US Military attacks Venezuela, captures Maduro

Just want to share some news from my Venezuelan friends living near Maracaibo. (Side note: I used to live in Colombia, near the border with Venezuela so I met a lot Venezolans there).

Here is the summary of our conversation - note that my friends were NOT supporters of Mr. Maduro - but are even more against the US invasion:
- martial law has been declared
- everything is closed (supermarkets, offices, etc)
- people tend to stay at home - with the exception of Caracas where there were a couple of protest demonstrations
- military is patrolling the streets and actively "recruit" the unfortunate men that venture outside - but not women
- Colombia has moved around 25,000 soldiers to the border with Venezuela (2,200 km long) and anticipate additional flow of refugees so they are preparing border towns like Maicao, Cucuta, Valledupar etc.
for emergency accommodations of these refugees

void said:

nihil sub sole novum

I doubt Trump cares who is in charge there now, whether it’s Delcy or that Nobel prize woman, so long as American companies get the oil and minerals and Russian and Chinese companies don’t.

A couple of more updates from Venezuela from my yesterday's conversation with my friends.

1. School should have started around Jan 19, but there are rumours that it will be delayed by 2 weeks.
2. Criticism of the current government (that would include open support for the US invasion) will trigger at a minimum a visit from the local police, or worse.
3. 1 kg of meat (mixed - chicken, steak, ground beef) is being sold at US$35.00. (For comparison, in Colombia in 2024 1 kg of high quality steak was US$4-$5 and 1 kg of chicken breast US$2.50-$3.00. Prior to the invasion, food prices in Venezuela were somehow higher than in Colombia, say 20-35% but not by this much.
4. Most everything remains closed.

Another update from Venezuela:

1. Schools are starting on time (meaning either late last week or Monday/Tuesday Jan 19-20)
2. Everything is open again, no more martial law
3. The $35 food bucket now includes 3.5 kg chicken, dozen of eggs, 1.2 ground beef - quite a bit of change from the last week
4. For a regular citizen, everything is back to normal.. at least for now.

This is also the last post in this thread, at least until significant further development.

This is what I have been telling you gentlemen for years now (witnessed as an IT guy, Novell Networks, dBase, Fopro, etc good old days in the "law")...if they want you or you are in the way, they'll get you...unless you are Putin, Xi Jinping or Kim Jong Un with nuclear weapons.

Look what they do to ICC judges: Credit cards cancelled, Google accounts closed: ICC judges on life under Trump sanctions. Kimberly Prost and Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza vow US reprisals will not affect work of international criminal court

For example, if you live in Spain and you are a "nobody" or a refugee, there isn't a single soul in Hacienda who is going to come after you. Now, if you are Messi, Shakira, Cristiano ROnaldo etc, you become 100% a target! It's ALL about theft! Our history is THEFT!

PS. And I have admitted to this numerous times, my ancestors and current family/relatives are the worst! They make Trump and former US presidents look like choir boys! 🤦:banghead::banghead::banghead:

They all think I am living in some third-world sh1thole country in poverty, so they pay NO attention to me. If they only knew 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

jafo said:

They all think I am living in some third-world sh1thole country in poverty, so they pay NO attention to me. If they only knew 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

This is the smartest thing to do.
And today, you can still pretend to be poor while driving a luxury car, thanks to the wonderful Chinese. 99% of Westerners will laugh at you when you say you drive a Huawei, for example. But you have the last laugh when you sit into this Huawei Maextro S800 - Премиальный электромобиль будущего