KATHMANDU, July 17: The United States should not be vexed with the Venezuelan team’s presence in Nepal, said ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) lawmaker and Central Committee member Balaram Banskota.

A 15-member Venezuelan youth delegation including Nicolas Ernesto Maudro Guerra, the son of the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, arrived in Nepal Saturday on a four-day visit.

Head of the Corps of Special Inspectors of the Presidency and a member of the National Constituent Assembly, the 29-year-old Maudro and his team were hosted by Youth Association of Nepal, the sister organization of the ruling party NCP—courting more controversy five months after Co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s controversial statement supporting Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro had rocked Nepal-US diplomatic ties.

After the US decided to give recognition to Juan Guaido—who on January 23 proclaimed himself as the interim president setting up a tense standoff with current president Maduro– as the leader of Venezuela, Dahal on February had issued a statement denouncing the US move as “unacceptable intrusion in internal affairs and an attempt of imperialist coup’.

The controversial statement had prompted the US to seek clarification whether Dahal’s statement was the official position of the Nepal government.

Although the Ministry of Foreign Affairs tried to distance itself from Dahal saying “the internal political problems of Venezuela need to be resolved within its constitutional parameters in a democratic manner, free from external interference”, the MoFA’s statement had failed to impress the US, who had described the statement as continuation of Dahal’s previous statement saying it failed to clear any air of confusions.

“A team of Youth Association of Nepal had visited Venezuela a month ago. They invited the Venezuelan youth team to Nepal. So they came to Nepal. It is a part of youth exchange program. It’s a reciprocal visit,” clarified Baskota during a television interview Janata Janna Chahanchan.

When asked hasn’t the Venezuelan youth team’s visit to Nepal severed the already controversial diplomatic ties between the US and Nepal, Banskota said, “The US should not get annoyed over the Venezuelan team’s presence in Nepal. The US believes in democracy and interaction. Thus, I don’t see any reason for the US to get frustrated.”

“This visit should not sever the US-Nepal diplomatic ties,” he said.

“Moreover, junior Maudro visited Nepal as a leader of the youth delegation not as the son of Venezuelan President Maudro.”

The visiting delegation had held meetings with senior leaders of ruling party including Dahal, Party Secretariat Members Babdev Gautam, Narayan Kaji Shrestha and former Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal.

The visit was also described as an attempt of the Venezuelan leader to broaden his alliances against the US.

But Banskota, who was among those present at the meeting with the Venezuelan youth delegation, described it as a normal activity.

“Leaders meet the visiting delegation and discuss the organization. It’s a normal process”.

Co-Coordinator of the party’s Peasants Federation Chitra Bahadur Shrestha, former agriculture minister Hari Parajuli and senior leader Keshav Lal Shrestha had also attended the meeting. The youth delegation had also held a separate meeting with NCP lawmakers in the parliament.

According to reports, only Dahal and Gautam close leaders including YAN Coordinator Ram Prasad Sapkota had held meeting with the youth delegation.

But, no representative of the government had visited the Venezuelan youth delegation. According to sources close to prime minister the meeting was organized without the knowledge of the government.

“It is because the government did not approach the delegation for the visit,” said Banskota.

“Perhaps the prime minister and ministers had not arranged a schedule to meet the delegation.”

Maduro has been described as a “dictator” and a report of an Organization of American States has determined that crimes against humanity have been committed during his presidency. Amid widespread criticisms, Maduro was sworn in as President in January. But National Assembly President, Guaidó was declared the interim president by that body on 23 January give rise to a presidential dispute. Guaido is backed by the US and most of Western Europe.

Maduro allies including China, Cuba, Russia, Iran, and Turkey support and denounce what they call interference in Venezuela’s domestic affairs.

Maduro’s government states that the crisis is a “coup d’état led by the US to topple him and control the country’s oil reserves. But Guaidó denies the coup allegations, saying peaceful volunteers back his movement.

WASHINGTON, Feb 19: US President Donald Trump on Monday urged Venezuela’s military to accept opposition leader Juan Guaido’s amnesty offer, or stand to “lose everything,” as a crisis deepened over President Nicolas Maduro’s refusal to let in desperately needed humanitarian aid.

Bringing in humanitarian aid is crucial to the viability of Guaido, who has denounced Maduro’s re-election last year as fraudulent and in January declared himself interim president, a move recognized by some 50 countries.

He has given the Maduro government until Saturday to let shipments of mainly US aid into the country, which is in the grip of a humanitarian crisis due to shortages of food and medicine exacerbated by hyperinflation.

Addressing supporters and Venezuelan expatriates in Miami, Trump said he had a message for officials helping keep Maduro in place.

“The eyes of the entire world are upon you today, every day and every day in the future.

“You cannot hide from the choice that now confronts you. You can choose to accept president Guaido’s generous offer of amnesty to live your life in peace with your families and your countrymen.

“Or you can choose the second path: continuing to support Maduro. If you choose this path, you will find no safe harbor, no easy exit and no way out. You will lose everything.”

Guaido has set a target of signing up to a million volunteers to help bring in the aid, with 600,000 already registered.

“On February 23, we have the opportunity to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans,” he said.

Maduro countered with his own announcement of 300 tons of aid from Russia, which he said would reach Venezuela by Wednesday — three days ahead of a potential showdown brought about by his February 23 deadline.

Speaking at an official event broadcast on TV, Maduro said the shipment contained “high-value medicine.”

Maduro has previously announced the arrival of aid from China, Cuba and Russia, his main international allies.

COMMITTED TO CHANGE

Earlier, opposition officials hit out at state internet provider CANTV for blocking the website where volunteers are signing up to help bring in the US aid stockpiled in Colombia just over the border from Venezuela.

A second aid collection center is due to begin operations in Brazil’s northeastern state of Roraima, which borders Venezuela. But there is much uncertainty over the aid in Brazil, with officials there saying they have no information at this point.

Military officials in Roraima said they had yet to receive orders, although a collection center could be set up quickly, with some businesses having already provided warehouses to that effect.

A third center is due to open this week on the Dutch island of Curacao, off Venezuela’s north coast.

The humanitarian aid standoff is due to come to a head this weekend, when caravans of buses are set to carry volunteers to border entry points to meet and transport arriving cargo.

It is unclear how Guaido will overcome the border barriers put up by the Venezuelan military, on Maduro’s orders.

Volunteer groups have begun meeting in “humanitarian camps” in several Venezuelan states to organize and prepare for the arrival of the aid to alleviate hardship from an imploding economy has driven an estimated 2.3 million Venezuelans to migrate from the oil-rich country.

Maduro, who denies the existence of a humanitarian crisis, dismisses the opposition moves as a “political show” and a cover for a US invasion.

AN ‘INTERNATIONAL CRIME’

“Whoever prevents the entry of humanitarian aid is condemned to spend the rest of their lives fleeing international justice, because that is an international crime,” US Senator Marco Rubio said as he toured the Colombian collection center in Cucuta on Sunday.

Three US military cargo planes delivered several dozen tons of food assistance to Cucuta on Saturday. Another US aircraft is due in Curacao from Miami on Tuesday.

Guaido has ordered the armed forces to let the aid pass, but they remain loyal to Maduro, who has instructed his army to prepare a “special deployment plan” for the 2,200-kilometer (1,370-mile) border with Colombia.

Maduro has dismissed the humanitarian assistance as “crumbs” and “rotten and contaminated food,” while blaming shortages of food and medicine on US sanctions.

The government also said Monday it will stage a concert on the Colombian border the same day Richard Branson has said he will hold one just over the frontier to push for aid to be allowed in. This will unfold on February 22-23. AFP

CARACAS, Aug 1: President Nicolas Maduro brushed off new U.S. sanctions on him and condemnation at home and abroad of the newly chosen constitutional assembly, saying the vote has given him a popular mandate to radically overhaul Venezuela’s political system.

Maduro said Monday evening he had no intention of deviating from his plans to rewrite the constitution and go after a string of enemies, from independent Venezuelan news channels to gunmen he claimed were sent by neighboring Colombia to disrupt the vote as part of an international conspiracy led by the man he calls “Emperor Donald Trump.”

“They don’t intimidate me. The threats and sanctions of the empire don’t intimidate me for a moment,” Maduro said on national television. “I don’t listen to orders from the empire, not now or ever … Bring on more sanctions, Donald Trump.”

A few hours earlier, Washington added Maduro to a steadily growing list of high-ranking Venezuelan officials targeted by financial sanctions, escalating a tactic that has so far failed to alter his socialist government’s behavior. For now, the Trump administration did not deliver on threats to sanction Venezuela’s oil industry, which could undermine Maduro’s government but raise U.S. gas prices and deepen the humanitarian crisis here.

The sanctions came after electoral authorities said more than 8 million people voted Sunday to create a constitutional assembly endowing Maduro’s ruling party with virtually unlimited powers — a turnout doubted by independent analysts while the election was labeled illegitimate by leaders across the Americans and Europe.

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council said turnout in Sunday’s vote was 41.53 percent, or 8,089,320 people. The result would mean the ruling party won more support than it had in any national election since 2013, despite a cratering economy, spiraling inflation, shortages of medicine and malnutrition. Opinion polls had said some 85 percent of Venezuelans disapproved of the constitutional assembly and similar numbers disapproved of Maduro’s overall performance.

Opposition leaders estimated the real turnout at less than half the government’s claim in a vote watched by government-allied observers but no internationally recognized poll monitors.

An exit poll based on surveys from 110 voting centers by New York investment bank Torino Capital and a Venezuela public opinion company estimated 3.6 million people voted, or about 18.5 percent of registered voters.

The electoral council’s vote counts in the past had been seen as reliable and generally accurate, but the widely mocked announcement appeared certain to escalate the polarization and political conflict paralyzing the country.

“If it wasn’t a tragedy … if it didn’t mean more crisis, the electoral council’s number would almost make you laugh,” opposition leader Freddy Guevara said on Twitter. Maduro has threatened that one of the constitutional assembly’s first acts would be jailing Guevara for inciting violence.

The constituent assembly will have the task of rewriting the country’s constitution and will have powers above and beyond other state institutions, including the opposition-controlled congress.

Maduro has said the new assembly will begin to govern within a week. Among other measures, he said he would use the assembly’s powers to bar opposition candidates from running in gubernatorial elections in December unless they sit with his party to negotiate an end to hostilities that have generated four months of protests that have killed at least 120 and wounded nearly 2,000.

Along with the U.S., the European Union and nations including Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Spain and Britain criticized Sunday’s vote. Maduro said he had received congratulations from the governments of Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua, among others.

The monetary impact of the new U.S. sanctions wasn’t immediately clear as Maduro’s holdings in U.S. jurisdictions, if he has any, weren’t publicized. However, imposing sanctions on a head of state is rare and can be symbolically powerful, leading other countries to similarly shun such a leader. For example, the U.S. has had sanctions against Syria’s President Bashar Assad since 2011. Other heads of state currently subject to U.S. sanctions include Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

Maduro called the constitutional assembly in May after a month of protests against his government, which has overseen Venezuela’s descent into a devastating crisis during its four years in power. Due to plunging oil prices and widespread corruption and mismanagement, Venezuela’s inflation and homicide rates are among the world’s highest, and widespread shortages of food and medicine have citizens dying of preventable illnesses and rooting through trash to feed themselves.

The president of the opposition-led National Assembly, Julio Borges, told Venezuelan news channel Globovision on Monday that Maduro’s foes would continue protesting until they won free elections and a change of government.

He said Sunday’s vote gave Maduro “less legitimacy, less credibility, less popular support and less ability to govern.”-AP