tall among activists and martyrs. Fela, after reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X said: "This book, I couldn't put it down: The Autobiography of Malcolm X. This man was talking about the history of Africa, talking about the white man. I never read a book like that before in my life. I said, this man is a man!' I wanted to be like Malcolm X. I was so unhappy that this man was killed. Everything about Africa started coming back to me."

He wrote: “I am not a racist. In the past I permitted myself to make sweeping indictments of all white people, the entire white race, and these generalizations have caused injuries to some whites and perhaps did not deserve to hurt. Because of my spiritual enlightenment, as a result of my pilgrimage to Mecca, Arabia, I no longer subscribe to make sweeping indictments of any one race.” Speaking at the Militant Labour Forum, Malcolm acknowledged the immense beneﬁt an individual could derive from travelling when he said that “travelling broadens ones scope”. His pilgrimage to Mecca and other Middle Eastern nations and Africa exposed him to the dangers of having a limited and narrow worldview. As a result of the interactions he had with African leaders such as Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Sekou Touré of Guinea, he publicly apologised for his earlier remarks stating that he was ready to work with anyone who was genuinely interested in the cause of the blacks irrespective of skin colour.

Lee Sustar wrote that while it's impossible to brieﬂy summarize Malcolm X's legacy, three elements stand out: “an uncompromising opposition to racism and imperialism, a determination to expose the façade of U.S. democracy, and a commitment to the revolutionary transformation of society”. Malcolm X never denied his gloomy and criminal past; he neither boasted on his pimping and drugging nor castigated perpetrators after his 41

reformation. Instead, he highlighted the dangers inherent in them by establishing facts, showing empathy and sighting himself as an example of how an individual from the lowest of the low, could turn out to be a totally reformed person.

This is a powerful lesson for us all especially the Nigerian youth. With the politicians herding us to the abyss like a lamb to the slaughter, members of the youth demographic must de-robe themselves of the parochial worldviews that have disallowed them from reinventing themselves; a worldview perceived as being imbued with sophistication, no thanks to its entrenchment in this system whose lifeblood is ethnic and religious hate.

As I join millions of people all over the world to celebrate the 53rd anniversary of the transition of Malcolm X, it is imperative to point out that Malcolm’s greatness was neither his natural eloquence nor his powerfully built physique; it was neither his doggedness nor brilliance. It couldn’t have been the fact that he learnt the over 18,000 words in the dictionary. No! His rise to immortality and heroism was borne out of the fact that he never thought of himself as a Mr. ‘know it all’, he quickly adjusted and separated himself from his error and folly once identiﬁed. He apologized to everyone he felt he had oﬀended either through his previously held racist beliefs or faulty black nationalistic philosophy.

The life of Malcolm X appeals to our collective humanity, one that propels us to embrace people of all tribe, culture and religion as one big family. It teaches us that being a tribalist makes one no less a sociopath than the slave masters and white supremacists of the previous centuries. A study of Malcolm’s life and what he stands for would remove all tribal tendencies and religious bigotry in us all. What better time to shed those hefty baggage than now. By: Mr. Modiu Olaguro www.saharareporters.com The views and opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reﬂect the oﬃcial position of the Embassy

EDITORIAL TEAM: Jose Avila, Alfredo Lugo, Keyla Castillo, Daniel Mwangi, Lucy Ojwang’, Milka Aweyo, Antony Onyango, Laura Silva, CONTACT: UN Crescent, Opposite Diplomatic Police Gigiri, Nairobi Kenya, P. O. Box 2437- 00621, Tel: (+254 - 20) 712 06 . 48 / 712 06 . 49

Chávez quotes about the Petro Currency "We have the idea of an international currency, and for me the only idea that excites me is : the 'PETRO', a petromoney that is based on the large reserves of oil that some countries of the world have, as in other times the issue of currencies must be supported by gold and the US is guilty of breaking the reference to the gold standard " "The US is to blame for having broken the relationship with gold and that's where the setback and the privilege that nobody gave to the US began, but they were repealed and the world ﬂooded with dollars. As Fidel said, they have bought half the world with worthless paper” "Petromoney will be the proposal for the big oil producers". "This is an opportunity to continue giving shape to multipolarity: the new architecture of the post-empire USA world, because the empire of the dollar came to an end, the deﬁnitive fall of the Yankee empire ... In this historical birth it is necessary to hurry the pace for the pluripolar world " Hugo Chávez March 30, 2009 II Summit of the South and Arab Countries