Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

Archives for June 2011

By

BREAKING: HUGO CHAVEZ HAS CANCER

This just in at the Miami Herald,
Hugo Chavez admits cancerous tumor.

President Hugo Chavez acknowledged Thursday night that he had a cancerous tumor.
He made the admission in a late-night speech, his first since falling ill 21 days ago.

Here is the video in Spanish, supposedly taped in Cuba,

My translation: if you use this text, please credit me and link to this post,

However, and in spite of the favorable general course, throughout the process of draining and healing, there appeared suspicion of the presence of other cellular formations that had not previously been detected. Therefore, a series of special tests was started immediately, cytochemical, cytopathologic, microbiologic, and pathologic, which confirmed the presence of an abscessed tumor with the presence of cancerous cells, which necessitated a second surgery.

>Note the labored, almost contrived, speech and elaborate syntax, along with the tense delivery, a big change from Chavez’s customary informal and very colloquial style.

What effect this will have on oil markets, on the people of Venezuela, and on Latin American politics? We’ll find out shortly.

UPDATE:
Linked by Nice Deb and Vlad. Thanks!
Linked by Flopping Aces, Gates of Vienna, and Tatler. Thanks!
Linked by Hot Air and Public Secrets. Thanks!

26714
Share

By

HACER: The must-read on Latin America

Anyone looking for reliable information on news and politics on our hemisphere should read every day HACER Weekly News Report USA and HACER Latin American News.

HACER,

The Hispanic American Center for Economic Research (HACER) is a 501(c)(3) organization that is supported entirely through gifts from individuals, philanthropic foundations, and corporations.

HACER is devoted to promote the study of issues pertinent to the countries of Hispanic America as well as Hispanic Americans living in the United States, especially as they relate to the values of personal and economic liberty, limited government under the rule of law, and individual responsibility.

HACER Latin American News is a particularly valuable resource. The compendium of articles in Spanish and English, collected from media reports from two dozen Latin American countries, is thorough, informative, and up-to-the minute. It is an invaluable resource, on which I rely for my everyday blogging.

Add their feed to your feedreader, bookmark them, and read them every day.

26704
Share

By

The Invisible Hugo cancels summit

While doctors in Venezuela are on general strike, Hugo Chavez remains in Cuba recovering allegedly from surgery performed two weeks ago.

Chavez was scheduled to host a summit of Latin America at Margarita Island on July 5 and 6. Now Venezuela postpones summit due to Chavez’s health

Chavez had been expected to host the summit on the 200th anniversary of Venezuela’s declaration of independence from Spain. He promoted it as an event to move ahead with the development of a 32-nation regional bloc, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, that excludes the United States and Canada.

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said it will work with other countries to schedule a new date for the summit in Venezuela later in the year. It remained unclear how soon Chavez might be able to return home.
…
Uruguayan President Jose Mujica, a Chavez ally, said before the announcement of the summit cancellation that he expected the Venezuelan leader to be home in time for the country’s independence anniversary July 5.

We shall soon find out

The summit, set for July 6-7 on Margarita Island, was to have followed a massive state celebration still scheduled for Tuesday to mark the nation’s 1811 independence. It is not known whether Chavez will return by Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan [sic], Like Castro, Has Brother at the Ready.

They don’t call it Cubazuela for nothing.

Prior The Invisible Hugo posts.

26700
Share

By

Words-fail-me roundup

Three items,
God banned from funerals for war vets under Obama VA’s orders

UNBELIEVABLE! Obama Administration Puts Israel On List Of Countries That Support Terrorism

Is a bond market panic next?

From the White House, National Journal’s Marc Ambinder reports that Obama believes he can get the Republicans to cave on taxes if he first lets the bond markets panic in late-July. Obama then hopes that Wall Street and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will force Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to compromise, like he did on the FY 2011 budget deal earlier this year.

(h/t TigerHawk)

26695
Share

By

Newsweek’s Tina Brown sees dead people

Tina Brown is channeling Haley Joel Osment’s character in The Sixth Sense,

Newsweek photoshops Kate Middleton, late Princess Diana together on magazine cover

Daily Beast founder Tina Brown paid a tribute to the late princess by writing up a “Diana at 50” article, which describes what Lady Di would have been like had she not been killed in a Paris tunnel crash nearly fourteen years ago.

How do you spell p-r-o-j-e-c-t-i-o-n?

Remarriage? At least two, I suspect, on both sides of the Atlantic. Always so professional herself, she would have soon grown exasperated with Dodi Al-Fayed’s hopeless unreliability. After the breakup I see her moving to her favorite city, New York, spending a few cocooned years safely married to a super-rich hedge-fund guy who could provide her with what she called “all the toys”: the plane, the private island, the security detail. Gliding sleekly into her 40s, her romantic taste would have moved to men of power over boys of play. She’d have tired of the hedge-fund guy and drifted into undercover trysts with someone more exciting—a high-mindedly horny late-night talk-show host, or a globe-trotting French finance wizard destined for the Élysée Palace. I suspect she would have retained a weakness for men in uniform, and a yen for dashing Muslim men. (A two-year fling with a Pakistani general, rumored to have links to the ISI, would have been a particular headache to the Foreign Office and the State Department.)

Well, at least we know who Tina would like to boink.

Where is Dr. McCoy when we need him?

She’s dead, Tina.

UPDATE
Linked by Instapundit. Thanks!

UPDATE, Thursday 30 June,
Ouch!:

But it’s worse than creepy. It’s highly derivative–pretty much the exact same idea as National Lampoon’s February 1977 cover, “JFK’s First 6,000 Days.”

26690
Share

By

Today’s installment of The Invisible Hugo: The Video

Hugo Chavez is still at an undisclosed location somewhere in Cuba, supposedly recovering from an unnamed ailment, and now there’s video of the pantomime,

Hugo Chavez appears with Fidel Castro on Cuban television
Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, has been shown talking with Fidel Castro on state television in an attempt to allay persistent rumours that he is seriously ill.

Here’s the video shown on Cuban TV,
(more…)

26680
Share