Fausta's Blog

Belkis Cantillo, second from the left.

Cuba’s Communist regime has telegraphed a message to dissidents Orlando Luis Pardo ‏@OLPL, Yoani Sánchez @yoanisanchez, Rosa María Payá @RosaMariaPaya, and any others who were allowed to travel outside the country:
One week after returning to Cuba, Lady in White is missing after being beaten and arrested by Castro State Security

Yesterday, the Castro regime carried out its usual Sunday of violent repression against members of Cuba’s peaceful human rights group the Ladies in White when they joined together for Sunday church services as they do every Sunday. As the women stepped out of the church after Sunday mass in the town of Palma Soriano, they were met by Castro State Security agents who began to viciously punch them and beat them with umbrellas before placing them under arrest.

Among the Ladies in White victimized by the violence of the Castro dictatorship was Belkis Cantillo, a Lady in White who just a week ago was in Brussels to take part in the long overdue acceptance of the Sakharov Prize the group had won in 2005. Ms. Cantillo was one of the women who was beaten and arrested by the Castro political police before being arrested and taken away. As of this morning, her physical condition and whereabouts are unknown.

In record time, From Brussels to a Cuban Prison in just one week.

In Italy, Yoani Sánchez was “greeted” by this,

A meteor lit up the night last Sunday in Argentina, but the big news wasn’t the meteor, it was the courts. Mary O’Grady writes on how Kirchner Targets Argentina’s Judiciary

Congressional midterm elections are set for October and the kirchneristas are desperate to win a majority so that they can change the law to allow the president to run for a third term. To reach that goal, the government decided that more cooperation from the courts is in order.

Mrs. Kirchner’s government drafted and Congress has now approved a law that, among other things, does away with existing rules for picking members of the magistrate council, the body that chooses and can impeach federal judges. Those rules ensured that the council would be made up of a politically mixed group of individuals chosen by politicians, judges, lawyers and academics.

In their place, the reform stipulates that the council will be elected by popular vote in the same election that chooses the president—raising the likelihood that the executive will control the judiciary. If 51% of voters want judges who will strip the other 49% of their property, so be it. The reform also limits to six months any injunction against a government policy, conveniently destroying the protection that Clarin now enjoys. There will also be new appellate courts with judges appointed by the council.

Caudilla Cristina: divide the opposition, take control of all the institutions, demonize a foreign country to create a common enemy.
ARGENTINA
36 Hours in Salta, Argentina

BRAZIL
‘Problems’ as Maracana stadium reopens in Rio

CARIBBEAN
US tries new aerial tools in Caribbean drug fight (H/T DP)

COLOMBIA
Colombia’s FARC guerrillas thank US lawmakers for supporting Havana peace process

CUBA
Rosa Maria Paya, you have the Castro dictatorship’s attention

Note to AP: Mariela Castro is a Cuban Regime Official

Woman indicted in Cuba spy case is in Sweden and out of U.S. reach

ECUADOR
Government of Ecuador to sue newspaper La Hora for a third time

GUATEMALA
Guatemala’s genocide trial
Playing for time
The spectre of never-ending impunity returns to a divided country

MEXICO
USDA/Mexico Spanish-language flyer: Get kids on food stamps without showing documents

Thirteen die in Mexico prison battle
At least 13 people die and dozens are injured after fighting breaks out between rival groups of inmates at a prison in central Mexico.

PANAMA
Fossil of “most ancient” monkey of Americas found in Panama Canal

PARAGUAY
Paraguay’s elections
Return of the Colorados
A tobacco magnate promises change in one of South America’s poorest countries

PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rico Teams Take Top Spots at 20th NASA Great Moonbuggy Race

St. LUCIA
‘Miracle’ survival after St Lucia fishing boat sinks

VENEZUELA
Arrestan en Venezuela al ex general Antonio Rivero
El ex general denunció en el pasado la “cubanización” de las fuerzas armadas venezolanas y presentó ante la fiscalía casos de intromisión.

Viceroy Maduro swears fealty to his supreme overlord King Raul

INFORME ESPECIAL: Resumen de los principales casos de represión del Gobierno de Venezuela a Grupos Estudiantiles. Enero-Abril 2013

General Carlos Julio Peñaloza
CUBA CONTROLÓ ELECCIONES MEDIANTE RED SECRETA, pag.14

Escuchen a Diosdado Cabello dando instrucciones contra Capriles en reunión privada en Margarita

The Cubanization of Venezuela: Cuba creates 5-million Venezuelan voters out of thin air

Chavismo: from XXI century socialism to XXI century fascism

The week’s posts and podcast:
Venezuela: Maduro has US citizen arrested

Argentina: The high cost of not doing business

Cuba: no off-shore oil

Venezuela: Persecuting Capriles

Argentina: Sunday meteor

Mexico: Striking teachers dig in their heels

Venezuela: You call that an audit?

Podcast:
In Silvio Canto’s podcast, talking to Jon Perdue.

The drilling platforms are leaving:
Cuba’s Oil Bust

Last week, Florida’s Sun Sentinel reported that “after spending nearly $700 million during a decade, energy companies from around the world have all but abandoned their search for oil in deep waters off the north coast of Cuba near Florida.” Separately, CubaStandard.com reported on Friday that “the shallow-water drilling platform used by Russian oil company OAO Zarubezhneft will leave Cuban waters June 1, to be redeployed to Asia.”
…
The Brazilian state-owned Petrobras PETR4.BR -0.05% had given up on deep-sea drilling in Cuban waters in 2011. Repsol REP.MC -0.60% gave up in May 2012. The deep water platform it was using was then passed to Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas, which also came up empty. Venezuela’s PdVSA had no luck either. In November Cuba announced that the rig that had been in use would be heading to Asia. Last week came the end of shallow-water drilling.

And,

The loss to the regime is not just about the foreign exchange that oil implied. The threat of spills, as well as lost opportunity for American companies, were ways for Cuba to engage the U.S. and perhaps even get the embargo lifted without having to make any human-rights concessions. Some Democrats, whose party is more often found in opposition to oil exploration, tried to help.

This also means that the Cuban Communist regime will try harder to keep those daily 100,000 barrels of Venezuelan oil coming, regardless; as you may recall, ending that gift is one of Capriles campaign promises.

In Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, at least according to the chavista-controlled board of election, won last night. Henrique Capriles Radonski demanded a recount, asserting that electoral fraud had taken place. Here’s his speech last night (in Spanish),

In his speech, Capriles said he wants the Cuban military out of Venezuela’s government and institutions. As Mary O’Grady said, The Castro regime wasn’t going to allow an easy victory for the opposition candidate who has pledged to stop sending oil to Havana.

By now, ballot boxes are turning up,

(PHOTO) Found in dumpster boxes of votes that Chavistas stole from the centers RT #Venezuela2013 #VenezuelaSomosTodos twitter.com/IvonneKinser/s…

— Ivonne Kinser (@IvonneKinser) April 15, 2013

@douglirodil RT @cynthia823: Por favor RT! Estan botando las cajas! Terminamos d recoger 1 en avenida en Puerto Ordaz twitter.com/Cynthia823/sta…

— ricardo colon (@Riccolon) April 15, 2013

Maduro’s acceptance speech was a double dose of crazy.

ARGENTINA
Argentina’s economy
Gaucho blues
A dollar shortage bites

Via The Argentine Post, a link I missed when it was first posted,
Argentina’s Plan for Iran

BRAZIL
Brazilian state of Acre in illegal immigration alert
The Brazilian state of Acre has declared a state of emergency after a surge of illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bolivia and Peru.

CHILE
Chile poet Pablo Neruda’s remains to be tested in US
The family of the Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda has agreed to send his remains to a laboratory in the United States for toxicology tests.

COLOMBIA
FARC links with Al-Qaeda?

Evidence has emerged of a link between the FARC and Islamist terrorist groups in the North African Maghreb after two Colombian nationals were arrested in Algeria last month by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Spanish intelligence services.

Colombian authorities row over Farc jail terms
Colombia’s attorney-general has said members of the rebel group Farc could escape jail terms should a peace deal be struck.

Colombia’s emerald king
Death of a tsar

COSTA RICA
Via DP, National holiday turns violent as families blocked from president’s speech
Costa Ricans outraged that they weren’t allowed to attend the annual Juan Santamaría Day festivities in an Alajuela park.

CUBA
In Spanish: Jaime Bayly entrevista al bloguero cubano Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo,

Time to Occupy Beyonce and Jay-Z

US Treasury OFAC: Send Beyoncé and Jay-Z an Anniversary Present

Rosa Maria Payá denounces death threats against her and her family.
Rosa Maria Payá holds the Cuban government responsible for whatever may happen to her and her family.

ECUADOR
Quito’s new airport
A tight fit

HONDURAS
Smoke from nearby forest fires forces 4-hour closure of airport for Honduras’ capital

JAMAICA
Puerto Rican jury rejects death sentence in police killing

MEXICO

Mexico Is Picking Up the Peso
Reforms, Search for Risk Are Boosting the Currency; ‘a Cultish Characteristic’

Mexican Proposal to Allow Foreigners to Own Coastal Property

PERU
Rural development in Peru
The Andean connection
Diminishing distance, falling poverty

PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rico protects top US turtle nesting site long eyed by developers

Puerto Rico Agrees To Pay More Than $35 Million In Back Wages To Thousands Of Workers

SURINAME
Politics in Suriname
Guerrilla, rapper, gold miner…president?

URUGUAY
Uruguay president ‘sorry’ for Fernandez ‘old hag’ quip
The President of Uruguay, Jose Mujica, has apologised for apparently referring to Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner as an “old hag”.

Luis Alberto Lacalle, abogado y presidente de la Republica Oriental del Uruguay de 1990 a 1995 envia un afectuoso saludo a la Fundacion HACER de Washington DC desde el 25 Aniversario de la Fundacion Libertad de Rosario

VENEZUELA
Maduro and Capriles: tale of two Venezuelan presidential candidates

Venezuela’s presidential election
Voting in St Hugo’s shadow
In his search for a popular mandate, Nicolás Maduro ascribes divine powers to his predecessor but offers few earthly policies

Venezuelan blogs for their complete coverage:
Caracas chronicles
Devil’s excrement
Venezuela Nr=ews and Views

The week’s posts and podcast,
Venezuela: Maduro wins

Venezuela: two election day live feeds

A word on elected Latin American dictators

Venezuela: How important is tomorrow’s election? UPDATED

If you are in Hialeah tonight: Rosa María Payá event

OLPL en el show de Bayly

G-r-o-s-s: Bolivarian “sanitary” towels

Venezuela: Capriles Campaign Chief killed

Venezuela: The meaning of April 14 UPDATED

Cuba this morning

Venezuela: Violent deaths per 100,000

Podcast:
Talking with Silvio Canto.

Via Alberto de la Cruz, Rosa María Payá will talk at the Immaculate Conception church,

Information in Spanish at Encuentro con Rosa María Payá con las organizaciones del destierro y todo el público que le interese

Follow Rosa María on Twitter.

In Spanish: Jaime Bayly entrevista al bloguero cubano Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo,

En Twitter, OLPL.

[With apologies to my English-only readers.]

This is what women in Cuba have to use since the country can’t produce paper goods, and doesn’t have money to import them: Pads made of fabric, that must be washed by hand since no one can afford washing machines,

Michael Moore and all of those touting “Cuban healthcare” probably don’t know about this detail of basic sanitation.

Now that there are shortages of tampons, pads, toothpaste, food, and paper goods in Venezuela, the chavistas have come up with a propaganda video extolling the pads made of fabric:

She claims it’s 100% biodegradable, reusable, and prevents you from participating in “savage capitalism.”

No mention of bacteria, stained clothes, or odors.

Meanwhile, someone else didn’t take well to this pre-industrial age idea (what am I saying? Pre-Roman times), and came up with snark,

“We couldn’t leave out [the] biodegradable Bolivarian tampons”

First, a tweet from Dennis Rodman,

I started a trend. Everybody’s visiting dictators now! Did Beyoncé, Jay-Z pull a Rodman? via @politicopoliti.co/12GxVxU

— Dennis Rodman (@dennisrodman) April 10, 2013

And the weird case of the Hakkens:
Cuba returns two U.S. children who were abducted in Tampa; Hakken parents face charges. Hakkens apparently have no ties to Cuba, but they headed there because,

Cuba and the United States have not had a valid extradition treaty since the early days of the Castro revolution. Havana occasionally deports U.S. common criminals but shelters an estimated 70 U.S. fugitives it views as refugees from political persecution. Several Medicare fraudsters also have wound up in Cuba in more recent times.

Cuban authorities returned both children and their parents to the US yesterday. The parents are in jail, and the children are with their legal guardians, their maternal grandparents.

Video below the fold,
(more…)

Last week Venezuela’s acting president and presidential candidate Nicolas Maduro officially inaugurated his campaign by publicly stating that Hugo Chavez had spoken to him in the form of a bird (but apparently not as a parrot). In the spirit of the occasion (all puns intended), and in keeping with a red Chavista shirt theme, I’m illustrating this week’s Carnival with the most famous red bird of all, the Angry Bird, instead of the usual map.

ARGENTINA
Argentina floods ‘catastrophe’ for La Plata, Buenos Aires
Emergency workers in Argentina continue to try to rescue residents stranded by flooding in Buenos Aires and La Plata

Pope Francis calls for aid for Argentina flood victims
Pope Francis has appealed for “civil and ecclesiastical institutions, as well as people of good will”, to provide help to the victims of devastating flooding in Argentina that has left dozens dead.

Fears Ease of a Default by Argentina

BOLIVIA
Colombianos manejan una red de préstamos en Santa Cruz de la Sierra

BRAZIL
Rio Charges Three Men With Attack on American, French Visitors
Rio de Janeiro police said they have arrested a third suspect and sidelined two police officers after the rape of an American woman over the weekend.

CHILE
Smoking in Latin America
Stubbed out
A bastion of tobacco addiction introduces a ban

COLOMBIA
Santos´ invisible and elitist cabinet

CUBA
Religious persecution in Cuba rises in 2012

Beyonce, Jay-Z turn heads in Havana

Washington’s 51-year embargo makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to visit Cuba for mere tourism, although tens of thousands of Americans travel there each year on academic, religious, journalistic or cultural exchange licenses.

Social Security says benefits can’t be sent to Havana
The U.S. Social Security Administration makes it clear that benefits cannot be collected in Cuba.

ECUADOR
Chevron Embargo Would Not Affect YPF Deal -Ecuador Plaintiffs
A freeze on Chevron’s funds in Argentina would not include any future investments the company would make in the country, according to a lawyer representing the Ecuadorian plaintiffs in the case behind the freeze.

GUATEMALA
Guatemala strongman trial hears litany of horrors

MEXICO
Are the Kaufman County Murders Connected To The Mexican Drug Cartels?

REPORT: MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS BEHIND INCREASING VIOLENCE IN THE UNITED STATES

Mexico’s new president
Peña’s promising start
A lot done, and quickly, but much more still to do

PARAGUAY
Paraguay’s electoral alliances and land deals

PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rico-Born Labrador Top Republican on Immigration

Puerto Rico moves to overhaul public pensions

URUGUAY
Controversia por dura frase de presidente de Uruguay sobre Cristina Fernández
El mandatario uruguayo no se dio cuenta que los micrófonos estaban abiertos y se escuchó en la transmisión en vivo de una conferencia de prensa al sentenciar: “Esta vieja es peor que el tuerto”

VENEZUELA
Venezuela’s snap election still pretty much all about Chavez

Nicolás Maduro Decide Solamente Decir “Chávez” Hasta Que Acaben Las Elecciones

Denuncian a Maduro de ser un agente de Cuba, fotos, video y audio

The week’s posts and podcast
Venezuela: And now the Macarapana curse

Uruguay: Open-mic fail

Cuba: Beyonce’s no-no

Maduro: Cuba’s Venezuelan Pawn

Cuba: More repression

Thursday night tango and blogging

Yoani Sanchez in Jaime Bayly’s show: en español

Crazy cult campaigning in Caracas: The shrine

Venezuela: Maduro opens his campaign by saying he talked to Chavez, who is now a bird UPDATED

Uruguay: Same-sex marriage approved by Senate

Argentina: Cristina’s discomfort

Podcast: Silvio Canto‘s

After saying that Hugo Chavez made Jesus choose an Argentinian Pope and later turned into a bird (Chavez, not Jesus or the Pope), now Maduro’s placed an oath on “anyone voting against” him.

He wore a funny hat for the occasion:

Wearing a local indigenous hat at a rally in Amazonas state, a largely jungle territory on the borders of Brazil and Colombia, Mr Maduro said: “If anyone among the people votes against Nicolas Maduro, he is voting against himself, and the curse of Maracapana is falling on him.”

He was referring to a 16th Century battle when Spanish colonial fighters defeated indigenous fighters decisively.

“If the bourgeoisie win, they are going to privatise health and education, they are going to take land from the Indians, the curse of Maracapana would come on you,” the candidate continued.

While he was at it, he claimed to be “the grandson of enslaved indian women.” Venezuela abolished slavery in 1854. Colombia abolished slavery in 1851. His mother was born in Colombia in 1929 and his father graduated from high school, also in Colombia, in 1947, so it is a physical impossibility for Maduro (born in 1960) to have had a grandmother at least 106 years old.

Either Maduro’s nuts, or he has such a void of ideas that the only things he’s got left to campaign on are ignorance and superstition.

You take your pick.

You would think the Cuban propaganda machine would have come up with something better, but then, they don’t do elections in Cuba, they only do “elections”.

But back to the curse, I’m not sure what the hey he’s talking about, either. The battle of Maracapana took place in 1567, when the Spanish army massacred thousands of indians. Unlike the legends around King Tut, there have been (as far as I could find as of the writing of this post), no legends associated with that specific massacre. This website says “the bourgeoisie is the curse”.

Which makes sense if you’re a Communist.

Whatever.

Getting under Maduro’s skin is the very clear-minded Puerto Rican musician Willie Colon, who has extensive ties to Venezuela and has become an indefatigable twitterer.

Para Capriles y Venezuela aqui te estoy mandando. ATACA FLACO! soundcloud.com/mentirafresca/… #mentirafresca

— Willie Colón (@williecolon) April 6, 2013

Willie’s written a song for Capriles’s campaign, where he calls Maduro “Fresh Lie”,

Hard-hitting, and you can dance to it, too!

I dedicate this post to Willie Colon. ¡Te dedico este post, Willie!