Venezuela’s self-proclaimed acting president Juan Guaido said on Monday he was taking control of the country’s foreign assets as he piled pressure on leader Nicolas Maduro by calling for a new wave of protests against the embattled regime.
Mr Guaido, the opposition leader who has declared himself the country’s ruler amid violent anti-government protests, says “usurper” Mr Maduro’s rule is illegitimate and wants to set up a transitional government ahead of new elections.
In a statement published on social media, he said he was “beginning to take progressive and orderly control of our republic’s assets abroad to prevent, during his exit... that the usurper and his band try to empty the coffers.”
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Read more:
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Mr Guaido also called for a two-hour strike on Wednesday “to demand that the armed forces side with the people,” ahead of a “big national and international rally” on Saturday to acknowledge support from several European countries that have issued Maduro a deadline to hold new polls.
His remarks came as the death toll in last week’s protests rose to 35, according to NGO workers, with the government security forces accused of killing another eight in “extra-judicial executions.”
Pope Francis said on Monday following a trip to Panama that he was afraid the escalating political crisis in Venezuela would descend into “a bloodbath.”
The White House, meanwhile, urged Venezuela’s military to accept a “peaceful, democratic and constitutional transfer of power.”
National Security Advisor John Bolton told reporters in Washington that president Donald Trump was leaving “all options... on the table” when it came to considering getting the US military involved in the crisis.
Mr Maduro, 56, has refused to budge, telling Turkish television station CNN Turk: "No one can give us an ultimatum."
Millions of Venezuelans have been left in poverty or fled the country due to an economic crisis, marked by hyper-inflation and shortages of basic necessities, which began in 2014.
Mr Maduro devalued the currency by 35 per cent on Monday, aligning it with the exchange rate for the dollar on the black market, but analysts said it would only “make things worse.”
Mr Guaido, the 35-year-old head of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, says the election Mr Maduro won in May was not fair as it was boycotted by the opposition, while many in the international community branded it a fraud.
Last Wednesday, Mr Guaido launched a power struggle with Mr Maduro by declaring himself “acting president.”
He has the been recognised as Venezuela’s interim president by the United States and a dozen Latin American countries while Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands said they would follow suit unless Mr Maduro calls elections by February 3.
The EU has held back from joining the ultimatum, saying it would take "further actions" if elections were not called in the coming days, including the issue of recognition of the country's "leadership."
Russia, China, Turkey and leftist regional allies Cuba, Bolivia and Mexico continue to back Mr Maduro.
On Monday, the president of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Eduardo Ferrer, called for the leaders of both sides to meet “through peaceful channels” to find a way to “rebuild institutional democracy and full respect of human rights.”
Venezuela foreign minister Jorge Arreaza said Mexico and Uruguay are to present offers to host talks on solving the political crisis to the United Nations.
Canada said it would host an “urgent meeting” of the Lima Group of 13 Latin American nations plus Canada on February 4 to “discuss the steps we can take to support Juan Guaido and the people of Venezuela.”
That came as Rafael Uzcategui, director of the Venezuelan Program for Education-Action in Human Rights, accused the FAES police special forces unit of carrying out eight unlawful executions following last week’s protests, which he said had proved more deadly than previously thought.
“We have the corroborated figure, with first name, surname, place and presumed guilty parties, of 35 people murdered in the context of the protests” since Monday last week, Mr Uzcategui said.
Another NGO, Foro Penal, said 850 people, among them 77 children, have been arrested.
The US has warned there will be a “significant response” if US diplomats, Mr Guaido or the opposition-controlled National Assembly are targeted with violence and intimidation.
Encouraged by the international support for his cause, Mr Guaido is on a mission to weaken the military’s support of Maduro’s regime, which has been essential to keeping him in power since 2013.
His appeals have included promises of amnesty, and mass protests against Mr Maduro, who has presided over the collapse of the economy and a severe humanitarian crisis, with shortages of food and medicine.
Venezuela's defence minister Vladimir Padrino on Monday dismissed the amnesty offer as a “deception” and an “instrument of manipulation,” insisting that “no-one in the armed forces believes it.”
The military has backed the leftist regime, which was ushered into power 20 years ago by the late Hugo Chavez, a former military officer.
But Venezuela’s military attache in Washington, army colonel Jose Luis Silva, switched his support to Mr Guaido while Washington also accepted exiled opposition leader Carlos Vecchio as Venezuela’s new charge d’affaires to the United States.
Scarlet Salazar, a Venezuelan consular officer in Miami, said Monday she was also throwing her support behind Mr Guaido in a recorded statement.
The Case For Trump
By Victor Davis Hanson
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
