There are two Venezuelas: the Venezuela of yesterday, prosperous and thriving, and the Venezuela of today: poor, corrupt and in the dark.

In almost every article about Venezuela, we're told that the economy collapsed because the oil price did.

Here is the price of crude oil adjusted for inflation.

Today, the price is almost three times higher than when Chavez took power.

And another chart for those who think US sanctions destroyed Venezuela.

Before recent sanctions on oil, it was mostly just on individuals close to Maduro. 

by Johan Norberg

Constitutional president Juan Guaidó claims Venezuela is not socialist because there's no social justice, while economic indicators show it's the most equal country: equally empoverished.

British and Australian officials are killing off free speech online.

Ukrainian revolution of Dignity happened 5 years ago when I was finishing high school. It`s hard to imagine how it was for me, 17 years old student, to face such a traumatic experience. In the time when students usually need to prepare to exams that will define their future, I was watching live translations from Kyiv or participated in local protests in my city.

According to the national exit poll showman Volodymyr Zelenskyi won the second round of the presidential elections in Ukraine. According to the exit poll data collected by the time when the polling stations closed, 73 per cent of voters cast their votes for Zelenskyi, 25,5 per cent – for Petro Poroshenko.

In the 2017 edition of its annual Transforming World Atlas — which uses maps and other data visualisations to illustrate major global issues — Bank of America Merrill Lynch focuses one map on the growing secessionist movement across the continent.

The Rosneft oil giant has threatened to ban Reuters from operating in Russia after the international news agency released a report saying that Venezuela had sold oil to Russia in an attempt to evade U.S. sanctions.

In this series we will publish weekly cutouts from the book by Kristian Niemietz

VENEZUELA UNDER HUGO CHÁVEZ: ‘A DIFFERENT, AND A BETTER WAY OF DOING THINGS. IT’S CALLED SOCIALISM