Mask-off outbursts by Maga insiders and most strikingly, the destruction and reconstruction of the presidential seat, with a huge new $300m ballroom, means Trump isn’t planning to leave the White House when his term ends, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
ONE week after the attempted right-wing coup in Venezuela, Paul Dobson described the situation across Venezuela as “entirely normal.” All services were functioning. Buses continue to run. People go to work. Water supply continues. Electricity was as before — including, as before, interruptions in supply of perhaps half an hour a week.
Nor were there significant shortages of essential goods or medicines in the shops although a few categories of specialist cancer drugs were off the shelves as a result of the US blockade. The main problem was inflation — though wages were being increased.
The ongoing coup attempt which began the previous week had been contained to two or three neighbourhoods of Caracas with less than 40 fatalities.
US baseless accusations of drug trafficking and the outrageous putting of a bounty on a president of a sovereign country do not bode well, reports PABLO MERIGUET



