The Earth Is Melting and more[Around The World]
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Venezuela's once-thriving middle class is packing its bags and fleeing the country, afraid for the future as the socialist president, Hugo Chávez, calls on the slum-dwelling masses to rise up and seize wealth from those better off than themselves, according to The Telegraph. A growing number of professionals, business owners and shopkeepers are fed up with the climate of hostility that the Left-wing president has encouraged in his effort to boost his populist credentials. María Carolina García 46, a mother of two whose parents emigrated to Venezuela to escape the Spanish civil war and made a new life as jewelers, was upset. But it was nothing new. "Ever since Hugo Chávez was elected [in 1998] he has been fomenting hatred for those who have, among those who have not. 'Rich is bad.' That's his message. So the people who follow him have decided it's not just the world's superpower they hate, it's people like me too." Many Venezuelans complain of the government's increasing control of the media and intimidation of opposition supporters. People report that their middle-class appearance leads to their being robbed, kidnapped or spat at. The streets of Caracas have always been rife with crime but in recent years the city centre has become seedier, with homeless people sleeping alongside piles of rotting rubbish by blackened walls. "It's never been a really safe city," said Mrs. García, joining a queue outside the Spanish embassy with her identity papers. "But different people walked happily alongside each other not so long ago. I have never felt as threatened as I do now." Marcial Rivera, a 30-year-old business graduate, packed his bags and left for neighboring Colombia this week. He believes that it is a more stable place to live, despite its own huge problems. "I'm all torn up," he said. "I would like to stay but I don't want to be here when the big bang comes and I think it will be very soon." You know your country is circling the drain when people are fleeing to Colombia for prosperity and stability. It's all relative, I guess. |
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