Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Hugo Chavez’s BFF Gaddafi no longer

Libya live: Muammar Gaddafi ‘killed’ as Sirte falls
Live rolling coverage from Libya as rebels claim to have killed ousted dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, following the fall of his stronghold Sirte.

• Colonel Gaddafi reported killed in Sirte – senior NTC official
• Photo released purports to show Gaddafi ‘badly injured’
• Gaddafi’s son Mutassim dead – NTC commander
• Rebels converge on centre of Sirte to celebrate
• Rebels hoist new national flag over captured holdout

WARNING: all links have gruesome photos

Many of the reports say that Gaddafi was killed by “rebels”, however, Noticias 24 claims he was killed by a NATO air strike to his convoy as he was trying to escape Sirte

Just last month Hugo was praying for him.

At least this puts to rest the rumors that Gaddafi was in Venezuela. Hugo Chavez was in Havana about to fly to Venezuela when the news broke about Gaddafi.

Chavez is heading to a shrine in Táchira to pray some more.

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Chavez throws BRICs for Gaddafi

In yet one more display of stupidity and showmanship, the increasingly bloated Hugo Chavez is calling for the BRICs (Brasil, Rusia, India and China) – along with the ALBA countries – to stand up and fight for Muammar.

He also urged Gaddafi to continue resisting,

“Nobody knows where Qaddafi is,” Chavez said today in a phone interview broadcast on state television. “I’m sure that he’s very far from thinking about leaving Libya. He’ll resist with what power he has left.”
…
Chavez, who last month pledged support to Qaddafi and called the armed conflict in Libya the result of “imperial insanity,” said he doesn’t have information on the leader’s whereabouts. He said that by resisting, Qaddafi can lay the groundwork for a lasting peace in Libya.

Yeah, right.

Hugo isn’t offering any help, though, not even one of the planned “socialist cars“

When asked if he would offer Qaddafi asylum, Chavez recalled a conversation he had with Cuba’s Fidel Castro about the capture of Saddam Hussein after Iraq was invaded. Chavez said Fidel told him that in such situations “what we have to do is win or die.”

Blah blah blah.

The BRICs ignored Chavez’s blather while Gaddafi pulled a Sir Robin,

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The rich, the debt, the Ikea hell, and the roundup

Spain’s Duchess of Alba, one of the world’s richest women, is remarrying at age 85. The Will of the Duchess of Alba: All for Love and Money. All, except good judgement, at least when it comes to plastic surgery:

Maybe she’ll buy herself some eyebrows for the wedding.

UPDATE,
From my Facebook thread,

Todd wrote: “If I were going to marry a babboon, I’d pick a much younger one.”

Now, now, Todd…

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National debt has increased $4 trillion under Obama: Currently the National Debt stands at roughly 97% of Gross Domestic Product. Does anyone want to pretend that the ratio will be the same when we’re talking about $25 trillion in debt?

How about an outline?

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The last time I went to Ikea Bill Clinton was President; Charles Martin reminded me why: Dante’s IKEA.

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What’s next for Moammar Gadhafi?
Nobody seems to know where the embattled Libyan leader is hiding, or where he’s headed. Here, 5 predictions.

I very much doubt that Muammar will be welcome in Caracas until Hugo’s moved the gold and is not worried about sanctions.

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Which brings me to the next item,

How to get $12 billion of gold to Venezuela

It’s not much of a precedent, but it’s the only precedent we’ve got; my gut feeling is that Venezuela would be do well to get away with paying 3.3% of the total value of the gold in total expenses. Given that the gold is worth some $12.3 billion, the cost of Chávez’s gesture politics might reasonably be put at $400 million or so.

It seems to me that Chávez has four main choices here. He can go the FT’s route, and just fly the gold to Caracas while insuring each shipment for its market value. He can go the Spanish route, and try to transport the gold himself, perhaps making use of the Venezuelan navy. He could attempt the mother of all repo transactions. Or he could get clever.

In the first instance, the main cost would be paid by Venezuela to a big insurance company. I have no idea how many insurers there are in the world who would be willing to take on this job, but it can’t be very many, and it might well be zero. If Venezuela wanted just one five-ton shipment flown to Caracas in conditions of great secrecy, that would be one thing. But Chávez’s intentions have been well telegraphed at this point, making secrecy all but impossible. And even if the insurer got the first shipment through intact, there would be another, and another, and another — each one surely the target of criminally-inclined elements both inside and outside the Venezuelan government. Gold is the perfect heist: anonymous, untraceable, hugely valuable. Successfully intercepting just one of the shipments would yield a haul of more than $300 million, making it one of the greatest robberies of all time. And you’d have 39 chances to repeat the feat.

Would any insurer voluntarily hang a “come get me” sign around its neck like that? They’d have to be very well paid to do so. So maybe Chávez intends to take matters into his own hands, and just sail the booty back to Venezuela on one of his own naval ships. Again, the theft risk is obvious — seamen can be greedy too — and this time there would be no insurance. Chávez is pretty crazy, but I don’t think he’d risk $12 billion that way.

Chavez Credits Castro, Jesus for Recovery

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Former Tiananmen Square Student Leader Urges Joe Biden to Call for an End to China’s One-Child Policy, after Biden says he “fully understands” the one-child policy.

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Gaddafi wants Chavez’s help

How do you spell “fungible assets”?
Source: Gaddafi wants Chávez to help sell oil
A Libyan delegation visited Venezuela over the weekend to seek help in selling Libyan oil on the international market, according to intelligence sources.

El líder libio, Muamar al Gadafi (d), recibe con un abrazo al presidente venezolano, Hugo Chávez, durante el encuentro que sosuvieron en Doha, Qatar, el martes 31 de marzo del 2009.
Emphasis added,

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi sent emissaries to Caracas over the weekend to ask president Hugo Chávez to help his regime sell crude oil through Venezuela in international markets, thus evading internationally imposed sanctions, western intelligence sources said.

The small delegation — headed by Planning and Finance Minister Abdulhafid Zlitni — arrived Sunday on a private jet and Chávez confirmed its presence in the South American country.

“Gaddafi has sent us an emissary,” Chávez told a government television channel. “They bring a letter for me. That is good. The world needs to know it. As soon as you have it translated,” he told his foreign affairs minister, Nicolás Maduro, who was at the television studio, “bring it to me.”

The intelligence sources told El Nuevo Herald that the emissaries plan to request that Venezuela take control over more than a dozen tankers, each with a capacity to store more than 160,000 tons of oil, and the possibility to market more than 1.5 million barrels of Libyan crude oil through the South American country.

“[Gaddafi] is proposing that […] Venezuela assume ownership of the ships to continue operating them through Venezuela,” said one of the sources, who spoke under the condition of anonymity. “If this is done, it would be a violation of all sanctions.”

The sources said that the Libyan government also has given orders to ask the Venezuelan government to supply water and fuel to two Libyan boats stranded in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as purchase nearly 5,000 tons of additives for producing gasoline.

The request also considers the possibility of selling hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil products that Libya has not been able to place in the market after the United Nations unanimously approved sanctions against Gaddafi’s regime due to its bloody repression against dissidents, the sources said.

Venezuela was slapped with sanctions in May, as you may recall, for shipping $50 million worth of fuel additives to Iran between December 2010 and March this year.

Chavez talked about the Libyan delegation on a telephone interview, since he had already shown himself on TV to badmouth the US and show off his new look, now that his hair is falling off,

Thus, the chemo provided a timely distraction, as Chavez’s clowning usually does. from the real news on the upcoming Libya-Venezuela oil deals.

Cross-posted at Real Clear World.

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The Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

LatinAmerLATIN AMERICA
The Chinese Dragon Sweeps Through Latin America
Time to stand up and take notice — English and Spanish speakers alike

ARGENTINA
Jorge Macchi
South American magic on show in the north

BRAZIL
Bossa nova and Elenco Records
A moody soundtrack for Brazil

No Samba for Chavez this time around

COLOMBIA
After 11 Months Colombia Asks, Who’ll Stop the Rain?

Take a seat

COSTA RICA
Organized Crime in Costa Rica and the Other Balloon Effect

ECUADOR
Ecuador: Uncertainty and Division

Report Links Ecuador’s President With Colombian Guerrillas

Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa may have received as much as $400,000 from Colombian guerrillas and their drug trafficking allies for his 2006 presidential campaign, a U.K. think tank concluded in a report released Tuesday.

Ecuador emerging as new cocaine centre

Ecuador’s constitutional referendum
A close count
The balance of powers hangs in the balance

Oppenheimer Report; Ecuadorian media censorship

EL SALVADOR
El Salvador Quits the Market Model
The country’s debt has been repeatedly downgraded as President Mauricio Funes has increased government spending.

The problem is not only reckless spending but also hostility toward business. The Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom, which once ranked El Salvador as the ninth freest economy in the world (2000), now places it at 39.

MEXICO
Battle With Mexican Gang at Texas-Border Lake Kills 13

HAITI
Martelly inaugurated as Haitian president

NICARAGUA
Qaddafi’s Man in Managua
Sandinista boss Daniel Ortega is an old friend of the Libyan tyrant.

PANAMA
Fears grow that US unready for larger Panama canal, via The Latin Americanist.

PERU
Giuliani accompanies Keiko Fujimori on campaign

PUERTO RICO
American Airlines Backs Puerto Rico Airport Plan

VENEZUELA
Hugo Chavez: FARC’s unreliable partner
Close logistical support is suggested in new report between Venezuelan officials and wanted murderers – so what do we do about it?

Hugo Chavez’ main link to the FARC, trusted adviser (and twice Interior Minister) Ramon Rodriguez Chacin

Committee to Free Venezuela Foundation’s Anonymous Effort

The week’s posts,
Chavez, nursing knee injury, tweets
Zelaya returning to Honduras
Raiding private pensions: it’s not just for Argentina anymore
Ecuador’s Correa and the FARC
A guitar grows in Argentina
Bin Laden’s cousin arrested in Ecuador for human trafficking
Makled now in Venezuela

At Real Clear World
Venezuela Wanted FARC to Act as Hit Men
Iranian Training Camps in Latin America

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Al-Qaeda’s glossy mag Inspire: Gaddafi is so last year

The recruiting tool for English-speaking Jihadists,

The magazine also seeks to encourage these jihadists to conduct lone wolf attacks. Lone wolf assailants are really the most difficult type for government intelligence and security agencies to gather intelligence about. Really to find a lone wolf assailant, you need to monitor his activities closely and understand what’s going on inside his head if he doesn’t communicate to other people. Because of this, the lone wolf really presents a challenge to Western security and intelligence agencies.

Now, like the other editions of “Inspire” magazine, this magazine also is very slick production-wise. It’s meant to be appealing especially to younger aspiring jihadis in the English-speaking world. Places like the U.S., the U.K., Canada, even countries like Pakistan and India. One of the hooks that Samir Khan uses in this magazine to kind of draw in his readers is the use of lampoons with these fake advertisements that he puts in the magazine. In this current edition we see ads put in ridiculing Moammar Gadhafi, the Libyan leader, also the Yemeni president, Saleh.

Video below the fold,
(more…)

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Obama: “after consulting the bipartisan leadership of Congress, I authorized military action”

I was reading the transcript of President Obama’s speech last night (as long-term readers of this blog may recall, I almost never watch televised speeches, preferring instead to read them), and this jumped out,

And so nine days ago, after consulting the bipartisan leadership of Congress, I authorized military action to stop the killing and enforce U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973.

Interesting turn of phrase, “after consulting the bipartisan leadership”. It implies that he went to Congress, when in fact he briefed them and then when ahead, when he was abroad.

And then Obama waited a full week to address the nation. James Jay Carafano,

This might have been an okay speech last week, when it was pretty clear that the right way forward was to minimize the commitment of the U.S. military, look after the best interests of Libya’s civilian population, and limit the spread of terrorism and instability throughout the region.

A week ago, too, the laundry list of what needed to be done was pretty clear: (1) Keep Qaddafi isolated until he is brought to justice; (2) establish a military presence to keep his forces from driving the opposition into the sea; (3) identify, support, and sustain a legitimate opposition that brings democracy to the country, rather than letting it become the next terrorist haven, and that looks after the humanitarian needs and the human rights of the people under its control.

If what needed to be done was common sense a week ago, hearing the president say it now hardly instills confidence.

All we really learned in last night’s speech is how that’s going to get done. The “international community” is going to do it.

Other than that,

it was yet another well-delivered, split-the-difference, mellifluous Obama speech that said essentially nothing of substance.

Cost of Libya Intervention $600 Million for First Week, Pentagon Says
Tomahawk Cruise Missiles, Precision Bombs, Crashed Jet Draw Millions from Pentagon Budget

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Gaddafi ain’t going nowhere but his nurse is pregnant

Looks like Gaddafi’s not leaving…for now.

For starters, as Andy McCarthy points out,

We understand neither whom we are fighting for nor the consequences of invading a Muslim country. To apprehend these things requires a rudimentary grasp of sharia. You don’t need a doctorate in Islamic jurisprudence. As I contend in The Grand Jihad, the basics will more than suffice. The problem is that, since the World Trade Center was first bombed in 1993, the government has been telling us that Islam has nothing to do with the jihadist campaign against us, so we have studiously avoided informing ourselves about Islam and its law.
It has come to light in just the last few days that commanders of the “rebels” (you know, those secular freedom fighters who are supposedly better for us than Qaddafi) include one Abdul-Hakim al-Hasadi. And, I’ll be darned, it turns out that Hasadi is a jihadist who fought the United States in Afghanistan, and was detained for years until our forces turned him over to Libya. That was during the Bush years, when, through democracy-project alchemy, Qaddafi was transformed into a valuable U.S. ally against terrorism. Our new friend Qaddafi promptly . . . released him in 2008, in a deal designed to appease his Islamist opposition — a common practice in the Middle East, where, because Islam dominates life, even dictators must alternately court and repress jihadists in order to hang on.

Then there’s the fact that Obama’s ruled out killing him,
Barack Obama to lawmakers: We won’t kill Qadhafi, but we’ll sue him instead,

The president told lawmakers that NATO has begun proceedings against Qadhafi at the international court at The Hague, according to a GOP aide briefed on the call. He also said that the U.S. mission has always been humanitarian — to stop Qadhafi from slaughtering his own people — the aide said.

Do they expect Muammar to just step down?

And now for a deja vu moment: Remember when Reagan bombed Libya and Gaddafi posed with a dead baby, claiming Reagan had killed his daughter? There may be more of that coming up soon,

Gaddafi/Qadhafi’s nurse is saying she wants to go to Papa,

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s Ukrainian nurse has reportedly said she believes he will put down the uprising in Libya and that she will be back by his side in a matter of weeks.

Noticias 24 was saying today that Papa knocked her up and she wants to be by his side when the baby’s born.

That, and she wants her $3,500/month salary back.

Apparently the first to report the baby news was Ukrainian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda v Ukraine, which says 38-year old Galina Kolotnitska is not saying who the father is, but she is pregnant and wants to return to Libya.

Wouldn’t surprise me if she does.

UPDATE,
Mr Bingley says, Sing it!

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