Toxic spills offer a bleak vision of the end of oil in Venezuela chron.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from chron.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Toxic Spills in Venezuela Offer a Bleak Vision of the End of Oil
Bloomberg 12/15/2020 Fabiola Zerpa, Peter Millard and Andrew Rosati
(Bloomberg) Tropical rains have washed away most outward traces of the oil spill that ravaged Rio Seco this fall. But the fishing village in the shadow of Venezuela’s main refining hub bears the scars of deeper contamination.
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Boats with oil-stained hulls must now travel further out into the Caribbean to make a catch. Crude has soaked the roots of nearby mangroves, leaving shrimp grounds barren. Seeing no future, dozens of fishermen and their families have fled their homes; those who are left loiter in the village, waiting for Petroleos de Venezuela, the state oil company known as PDVSA, to compensate for lost boats, equipment and sales.
By Angus Berwick and Sarah Kinosian
SAN JOSE DE GUANIPA, Venezuela (Reuters) - Francisco Belisario, a Venezuelan mayor, retired general and member of the ruling Socialist party, had enough. His loudest local critic had accused him of bungling the response to the coronavirus outbreak and other big problems.
In August, he wrote a state prosecutor and requested an exhaustive investigation of his nemesis, Giovanni Urbaneja, a former lawmaker who had become a gadfly to the mayor and other Socialist officeholders. Urbaneja, Belisario wrote in a letter reviewed by Reuters, was conducting a ferocious smear campaign on Facebook and elsewhere.
Urbaneja not only defamed him and President Nicolas Maduro, the mayor wrote. He violated Venezuela s Law Against Hate. The law, passed in 2017 but rarely used before this year, criminalizes actions that incite hatred against a person or group.
Special Report-Venezuela wields a powerful hate law to silence Maduro s remaining foes msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.