An alternate viewpoint (1).

When Maria Corina Machado wins the Nobel Peace Prize, "Peace" has lost its meaning. 

I almost laughed at the absurdity. But I didn't, because there's nothing funny about rewarding someone whose politics have brought so much suffering. Anyone who knows what she stands for knows there's nothing remotely peaceful about her politics.

If this is what counts as "peace" in 2025, then the prize itself has lost every ounce of credibility. I'm Venezuelan-American and I know exactly what Machado represents.

She's the smiling face of Washington's regime-change machine, the polished spokesperson for sanctions, privatisation and foreign intervention dressed up as democracy.

Machado's politics are steeped in violence. She has called for foreign intervention, even appealing directly to Benjamin Netanyahu, the architect of Gaza's annihilation, to help "liberate" Venezuela with bombs under the banner of "freedom." She has demanded sanctions, that silent form of warfare whose effects - as studies in the Lancet and other journals have shown - have killed more people than war, cutting off medicine, food and energy to entire populations.

Machado has spent her entire political life promoting division, eroding Venezuela's sovereignty and denying its people the right to live with dignity.

This is who Maria Corina Machado really is :-

* She helped lead the 2002 coup that briefly overthrew a democratically elected president and signed 

   the Carmona Decree that erased the Constitution and dissolved every public institution overnight.

* She worked hand in hand with Washington to justify regime change, using her platform to demand         foreign military intervention to "liberate" Venezuela through force.

* She cheered on Donald Trump's threats of invasion and his naval deployments in the Caribbean, a

   show of force that risks igniting regional war under the pretext of "combating narcotrafficking."

   While Trump sent warships and froze assets, Machado stood ready to serve as his local proxy,

   promising to deliver Venezuelan sovereignty on a silver platter.

* She pushed for the US sanctions that strangled the economy, knowing exactly who would pay the

   price: the poor, the sick, the working class.

* She helped construct the so-called "interim government" a Washington backed puppet show by a             self-appointed "president" who looted Venezuela's resources abroad while children at home went

   hungry.

* She vows to reopen Venezuela's embassy in Jerusalem, aligning herself openly with the same

   apartheid state that bombs hospitals and calls it self defence.

* Now she wants to hand over the country's oil, water and infrastructure to private corporations. 

   This is the same recipe that made Latin America the laboratory of neoliberal misery in the 1990s.

....to be continued.

Courtesy. Michelle Ellner

Tailpiece.

Got up at a quarter past 4, sleep wasn't forthcoming. Switched on the hymns on the home theatre, lit up the lamp in the puja room and opened up the house for the day.

Lekha made our morning cuppa.

Walked within the house due to the morning rain, recited my prayers.

Bath and breakfast. Worked on my laptop.

Rema and Byja arrived by a quarter past 11. A boisterous lunch!

Siesta.

The Asian Paint's technical team inspected the seepage on the roof. Remedial action will be taken from 05 Nov due to the rain and our forthcoming journeys.

Rema, Byja went for the 'darshan' in the evening.

A boisterous dinner followed by yakkitiyak. A late night.