Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

Archives for December 2017

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Brazil: North in crisis over Venezuela migration

Via commenter Old Timer,

Northern Brazil under State of Emergency over Mass Immigration of Venezuelans

The regional government of northern Roraima in Brazil has declared a state of emergency following the mass immigration of Venezuelans fleeing their country’s crisis over the past months.
. . .
The mass exodus of Venezuelans “has created serious difficulties for the teams in charge of providing logistical support (reception and shelter) at the border,” states the decree, and mentions health and safety concerns for both immigrants and Brazilians.

Campos recalled that Roraima received a third epidemiological alert last week from the Pan American Health Organization about the possibility that, as a result of migration, the region might experience a measles outbreak similar to the one that has affected the Venezuelan state of Bolívar for the last six months, where 38 cases of the disease have been confirmed.

It’s not only Brazil and Miami, there’s also Colombia’s Venezuela Problem

An imploding economy, marked by product shortages and hyperinflation, has driven almost half-a-million Venezuelans to live in Colombia. That number includes a 50-percent rise in the past three months alone as thousands of new migrants arrive each day in search of medicine, food, and work.

These are symptoms of a larger problem: Joel Hirst writes about The Arriving Ordeal

Fragility and conflict. Those were the words for the post-cold war period, which is now over.

Read the whole thing.

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Venezuelans in Miami

José de Córdoba and Arian Campo-Flores report that Like the Cubans Before Them, Venezuelan Exiles Are Transforming Florida Politics. Both U.S. parties are hustling to recruit a flood of new voters in a crucial state for presidential elections

Emphasis added,

Where Cubans once came by small boats, rafts made of inner tubes and planes, Venezuelans fly straight here from Caracas, their belongings in a few suitcases. Like the Cubans who came in the 1960s, the new arrivals say they are fleeing a land they love because they can no longer live in a country where the government has destroyed the economy, imprisoned opponents and killed protesters.

Many Venezuelans are escaping to neighboring countries such as Colombia or back to the countries of their forefathers, including Spain. In the U.S., the destination of choice is Miami, which has an established Venezuelan enclave. Many enter with tourist visas and then change them to other types of visas or plead for asylum.

How many become citizens?

How many are chavistas absconding with ill-gotten gains?

And as a commenter put it,

“A people get the government they deserve” is, in all cases indisputable and inevitable. Abandoning a sinking vessel for another floating one, without accepting the reasons for the loss of the old ship, is to eventually bring the same tragedy to the new residence.

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Trump goes after Hezbollah in LatAm

Best news on the Hemisphere for a very long time,
How Trump Is Going After Hezbollah in America’s Backyard. The pro-Iranian militant group is up to no good in Latin America—and U.S. officials are pushing back.

The administration’s counter-Hezbollah campaign is an interagency effort that includes leveraging diplomatic, intelligence, financial and law enforcement tools to expose and disrupt the logistics, fundraising and operational activities of Iran, the Qods Force and the long list of Iranian proxies from Lebanese Hezbollah to other Shia militias in Iraq and elsewhere. But in the words of Ambassador Nathan Sale, the State Department coordinator for counterterrorism, “Countering Hezbollah is a top priority for the Trump administration.” Since it took office, the Trump administration has taken a series of actions against Hezbollah in particular—including indictments, extraditions, public statements and issues rewards for information on wanted Hezbollah terrorist leaders—and officials are signaling that more actions are expected, especially in Latin America. Congress has passed a series of bills aimed at Hezbollah as well. The goal, according to an administration official quoted by POLITICO, is to “expose them for their behavior.” The thinking goes: Hezbollah cannot claim to be a legitimate actor even as it engages in a laundry list of illicit activities that undermine stability at home in Lebanon, across the Middle East region and around the world.

Read the full article. It ends with, “Expect some aggressive disruption.”

As Capt. Picard used to say, “make it so.”

UPDATE
Linked to by Pirate’s Cove. Thank you!

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Brazil: Tiririca would rather be an honest clown than a crooked politician

The clown and politician who as been in the Chamber of Deputies since 2010 is calling it quits,

A professional clown in Brazil who ran for congress and won by a huge margin says he will not stand again in 2018.

Francisco Everardo Oliveira Silva, better known as Tiririca, is coming to the end of his second term in the Chamber of Deputies.

He complained that he was one of only eight out of more than 500 lawmakers who regularly turned up to sessions.

Tiririca said he was “ashamed” of his colleagues’ behaviour and would return to being a full-time clown.

Tiririca’s stage name means Grumpy. His 2010 campaign slogan was “It can’t get any worse.”

He would get my vote.

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

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Strzok

Peter Strzok is not the only member of Mueller’s million-dollar gang who is clearly biased. Andrew Weissmann, one of Robert Mueller’s top prosecutors and formerly the Obama-era Chief of the Justice Department’s Criminal Fraud Section, congratulated former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates for refusing to enforce President Trump’s Middle East travel ban executive order.

Read my post on the very strange case of Strzok

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I’ve been busy lately with things away from blogging. Thank you for your patience, and enjoy the season! Blogging will resume shortly.



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