🧵🧵The border dispute between Venezuela and Guyana has flared up recently, leading to a war of words, increased military deployment and increasing signs of US intervention. We have prepared an infographic to explain the history and context of the controversy (thread) The Essequibo Strip is a sparsely populated, 160,000 square km region spanning to the west of the Essequibo River. It has been the subject of centuries of dispute which, sadly, have never taken into account the indigenous population

About time... Spain's @el_pais reports that the $3 billion in frozen Vzlan assets will soon be released. This was agreed to between the Venezuelan govt and opposition last November! But this thread is to point out the dishonest b.s. from the Spanish establishment's mouthpiece 🧵 This is the article in question:

It essentially relies on anonymous sources who say that the funds will soon be released. El País then covers this fairly straightforward report in a cloak of lies and misconceptionsenglish.elpais.com/international/…

🧵🧵Worse than a broken clock... Even when it wants to state the obvious, in this case that sanctions are a terrible and wrong policy, the @nytimes remains fully draped in US exceptionalism. The corporate media are an active front of the US empire (thread) The article in question () is instantly off to a bad start. We are supposed to agree that Iran and NK should not have nuclear weapons, unlike the only country to ever use them. And would they also call the Iraq war an "egregious violation of intl laws"? https://t.co/ElNZjjKTlTtinyurl.com/3rmur79p

🧵🧵🧵We just came across an incredible piece from the Financial Times (not in a good way). It has a remarkable blend of fallacious arguments, outright lies, bias, and lack of standards. This is a long thread, so bear with us! This is the article in question from @FT (tinyurl.com/y32pmvtk). You can tell from the off that you're in for a ride because it's based on this assumption that the West "presses for free and fair elections" when this in fact has happened less frequently than Yeti sightings

The US-backed Venezuelan opposition, which runs an imaginary parliament, wants a US court to declare a Venezuelan bond as invalid to try and soften the disaster brought by their complete bundling when in charge of CITGO

reuters.com/markets/commod… The strategy haw few chances of success, for several reasons, not least of them that when this National Assembly was actually running it *did not* formally declare the bond issued by the Maduro govt as illegal. A US-backed group was not about to challenge financial investors

The @BBC is shocked, of course w/ its stiff-upper-lip propagandist style, to find out that... (you better sit down for this) the Venezuelan government wants to position its message on social media (gasp!). Yes, it will be hard to recover from this one (thread) This is the article in question (bbc.com/news/blogs-tre…). In summary, the UK's state propaganda outlet is appalled to find out that the Venezuelan govt tries to do what it and other state/private channels do all the time. Exceptionalist delusion

US puppets of the world, unite! A fancy initiative featuring the who's who of US surrogates. It's quite
funny tbh. A "non-ideological gathering" (code for right wing) with a "commitment to freedom and democracy" (code for pushing US interests)

worldlibertycongress.org It features absolute muppets like Garry Kasparov and, as you'd expect, the Venezuelan representative is fascist poster boy Leopoldo López who is abroad fleeing charges and yearning for a US invasion that might restore what he thought was a God-given destiny to rule Venezuela

🧵🧵More trouble for CITGO thanks to the treacherous incompetence of the former "interim government" led by legendary buffoon @jguaido. We'll have a report on this tomorrow but here's a quick thread in the meantime In a nutshell, 4 more corporations have joined a Delaware court-ordered auction of CITGO shares to collect on a combined $1.6 billion worth of arbitration awards ($2.5B + accrued interests). This @Reuters piece has some details (+ traditional dishonesty): reut.rs/3TQFmml

Though there are plenty of mighty rivals, the @NYTimes remains the gold standard when it comes to imperialist propaganda. Let’s look at another example riddled with biased takes and outright falsehoods (nyti.ms/3LSaLDh) [thread] This has all the corporate media hallmarks. First, a description of an “implosion” without any causes (first the oil price crash and then murderous US sanctions). And then the gratuitous “authoritarian” label to establish Maduro as the “bad guy” and thus justify regime-change

Washington’s blockade against Venezuela has wreaked inestimable damage to the economy, destroying thousands of lives.

These deadly measures, imposed as “punishment” for defying the colonialist Monroe Doctrine, were designed to trigger regime change.

A summary 👇🧵 Venezuela's oil industry was re-nationalized by Hugo Chávez, breaking foreign corporations' control and putting resources at the service of the people with numerous social programs.

It is no coincidence that Washington targeted this industry with sanctions since 2017 👇

🧵The neverending love affair between the corporate media and fascism. For all the talk (or b.s. really) about being gatekeepers of civilization, establishment outlets have yet to meet a Global South politician they deem to be too far right. Let's look at another example (thread) The article in question is from bourgeois mouthpiece Bloomberg (@business) and fawns over aspiring presidential candidate María Corina Machado. From the get-go she's described as a "conservative firebrand" which is code for "fascist"

This is the link (bloom.bg/3Y9xj4R)

News 🧵 The emergence of a reunited Latin America!

Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro and Colombia's Gustavo Petro held a meeting on the border and signed a new deal to revive trade between the two nations.

Venezuela will also reopen its maritime border with Aruba on May 1. We just opened the second season of our podcast by putting the spotlight on US sanctions, their impact on Venezuela, and international solidarity efforts to oppose them.

With guest @MichelleEllner and VA editor Ricardo Vaz.

Listen and share!

→ venezuelanalysis.com/audio/15705

🧵🗞️The level of dishonesty of @Reuters' Venezuela coverage is just staggering. Here's a piece on trade agreements between Venezuela and Colombia (reut.rs/3k7FcJZ). It has 8 bland paragraphs, very little context, and then boom! Propaganda on steroids (thread) So many lies packed into a couple dozen words. Look at how it's framed. The evil Maduro broke off relations b/c he didn't want "aid" that "activists" were trying to send. First things first: there was, by USAID's own admission, very little aid in those trucks

🧵Whenever we read a corporate media piece about Venezuela, the 1st instinct is to go crazy at all the disingenuous reporting and biased narratives. Not great for your health. But after we’ve gathered ourselves, it’s useful to break down the propaganda. Bear w/ us here! (thread) The piece we’re tackling this time around is from the bourgeoisie mouthpiece that is Bloomberg (@business). It comes on the heels of supremely dishonest contenders from the @guardian and @Reuters (links at the end of the thread)
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

🧵🗞️ Western media reporting on Venezuela is biased almost by definition. We know that going in. But every so often there’s a piece that ticks all the dishonesty boxes. The bad journalism equivalent of a perfect game. You might have guessed, this comes from the @guardian (thread) The article in question is this one: theguardian.com/global-develop…

It is brought to you by the Bill and Melinda @gatesfoundation. Because we all know no one cares more about honest reporting and “global development” than freaking billionaires

“It is clear that the sectorial sanctions imposed since August 2017 have exacerbated the economic crisis and hindered human rights" in Venezuela.

UN Human Rights chief Volker Türk condemned US sanctions and urged the Maduro gov’t to improve the judicial system.

(Report soon)🧵 “The [Biden] administration should assess the human rights impact of all sanctions imposed on Venezuela."

Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA) urged the removal of sanctions, reopening consular activities, and unfreezing a $3 billion social fund.

→ bit.ly/3HwkP11

🧵🗞️Following the agreement signed by the Venezuelan government and the US-backed opposition last weekend, there’s been a lot of debate and speculation. Here’s Venezuelanalysis’ perfect bland of cold reasoning and hot takes (thread) Let’s start w/ the Chevron license, what it says and what it doesn’t (see images). In a nutshell, it’s an expanded sanctions waiver. Chevron is allowed to pump and export oil from its joint ventures in Vzla, as well as import inputs to get those companies back up and running

News 🧵 The Venezuelan gov't and the US-backed opposition have signed an agreement to access some $3B US dollars in Venezuelan funds seized by Washington since 2017.

The resources will be used for social needs and public infrastructure repair work.

→ bit.ly/3VrfUUe Following the resumption of the gov't-opposition talks in Mexico, the @USTreasury issued an expanded license for Chevron to restart its Venezuela operations.

Washington's sanctions had forced Chevron to reduce operations to just maintenance work in 2020: bit.ly/3VrfUUe

🧵🗞️Another @Reuters piece on Venezuela means another dose of pure-grade, unadulterated imperialist propaganda. Here’s a little thread with highlights from Washington’s most reliable stenographers The article in question is about the US Treasury Department, after lots of lobbying, granting an expanded license to oil giant Chevron so it can revamp its operations in Venezuela. It’s quite literally the smallest sanctions opening conceivable
reuters.com/business/energ…

Given Elon’s stupidity reaching new heights every day, one of these threads might be our last. So we need to take down the most obnoxiously dishonest of corporate outlets, full of self-righteous western exceptionalist b.s. You guessed it, we’re talking about the @guardian This is the piece in question. It focuses on Maduro’s participation in the recent COP27 talk shop on climate change

theguardian.com/environment/20…

The so-called "Puebla Group" has condemned the imposition of economic blockades against Cuba and Venezuela after its most recent gathering in Colombia. It also called for a "financial architecture" and a unified currency for Latin America

albaciudad.org/2022/11/grupo-… For background, the Puebla Group is made up of 139 progressive politicians/intellectuals from Latin America and (for some reason) Europe. It doesn't stray far from progressivism and doesn't take photos with Washington's official enemies