Constitution of Venezuela
The Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is the current and twenty-sixth constitution of Venezuela. It was drafted in mid-1999 by a constitutional assembly, created by popular referendum. Adopted in December 1999, it replaced the 1961 Constitution, the longest-serving in Venezuelan history, it was promoted by President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez and thereafter received strong backing from diverse sectors, including figures involved in promulgating the 1961 constitution such as Luis Miquilena and Carlos Andrés Pérez. Chávez and his followers refer to the 1999 document as the "Constitución Bolivariana" because they assert that it is ideologically descended from the thinking and political philosophy of Simón Bolívar and Bolivarianism. Since the creation of the Constituent National Assembly in August 2017, the Bolivarian government has declared the 1999 constitution suspended until a new constitution is created; the Constitution of 1999 was the first constitution approved by popular referendum in Venezuelan history, summarily inaugurated the so-called "Fifth Republic of Venezuela" due to the socioeconomic changes foretold in its pages, as well as the official change in Venezuela's name from the República de Venezuela to the República Bolivariana de Venezuela.
Major changes are made to the structure of Venezuela's government and responsibilities, while a much greater number of human rights are enshrined in the document as guaranteed to all Venezuelans – including free education up to tertiary level, free health care, access to a clean environment, right of minorities to uphold their own traditional cultures and languages, among others. The 1999 Constitution, with 350 articles, is among the world's longest, most complicated, most comprehensive constitutions. One of the outstanding differences between Venezuelan and most of the other constitutions of the Americas is the lack of the possibility of impeachment of the president by the national parliament. Instead, it enables citizens to remove the president through a recall referendum. President Hugo Chávez was first elected under the provisions of the 1961 Constitution in the presidential election of 6 December 1998. Chávez had been contemplating a constitutional convention for Venezuela as an ideal means to bring about sweeping and radical social change to Venezuela beginning from the eve of his 1992 coup attempt.
Chávez would state that: We discussed how to break with the past, how to overcome this type of democracy that only responds to the interests of the oligarchical sectors. We had always rejected the idea of a traditional military coup, of a military dictatorship, or of a military governing junta. We were aware of what happened in Colombia, in the years of 1990–1991, when there was a constitutional assembly – of course! – it was limited because in the end it was subordinated to the existing powers. It was the existing powers that designed Colombia’s constitutional assembly and got it going and, therefore, it could not transform the situation because it was a prisoner of the existing powers and thoughts. After his imprisonment and release, he began to seek a political career with such a convention as its political goal. Thus, in the 1998 presidential elections, one of Chávez's electoral promises was to organise a referendum asking the people if they wanted to convene a National Constituent Assembly.
His first decree as president was thus to order such a referendum, which took place on 19 April. The electorate were asked two questions – whether a constituent assembly should be convened, whether it should follow the mechanisms proposed by the president; the "yes" vote in response to these two question totalled 92% and 86%, respectively. Elections were held, on 25 July, to elect 131 deputies to the Constituent Assembly, which convened and debated proposals during the remainder of 1999. Chávez's widespread popularity allowed the constitutional referendum to pass with a 72%'yes' vote. Chávez's Polo Patriotico went on to win 92% of the seats in the new voter-approved Venezuelan Constitutional Assembly. Conflict soon arose between the Constitutional Assembly and the older institutions it was supposed to reform or replace. During his 1998 presidential campaign, in advance of the 25 July elections to the Assembly, Chávez had maintained that the new body would have precedence over the existing Congress and the courts, including the power to dissolve them if it so chose.
Against this, some of his opponents, including notably the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Cecilia Sosa Gomez, argued that the Constitutional Assembly must remain subordinate to the existing institutions until the constitution it produced had been ratified. In mid August 1999, the Constitutional Assembly moved to restructure the nation's judiciary, claiming the power to fire judges, seeking to expedite the investigations of corruption outstanding against what the New York Times estimated were nearly half of the nation's 4700 judges and bailiffs. On 23 August, the Supreme Court voted 8–6 that the Assembly was not acting unconstitutionally in assuming those powers. Over 190 judges were suspended on charges of corruption. On 25 August, the Constitutional Assembly declared a "legislative emergency," voting to limit the Congress's work to matters such as supervising the budget and communications. In response
Spanish colonization of the Americas
The overseas expansion under the Crown of Castile was initiated under the royal authority and first accomplished by the Spanish conquistadors. The Americas were incorporated into the Spanish Empire, with the exception of Brazil, the eastern United States and several other small countries in South America and The Caribbean; the crown created religious structures to administer the region. The motivations for colonial expansion were trade and the spread of the Catholic faith through indigenous conversions. Beginning with the 1492 arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean and continuing control of vast territory for over three centuries, the Spanish Empire would expand across the Caribbean Islands, half of South America, most of Central America and much of North America, it is estimated that during the colonial period, a total of 1.86 million Spaniards settled in the Americas and a further 3.5 million immigrated during the post-colonial era. In contrast, the indigenous population plummeted by an estimated 80% in the first century and a half following Columbus's voyages through the spread of Afro-Eurasian diseases.
This has been argued to be the first large-scale act of genocide in the modern era, although this claim is disputed due to the unintended nature of the disease introduction, considered a byproduct of Columbian exchange. Racial mixing was a central process in the Spanish colonization of the Americas, led to the Latin American identity, which combines Hispanic and native American ethnicities. Spain enjoyed a cultural golden age in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when silver and gold from American mines financed a long series of European and North African wars. In the early 19th century, the Spanish American wars of independence resulted in the secession and subsequent balkanization of most Spanish colonies in the Americas, except for Cuba and Puerto Rico, which were given up in 1898, following the Spanish–American War, together with Guam and the Philippines in the Pacific. Spain's loss of these last territories politically ended the Spanish rule in the Americas; the Catholic Monarchs Isabella of Castile, Queen of Castile and her husband King Ferdinand, King of Aragon, pursued a policy of joint rule of their kingdoms and created a single Spanish monarchy.
Though Castile and Aragon were ruled jointly by their respective monarchs, they remained separate kingdoms. The Catholic Monarchs gave official approval for the plans of Genoese mariner Christopher Columbus for a voyage to reach India by sailing West; the funding came from the queen of Castile, so the profits from Spanish expedition flowed to Castile. In the extension of Spanish sovereignty to its overseas territories, authority for expeditions of discovery and settlement resided in the monarchy. Columbus made four voyages to the West Indies as the monarchs granted Columbus the governorship of the new territories, financed more of his trans-Atlantic journeys, he founded La Navidad on the island named Hispaniola, in what is the present-day Haiti on his first voyage. After its destruction by the indigenous Taino people, the town of Isabella was begun in 1493, on his second voyage. In 1496 his brother, founded Santo Domingo. By 1500, despite a high death rate, there were between 300 and 1000 Spanish settled in the area.
The local Taíno people continued to resist, refusing to plant crops and abandoning their Spanish-occupied villages. The first mainland explorations were followed by a phase of inland expeditions and conquest. In 1500 the city of Nueva Cádiz was founded on the island of Cubagua, followed by the founding of Santa Cruz by Alonso de Ojeda in present-day Guajira peninsula. Cumaná in Venezuela was the first permanent settlement founded by Europeans in the mainland Americas, in 1501 by Franciscan friars, but due to successful attacks by the indigenous people, it had to be refounded several times, until Diego Hernández de Serpa's foundation in 1569; the Spanish abandoned it within the year. There is indirect evidence that the first permanent Spanish mainland settlement established in the Americas was Santa María la Antigua del Darién; the Spanish conquest of Mexico is understood to be the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, the base for conquests of other regions. Conquests were protracted campaigns with less spectacular results than the conquest of the Aztecs.
The Spanish conquest of Yucatán, the Spanish conquest of Guatemala, the war of Mexico's west, the Chichimeca War in northern Mexico expanded Spanish control over territory and indigenous populations. But not until the Spanish conquest of Peru was the conquest of the Aztecs matched in scope by the victory over the Inca empire in 1532; the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire was led by Hernán Cortés. The victory over the Aztecs was quick, from 1519 to 1521, aided by his Tlaxcala and other allies from indigenous city-states or altepetl; these polities allied against the Aztec empire, to which they paid tribute following conquest or threat of conquest, leaving the city-states' political hierarchy and social structure in place. The Spanish conquest of Yucatán was a much longer campaign, from 1551 to 1697, against the Maya peoples in the Yucatán Peninsula of present-day Mexico and northern Central America. Hernán Cortés' landing ashore at present day Veracruz and founding the Spanish city there on April 22, 1519
Municipality
A municipality is a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. It is to be distinguished from the county, which may encompass rural territory or numerous small communities such as towns and hamlets; the term municipality may mean the governing or ruling body of a given municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district; the term is derived from French Latin municipalis. The English word municipality derives from the Latin social contract municipium, referring to the Latin communities that supplied Rome with troops in exchange for their own incorporation into the Roman state while permitting the communities to retain their own local governments. A municipality can be any political jurisdiction from a sovereign state, such as the Principality of Monaco, to a small village, such as West Hampton Dunes, New York.
The territory over which a municipality has jurisdiction may encompass only one populated place such as a city, town, or village several of such places only parts of such places, sometimes boroughs of a city such as the 34 municipalities of Santiago, Chile. Powers of municipalities range from virtual autonomy to complete subordination to the state. Municipalities may have the right to tax individuals and corporations with income tax, property tax, corporate income tax, but may receive substantial funding from the state. In various countries, municipalities are referred to as "communes", notably in Romance languages such as French commune, Italian comune, Romanian comună, Spanish comuna, in Germanic languages such as German Kommune, Swedish kommun, Faroese kommuna, Norwegian, Danish kommune. However, in Moldova and Romania exist both municipalities and communes, a commune may be part of a municipality. Similar terms include Spanish ayuntamiento called municipalidad, Polish gmina, Dutch/Flemish Gemeente and Luxembourgish Gemeng.
In Australia, the term local government area is used in place of the generic municipality. Here, the "LGA Structure covers only incorporated areas of Australia. Incorporated areas are designated parts of states and territories over which incorporated local governing bodies have responsibility." In Canada, municipalities are local governments established through provincial and territorial legislation within general municipal statutes. Types of municipalities within Canada include cities, district municipalities, municipal districts, parishes, rural municipalities, townships and villes among others; the Province of Ontario has different tiers of municipalities, including lower and single tiers. Types of upper tier municipalities in Ontario include regional municipalities. Nova Scotia has regional municipalities, which include cities, districts, or towns as municipal units. In India, a Municipality or Nagar Palika is an urban local body that administers a city of population 100,000 or more. However, there are exceptions to that, as Municipality were constituted in urban centers with population over 20,000, so all the urban bodies which were classified as Municipality were reclassified as Municipality if their population was under 100,000.
Under the Panchayati Raj system, it interacts directly with the state government, though it is administratively part of the district it is located in. Smaller district cities and bigger towns have a Municipality. Municipality are a form of local self-government entrusted with some duties and responsibilities, as enshrined in the Constitutional Act,1992. In the United Kingdom, the term was used until the 1972 Local Government Act came into effect in 1974 in England and Wales, until 1975 in Scotland and 1976 in Northern Ireland, "both for a city or town, organized for self-government under a municipal corporation, for the governing body itself; such a corporation in Great Britain consists of a head as a mayor or provost, of superior members, as aldermen and councillors". Since local government reorganisation, the unit in England, Northern Ireland and Wales is known as a district, in Scotland as a council area. A district can retain its district title. In Jersey, a municipality refers to the honorary officials elected to run each of the 12 parishes into which it is subdivided.
This is the highest level of regional government in this jurisdiction. In Trinidad and Tobago, "municipality" is understood as a city, town, or other local government unit, formed by municipal charter from the state as a municipal corporation. A town may be awarded borough status and on may be upgraded to city status. Chaguanas, San Fernando, Port of Spain and Point Fortin are the 5 current municipalities in Trinidad and Tobago. In the United States, "municipality" is understood as a city, village, or other local government unit, formed by municipal charter from the state as a municipal corporation. In a state law contex
2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis
A crisis concerning, the legitimate President of Venezuela has been underway since 10 January 2019, when the opposition-majority National Assembly declared that incumbent Nicolás Maduro's 2018 reelection was invalid and the body declared its president, Juan Guaidó, to be acting president of the nation. The process and results of the May 2018 Venezuelan presidential election were disputed; the National Assembly declared Maduro illegitimate on the day of his second inauguration, citing the 1999 Constitution of Venezuela enacted under Hugo Chávez, Maduro's predecessor. Minutes after Maduro took the oath as president of Venezuela, the Organization of American States approved a resolution in a special session of its Permanent Council declaring Maduro's presidency illegitimate and urging new elections. Special meetings of the OAS on 24 January and in the United Nations Security Council on 26 January were held but no consensus was reached. Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres called for dialogue.
Maduro's government states that the crisis is a "coup d'état led by the United States to topple him and control the country's oil reserves." Guaidó denies the coup allegations. As of March 2019, Guaidó has been recognized as the interim president of Venezuela by 54 countries, "including the US and most Latin American and European countries". AP News reported that "familiar geopolitical sides" had formed with allies Russia, Iran and Cuba supporting Maduro, the US, most of Western Europe supporting Guaidó as interim president. Since 2010, Venezuela has been suffering a socioeconomic crisis under Nicolás Maduro, as rampant crime and shortages diminish the quality of life; as a result of discontent with the government, the opposition was elected to hold the majority in the National Assembly for the first time since 1999 following the 2015 parliamentary election. After the election, the lame duck National Assembly—consisting of Bolivarian officials—filled the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, the highest court in Venezuela, with Maduro allies.
The tribunal stripped three opposition lawmakers of their National Assembly seats in early 2016, citing alleged "irregularities" in their elections, thereby preventing an opposition supermajority which would have been able to challenge President Maduro. In January 2016, the National Assembly declared a "health humanitarian crisis" given the "serious shortage of medicines, medical supplies and deterioration of humanitarian infrastructure", asking Maduro's government to "guarantee immediate access to the list of essential medicines that are basic and indispensable and that must be accessible at all times"; the tribunal approved several actions by Maduro and granted him more powers in 2017. As protests mounted against Maduro, he called for a constituent assembly that would draft a new constitution to replace the 1999 Venezuela Constitution created under Chávez. Many countries considered these actions a bid by Maduro to stay in power indefinitely, over 40 countries stated that they would not recognize the 2017 Constituent National Assembly.
The Democratic Unity Roundtable—the opposition to the incumbent ruling party—boycotted the election, saying that the ANC was "a trick to keep in power". Since the opposition did not participate in the election, the incumbent Great Patriotic Pole, dominated by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, won all seats in the assembly by default. On 8 August 2017, the ANC declared itself to be the government branch with supreme power in Venezuela, banning the opposition-led National Assembly from performing actions that would interfere with the assembly while continuing to pass measures in "support and solidarity" with President Maduro stripping the National Assembly of all its powers. Maduro disavowed the National Assembly in 2017. In February 2018, Maduro called for presidential elections four months before the prescribed date, he was declared the winner in May 2018 after multiple major opposition parties were banned from participating, among other irregularities. Politicians both internally and internationally said Maduro was not legitimately elected, considered him an ineffective dictator.
In the months leading up to his 10 January 2019 inauguration, Maduro was pressured to step down by nations and bodies including the Lima Group, the United States, the OAS. Between the May 2018 presidential election and Maduro's inauguration, there were calls to establish a transitional government. In December 2018, Guaidó had traveled to Washington D. C. and met with OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro, on 14 January 2019 to Colombia for a Lima Group meeting, in which Maduro's mandate was rejected. According to an article in El País, the January Lima Group meeting and the stance taken by Canada's Chrystia Freeland were key. El País describes Donald Trump's election—coinciding with the election of conservative presidents in Colombia and Brazil, along with deteriorating conditions in Venezuela—as "a perfect storm", with decisions influenced by US vice-president Mike Pence, United States Secretary of State Pompeo, National Security advisor John R. Bolton, legislators Mario Díaz-Balart and Marco Rubio.
Venezuelans Carlos Vecchio
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the South American continent's southeastern coast. "Buenos Aires" can be translated as "fair winds" or "good airs", but the former was the meaning intended by the founders in the 16th century, by the use of the original name "Real de Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Ayre". The Greater Buenos Aires conurbation, which includes several Buenos Aires Province districts, constitutes the fourth-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas, with a population of around 15.6 million. The city of Buenos Aires is the Province's capital. In 1880, after decades of political infighting, Buenos Aires was federalized and removed from Buenos Aires Province; the city limits were enlarged to include the towns of Flores. The 1994 constitutional amendment granted the city autonomy, hence its formal name: Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, its citizens first elected a chief of government in 1996.
Buenos Aires is considered an'alpha city' by the study GaWC5. Buenos Aires' quality of life was ranked 91st in the world, being one of the best in Latin America in 2018, it is the most visited city in South America, the second-most visited city of Latin America. Buenos Aires is a top tourist destination, is known for its preserved Eclectic European architecture and rich cultural life. Buenos Aires held the 1st Pan American Games in 1951 as well as hosting two venues in the 1978 FIFA World Cup. Buenos Aires hosted the 2018 the 2018 G20 summit. Buenos Aires is a multicultural city, being home to multiple religious groups. Several languages are spoken in the city in addition to Spanish, contributing to its culture and the dialect spoken in the city and in some other parts of the country; this is because in the last 150 years the city, the country in general, has been a major recipient of millions of immigrants from all over the world, making it a melting pot where several ethnic groups live together and being considered one of the most diverse cities of the Americas.
It is recorded under the archives of Aragonese that Catalan missionaries and Jesuits arriving in Cagliari under the Crown of Aragon, after its capture from the Pisans in 1324 established their headquarters on top of a hill that overlooked the city. The hill was known to them as Bonaira, as it was free of the foul smell prevalent in the old city, adjacent to swampland. During the siege of Cagliari, the Catalans built a sanctuary to the Virgin Mary on top of the hill. In 1335, King Alfonso the Gentle donated the church to the Mercedarians, who built an abbey that stands to this day. In the years after that, a story circulated, claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary was retrieved from the sea after it miraculously helped to calm a storm in the Mediterranean Sea; the statue was placed in the abbey. Spanish sailors Andalusians, venerated this image and invoked the "Fair Winds" to aid them in their navigation and prevent shipwrecks. A sanctuary to the Virgin of Buen Ayre would be erected in Seville.
In the first foundation of Buenos Aires, Spanish sailors arrived thankfully in the Río de la Plata by the blessings of the "Santa Maria de los Buenos Aires", the "Holy Virgin Mary of the Good Winds", said to have given them the good winds to reach the coast of what is today the modern city of Buenos Aires. Pedro de Mendoza called the city "Holy Mary of the Fair Winds", a name suggested by the chaplain of Mendoza's expedition – a devotee of the Virgin of Buen Ayre – after the Sardinian Madonna de Bonaria. Mendoza's settlement soon came under attack by indigenous people, was abandoned in 1541. For many years, the name was attributed to a Sancho del Campo, said to have exclaimed: How fair are the winds of this land!, as he arrived. But Eduardo Madero, in 1882 after conducting extensive research in Spanish archives concluded that the name was indeed linked with the devotion of the sailors to Our Lady of Buen Ayre. A second settlement was established in 1580 by Juan de Garay, who sailed down the Paraná River from Asunción.
Garay preserved the name chosen by Mendoza, calling the city Ciudad de la Santísima Trinidad y Puerto de Santa María del Buen Aire. The short form "Buenos Aires" became the common usage during the 17th century; the usual abbreviation for Buenos Aires in Spanish is Bs. As, it is common as well to refer to it as "B. A." or "BA". While "BA" is used more by expats residing in the city, the locals more use the abbreviation "Baires", in one word. Seaman Juan Díaz de Solís, navigating in the name of Spain, was the first European to reach the Río de la Plata in 1516, his expedition was cut short when he was killed during an attack by the native Charrúa tribe in what is now Uruguay. The city of Buenos Aires was first established as Ciudad de Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Ayre after Our Lady of Bonaria on 2 February 1536 by a Spanish expedition led by Pedro de Mendoza; the settlement founded by Mendoza was located in what is today the San Telmo district of Buenos Aires, south of the city centre. More attacks by the indigenous
