Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

May 13, 2016 By Fausta

En español: Uribe en Bayly

Anoche,

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Filed Under: Alvaro Uribe, Colombia Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Jaime Bayly

October 27, 2015 By Fausta

En español: José Benegas en el Show de Bayly

Hablando sobre las elecciones argentinas,

Argentina: Scioli, Macri tied, runoff will be on Nov 22

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Filed Under: Argentina, elections Tagged With: Fausta' blog, Jaime Bayly, José Benegas

August 11, 2015 By Fausta

Argentina: Cristina’s party wins primary

Ruling Party Candidate Daniel Scioli Leads Argentina Primaries

Opposition parties could still rally together to win Argentina’s presidency later this year, but only if there’s a runoff.

Candidates in the general election need at least 45% of the vote, or 40% plus a 10-point margin over their closest rival, to win in the first round.

The Buenos Aires Herald says Scioli emerged stronger,

In the end, the only presidential contender for the FpV received 38.41 percent of valid votes against the 24.28 percent mustered by PRO chief Mauricio Macri, the 3.45 percent obtained by Radical (UCR) party leader Ernesto Sanz and the 2.34 percent received by Civic Coalition leader Elisa Carrió

Scioli’s meeting with Lula and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and heading to China and Russia, for some foreign policy bona fides (not that it would seem to matter).

Bayly had José Benegas in last night’s show, talking about the primary (in Spanish),

Benegas’s latest book is available on Amazon, Hagase tu voluntad: Bajar del cielo para conseguir un cargador de iPhone (Spanish Edition)

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Filed Under: Argentina, elections Tagged With: Daniel Scioli, Fausta's blog, Jaime Bayly, José Benegas

June 11, 2015 By Fausta

2 en español: Lucio Gutierrez, Emili Blasco en el show de Bayly

Lucio Gutiérrez, ex-Presidente de Ecuador,

Emili J. Blasco, corresponsal de ABC y autor del libro Bumerán Chávez: Los fraudes que llevaron al colapso de Venezuela (Amazon.com #1 Best Sellerin Caribbean & Latin American Politics)

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Filed Under: Ecuador, Venezuela Tagged With: Emili J. Blasco, Fausta's blog, Jaime Bayly, Lucio Gutiérrez

September 16, 2014 By Fausta

Venezuela: What do El Puma & Ricardo Hausmann have in common?

What do a retired pop idol and a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government have in common?
Answer: Any criticism is met with public pillorying.

First instance: El Puma.

[Note: all the YouTubes are in Spanish]

Jaime Bayly interviewed last week singing star José Luís Rodríguez, best known as El Puma (link audio starts immediately) in his show last week. El Puma is Venezuelan and was very clear about Venezuela’s disastrous dictatorship,

It didn’t take long for Maduro to verbally pillory El Puma, saying that everybody will forget El Puma but all will remember Hugo Chavez,

Of course, Maduro may be correct, but for the wrong reasons.

Bayly talked about it last night, contrasting the joy El Puma brings his fans with the misery raining on Venezuela from chavismo,

Second instance: Ricardo Hausmann

Meet the Academic ‘Hitman’ Who Infuriates Venezuela’s President (emphasis added)

Ricardo Hausmann sounds like a scary guy. Last night, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro called him a “financial hitman” and “outlaw” who is part of a campaign “that has been initiated around the world against Venezuela.”

Who is this supposed international assassin? A bearded, 50-something professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government who wrote a recent opinion piece saying Venezuela should default on its international debts. Traders in the bond market already consider this a possibility given the country’s financial straits, but Maduro seems to have taken it hard because Hausmann is himself Venezuelan and served as planning minister in 1992-93.

Maduro, like his late mentor and predecessor Hugo Chávez, presents himself as the champion of Venezuela’s poor. Hausmann attacked that image in his opinion piece by writing that many of the bonds on which Venezuela is paying interest “are held by well-connected wealthy Venezuelans,” while “severe shortages of life-saving drugs in Venezuela are the result of the government’s default on a $3.5 billion bill for pharmaceutical imports.” He said that the choice of Maduro’s government not to default “is a signal of its moral bankruptcy.”

That clearly did not go over well with Maduro, who instructed the attorney general and public prosecutor to take unspecified “actions” against Hausmann.

Here’s Maduro in his TV cadena, calling Hausmann a financial hit man,

Chavismo has turned Venezuela into a country where whores (not just the streetwalkers) cash in as currency traders. Hausmann’s assertions shouldn’t come as a surprise.

UPDATE:
You wouldn’t know it from looking at Maduro, but there’s a shortage of boobs in Venezuela.

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Filed Under: Communism, Venezuela Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Jaime Bayly, José Luís Rodríguez "El Puma", Nicolas Maduro, Ricardo Hausmann

August 14, 2014 By Fausta

En español: Barbara Padilla

The 2d place finalist of America’s Got Talent, Barbara Padilla, interviewed in Spanish by Jaime Bayly,

She has a new CD out today, available through Amazon. I’d like Andrea Bocelli’s agent to sign her up.

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Filed Under: entertainment, music Tagged With: Barbara Padilla, Fausta's blog, Jaime Bayly

March 13, 2014 By Fausta

Cuban endurance sports: Meet world-class windsurfer Henry Vergara Negrin

Last week a twenty four-year old on a windsurfing board pulls onshore and makes a phone call to his dad to ask him to be picked up.

Nothing unusual about that, except perhaps for his needing a ride.

What is really extraordinary is that the young man, Henry Vergara Negrin, had windsurfed for nine hours straight from Cuba, using his GPS. Two other friends each on windsurfing boards, had started with him: one was picked up and returned to Cuba, the third one was found by a fisherman Thursday morning,
[Note: The reporter mistakenly refers to Henry Vergara Negrin as Negrin, when it should be Vergara, or Vergara Negrin]

Key West police reports documented how Henry Vergara Negrin, 24, said he left Jibacoa, Cuba, near Havana at 9 a.m. Tuesday with two companions on separate boards.

Jibacoa is located about 97 miles south of Key West.

About nine and a half hours after leaving Cuba, Negrin arrived ashore at Key West’s luxury Reach Resort.

A hotel spokeswoman told Reuters that hotel guests and a staff member with the hotel helped him to a lounge chair where other staff members took care of him.

Negrin is the reportedly the first Cuban windsurfer to complete the dangerous trip across the Florida Straits in two decades.

According to the account Negrin gave police, he lost sight of his companions four hours into the journey when their sails went down.
He told police he knew them only as Amando, 28, and Dwarta, 23

Vergara Negrin was interviewed by Jaime Bayly, who was suitably impressed by Vergara Negrin’s presence of mind, endurance and fitness. Henry said he didn’t tell anyone, not even his mom, what he was about to do:

Bayly was also surprised to meet a low-key Cuban. Not many of those!

Henry will be celebrating his 25th birthday on March 20th.

Let’s see if the US media fusses about Henry’s accomplishment in fleeing from the island-prison, or if he’ll be in Dancing with the Stars.

On the other hand, Henry – who’s still young enough to sign up as his dad’s dependent under Obamacare (as if he’s anyone’s dependent!) – already has met a criteria for future Secretary of State:

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Filed Under: Communism, Cuba Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Henry Vergara Negrin, Jaime Bayly

January 11, 2014 By Fausta

Colombia: When El Dorado is the gateway to freedom

Note:
All links except Carlos Eire‘s are in Spanish.

Like something out of The Terminal (video in Spanish):

Six Cubans Ask for Asylum in Colombia, Remain in Airport Limbo

Their names are Ángel, Briam, Edualdo, Greisy, Yoanker and Nayip, and they say in unison: “Nosotros no nos vamos para Cuba, queremos quedarnos en Bogotá” (We won’t return to Cuba, we want to stay in Bogotá).

All six –one woman and six men — are under the age of 41, as their Castro era names attest, and they have been asking for asylum since the first of the year.

The would-be refugees have been camping out in the airport, refusing to move, rejecting all offers to fly them back to Castrogonia. The Colombian government, in turn, has refused them asylum, and now the United Nations is getting involved.

How they got into this predicament is still being figured out. And no one seems to know how it will be resolved.

They claim that they left Castrogonia for Ecuador with all of the right papers, but were refused entry. After arguing their case for six days at the airport in Ecuador, they were sent back to the Castro Kingdom via Colombia, but when they reached the Bogotá airport they refused to board their flight back to the slave plantation.

Five other Cubans returned to Havana.

The Colombian government declined asylum since the Cubans had not filed a formal application while they remained at El Dorado airport in Bogota (link in Spanish – my translation, please link & credit me if you use it):

The Ministry’s statement said that the refugees’ intention to seek asylum, which they have expressed through the media, “can not be processed” since Colombian law directly prohibits it when it involves foreigners in international transit zones. “According to the law, they haven’t entered national territory,” it explained.

According to the statement, “Colombian Immigration has had no access to their passports” since they are in the international transit zone.

When I first read about this, my question was, is there a Colombian immigration lawyer who would be willing to take their case (most likely on a pro bono basis)? If they have legal representation, would they be able to apply for asylum?

Yes.

This morning Colombian daily El Universal reports that Colombian Immigration has granted the six Cubans safe-conduct for five working days so they can file a formal asylum request through the Foreign Relations Ministry. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is filing the application and transferred them to a shelter.

There may be a happy ending to this story!

Related:
Jaime Bayly interviewed Andrés Carrión, the Cuban dissident who hollered “Down with Communism” during Pope Benedict’s 2012 visit to Cuba (in Spanish), which highlights the importance of garnering international attention:

UPDATE:
Linked to by Carlos. Thank you!

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Filed Under: Carlos Eire, Colombia, Communism, Cuba, immigration Tagged With: Andrés Carrión, El Dorado, Fausta's blog, Jaime Bayly

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