Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

Archives for July 2016

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Sunday palate cleanser: Turandot at the Forbidden City UPDATED

conducted by Zubin Mehta, breathtaking location, costumes and staging,

Libretto here.

In case you’re wondering, after staging Turandot in the Forbidden City, has anyone dared stage The Mikado in Chichibu, Japan? The answer is yes.

UPDATE
Judith sends a link to The Pink Flamingo, who also does Sunday opera posts! This week, A Little Dmitri Fix.
And, since there’s no such thing as too much Dmitri, here’s his Instagram page.

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Argentina: Cristina sounds like Nancy

Soundbites all over the place:

Cristina Remembers Hugo Chávez, Accuses Media Of Manipulating Argentines. Former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner returned to the City of Buenos Aires to attend the birthday of the late Hugo Chávez. She also talked politics, obviously. (emphasis added)

Former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner returned to the City of Buenos Aires yesterday to celebrate the birth of her former friend and ally, late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. In an event held in the Instituto Patria (IP), the recently inaugurated Kirchnerite think tank, Cristina remembered Chávez, who died in 2013 and would have turned 62 yesterday, but also spoke about why, in her opinion, her Victory Front (FpV) party lost against President Mauricio Macri’s Cambiemos in the last elections. She hinted at Argentines being swayed by media conglomerates and other interested groups that don’t have the people’s best interest in mind.

Over in Philly, Nancy Pelosi was deploring white men who “voted against their own economic interests”

Because we all need to be condescended to.

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Venezuela: Next on the agenda, forced labor

Vice News reports that, like Cuba, Venezuela has a new ‘forced labor’ law that can require people to work in fields

“A new decree establishing that any employee in Venezuela can be effectively made to work in the country’s fields as a way to fight the current food crisis is unlawful and effectively amounts to forced labor,” Amnesty International said in a statement released on Thursday.

President Nicolás Maduro signed a decree at the end of last week that gives powers to the labor ministry to order “all workers from the public and private sector with enough physical capabilities and technical know-how” to join a government drive aimed at increasing food production.

They can be required to work in the agricultural sector for a 60-day period that can be extended for another 60 days “if the circumstances require it.”

21st Century Democratic Socialism.

UPDATE
Socialism for the Uninformed

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Cuba: Now that Venezuelan oil runs dry, Cuba wants reparations from the U.S.

Venezuela cuts oil shipments to Cuba forcing Castro to consider veering to U.S.

Cuba, a communist country with a weak economy, has alienated itself from the rest of the world and has largely relied on Venezuela to stay financially afloat. But Venezuela’s falling oil prices is causing Cuba to distance itself from the South American country.

So far this year Venezuelan oil shipments to the island have declined by 19.5 percent, forcing an energy rationing that is reminding people of the early 90s, when the Soviet Union dissolved and Cuba lost its top provider almost overnight.

Now with Venezuela’s wealth slowly fading away, the geopolitical chessboard may change in a way that some say will inevitably drive Havana closer to the U.S.

Indeed, it has – Cuba is now demanding reparations over the so-called embargo:

You see, the Castro regime is claiming that it is owed 833.755 million dollars, for “damages” inflicted on it by the U.S. “blockade.”

Yes, you’ve got that right: the Castro regime claims that it is owed roughly SEVEN times more than it owes the U.S.

$5 says Obama caves in before he leaves office.

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Venezuela: Look where the Gitmo guy went! UPDATED

Authorities in seven countries spent the last month or two trying to locate Gitmo alumnus Abu Wa’el Dhiab, a.k.a. Jihad Ahmad Diyab, a.k.a. Abu Wael Dihab, a.k.a. Jihad Ahmed Mujstafa Diyab, who went missing from Uruguay.

For brevity’s sake, let’s call him Diyab.

The former member of the “Syrian Group”, which was “comprised of dismantled terrorist cells that escaped Syrian authorities and fled to Afghanistan (AF) in 2000,” was released by the Obama administration from Guantanamo and sent to Uruguay. He went to Argentina last February, and declared himself  “ready to fight“,

After that, Diyab tried to enter Brazil three times but was turned away at the border. Then authorities lost track of him, until now.

And he’s in Venezuela:
Former Gitmo Detainee Shows Up in Venezuela. Abu Wa’el Dhiab unexpectedly left his home in Uruguay, raising concerns (emphasis added)

A former Guantanamo Bay detainee who unexpectedly disappeared from Uruguay last month showed up in Venezuela on Tuesday, saying he wanted help traveling to Turkey, Uruguay’s Foreign Ministry said.

Abu Wa’el Dhiab, who was transferred by the Obama administration to Montevideo, Uruguay, in 2014, appeared at Uruguay’s consulate in Caracas and asked for assistance to fly to Turkey or some other country to be reunited with his family.

“He made it clear he has no interest in returning to Uruguay, but that he needs our country’s help,” the ministry said late Wednesday, adding that Venezuelan authorities were aware of the situation.

A spokesman for the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry in Caracas had said earlier that the office had no information about the former detainee’s arrival.
. . .
Mr. Dhiab’s travel plans may raise additional concern, given Turkey’s porous border with Syria and its use as an entry point for volunteers looking to join Islamic State.

How did he get there? He supposedly needs crutches to walk.

Who helped him along the way? Who’s bankrolling him?

Where is he staying? With whom? Doing what?

UPDATE:
The more I think about it, the worse this story looks.

A known terrorist, who supposedly needs crutches to get around, goes missing for several weeks, to eventually turn up some 4,600 miles away from Montevideo (a little under the distance from New York to Moscow), in Venezuela, of all places, just so he can petition the Uruguayan consulate – which he could do in Montevideo – to “ask for assistance to fly to Turkey or some other country to be reunited with his family.”

This simply does not pass the smell test.

Linked to by Gates of Vienna. Thank you!

————————————————
We mentioned Diyab in last night’s podcast, but we did not know of his whereabouts at the time of the podcast,

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Argentina: Cristina tweets on Nisman’s case against her

No, not on the investigation of Nisman‘s murder, but on the civil lawsuit Nisman brought against her:
Cristina Criticizes Attempts To Reopen Nisman’s Case Against Her. Former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner took to Twitter to criticize further attempts to reopen a case that Prosecutor Alberto Nisman opened against her.

In a barrage of Tweets today, former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner criticized yet another attempt to reopen a case investigating whether she covered up the role Iran could have allegedly played in the deadly 1994 AMIA bombing. The bid to reopen the case has already been rejected, but Cristina took to Twitter nonetheless to blame the Macri administration for instigating it.

Why, pray tell?

On January 18th 2015, Nisman was found dead in his apartment with a single gunshot to the head. It’s still unknown whether this was a suicide or homicide. He was set to appear before Congress to justify calling Cristina to the stand mere hours after he was killed.

Federal Judge Daniel Rafecas dismissed the case against Cristina in 2015. Then, in March, Prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita requested reopening the case, but according to Rafecas, the case was already “closed and archived” and could not be opened again. Once the judiciary returns from recess next week, La Nación sources revealed days ago that a double strategy will be implemented. First, the DAIA (Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas) will ask for Judge Rafecas to de-archive the case. Second, Federal Chamber Prosecutor Germán Moldes will try to get the ruling that closed the investigation annulled.

We’ll see how this all turns out.

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