VENEZUELA SLIPS TOWARDS FORMAL DEBT DEFAULT

Venezuela slipped inexorably towards a formal debt default Friday, with analysts saying it was all but inevitable for the sinking OPEC state which owes about $150 billion. A group of creditors assembled under the aegis of a global financial body, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, will meet in New York at 11:00 am (1600 GMT) to review whether an overdue $1.1 billion payment on a bond issued by Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA has triggered a “credit event.” President Nicolas Maduro’s cash-strapped socialist government must repay at least $81 million on another PDVSA bond by this weekend, at least $1.47 billion interest on various bonds by the end of the year, and then about $8 billion in 2018.