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Wednesday, September 2, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
ECONOMY-VENEZUELA: Buying Frenzy Follows Devaluation
Tens of thousands of shoppers in Venezuela practically stormed businesses selling home appliances and other consumer products after the government cut the exchange rate of the bolivar against the dollar by half.COLOMBIA-VENEZUELA: Conflict Escalates in Military Terrain
President Hugo Chávez complained that an unmanned reconnaissance aircraft from Colombia recently violated Venezuelan airspace in the northwest of the country and was sighted by soldiers in Fort Mara, near the border.
VENEZUELA-COLOMBIA: Paramilitaries Rule Border Area
"We’re second-class citizens, victims of a war that hasn’t broken out," said José Duque from behind the wheel of a car carrying passengers from San Cristóbal, in southwestern Venezuela, to the border with the northeastern region of Colombia, near the city of Cúcuta.
VENEZUELA: Colombian Refugees in Undocumented Limbo
Peasants fleeing Colombia's armed conflict are still trickling into Venezuela, joining the multitude who in the last seven years have requested refugee status and an identity document to help them rebuild their lives in their new country.
ENVIRONMENT: New Pirate of the Caribbean Invades from Pacific
The red lionfish (Pterois volitans), a venomous coral reef fish from the Indian and western Pacific Oceans, has invaded the waters of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, threatening to wreak havoc on ecosystems, native fish populations and popular underwater diving areas.COLOMBIA-VENEZUELA: Border Killings Heat Up Tension
The activities of Colombian armed groups across the border in western Venezuela are aggravating the diplomatic conflict between the two governments, which are ideological opposites, and some analysts have begun to wonder just how far the tension will escalate.VENEZUELA: Homophobia Stalks the Streets – in Uniform
One Friday at around midnight, on Villaflor Street, a favourite spot for gays and lesbians in the Venezuelan capital, Yonatan Matheus and Omar Marques noticed two Caracas police patrol vans carrying about 20 detainees, most of them very young.VENEZUELA: El Niño Dries Up Water, Power, Food Supply
The guanábana (soursop) trees in Victoria Martínez's small orchard have yielded none of their delicious fruit this year, which she blames on the scarcity of water, a problem as annoying as the power blackouts at her house close to Tocuyito, a sun-baked town 120 kilometres southwest of the Venezuelan capital.VENEZUELA: Indigenous People Killed, Injured in Land Dispute
Two members of the Yukpa indigenous community in Venezuela were killed and others were injured in a firefight between supporters and detractors of a government initiative to distribute land to the ethnic group at the northwest tip of Venezuela, where the Yukpa are caught up in a long-running conflict over land with ranchers and mining companies.VENEZUELA: Land for Yukpa Indians, But No ‘Territory’
The Venezuelan government handed land titles to 41,600 hectares to three communities of around 500 Yukpa Indians on the western border with Colombia. However, the question of the demarcation of the broader ancestral territory of the entire ethnic group, made up of around 10,000 people, is still pending.SOUTH AMERICA-AFRICA: Coming Together to Fight Poverty
A declaration that puts an accent on the positions of the developing South and expresses a renewed commitment to cooperation in the fight against poverty and for development was signed by the leaders who met over the weekend in the second South America-Africa summit, on the Venezuelan island of Margarita.
SOUTH AMERICA-AFRICA: Summit for South-South Cooperation
South American and African leaders are meeting over the weekend on the Caribbean island of Margarita in their second summit in three years, to forge stronger cooperation between the two regions and discuss their positions with regard to a number of pressing international concerns.SOUTH AMERICA-AFRICA: New Summit to Boost Cooperation
Heads of state and other officials from 54 African and 12 South American nations will meet for the Second Africa-South America Summit this Saturday and Sunday on Isla Margarita, Venezuela, to boost cooperation in a score of areas with potential for greater bi-regional exchange.LATIN AMERICA: Food Crisis Must Be Regional Priority
There are 52 million hungry people in Latin America and the Caribbean, six million more than in 2008 - an aspect of the global economic crisis that must be a top priority focus of national policies and development aid, according to a meeting of experts from 27 countries held in the Venezuelan capital.ENERGY-VENEZUELA: Great Business for Good Friends
While Spanish energy giant Repsol and Italy's Eni reported finding huge deep sea reserves of natural gas in the Gulf of Venezuela, a consortium of Russian companies agreed to pay the Venezuelan government one billion dollars to secure access to the oil-rich Orinoco Belt.
VENEZUELA: Women Recycle for Income and Environment
The women of this town in northern Venezuela no longer say "garbage" but rather "secondary raw material," and instead of referring to recycling, they talk about "separation at point of origin."DRUGS-VENEZUELA: More Seizures, but Decertification by US
Seizures of illegal drugs in transit through Venezuela are on the rise, and the country maintains "working cooperation" with the United States in the fight against trafficking. But for all its pains, it has been decertified by the U.S., which refuses to sell it equipment for military and police forces, complains Néstor Reverol, the head of the National Anti-Drug Office (ONA).
LATIN AMERICA: Women in History – More than Just Heroines
Juana Azurduy or Manuela Sáenz, Bartolina Sisa or Gertrudis Bocanegra, Luisa Cáceres or Policarpa Salavarrieta - these heroines attest to the participation of women in the struggle for Latin America’s independence from Spain, a revolutionary movement that began two centuries ago this year.
Women Recycle for Income and Environment
The recovery of recyclable waste now sustains a group of women who live along the salty Laguna de Tacarigua, a slice of biodiversity along Venezuela's Caribbean coast.VENEZUELA: Alarm over First Contraction of GDP in Five Years
The Venezuelan economy, which has grown steadily for more than five years, contracted by 2.4 percent in the second quarter of this year, heightening fears of stagflation, an unwelcome combination of recession and high inflation.TRADE-VENEZUELA: Out with Colombia, In with Argentina
Ten thousands cars, 80,000 tons of beef, 100,000 tons of corn, 18,000 tons of milk, 9,000 tons of beans, 18 million eggs, two million pairs of shoes: Argentina has agreed to 1.1 billion dollars worth of sales to Venezuela, which has decided to stop importing goods from Colombia and get its supplies from other sources.« Previous Page — Next Page »
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