Bernd 05/08/2019 (Wed) 00:45:17 No.25674 del
Maduro is making moves. His gunmen have taken over private airports around Caracas and surrounded the oppositionist National Assembly, blocking off journalists. His Supreme Court is now revoking the mandates of Congressmen and may move to arrest them. And he loosened currency controls set in 2003, allowing private financial institutions to deal in foreign currency but still at the exchange rates set by the central bank, which are far different from the more realistic black market rates. Currency controls are considered one of the main factors in Chavismo's collapse because it attempted to have an "impossible trinity" (free capital flow, fixed exchange rate and sovereign monetary policy); it's considered possible to have two, but unsustainable to have all three at the same time.

There was also a meeting in Finland lasting less than an hour between Lavrov and Pompeo over Venezuela. If any significant diplomatic breakthroughs were made, they were not made public. More meetings are expected. Moscow Times speculates Russia is willing to sell Maduro in exchange for concessions in Ukraine.