On February 6, Reuters, an international news agency, published an article covering a major power outage in Caracas. The article calls the outage “another sign of economic meltdown”. It focuses on issues with electrical infrastructure, stating that at least 10 subway stations had to be closed, and phone-lines were down. The article goes on to talk about how the economic situation is translating into the quality of life of Venezuelans. “Prices soar amid inflation, millions suffer food and medicine shortages, and oil production falls to its lowest levels in years”, author Girish Gupta wrote. Gupta interviewed Alejandra Arcia for the article. She is a 46 year old mother who must figure out how to get her two children home without the subways working. “How much more do we have to endure? We have become to primitive in the country,” she told Gupta.
The content of this article is not surprising at all. Venezuela has frequent large blackouts, and a lot of the time they have daily or weekly scheduled blackouts to “save energy”. I was surprised by the fact that the issue was considered significant enough to write an article about, because it is such a common occurrence. Before his death, Chavez would give long speeches about conserving energy, while having two large fans constantly aimed at him, which most Venezuelans found to be very hypocritical. However, if people refused to cooperate, the government would force the power to be shut off in entire cities. In short, large blackouts are not a new occurrence. The article words the story as if it is proof of the economic situation that significantly worsened in 2014, but blackouts like these have been happening since Chavez was in power.
Venezuela's Political Situation 
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