Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is using Twitter as a tool to govern remotely while he undergoes cancer treatment in Cuba.
In more than 40 messages this week on his “chavezcandanga” account, he has approved money for a Caracas trash collection project, praised plans for a new park and cheered on the national soccer team.
Chavez hasn’t mentioned anything about his chemotherapy but has alluded to his personal battle time and again, as he did in one tweet to a supporter on Tuesday: “We’re moving along here, brother! With God and the Virgin!”
Most of his messages have had the tone of a patriotic father figure connecting with his public. Chavez boasts more than 1.8 million followers, and his messages also regularly pop up on the screen on state television in Venezuela.
Venezuela, Cuba’s ideological colony, dictated to by Twitter.
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is a State Department adviser. Chief exec Dick Costolo is a telecom/national security adviser. And in the other direction, former State Department aide Katie Stanton is now a Twitter “vice president of global policy.”
1. Background: Conservatives in the House of Representatives passed a serious budget proposal with necessary reforms and responsible steps. Liberals haven’t passed—or even offered—a budget in over two years, making their concerns voiced about America’s fiscal future seem false. The President’s own budget was defeated 97–0 in the Senate.
Twitter Question: Your budget was rejected by Senate 97-0 & Dems haven’t produced budget in 700+ days. Where is your economic plan? #AskObama
2. Background: America’s unemployment rate has been near 9 percent for the majority of President Obama’s time in office. While he might have truly believed that trillions of dollars in stimulus, the time has come to admit that he was wrong.
Twitter Question: You said your stimulus plan would keep unemployment below 8%. Do you agree that was a trillion dollars wasted? #AskObama
3. Background: Countries like Greece are experiencing great financial tragedy because they failed to address their overwhelming debt issues. If the U.S. continues federal spending at the current rate, it will face the same scenario, something President Obama doesn’t want to admit. Mandatory spending has increased at more than five times the rate of discretionary spending, and America is headed for fiscal doom without a quick turnaround.
Twitter Question: You said it wasn’t a good idea to raise taxes in a recession but that is all you offer now to fix debt. Why? #AskObama
4. Background: Small business owners are suffering due to burdensome regulations and new requirements in Obamacare. IHOP franchise owner Scott Womack says that “if the health care reform law is not repealed or if the employer mandate doesn’t go away, we’re going to have to take drastic action.” As a Midwestern job creator currently employing nearly 1,000 people, Womack fears regulations like these threaten the livelihood of many employees.
Twitter Question: You’ve added more costly regulations in 2yrs than any of your predecessors, who all reviewed. When will it stop? #AskObama
5. Background: President Obama opened up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to release 30 million barrels of oil onto a market suffering from his moratorium on domestic drilling. His own Energy Information Agency estimates that as a result of the President’s moratorium, we’ll lose 90 million barrels of oil just this year.
Twitter Question: Gas prices are high. We’re losing 90m barrels of oil due to your moratorium, plus jobs. Why release 30m from SPR? #AskObama
Now his rise in popularity (Noticias 24′s headline spreads the snark with “Chávez enjoys meteoric popularity… on Tweeter”) has him with 250,000 followers (as of the writing of this post).
Since then, Chavez says, he has been overwhelmed by nearly 54,000 messages from supporters, critics and people writing to ask for help with a problem or lodge a complaint. On Thursday, he announced that a new team of 200 aides would help him manage the stream.
“I’m creating a team due to the avalanche of requests, and some grievances,” he said.
Opposition lawmaker Juan Jose Molina said he was not surprised by Chavez’s ability to attract a crowd in cyberspace, but he thinks the president should spend less time tweeting and more time working to reduce soaring inflation and violent crime.
“Nobody can deny that Chavez has leadership. But it’s also true that nobody can deny his inability to govern,” Molina said.
And, by the way, he tweets from a BlackBerry, which he has referred to as a “secret weapon.”
Can’t wait until one of the 200 aides will leak the passwords and really turn that BlackBerry into a secret weapon.
US President Barack Obama lamented Sunday that in the iPad and Xbox era, information had become a diversion that was imposing new strains on democracy, in his latest critique of modern media.
Now his rise in popularity (Noticias 24’s headline spreads the snark with “Chávez enjoys meteoric popularity… on Tweeter”) has him with 250,000 followers (as of the writing of this post).
Since then, Chavez says, he has been overwhelmed by nearly 54,000 messages from supporters, critics and people writing to ask for help with a problem or lodge a complaint. On Thursday, he announced that a new team of 200 aides would help him manage the stream.
“I’m creating a team due to the avalanche of requests, and some grievances,” he said.
Opposition lawmaker Juan Jose Molina said he was not surprised by Chavez’s ability to attract a crowd in cyberspace, but he thinks the president should spend less time tweeting and more time working to reduce soaring inflation and violent crime.
“Nobody can deny that Chavez has leadership. But it’s also true that nobody can deny his inability to govern,” Molina said.
And, by the way, he tweets from a BlackBerry, which he has referred to as a “secret weapon.”
Can’t wait until one of the 200 aides will leak the passwords and really turn that BlackBerry into a secret weapon.
US President Barack Obama lamented Sunday that in the iPad and Xbox era, information had become a diversion that was imposing new strains on democracy, in his latest critique of modern media.
Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa said he will seek to change the central bank’s accounting rules in a bid to free capital needed to invest in the country’s development.
The government is seeking to change accounting rules regulating how the bank reports its reserve funds, Correa said in his weekly televised address to the nation, broadcast today.
Ecuador, which has defaulted on $3.2 billion of international bonds since Correa took office in 2007, is trying to plug a budget deficit the Finance Ministry estimates will reach $4.2 billion this year. The president of the country’s private bank association, Cesar Robalino, said March 29 the government was using central bank reserves to finance spending.
Ecuador’s new constitution, approved in a 2008 referendum, stripped the central bank of its autonomy.
“Why does a central bank that doesn’t even have a national currency need $2 billion in capital,” asked Correa, a 47-year-old former economics professor. “We are freeing the funds for the benefit of the Ecuadorean people.”
A Russian company is marketing a devastating new cruise missile system which can be hidden inside a shipping container, giving any merchant vessel the capability to wipe out an aircraft carrier.
Potential customers for the formidable Club-K system include Kremlin allies Iran and Venezuela, say defense experts. They worry that countries could pass on the satellite-guided missiles, which are very hard to detect, to terrorist groups.
Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa said he will seek to change the central bank’s accounting rules in a bid to free capital needed to invest in the country’s development.
The government is seeking to change accounting rules regulating how the bank reports its reserve funds, Correa said in his weekly televised address to the nation, broadcast today.
Ecuador, which has defaulted on $3.2 billion of international bonds since Correa took office in 2007, is trying to plug a budget deficit the Finance Ministry estimates will reach $4.2 billion this year. The president of the country’s private bank association, Cesar Robalino, said March 29 the government was using central bank reserves to finance spending.
Ecuador’s new constitution, approved in a 2008 referendum, stripped the central bank of its autonomy.
“Why does a central bank that doesn’t even have a national currency need $2 billion in capital,” asked Correa, a 47-year-old former economics professor. “We are freeing the funds for the benefit of the Ecuadorean people.”
A Russian company is marketing a devastating new cruise missile system which can be hidden inside a shipping container, giving any merchant vessel the capability to wipe out an aircraft carrier.
Potential customers for the formidable Club-K system include Kremlin allies Iran and Venezuela, say defense experts. They worry that countries could pass on the satellite-guided missiles, which are very hard to detect, to terrorist groups.
Delighted at his cyber success, Venezuela’s new Twitter convert President Hugo Chavez on Thursday invited Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Bolivian President Evo Morales to join the micro-blogging site too.
After several months grumbling that social networking sites in Venezuela were dominated by opponents of his socialist government, Chavez opened his own account this week and was clearly elated to have gathered 106,000 followers in two days.
“The potential this has … it’s not capitalist, it’s not socialist, it depends on how it is used,” he said after posting two messages on his page @chavezcandanga.
“I invite Evo and Fidel,” Chavez said. “Evo – are you on Twitter? Let’s invite Evo to Twitter,” Chavez said during a visit to a cattle ranch with Bolivia’s president.
Here he rambles on (in Spanish); notice how he says he’s received messages “from Russia, from China, well, maybe not from China”,
Lest you believe it’s all fun and games,
Separately, a 29-year-old Venezuelan was arrested on Thursday in connection with text messages calling for the assassination of Chavez, authorities said.
Interior Minister Tareck El Aissami said the man was detained in Merida, a city near the border with Colombia, along with computers and other materials.
“Death to Hugo Chavez, for a fatherland free of tyrants,” read the text, according to the minister.
“We just stop,” said Jesus Yanis, who paints cars. “We don’t work.”
Neither does the rest of Venezuela, where a punishing, months-old energy crisis and years of state interventions in the economy are taking a brutal toll on private business. The result is that the economy is flickering and going dark, too, challenging Venezuela’s mercurial leader, Hugo Chávez, and his socialist experiment like never before.
No matter that Venezuela is one of the world’s great oil powers — among the top five providers of crude to the United States. Economists say Venezuela is gripped by an economic crisis that has no easy or fast solution, even if sluggish oil production were ramped up and profligate state spending were cut.
“The government is paralyzed, unable to handle the situation — and there are no fiscal plans to deal with the crisis,” said José Guerra, a former Central Bank economist who directs the economics department at Central University in Caracas, the capital. “Our situation is unbelievable, because we have one of the biggest reserves of oil in the world, thermal-electrical and hydroelectric sources.”
Welcome to this week’s Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean.
