Published on 23 May 2016 by teleSUR.

brazil protest against michel temer sao paulo.jpg 1718483346

The taped conversation is the strongest proof to date that Dilma Rousseff's rivals' bid to remove her from office is more about protecting corruption than rooting it out.

Damning new evidence has revealed that the impeachment bid against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has a clear goal of protecting corrupt officials, particularly members of the newly installed government, from facing justice.

Published on 25 May 2016 by venezuelanalysis.com.

maduro and keith rowley

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has struck a set of “historic” bilateral deals with his Trinidadian counterpart, including the creation of a joint energy project geared towards natural gas exportation.

Both heads of state announced the series of cross-border initiatives in energy, security, and commerce on Monday from St Ann’s, Trinidad and Tobago, where Maduro met with Prime-Minister Keith Rowley during a whirlwind trip to the Caribbean.

Published on 17 May 2016 by venezuelanalysis.

venezuelan referendum fraud

The head of the commission supervising the process leading up to a potential referendum to recall Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, initiated by the right-wing opposition, said on Monday that nearly 190,000 of the signatures submitted belong to the deceased.

“They said they delivered 1.85 million of signatures. However, almost 190,000 of them were deceased people," said Jorge Rodriguez, who was appointed by Maduro and also heads the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

Rodriguez alleged the Venezuelan opposition submitted fake signatures in pursuit of “a coup d’état against President Nicolas Maduro.”

Constitutional jurist Maria Alejandra Diaz said in an interview with teleSUR that it will now be “very difficult” if not “impossible” for the opposition to hold a recall referendum this year.

The process leading up to a referendum will take at least 170 days, in her estimation, which means the third week of January 2017 is the earliest one could be held.

Any registered voter, including the head of state, can file a complaint over irregularities uncovered during this process, she added, meaning a referendum could be pushed back even further.

Published on 13 May 2016 by National Post.

brazillian coup

BRASÍLIA, Brazil — the new Brazilian president’s first pick for science minister was a creationist. He chose a soybean tycoon who has deforested large tracts of the Amazon rain forest to be his agriculture minister. And he is the first leader in decades to have no women in his Cabinet.

The new government of President Michel Temer — the 75-year-old lawyer who took the helm of Brazil on Thursday after his predecessor, Dilma Rousseff, was suspended by the Senate to face an impeachment trial — could cause a significant shift to the political right in Latin America’s largest country.

Published on 12 May 2016 by Granma.

flag

What has occurred in Brazil is part of the reactionary counter-offensive mounted by imperialism and the oligarchy against revolutionary and progressive governments in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The revolutionary government of the Republic of Cuba has repeatedly denounced the parliamentary-judicial coup d’état, disguised with legality, which has been developing in Brazil for months. A majority of Brazilian Senators continue the process of impeachment of the legitimately elected President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, and with this "provisionally" remove her from office for a period of 180 days, during which the Senate must decide, via a two thirds majority vote of its members, to definitively dismiss her.

First published on 13 April 2016 by Huffington Post

clinton

The past week has not been a good one for the Clintons, in terms of foot-in-mouth disease. First Bill Clinton accused Black Lives Matter protesters of supporting murderers. This is something you might expect to erupt from the foul mouth of a Donald Trump or a Rush Limbaugh. Did Bill Clinton really say this? Yes — and then went on to whitesplain to them how “Black lives matter” in Africa, too.

Then Hillary had an meeting with the New York Daily News editorial board in which — for the first time in this campaign or possibly ever — she was asked by a journalist about her role in Honduras following the 2009 military coup. Her response was embarrassing. First, she seemed to defend the coup by saying that the Honduran judiciary and legislature “followed the law” in removing the president.

For those who don’t remember, this was a coup in which the military kidnapped the democratically elected president, in his pajamas, and flew him out of the country. It’s hard to see how anyone “followed the law” here — even if the judiciary and legislature didn’t give the order to the military, they certainly supported it. The rest of the world sure saw it as an illegal military coup, including Hillary’s top advisors.

Hillary’s own director of policy planning, Anne-Marie Slaughter urged her to “find that [the] coup was a ‘military coup’ under U.S. law and revoke the visas of more de facto regime members;” she worried in the same email that “high level people from both the business and the NGO community say that even our friends are beginning to think we are not really committed to the norm of constitutional democracy.”

Published on 3 May 2016 by teleSUR English

eligio cedexo.jpg 1718483346

A journalist with access to the Panama Papers has confirmed that wanted Venezuelan banker Eligio Cedeño's name appears in the Panama Papers, teleSUR has learned.

"Eligio Cedeño is in there," said the journalist in an email sent in response to an inquiry. One of the first articles about the Panama Papers had noted that Venezuelans were among those mentioned in the documents from the law firm Mossack Fonseca, which specializes in off-shore tax shelters. "Now we're trying to figure out when he opened the accounts and what he did with them."

The information was given to teleSUR by a contributor, who also delivered the tip to other media outlets.

Cedeño, then president of the Bolivar-Banpro Financial Group, and previously the president of Banco Canarias de Venezuela, was arrested and detained in 2007 for breaking Venezuela's currency laws and engaging in illegal transactions to obtain dollars. At the time, Venezuela was battling an exchange rate being manipulated by outside factors, including the flooding of the currency market with dollars.

The banker was accused of aiding Consorcio MicroStar, another financial institution, in obtaining U.S. dollars.

Microstar had requested to import US$27 million for the purchase of computers. A public prosecutor discovered irregularities in the importation proceedings, and filed charges against Cedeño and Gustavo Arráiz, head of MicroStar.

Published on 28 April 2016 by Granma

ecuador earthquake

The death toll following the earthquake that shook Ecuador on April 16 has risen to 655, while almost 30,000 people have been left homeless, 17,638 have sought medical attention for injuries caused and 48 people remain missing, according to information provided at press time by Ecuador's National Secretariat for Risk Management. Meanwhile, President Rafael Correa has toured the provinces most affected by the quake.

Correa began by spending three days touring the province of Manabí, the hardest hit in the country. The response from several countries was prompt, with humanitarian aid arriving on large planes, in order to meet the immediate needs of the thousands of victims.

Cuba sent a brigade from the Henry Reeve International Contingent of Doctors Specialized in Disaster Situations and Large-Scale Epidemics, as well as a search and rescue team the very next day, to provide immediate assistance to survivors. President Correa championed the island’s solidarity: “We count on the solidarity of Cuba and Cuba can count on that of Ecuador,” he noted.

Correa also expressed his gratitude to everyone who had worked to assist the country following the disaster, and stressed that after the initial disorder, the country had reacted very well. “All affected areas are now provided with health care services, water, food and public safety,” he noted on his Twitter account.

The President added that the government will being installing adequate camps to house all those who lost their homes, as the reconstruction process will be lengthy.

Published on 29 April 2016 by Venezuela Analysis

Victims guarimba

“On [my son’s] way home he crashed into a barbed wire that was hanging across the boulevard and he was decapitated...If these people hadn’t called for these violent acts, none of this would have happened. My son would not have lost his life,” recalled Luis Durán, father of Elvis Rafael Durán, a 29 year old worker who died February 21, 2014. Elvis was one of 43 killed in 2014 and one of 57 in total since 2013 murdered by guarimbas, right-wing opposition violent protests.

The guarimbas erupted following President Nicolás Maduro’s election in April 2013 and subsequently in 2014 after the municipal elections resulting in a landslide victory in favor of the Bolivarian Revolution. Guarimbas include violent protests, roadblocks and barricades consisting of barbed wire, burning tires, and other dangerous materials. Protesters with firearms often watch over the guarimbas. Firearms are the cause of death in the majority of guarimba victim cases.

Determined to seek justice and committed to peace across Venezuela, family members of victims formed the Committee of Victims of the Guarimba and Ongoing Coup in honor of their loved ones, killed or injured. The organization recently toured the United States to share their campaign for justice and expose the violence waged against the Venezuelan people which continues to manifest itself today in the right-wing opposition’s attempts to overthrow the democratically-elected government under President Maduro through constitutional and violent means.

Breaking International Media Barriers