Free Republic

Diplomacy: National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden seems to have taken Venezuela's asylum offer, an odd choice for a man supposedly motivated by a desire for transparency. He should prepare for life as a pawn. U.S. surveillance is "not something I am willing to live under," Snowden told the U.K. Guardian's Glenn Greenwald, in a story published Monday, condemning yet again the NSA, whose operations, he claims, motivated him to hack into its computers, steal U.S. secrets, leak them to the press, and then flee a $100,000-a-year job and a pole-dancing girlfriend on the island paradise of Hawaii for a...

Socialism: The lights are flickering in oil-rich Venezuela, a victim of the same shortages that appear wherever socialism is tried. With the grid verging on collapse, the final irony is to see Hugo Chavez calling Cuba to fix it. Most leaders serious about fixing a collapsing power grid call up companies like Bechtel or APR Energy because they're capable of swiftly setting up small power plants in emergencies, even in infrastructure wastelands such as Haiti. But that's not whom President Hugo Chavez called when he got word that Venezuela's electricity is in a state of collapse and may go black...

The Castro/Chavez Axis Click here to launch the Podcast Player We're coming up on the 45th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis and I think it's worth talking about. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy faced down the USSR, risking total war, and forced the Soviets to remove ballistic weapons from Cuba. Missiles located less than a hundred miles from America were aimed at the US. A lot of people, I think, have forgotten. Most schools don't even teach about it in any real detail. Judging by the indifference that many people have to the nuclear arming of Iran, I...

Government compiles proof of the presence of the FARC in Ecuador The Foreign Minister, Maria Consuelo Araujo, and the Minister of Defense, Juan Manuel Santos, say they will have shown in brief that the insurgents are taking refuge in Venezuela and Ecuador Sunday, 22 October 2006 Last Thursday, President Alvaro Uribe denounced [the fact that] the guerrillas Raul Reyes, the alias of Luis Eduard Devia, is hiding in Ecuador, and Ivan Marquez, whose true name is Luciano Marin Arango, is doing so in Venezuela. After the statements, Ecuadoran authorities asked the Colombians for evidence that Reyes, the FARC's principal...

The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) concluded that regional press has experienced a serious backlash EL UNIVERSAL The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) Tuesday closed its 62nd annual assembly in Mexico by condemning "reiterated" violation by President Hugo Chávez's Government of the principles of freedom of speech and right to information, as provided for under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and ratified its support to reporters and media, hoping that Venezuela restores respect for the rules. In its final resolution on Venezuela, IAPA rejected "murders, aggressions, intimidation and discrimination against independent reporters and media." It urged the Venezuelan Government to...

HAVANA (AP)--Fidel Castro, in his role as president of the Nonaligned Movement, decried the detention of Venezuela's foreign minister at a New York airport, calling it a "vulgar provocation." A statement issued late Saturday said the Cuban leader reacted "with indignation" upon hearing that Nicolas Maduro was detained for 90 minutes at John F. Kennedy International Airport. He said the incident was an "unacceptable violation" of international norms regarding diplomats. The leader "extends his most vigorous protest of this vulgar provocation, which could take place again against any member of the Movement." The Venezuelan official was detained for 90 minutes...