CARACAS, Venezuela: Much of Venezuela remained engulfed by darkness into early Friday amid one of the largest power outages in years, raising tensions in a country already on edge from ongoing political turmoil.
The blackout hit 22 of 23 states by some accounts. It struck the capital Caracas, which until now has been spared the worst of a collapse in the nation’s grid, at the peak of rush hour.
Thousands of commuters flooded into the streets because subway service was stopped. A snarl of cars jammed the streets amid confusion generated by blackened stoplights. Others had to walk long distances to get home.
At the darkened maternity ward at the Avila Clinic in wealthy eastern Caracas, several mothers cried as nurses holding candles monitored the vital signs of premature babies in incubators after backup generators shut off.
Venezuela’s socialist government blasted the outage as an “electrical war” directed by the United States. Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez said right-wing extremists intent on causing pandemonium in Venezuela and taking orders from Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio were behind the blackout, although he offered no proof.
“A little bit of patience,” Rodriguez urged on state television, saying service would be restored in a few hours. “If you’re in your home, stay in your home. If you’re in a protected space or at work, it’s better for you to stay there.”
But as night wore on in Caracas, patience was running thin.
Residents threw open their windows and banged pots and pans in the darkness. Some shouted out expletives at President Nicolas Maduro in a sign of mounting frustration. Normally hyperactive social media was eerily silent as much of the country was knocked offline.
By midnight Friday, power had yet to be restored in Caracas and many other areas.
The outage comes as Venezuela is in the throes of a political struggle between Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido, the head of congress who declared himself the nation’s rightful president in January and is recognized by the United States and about 50 nations.
Guaido took to Twitter to blast Maduro for the outage.
“How do you tell a mom who needs to cook, an ill person who depends on a machine, a worker who should be laboring that we are in a powerful country without electricity?” he wrote, using the hashtag #SinLuz, meaning without light. “Venezuela is clear that the light will return with the end of usurpation.”
Venezuela’s electrical system was once the envy of Latin America but it has fallen into a state of disrepair after years of poor maintenance and mismanagement. High-ranking officials have been accused in US court proceedings of looting government money earmarked for the electrical system.
While intermittent outages have become regular occurrences in Venezuela of late, rarely have so many states simultaneously been without power for such an extended period.
While authorities expressed concern about the sick and elderly, and a few people had to be rescued from elevators, some residents in Caracas expressed awe at the sight of stars hanging over the normally bustling city of 2 million.
The government keeps home power bills exceptionally low — just a couple dollars a month — relying heavily on subsidies from the Maduro administration, with is under increasing financial duress.
The nation is experiencing hyperinflation projected to reach a mind-boggling 10 million percent this year, is grappling with food and medical shortages and has lost about 10 percent of its population to migration in the past few years. Venezuela’s economic woes are likely to increase as US sanctions against its oil industry kick in.
State-owned electricity operator Corpoelec blamed the outage on act of “sabotage” at the Guri Dam, one of the world’s largest hydroelectric stations and the cornerstone of Venezuela’s electrical grid. Rodriguez described it as a “cyber” attack intended to derail the whole system. He said electricity in Venezuela’s eastern region had been restored within two hours.
“What’s the intention?” he said. “To submit the Venezuelan people to various days without electricity to attack, to mistreat, so that vital areas would be without power.”
Pro-government officials often blame power outages on Venezuela’s opposition, accusing them of attacking power substations with Molotov cocktails, though they rarely provide any evidence.
Rubio, who has been driving the Trump administration’s confrontational stance toward Maduro, seemed to relish Rodriguez’s accusations that he was somehow to blame for the power crisis.
“My apologies to people of Venezuela,” the Florida Republican said in a message on Twitter. “I must have pressed the wrong thing on the ‘electronic attack’ app I downloaded from Apple. My bad.”
Huge power outage in Venezuela raises tensions amid crisis
Huge power outage in Venezuela raises tensions amid crisis
- The outage comes as Venezuela is in the throes of a political struggle between Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido
- The government keeps home power bills exceptionally low just a couple dollars a month relying heavily on subsidies from the Maduro administration
Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra will be indicted for royal defamation, prosecutors say
Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra will be indicted for royal defamation, prosecutors say
- The former prime minister will also be indicted for violating the Computer Crime Act
- Thaksin had been in self-imposed exile since 2008, but returned to Thailand in August last year
Thaksin will not yet be indicted because he had filed a request to postpone his original appointment on Wednesday with proof that he has COVID-19, Prayuth Bejraguna, a spokesperson for the Office of the Attorney General, said at a news conference.
The attorney general’s office scheduled a new appointment for Thaksin’s indictment on June 18, Prayuth said, adding that Thaksin will also be indicted for violating the Computer Crime Act.
Thaksin had been in self-imposed exile since 2008, but returned to Thailand in August last year to begin serving an eight-year sentence. He was released on parole in February from the hospital in Bangkok where he spent six months serving time for corruption-related offenses.
On his return, he was moved almost immediately from prison to the hospital on grounds of ill health, and about a week after that King Maha Vajiralongkorn reduced his sentence to a single year. Thaksin was granted parole because of his age — he is 74 — and ill health, leaving him free for the remainder of his one-year sentence.
His return was interpreted as part of a political bargain between his Pheu Thai Party and the conservative establishment — longstanding rivals — to stop the progressive Move Forward Party from forming a government following its victory in last year’s general election.
After his return, the attorney general’s office said it had revived an investigation into whether Thaksin almost nine years ago violated the law against defaming the monarch, a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Thaksin was originally charged in 2016 with violating the law for remarks he made to journalists when he was in Seoul, South Korea, a year before that, but the investigation could proceed only after he was presented with the charge in person in the hospital in January, officials said. Thaksin had denied the charges and submitted a statement defending himself.
Prosecutor’s spokesperson Prayuth said there is enough evidence for the attorney general to indict Thaksin. He said the prosecutors have already prepared their statement and documents to present to the court next month.
Since his release, Thaksin has maintained a high profile and is believed to be wielding influence in the government led by Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin. One analyst believes Thaksin’s growing influence has angered the ultra-conservatives and that the indictment is their response.
“It is designed to keep Thaksin under control. This is keeping him on a leash. If he doesn’t behave then this charge can be activated and could land him in jail. This is to curtail his movement and his maneuvers and to remind him, sending him a signal in a way, to know who’s in charge and to know he should not overstep the boundary,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, at professor at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University.
South Africans start voting in election that could see ANC lose majority
- Voters are electing nine provincial legislatures and a new national parliament
- More than 27 million people registered to vote out of a population of roughly 62 million
JOHANNESBURG: South Africans started voting on Wednesday in an election that could mark a big political shift if the governing African National Congress party loses its majority as opinion polls suggest.
Voters are electing nine provincial legislatures and a new national parliament, which will then choose the country’s next president.
If the ANC gets less than 50 percent of the national vote it will have to seek one or more coalition partners to govern the country, the first such alliance in the 30 years since it swept to power with Nelson Mandela as its leader at the end of apartheid.
Voting stations opened at 0500 GMT and will close at 1900 GMT, with more than 27 million people registered to vote out of a population of roughly 62 million.
South Africa’s electoral commission is expected to start releasing partial results within hours of voting stations closing. The commission has seven days to announce final results.
Philippines president says new China coast guard rules ‘worrisome’
- China has maritime sovereignty disputes with the Philippines and other claimant countries in the South China Sea
- New rules effective June 15 that would enforce a 2021 coast guard law and allow detention of foreigners suspected of trespassing
MANILA: Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on Wednesday new rules outlined by China’s coast guard that could result in the detention of foreigners in the South China Sea were an escalation and “worrisome.”
China, which has maritime sovereignty disputes with the Philippines and other claimant countries, has issued new rules effective June 15 that would enforce a 2021 coast guard law and allow detention of foreigners suspected of trespassing.
China routinely accuses vessels of trespassing in areas of the South China Sea that fall inside the exclusive economic zones of its neighbors and has clashed repeatedly with the Philippines in the past year.
“The new policy of threatening to detain our own citizens, that is different. That is an escalation of the situation,” Marcos told reporters while on a state visit in Brunei.
The Philippines “will use any point of contact with China to stop aggressive actions” and allow Filipino fishermen to fish in the South China Sea, Marcos said.
If aggressive actions are managed, Marcos said, “then we can go all about our business in a peaceful way.”
Marcos has taken a tougher line than his predecessor over China’s actions in the South China Sea, emboldened by support from defense ally the United States, as well as Japan and Australia.
China’s embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Beijing claims jurisdiction over most of the South China Sea, a conduit for more than $3 trillion in annual ship-borne trade.
In 2016, an international arbitral tribunal said China’s vast claims had no basis under international law, a decision Beijing has rejected. China insists historic records and old maps make clear it has sovereignty over most of the sea and many islands there.
Clashes erupt at Israeli embassy protest in Mexico
- Around 200 people joined the “Urgent action for Rafah” demonstration
MEXICO CITY: Clashes broke out Tuesday between police and protesters outside the Israeli embassy in Mexico, rallying against the country’s military offensive in the southern Gazan city of Rafah, AFP journalists said.
Some protesters covered their faces and threw stones at riot police who blocked their path to the diplomatic complex in the city’s Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood.
Around 200 people joined the “Urgent action for Rafah” demonstration, about 30 of whom started to break down barriers preventing them from reaching the Israeli mission.
Police officers deployed tear gas and threw back the stones hurled at them by protesters.
The demonstration was called in response to an Israeli strike which ignited an inferno in a displacement camp outside Rafah, killing 45 people according to Palestinian officials.
Indian capital records highest-ever temperature at 49.9°Celsius: weather bureau
- New Delhi authorities have also warned of the risk of water shortages as the capital swelters in an intense heatwave
- Warnings on heat’s impact on health, especially for infants, the elderly and those with chronic diseases
NEW DELHI: Temperatures in India’s capital soared to a record-high 49.9° Celsius on Tuesday, the government’s weather bureau said.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD), which reported “severe heat-wave conditions,” recorded the temperatures at two Delhi suburbs stations at Narela and Mungeshpur.
Forecasters predict similar temperatures on Wednesday.
In May 2022, parts of Delhi hit 49.2° Celsius, Indian media reported at the time.
India is no stranger to searing summer temperatures.
But years of scientific research have found climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.
New Delhi authorities have also warned of the risk of water shortages as the capital swelters in an intense heatwave — cutting supplies to some areas.
Water Minister Atishi Marlena has called for “collective responsibility” to stop wasteful water use, the Times of India newspaper reported Wednesday.
“To address the problem of water scarcity, we have taken a slew of measures such as reducing water supply from twice a day to once a day in many areas,” Atishi said, the Indian Express reported.
“The water thus saved will be rationed and supplied to the water-deficient areas where supply lasts only 15 to 20 minutes a day,” she added.
The IMD warned of the heat’s impact on health, especially for infants, the elderly and those with chronic diseases.
At the same time, West Bengal state and the northeastern state of Mizoram have been hit by gales and lashing rains from Cyclone Remal, which hit India and Bangladesh on Sunday, killing more than 38 people.
Bangladesh’s Meteorological Department said the cyclone was “one of longest in the country’s history,” blaming climate change for the shift.
