All posts tagged: Venezuelan

Best Venezuelan and Colombian spots for arepas in Los Angeles

Best Venezuelan and Colombian spots for arepas in Los Angeles

Published by Sam Flores

In the streets of Cartagena, Colombia, cumbia musicians beat tambora drums and blow into flautas, women in red, yellow and blue ruffled dresses whisk by, and sweating food vendors push carts, their arepas sizzling. Among the music and striking color of Cartagena, my dad handed me my first arepa. Arepas are the most essential dish of Colombia and neighboring Venezuela, centered around South America’s most treasured crop: corn. To prepare an arepa, corn kernels are ground into flour or pre-ground corn flour is used (often the iconic yellow bag of Venezuelan brand P.A.N.), and mixed with water and salt. The soft dough is then fried, grilled or baked into a pancake-like shape. The result is delightfully simple yet endlessly customizable. “My memory of arepas is eating them morning, afternoon and night,” said Yesika Baker, owner of Chamo’s Venezuelan Cuisine in Pasadena. “In Venezuela, the areperas are open 24/7.” The arepa has deep roots. Before Colombia and Venezuela came to be known as separate territories, they were unified by Indigenous groups with similar culinary traditions. When …

Federal judge orders return of Venezuelan migrants deported to El Salvador under Alien Enemies Act : NPR

Federal judge orders return of Venezuelan migrants deported to El Salvador under Alien Enemies Act : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

James Boasberg shown here on Monday, March 13, 2023. Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Images A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return to the U.S. of a group of Venezuelan migrants who were sent to a maximum security prison in El Salvador last year under the Alien Enemies Act and accused of being members of the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua. The 137 Venezuelans the ruling applies to were deported to the notorious Center for Terrorism Confinement, or CECOT, in the Central American country, under the rarely-used Alien Enemies Act, despite an emergency ruling ordering the flight to be returned to the U.S. The men were later sent to their home countries as part of a prisoner exchange. U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg ruled the government must pay to fly back or accept at a US port of entry any of the men who are now in countries other than Venezuela. They’re likely to be detained upon arrival as they …

Venezuelan interim president proposes mass amnesty law, closure of notorious prison

Venezuelan interim president proposes mass amnesty law, closure of notorious prison

Published by Sam Flores

Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodriguez announced on Friday a push for mass amnesty in the country, saying she will propose a “general amnesty law covering the entire period of political violence from 1999 to the present.” She also announced plans to close the notorious El Helicoide prison in Caracas, where rights groups say political prisoners were tortured by Nicolas Maduro’s intelligence services. Keywords for this article Source link

Trump says he’s reopening Venezuelan airspace and Americans may visit

Trump says he’s reopening Venezuelan airspace and Americans may visit

Published by Sam Flores

President Donald Trump says he’s reopening “all commercial airspace over Venezuela,” two months after he warned carriers away amid a U.S. military buildup against the South American nation. U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3. Trump said Thursday he had directed the military, Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy and “everybody else concerned” to allow the return of air travel to Venezuela. Source link

Trump Admin Was In ‘Discussions’ With Venezuelan Minister Months Before Raid

Trump Admin Was In ‘Discussions’ With Venezuelan Minister Months Before Raid

Published by Jenni Sidey

The White House was conducting back-channel communications with Venezuela’s hardline interior minister Diosdado Cabello months before the US operation to seize President Nicolas Maduro, and has been in communication with him since then, according to Reuters, citing multiple government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.  Cabello, who was Maduro’s right hand and seen as Venezuela’s second most powerful figure (and close aide of the late former President Hugo Chavez), was key to a ‘smooth’ regime change – as the 62-year-old had (and has) the power to turn the country’s security services or militant ruling-party supporters he oversees to target the country’s opposition. That security apparatus he controls has remained largely intact since the Jan. 3 US raid.  Cabello is named in the same U.S. drug-trafficking indictment that the Trump administration used as justification to arrest Maduro, but was not taken as part of the operation. The communication with Cabello, which has also touched on sanctions the U.S. has imposed on him and the indictment he faces, dates back to the early days of the current Trump administration and continued in the weeks just prior …

Mother of Venezuelan political prisoner pleads for son’s release

Mother of Venezuelan political prisoner pleads for son’s release

Published by Sam Flores

January 17, 2026 at 5:00 a.m. ESTJust now BARQUISIMETO, Venezuela — Melania Perozo, a rosary around her neck, a portrait of her son, Dario Pastor Estrada, in her hands, walked through the crowd to the statue of the Virgin of La Divina Pastora — Mary, the Divine Shepherdess. Standing before the icon, she asked for a miracle: Her son’s release from prison. Source link

Venezuelan procession for La Divina Pastora takes on new weight in tense political moment

Venezuelan procession for La Divina Pastora takes on new weight in tense political moment

Published by Sam Flores

WASHINGTON (RNS) — It’s been 30 years since Jorge Garcia last joined the millions of people who have crowded the streets of Barquisimeto in northwest Venezuela for a procession with La Divina Pastora or “the Divine Shepherdess.” But three decades and thousands of miles have not dimmed his devotion to the Marian image and statue credited with several miracles, including interceding to end a 19th-century cholera epidemic. This year, after months of work by the four members of the Washington-area Society of La Divina Pastora, she was honored for the first time with a Mass on Wednesday (Jan. 14) in Washington’s Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle and with a new statue shipped from Venezuela where it was created by a famous teenage artist. The statue of La Divina Pastora arrived on Jan. 2, just hours before the U.S. military seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. “It’s not us. It’s God who moves everything,” Garcia said. La Divina Pastora’s celebration came at a moment when Venezuelans in the diaspora and homeland are navigating uncertainty, big emotions and …