Caracas
Looting the state: Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is propping up his regime by selling off the country’s gold reserves. Over the past three months, the authoritarian leader has skirted U.S. sanctions by hawking some 24 tons of gold to firms in places such as Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, draining Venezuela’s dollar reserves to a near-three-decade low of $8.1 billion. U.S. sanctions have largely isolated Venezuela from the global financial system. Maduro’s regime asked Moscow this week if it could join an independent banking system Russia has set up that bypasses the Belgium-based, international financial-messaging system known as SWIFT.