Fausta’s Blog

In today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern,

Globovision video report of the demonstration, where Caracas’s Metropolitan Police fired tear gas, water cannon, and rubber bullets at students who were demonstrating for civil rights:

The gutsy woman reporter was in the middle of the whole thing and even continued to report after she and her cameraman donned gas masks.

As I explained in yesterday’s podcast, the students were heading to the National Assembly to demand the right of freedom of speech.

Chavez’s other celebrations included a large rally of his red-shirted followers, and a military parade.

Related reading:
Venezuelan police break up anti-Chavez protest

Venezuelan Engineers’ Association warns against serious energy crisis

In today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern,
More student demonstrations are scheduled for today; on February 4, 1992, Chavez led a failed military coup against elected president Carlos Andres Perez, and was jailed after surrendering.

Related reading:
Venezuela, a Country in Flux
“You can not take pictures in public parks.”
Chavez turns to Cubans for help with energy crisis

Mary O’Grady on the censorship push,

Today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern,
As Hugo Chávez continues to close media outlets, nationalize the economy, and punish demonstrators, he strikes out.
We are witnessing The Chávez Meltdown.

Related reading:
AP’s Ian James’s Analysis: Chavez’s socialist project badly hobbled

At a baseball game in Caracas, the crowd chants, “One, two, three, Chávez you’re struck out”

The Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean will be posted later today.

In today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern,

The headlines on Venezuela:
Monday:
Venezuela President Chavez orders TV station off the air
Today:
Protests continue in Venezuela following 2 deaths
Venezuela protests France TV closure comments
Chavez’s VP resigns amid protests at Venezuela TV closure
Venezuela’s Chavez Names New Vice President, Defense Minister
And,
Chavez Furiously Backtracking As Venezuela Petro-Economy Deteriorates, via Doug Ross.

Prior posts on RCTV.

Welcome to the Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean. Haiti continues to be the top story, but in Venezuela Hugo Chavez is now closing RCTV permanently, continuing to consolidate his power. Seven students from Universidad Santa María (USM), a private university in the state of Anzoátegui (northeastern Venezuela), were injured after the police broke up a demonstration outside the campus.

AMERICAN POLITICS
Univision’s Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Rep. Xavier Becerra regarding President’s Obama’s 1st year (link in Spanish)

ARGENTINA
New Twist in Argentine Currency Fight

Argentina: Cristina Against Everybody Else?

BOLIVIA
Fidel: Protect Morales from ‘the empire’

BRAZIL
Brazil’s presidential biopic
Lula, sanitized: A film for the campaign trail

CHILE
Chile’s presidential election
Piñera promises a gallop: After 20 years, a move to the right

And the winner is, Chile!

Las exitosas Bicicletas Públicas de Providencia

Open letter to Sebastian Pinera

Chile unlikely to lead anti-Chávez bloc

COLOMBIA
Ecopetrol proven oil reserves up 35%; share price falls

CUBA
More on the free healthcare: Twenty-Six Cuban Mental Patients Dead

Cuba: What Globalists Want You to Know

LEAVE CHE ALONE!!!…I MEAN it!!! (part 2)

José Daniel Ferrer García, Cuban Political Prisoner of the Week, 1/24/10

Repairs

ECUADOR
Lawyers for the Government of Ecuador Engage in Revisionist History – Myth of Jurisdiction Exposed

Ecuador Should Stop Interfering With International Arbitration Mandated by Treaty

Humor: Nueva Ley de Comunicación
¡Prohíben photoshopear lluchas! Un grupo de asambleístas considera nocivo el retoque de fotos femenino de contenido erótico.

HAITI
The upside of Yankee imperialism in Haiti

Debate grows in aftermath of quake: Should U.S. let more Haitians immigrate?

Post-earthquake chaos in Haiti
A massive relief effort limps into gear: The world’s attempt to aid Haitians stumbles against extraordinary difficulties of transport and communications

U.S. Military in Haiti: A Compassionate Invasion

And the meme goes on

HONDURAS
Pepe’s deal with Zelaya

Hammering Honduras

Honduras’s new president
Lobo alone: Picking up the post-coup pieces

MEXICO
Mexico: Halting drug war corruption

PANAMA
Supreme Court to Noriega: Bon voyage

VENEZUELA
RCTV international cut-off

¡ESTE PUEBLO YA NO SE DEJA “CARIBEAR”!

Tonight’s baseball game of the final series a hotbed for protests

A January 23 harsh on democracy: RCTV out again and Globovision is the last network in Venezuela to present the opposition views, the rest are pro Chavez or “neutral”, that is, silent.

Venezuela President Chavez orders TV station off the air

Chávez closes down opposition media outlets

Venezuela Orders Cable Providers to Remove RCTV

Hugo Chavez: Circling the Drain?
The Venezuelan would-be dictator has put his country in an accelerating economic collapse.

How Hugo Chavez’s revolution crumbled

During the past two weeks, just before and after the earthquake outside Port-au-Prince, the following happened: Chávez was forced to devalue the Venezuelan currency, and impose and then revoke massive power cuts in the Venezuelan capital as the country reeled from recession, double-digit inflation and the possible collapse of the national power grid. In Honduras, a seven-month crisis triggered by the attempt of a Chávez client to rupture the constitutional order quietly ended with a deal that will send him into exile even as a democratically elected moderate is sworn in as president.

Last but not least, a presidential election in Chile, the region’s most successful economy, produced the first victory by a right-wing candidate since dictator Augusto Pinochet was forced from office two decades ago. Sebastián Piñera, the industrialist and champion of free markets who won, has already done something that no leader from Chile or most other Latin American nations has been willing to do in recent years: stand up to Chávez.

Piñera was only stating the obvious — but it was more than his Socialist predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, or Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been willing to say openly. That silence hamstrung the Bush and the Obama administrations, which felt, rightly or wrongly, that they should not be alone in pointing out Chávez’s assault on democracy. Piñera has now provided Washington an opportunity to raise its voice about Venezuelan human rights violations.

He has done it at a moment when Chávez is already reeling from diplomatic blows. Honduras is one. Though the country is tiny, the power struggle between its established political elite and Chávez acolyte Manuel Zelaya turned into a regional battle between supporters and opponents of the Chávez left — with Brazil and other leftist democracies straddling the middle.

The outcome is a victory for the United States, which was virtually the only country that backed the democratic election that broke the impasse. Honduras is the end of Chávez’s crusade to export his revolution to other countries. Bolivia and Nicaragua will remain his only sure allies. Brazil’s Lula, whose tolerance of Chávez has tarnished his bid to become a global statesman, will leave office at the end of this year; polls show his party’s nominee trailing a more conservative candidate.

Haiti only deepens Chávez’s hole. As the world watches, the United States is directing a massive humanitarian operation, and Haitians are literally cheering the arrival of U.S. Marines. Chávez has no way to reconcile those images with his central propaganda message to Latin Americans, which is that the United States is an “empire” and an evil force in the region.

The week’s posts and podcasts:
Bill for Haiti czar? 15 Minutes on Latin America
Hope among the ruins: the @USNSComfort VIDEO
Just what Haiti needs: John Edwards
Zeyala to go, Nancy rejects the Bill, and other roundup items with VIDEO
Anti-Americanism and the Haiti earthquake: 15 Minutes on Latin America

Post re-edited for omitted items.

Please note there will be no podcast tomorrow due to an appointment change.

Once Denny gets back to blogging, he ought to award the AOTW to Chávez again, to Alain Joyandet, and to Chávez’s buddy Daniel Ortega:

Hugo Chávez says U.S. is using earthquake as pretext for occupying Haiti

Speaking on his weekly television show, Chavez opined that the U.S. mission in Haiti was a ruse to initiate military occupation.

“I read that 3,000 soldiers are arriving, Marines armed as if they were going to war,” Chavez said. “They are occupying Haiti undercover.”

Alleged pedophile and Hugo’s buddy Daniel Ortega last Sunday also warned of US deployment in Haiti

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega says that the United States has taken advantage of the massive quake in Haiti and deployed troops in the country.

“What is happening in Haiti seriously concerns me as US troops have already taken control of the airport,” Ortega said on Saturday.
…
The leftist Nicaraguan president denounced Washington’s move in deploying military forces in Haiti, saying “It seems that the bases (on Latin America) are not sufficient.”

“There is no logic that US troops landed in Haiti. Haiti seeks humanitarian aid, not troops. It would be madness we all began to send troops to Haiti,” said Ortega.

Ortega of course doesn’t give a damn about the security of medical and relief personnel arriving in the island, much less the safety of the Haitians themselves.

Alain Joyandet, the French minister in charge of humanitarian relief, called on the UN to “clarify” the American role amid claims the military build up was hampering aid efforts, because the US is in charge of air traffic control.

The humanitarian catastrophe in Haiti is turning out to be a classic illustration of anti-Americanism in seven easy steps (h/t via Instapundit), predictable as it can be: for some, the US can do no right.

You know the Chávez-Ortega-Joyandet accusations are insane when France’s former prime minister Lionel Jospin came to the US’s defense following the Chavez, Joyandet, and Ortega statements, explaining why the US is helping Haiti.

For that, Chávez, Joyandet & Ortega earned the AOTW so far, but the week is young, so all of them still have plenty of opportunity to further disgrace themselves.

Welcome to the Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean. The two top stories of the week are the Venezuelan currency devaluation, and Argentina’s Central Bank dispute.

LATIN AMERICA
Threat of Terrorism in Latin America

Today’s roundup at The Americano

ARGENTINA
Argentine Leader Fights Bank Move

Argentina’s bank grab
The reserves, or your job: The president’s ultimatum to her Central Bank chief

BRAZIL
Brazil reflects on Lula’s last year

Lula and the generals
Don’t look back: The army blocks a truth commission

CUBA
The Vigil brothers, Cuban Political Prisoners of the Week, 1/10/10

En memoria de Gloria Amaya

Reggaeton

U.S. says contractor arrested in Cuba is no spy

500 Cuban Doctors Manage to Defect Via Venezuela

ECUADOR
Flota aerea Taura trasladada desde ayer a la base de Manta

Ecuador Orgs Reiterates Solidarity with Cuba

HONDURAS
Guest blog: Diaspora, remittances and immigration

MEXICO
A peaceful getaway or a lawless frontier?

Mexican Cartel Skins Rival’s Face, Stitches It on Soccer Ball

Tijuana reels amid a surge of violence
After some gains in Mexico’s drug war in 2009, Tijuana has had a bloody turn of events in the new year. More than a dozen people, four of them students, were reported slain in the last week.

Organised crime in Mexico
Outsmarted by Sinaloa: Why the biggest drug gang has been least hit

A Mexican cult
Death in holy orders: Syncretism in the era of the drug baron. There is a novel on this, named La Virgen de los sicarios, and a movie of the same name.

NICARAGUA
Foto (del abuso) familiar

PANAMA
How to be a wheeler-dealer

PARAGUAY
Señor Topocho

PERU
Peru’s Interbank Names Interim General Manager

PUERTO RICO
Good news: Puerto Rico to Become Cruise Ship Hub of Caribbean

VENEZUELA
Chavez’s 3-Tiered Currency System May Spur Inflation

Venezuelan devaluation and Giordani for dummies!

Chavez Says Dollars Were Sold Very Cheap at Old Rate

By subscription: Chavez To Activate $1 Billion Fund

Chavez’s Devaluation Leaves Venezuelans Jittery About His “Socialism of the 21st Century”

Special thanks to the Baron, Eneas, Maggie and Vlad

The week’s posts and podcasts:
Chavez devalues the currency: 15 Minutes on Latin America
Oliver Stone: “We can’t judge people as only ‘bad’ or ‘good.’”
Chavez devalues currency, creates a distraction
Court reinstates head of Argentina’s Central Bank
Argentina’s central bank impasse: 15 Minutes on Latin America
Al-Qaeda and the FARC – together? 15 Minutes on Latin America
Argentina’s Central Bank director resigns: 15 Minutes on Latin America

In today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern,
Chávez Devalues Currency Amid Oil Fall
Following the announcement, he stated that the military will monitor prices, and threatened to expropriate business that raise prices after the devaluation, in spite of the fact that the devaluation means that

45,9% de los productos adquiridos fuera del país a 2,60 bolívares por dólar ­correspondientes a alimentos, medicinas, algunas remesas y maquinarias­ estarán sujetos a una inflación que no estará por debajo de 20,9%. El restante 54,1% de las compras en el exterior, que se realizan a través de Cadivi, presentarán alzas de precios superiores a 100%.

45.9% of the products coming from outside the country at 2.60 bolívares per dollar corresponding to medicines, foods, some remittances and machinery will be subject to at least 20.9% inflation. The remaining 54.1% of import purchases, which are done through Cadivi, will have price raises of 100%.

The announcement from last Friday evening, which was not made during Chavez’s cadenas, created chaos in Caracas.

Miguel Octavio is Looking beyond the devaluation in Venezuela (Or trying…) and foresees another devaluation next year:

Let me explain. Let us assume that oil holds up and PDVSA sells the Central Bank for example US$ 30 billion. PDVSA will get some Bs. 120 billion to spend. This means that monetary liquidity will grow by a similar amount more or less. That represents an increase of 50% in M2, i.e. even if this money does not multiply, like it will, but let’s keep the argument simple. This means that by December monetary liquidity will reach Bs. 360 billion. Assume that the Central Bank will save US$ 8 billion of the US$ 30 billion, international reserves will reach US$ 36 billion.

This means that for each 10 Bs. in circulation in Venezuela there will be one US$ in the Central Bank. In contrast, today, before Chavez removes the US$ 8 billion, the equivalent number is 6.55 Bs. per $ and in a month it will become Bs. 8.24 per $. Well, as you can see this represents too many Bolivars searching for too few dollars, much like today. There will be 50% (it is actually more, but who cares?) more Bs. in December than yesterday. This will drive inflation and devaluation, as simple as that.Nobody seems to have told Hugo, in contrast with Argentina, where a Court has voided a decree to use international reserves to pay debt and stopped the firing of the President of the Central Bank by Mrs. Kirchner over the issue. Gee, if Chavez had done that with reserves, Venezuela would have no international debt by now, but Argentineans realize it would debase the currency and create inflation, precisely what nobody seems to have explained to Hugo.

Adding to the problem is that now there are two official rates, something Venezuela did back in the 1980s.

WSJ: Venezuela Devaluation Helps Chavez; For Others, It’s Unclear
Bloomberg: Venezuela Bonds Rise to 3-Month High After Chavez’s Devaluation
Reuters: Colombia fears pain from Venezuela devaluation
* Colombia-Venezuela trade already hurt by diplomatic spat
* Venezuela’s Friday devaluation makes imports expensive
* Bi-lateral commerce problems weigh on Colombia’s economy

Spain’s oil company Repsol announced that Spanish businesses (among them Mapfre, BBVA, and Telefónica) will lose US$1.4 billion from the devaluation. Spain’s foreign minister hastened to deny any effect of the devaluation “on Spanish interests.” The devaluation erased more than $1 billion in profits Telefonica has locked up in the country.

For more on the devaluation, go to Miguel’s blog, The Devil’s Excrement, and read on.

The Carnival of Latin America will be up later today.

… says Oliver Stone,

“Stalin, Hitler, Mao, McCarthy — these people have been vilified pretty thoroughly by history,” Stone told reporters at the Television Critics Association’s semi-annual press tour in Pasadena.

Lovely touch of moral equivalence between two mass-murderer dictators who ruled with impunity and an alcoholic senator who was taken down by a journalist, isn’t it?

That’s exactly why we “need” Oliver Stoned to explain it all to us, do we?

“Stalin has a complete other story,” Stone said. “Not to paint him as a hero, but to tell a more factual representation. He fought the German war machine more than any single person. We can’t judge people as only ‘bad’ or ‘good.’ Hitler is an easy scapegoat throughout history and its been used cheaply. He’s the product of a series of actions. It’s cause and effect … People in America don’t know the connection between WWI and WWII … I’ve been able to walk in Stalin’s shoes and Hitler’s shoes to understand their point of view. We’re going to educate our minds and liberalize them and broaden them. We want to move beyond opinions … Go into the funding of the Nazi party. How many American corporations were involved, from GM through IBM. Hitler is just a man who could have easily been assassinated.”

Of course! It’s all the evil American corporations’ fault! That must be it!

But why should anyone or anything be faulted? If Ollie really believes ” We can’t judge people as only ‘bad’ or ‘good,’” why bother have any judgment at all? Why not instead whore oneself with thugs, exactly the way Olly does with Hugo Chavez and that oil money.

Adolf and Stalin were not available for photo-ops

Stoned has the stones to refer to history as “events that at the time went under-reported, but crucially shaped America’s unique and complex history of the last 60 years,” such as,

President Harry Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan and the origins of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

since, of course, the media didn’t bother on either two “event”. But it’s all about empathy with Olly,

“You cannot approach history unless you have empathy for the person you may hate”

Well, if you believe that, you’ll probably sit and watch Olly’s history rewrite… with empathy, of course.

Let’s just hope Ollie wasn’t the talent behind that FARC propaganda video doing the rounds which shows the lovely pastoral agrarian FARC “fighting capitalism single-handedly” because no one else does.

Here’s the video, if you don’t remember it from the other day,

After all, the FARC would tell you they have been “vilified pretty thoroughly” too.

It’s all about the empathy.