Articles written by Scott Smith
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Family of jailed oil exec asks for Venezuelan leader's mercy
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The family of a Houston-based Citgo oil executive convicted and ordered to prison in Venezuela alongside five others appealed directly to President Nicolás Maduro on Friday for mercy. In an open letter, relatives of...
AP Sources: Shipping tycoon helps Venezuela in quest for gas
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — With gas lines across Venezuela growing, a controversial shipping magnate has stepped in to prevent the country from running out of fuel amid the coronavirus pandemic, The Associated Press has learned. The fuel shortage, i...
Fishermen live in stain of Venezuela's broken oil industry
CABIMAS, Venezuela (AP) — Nobody lives as closely with the environmental fallout of Venezuela's collapsing oil industry as the fishermen who scratch out an existence on the blackened, sticky shores of Lake Maracaibo. The once prized source of vast...
Shootings prompt other countries to warn about travel to US
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The United States often takes a leading role in calling out the world's most dangerous places, warning its people about the risks of traveling to countries that are at war, under terrorist threats, experiencing civil...
Maduro shows military might in Independence Day celebration
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro oversaw a grand military parade to mark the country's independence day Friday, reveling in his might as commander in chief as the embattled socialist leader comes under mounting...
Venezuela's Guaidó asks for relations with US military
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó on Saturday said he's instructed his political envoy in Washington to immediately open relations with the U.S. military in a bid to bring more pressure on President Nicolás...
Venezuelans take to streets as uprising attempt sputters
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelans heeded opposition leader Juan Guaidó's call to fill streets around the nation Wednesday but security forces showed no sign of answering his cry for a widespread military uprising, instead dispersing crowds...
Clashes rock Venezuela as Guaido urges opposition uprising
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Opposition leader Juan Guaidó took a bold step to revive his movement to seize power in Venezuela, taking to the streets Tuesday to call for a military uprising that drew quick support from the Trump administration and...
AP Explains: What's next in Venezuela's political stand-off?
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A previously little-known Venezuelan congressman, Juan Guaidó, leaped to the front stage of Venezuela's political conflict early this year by declaring himself interim president in a bid to force the removal of President...
US pulling last diplomats from Venezuela amid power crisis
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The U.S. said late Monday that it is pulling its last remaining diplomats from Venezuela, saying their continued presence at the country's embassy in Caracas had become a "constraint" on U.S. policy as the Trump...
Venezuela buckles under massive power, communications outage
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela's worst power and communications outage on Friday deepened a sense of isolation and decay, endangering hospital patients, forcing schools and businesses to close and cutting people off from their families,...
Maduro challenger plans caravans for US aid to Venezuela
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Opposition leader Juan Guaido said Tuesday that he will try to run caravans of badly needed food and medicine into Venezuela but won't start for nearly two weeks, a timeline that threatens to deflate momentum toward unseat...
Oil workers flee Venezuela's crisis for a better life
PUNTO FIJO, Venezuela (AP) — Nieves Ribullen, a Venezuelan oil worker sick of struggling to get by as his country falls apart, is betting it all on far-away Iraq's Kurdish region to give his family a better life. Over the years he's watched dozens...
Struggle for control of Venezuela returning to the streets
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Momentum is growing for Venezuela's opposition movement led by lawmaker Juan Guaido, who has called supporters back into the streets for nationwide protests Saturday, escalating pressure on embattled President Nicolas...
Foreign diplomats urge Venezuela's Maduro to hand over power
LIMA, Peru (AP) — A dozen Latin American governments and Canada delivered a blistering rebuke to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Friday, questioning the legitimacy of his soon-to-begin second term and urging him to hand over power as the...
Family: German journalist jailed in Venezuela as spy
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — German freelance journalist Billy Six has circled the globe with a hand-held video camera asking people living through wars and strife to tell their stories. But when he turned his lens to Venezuela, documenting the econom...
Mounting economic chaos leaves many Venezuelans in the dark
MARACAIBO, Venezuela (AP) — A month-long blackout in Jennifer Naranjo's neighborhood in the Venezuelan port city of Maracaibo leaves her anxious. She's eight months pregnant and passes hot, sleepless nights with no air conditioning, swatting away m...
US senator meets with Venezuelan president, jailed Utah man
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — An influential U.S. senator pressed for fair elections and the release of a jailed American during his private meeting with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the senator said Saturday before departing the turbulent coun...
Relatives demand answers after Venezuela jail fire kills 68
VALENCIA, Venezuela (AP) — It wasn't long after Daniel Marquez's family showed up at the Venezuelan police station jail where he'd been locked up for nearly a year awaiting trial when black smoke began billowing from the building. Guards ordered...
Venezuelan jail dead buried in mass tomb as questions linger
VALENCIA, Venezuela (AP) — They died together when flames tore through an overcrowded police station jail in Venezuela. Now many of them are buried beside each other, too. Weeping relatives lowered caskets of many of the 68 people officials say...
Top US diplomat in Venezuela under fire for tough comments
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The head of Venezuela's government-controlled assembly on Thursday accused the top U.S. diplomat in Caracas of promoting a coup and threatened to take "corresponding diplomatic measures" against him but stopped short of...
Venezuelans 'loot to eat' amid economic tailspin
PUERTO CABELLO, Venezuela (AP) — The cab of Carlos Del Pino's big rig gave him a nerve-rattling front-row seat to a surge in mob attacks on Venezuela's neighborhood markets, cattle ranches and food delivery trucks like his. Shortly after pulling...
Crisis-wracked Venezuela turns for hope to broken factories
CIUDAD GUAYANA, Venezuela (AP) — Juan Carlos Goite has to be creative, finding spare parts stripped from one broken-down locomotive to repair another in a desperate attempt to keep a once-thriving iron ore mining company running. Dressed in a hard...
Venezuelans weary of exit plan for country's crisis
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — With his country spiraling into a desperate financial crisis, Venezuela's president has proposed restructuring its massive debt, leaving international investors wondering Friday whether they'll be paid and some residents...
Double rock falls at famed Yosemite don't deter climbers
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) — In the close-knit community of climbers who flock from around the world to cling to the mountainside precipices at Yosemite National Park, climbers were awed but undeterred by successive rock falls that sent to...