La Rinconada – The Devil’s Paradise

by Peter Koenig

La Rinconada is a town in the Peruvian Andes near a gold mine.[ At 5,100 m (16,700 ft; 3.2 mi) above sea level, it is the highest permanent settlement in the world. Most Andean mining towns in Peru, Chile and Bolivia share the same look: drab, built with predominantly cheap materials, many barely tin-shacks, few recreation places, except for cheap taverns and foul-smelling bordellos, the whole thing exuding an air of monotony and claustrophobia. Neruda called them “open air prisons”.

La Rinconada, 5,000 to 5,400m above sea level, corrugated iron shacks, glued to the hills of the surrounding mountains, home to some 50,000 to 70,000 mining inhabitants and competing mafia mobs that control them.  La Rinconada, in the Peruvian Andes, the world’s highest, chaotic, poisonous and illegal goldmines, some 210 km northeast of Puno, a 4-hour drive by car over partially paved, albeit potholed roads. La Rinconada, near the just barely more civilized mining town of Ananea (about 4,700 m above sea level), is also considered one of the most horrific places on earth: a crime gang-run city, spreading through a valley and up the surrounding hills, no running water, no sewerage, no electricity grid. La Rinconada looks and smells like a wide-open garbage dump, infested by a slowly meandering yellowish-brownish mercury-contaminated brew – tailings from illegal goldmining – what used to be a pristine mountain lake.

Venezuela Military Deploys S-300 Missiles Following Russian Troop Arrival

by Tyler Durden

Following the major weekend development of Moscowunambiguously asserting its ‘red line’ concerning potential US military intervention in Venezuela, for which Russia sent a military transport plane filled with Russian troops which landed in Caracas Saturday, new satellite images reveal a major deployment of S-300 air defense missile systems to a key airbase south of Caracas.

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Image via AMN News

New attack on Venezuela’s national electric system: Roundup – 7

Countercurrents.org | March 26, 2019

• New attack on Venezuela’s national electric system
• Venezuela presents evidence of opposition paramilitary plot
• Over $30 billion of Venezuela’s assets stolen by US
• Lavrov to US: Your Venezuelan coup violates UN Charter
• Venezuela may divert US-bound oil to Russia & China
• Venezuela electricity crisis may challenge global oil market – IEA
• Trump’s failed bid to isolate Venezuela
• Trump Admin wants $500M to fund its intervention in Venezuela

Venezuelans: ‘We Want to Resolve Our Problems by Ourselves’

by Federico Fuentes

Venezuelanalysis.com | March 26, 2019

Maria Paez as she is interviewed by Federico Fuentes. (Joe Montero)

“Why don’t you go to Venezuela and speak to people living there to find out what is really going on?”

Invariably, any article or post on social media presenting a different view to that pushed by the corporate media would prompt numerous comments such as this — almost always from people not in Venezuela and who, mostly, have never been there.

No Revolution Without Feminism: Weaving Together Venezuela’s Feminist Movements

by Ricardo Vaz

Venezuelanalysis.com | March 23, 2019

Alejandra Laprea speaking in Plaza Bolívar on March 8. The banner seen on the left was woven together collectively during several days of meetings and discussions. (Ketsy Medina Sifontes)

International Working Women’s Day, March 8, landed this year in the midst of a complex scenario in Venezuela, with an ongoing coup attempt and a simmering threat of foreign intervention. Juan Guaidó, the latest opposition leader, swore himself in as “interim president” on January 23, a move that was followed by an escalated international aggression against Venezuela.

Thirty Years after Venezuela’s ‘Caracazo’: A Conversation with Livia Vargas

by Cira Pascual Marquina 

Venezuelanalysis.com | March 23, 2019

Livia Vargas. (Venezuelanalysis)

Livia Vargas-Gonzalez teaches social theory at the School of Sociology in Caracas’ Universidad Central de Venezuela. She has published essays and books, including Entre libertad e historicidad(Between liberty and historicity, El Perro y la Rana, 2007). She is currently completing a doctorate at the Universidad Federal de Ouro Preto (UFOP) in Brasil. In this exclusive interview, Vargas discusses the challenges that the Caracazo presents to historians.

Truth or a visa: The New York Times spreads lies about Cuba and Venezuela

by Manuel Henríquez Lagarde

Granma | March 19, 2019

After the New York Times confirmed that a truck carrying “humanitarian aid” was burned by opposition thugs – not Venezuelan security forces – someone alerted me that this unusual favor offered by the corporate press, publishing a well known fact, was a way to develop legitimacy around the issue of Venezuela and that I should be ready for the next lie that would not be long in coming.

Two weeks did not pass before this prediction was borne out. Sunday, March 17, the Timespublished a report accusing the Venezuelan government, with the complicity of Cuban doctors working there, of using food and medicine to pressure citizens prior to the 2018 Presidential elections, warning people that they would not receive subsidies or treatment if they did not vote for Maduro.

‘The Wolves’ explores the inner lives of a girls’ soccer team

by Eric A. Gordon

Peoples’ World | March 22, 2019

The ensemble / Darrett Sanders

LOS ANGELES—Girls’ and women’s sports may still be underreported and undervalued, but it seems it’s a hot subject in the theatre right now. We recently reviewed an all-female cast in For the Love Of (Or, The Roller Derby Play); and now comes the L.A. premiere of Sarah DeLappe’s Pulitzer Prize finalist The Wolves in an Echo Theater Company production. It too has an all-woman cast, all but one members of a competitive soccer team at the junior high school level.

20-years of NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

Countercurrents.org | March 25, 2019

20 years have passed since NATO bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days. The air campaign with at least 900 bombing sorties again announced imperialist power – destroy everything to loot. It was an act of aggression against Yugoslavia, deny the country’s sovereignty and integrity, and violently carve away Kosovo for creating an imperialist enclave.

Venezuela Resisting: Roundup – 6

Countercurrents.org | March 24, 2019

• Revolutionary people is the guarantee for peace and democracy: Maduro
• Rightists organize mercenaries
• Plan to assassinate political and military leaders, and judges
• Plan to sabotage metro system and the Caracas cable car
• Plan to spread fake news through social media, and organize strikes
• Bolton’s threat