Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez indefinitely suspended rolling blackouts in Caracas just a day after they began, and sacked his electricity minister saying he was responsible for mistakes in the way the rationing plan was applied.
Chavez’s announcement late on Wednesday was a significant shift in his attempts to prevent a widespread power collapse in the coming months by implementing rolling blackouts of up to four hours a day throughout the country.
“I’ve ordered the electrical outages to be suspended, only in Caracas,” Chavez said on state TV. “Because this government has to be capable of recognizing mistakes made and fixing them in time.”
Chavez said since the outages began in Caracas at midnight on Tuesday, authorities had cut power to the wrong sectors of the city in some cases.
“I think in one area they repeated the outage a few hours later,” he said, adding that some stoplights were left without power.
“Enough. I said if that’s what is going on, there was an error there,” Chavez said.
Chavez said he asked Electricity Minister Angel Rodriguez to resign and that “he has taken it like a soldier.”
Chavez said he ordered the chief of the city’s state electric utility not to schedule any more blackouts until the process is reviewed. It was unclear how soon the government could attempt to restart the measures in Caracas.
The government says rationing is necessary to prevent a widespread power collapse if the water levels behind Guri Dam — which supplies most of Venezuela’s electricity — fall to critical lows in the coming months due to a severe drought. Officials also acknowledge that some thermoelectric plants are producing below capacity while undergoing repairs.
The rolling blackouts have drawn angry complaints from many Venezuelans.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
RSS