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This is a bad morning. I was greeted by a headline in the New York Times that said Defense Secretary “Chuck Mullet” Hagel was planning to submit a budget to Congress to cut the size of the military to a level not seen since 1940, before the U.S. entered World War II. The article went on to say that the Pentagon realized that this would be an inadequate force for even very small wars and certainly would not allow the U.S. to police the world and keep control of contingencies like a North Korean attack on the South or a...

Jay-Z causes controversy by wearing gaudy medallion of 'Five Percent Nation' group who believe whites are 'wicked and weak' • The Brooklyn-born rapper wore a medallion representing the Five Percent Nation at a Nets game last week • One of the main tenets of the Nation of Islam offshoot is that white people are 'weak and wicked' and that black men hold the power of God • When asked if the medallion holds any importance to him, Jay-Z said: 'A little bit' • Jay-Z was spotted wearing the nation's symbol last year while giving radio interviews for his new album,...

Antonio Rivero, a former general who went into hiding in February to avoid arrest for his role in the protests that have rocked the government of President Nicolas Maduro. Moving into Spanish, he apologised for the subterfuge involved in our rendezvous. “These are bad times for our country and we are having to take extraordinary measures,” he said in his first interview since going underground. >snip The general is now a prominent figure in the opposition Popular Will party.

The Tower of David skyscraper boasts a helicopter landing pad, glorious views of the Avila mountain range, and large balconies for weekend barbecues. Yet a 45-storey skyscraper in the center of Venezuela's capital Caracas is no five-star hotel or swanky apartment block: it is a slum, probably the highest in the world. Dubbed the "Tower of David", the building was intended to be a shining new financial center but was abandoned around 1994 after the death of its developer - banker and horse-breeder David Brillembourg - and the collapse of the financial sector. Squatters invaded the huge concrete skeleton in...

Venezuela's Roman Catholic Church accused President Nicolas Maduro's government on Wednesday of "totalitarian" tendencies and "brutal repression" of demonstrators during two months of political unrest that has killed several dozen people..... Monsignor Diego Padron, who heads Veneuela's conference of bishops, said the "principal cause" of the crisis was the government's attempt to implant a blueprint for government that Chavez left behind called "the fatherland plan." "Within it they are hiding the promotion of a totalitarian-style system of government, putting in doubt its democratic credentials," he said, reading a church communique'. Though defending students' and others' right to protest, the Church...

What if you were forced to “register” in order to buy groceries? And what if, through that registration, the food you bought could be tracked and quantities could be limited? That’s exactly the plan in Venezuela right now. The AP reports that in an effort to crack down on “hoarding” that ID cards will be issued to families. These will have to be presented before foodstuffs can be purchased.

Eighteen countries, including five of the world’s leading arms exporters, ratified a landmark treaty regulating the multibillion-dollar global arms trade on Wednesday, giving a significant boost to the campaign for the treaty’s entry into force. […] Five of the world’s top 10 arms exporters—Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain—turned in their ratification documents at the ceremony. The other 13 were Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Malta, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Among the hold-outs is the United States, the world’s largest weapons exporter. The Obama administration has signed the treaty but there is strong resistance in...

MOSCOW, April 1(RIA Novosti) - Russian lawmakers have endorsed draft legislation to allow the country to set up a satellite navigation monitoring system in Nicaragua, a Cabinet committee said Tuesday. "The agreement is aimed at creating an organizational and legal framework for mutually beneficial partnership between Russia and Nicaragua in terms of exploring and using space for peaceful purposes," the official statement explained. Under the agreement, Russia would set up a network of land-based control stations in the Latin American country to monitor and augment the accuracy of navigation satellites in Earth orbit. It is hoped the system will boost...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Battling food shortages, the government is rolling out a new ID system that is either a grocery loyalty card with extra muscle or the most dramatic step yet toward rationing in Venezuela, depending on who is describing it. President Nicolas Maduro's administration says the cards to track families' purchases will foil people who stock up on groceries at subsidized prices and then illegally resell them for several times the amount. Critics say it's another sign the oil-rich Venezuelan economy is headed toward Cuba-style dysfunction.

".......Lisandro Barazarte, a photographer with the local newspaper, Notitarde, caught images of several of the men shooting into the crowd while steadying their firearms on their palms. "They were practiced shooters," Barazarte said. "More were armed, but didn't fire." When it was over, two La Isabelica men were dead: a 22-year-old student, Jesus Enrique Acosta, and a little league baseball coach, Guillermo Sanchez. Witnesses told the AP the first was shot in the head, the second in the back. They said neither was at the barricades when he was killed.... ....."They put a pistol in my face and said they...

Let's review the following four scenarios: on December, El Nuevo Herald reports that on the occasion of a big group of rebels that came down from the mountains "In the Colombian's war black market there is an acute need for ammunitions 7.62 x 39 mm, appropriate for AK-47 rifles; In a Florida court there is a file from August 2004 related to 204.000 rounds of 7.62 x 39 mm ammunition that were seized before being illegally exported; and the press mentioned that these difficult to get ammo were going to be negotiated on western Venezuela, near the Colombian border". In...

n Venezuela, a popular uprising threatens to sweep Nicolas Maduro, the heir to Hugo Chavez, from power, along with his brutal, corrupt, viciously anti-American socialist regime. The magnitude of anti-Maduro demonstrations in Venezuela has not been adequately or consistently reported in the American press. Millions have taken part. To take just one example, this aerial photograph of an anti-government demonstration in Chacao last week, conveys some sense of the magnitude of the pro-freedom movement. When Miss Fernandez won the Miss Universe title in 2009, she was the second consecutive winner from Venezuela. I liked her predecessor Dayana Mendoza, who was...

The Vatican said Friday (local time) it was "willing and desirous" to intervene diplomatically in Venezuela's crisis after weeks of deadly unrest but says it must study expectations and options about what role it could play. On Thursday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accepted the idea of a good-faith facilitator after coming under mounting pressure to reconcile with opponents who have been protesting for nearly three months. He mentioned Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, until last year the Vatican's ambassador to Caracas. Critics of Maduro's socialist administration have pressed for Vatican involvement: Shortly before he was arrested, opposition leader...

“Everyone knows that the Cubans control (Venezuela’s) military intelligence and police intelligence. They control the coordination of the armed forces.” Such convictions are held by critics in both countries (Venezuela and Cuba) although they offer little hard evidence to back their suspicions.” (Victoria Burnett and William Neuman, The New York Times, March, 2014.) “Fidel Castro has strong ideas of liberty, democracy, social justice, the need to restore the Constitution....but it amounts to a new deal for Cuba, radical, democratic and therefore anti-Communist.” (Herbert Matthews, New York Times, February 1957.) “This is not a Communist Revolution in any sense of the...

Venezuela is closer geographically than, and at least as important to the United States as, Ukraine. Yet the persistently blurred focus of the Obama Administration has been far less on violent Cuban inspired repression in Venezuela than on Russian repression in Ukraine. Here's a new presentation by Senator Rubio on the continuing mess in Venezuela: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8Uz-9HvRgw] Video linkThe constitutional crisis in Venezuela has apparently been far less disturbing to the Obama Administration, and to the "legitimate" media, than the less violent mess in Ukraine. It has drawn far less media attention than the disappearance of Malaysian flight 370, coverage of which has been extensive and continuous but abysmally uninformed. Here's the best...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com - Russia’s Threat in the AmericasPosted By Joseph Klein On March 28, 2014 @ 12:08 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments President Obama dismissed Russia as no more than a “regional power” in remarks he made to the press in The Hague on March 25th, where he was attending a summit meeting on nuclear security. “Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors not out of strength, but out of weakness,” he said.True, the Russian Federation is a shadow of the Soviet empire in its heyday. And Russia is...

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Barack Obama of dramatically weakening the United States' position in the world, drawing a straight line between Obama’s ever-yielding foreign policy and the increasing troubles around the world. Rice “Right now, there’s a vacuum,” she told a crowd of more than two thousand attending the National Republican Congressional Committee’s annual dinner last night in Washington, D.C. “There’s a vacuum because we’ve decided to lower our voice. We’ve decided to step back. We’ve decided that if we step back and lower our voice, others will lead, other things will fill that vacuum.” Citing Bashar...

Ruling Socialist Party legislators seek charges of treason against Maria Corina Machado, one of the opposition's most visible leaders during the demonstrations against President Nicolas Maduro ____ Venezuela's Congress on Tuesday requested a criminal investigation of opposition deputy Maria Corina Machado for crimes including treason in relation to her involvement in anti-government protests that have left dozens dead. Mrs Machado, a 46-year-old engineer, has been one of the most visible leaders in six weeks of opposition demonstrations against socialist President Nicolas Maduro that have unleashed the country's worst unrest in a decade. Ruling Socialist Party legislators, who hold a majority...

It's starting. The brave students and people of Venezuela are starting to fight back against the socialist CUBAN-run dictatorship in Venezuela. The brave people there need support. In the meantime, the United States sits on it's hands SHAMEFULLY doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!! SEE THE ON THE SCENE VIDEO....... HERE!

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said that three air force generals have been arrested for plotting an uprising against his government. Mr Maduro said that the authorities had been tipped off by "young officers". The three generals, who have not been named, had links with the opposition, said Mr Maduro. The arrests are the latest development in nearly two months of political unrest, which have cost the lives of at least 32 people.