Americas Forum has developed a new, more interactive site that is now live at Americas-Forum.com. Our Spanish-language site is at ForoDeLasAmericas.org. Follow us on Twitter @americas_forum
QUITO - Human Rights Watch (HRW) said today that the statements of President Rafael Correa that the NGO is funded by the Sinaloa cartel are "irrational nonsense" and shows his "intolerance" of criticism.
QUITO - Ecuador's anti-American president, Rafael Correa, announced today that he will not attend the Summit of the Americas taking place in Cartagena, Colombia on April 14th and 15th because of the U.S. boycott of Cuba's participation in the summit.
"Personally I'm not ready to return to participate in these summits, in which they never discuss the problems of Latin American people," Correa said during a press conference in Ankara, Turkey, where he is on an official visit.
"In our region there are major problems, but they never discuss them in these summits. Even the U.S. embargo imposed on Cuba, they never debate it. Nor the British occupation of the Falkland Islands," Correa added.
"We organize a summit for Latin American countries, and exclude a Latin American country. Cuba is barred by the U.S. boycott," Correa reiterated.
"I'll be frank, I like America because I studied there, but I can not accept that a country excludes another. I am appalled and do not wish to hurt my American friends when I say that the people of Latin America not agree with them to organize these kind of summits, "he added.
CARACAS - In a telephone call from Cuba on Tuesday night, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced that he had approved funding "to ensure continuity of training of military officers and cadets in Belarus." Belarus was called "the last true remaining dictatorship in the heart of Europe" by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and it has been ruled by the dictatorial Alexander Lukashenko, who like Chavez, eliminated constitutional term limits to keep himself in office indefinitely.
Despite near universal condemnation by international human rights groups for his oppression of Belarussians, Lukashenko has been able to count on support from Hugo Chavez throughout the last decade. Chavez was one of very few heads of state to support Muammar Qaddafi before his death at the hands of Libyan freedom fighters, and is still supporting Bashar al Assad of Syria even as Saudi Arabia has pulled its ambassador and closed its embassy in protest of his slaughter of innocent civilians.
BUENOS AIRES - A live interview with the former Chief of Staff of Cristina Kirchner was cut off the air abruptly last night as the former official began to strongly criticize the Argentine president.
Alberto Fernandez was being interviewed by journalist Marcelo Longobardi live on C5N, when the show was abruptly cut off in mid-sentence, surprising both Fernandez and the show's host.
Today, Fernandez described the event as "painful" and attributed it to calls received by the show's production staff from Kirchner staffers.
"It seems a sad fact of absolute mediocrity, I find it hard to offer details of the incident because I do not want to profit from something so pathetic," Fernandez said during a later interview on Radio Mitre.
Fernandez continued: "It was a strange thing. I was talking, and then I heard the closing music. I thought it could have been operator error, but no. Longobardi told me, 'They've stopped the program.' What I heard was that was the result of pressure they were receiving from the government."
HAVANA - A human rights crusader in Cuba managed to smuggle a cell phone with a camera inside one of the decrepit cells that the Castro regime forces them into after arresting them during their peaceful protests.
The Castro regime refuses to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross or the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture to see these horrid cells, that have only been described in the past by those that have been lucky enough to experience them and live to tell the story.
Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to visit the island at the end of the month, and former political prisoner of conscience, Angel Moya Acosta, has called on all Cubans throughout the world to appeal to the Pope to at least meet with members of the oppressed resistance movement. “We (the internal opposition) are asking that our brothers in exile help us so that when Benedict XVI comes to Cuba he will at least dedicate a minute to the opposition, to the outcasts, the persecuted…for this makes up a grand part of the social doctrine of the church“, Moya stated.
SAN SALVADOR - UPDATE: With most votes counted, the ARENA party appears to be winning by 40 percent to 37 percent against the left-wing FMLN party.
All 84 seats of the unicameral legislature, as well as 262 mayoralties, were up for election. With most votes counted, it appears that ARENA will end up with 33 seats versus 31 for the FMLN, with the remainder distributed among smaller parties.
The most important mayoralty, in the capital city of San Salvador, ARENA's Norman Quijano was re-elected, according to preliminary results.
More notable in the election was the poor showing by ex-president Antonio "Tony" Saca, who many former allies say has sought to undermine the ARENA party, forming a coalition named GANA, which was touted to be a conservative coalition, while serving as a congressional ally of the far-left FMLN, a former terrorist group turned political party. Saca was coming in at a distant third as of midnight, with 12.1 per cent of the votes.
WASHINGTON, DC - General Douglas Fraser, the head of the U.S. Southern Command, testified on Monday in a congressional hearing that the U.S. is concerned about the potential for "geopolitical turbulence" in Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Haiti.
According to Fraser's testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Venezuela faces "uncertainty about President (Hugo) Chavez's health, continued economic instability, and escalating levels of violence that are placing increasing demands on the Venezuelan government."
Fraser added that, besides the aforementioned problems in Venezuela's domestic problems, there was also concern about Venezuela's decision under Chavez to cease all cooperation with U.S. drug enforcement agencies, and its failure to police drug trafficking in its territory. Fraser stated that, "We are starting to see an increase" in activities such as the capture of a few Colombian drug traffickers, but, he added, that was too small an effort to make a dent in the increase in drug trafficking since Hugo Chavez expelled the Drug Enforcement Agency.
MIAMI - Thursday, March 8th, a number of Ecuadorian human rights and democracy organizations plan to hold public demonstrations against what they describe as transgressions against democracy, free speech and the rule of law by the government of Rafael Correa.
Correa has prompted international opprobrium in recent months for his multiple lawsuits against journalists that have written critically of him and his administration, including one in which his personal lawyer allegedly wrote the decision for a lawsuit in which Correa was the plaintiff. The result was a sentence of three years in jail and $40 million in fines for one editorial that was critical of his handling of a police strike. Correa later issued a pardon after stinging editorials from worldwide newspapers that included the New York Time, the Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as a number of major international newspapers.
Organizers of the protest in Miami say that the event will take place outside the Consulate of Ecuador, located at 117 NW 42nd Avenue from 11:00 am until 1:00 pm. The group released a resolution which states the following:
AmericasForum.com is a news and information source focused on Latin America and the Western Hemisphere.
Americas Forum contributors represent many years of experience in government, business and non-governmental organizations, and share an expertise and a passion for fostering peace and prosperity in the Americas.
