Free Republic

Building recent on efforts to strengthen political relationships between Tehran and South American nations, Iran has announced intentions to launch HispanTV to expand their influence in the region, and give their strategic influence a wider audience. A recent planned tour of leftist Latin Amarican states by Iranian leader Ahmadinejad was seen as a demonstration of solidarity by the leaders of those States as a way of uniting against Western powers. According to The Miami Herald, the channel has already begun running anti-Western programming suggesting US plots against Venezuela, and Syria. Ahmadinejad reportedly suggested that the purpose of the channel was...

SNIPPET: "Most importantly, Chavez has friends - powerful friends -- around the world who are assisting him in his goal of establishing communism as the dominant force in the world. Both Russia and China are assisting Chavez in spreading the message that the United States is "the most savage, cruel, and murderous empire that has existed in the history of the world," and Chavez's solution: 21st Century Socialism." SNIPPET: "The Moscow elite are not only supporting Chavez the dictator with weapons, but also Chavez the Marxist revolutionary with a high profile platform for his revolutionary rhetoric. In early September 2009...

TeleSUR, Venezuela From 15 hours ago. (Van) Jones, special advisor for Green Jobs and Environment Innovation of the White House, submitted his resignation early Sunday, as the product of a great scandal generated when ventilating himself in support of an organization that offered that ex-President George Bush was complicit in the attacks on September 11th. This is an adviser of the current president of the United States, Barack Obama, and that worked in the Council of Environmental Quality office, had to apologize already in public, after the existence was known a recording in which he made offensive signallings against...

As I was 'channel surfing' at my grandmother's house in San Juan this past weekend, I came upon TeleSUR, the new Hugo Chavez T.V. venture, live from Caracas. The programming I saw -- after enduring a cooking show featuring how to make 'arepas', the equivalent in Venezuela of 'pancakes' -- started with anti-U.S., anti-'Imperialists', anti-Bush, et.al. from their news proogramming dept. and then, in the entertainment dept., a segment featuring a musician named Rene Calle 13, who basically told the audience: "F*ck George Bush, he's the worse president ever". Here in the U.S. we have Al Jazeera and other international...

Halloween scares have come early to South America, and one knocking on the front door right now is Telesur, a new satellite TV network funded largely by Venezuela’s authoritarian president Hugo Chávez. According to its director, Aram Aharonian, the purpose is to disseminate “a truthful view of the social and cultural diversity of Latin America and the Caribbean to the world.” But rattling Venezuela’s democratic neighbors and legitimizing the region’s leftist terror movements seems to be its real mission. Promotional broadcasts in early July featured flattering video of Colombian guerrilla commander Manuel “Sureshot” Marulanda, who is trying to overthrow his...

Dressed down in their best proletarian duds, sympathizers of the FARC Marxist paramilitary take to the streets brandishing their best hammer and sickle flags. Manuel Marulanda Vélez, chief leader of the terrorist group, makes an appearance. An ominous voice takes the screen: "Who will judge the U.S. military personnel caught trafficking drugs and arms in Colombia?" This isn't a commercial for Al Jazeera, but that would be a close guess. It's a promotional campaign for a continent wide, pan-American satellite news channel that made its debut on July 24. Witness Telesur, the brainchild of Cuban communist Fidel Castro and his...

The Colombian National Television Commission (CNTV) blocked satellite access to Telecapital, a government channel that rebroadcasts Telesur signal. The hemispheric news system boosted by Venezuela started operations last July 24th, with programming including documentary films, news coverage and a number of journalist works that highlight the Latin American people, as explained in the Monday edition of Semana magazine.

American actor Danny Glover on Tuesday defended a new TV station financed by Venezuela's government as a way to bring Latin America together, denying claims by critics that it will be used to demonize the United States. The channel Telesur, which Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has promoted as an alternative to foreign media giants, began regular broadcasts Sunday and is transmitting news, documentaries and other programs to various Latin countries. "Certainly the television station itself is not a tool that would be used to demonize the north," said Glover, a member of the station's advisory board. "It is a tool...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - A new TV station backed by Venezuela's government began transmitting Sunday in various countries across Latin America, carrying praise by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the American actor Danny Glover and others. The Telesur network, which organizers call a Latin alternative to large media outlets like CNN, was being seen in Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Brazil and Cuba as well as Venezuela, Chavez said. "This is part of an awakening of our peoples," Chavez said by phone to a televised inaugural ceremony in Caracas. Chavez, a close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, called the channel a key...

Media: As Telesur, Hugo Chavez's new South American TV network, goes on the air, it's billed as a pan-American alternative to CNN. Knowing Chavez, sensible minds fear a propaganda machine. It's much worse. Ahead of its first broadcast Sunday, Telesur released a ghastly news trailer featuring one of the hemisphere's grimmest narco terrorists, Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda. This professional killer leads the 13,000-strong FARC Marxist guerrillas who have terrorized Colombia for 40 years. As Sureshot preened before Telesur cameras, Telesur officials justified their free publicity for him as newsworthiness. "Do they think Sureshot doesn't exist?" said Director-General Aram Aharonian, a Uruguayan...

What’s happening in Central and South America? Argentina’s President Hugo Chavez has launched (Telesur) a state run international news organization along the lines of Al-Jazeera. Argentina, Uruguay, and Cuba are all investors in the project. What are the implications of this? Can we expect huge doses of anti-American propaganda from this news outlet in South America? Will the US media immediately embrace Telesur as a peer and member of the international media even if it is state run? Will feeds aired on Telesur be broadcast on American TV without scrutiny like al-Jazeera? I have my suspicions, but I guess we...

Via Paxety Pages, The Miami Herald reports on Hugo's version of Al-Jazeera for Latin America, His government is bankrolling a new television network, Telesur, that has plans to broadcast news, sports and educational programs across Latin America beginning this summer. Its organizers say it will not be a Venezuelan government mouthpiece, but Chávez is providing 70 percent of its funding, fueling concerns that the organizers of the network may not have a choice in the matter. Not that it comes as a surprise, considering how Fidel hosted Hugo and Sheik Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, vice-president of Qatar, in charge of...

What do Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and Al Jazeera have in common besides contempt for the United States? A 24-hour news network starting this month or next. Mr. Chavez is using his government's oil money, funds from Mr. Castro and other sources to create "Telesur," a "counter-hegemonic" Spanish-language network modeled partly after Al Jazeera. Latin intellectuals have long wanted media alternatives to CNN and Los Angeles-based Univision. .....South American governments including Argentina's and Brazil's are helping fund Telesur. But we figure they'll yearn for CNN when they see what a strongman, a dictator and Al Qaeda's favorite channel can do...

CARACAS, VENEZUELA - As Venezuelan military officers barked orders, teenagers, grandfathers and housewives paraded across a flood-lit gravel lot, saluting and chanting patriotic slogans. Dressed in white T-shirts and black baseball caps, volunteers in the newly formed network of "popular defense units" vowed to protect President Hugo Chavez's leftist government from an American invasion. "We must be prepared to defend the homeland," declared a sweaty Thai Grimon, 34, as she cradled her 2-year-old son in her arms following 90 minutes of drills. U.S. officials scoff at the notion of a military assault on oil-rich Venezuela even while ratcheting up their...