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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Wednesday said he should have issued a statewide mask mandate earlier, noting that doing so would have made a “dramatic difference” in the fight against the coronavirus. During an interview on public radio, the governor was asked about missteps he may have taken in the response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Wednesday on MSNBC, 202o presidential hopeful South Bend, IN Pete Buttigieg said President Donald Trump’s “ranting” about the House Democrats impeachment inquiry was “the stuff of tin-pot dictatorships.” Buttigieg said, “Well, the simple fact is that these rantings are not the words of the leader of a democracy. When you are being criticized, let alone, when you’re being called out for wrongdoing responding by describing somebody who is calling you out or disagreeing as being disloyal to the country because they’re being critical of you, this is the stuff of tin-pot dictatorships, not the presidency.”

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia — The appearance of a Star of David on new national identity cards has alarmed opponents of President Evo Morales, who recall how the symbol was used to brand Jews in Nazi Germany. Tiny six-pointed stars within a tight circle are printed on the back side of some, but not all, recently issued picture IDs in the Santa Cruz region. The mark was present on three cards seen by The Washington Times. "It raises suspicions that the government is identifying individuals or segments of the population along racial, religious or ideological lines" said Carlos Klinsky, a member...

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez sent a soothing message to American motorists on Sunday, saying that Venezuela is not preparing to cut off oil shipments to the United States. The socialist leader rattled oil markets last Sunday when he threatened to halt shipments to the United States in retaliation for Exxon Mobil Corp.'s success in convincing courts in the U.S. and Europe to freeze Venezuelan assets. "We don't have plans to stop sending oil to the United States," the socialist leader said Sunday during a visit to heavy-oil projects in Venezuela's petroleum-rich Orinoco River basin that were nationalized last...

CARACAS, Venezuela - National Guard troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets Monday into a crowd of protesters angry over a decision by President Hugo Chavez that forced a critical television station off the air. University students blocked one lane of a major highway hours after Radio Caracas Television ceased broadcasting at midnight and was replaced with a new state-funded channel. Chavez had refused to renew RCTV's broadcast license, accusing it of "subversive" activities and of backing a 2002 coup against him. Two students were injured by rubber bullets and a third was hit with a tear gas canister, said...

Geopolitics: Radical chic is thriving in the whirl of parties at the United Nations these days, and no one is being courted more solicitously as one of the downtrodden than Evo Morales of Bolivia. You remember "radical chic," don't you? The 1960s and 1970s phenomenon, described by Tom Wolfe in his "Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak-Catchers" tells how New York's glitterati threw black-tie parties to court supposedly "real" revolutionaries — like Black Panthers, Puerto Rican separatists or Indian liberationists — in a bid to feel "authentic." It's been a long time, but radical chic isn't dead. Which explains why...

'THE DEVIL CAME TO THE UN YESTERDAY... Bush, I have the feeling you are going to live the rest of your days as a nightmare... We need a psychologist to analyze Bush... YANKEE IMPERIALISTS GO HOME'...

CARACAS, Venezuela, Aug 28 (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday his government would take legal action against Pat Robertson and potentially seek his extradition after the U.S. evangelist called for Washington to assassinate the South American leader. Robertson, who later apologized for the remark, said he was expressing his frustration with Chavez's constant accusations against the administration of President George W. Bush. "I announce that my government is going to take legal action in the United States ... to call for the assassination of a head of state is an act of terrorism." Chavez said in a...

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose country is the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, said that the world should get used to high oil prices. "The world should forget about cheap oil ... it won't happen," Chavez told a news conference in the Indian capital on Saturday, saying that the new price range for oil would remain between 40 dollars and 50 dollars. "That is the new band for oil," said Chavez, whose country is the only South American member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Chavez, on the second day of a visit to India...

London 26.02.05 | There is a saying in Venezuela that goes "el que tiene rabo de paja que no se acerque a la candela" which can be equated to "If you live in a glasshouse don't throw stones". The regime of Hugo Chavez has issued an arrest warrant for former Venezuelan president Carlos Andres Perez (CAP) purportedly for having ordered the application of the Avila Plan back in 1.989. As a result very many people were killed by the army. Fast forward 13 years and hear the recording [power point presentation and sound] of current president Hugo Chavez ordering General...

The girl of the Noriega General named with the consulate from Panama in Miami PANAMA - One of the girls of the former strong man of Panama, the Manual General Noriega, was named as diplomat with the consulate from Panama in Miami, announced the minister panaméen Foreign Affairs Samuel Lewis. His/her father is imprisoned there since 1990. Sandra Noriega "is a qualified person who has the right to serve her country", affirmed Friday the minister. The father of the diplomat directed Panama of 1981 to 1989, after death in an air crash of the president panaméen Omar Torrijos, father...

Yesterday, the Venezuelan National Assembly approved the changes to the new penal code. These changes criminalize dissent, criticism and any activity against Government officials by individuals. In the case of criticism of President Chavez, it is a criminal offense to “offend” the President either publicly or in private. What it means, once it gets published in the next few days and becomes law, is that the Government may go after anyone that tries to express any form of criticism against the Government or Government officials. This is in effect, a limitation of freedom of speech which will be diminished significantly...

Well, readers of this blog certainly know that in Venezuela we are closer to a military regime than to anything else. The logic of the system has pushed Chavez to associate the army to his power as the only way to get some "safety" in his hold to power. I have been sent this article from Notitarde and I decided to make it my first translation of the year. You can actually go and open the link to see the picture of the writer, a feature of Notitarde, the Valencia newspaper. The provincial commentators sometimes are ahead of Caracas. Indeed,...

Hugo Chávez receiving a Human Rights prize? or Muammar Gaddafi awarding it? or Daniel Ortega witnessing it?