SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Venezuelans seeking refuge in Chile can request a “democratic responsibility visa” at any Chilean consulate in the world, and not just in their homeland where the visa has been available until now, Chile’s foreign ministry said on Saturday.

The visa can be requested as of Monday. It will allow Venezuelans fleeing their crisis-hit country to stay in Chile for one year, and can be extended for an additional 12 months, a statement posted on the ministry’s website said.

“We have instructed that all Chilean consulates in the world also begin to be able to offer visas of democratic responsibility,” Chilean Foreign Minister Teodoro Ribera was quoted as saying in local press reports on Saturday.

The minister added that for Chile the “real solution” would be for “the rule of law be restored” in Venezuela. Chile is part of the 12-nation Lima Group of Western states pushing for the resignation of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro. Opponents accuse Maduro, a socialist, of being a dictator.

In another policy change, the interior ministry announced that Chile will immediately start requiring tourist visas for Venezuelan visitors who plan to stay in the country for short periods. Previously, Venezuelans could arrive without tourist visas and stay for 90 days.

Venezuela’s economic collapse has unleashed the biggest migratory crisis in recent South American history.

This week about 200 migrants, the vast majority Venezuelans, were stranded on the border between Peru and Chile trying to enter Chilean territory after a change of regulations in Peru slowed their movement. </s> SANTIAGO — Venezuelans seeking refuge in Chile can request a “democratic responsibility visa” at any Chilean consulate in the world, and not just in their homeland where the visa has been available until now, Chile’s foreign ministry said on Saturday.

The visa can be requested as of Monday. It will allow Venezuelans fleeing their crisis-hit country to stay in Chile for one year, and can be extended for an additional 12 months, a statement posted on the ministry’s website said.

“We have instructed that all Chilean consulates in the world also begin to be able to offer visas of democratic responsibility,” Chilean Foreign Minister Teodoro Ribera was quoted as saying in local press reports on Saturday.

The minister added that for Chile the “real solution” would be for “the rule of law be restored” in Venezuela. Chile is part of the 12-nation Lima Group of Western states pushing for the resignation of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro. Opponents accuse Maduro, a socialist, of being a dictator.

Venezuela’s economic collapse has unleashed the biggest migratory crisis in recent South American history.

This week about 200 migrants, the vast majority Venezuelans, were stranded on the border between Peru and Chile trying to enter Chilean territory after a change of regulations in Peru slowed their movement. (Reporting by Natalia Ramos Writing by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Tom Brown) </s> SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Venezuelans seeking refuge in Chile can request a "democratic responsibility visa" at any Chilean consulate in the world, and not just in their homeland where the visa has been available until now, Chile's foreign ministry said on Saturday.

The visa can be requested as of Monday. It will allow Venezuelans fleeing their crisis-hit country to stay in Chile for one year, and can be extended for an additional 12 months, a statement posted on the ministry's website said.

"We have instructed that all Chilean consulates in the world also begin to be able to offer visas of democratic responsibility," Chilean Foreign Minister Teodoro Ribera was quoted as saying in local press reports on Saturday.

The minister added that for Chile the "real solution" would be for "the rule of law be restored" in Venezuela. Chile is part of the 12-nation Lima Group of Western states pushing for the resignation of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro. Opponents accuse Maduro, a socialist, of being a dictator.

Venezuela's economic collapse has unleashed the biggest migratory crisis in recent South American history.

This week about 200 migrants, the vast majority Venezuelans, were stranded on the border between Peru and Chile trying to enter Chilean territory after a change of regulations in Peru slowed their movement.

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.

Your guide to the latest cricket World Cup stories, analysis, reports, opinions, live updates and scores on https://www.firstpost.com/firstcricket/series/icc-cricket-world-cup-2019.html. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram or like our Facebook page for updates throughout the ongoing event in England and Wales. </s> TODAY VENEZUELA (Reuters) Peru has created a temporary visa that will allow thousands of Venezuelans to work and study in the country, part of a migratory policy that aims to “build bridges” and “not walls,” the Andean nation’s interior ministry said, according to Reuters.

President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s government issued 20 temporary visas to Venezuelan migrants in Peru this week.

Kuczysnki, a centrist, has expressed concern about shortages of food and medicine in Venezuela, mired in a deep economic crisis.

Some 6,000 Venezuelans are expected to receive the permit, which will allow them to study, work, and receive health services in Peru for a year, the interior ministry said late on Thursday.

Peru has enjoyed nearly two decades of uninterrupted economic growth and single-digit inflation, a sharp contrast to socialist-led Venezuela, where the ranks of the poor have swollen in recent years.

“We want to offer a different message on migration than what’s offered in other places. We want to build bridges that unite us and not walls to separate us,” Interior Minister Carlos Basombrio said in a statement.

The comment appeared to be a thinly veiled shot at the new US government, which is traditionally an ally of Peru.

US President Donald Trump has imposed a temporary entry ban on refugees and citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, and insisted that Mexico will pay for his proposed wall along the US-Mexican border to curb illegal immigration.

Kuczynski, a former Wall Street banker and free-trade advocate who took office last year, has previously compared Trump’s proposed border wall to the Berlin Wall, and said he would oppose it in the United Nations.

Kuczynski and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said last week that they would stand with Mexico and seek to strengthen regional trade, in the wake of rising tensions between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Trump.

Thousands of Venezuelans have left their country in recent years, as a deepening political crisis and ongoing economic dysfunction have made life there ever harder.

While the first years of this century saw Venezuela elites and educated classes depart the country, chaffing under the presidency of Hugo Chavez, since 2010 younger Venezuelans and members of the middle class have joined the ranks of the exodus.

Many Venezuelans have relocated to Colombia, and a significant number have gone to Chile, making an arduous multiday trek by bus and boat across the Amazon jungle and the mountains and rivers of the Andes.

Over the last five years, Chilean visas issued to Venezuelans have jumped from 758 to 8,381, Univision reported in September 2016.

About 5% of Venezuelan’s roughly 30 million people are thought to have left, and the outflux has undergone a “feminization” of late, seeing 67 men leave for every 100 women departing.

“I think what you see now is that there are fewer and fewer educated professionals, younger people, who are opting to stay, or even considering opting to stay,” Alejandro Velasco, a professor at New York University, told Business Insider late last year.

“The tipping point basically, I think, has been reached where opportunities outside [the country] are far easier to come by and certainly better to imagine that opportunities inside.”

Article originally appeared on Today Venezuela and is republished here with permission. </s> LIMA, Peru — The number of Venezuelans fleeing the country is accelerating at a “staggering” rate, the United Nations reported Friday, as the South American nation is caught in a political struggle and grinding humanitarian crisis.

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, said there are now more than 4 million Venezuelans living abroad — and that 1 million have left in the last seven months alone.

“The pace of the outflow from Venezuela has been staggering,” UNHCR said in a statement. “From some 695,000 at the end of 2015, the number of refugees and migrants from Venezuela had skyrocketed to over 4 million by mid-2019.”

Neighboring Colombia is now home to 1.3 million Venezuelans, followed by Peru with 768,000, Chile with 288,000, Ecuador with 263,000, Brazil with 168,000 and Argentina with 130,000. However, almost every country in the region is hosting “a significant number of Venezuelans,” UNHCR said.

Most countries have taken unprecedented steps to help the migrants, including allowing them to enter on expired passports and providing residency and work programs. But that might be changing.

Peru, which has had some of the most welcoming policies toward Venezuelan migrants, announced Thursday that it will begin requiring them to apply for visas at Peruvian embassies in Venezuela or Colombia.

The new requirement comes as dozens of Venezuelans have been expelled from Peru after committing crimes and as President Martin Vizcarra is facing pushback from those worried about what they see as uncontrolled immigration.

Colombia has also complained that the international community isn’t doing enough to help Venezuela’s neighbors handle the influx, which is taxing the region’s health, education and social security systems.

“These alarming figures highlight the urgent need to support host communities in the receiving countries,” said Eduardo Stein, the special representative for Venezuelan refugees and migrants for UNHCR and the International Organization on Migration. “Latin American and Caribbean countries are doing their part to respond to this unprecedented crisis, but they cannot be expected to continue doing it without international help.”

Venezuela has been trapped in an economic and humanitarian crisis for years amid falling oil production, hyperinflation, and widespread corruption and mismanagement. More recently, economic sanctions from Washington and elsewhere are thought to be exacerbating the crisis.

Leader Nicolas Maduro is fighting for his political survival against Juan Guaido, the head of congress whom the United States and more than 50 other countries consider Venezuela’s legitimate president. </s> Chile's foreign minister tweets: 'Lilian Tintori and Leopold Lopez – who are of Spanish descent – moved to the Spanish embassy. They made a personal decision.'

SANTIAGO, Chile – Venezuelan opposition figure Leopoldo Lopez left the Chilean embassy in Caracas and moved to the city's Spanish consulate on Tuesday, April 20, after earlier being freed from house arrest, Chile's foreign minister Roberto Ampuero said.

Lopez, his wife, and one of his 3 sons had been welcomed to the Chilean embassy as guests "under the diplomatic protection of Chile," and none of them were there to seek asylum, Ampuero told reporters in Santiago.

"Lilian Tintori and Leopold Lopez – who are of Spanish descent – moved to the Spanish embassy," Ampuero later said in a statement on Twitter. "They made a personal decision."

In other developments in Caracas, Venezuela:

Lopez, a key opponent of President Nicolas Maduro, emerged earlier Tuesday from two years of house arrest to join opposition leader Juan Guaido at a demonstration outside a military barracks with a small group of soldiers

Lopez had been accused in 2014 of inciting violent protests against the government and began his 14-year sentence in 2017.

Five other Venezuelan judges – elected by the opposition-dominated congress – were also taken in at the Chilean embassy, but managed to leave the country and are currently in Chile under political asylum.

Chile is part of the Lima Group, created in 2017 as a response to Venezuela's political and economic crisis, which on Tuesday called for an emergency meeting set for Friday. – Rappler.com </s> The State Department on Monday announced it would allow lawsuits to be brought against Cuba companies and individuals by people whose property was seized by the communist government during and after Fidel Castro's revolution in the late 1950s.

In the United States' latest move to punish Cuba and encourage democracy in the communist nation, the State Department announced it would suspend for 30 days part of the 1996 Libertad Act, also known as the Helms-Burton Act, and allow some lawsuits to be brought against companies using properties confiscated by the Cuban government after its 1959 revolution.

"Even under a new president in Cuba, nothing has changed," a senior State Department official said Monday. "The U.S. is holding the Cuban regime responsible."

Every president since Bill Clinton has suspended the section of the act that would allow such lawsuits because they could snarl companies from U.S.-allied countries – like the United Kingdom, France and Spain – in years of complicated litigation that could prompt international trade claims against the United States. The State Department, however, made clear that any lawsuits brought in U.S. federal courts would target Cuban entities and sub-entities, not ones owned or controlled by U.S. allies.

Allowing a limited number of lawsuits could make investment in Cuba more burdensome for companies thinking of entering the market, who will now have to do additional research into their legal liability, but it is unlikely to be a major blow against the Cuban economy.

"This is the first time we're not fully suspending this section of the Libertad Act," the senior State Department official said. "We're giving claimants the opportunity to sue for their property."

While State Department officials said the move was focused on advancing the cause of individual rights in Cuba, other officials also linked the actions to Havana's role in supporting the regime of disputed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

CUBA CITES LACK OF EVIDENCE IN MYSTERIOUS SONIC ATTACKS ON DIPLOMATS

In a tweet on Monday, National Security Adviser John Bolton blamed Cuba for its role in “fomenting repression in Venezuela” and said the U.S. would be tightening financial restrictions.

“Cuba’s role in usurping democracy and fomenting repression in Venezuela is clear,” Bolton tweeted. “That’s why the U.S. will continue to tighten financial restrictions on Cuba’s military and intel services. The region’s democracies should condemn the Cuba regime.”

Caracas and other parts of the South American nation continue to be plagued by widespread shortages of basic supplies and political unrest.

On Friday, the U.S. imposed sanctions on six high-ranking members of the Venezuelan security forces and revoked the visas of other officials and their relatives in the latest effort to pressure Maduro to relinquish power.

The sanctions are in response to the blocking of humanitarian aid convoys last week while the visa revocations on dozens of individuals are intended to punish people who have flourished amid the South American country's dire economic crisis, Elliott Abrams, the special representative for Venezuela, told reporters.

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Maduro's forces fired tear gas and buckshot at activists trying to deliver humanitarian aid in violent clashes on Feb. 23, leaving two people dead and about 300 injured.

"Maduro supporters that abuse or violate human rights, steal from the Venezuelan people or undermine Venezuela's democracy are not welcome in the United States," Abrams said. "Neither are their family members who enjoy a privileged lifestyle at the expense of the liberty and prosperity of millions of Venezuelans."

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido arrived back in the country on Monday as hundreds of protestors gathered in a Caracas plaza, heeding a call from the self-declared interim president to turn out for his expected return to Venezuela.

Dozens of countries – including the U.S. – have recognized Guaido as Venezuela's legitimate leader, arguing that last year's re-election of Maduro was invalid.

Guaido returned from a tour of several Latin American nation where he was hoping to drum up support among regional leaders for his claim to leadership in Venezuela.

After nearly 60 years of a trade embargo, meanwhile, the Cuban economy is in a period of consistently low growth of about 1 percent a year, with foreign investment at roughly $2 billion. But tourism, remittances and subsidized oil from Venezuela have allowed the government to maintain basic services.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. </s> Donald Trump’s highly criticized Muslim travel ban has now been extended to North Korea, Venezuela, and Chad. The new travel restriction will be extended to the three countries in addition to the previously banned five countries. Only Sudan will not be any longer subject to travel restrictions.

As recently reported by Inquisitr, Donald Trump’s 90-day ban on 6 countries expired earlier this morning.

The new restriction by the President of the United States is launched to enhance vetting process capabilities for entry in the U.S. It will impact citizens of Iran, Libya, Venezuela, Syria, Yemen, Chad, North Korea, and Somalia.

According to the official White House website, the first of its kind review in the United States’ history by Donald Trump will protect the security and interest of the country. The new travel ban will take effect from October 18, 2017.

The ban bars citizens who lack credible bona fide relationship from entering the U.S. The six Muslim country travel ban released in March 2017 had sparked worldwide outrage and protests at many international airports. The new ban is announced on the same day the previous travel restrictions expired.

Unlike the previous proclamation, current valid visas will not be revoked. There is also said to be a case-by-case waiver of citizens from the restricted countries if they meet certain criteria.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, the countries included in the new travel ban have failed to provide sufficient information or have not taken necessary security precautions. It is revealed that there were a total of 16 countries that were to be included in the new proclamation but only eight of them worked out their ways to provide and improve information and security compliance.

According to Economic Times, The American Civil Liberties Union have said that the new ban is still a Muslim ban.

The rights group Amnesty International USA released a statement stating that Americans should not support another version of discrimination.

“Just because the original ban was especially outrageous does not mean we should stand for yet another version of government-sanctioned discrimination. It is senseless and cruel to ban whole nationalities of people who are often fleeing the very same violence that the US government wishes to keep out. This must not be normalized.”

The restriction includes suspension of all immigrant visas for nationals of Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia and all non-immigrant visas for nationals of Chad, Libya, North Korea, Syria, and Yemen. According to the new presidential proclamation, the ban will also extend barring the entry of Venezuelan government officials and their immediate families.

What are your views on the current Donald Trump’s extended travel ban? Sound off your views in the comments below. </s> LIMA (Reuters) - Peru’s president on Thursday vowed to continue deporting Venezuelans with criminal records as long as necessary, part of a tougher stance toward Venezuelan migrants in the region as they continue to flee their crisis-stricken homeland in mass.

The government of centrist President Martin Vizcarra started deporting groups of Venezuelans with criminal records in April, when a local opinion poll showed an increasingly negative perception of the migrants, mainly due to fears about crime.

Speaking to journalists while a third group of about 50 Venezuelans were escorted onto a plane, Vizcarra said the expulsions were only the beginning.

“We’re going to continue,” Vizcarra said at the airport in Lima. “500, 800, 1,000, 2,000 - whatever’s necessary. Those who have committed crimes will be expelled to their country.”

Peru was once one of the most welcoming countries for Venezuelan migrants. It granted hundreds of thousands of temporary residency permits to Venezuelans that let them work legally and access health and education services.

But last year, after more than half a million desperate Venezuelans fled to Peru, the government tightened entry requirements for the migrants and ended the residency program earlier than planned.

Peru’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that starting June 15, Venezuelan migrants will be required to obtain a humanitarian visa from Peruvian consulates in Venezuela - and in special cases from consulates in Colombia or Ecuador.

The ministry did not say it would change its policy toward Venezuelans seeking refugee status, who are not generally required to present visas or passports. Peru has said the vast majority of Venezuelans who apply for exile do not qualify.

Peru, which has a population of 32 million, has the second-biggest population of Venezuelan migrants after Colombia. Nearly 800,000 Venezuelans are now in Peru.

Some 3 million Venezuelans have left their homeland since 2015, seeking to escape an economic crisis that has deprived many of basic foods and medicine, according to a U.N. estimate. A further 2 million are expected to emigrate this year.

Most Venezuelan migrants have ended up in other South American countries, straining public services in developing nations unaccustomed to absorbing large migratory waves and fueling a backlash in some places.

Vizcarra said his government would continue to push hard for a transition to democracy in Venezuela, which he described as the only way to solve the migratory crisis.
Chile is extending its offer of "democratic responsibility" visas, allowing Venezuelans to live in the country for up to two years, so that they may be applied for from any Chilean embassy or consulate in the world instead of just in Venezuela. However, Chile border control now also demands visas upon entry for Venezuelans, a tightening of the previous 90-day free period. The move should aid Venezuelans trying to travel through other Latin American nations that have changing restrictions.