Free Republic

Elections: For years, Peru has been Latin America's top-performing economy, leading the pack on GDP, inflation, poverty eradication, free trade and markets. So why did Peru's voters suddenly elect a communist? Markets plummeted in Peru on Monday after leftist Ollanta Humala won Peru's presidency with nearly 51% of the vote. Stocks on the Lima exchange fell 13% at last glance, their biggest one-day drop since records began in 1990. Bonds and the currency were down, too. It was painful because Peru had been the brightest light among Latin America's economies. Embracing markets over two decades had paid off handsomely for...

Peru’s Keiko Fujimori conceded defeat in yesterday’s presidential election to Ollanta Humala, who won a narrow victory as voters overlooked his past support for Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and rallied behind his pledges to stamp out corruption and extend a mining boom to the nation’s poor. Fujimori, speaking to reporters in Lima, said she will lead a responsible opposition and “build bridges” with Humula’s government. She said she will offer him her personal congratulations in a meeting later today. “I recognize his triumph,” said the 36-year-old congresswoman. “It’s important that the country continues its economic course and that it has clear...

Chávez’s purchase of $15 billion in weapons causes concern in Latin America BY ANTONIO MARIA DELGADO With the acquisition of hundreds of tanks, helicopters and bulletproof vehicles as well as submarines and missile networks, Venezuela is arming itself at a speed unprecedented in the history of the South American country. Experts consulted by El Nuevo Herald have said that Hugo Chávez’s has created unrest in the region with purchases to expand its military that total more than $15 billion. The analysts warned that the purchases are made in an improvised fashion, following a “dubious” process with no bidding or prior...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – As a nuclear nightmare stalks Japan, and Libya and Bahrain crush hopes for reform, US President Barack Obama on Friday heads to an oasis of surprising stability in a troubled world -- emerging Latin America. Obama plans to highlight an amazing economic leap forward by Brazil, which has lifted millions from poverty and won a new global influence that President Dilma Rousseff seems keen to wield. He will cite Chile's evolution from authoritarian misery to increasingly prosperous democracy as an example for Middle Eastern nations emerging from repression. And in El Salvador, Obama hopes to show that...

Leftists Advance: Nation by Nation The Venezuelan people are not the only ones suffering under this resurgence of fanatical left-wing leaders. The BBC reported in 2005 that 75 percent of South Americans were governed by leftist rulers, all of whom had risen to power in the preceding six years. And the trend has only accelerated since then, with some analysts using the term “Pink Tide” to describe the phenomenon that has enveloped Latin America. Bolivia: With strong backing from Chavez, former coca farmer Evo Morales of the Movement for Socialism assumed power in 2006. His party now controls about two-thirds...

The Washington Post recently reported on the successful Palestinian drive to achieve statehood recognition from South American countries. Over the past few months, several countries—including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay—have endorsed the existence of an independent Palestinian country. (In years past, Palestine had garnered official recognition from Costa Rica, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.) To a casual observer, the wave of recognition may seem like a spontaneous outburst. In fact, there was nothing spontaneous about it. The flurry of diplomatic activity represents the culmination of a robust Palestinian lobbying push that was blessed and encouraged by former...

Colombia has announced it is negotiating with China to build an alternative to the Panama Canal. The proposed transport route is intended to promote the flow of goods between Asia and Latin America. The plan is to create a "dry canal" where the Pacific port of Buenaventura would be linked by rail, across Colombia, to the Atlantic Coast. Trade between Colombia and China has increased from $10m in 1980 to more than $5bn last year. The announcement came from the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, who told the Financial Times that the project was "a real proposal... and it is...

The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) decided at a meeting on Friday to set up a South American Parliament in Bolivia to promote the bloc's integration. Chilean President Michele Bachelet, also the UNASUR's temporary president, and Bolivian President Evo Morales opened the meeting in Bolivia's Cochabamba province which drew representatives from 12 countries in the region. "There are many tasks that the UNASUR is urged to accomplish, as part of the Latin American and Caribbean efforts," Bachelet said. Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia said that UNASUR members consider it necessary to promote the construction of the institutionalism and the...

Iran: Northern border of Costa Rica They're public and undeniable terrorist strategies, discriminatory and violative of human rights promotes Iranian President in his country and attempts to export to the world. It is also indisputable the serious and imminent threat to mankind posed by Iran's nuclear program, which Ahmadinejad has refused to stop despite the five Security Council resolutions ordering it and the repeated warnings from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Many Costa Ricans believe that a humanitarian tragedy resulting from the Iranian regime would occur "across the world" and would have consequences for our country. Who thinks this is...

Uruguay also expected to recognize independent Palestinian state based on 1967 borders in March; Ecuador also due to open PA embassy. Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said that in the coming weeks, Chile and Paraguay will declare their recognition of an independent Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, Israel Radio reported on Sunday. Al-Maliki said that Chile plans on making its declaration in the coming weeks, and that Chile's president Sebastian Pinera is even due to visit the West Bank in three months. Paraguay is also expected to declare its recognition of Palestine in the coming weeks. Al-Maliki also announced...

Unbelievable!!! Foreign nations telling Americans the Constitutionality of our US Constitution and Obama allowing them to way in on it in court. View video at Randy's Right blog YOU MUST WATCH THIS: IMPEACH OBAMA NOW..10 Latin American Nations Way In on the Constitutionality of Immigration!!

Bolivan president Evo Morales brought down one of his political opponents during a soccer friendly with one swift blow. A low blow, that is. In a match to inaugurate a renovated stadium in the Bolivian capital of La Paz, Morales and a gang of bodyguards and government officials faced off against a team led by political ally turned foe, La Paz mayor Luis Revilla. About five minutes into last week’s match, the 50-year-old Morales was challenged and gashed by Revilla’s teammate, La Paz civil servant Daniel Gustavo Cartagena, according to guardian.co.uk.... Morales walked up to Cartagena after the play and...

When Iran's Ahmadinejad started throwing out crazy accusations from the UN General Assembly's podium, claiming that the United States government had organized the September 11 attacks, members of the US delegation stood up and walked out. So also did the delegations of what the NY Times pegs at about 33 nations. That's thirty-three countries whose leaders refused to listed to the anti-American ravings of the Iranian lunatic. Nice. You could probably name all thirty-three countries pretty close to correctly just off the back of your hand. But, wait. There are 192 member nations of the UN -- every one of...

WASHINGTON - Iran Air 744 is a bimonthly flight that originates in Tehran and flies directly to Caracas with periodic stops in Beirut and Damascus. The maiden flight was Feb. 2, 2007. The mere existence of the flight was a significant concern for U.S. intelligence officials, but now a broader concern is who and what are aboard the flights. "If you [a member of the public] tried to book yourself a seat on this flight and it doesn't matter whether it's a week before, a month before, six months before -- you'll never find a place to sit there," says...

Legal immigrants are required to have medical screening to ensure that they do not bring any contagious diseases into the United States. Illegal aliens are not screened and many are carrying horrific third world diseases that do not belong in the USA. Many of these diseases are highly contagious and will infect citizens that come in contact with an infected illegal alien. This has already happened in restaurants, schools, and police forces. Malaria was eradicated from the USA in the 1940s but recently there were outbreaks in southern California, New Jersey, New York City, and Houston. Additionally, Malaria tainted blood...

PHOENIX — Two more Latin American countries added their own objections Tuesday to Arizona's new immigration law. In legal papers filed in federal court, Luis Gallegos, the ambassador to the United States from Ecuador, said his country wants to join Mexico in the fight to convince U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton to block the state from enforcing the law. “Similar to Mexico, Ecuador has a substantial and compelling interest in ensuring that its bilateral diplomatic relations with the government of the United States of America are transparent, consistent and reliable, and not frustrated by the actions of individual U.S....

The twin-island Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago would seem to be the last place to raise alarm bells over the threat of radical Islam. Trinidad was briefly catapulted into the spotlight in June 2007 when reports surfaced that one of the suspects linked to an alleged plot to attack New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport was a Trinidadian national and that the suspects reached out to Yasin Abu Bakr, the leader of Jamaat al-Muslimeen (JAM, Association of Muslims), for assistance in executing their plan. JAM is an enigmatic Trinidadian Muslim militant group that is implicated in violence,...

Ted Kennedy's KGB Correspondence By Kevin Mooney on 6.22.10 @ 6:08AM Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's self-serving, secret correspondence with Soviet agents during the height of the Cold War included proposals for collaborative efforts designed to undermine official U.S. policy set by Democratic and Republican administrations, KGB documents show. With the media now reporting on the late senator's just released Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) file, now is an opportune time for a more expansive investigation into Kennedy's KGB contacts. The agency took a keen interest in a 1961 "fact-finding" trip the Massachusetts Democrat took to Mexico and other parts of...

(CNSNews.com) - Amid growing concern about the illicit drug trade across the U.S.-Mexico border, the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas have been linked to South American drug trafficking organizations–and the money Hezbollah and Hamas make from narco-trafficking is used to finance their organizations, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS). “International terrorist groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, have also reportedly raised funding for their terrorist activities through linkages formed with DTOs in South America, particularly those operating in the tri-border area (TBA) of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina,” stated CRS in an April 30 report. As evidence that Hezbollah and...