Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

April 28, 2017 By Fausta

Ecuador: Media fined for not carrying article

Four newspapers and three TV stations were fined US$3,750 each for not carrying a story on presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso.

Ecuador fines media for not publishing a story

Ecuador has fined seven media companies for not publishing a story that it deemed of public interest.

The state’s media watchdog said the press had a duty to cover a story about the supposed offshore dealings of opposition politician and recent presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso.

The investigation was published in an Argentine newspaper in March.

The watchdog and the media companies have accused each other of censorship. Appeals are under way.

The ruling was made against newspapers El Comercio, La Hora, Expreso and El Universo, and television channels Televicentro, Teleamazonas and Ecuavisa.
. . .

The report, “Lasso: the offshore tycoon”, was first published by Argentina’s left-wing Pagina 12 newspaper, and was picked up by various other Ecuadorean news outlets ahead of the country’s election on 2 April.

The Committee to Protect Journalists asserts that “No government anywhere, including in Ecuador, has any business telling the news media what to cover,” and reports,

In defending its actions before Supercom, lawyers for El Comercio argued that the original Página/12 story was poorly reported, failed to include a response from Lasso, and that publishing the unverified allegations would have violated an Ecuadoran law barring media from promoting or denigrating candidates immediately before elections.

Freedom House has rated Ecuador’s press status as “not free.”

Share

Filed Under: censorship, Ecuador, elections, Fausta's blog Tagged With: Guillermo Lasso

May 6, 2015 By Fausta

This is what free speech is all about

“Would a reasonable person be offended by this image?“

I’m with Pete.

Related:
Islamic State claims responsibility for shooting at Texas AFDI/JW free speech event

Share

Filed Under: censorship, Islam, Mohammed cartoons Tagged With: Constitution of the United States, Fausta's blog

March 27, 2015 By Fausta

Ecuador: Chinese loans, social media censorship

Two seemingly unrelated items:

Item 1:
Ecuador Expects $4 Billion in Loans From China in 2015
It is estimated China has committed more than $12 billion in financing to Ecuador between 2009 and 2014
(emphasis added),

Most financing operations from China to Ecuador have been tied to oil sales and several have been backed with presales of crude oil.

Mr. Herrera said the new loans aren’t linked with the selling of crude oil.

The minister said despite the decline of around 50% in oil prices, the Andean country plans to maintain its level of public spending this year, thanks to loans from China, credits from multilateral lenders and governments as well as the selling of Ecuadorean bonds in international markets and domestic debt.

The minister, however, ruled out that the country plans a new bond issue in international markets, citing high interest rates.

Last Thursday the country sold $750 million of five-year bonds at a yield of 10.5%.

In plain words, it sold $750 million worth of junk bonds.

Item 2:
Correa’s Social-Media Troll Center Exposed in Quito
Lucrative Contracts to Shout Down Detractors at Taxpayer Expense

According to Mil Hojas, Ribeney employees operate multiple social-media accounts dedicated to monitoring and attacking the Ecuadorian opposition.

At taxpayer expense, and perhaps a little help from junk bond sales and Chinese loans, too?

Share

Filed Under: censorship, China, Ecuador, media Tagged With: Fausta' blog

January 20, 2015 By Fausta

Ecuador: Censorship on line

Simeon Tegel asks, Is Ecuador’s president using U.S. law to censor critics?

Ecuadoreans who dare to post content critical of Correa and his government on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook say they are finding their images and videos systematically targeted and taken down.

Even more unexpected is the justification being given time and again: the supposed violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), passed by Congress in 1998.

The law, intended to combat online piracy, holds Internet companies liable for copyright violations they host, however unwittingly. It also establishes a fast track “notice and takedown” process for rights holders to inform social networks and search engines when copyright is being breached.

As a result, those websites now automatically remove the content, and even close down repeat violators’ accounts. In practice, democracy activists say, that’s allowing a repressive government to shut down many of its online critics.

Human Rights Watch says this would be the latest move in Ecuador’s “deplorable free speech record.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists has more on Ecuador.

Share

Filed Under: censorship, Ecuador Tagged With: Fausta's blog

September 8, 2014 By Fausta

Venezuela: Censorship vs online media

The WSJ reports,
Venezuela’s Press Crackdown Stokes Growth of Online Media
Digital Alternatives Expand as Newspapers and Broadcasters Struggle

Using legislation, steep fines, pressure on advertisers and control of printing paper, the government during the past decade has corralled the mainstream press, says Carlos Lauria, who oversees the Americas for the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York. He and other free-speech advocates say the intimidation has deepened since Mr. Maduro was narrowly elected in April 2013 after the death of his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, with dozens of reporters detained, beaten and censored, Mr. Lauria says.

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders recently ranked Venezuela among the worst offenders on its press-freedom index.

The article mentions Twitter, La Patilla, Vivoplay and Prodavinci.

I also recommend these 4 Venezuelan blogs (in alphabetical order): Caracas Chronicles, Devil’s Excrement, Infodio, and Venezuela News And Views.

Share

Filed Under: censorship, Communism, Venezuela Tagged With: Fausta's blog

March 22, 2014 By Fausta

#SOSVenezuela, Maria Corina, and the OAS

As I reported yesterday, the OAS voted yesterday to shut out the media and the public from Maria Corina Machado’s testimony. Here’s the video she prepared for the OAS:

“34 OAS ambassadors didn’t see [the] video; 385,000 citizens have”

34 embajadores OEA no vieron video;385mil ciudadanos ya lo han visto http://t.co/Y5cmqFMUIq

— María Corina Machado (@MariaCorinaYA) March 22, 2014

Thanks to Panamanian ambassador @ArturoVallarino, Maria Corina was able to testify at the OAS, albeit behind closed doors:

In an unusual move, Maria Corina Machado, an opposition lawmaker whom the Venezuelan government is trying to put in prison, was made a temporary member of Panama’s delegation to have access to the organization, which so far has largely failed to act on, or even publicly debate, the continuing crisis in Venezuela.

“We did it!!! The voice of the Venezuelan people was heard at the OAS!!!”

Lo logramos!!!La voz del pueblo d Venezuela se escuchó en la #OEA!!! #TuVozEnLaOEA pic.twitter.com/6P75do4NyC

— María Corina Machado (@MariaCorinaYA) March 21, 2014

The OAS’s closed-door vote is a shameful spectacle, a triumph of autocracy over democracy.

In violation of the OAS charter,

the representatives of these so called “democracies” had to start by protecting the repressor, Dictator Nicolas Maduro, violating not only the Charter of the OAS, but Ms. Machado’s rights and that of the opposition to be heard in a forum which is supposed to be there to defend the basic rights of people across the Americas.

And while I can understand the strong dependency of the weak Caribbean economies on the stupid (or is it?) largesse of the even more stupid revolution, I was most disappointed at how so many of these Latin American countries were ready to prostitute themselves in order to protect their mercantile interests. It is remarkable how low these mostly leftists Governments have fallen. Despite being democratically elected, they were not willing to give a voice to the over 50% of Venezuelans that find themselves discriminated against and repressed by the Maduro Dictatorship.

And in doing so, they are trying to defend the most repressive Government, save for Cuba, to have risen in the region in the last two decades. How these representatives and their Governments can sleep at night is beyond me, more so when some of them were victims of similar repression in the past.

But somehow they are short sighted enough in thinking that this will not happen again in their countries and that their commercial interests are being protected by their unethical actions. Both premises are actually wrong. As the world turns, their countries may swing back to repression and they may need the same type of solidarity Venezuela’ opposition deserves today. But more importantly, their belief that their actions in support of the Maduro Dictatorship will somehow lead to payment of Venezuela’s debts with their countries or companies is simply wrong. As stated by Minister Ramirez or the President of the Central Bank, Nelson Merentes, there is no money to pay anything but the foreign currency budget they have established for the year 2014.

So, forget it! You will not collect under Dictator Maduro. In fact, you would probably have a better chance under a change in Government that would put order in the economy and reduce some of the absurd subsidies present in the Venezuelan economy. Only in this case, could Venezuela receive loans and cut subsidies which would, with very strict management, allow it to pay its debts with these countries, that so easily supported what can not be supported under any moral framework.

While Maria Corina was allowed to speak at the OAS, a student, and the mother of one of the protestors killed were not, as the Brazilan ambassador labeled their presence “a circus“.

These countries voted for openness:

Canada
Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
USA
Guatemala
Honduras
México
Paraguay
Perú

Daniel Duquenal sees the vote as a breakdown of the OAS.

Simeon Tegel of Global Post writes on Why the OAS doesn’t want you to hear what this woman has to say
The Organization of American States blocked press access to hear a staunch opponent of Venezuela’s government

Machado faces the prospect of being jailed like Leopoldo Lopez, another opposition leader who has encouraged the demonstrations against widespread food shortages, skyrocketing inflation and the horrendous violent crime wave engulfing Venezuela.

Separately, two opposition mayors have been arrested in the last 48 hours — with one already sentenced to 10 months in jail — for failing to remove the street barricades put up by some of the protesters.

Upon her return, Maria Corina will be facing charges of murder and treason,

The attempt to silence Machado on trumped up charges follows the pattern of treatment opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez has experienced. Lopez was arrested in February on charges including murder, arson and incitement and immediately placed in a military prison. Some of those charges were later dropped but charges of incitement remain.

Venezuela journalist Nelson Bocaranda writes that Maduro’s paying Cubans to vandalize.

While this is going on, Maduro claims that Venezuela’s the country with the highest democratic participation, and that his government has eradicated hunger. I can’t wait for the US lefties to repeat those two gems, the way they tout how Hugo Chavez “improved the economy drastically and ameliorated poverty drastically”, and Cuba’s “excellent free healthcare”.

Food shortages in fact now run at 47.7% of what’s demanded, along with shortages of water and electricity.

Antigovernment demonstrators in Caracas faced off against riot police armed with tear gas and water cannons on Friday after Wednesday’s arrest of another opposition leader:

There’s another demonstration scheduled for today, too. The official protest death toll in Venezuela is up to 31.

RELATED:
VENEZUELA’S MADURO THREATENS TO ARREST MORE OPPOSITION MAYORS

UPDATE:
Linked to by Doug Ross and Babalu. Thank you!


Share

Filed Under: censorship, Communism, Venezuela Tagged With: #LaSalida, #SOSVenezuela, Fausta's blog, Maria Corina Machado, Nicolas Maduro, OAS, Organization of American States

March 3, 2014 By Fausta

Latin America at the #Oscars2014

Best Supporting Actor Jared Leto remembered the Venezuelan protesters:

To all the dreamers out there around the world watching this tonight in places like Ukraine and Venezuela, I want to to say we are here, and as you struggle to make your dreams happen and live the impossible, we are thinking of you tonight.

UPDATE:
Whoa! Kevin Spacey, too,

Venezuela don't give up, everybody has the right to express themselves! #SOSVenezuela #PrayForVenezuela

— Kevin Spacey (@KevinSpacey) March 2, 2014

In Venezuela, most TV viewers could not watch the event as the private channel Venevision, for the first time in several decades of carrying the Academy Awards, did not broadcast the show Sunday night, which is hardly surprising, considering the Twitter campaign,

#ElQuePersisteVence #SOSVenezuela #OscarForVenezuela @TheEllenShow Help us we need your voice pic.twitter.com/RCT8D3KkrU

— Daniel Camarinha (@daracaca) March 3, 2014

Mexican Alfonso Cuarón was a double winner: Mark Sanger and he first won for Best Film Editing (a category close to my heart), causing Paco Almaraz to quip,
“And, as if were a livestock fair, the price of Alfonso Cuarón’s semen just quintuplicated . . .”

Y como si fuera feria ganadera, en estos momentos, el precio del semen de Alfonso Cuarón acaba de quintuplicar…

— Pacasso (@DrNetas) March 3, 2014

Once Cuarón took another Oscar for Best Directing, a commenter in Almaraz’s feed was wondering if Cuarón would get cloned.

Share

Filed Under: censorship, entertainment, Latin America, Mexico, news, Venezuela Tagged With: #SOSVenezuela, Academy Awards, Fausta's blog, Oscars

March 25, 2013 By Fausta

Argentina: Feed a regime, starve a media

Cristina Fernandez, viuda de Kirchner, is not happy that the country’s journalists are reporting about her smear campaign against Pope Francis, the real inflation figures ( >25%), and international investors’ loss of confidence in the country. Mary O’Grady has the story,

Kirchner Tries to Starve the Independent Press
Argentina’s government employs tax inspectors and advertising boycotts to punish critics.

There have been criminal actions against newspaper officials for editorials it didn’t like, attempts to gain control of the country’s domestic newsprint supply, and the passage of a law that politicizes the granting of broadcast licenses and the sale of spectrum. Then there was the September 2009 raid by some 200 tax agents on the daily Clarín, and the deployments of pro-Kirchner mobs to block the distribution of some newspapers that do not toe the Kirchner line.

Now Mrs. Kirchner is trying to financially ruin her critics in the press. One tool is the government’s $100 million-plus advertising budget—excluding the much larger budget for soccer broadcasts. An analysis by the daily La Nación (which publishes some Wall Street Journal content) of 2012 spending over 2011 shows a 65.3% increase in the purchase of space for public announcements and, more commonly, government propaganda in the country’s newspapers and magazines. Yet the four most important independent newspaper publishers—El Cronista, Clarín, La Nación and Perfil—all lost business from the government in 2012. La Nación lost a whopping 83%. El Cronista was down 48%, Clarín lost 37% and Perfil 12%.

The punishment doesn’t end there. At a meeting on Feb. 4 the minister of domestic commerce, Guillermo Moreno, mandated that supermarket chains would have to freeze prices for 60 days. According to a March 3 report in Clarín, Mr. Moreno also instructed those merchants present to halt the purchase of print advertising in Buenos Aires and the surrounding area media outlets. According to the Clarín report, he said the boycott would include companies that sell appliances and electronics.

The government initially denied that it had decreed any such thing. But according to Clarín, merchants told the newspaper that they are under strict orders not to buy advertising from the independent newspapers in and around the capital. Clarín said that failure to obey such commands, even though they are not law, can be costly. Businesses fear government reprisals in the form of tax inspections, the withholding of import licenses, and lawsuits brought in the name of consumer protection.

A tad more subtle than the late Hugo Chavez’s closing RCTV and 34 other TV and radio stations and his attacks on Globovisión, for sure. Plus she can always blame forces beyond her control, like the Vicomte de Valmont, with the extra bonus of blaming capitalism.

Something like that could never happen here, of course.

UPDATE:
Linked by HACER. Thank you!

Share

Filed Under: Argentina, censorship, Fausta's blog, media, TV Tagged With: Cristina Fernandez, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Fausta's blog

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 6
  • Next Page »
Tweets by @Fausta
retirees_raise-2015_300x250

Pages

  • About
  • Email

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Previous Posts

  • Mrs. Maisel goes full Alinsky on Mrs. Schlafly
  • Venezuela: Did the Minister of Defense back out at the last minute?
  • You need to unfriend me
  • Go ahead and Kiss the Girl, if you dare
  • Ashamed

Recent Comments

  • John on Mrs. Maisel goes full Alinsky on Mrs. Schlafly
  • Today’s hot topics: Democrats’ collusion shift, tax-return rift, Venezuela drift, and more! – PoliticalWitchDoctor.com on Venezuela: Did the Minister of Defense back out at the last minute?
  • Today’s hot topics: Democrats’ collusion shift, tax-return rift, Venezuela drift, and more! - AmericanTruthToday on Venezuela: Did the Minister of Defense back out at the last minute?
  • Did Venezuela’s Minister of Defense Back Out At The Last Minute? on Venezuela: Did the Minister of Defense back out at the last minute?
  • Roseanne Not Back, Khan not Invited, Operaman’s back, Jobs back, Fausta’s back (but not here yet) Thoughts under the fedora – Da Tech Guy Blog on Venezuela: Did the Minister of Defense back out at the last minute?

Archives

  • 2019
    • December 2019
    • May 2019
    • January 2019
  • 2018
    • December 2018
    • October 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
  • 2017
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
  • 2016
    • December 2016
    • November 2016
    • October 2016
    • September 2016
    • August 2016
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • April 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • January 2016
  • 2015
    • December 2015
    • November 2015
    • October 2015
    • September 2015
    • August 2015
    • July 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
  • 2014
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
    • October 2014
    • September 2014
    • August 2014
    • July 2014
    • June 2014
    • May 2014
    • April 2014
    • March 2014
    • February 2014
    • January 2014
  • 2013
    • December 2013
    • November 2013
    • October 2013
    • September 2013
    • August 2013
    • July 2013
    • June 2013
    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • March 2013
    • February 2013
    • January 2013
  • 2012
    • December 2012
    • November 2012
    • October 2012
    • September 2012
    • August 2012
    • July 2012
    • June 2012
    • May 2012
    • April 2012
    • March 2012
    • February 2012
    • January 2012
  • 2011
    • December 2011
    • November 2011
    • October 2011
    • September 2011
    • August 2011
    • July 2011
    • June 2011
    • May 2011
    • April 2011
    • March 2011
    • February 2011
    • January 2011
  • 2010
    • December 2010
    • November 2010
    • October 2010
    • September 2010
    • August 2010
    • July 2010
    • June 2010
    • May 2010
    • April 2010
    • March 2010
    • February 2010
    • January 2010
  • 2009
    • December 2009
    • November 2009
    • October 2009
    • September 2009
    • August 2009
    • July 2009
    • June 2009
    • May 2009
    • April 2009
    • March 2009
    • February 2009
    • January 2009
  • 2008
    • December 2008
    • November 2008
    • October 2008
    • September 2008
    • August 2008
    • July 2008
    • June 2008
    • May 2008
    • April 2008
    • March 2008
    • February 2008
    • January 2008
  • 2007
    • December 2007
    • November 2007
    • October 2007
    • September 2007
    • August 2007
    • July 2007
    • June 2007
    • May 2007
    • April 2007
    • March 2007
    • February 2007
    • January 2007
  • 2006
    • December 2006
    • November 2006
    • October 2006
    • September 2006
    • August 2006
    • July 2006
    • June 2006
    • May 2006
    • April 2006
    • March 2006
    • February 2006
    • January 2006
  • 2005
    • December 2005
    • November 2005
    • October 2005
    • September 2005
    • August 2005
    • July 2005
    • June 2005
    • May 2005
    • April 2005
    • March 2005
    • February 2005
    • January 2005
  • 2004
    • December 2004
    • November 2004
    • October 2004
    • September 2004
    • August 2004
    • July 2004
    • June 2004
    • May 2004
    • April 2004
    • March 2004
Content Copyright Fausta's Blog

Site Developed and Managed by 300m.com