Zero Hedge: Watch: Venezuela Sends Large Fighter Jet Escort For Tankers As Iran's Flag Flies Over Caracas
To pretty much everyone's surprise it appears the five Iranian gasoline tankers will be able to offload their fuel to Venezuela without incident, despite US threats to thwart what Washington sees as illicit sanctions-busting. It remains that the return trip could be a different story, however.
Dramatic video emerged early this week showing the first couple of tankers' arrivals within Venezuelan coastal waters, accompanied by what appeared a large Venezuelan military escort, as Maduro officials promised.
First tanker to successfully arrive, the Fortune, docked by Monday, while all are now reported in Caribbean waters, with the second vessel soon to reportedly to dock as well, already safely within Venezuela's Exclusive Economic Zone.
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Update: Venezuelan Su-30s and F-16s welcome Iranian tanker (The Nation)
WNU Editor: The tankers are offloading their cargo .... Third Iranian fuel cargo reaches Venezuelan waters, others unloading - data (Reuters).
5 comments:
It's a long way back to Iran...
Venezuela has about 10 billion dollars in gold. Maybe the Iranians want that. Some of that gold is in London.
https://tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/gold-reserves
https://tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/crude-oil-production
Oil production took a big hit for 2020 Q1. Maybe that is why the Iranian tankers are there. To shore up Venezuela. The 5 tankers have brought about 52 days worth of oil so 2 or 3 months if it is stretched.
On the way back maybe the Iranian tankers could carry gold mined by small concerns using environmentally unsound methods or drugs to be shipped to Europe via Africa. I doubt the drugs, but if the tankers stop (or slow) off the coast West Africa for a day, then maybe. Certainly Hezbollah already had the infrastructure in place to move in good from Africa to Europe.
This is hilarious. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world but is importing oil from Iran? That's because Iran has nobody to sell it to due to sanctions and the oil glut, and Venezuela is so incompenent they can't even produce their own oil and it's cheaper to buy it from overseas.
Wow! What a strategic thing is .......
Venezuela has a large army, but without oil their army moves at the speed of a military march. Logistics to sustain them is problematic.
Opponents of the regime could achieve local superiority in outlying areas. Keeping them might be difficult, Hit and run not so much unless the Russians maintain a presence and give the Venezuelan regime mobility.
Guaido is not or at least should not be the "our" guy. He was a candidate for President. He is sat least or more legitimate than Maduro. He stood for election and he did disqualify himself by cheating. The Regime could manufacture something, but if Guaido did cheat, he would be prison already. We would have heard about it already and Guaido does not have the resources of the regime to cheat.
So by default,, he is kind of our guy. It is just that he is not a swell guy. He is like Macron. A socialist. He won't perform well. No brains.
All we hope he can do is to do reasonably well in a European socialist "kind" of way. Perhaps.
He is certainly no military leader. He is waiting for others to hand it to him. In another 4 years with the election he stood for about a decade away, will he rightly be considered the leader presumptive? Don't you have to do some thing besides press conferences?
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