Venezuelan government officials on Friday kept silent on last week’s arrest of two nephews of Venezuelan first lady Cilia Flores on US drug trafficking charges.
However, the country’s opposition leaders made the news the focus of their rallies to mark the launch of the campaign season for crucial Dec. 6 congressional elections.
The two young men were arrested in Haiti on Tuesday on charges of conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the US. They are being held in New York without bail.
Photo: AP
The opposition on Friday hammered on the scandal during nationwide events celebrating the official start of the fight for control of the Venezuelan Congress — a battle that polls indicate the government might lose badly. Opposition leaders said the arrests had shocked the nation and showed the need for change after 16 years of socialist rule.
One party from the opposition coalition — Popular Will — referred to the arrests in its slogan for the campaign launch: “Today we start the shift from narco state to a better Venezuela.”
US prosecutors have investigated several high-level Venezuelan officials for drug and corruption charges, but this week’s arrests marks the first time Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s inner circle has been directly implicated. Even many government critics were surprised because they tend to see Maduro, the hand-picked successor to late president Hugo Chavez, as incompetent, but not especially corrupt.
Neither Maduro nor any other governing official has commented on the arrests, although the president has claimed the US is targeting Venezuela.
Without mentioning the accusations against the first lady’s relatives, Maduro on Friday accused US President Barack Obama of disrupting relations, saying that “your agencies of the power establishment are breaking the basic rules of coexistence among nations.”
“Tie down your crazies, Obama,” Maduro said in a televised event from western Venezuela.
National media have largely blacked out the news of the drug charges. One of the country’s largest daily newspapers reported on the drug bust, but left out any connection to the first family.
State television has been broadcasting footage of government giveaways, with poor residents lining up to receive laptops, appliances and keys to newly built apartments. On Friday, Maduro filled his Twitter feed with images of Chavez as well as warnings to his followers not to trust biased media.
On Twitter, Venezuelans posted memes and jokes poking fun at a weekly television show Flores hosts titled Cilia With Her Family, and mocking the administration for banning a Telemundo soap opera the week of the arrests on the grounds that it glorified the lifestyle of drug traffickers.
The opposition coalition held a news conference to denounce the “monstrous censorship” the case revealed, and promised to launch an official investigation once it wins control of Congress.
Opposition governor and former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles demanded an official response, though he did not really seem to expect one.
“The case shows how rotten this government is,” he said.
As the sun sets on another scorching Yangon day, the hot and bothered descend on the Myanmar city’s parks, the coolest place to spend an evening during yet another power blackout. A wave of exceptionally hot weather has blasted Southeast Asia this week, sending the mercury to 45°C and prompting thousands of schools to suspend in-person classes. Even before the chaos and conflict unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup, Myanmar’s creaky and outdated electricity grid struggled to keep fans whirling and air conditioners humming during the hot season. Now, infrastructure attacks and dwindling offshore gas reserves mean those who cannot afford expensive diesel
Does Argentine President Javier Milei communicate with a ghost dog whose death he refuses to accept? Forced to respond to questions about his mental health, the president’s office has lashed out at “disrespectful” speculation. Twice this week, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni was asked about Milei’s English Mastiff, Conan, said to have died seven years ago. Milei, 53, had Conan cloned, and today is believed to own four copies he refers to as “four-legged children.” Or is it five? In an interview with CNN this month, Milei referred to his five dogs, whose faces and names he had engraved on the presidential baton. Conan,
French singer Kendji Girac, who was seriously injured by a gunshot this week, wanted to “fake” his suicide to scare his partner who was threatening to leave him, prosecutors said on Thursday. The 27-year-old former winner of France’s version of The Voice was found wounded after police were called to a traveler camp in Biscarrosse on France’s southwestern coast. Girac told first responders he had accidentally shot himself while tinkering with a Colt .45 automatic pistol he had bought at a junk shop, a source said. On Thursday, regional prosecutor Olivier Janson said, citing the singer, that he wanted to “fake” his suicide
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other