Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

December 4, 2017 By Fausta

Honduras: Incumbent Hernandez ahead by 1.59%

Honduran electoral website shows president 1.59 percent points ahead

Hernandez had 42.98 percent of the vote, while TV star Salvador Nasralla had 41.39 percent, with 99.96 percent of votes tallied, according to the tribunal’s website.
. . .
After the count suddenly halted for more than a day, the sporadic vote count started leaning in favor of the incumbent.

Aaand,

Hillary’s old friend Mel Zelaya is again destabilizing Honduras. https://t.co/42X7NhvpUN

— MaryAnastasiaO'Grady (@MaryAnastasiaOG) December 4, 2017

How so?

like a bad centavo, pro-Chávez Honduran former President Manuel Zelaya turned up in the midst of one angry mob.

Zelaya no longer has his tin-foil lined room at the Brazilian embassy now that Dilma’s not in office.

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Filed Under: Fausta's blog, Honduras Tagged With: Juan Orlando Hernandez, Manuel Zelaya, Mel Zelaya, Salvador Nasralla

July 18, 2016 By Fausta

The Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

ARGENTINA
Argentina judge orders cash seized from Fernandez’s daughter, Florencia Kirchner.

BOLIVIA
Fitch cuts Bolivia’s credit rating

Chile rejects Bolivia call for talks on sea access

BRAZIL
Brazil reviews security measures ahead of Rio Olympics

Rio de Janeiro’s Airspace to Be Restricted on July 24, Ahead of Olympics

CHILE
Stormy seas hit Chile copper exports, could buoy prices

COLOMBIA
The Chilean fighting in a foreign conflict in Colombia

CUBA
Good question: In Age Of Terror, Why Is Obama Rushing to Open Daily Flights With Cuba?

ECUADOR
Steve Hanke: “Electronic money leads into bankruptcy”

HONDURAS
Former Honduran President Zelaya to Supporters: “Ready Your AK-47s”. Deposed Seven Years Ago, Leftist Manuel Zelaya Seeks to Return to Power in 2017

MEXICO
Mexico to its Expatriates: “The Door Is Open to You Here”

PANAMA
Panama’s Manuel Noriega to Have Surgery on Brain Tumor

PERU
Spanish Historian Recounts Quest to Locate Last Inca Capital

PUERTO RICO
Zika Virus Jump: Puerto Rico Sees Big Increase in Case Count

VENEZUELA
Venezuela Comptroller General Says Cabinet Members Being Investigated



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Filed Under: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Carnival of Latin America, Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Honduras, Latin America, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Venezuela Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Florencia Kirchner, Manuel Noriega, Manuel Zelaya, Zika virus

November 25, 2013 By Fausta

Honduras: What next?

Honduras held its presidential election yesterday, and the Ruling National Party Appears Headed For Win in Honduran Vote
Leftist Coalition Has Yet to Concede Defeat in Presidential Elections

If Mr. Hernández is ratified as the victor, it would be a major setback for Mr. Zelaya and his wife, who had formed the Libre party as a protest vote against the country’s traditional politics, dominated for decades by two political parties, the conservative National Party and the center-right Liberal Party.

Mary O’Grady is not optimistic:
Turmoil Is Expected After Honduras’s Election
A Central American democracy is in trouble thanks to Obama’s foreign-policy choices.

The Obama administration tried to force Honduras to violate its constitution and restore Mr. Zelaya to power. All of the country’s institutions refused.

That crisis remains a rare moment in Central American history when a U.S. president joined Fidel Castro and his allies in an effort to strong-arm three legitimate branches of a friendly government. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even stripped the members of the Honduras Supreme Court of their U.S. visas. Just as rare, the rule of law prevailed.

Yet the bullying by Washington took its toll. The newly elected president, Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo, was keenly aware that Honduras was out of favor with the U.S. and other left-wing governments in the region. He set about to placate them. One of his most controversial decisions was to grant amnesty to Mr. Zelaya, who ought to have been tried for his high crimes and misdemeanors.

As the Diplomad puts it, The USA is now basically irrelevant to events in Latin America. Another triumph of the Obama foreign policy team.

And yet, compared to Saturday’s deal with Iran, it pales by comparison.

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Filed Under: elections, Honduras, news Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Juan Orlando Hernandez, Manuel Zelaya, Mel Zelaya

October 18, 2013 By Fausta

Honduras: Zelaya’s baaaack

The return of Manuel Zelaya to a wary Honduras
Deposed president seeks return through wife’s ‘candidacy’
(emphasis added)

When the world last heard from Honduras in 2009, the country had sparked a regional crisis after deposing its president, Manuel Zelaya, for his repeated illegal attempts to rewrite the Honduran Constitution as his amigo, the now-deceased autocrat Hugo Chavez, had done in Venezuela. Despite the fact that the Law Library of the U.S. Congress later found the process to be constitutional, theObama administration joined Chavez and other radical regimes in branding Mr. Zelaya’s removal a “military coup” and unleashed punitive sanctions on one of the region’s poorest countries.

Honduras survived that assault, but not before enduring such affronts to its sovereignty as Mr. Zelaya buzzing the airport in Tegucigalpa on a plane with Organization of American States Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza after being denied landing rights, and then Mr. Zelaya sneaking back into the country and finding refuge in the Brazilian Embassy, where he lined his room with tinfoil because he said Israeli agents were beaming microwaves at him.

Incredibly, Mr. Zelaya is poised to return to power in Honduras next month in the person of his wife, Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, a candidate in presidential elections to be held Nov. 24. Ms. Castro, who has never held elected office, currently leads the polls in a three-way race, although with just under 30 percent support.

The drug lords are going to like it.

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Filed Under: drugs, Honduras, politics Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Manuel Zelaya, Mel Zelaya

September 16, 2013 By Fausta

The Renault 4 Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

LatinAmerToday’s Carnival is dedicated to the Argentina Renault 4 Motor Club, which granted Pope Francis a lifetime membership, for his fondness for the “roadrunners”, as the fans call their little cars.

Over in Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro fell off his bike. The clueless anchorwoman went on reading the scripted propaganda as if nothing had happened. She probably didn’t even have a livefeed for the event, demonstrating it’s all about the narrative,

For more serious news,

BELIZE
See the Cathedral of Human Sacrifices in the Cave of the Crystal Maiden

BRAZIL
Reporter Glenn Greenwald to testify at Brazil spy probe
A parliamentary commission in Brazil investigating spying allegations says the journalist Glenn Greenwald will be invited to testify next week.

CHILE
David and Daniel (h/t American Digest)

Forty years after the coup and the IACHR

COLOMBIA
Colombia Implements Hotel Guest Immigration Tracking Program

Woman arrested with ‘cocaine bump’
A Canadian national is arrested in Bogota trying to board a flight to Toronto with a phony pregnant belly filled with cocaine, Colombian police say.

The US Embassy tweeted on its campaign to save endangered species,

#EEUU promueve una campaña más intensa para detener el tráfico de especies amenazadas por la caza ilegal http://t.co/VPLXTsvYFR

— US Embassy Bogota (@USEmbassyBogota) September 12, 2013

CUBA
Makes you wonder what kinds of strings Vlad attached to his $800 million offer: Concrete Crypt for Communist Dreams: Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Plant

Lacking nuclear fuel and without the primary components installed, the plant sat in limbo until December 2000, when Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a visit to Cuba. Putin offered Fidel Castro a belated $800 million to finish the first reactor. Despite Cuba’s reliance on imported oil for power, Castro declined. Project status: officially abandoned.

Amnesty International calls on Castro Kingdom to free Ivan Fernandez Depestre

ECUADOR
Chocolates From Ecuador
Until recently, Ecuadorean cacao growers had been cultivating low-grade cacao beans and selling them to foreign chocolate makers to process. The past few years have seen the emergence of local producers. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the process.

EL SALVADOR
A U.S. Reward for Misrule in El Salvador The FMLN has made the country poorer and less free. Yet $227 million in American aid is coming.

GUATEMALA
Guatemalan bar attack leaves 11 people dead

HONDURAS
Honduras, A Bottomless Pit

MEXICO
Mexico captures third man linked to killing of U.S. border agent

MEXICAN SMUGGLER’S WILD RIDE: DRAGGED PASSENGER, RAMMED BORDER PATROL, CRASHED IN DITCH

NICARAGUA
Territorial disputes
A sea of troubles

NOTHING brings together domestic foes like an external enemy. So when President Juan Manuel Santos announced that Colombia would not heed a ruling last November by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague that granted 70,000 sq km (27,000 square miles) of the Caribbean Sea that Colombians have considered their own since 1928 to Nicaragua, even his harshest critics applauded.

PERU
Drug labs on Brazil-Peru border targeted in joint operation

PUERTO RICO
Analysis: Puerto Rico’s population drops as economy wobbles

The 4.9 million Puerto Ricans living in the continental United States as of 2011 outnumbered those on the island by more than 1 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

VENEZUELA
“New Conferry” Chronicles (Corrected)

Venezuela: From crazy to insane

The week’s posts and podcast:
Argentina: Pope Francis, Renault 4 Club’s lifetime member

En español: El primer podcast de HACER

New book: Latin America in the Post-Chávez Era: The Security Threat to the United States

Colombia: Alvaro Uribe at the House Committee on Foreign Affairs

Argentina: SCOTUS to hear defaulted bonds case

Mexico: #EstamosHartosCNTE Fed up with the teachers’ union

Mexico: Bloomberg wants “sugary drinks” taxed

Venezuela: Can Chavismo last long?

Mexico: How the teachers’ union became so unpopular

Podcast:
Syria and Latin America reaction


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Filed Under: Belize, Brazil, Carnival of Latin America, Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Puerto Rico, Venezuela Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Manuel Zelaya, Mel Zelaya, Nicolas Maduro

May 13, 2011 By Fausta

Zelaya returning to Honduras

Just what the country doesn’t need,
Ousted Leader Is Set to Return to Honduras

Former President Manuel Zelaya is expected to return to Honduras within a month, ending an exile that began nearly two years ago when he was ousted in a coup, an aide and a key supporter said Wednesday.

Conditions are right for Mr. Zelaya to return from the Dominican Republic after the Honduran Supreme Court dropped corruption charges against him, said Rasel Tomé, a senior aide of the former president.
…
Mr. Zelaya’s return could pave the way for Honduras to be reincorporated into the Organization of American States, which suspended the country after the coup in June 2009.

The United States and many other countries in the hemisphere have long since restored diplomatic ties with Honduras, but some nations, including Venezuela and Brazil, have declined to do so.

Honduran President Pepe Lobo says Honduras will be readmitted to the OAS before June 5.

Hugo Chavez will be gloating this weekend on his cadenas.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she was confident that the O.A.S. would restore Honduras.

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Filed Under: Honduras Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Manuel Zelaya, Mel Zelaya, OAS

May 9, 2011 By Fausta

The Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

LatinAmer

LATIN AMERICA
Latin America’s housing boom
It’s not all froth
Big price hikes at the top end reflect a new, richer reality

Adios, We Hardly Knew You

FreedomHouse’s report PRESS FREEDOM IN 2010: SIGNS OF CHANGE AMID REPRESSION

Americas: In the Americas, 17 countries (49 percent) were rated Free, 14 (40 percent) were rated Partly Free, and 4 (11 percent) were rated Not Free for 2010. The region’s population is almost evenly split between those living in Free (41 percent) and Partly Free (42 percent) media environments, with the remaining 17 percent living in Not Free countries. These figures are significantly influenced by the open media environments of the Caribbean, which tend to offset the less rosy picture in Central and South America. There were two negative status changes, with Honduras and Mexico joining the ranks of Not Free countries, as well as a number of significant numerical declines. Not since 2006 have so many countries in the region been designated Not Free. The regional average score worsened compared with 2009, with the bulk of the decline occurring in the political and economic categories.
Press freedom conditions remain extremely restricted in Cuba, which has one of the most repressive media environments worldwide, and Venezuela, where the government of President Hugo Chávez continued its efforts to control the press. Further pressures were placed on independent V enezuelan broadcast outlets during the year, including the revocation of licenses, and the head of a major television station, Globovisión, fled into exile.
Ongoing deterioration in Mexico and Honduras tipped both countries into the Not Free range in 2010. Mexico’s score worsened from 60 to 62 due to the country’s escalating drug wars, which have taken their toll on journalists. Violence and intimidation by criminal groups have steadily increased in a climate of impunity, leading to heightened self-censorship by the profession as a whole as well as the murders of more than 60 journalists over the past 10 years. During 2010, the nature of drug gangs’ control over the news agenda expanded from prohibitory censorship to concerted attempts to place propaganda or press releases in selected media outlets. This was typically achieved through a combination of threats and bribery. In Honduras, political conditions stabilized somewhat in 2010 following a coup in 2009, and some legal and constitutional protections for press freedom that had been suspended the previous year were reinstated. However, journalists’ ability to work safely was severely compromised by a sharp rise in harassment and attacks in early 2010, including the killing of six journalists in March alone. The aggression and intimidation came from both sides of the political divide. This increase in violence, coupled with a climate of impunity in which journalists’ deaths were not investigated thoroughly or in a timely manner, pushed Honduras’s score from 59 to 61, placing it just inside the Not Free bracket.

Following a series of declines in recent years, Ecuador and Bolivia experienced significant downgrades in 2010. Ecuador’s score fell five points, from 47 to 52, to reflect an increasingly polarized media environment and a rise in negative rhetoric and actions against news outlets by the administration of President Rafael Correa. Pressures on the media included a growing number of criminal defamation suits, raids and shutdowns of broadcast outlets, government advertising boycotts, and official attempts to influence the news agenda through the establishment of state-owned or controlled outlets. Meanwhile, Bolivia’s score moved from 43 to 46 due to the approval of several new laws that allow the government to impose fines, withdraw operating licenses, and imprison journalists under loosely defined criteria. The legislation led to an increase in self-censorship by journalists. More modest declines were registered in Argentina as a result of continued tensions between the government and oppositionist news outlets. Journalists faced increased attacks and harassment, and there were officially sanctioned attempts to restrict the production and the distribution of newspapers, particularly those associated with the Clarín media group.
The only significant positive numerical movement in the Americas for 2010 took place in Colombia, whose score improved from 60 to 56 due to progress in ending impunity for past attacks on journalists. Charges were filed in a number of cold cases, and previously closed investigations were reopened.

Related to the above article, Special Report: The 10 Tools of Online Oppressors

ARGENTINA
Excellent report on how Argentina Firing of Inflation Expert Signaled Start of Dubious Price Data after 2007.

IAPA warns that press freedom in Argentina is in a “state of deterioration”

The Week in Buenos Aires, Argentina – May 8, 2011

BRAZIL
Skin-Deep Gains for Amazon Tribe

Mantega Says Brazilian CPI Peaked in April After Exceeding Target Range

COLOMBIA
Security in Colombia
New names, old games
Criminal gangs led by former paramilitaries have become the biggest threat facing the new government

CUBA
Inventories, Appropriations

Harvard Professor Unfazed by Tyrants

Abhorrent

El por qué de los silencios de Fidel Castro

Eager to modernize its army, Cuba invites Russia to share in profits from oil venture

Castro and Che’s Foiled (and Forgotten) 9/11

Razones ciudadanas 4 from Yoani Sanchez on Vimeo.

ECUADOR
Ecuador Votes on Bid to Give More Control to President

HAITI
Haiti cholera strain may have links back to peacekeepers, says U.N. panel

HONDURAS
Truth and reconciliation in Honduras
A road back for Zelaya?

MEXICO
President calls on Mexicans to back war on drugs

Siesta? What siesta? Mexicans work longest hours in world

AMLO agrees

Are Tougher U.S. Immigration Policies Responsible for Mass Murder Along the Mexican Border?

Families along U.S.-Mexico border face tough school choices

PANAMA
U.S. Embassy Travel Alert

PERU
The Leftist Threat to Peru’s Prosperity
Presidential candidate Ollanta Humala’s party platform talks of nationalizing strategic ‘activities’ and ‘revising’ trade agreements.

Peruvians wary of Humala

Peru to gain 4,300 kilometers of international waters in agreement with Ecuador

PUERTO RICO
Moody’s Warns Puerto Rico Of $28B Rating Cuts

In addition to assessing recent proposals by Gov. Luis G. Fortuno for addressing the island’s underfunding of its retirement system, Moody’s said it also will look at his proposed budget to determine if it moves the island closer to structural balance and if it believes revenue and expense forecasts are reasonable.

URUGUAY
Carlos Curbelo Tammaro lavado de activos del narcotrafico

VENEZUELA
Is Hugo Chavez an idiot?

Fascism forges ahead in Venezuela: the army declares journalists “military objectives”

CEPtic Shock

The strange case of Joaquin Perez Becerra, the Man Chavez Personally Extradited to Colombia

The week’s posts,
What we can learn from Chile
The Middle East-Latin America Terrorism Connection
Hezbollah setting up camp in Mexico
The growing Chilean economy
NY City cabs to be built in Mexico
Peru: Ollanta Humala’s new PR face

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Filed Under: Argentina, Brazil, Carnival of Latin America, Colombia, Cuba, drugs, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, housing, Hugo Chavez, Latin America, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, Venezuela Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Manuel Zelaya, Mel Zelaya

April 17, 2011 By Fausta

Chavez and Zelaya, plotting Zelaya’s return

Hugo Chavez hosted ousted Honduran president Mel Zelaya at the presidential residence in Caracas. The report (link in Spanish, if you use this translation, please credit me and link to this post) reads,

The purpose of the meeting is normalizing relations with Honduras. According to the President {Chavez], Zelaya and [current Honduran President Pepe] Lobo have reached an agreement which will be formalized in a document.

Earlier last week Chavez had officially recognized Lobo as the legitimate President of Honduras. Clearly, there are deals in the making.

Indeed, it sure looks like Hugo is the owner of the circus, and Lobo is talking to the owner of the circus.

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Filed Under: Honduras, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Manuel Zelaya, Mel Zelaya, Pepe Lobo

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