Lights back on in Venezuela after five-hour blackout

Lights back on in Venezuela after five-hour blackout

By Alexandra Ulmer and Fabian Cambero

CARACAS (Reuters) – A power outage hit parts of the Venezuelan capital Caracas as well as the nearby states of Miranda and Vargas for around five hours on Monday, in what critics said was another sign of the oil-rich nation’s economic meltdown.

Authorities blamed the outage, which began around noon (1600 GMT), on the collapse of an important cable linking a power plant and a transmission tower.

The fault affected some phone lines, parts of the Caracas metro, and the main Maiquetia airport just outside the capital.

Many workers had no choice but to walk home, shops and restaurants closed, and Venezuelans grumbled that another day was disrupted by tumult.

The country is already grappling with the world’s fastest inflation, rising malnutrition, and disease as the state-led economic system grinds to a halt.

“Venezuela has fallen apart,” said David Garcia, 38, as he queued for a hotdog at a stand in the wealthier Chacao neighborhood. He had spent two hours looking for an open restaurant because he could not cook at home.

Venezuela has in recent years suffered frequent blackouts that critics attribute to insufficient investment following the 2007 nationalization of the electricity sector.

“This is a symptom of a country collapsing due to the negligence of those in power,” tweeted opposition lawmaker Tomás Guanipa.

The government has in some cases attributed the blackouts to sabotage or accused critics of exaggerating problems.

Energy minister Luis Motta on Monday tweeted articles on a recent power outage at Atlanta airport in the U.S. state of Georgia, adding: “It happens there too.”

He did not provide details on the magnitude and effects of Monday’s blackout.

Shopkeepers complained that the outage had hurt business.

“It’s a lost day,” said Armindo Gomes, 24, whose Portuguese family runs two bakeries, as he pointed at dough, cheese and meat that should have been refrigerated.

(Reporting by Fabian Cambero and Alexandra Ulmer, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Doctors turn militant over Venezuela’s health crisis

Patients lie in hospital beds in the hallway of Venezuelan hospital

By Corina Pons

MERIDA, Venezuela Reuters) – A dozen doctors hold a hunger strike in the corridors of an Andean city hospital. In another provincial city, hundreds of protesting medics suspend appointments.

In the capital, staff from a pediatric hospital wave placards at the entrance to a hospital pleading for aid.

Not usually active in politics, many of the OPEC nation’s 40,000 doctors are becoming increasingly militant over drastic shortages of medicines, equipment and personnel amid a punishing economic crisis.

With eight out of 10 medicines now scarce, according to the main pharmacy group, protesting doctors are demanding that President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government declare a national health crisis and allow foreign humanitarian aid.

“I started to see patients, both in the operating theater and in the emergency ward, dying for lack of medicines,” said David Macineiras, a 30-year-old orthopedic surgeon and one of 12 doctors who went on hunger strike at the main state hospital in the western highland city of Merida.

“They arrive in bad conditions and we can’t even get adrenaline to deal with a cardiac arrest,” he said, describing the case of a woman who died for lack of adrenaline. Macineiras himself was hospitalized for four days after his hunger strike.

The protests involve a small percentage of doctors, in part because medics – especially younger ones – depend on the state to complete their residencies and studies and so have good reason to avoid conflict.

Doctors who hold high-ranking positions in public health acknowledge there are problems, but insist that none are sufficiently severe as to put patient lives at risk.

Christian Pino, a surgeon at the Merida hospital who also joined the strike, insists the opposite is true.

He recently operated on an elderly woman who due to chronic hospital shortages had to bring her own supplies, including saline solution. It ran out before the operation finished.

“In post-op, we didn’t have any serum to hydrate her, so the patient died,” he said at the hospital where stretchers packed corridors and incubators stood abandoned with handwritten signs saying they were out of service.

In June, Pino read a list of doctors’ demands in Venezuela’s National Assembly before the opposition-led legislature declared a state of medical emergency and approved channels for foreign humanitarian aid.

“I prefer to raise my voice with my colleagues than be an accomplice to this,” Pino said.

But the government-leaning Supreme Court shot down the assembly’s proposal. Government officials deny Venezuela is facing a humanitarian crisis and say there is no need for humanitarian assistance.

Maduro is fiercely proud of health advances under the 1999-2013 rule of socialist leader Hugo Chavez, and he says adversaries are exaggerating the problems now.

“There is no humanitarian crisis, I say it with absolute responsibility,” Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez recently told an Organization of American States meeting on Venezuela.

DEPRESSING DATA

Up-to-date data is hard to find, but what little is available points to a severe deterioration.

Health ministry statistics show that in 2015 for every 100 people discharged from state hospitals, 31 died – a rate six times higher than the previous year. Infant mortality was 2 percent of births last year, 100 times worse than 2014.

It is a huge challenge for the ruling Socialist Party which, under Chavez, ran enormously popular free health projects such as Cuban-staffed clinics in the slums but is now finding its welfare programs stretched.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Venezuela and Guyana were the only countries in South America to see maternal death rates worsen last year.

Health Minister Luisana Melo recently recognized health sector problems but said authorities are working to reduce the rates of infant mortality and death during childbirth.

She said shortages only affect around 15 percent of medicines and that Venezuelans tend to consume more medicine than they need to.

The government says a U.S.-backed “economic war” by political opponents and hostile business groups has caused the crisis, exacerbated by a plunge in the price of oil, which accounts for 95 percent of export revenues.

Huge lines snake around most pharmacies from before dawn, with some people staying all night to stake a place. Rowdy scenes are common, and soldiers guard the crowds.

In Merida, orthopedic surgeon Carlos Hidalgo said he joined the hunger strike after a patient arrived with an open fracture of the tibia and femur and there was no saline solution to clean the wound.

“They went to a kiosk and bought water to wash him with that,” he said. An infection set in and the patient’s leg was amputated.

“That’s why we protested, not because of our working conditions,” said Hidalgo, who makes 16,000 bolivars a month, equivalent to about $25 at the weaker of two official exchange rates and just $16 on the black market.

Some doctors are also worried about their legal liability. Medics in the city of Barquisimeto decided to ask patients’ relatives to sign a permission slip acknowledging the poor conditions they were working under.

At hospitals there, medics have held two strikes this year. Surgeries were halted on a recent day due to lack of gloves.

Idabelias Arias, the head of the emergency ward at a pediatric hospital in Barquisimeto, has had to use basic CPR (Cardiopulmonary resuscitation) to revive children for lack of adrenaline. “Doctors are doing war medicine here.”

(Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Kieran Murray)

Wall Street slightly lower as crude oil slips

By Abhiram Nandakumar

(Reuters) – Wall Street edged lower on Wednesday as oil prices slipped after data showed U.S. crude stockpiles touched record highs.

U.S. crude fell about 1 percent after a report from the American Petroleum Institute (API) showed that an increase in crude stockpiles was way above estimates. [O/R]

Wall Street closed sharply higher on Tuesday, helping the S&P 500 claw back most of its losses in the last two months. The index, which had fallen as much as 10.5 percent, is now down only about 3 percent for the year.

“The market got severely overbought yesterday,” said Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James Financial in Florida. “It would not be surprising to see stocks pull back a little bit here.”

At 9:41 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> was down 34.25 points, or 0.2 percent, at 16,830.83.

The S&P 500 <.SPX> was down 2.64 points, or 0.13 percent, at 1,975.71 and the Nasdaq Composite index <.IXIC> was down 1.29 points, or 0.03 percent, at 4,688.31.

Eight of the 10 major S&P sectors were lower, led by the utilities sector’s <.SPLRCU> 1.3 percent decline. The materials sector <.SPLRCM> fell 0.65 percent.

Shares of Monsanto <MON.N> were down 5 percent at $87.85 after the company slashed its 2016 profit forecast. The stock was the second biggest drag on the S&P 500.

Data on Wednesday showed the U.S. private sector added a higher-than-expected 214,000 jobs in February, suggesting solid job growth despite market turmoil and worries about a slowing global economy.

The report serves as a precursor to the more comprehensive monthly jobs report by the U.S. Labor Department on Friday.

The U.S. economy continues to show signs of recovery even as China and euro-zone countries struggle to spark their sputtering economic growth engines, pushing central banks to adopt diverging monetary policies.

Investors are increasingly facing the prospects of higher interest rates from the U.S. Federal Reserve, while also expecting more monetary stimulus from the European Central Bank and the People’s Bank of China.

Zynga <ZNGA.O> was up 6.9 percent at $2.31 after the “Farmville” creator named a new chief executive and said founder Mark Pincus would be executive chairman.

The Fed will also issue its Beige Book report of anecdotes on business activity at 2 p.m. ET. San Francisco Fed President John Williams is slated to speak later in the day.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,361 to 1,271. On the Nasdaq, 1,102 issues fell and 1,057 rose.

The S&P 500 index showed two new 52-week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded nine new highs and six new lows.

(Reporting by Abhiram Nandakumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)

Special Taping with Michael Snyder: Could WWIII Happen This Month?

Could the beginning of WWIII be setting up right at this very moment?  Michael Snyder believes that this might be the case. We will get the chance to hear his thoughts on Thursday, February 18th when Morningside welcomes him back to the Jim Bakker Show.  The following is from a recent article he posted on The Economic Collapse Blog dated February 14, 2016:

50,000 soldiers, 20,000 tanks, 2,450 warplanes and 460 military helicopters are massing in northern Saudi Arabia for a military exercise that is being called “Northern Thunder”.  According to the official announcement, forces are being contributed by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Sudan, Kuwait, Morocco, Pakistan, Tunisia, Oman, Qatar, Malaysia and several other nations.  This exercise will reportedly last for 18 days, and during that time the airspace over northern Saudi Arabia will be closed to air traffic.  This will be the largest military exercise in the history of the region, and it comes amid rumors that Saudi Arabia and Turkey are preparing for a massive ground invasion of Syria.

If you were going to gather forces for an invasion, this is precisely how you would do it.

Michael Snyder is best known for his work as the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog. He is also the author of the book The Beginning of the End and Get Prepared Now!: Why a Great Crisis Is Coming & How you Can Survive It.

Michael is an attorney and economic specialist who feels that a great awakening is coming.

Taping will begin on February 18, 2016 at 11:30am.  This taping will not be live streamed, so be sure to make plans to be a part of our studio audience. If you’re unable to join us, you can view it before it airs on TV via Roku or the Video On Demand section of our website.

Goldman Sachs: The Third Wave of 2008’s Financial Crisis is Coming

In 2008, the U.S. real estate and investment banking collapsed, resulting in a financial disaster that is returning in a third wave.

Goldman Sachs analysts led by Peter Oppenheimer stated that the new crisis is characterized by a triple-whammy of rock bottom commodities prices, China’s stalling growth and other emerging markets economies, and low global inflation. The triple-whammy is a result of the banking collapse and European sovereign debt crisis, what experts call a debt supercycle that has taken place over the last few decades.

During the first two debt-fuelled crises, central banks all began to lower interest rates, encouraging investors to lend in emerging markets like China for a decent return. However, now that interest rates may be on the rise, lenders are pulling out of commodities.

During the first wave in 2008, the same situation happened along with the crash of the U.S. housing market. The low interest rates were put into place to grow credit and increase leverage, particularly in China. Combine this with China trying to escape the middle-income trap and the plunge of global commodity prices, and a new crisis is not very far away. At best, the situation would be a painful readjustment period for China.

The global economy will soon slow down thanks to developed economies raising interest rates. The raised rates will also apply to safer assets such as government bonds, which gives investors less incentive to take risks overseas in emerging markets. Without the investments, emerging market companies can’t fund big projects, which in turn, slows down the global economy.

What makes the situation even worse, is that recovery from the crisis is continuously stalled due to the different stages of the economy interacting with each other. In 2010 and 2011, the EU sovereign debt crisis derailed the U.S. economic recovery.

What will it take for the world to recover from the financial crisis? All excess lending in emerging markets have to be worked through, and investors will have to take losses.

Could this be the Beginning of a Complete World Collapse?

A Day of Chaos on Wall Street today!  As this is being written, the New York Stock Exchange had been closed for over 4 hours.  The Greek Government is scrambling to fix their financial disaster and headlines are screaming out that the real crisis in the financial news is that China is headed for a crash much like what happened to us in 1929. As I have watched the news today, riveted by what is happening all over the country, all I could do was sit and connect the dots. Could the world’s financial system be taking the first major step towards a complete collapse?

This morning, United Airlines had to suspend and cancel flights all over the country because of a “computer glitch”; The Wall Street Journal’s Website went down because of a “computer glitch”.   All of these computer glitches and I have a hard time NOT connecting them together. And if these incidents are related, then it had to be by something evil.

There is massive flooding all over the country and power outages occurring because of them. We are also suffering from drought and threats of disease that are wiping out some of our food supply.  The warning signs are continuing to flash brighter.

Last night I received a phone call from a recent prophetic guest and wonderful friend, John Kilpatrick.  He told me that, “The next 90 days will be more important than the last 54 years of your ministry all together!”  He went on to warn me, “Do not be distracted as the next months are crucial!  Your voice must be diligent and clear in the next 90 days!”

Time after time, our prophetic guests have told us all that we need to be preparing NOW!  It IS time to get ready for what is to come!  John Shorey, Rick Joyner, Joel Richardson, Carl Gallups and Rabbi Jonathan Cahn are among those that have just recently been warning the world of what is to come!  I cannot help but think of their words as this day unfolds.  We will see more of these days of uncertainty, we will see more chaos.

According to Joe Grano, Chairman and CEO of Centurion Holdings LLC and former chairman of Homeland Security Advisory Council: “The two places America is most vulnerable is our financial systems and our energy grid. And the biggest warning light is that our enemies not only can shut down our financial system but also our grid.”

I am committed to bringing you as much information that I can as the days unfold.  We are going to be working on this together!  On our next broadcast, we will be talking about these world shaking events and piecing them together on the show.  We will be discussing the many events that are coming together in this world and what we can begin expecting in the days to come. Today we began construction on our new Roku network “breaking news” facility. We are so eager to finish this new building so that we may bring you the cutting edge news as soon as it is breaking.

The Lord is speaking to all of us in so many ways.  We want to hear from you if you feel He is speaking to you!  Please send us information that you find and news that you feel is important during these prophetic days.  We want to hear from you!  Please email us at newsteam@jimbakkershow.com.

God Bless you.

Love,

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Greece Makes New Proposal to Creditors

Greece has submitted an 11th hour proposal for debt restructuring that includes a two-year aid proposal.

The statement came hours before Greece’s default on a loan to the International Monetary Fund.  The proposal would require another bailout for Greece from the Eurozone’s European Stability Mechanism (ESM), a $560 million dollar rescue fund.

Athens has until 5 p.m. Tuesday to make a $1.8 billion dollar repayment to the European Central Bank before they are in default.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel seemed to be very cool toward Greece’s new proposal.  Germany is Greece’s biggest creditor.

“This evening at exactly midnight Central European Time the program expires. And I am not aware of any real indications of anything else,” she told a news conference.

Several european leaders began to express concern that Greece may be forced out of the Euro by their default and the impact it could have on the Euro, the EU and the region.

“What would happen if Greece came out of the euro? There would be a negative message that euro membership is reversible,” said Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to Reuters.

“People may think that if one country can leave the euro, others could do so in the future.”

Greece No Vote Would Mean Euro Exit

European Union financial experts say that if Greece’s voters reject a referendum on the nation’s debt this Sunday it would mean the nation leaves the Euro.

Greece shut down the nation’s banks on Monday after a weekend run on ATMs caused many to run out of cash.  A strict limit on ATM transactions has been put in place by the government through Thursday.

The shut down of banks and the stock markets in the nation will last at least through the Sunday vote.

Greek leadership was defiant in the fact of default and the EU no longer providing bailout funds to the nation.

“The decision not to prolong financial aid to Greece is offensive, and it’s a disgrace for Europe in general,” Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in a national address.

The country’s poorer neighbors, however, are showing little sympathy for Greece’s plight.

“We are much poorer than the Greeks but we have performed reforms,” Rosen Plevneliev, the president of Bulgaria said. “When you have a problem, you have to address it and not shift it to Brussels or onto somebody else.”

The country’s actions have carried negative impact on world financial markets.  World stock markets all took sharp dives at their openings which carried throughout the day; the euro tumbled on world currency markets.

Another California Town Considering Bankruptcy

A major California resort town is threatening to enter bankruptcy due to salary and pension costs.

Desert Hot Springs, California, a city of 26,000 east of Los Angeles, could be the third major city to file for bankruptcy after San Bernardino and Stockton.

The city’s problems came to light last week when a new finance director discovered a $3 million shortfall in the city’s $13.5 million budget during a routine record check. The interim director of finance could not explain the reason for the shortfall but said it was likely due to higher than expected pension and salary costs.

If the city ends up filing, it will be the second time since 2001 that the city has filed for bankruptcy proection.

Amy Aguer, the city’s interim director of finance, said that 70 percent of the budget was consumed by police costs between salaries and pension payments.