by the El Reportero’s wire services

The border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica is beginning to feel the pressure of the protests against the Daniel Ortega regime, with 100 to 150 Nicaraguans arriving each day through the Peñas Blancas crossing, according to the Costa Rican foreign ministry.

William Spindler, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said the number of Nicaraguans applying for asylum in Costa Rica has “increased exponentially.” At least 8,000 applications have been received since April, when the protests started, and another 15,000 are pending.

About 200 asylum requests are received each day, Spindler added. His agency has promised immigration officials assistance to increase their capacity to process at least 500 applications per day.

The peace talks between the Ortega government and the opposition, mediated by the Catholic Church, have stalled, sharpening a political crisis that has left more than 300 dead, thousands wounded and many displaced people in the Central American country.

Costa Rican Foreign Minister Epsy Campbell said recently that there had been “a significant increase” in Nicaraguan immigrant arrivals, but added that the exodus is not yet a crisis. Source: (El Nuevo Herald).

Venezuela’s Maduro admits socialist model has failed

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro admitted that his socialist economic model has “failed” amid food and medicine shortages as well as a failing infrastructure highlighted by Tuesday’s power failure to 80 percent of Caracas.

Compounding matters is the IMF’s Weimar-topping hyperinflation forecast of 1,000,000 percent by year end, and a GDP set to plummet 18 percent this year, as the government continues to simply print money to in hopes of filling the void of what was once the country’s economy.

“The production models we’ve tried so far have failed and the responsibility is ours, mine and yours,” Maduro told his ruling PSUV party congress. “Enough with the whining… we need to produce with or without (outside) aggression, with or without blockades, we need to make Venezuela an economic power.”

“No more whining, I want solutions comrades!”

No word on whether he took a bite of an empanada during his speech while his country starves on the “Maduro diet” – a phrase coined after Venezuela’s notorious food shortages gave rise to mass starvation across the country. Not even the donkeys are safe.

Venezuela’s socialist government has nationalized a wide swath of industries across the country over the past several years, such as steel and cement plants, food processing, distribution and more. In order to try and control inflation, the country has fixed prices on various goods while imposing tight regulations surrounding foreign exchange.

“I estimate it will take about two years to reach a high level of stability and see the first symptoms of new and economic prosperity, without for one second affecting social security and protection,” added the president.

Maduro plans to increase oil production to “six million barrels a day by 2025 or before,” amid a crash in output from a high of 3.2 million barrels a day in 2008 to just 1.5 million this year, a 30-year low. Venezuela’s crude oil sales comprise approximately 96 percent of the country’s revenue.

The economic crisis has hit so hard that the public transport system has almost ground to a halt, with the government and local councils offering free rides in unsafe and uncomfortable pick-up trucks — branded “kennels” by users — after many bus service providers couldn’t afford to keep their vehicles on the road.

Maduro, who blames Venezuela’s woes on an “economic war” waged by the United States, called on PSUV supporters to help kick-start production and resist US “aggression.”

Washington, meanwhile, has imposed financial sanctions against Maduro’s government, along with state-owned oil company PDVSA.

Meanwhile, Venezuela’s industrial sector is operating at just 30 percent capacity, as illustrated by the farming sector, which now provides just a quarter of national consumption, after providing 75 percent just a few years ago according to the National Farmers Federation.

This should all make for some interesting debate questions during the next US elections, as Democratic Socialists have become the “new face” of the left. Just don’t ask any questions about economics or logistics…

López Obrador seeks commercial agreements

Mexican president-elect Andres Manuel López Obrador today met Chinese Ambassador to Mexico Qiu Xiaoq to seek formulas to reduce the commercial deficit between Mexico and China Thursday.

This is the first Chinese ambassador who meets the Mexican president-elect, who is still waiting for the official notification from the Mexican Federation’s Judicial Power Electoral Court.

Before this, López Obrador separately received the Foreign Ministers from the U.S. and Canada. Both foreign officials took the topic of bilateral relations in their respective agendas, especially the future of the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The future Mexican foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrart, told the press that the meeting with the Chinese Ambassador dealt with the trade balance between the two nations.

‘Our country behaves like an importer of multiple electronic equipment and only exports automotive material,’ said Ebrard noting that the exchange is eight to one, unfavorable for Mexico.

by the El Reportero‘s wire services

On Wednesday, the permanent council of the OAS held an extraordinary session in which, with 21 votes in favor, three against, seven abstentions and three absentees, the States condemned the Ortega regime and urged it to dismantle the paramilitary and police groups that created to dismantle the barricades and barricades that have been part of the protests. In three months, the repression has caused more than 350 deaths and thousands of injuries, according to human rights organizations.

According to political analysts, the resolution condemning the Organization of American States (OAS) to the government of Daniel Ortega, for the violation of human rights during the citizen protests since April, left the president “as an international pariah” and exposed to suffer external sanctions, if he refuses to apply the actions to which he was urged related to curbing the violence and accept the electoral calendar proposed by the organization.

Meanwhile, three months after the violent events that took place on April 18, 2018, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH) verifies the increase in repression in Nicaragua.

In its third week of work, the Special Follow-up Mechanism for Nicaragua (MESENI) verified in the field the intensification of the repression and the operations deployed throughout the country by agents of the National Police and para-police groups with the objective of dismantling the dams located in different cities.

In Managua, on Thursday the FSLN celebrated on July 19 in the Plaza de la Fe John Paul II, with the presence of the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodriguez and the Venezuelan Chancellor Jorge Arreaza.

Daniel Ortega, in his long speech, omitted to mention the hundreds of people killed by his irregular and masked paramilitary forces, accusing the opposition that he asks for his resignation, coup plotters and putting the victims of their state violence as the aggressors.

Ortega recounted the police who died in the Nicaraguan crisis during his attacks on the civilian population, but did not mention that the family of some dead policemen declared that the bullets that killed them came from the same police station, because of their same comrades in arms.

Trump sends two high emissaries to seek a cordial relationship with his administration

Recently four high level government representatives visited the virtual president of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to express that President Donald Trump looks for a cordial and understanding relationship with the next administration.
The high-level delegation of the United States, headed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, includes Treasury secretaries, Steven Nmuchin, and National Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, as well as Jared Kushner, son-in-law and adviser to the president Donald Trump, among other officials.

The delegation met with the presidential candidate-elect, at the headquarters of his campaign in Colonia Roma, south of the capital.
Obrador was accompanied by his future chancellor, Marcelo Ebrard, and the next Secretaries of Finance, Carlos Urzúa, and Public Security, Alfonso Durazo; and also to those responsible for the negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Jesús Sead, Graciela Márquez, nominated as Secretary of Economy, as well as Martha Bárcena, appointed Ambassador of Mexico in the United States of the Government incoming.

NAFTA, migration and security were some of the topics discussed at that meeting, in which the next Mexican president offered visitors a proposal to begin a new stage in the relations between the two countries, and that will be done public once the president of the United States knows it.

Strong tremors hit Oaxaca, Mexico City

A 5.9-magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale, a preliminary figure, took place today in Oaxaca, the National Seismological Service reported.

Considered as strong, the telluric movement was located about 13 kms southwest of Huajuapan De León, south of this capital, at a depth of 63 kms.

Before, the earth had rock in the Magdalena Contreras delegation of the federal district of Mexico City, with a magnitude of 2.8 on the Richter scale.
The earth trembled three times in that place in the last 24 hours.

This is the third earthquake that occurred in the last 24 hours in the Mexican capital.

Up to now there are no reports of people injured or great damages.

In social media there were complaints in relation that the anti sismic alarms malfunction and were not activated.