Daniel Ortega—sporting pink campaign colors rather than the combative red and black of the Sandinista Front (FSLN) and dressed in a business suit, or guaybera, rather than olive drab fatigues—ushers in a modified and somewhat softer era of tyranny as he begins a second consecutive and unconstitutional term as president …
As he readied for the visit of a close ally, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez undertook a cabinet shuffle in the fashion of the defunct Soviet politburo. Before Christmas, he announced a pending reassignment of his Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, Vice President Elias Jaua, and Interior Minister Tareck …
In an infamous and vulgar U.N. speech delivered in September 2006, Venezuela’s populist authoritarian President Hugo Chavez likened President George W. Bush to “the devil.” On December 20, Chavez lashed out at President Barack Obama after the U.S. President opined on the worsening situation in Venezuela. “Mr. Obama decided to …
On learning of the death of Kim Jong-il, Cuban authorities immediately declared three days of official mourning. Their action underscored longstanding ties of intimacy between two of the world’s most oppressive, most anti-American regimes. The death of North Korea’s tyrant also evoked a feeling that the Cuba of Fidel Castro, …
In a lengthy piece on December 13, the New York Times reported on the role Western Hemisphere drug trafficking plays in financing the Shiite, pro-Iranian terrorist organization Hezbollah. The Times took a lengthy look at the Treasury Department’s investigation of the Lebanese Canadian Bank (LCB) and the organizational structure that …
On December 3, 2009, American citizen and contractor for the United States Agency for International Development Alan Gross of Maryland was arrested as he attempted to exit the airport in Havana. He had just finished delivering Internet equipment to isolated Jewish communities in eastern Cuba. In March of 2011, Gross …
Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez will host what is billed as the founding conference of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) December 2–3 on the grounds of Venezuela’s largest military base. The ailing Chavez, whose very public battle with an undisclosed form of cancer has given rise to a …
Expel U.S. ambassadors from your country, accuse the U.S. of plotting coups and trying to destabilize your country, and cozy up to Iran, and what do you receive from the Obama Administration? An “Oops, we’re sorry! We’ll try to do better next time.” Ecuador’s temperamental President Rafael Correa has often …
The armed forces of Colombia have scored a major battlefield victory. They finally hunted down, confronted, and killed the leader of the narco-terrorist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Guillermo Leon Saenz, widely known by his alias Alfonso Cano. A guerrilla for decades, Cano assumed the top leadership of the …
Press pundits and many Latin American experts are predicting that Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas will easily win presidential elections in Nicaragua on Sunday, November 6. The Economist captures the tone of the elections quite accurately: “Buoyed by a growing economy and Venezuelan cash, the Sandinista leader who toppled a …
