Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

Archives for September 2011

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The Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

LatinAmerLATIN AMERICA
India Eyes Latin America
The South Asian giant’s burgeoning presence in the Western Hemisphere is unambiguously good for both Latin America and the United States.

ARGENTINA
Cristina, Guevara, la patria liberada

Big Fears on Big Food Prices

BOLIVIA
Evo Morales llegará a Cuba el domingo para reunirse con Raúl Castro
El presidente de Bolivia, Evo Morales, llegará el domingo a Cuba para una visita de trabajo de dos días durante la que se reunirá con el gobernante Raúl Castro, informó este sábado un comunicado oficial.

BRAZIL
Bush, Bismarck and Brazil

Brazilian politics
A packed chessboard

The Road to Rio is America’s Road to Ruin

CHILE
Rescued Chilean miner in rehab

New Chilean telescopes push the boundaries of astronomy
With two gigantic telescopes coming in the next decade, Chile is gaining a reputation as one of the best places in the world for stargazers.

COLOMBIA
Libyan rebels execute 10 Colombians thought to be FARC mercenaries

Paramilitaries and Colombia’s government
The biggest fish so far: Jorge Noguera

Six Months for Letting Grandma Do His Laundry

Colombian mountain cyclists try to pedal out of poverty toward glory in Europe

CUBA
Bill Richardson went to Cuba to intercede on Alan Gross’ behalf and was resoundedly turned down: Alberto de la Cruz writes on how the Obama State Dept. authorized Richardson to offer concessions in exchange for Gross

Taxes in Cuba
Get used to it
The Castros’ subjects get acquainted with that other sure thing

Trips Back to Cuba Draw Fire

GUATEMALA
Big Labor’s Yanqui Imperialism
The U.S. trade representative is trying to deny due process to Guatemala in defiance of free-trade agreement rules.

MEXICO
Good news: ATF’s Gunwalker may have helped Mexican cartels buy rocket launchers

Cloward-Piven: The Ultimate Goal of Gunwalker?
It’s hard to think of a more logical reason for Gunwalker to exist.

Free speech in Mexico
Be careful what you Tweet

PANAMA
Time for Another Reminder

Panamanian politics
With friends like these

PUERTO RICO
Masked intruders rob casino in Puerto Rico

Officials: Teen goes on rampage at Puerto Rico school, stabbing 37 classmates with needle

VENEZUELA
Venezuelan government providing support to terrorist Carlos the Jackal

Human Rights Court rules in favor of Leopoldo Lopez, slaps Chavez tactic of illegally disqualifying opposition

Chavez is in Cuba for a 5th round of chemo, instead of going to the UN this week. He claims it’s “the last round.” Evo Morales stopped in Caracas and they both flew together.

Since Chavez is not going to NY, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will visit him in Caracas on his way back from the UN Assembly.

Smoke and Mirrors in the Chavez Revolution: Oil and Research

This is the lawyer of Chavez defending what cannot be defended

The week’s posts:
The AFL-CIO vs. Guatemala
Mexico’s cartels vs bloggers, part 3
Mexican cartels now going after bloggers, part 2
Venezuela to withdraw from the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes

At The Green Room,
Mexican cartels now going after bloggers

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Mexico’s cartels vs bloggers, part 3

Interestingly, at the same time that the cartels (the Zetas in particular?) are killing bloggers, Startfor reports that on September 8 the Mexican navy dismantled the Zetas’ communication network in Veracruz (link by subscription only).

On the massive raid, the navy seized seven trailers that served as base stations, along with computers, encryption devices, solar cells, and other equipment.

Los Zetas have more sophisticated networks than most cartels due to their origins with the military, and they use their knowledge (and massive proceeds from the drug trade) to avoid regular cell phones and other devices that are easily monitored.

The location of the raid, Veracruz, makes it tactically valuable, for its vicinity to population-dense Mexico City and its financial institutions.

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Mexican cartels now going after bloggers, part 2

Yesterday I posted on how the Zetas allegedly tortured and killed a man and a woman, who still remain unidentified, for posting on the internet on drug violence in the country.

However, the two victims are not the first bloggers to be murdered because of their posting: Last month Humberto Milan Zalazar, who ran a website, was killed also because of his posting.

The Economist comments on the most recent murders,

It isn’t clear how the killers selected their victims, as such blogs usually allow anonymous comments.

I’ll let the techies discuss how hard or how easy it would be to find the IP address of a post or a comment and compare it to the IP address of a smart phone from someone you have kidnapped. However, it is clear that the narcos are driving their point of dominance by terror.

Mexico is one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists, and for bloggers.

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On a side note, while I visit Instapundit every day and am grateful for his links, it’s a sad day to see this entry,

IN AMERICA, WE HAVE ATTACKWATCH.COM. In Mexico, a deadly threat to ‘scandal mongers’ using social media.

Attack Watch – a White House website that quickly has become a joke – doesn’t disembowel and hang anyone a few miles from the US border.

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Florida: Invasion of the giant snails!

Folks in Florida not only have to contend with alligators and flying roaches, now they get giant snails, too.

How big are we talking about? THIS big:

ht african land snails florida thg 110916 wblog Giant African Snails Invade Miami Florida


Ugh!

Big, ugly, and destructive,

Giant African land snails can grow to be as long as 8 inches and consume at least 500 different types of plants. They also destroy stucco and plaster.

“They leave excrement all over the sides of houses. They’re very nasty,” Feiber said. “These things are not the cute little snails that you see.”

They also pose a health risk by carrying a parasite that can cause meningitis in humans.

Apparently the snails were smuggled from Africa for religious purposes,

In 2010, officials began investigating Charles Stewart, a man who practices the African religion Ifa Orisha, the Miami Herald reported. Stewart was accused of using the snails in his rituals and

Are you sitting down?

investigators claim an African woman brought them to him by sneaking the snails under her dresses on flights to Miami, the Miami Herald reported.

No word on what her dry cleaning bills are like.

The last time Florida had a snail invasion, it took 10 years to get rid of them.

I wonder if we could ship them to France as escargot.

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Mexican cartels now going after bloggers

Mexican blogs Frontera al rojo vivo and Blog del narco are now being hounded by the Mexican cartels:
Bodies hanging from bridge in Mexico are warning to social media users

Social media users who denounce drug cartel activities along the Mexican border received a brutal warning this week: Two mangled bodies hanging like cuts of meat from a pedestrian bridge.

A woman was hogtied and disemboweled, her intestines protruding from three deep cuts on her abdomen. Attackers left her topless, dangling by her feet and hands from a bridge in the border city of Nuevo Laredo. A bloodied man next to her was hanging by his hands, his right shoulder severed so deeply the bone was visible.

Signs left near the bodies declared the pair, both apparently in their early 20s, were killed for posting denouncements of drug cartel activities on a social network.

“This is going to happen to all of those posting funny things on the Internet,” one sign said. “You better (expletive) pay attention. I’m about to get you.”
The gruesome scene sent a chilling message at a time when online posts have become some of the loudest voices reporting violence in Mexico. In some parts of the country, threats from cartels have silenced traditional media. Sometimes even local authorities fear speaking out.

Mashable reports that Denuncia ciudadana was included in the threat. Unlike Frontera al rojo vivo and Blog del narco, Denuncia ciudadana is an official site of the Mexican government’s Prosecutor’s office.

Video below the fold, since it’s gruesome,
(more…)

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Venezuela to withdraw from the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes

Chávez is intent on turning Venezuela into Zimbabwe: As $3.5 billion in direct foreign investment has left the country in 2009-2010,
Chávez Takes Steps to Exit Global Forum
Pullout From World Bank Unit Would Fit a Nationalistic Bent

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has taken steps to pull out of the global forum most used to settle investor disputes, where Caracas faces more than $40 billion in claims for nationalized properties.

Documents show that Mr. Chávez, shown in August, is moving to avoid financial sanctions from abroad.

Venezuelan officials have drawn up plans, at Mr. Chávez’s order, to withdraw from the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, or ICSID, a unit of the World Bank in Washington, according to recent documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
…
Venezuela’s withdrawal from the ICSID also would fit well the nationalistic bent that has led Mr. Chávez to expropriate 988 companies, 401 so far this year, according to Conindustria, a Venezuela industry chamber.

Here are the claims they’re talking about,

VENEZUELA

The WSJ quotes Dietmar W. Prager, a lawyer with the New York firm of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP who has represented investors with ICSID disputes with Venezuela, in what may be the understatement of the week,

A withdrawal would send an unfriendly signal about Venezuela’s policy towards foreign investment

You can say that again.

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In other Latin American news, Mario Blejer, a former Bank of England adviser who took the reins of Argentina’s central bank after its 2001 default on $95 billion, is telling Greece to ‘Default Big’ to Address its Debt Crisis.

Well, at least he didn’t advise them to plunder private pensions.

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