What We're Reading
March 20, 2012
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Monday that his government has received word of plans for an attack on his leading rival.
Chavez did not give details but said his government had information of a possible plot against opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles.
“I have information they want to attack Capriles, and we’ve offered security for his team,” Chavez said in a telephone call broadcast live on state television.
The president said the director of the national intelligence agency met with Capriles’ team. As for who might be behind such plans, Chavez said, “it’s not the government, not at all.”
“As a government, we’re obliged to get involved in this situation and provide protection to any Venezuelan, and above all in this context,” Chavez said.
He said his government believes that “foreign groups or sectors” are behind the plans, the government-run radio station YVKE Mundial reported.
March 15, 2012
MIAMI - On a wall in Havana's Combinado del Este prison, there's a quote from Fidel Castro boasting of his revolution's effort to educate Cubans, even those in prison: "Wherever the uneducated may be ... let's educate them."
The sign, 11 words in Spanish, has two glaring misspellings.
March 15, 2012
"‘Dictatorfest’ is taking place today at the UN Human Rights Council, with all benefits going to the Venezuelan regime.
“In order to ensure that it is not held accountable for its human rights violations during its Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council, Venezuela has stacked the debate time with representatives from like-minded oppressive dictatorships. Chavez’s cronies from the abusive regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, China, Burma, Iran, and Syria are all guaranteed a platform to speak, while the voices of responsible nations will largely not be heard.
“It is outrageous and dangerous that tyrants continue to hijack the Human Rights Council and other UN bodies in order to protect each other, while condemning free democracies such as the United States and Israel.
“Hugo Chavez has ruthlessly expanded his authority in Venezuela at the expense of the fundamental freedoms of the Venezuelan people. By monopolizing the debate time today at the UN, Chavez is once again demonstrating that he fears the voices of free people, and the UN is again demonstrating its fecklessness in the face of the world’s dictators.”
March 15, 2012
(Reuters) - The unity that helped Mexico's ruling conservatives end seven decades of one-party rule is cracking under the weight of infighting, scandal and defections that threaten their hopes of retaining the presidency in July.
Eleven years after President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party, or PAN, first took power, the party is battling accusations it has succumbed to corruption and vote-rigging, and betrayed its founding principles.
Some prominent figures have turned their back on the party because they feel it has stooped to the cronyism and fraud it once fought to overcome, undermining the campaign of PAN presidential candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota.
The PAN's leadership remains united but the divisions below have put it on the defensive, and Vazquez Mota faces an uphill battle against presidential front-runner Enrique Pena Nieto of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. She trails him in polls by between 7 and 18 percentage points.
The PRI had 71 years of often autocratic and corrupt rule until Calderon's predecessor Vicente Fox won a 2000 election. But the PAN's own record has been tarnished in recent months.
"Instead of everything it touches turning to gold, it corrupts everything it touches," Manuel Clouthier Jr., son of former PAN stalwart and presidential candidate Manuel Clouthier, said of the government as he quit the PAN last month.
The younger Clouthier launched his own presidential bid and is one of the current and former PAN faithful seething about how the party selected its candidates last month for federal and local elections also being held on July 1.
March 15, 2012
A Fox News report from Wednesday night's On the Record with Greta Van Susteren indicates violent Mexican cartels have infiltrated Europe, specifically, Britain, France and the Netherlands.
Oscar Hagelsieb, a U.S. Homeland Security special agent, says intelligence and sources have indicated cartels have spread to Europe, Africa, and in the Middle East.
"Compared to a year, and I point back to my time in Mexico, I believe that the cartels have grown in violence and in tactics and ruthlessness," Hagelsieb said.
"Right now what we see is that this cartel violence has taken hold. We attribute to that perhaps the cartels are in a wait-and-see posture with an election coming up. They are trying to determine if the new administration will be as vigorous in pursuing them as the Calderón administration."
The video clip is above and the transcript of the exchange between Van Susteren and Hagelsieb is below.
VAN SUSTEREN: This is the ignored crisis. We have been telling you this almost nightly ON THE RECORD. We have taken you to Mexico. Mexican cartels are vicious, violent and growing out of control. It is no longer a war in Mexico saving their citizens and spilling onto our streets.
Tonight, we can report that they are in Europe, in Britain, France, and the Netherlands.
Oscar Hagelsieb is a U.S. homeland security special agent. He joins us. Good evening, sir. And tell me, am I right that these Mexican cartels have now spread to Europe?
March 15, 2012
When President Hugo Chávez returns to Venezuela this week after an operation in Cuba to remove a cancerous lesion, he will find a country swirling with rumours.
With less than seven months to go before presidential elections, few know the true state of the socialist leader’s health. It is unclear whether he will even be able to stand, let alone campaign effectively, as he faces several weeks of radiotherapy and perhaps other treatment following his return from Havana.
“We’re all praying for a speedy recovery for our Comandante,” self-confessed diehard chavista Glenda Colmenares said outside a church in central Caracas. “This is a difficult time for us but we have to have faith that Chávez will be OK. Without him there is no revolution.”
There has been a palpable mood change in Venezuela since the start of the year, when the president appeared to have returned to larger-than-life form after his illness. Perhaps to prove the point, in January he gave what may have been the longest ever presidential speech, talking for almost 10 hours nonstop, assuring Venezuelans that he was “completely cured” from the cancer he was diagnosed with last June.
“The resurgence of Chávez’s illness has generated a climate of uncertainty,” said Maryclen Stelling, a Caracas-based sociologist who suspects that political tensions will heighten.
March 14, 2012
Thirteen Cuban dissidents have occupied a Catholic church in Havana, demanding an audience with Pope Benedict when he visits Cuba later this month.
The dissidents want the Pope to press Cuba's communist government on issues such as the release of political prisoners and an end to repression.
The Catholic Church in Cuba condemned the protest, saying places of worship should not be used for political demonstrations.
The Pope is due in Cuba on 26 March.
Dissident William Cepera said the eight women and five men had entered the Church of Charity of Cobre in central Havana on Tuesday night.
Peaceful occupation
They were staying in an area off-limits to worshippers.
The church has been partially closed, only allowing in pilgrims who have come to see the image of the Virgin of the Charity of Cobre.
Mr Cepera said the group was determined to meet Pope Benedict.
"We would like to talk to the Pope and tell him that the government of Fidel and Raul (Castro) has released only some prisoners, but other political prisoners remain", he said.
The Catholic Church in Cuba has acted as a mediator between dissidents and the government, successfully negotiating the release of 75 political prisoners over the past years.
But Cuban Catholic Church spokesman Orlando Marquez condemned the action and called on the group to leave immediately.
March 14, 2012
While the United States and NATO keep watch over Iran’s activities at its nuclear facilities and the Strait of Hormuz, the Islamic Republic has been outflanking the West with the help of anti-American regimes in Latin America.
As a response to Iran’s continued efforts to build an atomic bomb, President Obama recently announced new measures freezing Iranian assets in this country. At the same time, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, publicly warned of a possible Iranian attack on U.S. soil.
Iranian presence in several countries of the hemisphere has been documented, but many activities remain a mystery. One unconventional mechanism developed by Iran, with the help of Venezuela and Ecuador, is a way to bypass the economic sanctions, as Iran may be using a parallel financial system operated by members of ALBA countries — the Cuba-Venezuela-Bolivia-Ecuador-Nicaragua axis — to elude financial sanctions by the West and engage in money-laundering.
|
|
