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Giancarlo Granda says his sexual relationship with the Falwells began when he was 20. He says he had sex with Becki Falwell while Jerry Falwell Jr, head of Liberty University and a staunch supporter of President Trump, looked on.In a claim likely to intensify the controversy surrounding one of the most influential figures in the American Christian conservative movement, a business partner of Jerry Falwell Jr has come forward to say he had a years-long sexual relationship involving Falwell’s wife and the evangelical leader. Giancarlo Granda says he was 20 when he met Jerry and Becki Falwell while working as...

COMBITA, Colombia - A guerrilla leader whose capture in neighboring Venezuela sparked a bitter diplomatic row says he was a political envoy who maintained regular relations with foreign ministers and other officials in Latin America, Europe and Africa. In his first media interview since his arrest last year, Rodrigo Granda, who went on trial this week on charges of rebellion, denied police allegations that he was also involved in bomb-making, arms trafficking and kidnapping. Granda is being held in the maximum security wing of the prison here in the windswept mountains of central Colombia, along with a handful of high-profile...

Bogotá. The ex-chief of the Colombian secret police Jorge Enrique Díaz, murdered two weeks ago in Venezuela, had crossed the border to arrest a guerrilla with the National Liberation Army, ELN, according to Cambio magazine. The weekly magazine said that Díaz, ex-director of the Administrative Department of Security (DAS, secret police) in Cúcuta, apparently attempted to arrest on Venezuelan soil Ramiro Vargas, an ELN leader, according to Efe. Díaz was found dead and with signs of torture April 17 near La Fría along with Sargent José Celis and another soldier who has not been identified. "The idea was to capture...

In military terms, the Western Hemisphere is the strategic rear area of the United States. The U.S. needs a secure and prosperous hemisphere not only to ensure a peaceful neighborhood in which to live, but also to be able to project its power to the farthest reaches of the globe and win the War on Terror. What is happening in our neighborhood? Press reports indicate that a leftist-populist alliance is engulfing most of South America. Some Andean and Central American countries are sliding back from economic reforms and narcotics eradication, and the Caribbean remains irrationally hostile to the U.S. This...

The item is that the French ambassador in Caracas, Pierre-Jean Vandoorne, did meet with Rodrigo Granda sometime in April 2004. This Granda is of course the "foreign minister" of the FARC who was arrested last December in Caracas, whisked to Cucuta, and became the cause of the latest diplomatic rift between Bogotá and Caracas. It is also the same Granda that walked around Venezuela as if nothing, who became a Venezuelan citizen "very easily" and just on time to vote on August 15 (for Chavez it is presumed). It is also the Granda that has just being implicated in the...

ASUNCION, Paraguay - Thousands of Paraguayans chanting "Justice! Justice!" crowded a cemetery Friday to say farewell to former President Raul Cubas's daughter, who was found dead this week after being kidnapped five months ago. AP Photo Reuters Slideshow: Daughter of Former Paraguayan President Found Dead Hundreds more lined streets of the capital, reaching out to touch the hearse carrying the body of Cecilia Cubas. Police on motorcycles led the funeral cortege. Her father, president from August 1998 to March 1999, was driven from power by deadly street riots and turmoil set off by the assassination of his vice president.

Bogotá. The supposed assistance given by Colombian guerrillas to the kidnappers of the daughter of the Paraguayan ex-president is further proof of the international tentacles of the rebels who finance themselves through criminal activities, said Colombia’s Minister of Defense, Jorge Alberto Uribe. "This only confirms the fact that Colombian narcoterrorist groups are not merely Colombians, they have roots and presence in every country", warned Uribe, who was visiting Holland, according to AP. "I was just with the people at Europol – the European police- and I saw four or five cases which involved people from these groups, especially" from the...

Today we celebrate, perhaps more than ever if not in a flashy way, "le 23 de enero", January 23. This was the day in 1958 when we kicked out our last really real dictator. 47 years later, it seems that we are back to square one. ... the Granda affair has brought a new look on things. And foreign interests have changed. Two things must be noted. In April 2002 the international fight against terrorism had just started. Now, thanks to the Bali, Ossetia and above all Madrid bombings, the whole world knows that they can be next even if...

A positive outlook of Venezuela's future By Aleksander Boyd London 22.01.05 | Wheels are in motion, cat’s out and shit has hit the fan big time. The stench, emanating from Caracas, can be felt here, in my London W1 cushy pad. A series of seemingly disconnected events have thrust unprecedented levels of criticism upon the Venezuelan ‘president’, which added to the evidence surfaced in each of the instances leave no room for doubt or confusion with respect to the credentials of Hugo Chavez. Allow me to enumerate them: 1) Rodrigo Granda, wanted FARC terrorist, is captured in the streets of...

-- In a country where an opposition Mayor is jailed for months on a minor civil charge, the Constitutional Hall of the Venezuelan Supreme Court rules that the National Guardsmen being accused of murder of some prisoners should be tried in freedom! ... -- The Government of Colombia confirmed today that it has handed over the information on members of the FARC who are believed to be in Venezuela. As reported by Caracas daily El Nacional this morning, there are seven names on the list. And according to El Tiempo de Bogota, the list contains cellphone numbers, bank account numbers,...

London 14.01.05 | Hugo Chavez, the greatest pariah ever to govern our nation, has just frozen diplomatic and trade relations with Colombia. The embarrassing thing for us decent Venezuelans is the reason for this breakage, i.e. the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Rodrigo Granda, FARC leader, was captured in Caracas by bounty hunters, when he was attending, as guest of honour, a Bolivarian celebration organized by the government of Venezuela. The Chavez regime then incurred in a series of mishaps, distortions and outright lies to cover its cosy relationship with the terrorist, who happened to have been naturalized in...

CARACAS - Venezuela recalled its ambassador in Bogotá on Thursday after the Colombian government admitted paying a bounty for a leading guerrilla allegedly kidnapped in Caracas and handed over to Colombian police. Colombian Defense Minister Jorge Alberto Uribe, who admitted making the payment, was a ''participant in a crime which may have international implications,'' said Venezuelan Vice President José Vicente Rangel. The recall of Ambassador Carlos Santiago Ramírez was the latest and harshest step in the increasingly bizarre dispute over Rodrigo Granda, a senior member of the guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The clash could affect relations...

Noe Pernia is a reporter for Channel 2 News in Caracas, known as "El Observador". Because of the muzzle Bill he was not able to report correctly the news on the Granda case. He writes this in today's Tal Cual: Jesse did not say the truth, neither did I By Noé Pernía I tried to construct a story, a simple story that would help TV viewers of El Observador understand the labyrinth of the Minister of The Interior and Justice since on Thursday the 6th., the day of the wise men, he replied to the lawyers of Rodrigo Granda in...

We are going to let go for a while the Anderson case to occupy ourselves with the other political scandal, the one of Granda, the affable "chancellor" of the FARC. This appears to have the façade of pure theater, by both sides. Granda was detained here, by Venezuelan police, and handed over to the Colombian police.... Our hypothesis is that for some reason that this very opaque government will never make public, the presence of the guerrilla chief got uncomfortable for the executive and, in the framework of the new relationship that has developed between Chávez and Uribe ("I swear...

By London 09.01.05 | The link between the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and terrorism seem to be a recurring theme. Time and again denounces and cases surface, however the official propaganda apparatus of Venezuela repeatedly play down reports branding the ever useful argument of the international conspiracy against the saviour of the downtrodden, Hugo Chavez that is. However preposterous, in the eyes of Venezuelan officials, these reports may be, a few unquestionable facts point at a rather lenient stance vis-à-vis terrorism at best and at worse at a clear state policy of protecting terrorists. Allow me to point out some...

London 09.01.05 | The link between the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and terrorism seem to be a recurring theme. Time and again denounces and cases surface, however the official propaganda apparatus of Venezuela repeatedly play down reports branding the ever useful argument of the international conspiracy against the saviour of the downtrodden, Hugo Chavez that is. However preposterous, in the eyes of Venezuelan officials, these reports may be, a few unquestionable facts point at a rather lenient stance vis-à-vis terrorism at best and at worse at a clear state policy of protecting terrorists. Allow me to point out some facts.

London 04.01.05 | My astonishment with respect to the arrest of FARC leader Ricardo Granda in Caracas continues to grow, not because Granda was in Caracas as a guest of honour of Hugo Chavez but rather due to the outlandish nerve of the FARC in condemning Chavez via public communiqués. Mind you what sort of moral stance a bunch of assassins have to be claiming anything to anyone? Their rights to claim were forfeited the moment they decided to start killing innocent peasants to achieve whatever goal they set out to reach. What's more, according to UN reports 1 million...