Fausta's Blog

ARGENTINA
Cada cinco días sale un Narcojet del país

Argentina’s Supreme Court demands government balance allocation of state advertising

BOLIVIA
Smuggling Scandal Shakes Bolivia

Bolivia’s Evo Morales
The calle gets restive
Inflation, shortages and scandals have caught up with Latin America’s hitherto most popular leftist leader

BRAZIL
Weary Brazilians seek escape from Carnival crowds

89 million condoms to be given out at Brazil’s Carnival

Already Lofty Interest Rates in Brazil Get Even Higher

30 Billion USD 2011 budget cut

COLOMBIA
Colombia’s Leader Looks Beyond the U.S.

Fidel’s Ideal Road Map to Solve the Alan Gross Case

CUBA
The Motorcycle Drones On

Gross trial gets under way in Havana

Cuba and the internet
Wired, at last
The battle of the blogs begins

Bohemia Lagoon

Jaime de Marichalar y su exabrupto anticastrista

ECUADOR
A cure worse than the disease

EL SALVADOR
Obama meets with El Salvador’s president

HAITI
A journey to Jacmel
Little miracles

JAMAICA
Music and crime in the Caribbean
Bad news for Buju Banton

MEXICO
I have been reading about – but not blogging on – the Gunwalker scandal. Via Instapundit, Robert Farago has three explanations on The Real Reason the ATF Smuggled Guns Into Mexico: 1. To catch the “big fish”, 2. Empire building, and 3. ATF Agents enabled smuggled guns to line their own pockets, concluding that,

The amount of money—cash money—flowing in the drug trade is beyond your wildest imagination. Tens of billions of dollars. The Mexican drug lords have corrupted officials on both sides of the border, at the highest possible levels. Why not the ATF? Money talks, guns walk. Makes perfect sense.

No Man’s Land: The Mystery of Mexico’s Drug Wars

Heads of U.S., Mexico to Meet as Tensions Rise
Violence From Drug War to Top Agenda as Calderón Visits Obama in Washington

Calderon and the Mexico Mess

U.S., Mexico Unveil Deal to End Trucking Dispute

Calderon: WikiLeaks caused severe damage to U.S.-Mexico relations

Obama’s Mexico Standoff

The elephant in the room, via Gancho

Murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry Was Armed with … Beanbags?
A political policy that left a Border Patrol agent facing lethally armed men with only a beanbag gun is likely responsible for his death.

NICARAGUA
US to Nicaragua’s opposition: We can dance, but you lead

PERU
The Liberation of Lori Berenson

Minute-by-minute: A recount of the Peru’s electoral debate

PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rico sweetens film incentives
Looks to lure biz as some states trim offerings

VENEZUELA
Qaddafi Said to Accept Venezuelan Offer for Help

The Chavez Doctrine

Qaddafi’s Pal in Caracas
Hugo Chávez had better hope he doesn’t end up like his dictator friends

That Sirocco breeze from Libya….

IMMIGRATION
Slaughtering the Innocents that Americans Won’t Slaughter: MS-13 Gang Members Wreak Bloody Havoc Thanks to Open Borders Policy

The week’s posts and podcasts,
Charlie Sheen, Sean Penn, and Hugo Chavez to the rescue!, also in The Greenroom.
Podcast: President Calderon meets Pres BO
Mexican drug cartels in the USA: The new Mafia
Is Castro Gaddafi’s pimp?
Caracas’s high-rise to nowhere

This week in Latin American news: Michelle Bachmann went to Colombia and Mexico, Obama’s heading to South America, and Ortega loves Gadaffi.

LATIN AMERICA
Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru Move Toward Energy Integration

Obama’s Visit to Latin America: A View from the South

ARGENTINA
In Argentina, a Different Sort of Inflation Fight

BOLIVIA
Bolivia’s top drug cop arrested for smuggling dope to US

BRAZIL
Judge suspends Brazil’s monster dam: contractor ‘imposing’ its interests

Brazil Economy Flickers as Bottlenecks Drive Up Prices

CHILE
Aprobación de Central Castilla: el debate ambiental-energético no termina

Chilean quake survivors still suffer one year later

COLOMBIA
Bachmann visits Mexico, Colombia

Colombia Central Bank Increases Key Rate To 3.25%

COSTA RICA
Chinchilla blasts Ortega for Gadhafi support
Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega said Monday he called Moammar Gadhafi to express solidarity during these very “tense moments.”

CUBA
As Cuba Prepares to Drill for Oil Offshore, New Report Urges Major Changes in U.S. Policy. Here’s the Congressional Research Service report: Cuba’s Offshore Oil Development: Background and U.S. Policy Considerations

Alan Gross’ lawyer wears two hats

AFI and PBS Embrace Pro-Castro Propaganda, Ignore Agustin Blazquez’ Documented Criticism

The infiltration of Cuba’s dissident groups

The Graveyard Police

Raul Castro’s Three-Year Report Card

HONDURAS
With Increased US Aid, Honduras Militarises Anti-Drug Fight

Home building design tips for the tropics

Teachers and Taxistas strike in La Ceiba

MEXICO
Respected Mexican journalist fired for addressing Calderon drinking rumor

6 Members of Zeta Drug Cartel Arrested for ICE Agent Murder

Speedy Sarkozy Bullied by the Mexicans

The Accusations of an Ex-Governor and the Nature of PRI Support for the Drug Trade

An American Dies in Mexico’s Drug War
Rounding up the killers of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jaime Zapata will not curtail Americans’ voracious appetite for mind-altering substances.

NICARAGUA
Qaddafi and Ortega: Brotherhood of Blood

Gadhafi gets support from Nicaragua’s Ortega (Updated)

PANAMA
InterAmericana Hwy. Shutdown in David due to Protests…

PERU
Peru calls for United Nations intervention in Libya

PUERTO RICO
Five Indicted in Puerto Rico on Organized Crime and Racketeering Charges

URUGUAY
Pedro Konrad y Claudia María Sosa Otero – lavado de dinero de narcotrafico

VENEZUELA
Iranian, Venezuelan Presidents Review Important Regional Developments
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez in a phone conversation conferred on the latest regional and international developments, and stressed the necessity for the two states to keep vigilant and increase their bilateral consultations.

Venezuela’s government supports Qaddafi: denial ain’t a river next to Egypt…..

Chávez starts to pay the price for that Bolivar sword replica UPDATED

U.S. journalist reports harassment by Venezuelan agents

ÉTICA, RETÓRICA Y VIVIENDA…

The mystery of Giordani’s 18% Debt/GDP ratio

ENTERTAINMENT
Jaime Bayly has a new novel coming out, and the hype is on, not all of it good (video in Spanish, language not suitable for work)

The week’s posts:
Teddy does Santiago
Mexico: More Civilians Killed Last Year in One Mexican Border Town Than All Afghanistan
Will Venezuela really go bankrupt?
Mexican drug wars spreading to Central America
White House won’t talk about Libya, while Peru does

As I posted last month, Obama eased travel & money restrictions to Cuba in exchange for nothing. The news was announced on late afternoon Friday January 14, and easing travel restrictions to Cuba, and allowing U.S. citizens to send up to $2,000 a year to help Cubans support religious institutions or run small businesses.

In an economic environment where the dictatorship fired from state jobs between 500,000 to 1,300,000 people, the island is broke.  The fired workers supposedly will be allowed to become self-employed in 178 trades (strictly defined in a “Draft Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy” issued by the dictatorship), even when currently there is no private sector in Cuba, and whatever private sector there may trie to exist, will do so at the whims of the dictatorship.

The Communist regime currently is being propped up by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.  Chavez in turn has become a de-facto dictator and must spend lavishly in his own country in order to keep himself in power.  Were Chavez to reduce his aid to Cuba,

Cuban social services, the flagships of the Revolution, cannot be sustained under the current economic model and can only remain if all the reforms recommended by President Raúl Castro are enforced.

What this amounts to is to prolong the Cuban Communist dictatorship to live for yet another day.

What did the US get in exchange? Nothing.

The Cuban government has been holding US citizen Alan P. Gross prisoner for since December 2009 without charge on suspicion of spying. Gross has now been formally charged with spying

Prosecutors are charging a jailed American contractor with “acts against the integrity and independence” of Cuba and requesting a 20-year jail term, state news media reported Friday, dimming hopes the 60-year-old Maryland native would be allowed to go home soon.

According to the AP article,

Gross was working for a firm contracted by the U.S. Agency for International Development when he was arrested Dec. 3, 2009, and sent to Havana’s high-security Villa Marista prison. The project Gross worked with was part of a $40 million-a-year USAID program to promote democracy and political change on the island.

U.S. officials have defended the program and said they will never give up pushing for democracy and openness in Cuba. Detractors of the Cuba project have criticized it as ineffective and counterproductive.

While Gross claims to have been working with the 1,500-strong Jewish community, the leaders of the island’s two main Jewish groups have told The Associated Press they had nothing to do with him.

Juan Tamayo, writing at the Miami Herald (via Babalu) reports

Then on Friday, Gross’ Washington lawyer, Peter J. Kahn, issued a surprisingly affirmative reaction to the Cuban announcement, saying that “after 14 months in a Cuban prison without charge, the fact that Alan Gross’ case is now moving forward is a positive development.

“We respectfully urge the Cuban authorities to free Alan immediately for time served,” Kahn added, without making any mention of the 20-year sentence.

Rather than seek Gross’s release and the freedom of Cuban political prisoners as a condition to the easing of travel and money restrictions, the Obama administration granted huge concessions for nothing.

Now Gross is still in prison, will be undergoing trial and may spend the rest of his life (he’s 61 years old) in a Cuban jail.

Smart diplomacy? Thanks for nothing!

Cross-posted at The Green Room

Today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern,
Obama eases travel & money restrictions to Cuba, a major concession, while an American remains imprisoned.

You can listen to the podcast live, or at the archived podcast at your convenience, here.

The Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean will be up this afternoon.

In Silvio Canto’s radio show today at 10AM Eastern. Listen live at KVCE radio. If you are in Texas you can listen at 1160 AM.

The show is also archived at BlogTalkRadio.

We talk about New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s trip to Cuba and the possibility he may request the release of Alan P. Gross, who has been imprisoned since December 2009; and also about Mexican corruption.