Letter to the Editor NYT — On the U.S.-Venezuela Oil Deal

 Letter to the Editor NYT — On the U.S.-Venezuela Oil Deal

To the Editor:


Recent reporting on the U.S.-Venezuela oil pact, and on intermediary firms now surfacing around it, points to a troubling pattern: a historic chance for Venezuela's recovery is being negotiated in the dark.

I write as someone with family ties to Venezuela's oil sector going back to the 1930s, and to Basque immigrants who found opportunity there. Venezuelans have endured nearly three decades of institutions captured by corrupt insiders. A 25-year deal covering 65 billion barrels, struck without competitive bidding or public disclosure of who stands to profit, risks repeating that pattern under a new flag.


Transparency -- clear ownership, open bidding, public accounting of proceeds -- is not a technicality. It is the difference between rebuilding a free Venezuela and simply changing which insiders control its wealth.


Mikel de Elguezabal Méndez, 73492846A

Navarra, Spain

Comentarios

Publicar un comentario

Entradas más populares de este blog

IRAN FREEDOM?

 I COPY  OUTPUT OF MY TOE WRITING ON THE BUS IN 15 MINUTES... Grok: Welcome to Freedom, Zarathustra!  Iran is a multi-ethnic nation, diverse in languages and monotheistic religions, including Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians, and Muslims from both Shia and Sunni traditions. I have known dozens of Iranians around the world, and they are all extremely educated people, both academically and in terms of family values passed down through generations.  These values appear to have been kept alive through the maternal line, in the feminine essence, and particularly through women. In my restaurant a few years ago, I met a beautiful young Iranian Jewish woman from NYC—what culture, what soul, what spirit!  This resilience mirrors the survival of the Basque language in France and Spain, which has endured Jacobin revolutions, suffocating centralized states, and cultural dictatorships, whether military regimes that co-opted Catholicism or young Basques influenced by resentful ...
Leer más

Babel

Babel This morning, on the bus from Huarte to Pamplona, I met Babel. A Senegalese Muslim, father, and one of those rare people who, in just fifteen minutes of conversation, leaves you feeling like you've made a real neighbor in a world full of strangers . I sat next to him almost instinctively. We started in French — I correctly guessed he came from Francophone Africa — and quickly moved into a comfortable mix of Spanish and French. Then, quite naturally, he suggested we continue in Basque (Euskera). I was pleasantly surprised. I’ve been studying it patiently: with customers at my restaurant-café, with Basque radio and television here in Navarre.  He is learning it too. He has friends who are fishermen on the Gipuzkoa coast, and there, immersed on boats out at sea, Basque has come more easily to him. We spoke for a while in Euskera, both of us laughing at our mistakes as fellow learners. Babel speaks Wolof (his mother tongue), French, Spanish, English, and now Basque. He is hardwo...
Leer más

Reflexiones Libertarias sobre el Debate del Burka y el Niqab en el Congreso y la Subida del Salario Mínimo en España

Reflexiones Libertarias sobre el Debate del Burka y el Niqab en el Congreso y la Subida del Salario Mínimo en España ¡Bienvenidos de nuevo a mi blog sobre política vasca y europea!  Hoy, 17 de febrero de 2026, el Congreso de los Diputados en España ha estado en el centro de dos discusiones clave que tocan fibras profundas en nuestra sociedad: la propuesta de Vox para prohibir el burka y el niqab en espacios públicos, apoyada por el PP y rechazada por formaciones como Sumar y Junts, y la aprobación por el Consejo de Ministros de una subida del salario mínimo interprofesional (SMI) a 1.221 euros brutos mensuales en 14 pagas, un incremento del 3,1% retroactivo desde enero.  Ambas medidas, en apariencia, buscan "hacer un bien": proteger la dignidad de las mujeres en un caso y mejorar las condiciones laborales en el otro. Sin embargo, desde la perspectiva del subjetivismo individual de la Escuela Austríaca de Economía –que he estudiado en profundidad gracias a maestros como el pro...
Leer más