Recognising…Mad Maduro’s opponent

While President Trump continues to turn the screws – or tighten the noose, if you will – on Mad Maduro, some nations who mightn’t be affected by his drug-smuggling Cartel of the Sun thankfully haven’t turned a blind eye towards his other atrocities. Norway has long been involved in the effort to return democracy to Venezuela and towards that end, had expended tremendous time and money to facilitate discussions between Mad Maduro’s Government and the Opposition for free and fair elections in last year’s General Elections.
Sadly – as the world saw – it was all for naught, as Mad Maduro cynically used his control over state institutions to dump all the agreements – and then some – down the drain!! He had the charismatic and demonstrably popular Opposition Leader Maria Corina Machado – known by one and all as “MCM” – struck off the ballot for specious reasons, and a virtual unknown had to run in her place at the last minute. Yet he refused to show the equivalent of our SoPs from the voting machines, and his hand-picked Elections Commission declared him the winner. The Opposition showed their SoPs, giving them victory with 70 per cent of the vote!!
Well, on Thursday, the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee declared MCM as the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize – for her long, courageous and arduous struggle to reinstate democracy in Venezuela!! They called her “one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times”. And courageous she has been!! Even though she has to remain in hiding, she continues to expose Mad Maduro’s brutal dictatorship!!
The usual circumspect Committee declared, “Venezuela has evolved from a relatively democratic and prosperous country to a brutal, authoritarian state that is now suffering a humanitarian and economic crisis. Most Venezuelans live in deep poverty, even as the few at the top enrich themselves. The violent machinery of the state is directed against the country’s own citizens. Nearly eight million people have left the country. The opposition has been systematically suppressed by means of election rigging, legal prosecution and imprisonment.” Whew!!
As soon as the award was announced, tributes and congratulations from countries around the world poured in. We expect President Ali will extend Guyana’s best wishes with the hope she’ll soon take her place as the elected President of Venezuela. She’d publicly disagreed with Mad Maduro’s illegal steps to annex our Essequibo. Hopefully, the international recognition that comes with being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize gonna help shield MCM as she continues to campaign from hiding inside Venezuela to oust the madman!!
Meanwhile, the White House’s communications director claimed that the “Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace.”
Understandably, they’d hoped Trump would snag it!

…peace in Palestine?
With the involvement of the Trump Administration, Israel and Hamas signed an agreement on Thursday to cease fire and free Israeli hostages – 22 of them are alive by Israel’s count, along with the bodies of 26 others – in exchange for the release of 250 Palestinians serving life sentences in Israel’s prison gulag and 1700 others taken captive since October 7, two years ago. This might be the first phase of the 20-point peace plan the Israeli Prime Minister and President Trump made public at the White House late last month? We’ll have to see.
There was dancing in the refugee tents into which Palestinians have been herded by Israeli bombs and bullets. Sadly, however, with bottomless cynicism and treachery, the Netanyahu regime has broken every ceasefire accord to which it agreed for the past two decades – if not longer!! On the very night of the “agreement”, a building was bombed!!
While one has to hope for the best, your Eyewitness is keeping his champagne corked!

…bottlenecks
As our development proceeds apace, the bottleneck being experienced at T&T’s ports – which gonna delay Santa’s gifts here this Christmas – must be averted. Thankfully there are already two new ports on the West Side – with Berbice and Parika coming!!