VENEZUELA
Turn Out the Lights
Copy editors in Caracas this week might be inclined to paraphrase a headline writer from late 1960s Detroit: “Last one out of Venezuela, please turn out the lights.”
In the lead-up to a controversial vote slated for Sunday that could empower a new government body to rewrite the constitution, the US State Department on Thursday ordered family members of American government employees working at the United States Embassy in Caracas to leave the country, the New York Times reported.
It offered employees the option to join family members in the mass exodus, citing “social unrest, violent crime and pervasive food and medicine shortages” as reason enough to abandon ship.
President Nicolas Maduro has so far stood firm in pushing the vote on the constitutional changes forward, despite US sanctions issued on Wednesday against 13 Venezuelans connected to him, and a threat of “strong and swift economic actions” that could include a crippling ban on US purchases of Venezuelan oil.
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