Venezuelan dictator eats empanada on live TV while country starves

(Image credit: Screenshot/Twitter)

published 3 November 2017

Moments after finishing a speech during a live television address, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro pulled out an empanada from his desk and took a big ol' bite:

Moreover, this isn't the first time he's been caught in a food related scandal: An Associated Press report last December detailed how Venezuela's military — to which Maduro gave control over the country's food supply — makes money trafficking food while the rest of the country starves. In August, Reuters reported that Venezuelan police believe zoo animals are being stolen in order to be eaten.

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Kelly O'Meara Morales is a staff writer at The Week. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Middle Eastern history and nonfiction writing amongst other esoteric subjects. When not compulsively checking Twitter, he writes and records music, subsists on tacos, and watches basketball.