Caracas,<\/p>\n
Venezuela kicks off two days of military drills today in response to US President Donald Trump\u2019s threat of military action and newly announced sanctions on the crisis-stricken nation.<\/p>\n
Trump warned on August 11 that the United States was mulling a range of options against Venezuela, \u201cincluding a possible military option if necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n
His Vice President Mike Pence later played down the threat, insisting that Washington was prioritising a diplomatic solution and economic sanctions.<\/p>\n
National security advisor HR McMaster followed suit, saying \u201cno military actions are anticipated in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n
But tension only surged again when the White House made good on the sanctions threat on Friday, unveiling its first- ever sanctions to target Venezuela as a whole, rather than just Maduro and his inner circle.<\/p>\n
The measures ban trade in new bonds issued by the Venezuelan government or its cash-cow oil company, PDVSA.<\/p>\n
That could choke off access to New York debt markets and substantially raise the likelihood of Venezuela being forced into default.<\/p>\n
Venezuela called the measures the \u201cworst aggression\u201d yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will protect our people and the people of the republic, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, are going to stand up,\u201d said Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s threat of military force has bolstered Maduro\u2019s oft-repeated claim that Washington is plotting to topple him and wants to grab control of Venezuela\u2019s oil\u2014the largest proven reserves in the world.<\/p>\n
Maduro is under international pressure over his handling of an economic and political crisis.<\/p>\n
The socialist president is resisting opposition calls for early elections to replace him.<\/p>\n
The center right-led opposition and international powers including the US say he is turning Venezuela into a dictatorship.<\/p>\n
Maduro\u2019s opponents accuse military police and pro-Maduro militia of beating and killing anti-government protesters.<\/p>\n
Protest clashes have left 125 people dead so far this year, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n
Maduro says the violence and the economic crisis are a US-backed conspiracy.<\/p>\n
Maduro, the political heir to the late Hugo Chavez, has managed to hang onto power through it all, despite food shortages and social upheaval.<\/p>\n
His grip is largely thanks to the support of the military, which holds vast powers in his government, including over food distribution.<\/p>\n
The opposition has repeatedly called on the army to abandon Maduro\u2014so far to no avail.<\/p>\n
He has only faced low-level dissent, such as from the two rebel officers who staged a raid on an army base this month.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the president issued a stern warning to the armed forces not to break ranks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Caracas, Venezuela kicks off two days of military drills today in response to US President Donald Trump\u2019s threat of military action and newly announced sanctions on the crisis-stricken nation. Trump warned on August 11 that the United States was mulling a range of options against Venezuela, \u201cincluding a possible military option if necessary.\u201d His Vice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2999,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3000,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2998\/revisions\/3000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}