Free Republic

Given the challenges that President Obama faces in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, China, and elsewhere, the fact that he has thus far neglected Latin America is hardly surprising or scandalous. Obama has committed several unforced errors in the Americas, however, most notably in Honduras, and his relatively weak performance has raised concerns about declining U.S. influence. Obama's Latin America policy has evolved through four stages. During stage one, Obama practiced what might be called Sally Field diplomacy ("You like me!"), marveling over his own popularity in the region while trying to make nice with both friendly and adversarial...

Chile Appears Set To Elect A Conservative Billionaire businessmen Sebastian Pinera is expected to win the most votes in an election to choose highly popular President Michelle Bachelet's successor. A runoff is likely. An election worker carries voting materials at a polling station ahead of general elections in Santiago. Conservative Sebastian Pinera is considered the frontrunner against former President Eduardo Frei. Incumbent President Michelle Bachelet cannot run because of term limits. (Carlos Espinoza / Associated Press / December 12, 2009) By Chris Kraul December 13, 2009 Reporting from Santiago, Chile - As Chileans vote today for the first time since...

Note: The following text is a quote: December 11, 2009 286 arrested in ICE's largest ever enforcement surge targeting criminal aliens 2 convicted rapists and armed robber among those captured in 3-day California operation LOS ANGELES - Nearly 300 foreign nationals with criminal records have been removed from the United States or are facing deportation following a three-day enforcement surge in California, making it the biggest operation targeting at large criminal aliens ever carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). During the operation, which concluded late Thursday, ICE officers located and arrested a total of 280 criminal aliens...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Latin American countries Friday to "think twice" about fostering ties with Iran because of its alleged support for terrorism. "I think if people want to flirt with Iran, they should take a look at what the consequences might well be for them. And we hope that they will think twice and we will support them if they do," the chief US diplomat said. During a question-and-answer session at the State Department's public policy forum on Latin America, Clinton said it was a "very bad idea for the countries involved" to...

CARACAS, Venezuela – President Hugo Chavez said Monday that Venezuela has received thousands of Russian-made missiles and rocket launchers as part of his government's military preparations for a possible armed conflict with neighboring Colombia. "They are preparing a war against us," Chavez said during a televised address, repeating a charge he has been making for months. "Preparing is one of the best ways to neutralize it." Both Colombia and Washington deny having any plans to attack Venezuela, but Chavez argues they are plotting together a military offensive against Venezuela. Chavez says his government is acquiring more weapons as a precaution....

LA PAZ, Bolivia, Nov. 25 (UPI) -- Iran is clinching deals for trade and technical cooperation with Latin American countries with the aim of securing a foothold after the current tour of the region by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran has already fostered strong bilateral ties with Nicaragua and Venezuela, but Ahmadinejad's current tour of Brazil, Bolivia and Venezuela is producing a whole series of new contracts that encompass increased trade and economic cooperation, technical assistance in the energy and mining sectors and uranium prospecting. During his one-day visit to the Bolivian capital Tuesday Ahmadinejad and Bolivian counterpart Evo Morales signed...

Andres Oppenheimer of the Miami Herald wrote an intriguing piece recently on the splash effect of the coup, or crisis, or whatever term least offends someone of Honduras’ new leadership and recent election, and how the major powers in Latin America have tried unsuccessfully to remedy the situation. Oppenheimer argues that the US, Brazil and the OAS have all succeeded in failure in their own unique ways. Failure for the three comes as follows. For Brazil, its “hypocrisy” of recognizing Iran’s and Cuba’s undemocratic leadership, while criticizing Honduras’ recent elections. For the US, the “flip-flopping” that comes with a constant...

Wealth: Chile is expected to win entry to OECD's club of developed countries by Dec. 15 — a great affirmation for a once-poor nation that pulled itself up by trusting markets. One thing that stands out here is free trade. At a summit of Latin American countries last week in Portugal, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet suddenly became the center of attention — and rightly so. She announced that her country was expected to win membership in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, an exclusive club of the richest and most economically credible nations. Chile is the first country in...

The Argentinean prosecutor who ferreted out Iranian links to Argentina's largest terror attack warned Wednesday of Teheran's growing terror network in Latin America. "The Iranians are moving fast," assessed Alberto Nisman, who has secured Interpol backing for the arrest of several Iranians, including former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, for ordering the July 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community offices in Buenos Aires. "We see a much greater penetration than we did in 1994." He said that Iran, particularly through Lebanese proxy Hizbullah, has a growing presence in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, using techniques it honed in Argentina before the...

Dec 2, 2009 — Field geologists have revisited a site Darwin visited on the voyage of the Beagle, and found that he incorrectly interpreted what he found.  A large field of erratic boulders in Tierra del Fuego that have become known as “Darwin’s Boulders” were deposited by a completely different process than he thought.  The modern team, publishing in the Geological Society of America’s December issue of the GSA Today,1 noted that “Darwin’s thinking was profoundly influenced by Lyell’s obsession with large-scale, slow, vertical movements of the crust, especially as manifested in his theory of submergence and ice rafting to...

Honduran opposition candidate Porfirio Lobo is leading in a presidential election that could ease a five-month crisis following the June coup against President Manuel Zelaya, media exit polls said on Sunday. Lobo, a conservative, won more than 55 percent of Sunday's vote and was well ahead of ruling Liberal Party candidate Elvin Santos, the HRN radio station said. A TV channel gave Lobo 51 percent. Lobo was seen as more likely than Santos to persuade foreign governments to recognize Sunday's election.

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay – A plain-talking former leader of leftist guerrillas who once sought power through kidnappings and bombings is now the president-elect of Uruguay. Jose Mujica won more than 50 percent of the votes cast in a run-off election Sunday, according to exit polls by the South American country's three leading pollsters, giving the center-left Broad Front coalition five more years in power.

Honduran lawmakers are due to decide on Dec. 2 whether to reinstate ousted President Manuel Zelaya and let him finish his term until a newly elected leader takes office in January. Zelaya was exiled by soldiers in a June 28 coup but has been holed up in the Brazilian Embassy since sneaking back into Honduras in September. After he pulled out of a deal to decide his return, Zelaya's future looks even more uncertain. Here are some possible scenarios for Zelaya's prospects: CONGRESS VOTES TO REINSTATE ZELAYA Zelaya's opponents control the Honduran Congress, which voted to strip him of his...

Zelayistas and journalists are deserting the sinking ship of the Brazilian Embassy. Yesterday, Salvadoran Padre Andrés Tamayo left. Deserters are escorted away by police and, I believe, are examined by doctors prior to release, which seems a wise move so that false accusations of ill effects from death rays, toxic gases, mind control radiation and whatever else they dream up cannot be claimed later. In one photo of a Zelaya follower telling a doctor about his symptoms, a Brazilian blogger notes with humor the skepticism in the face of a journalist (in the blue shirt) standing by watching. The fact...

The sea lanes of the South Atlantic have become a favored route for drug traffickers carrying narcotics from Latin America to West and North Africa, where al Qaeda-related groups are increasingly involved in transporting the drugs to Europe, intelligence officials and counternarcotics specialists say. A Middle Eastern intelligence official said his agency has picked up "very worrisome reports" of rapidly growing cooperation between Islamic militants operating in North and West Africa and drug lords in Latin America. With U.S. attention focused on the Caribbean and Africans lacking the means to police their shores, the vast sea lanes of the South...

Honduran lawmakers will not decide whether to restore ousted President Manuel Zelaya until after upcoming presidential elections, the congressional leader said Tuesday, a decision that could undermine international support for the vote. Congress will meet Dec. 2 — three days after the Nov. 29 election — to decide whether Zelaya should be returned the presidency to finish his constitutional term, which ends in January, congressional president Jose Alfredo Saavedra told local HRN radio station. Several Latin American countries have warned they will not recognize the outcome of the election unless Zelaya is restored beforehand. But the United States has not...

Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya insisted late Saturday that he will not accept any deal to restore him to office if it means he must recognize elections later this month. In a letter addressed to President Barack Obama, Zelaya also repeated his accusation that Washington reversed its stance on whether the Nov. 29 vote should be considered legitimate if he was not in office. "As the elected president of the Honduran people, I reaffirm my position that starting today, no matter what, I will not accept any agreement on returning to the presidency of the republic to cover up this...

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Assailants fired an anti-tank grenade toward the building housing ballots for the upcoming Honduran presidential elections, which are taking place under the shadow of a four-month crisis caused by a coup, police said Friday. The grenade overshot the target, exploding 550 yards (500 meters) from the building in the capital of Tegucigalpa, police spokesman Orlin Cerrato said. Residents in several neighborhoods heard the explosion Thursday night, but there were no damages. Police believe the building housing election material was the intended target because the surrounding buildings are mostly residential. They said the Russian-made, rocket-propelled grenade was likely...

Honduras, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya says he has pulled out of a deal struck to end the country's political crisis. Speaking to local radio Friday, Zelaya said the deal with the interim government led by President Roberto Micheletti was off as far as he was concerned, The Wall Street Journal reported. "This deal is dead. The other side has failed to uphold their end," Zelaya reportedly said. Under the terms of the deal, a government of national unity would be created and the Honduran Congress would be allowed to determine if Zelaya could return to...

November 05, 2009, 0:00 a.m. Small MiracleHow one tiny, endangered nation became an economic giant. By Clifford D. May People forget how small Israel is. Its entire population is a little more than 7 million — smaller than Lima, Peru. Its land area is about 8,000 square miles, smaller than New Jersey or Belize. By comparison, Jordan, its neighbor to the east, occupies 35,000 square miles; Egypt, its neighbor to the West, covers 386,000 square miles. There are more than 20 Arab states, which have a combined population of 325 million, and more than 50 majority-Muslim states, which have...

....Chavez blames the water problems for El Niño but...it can not be blamed for what is happening. Problems with Venezuela’s water and electricity’s supplies are not new. When Chavez came to power, the Caldera Government was thinking of privatizing some of the regional electric power companies for the simple reason that the investments required with oil at around US$ 12 per barrel were beyond the capability of the country’s government.cChavez clearly disagreed with this even as he was not using the word socialism at the time. And he stopped the nationalizations, while simultaneously freezing rates for water and electric services....

When Islamists made their roots south of the border... Venezuela's dictator: H. Chavez that "sees" only money, oil and Anti-Americanism-Power, does "serve" the Islamic Iranian Republic well, giving out passports to anyone. From that "port" it is quite easy for an Islamic Iranian AGENT to arrive into any other Latin American country as a... "Venezuelan". A "random" different case (of a Muslim trying to "blend" into Latin America), a year ago, a Jordanian Arab that "met" a Costa Rican (Tica) girl in Spain (she vouched for him in CR, asw this man came from the area in Jordan where a...

SNIPPET: "Lula and Chavez have established a "strategic relationship," and recently agreed upon a joint Brazilian-Venezuelan oil venture worth billions of dollars. Lula and Chavez have joined with Daniel Ortega, the returned Nicaraguan Marxist dictator, to form an anti-U.S. Latin American military alliance - all with Russian assistance - funded by the region's abundant oil reserves. Brazil is engaged in its own arms build-up and Lula is determined that Brazil will become at least a first-rate regional power. Unfortunately, Lula is establishing Brazil as an anti-American military power by aligning with nations hostile or potentially hostile to the U.S. Lula...

Undermine our allies. Embolden our enemies. Diminish our country. If anyone doubted those nine words summed up the Obama Doctrine, look at what the president's team perpetrated last week in Honduras. Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon and Dan Restrepo, the National Security Council's senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs, visited the Honduran capital in Tegucigalpa on Wednesday to compel the country's recalcitrant democrats to make a deal with the man the latter had lawfully removed from the presidency on June 28. It remains to be seen whether, pursuant to this deal, former President Manuel Zelaya will be restored to...

Zelaya threatened to kick the board if not immediately restored Micheletti's supporters are in no hurry to convene Congress to rule on the restitution of the deposed president 9 votes 147 reviews Decrease font fuenteAumentar Will print email JOAQUIM IBARZ | MEXICO (CORRESPONDENT) | 01/11/2009 | Updated at 19:15 pm | International We are where we were. As feared the most skeptical, the agreement just last Friday, is far from solving the crisis in Honduras. Whatever their commitments, each of the parties interpreted the agreement at its convenience. The de facto government supporters are in no hurry to convene Congress...

Oct 30, 2009 — “Plant fossils give first real picture of earliest Neotropical rainforests,” announced a press release from University of Florida.  The fossils from Colombia show that “many of the dominant plant families existing in today’s Neotropical rainforests – including legumes, palms, avocado and banana – have maintained their ecological dominance despite major changes in South America’s climate and geological structure.” The team found 2,000 megafossil specimens from the Paleocene, said to be 58 million years old.  This is only 5 to 8 million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs according to conventional dating.  “The new study provides...

If Honduras manages to preserve its democracy despite U.S. pressure to abandon it, the tiny Central American country may wind up thanking Nicaragua's Danny Ortega, of all people. Last week, President Ortega inadvertently provided the best defense yet of the Honduran decision this summer to remove Manuel Zelaya from the presidency. Nicaragua has a one-term limit for presidents, and Mr. Ortega's term expires in 2011. However, the Nicaraguan doesn't want to leave, and so he asked the Sandinista-controlled Supreme Court to overturn the constitutional ban on his re-election. Last week the court's constitutional panel obliged him. The Nicaraguan press reported...

Colombian Football Team 'Killed' By Will Grant BBC News, Caracas At least 10 bodies - believed to be those of a kidnapped Colombian football team - have been found across the border in Venezuela. The bodies, with multiple gunshot wounds, were found in Tachira. One of the team is reported to have survived. State authorities say they suspect a left-wing Colombian guerrilla group, the ELN, is to blame for the deaths. The team, kidnapped two weeks ago, was known as Los Maniceros or Peanut Men, as they sold nuts along the border. The Venezuelan authorities say they are still investigating...

MEXICO CITY -- When the Nobel Prize-winning Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez penned his most recent novel, "Memories of My Melancholy Whores," he was being provocative. The book begins with this line: "The year I turned 90, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin." But there is art and there is life. And so just as an international cast and crew were about to begin filming a movie adaptation of the 2004 novella, the plug was pulled as the filmmakers and García Márquez were denounced as aiding and abetting perverts....

Cuarto Poder (Tuxtla, Chiapas) 10/22/09 Mexican senator defends migrants Mexican Senator Manuel Velasco proposed that the country’s new head of the National Human Rights Commission ally himself with international agencies to “strive for the legal recognition of our fellow citizens who work in the United States.” He said that supporting undocumented Mexicans also granted confidence and calm to millions of families in Mexico in that their relatives in the United States have allies to protect them. “We believe that the issue of human rights……must also expand its activities beyond the national borders, and in particular beyond the northern border, which...

Venezuela's military advisers would "Mel" Danilo Orellana, commissioner of the honduran police, who also coordinates the operations "Peace and Democracy", said that this version has not yet been confirmed Tegucigalpa, Honduras . Honduras National Police investigating the alleged presence of Venezuelan military in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa. Danilo Orellana, commissioner of the agency, reported Tuesday to have information "subtle" of stay of two members of the Armed Forces of Venezuela, who would be giving "advice" to the former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. Orellana, who also coordinates the operations "Peace and Democracy, said that this version" has not yet been...

Thursday, 10/8/09 La Prensa Grafica (San Salvador, El Salvador) 10/7/09 Homicides in El Salvador The month of September closed with a daily average of 13 homicides in El Salvador. Now, the National Police reports that there have been 83 homicides in the country during the first five days of October, a daily average of 16. [El Salvador is slightly smaller than Massachusetts] The following is the first portion of today’s main editorial, titled, “Homicides, a seemingly unstoppable plague”. “The immediate and constant effect of having done nothing really substantial to bring to a halt the wave of homicidal criminality that...

A spokesman for a U.S. Senator says the interim president of Honduras vowed that civil liberties would be restored in the troubled Central American country no later than Monday. Wesley Denton tells The Associated Press that South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint received the assurance in a meeting in Honduras with interim President Roberto Micheletti. DeMint led a congressional delegation that met with Micheletti on Friday. Denton says the delegation raised concerns with Micheletti's special decree limiting civil liberties including the right to assemble. He said the interim president said the freedoms would be restored by or on Monday. THIS IS...

Who holds the most votes, as a block, in the IOC and what is the politics of their current governments? Why Brazil and why at this time? Was it a vote to reward Brazil's leaders for their attempt to put a Marxist thug back in power in Honduras?

The United States government, along with the rest of the Western Hemisphere’s governments, is so worked up about returning ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to power that it hasn’t thought through the long- or even medium-term consequences of its threats and demands. Millions of dollars in aid to Honduras–one of the poorest countries in Latin America–was cut off after Zelaya was arrested by the military and sent into exile in June. The U.S. is not only threatening to cut off hundreds of millions more, it’s threatening to impose sanctions and not recognize the results of the November election if he...

07/02/2009 (last update: 08/28/2009) - The truth about Manuel Zelaya (translation) Now it turns out that Manuel Zelaya is a great victim, he has been unfairly expelled from his country and the people want him back... LIES! In his recent appearance at the United Nations, he dared to say that in Honduras there is massacre, the country is halted, he has many supporters, his poll was merely a voluntary survey and he defends democracy. LIES! This is the TRUTH: * There is NO massacre in Honduras, everyone is at PEACE. (See below for more details.) * In Honduras NO ONE...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States blasted ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya for his "irresponsible and foolish" return from exile before a settlement was reached in the Central American country's political crisis. At an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States to discuss the Honduran face-off, Lewis Anselem, the U.S. ambassador to the OAS, also criticized Honduras' de facto government for its "deplorable" action in barring entry of an OAS mission and declaring a state of siege on Sunday. Anselem also criticized Zelaya for fueling violence by slipping back into Honduras last week and holing up in the Brazilian...

Zelaya seeks to install parallel government in Honduras The deposed President Manuel Zelaya arrived Monday morning at the Embassy of Brazil, where he is a refugee with followers. 26.09.09 - Updated: 26.09.09 08:56 pm - Writing: redaccion@elheraldo.hn Tegucigalpa. , Honduras . The ousted president Manuel Zelaya Rosales proposes to install a parallel government in Honduras with the support of some countries, especially those serving the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA). This version is known in different political and governmental sectors of the country, El Heraldo said political analyst Raul Pineda Alvarado, who also added that the parallel government will...

The Brazilian delegation in Honduras confirmed to AFP that Zelaya is on the premises of its embassy in this country. Followers. "I make an appeal to the crowd to join you at the Embassy of Brazil and President Zelaya found there," said Enrique Flores Lanza, an official of the ousted president. buscar

The shameful siege of Honduras continues. In the past few weeks, the United States has cut more than $30 million in non-humanitarian aid, suspended most visa services and sided with Venezuela, Cuba and other of Latin America's worst dictatorships in undermining democracy. Meanwhile, the people of Honduras are desperately trying to maintain their freedom and prevent the return of a regime that Washington is committed to forcing down their throats. The United States rushed to the wrong side of this issue when former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was ousted on June 28, and since then it has reinforced a bad...

SANTO DOMINGO, September 18, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Dominican Republic has given the final approval to a constitutional amendment protecting the right to life. "The right to life is inviolable from conception until death. In no case can the death penalty be established, pronounced, nor applied," the amendment states. The vote, which took place last night in a constitutional assembly created to revise the nation's charter document, was an overwhelming 128-34, despite heavy campaigning by international pro-abortion groups and rumored pressure from the United States. Dr. Gene Antonio, a Dominican pro-life activist, told LifeSiteNews in early August that "The White...

Just days after posting this item about Brazil's most popular priest, I found this little nugget, which shows just what the Church is up against down there. Want to know what's luring a new generation of Brazilians away from the Church? Evangelical churches offering, among other things, fight nights and tattoo parlors. From the New York Times: The atmosphere was electric at Reborn in Christ Church on “Extreme Fight� night. Churchgoers dressed in jeans and sneakers, many with ball caps turned backward, lined a makeshift boxing ring to cheer on bare-chested jujitsu fighters. They screamed when a fan favorite, Fábio...

Alliance of Leftist and Islamist LeadersFalse Friends Hatred of the USA is uniting leftist and Islamist leaders. Anti-Semitic propaganda and conspiracy theories are part of the way they see the world says Wolf-Dieter Vogel in his essay | Bild: Here's looking at you, kid: Hugo Chavez's support for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has caused some uncertainty in leftist circles | The stoning of adulteresses; torture carried out in the name of Allah – is this the "better world" that Hugo Chavez dreams of? The alleged election victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is, in any case, in the opinion of the Venezuelan leader, "very...

In all the excitement over Van Jones' resignation, people missed President Obama supporting Communists abroad, as he did at home. Late last week, SSINO (Secretary of State In Name Only) Hillary Clinton met with ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and cut off all remaining funds for Honduras' government: $30 million now, and $215 million over four years. Leftists are pushing for the IMF to follow suit. In addition to being part of the Castro-Chavez axis, Zelaya sought to subvert the constitution -- and he stands accused of running drugs. Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Ortez told the press, "Every night, three...

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Latin American exports and other effects of global recession appear to be pushing the region more into a Chinese embrace, as cash-flush Beijing builds major channels for purchases of food and raw materials from cash-strapped South American partners.

If the Obama administration were a flotilla of ships, it might be sending out an SOS right about now. ObamaCare has hit the political equivalent of an iceberg. And last week the president’s international prestige was broadsided by the Scots, who set free the Lockerbie bomber without the least consideration of American concerns. Mr. Obama’s campaign promise of restoring common sense to budget management is sleeping with the fishes. This administration needs a win. Or more accurately, it can't bear another loss right now. Most especially it can't afford to be defeated by the government of a puny Central American...

Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa announced Saturday he is seeking to definitively shut down a private television station that he accused of "espionage" on his office. The station Teleamazonas, a private broadcaster that has been critical of Correa and his government, has already been fined multiple times for breaking broadcasting law, notably for reporting opposition charges of voter fraud during April's general elections. This week the station broadcast a secretly recorded conversation between Correa and a Quito lawmaker -- seemingly the last straw for Correa, who has sought the station's closure for months. "I ask that Teleamazonas... is finally closed," Correa...

The lights are going out in Venezuela. The Chavez-controlled legislature passed an education bill on Aug. 13 that will extinguish the last glimmers of free thought in the country's classrooms. The law is such a caricature of revolutionary legislation that it almost seems like a joke, like something out of Woody Allen's "Bananas." But it's not funny for Venezuelans. Schools will now be required to teach "Bolivarian doctrine," a vague catchall for Chavez's sloganeering. They will be supervised by "communal councils" (read commissars from the socialist party) and the central government will decide who can and who cannot enter universities...

In the course of the past month, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has been exposed as a supplier of advanced weapons to a terrorist group that seeks to overthrow Colombia's democratic government. In his own country, he has shut down 32 independent radio stations. His rubber-stamp National Assembly has passed laws to gerrymander districts in next year's parliamentary elections and eliminate the autonomy of universities. Chávez has pledged to purchase dozens of tanks from Russia, and scheduled a trip to Tehran... So, naturally, Latin American leaders are planning a summit in Argentina this month to urgently confer about...an unremarkable U.S.-Colombian agreement...