The Berlin-based daily Die Welt published a news story on May 13 citing “Western security sources” who reported that Venezuela’s authoritarian strongman Hugo Chavez secretly met in February 2011 with the chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Air Force, Amir al-Hadschisadeh. The pair, according to Die Welt, finalized the location …
The record will show that the May 9 extradition by Colombia of Walid Makled Garcia to Venezuela constitutes a major lost opportunity for the Obama Administration to interrogate and prosecute a Venezuelan drug kingpin with close ties to high-level Venezuelan officials and to expose the depth of narco-corruption within the …
The government of Colombia has made it official that it intends to send drug trafficking kingpin Walid Makled to Venezuela rather than the United States. It is a disappointing decision by a close ally in the international effort to combat illicit drugs and transnational crime. A major crime catch has …
The decision of an Argentinean university to award Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez with a prize for promoting freedom of the press prompted an international outcry of disbelief and criticism. On March 29, Chavez visited the University of La Plata to accept the journalism department’s Rodolfo Walsh prize for “his unquestionable …
Where does the Venezuelan leader who called President George W. Bush the incarnation of the devil, said he would not be surprised to discover that capitalism and imperialism extinguished life on Mars, and likes comparing Libya’s tyrant Colonel Muammar Qadhafi to the great South American Liberator Simon Bolivar, go to …
The world continues to watch the unfolding drama of popular revolt in Libya. In recent days we have seen a murderous Muammar Qadhafi vowing to fight “until the last drop of blood,” foreign mercenaries entering Libya to kill civilians, former members of Qadhafi’s government ready to prove his direct involvement …
The announcement last week by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government that Argentina intends to repay nearly $9 billion in official sovereign debt—a higher figure than it had said previously that it owed—to other member nations in the Paris Club could be seen as a step forward. But apparently it …
February 2 marks the start of President Hugo Chavez’s 13th year in power. Venezuela’s populist authoritarian took office back in 1999. That day was a somber day for the Americas and friends of democracy around the world. In a recent discussion with American diplomats to the Andean region, someone asked …
During the month of December, Venezuela’s authoritarian populist president actively used a lame duck legislature to expand his already unchecked executive power, culminating in a December 17 grant of “broad powers to enact laws by decree for a year and a half.” He did this before a new legislative body …
Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez continues his march to authoritarianism. In an effort to bolster the already excessive power of the executive, Chavez received authority to govern by decree until mid-2012 from a lame duck legislative national assembly controlled by Chavez loyalists. This action comes on the eve of a January handoff …
