The Venezuelan opposition is stepping up its campaign with a “sovereign consultation” on Sunday July 16. The three questions asked in this consultation are about the legitimacy of the Constituent Assembly the government has called for, the need for the armed forces to intervene and remove the government and the formation of a so-called “government of national unity”. The opposition has announced that the consultation on July 16 will be the “zero hour” for a national, permanent and open ended “trancazo” (road blockades), until the “fall of the dictatorship”.

Liberal wonder-boy Emmanuel Macron, the new President of France, last week gave a hair-raising press conference. Speaking at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Macron framed an argument against giving foreign aid to African countries by painting a picture of a feckless “African civilisation” populated by women who – presumably through their own stupidity or lack of self-control – “have seven or eight children”.