- Details
- Written by Other sources
First published on 13 April 2016 by Huffington Post
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.”
- Details
- Written by Other sources
Published on 3 May 2016 by teleSUR English
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.
- Details
- Written by Other sources
Published on 28 April 2016 by Granma
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.
- Details
- Written by Other sources
Published on 29 April 2016 by Venezuela Analysis
“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
- Details
- Written by Other sources
Published on 20 April 2016 by teleSUR English
As the number of victims and injured keeps rising on the coast of Ecuador after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Saturday night and a series of strong aftershocks, the government has been organizing local and regional support. But with the devastating consequences of the earthquake, any help is welcomed.
The authorities have put in place a national and international relief effort. The National Assembly posted on Twitter a list of useful items to send to the devastated areas, such as first aid medicine, canned food, bottles of water, mattresses, tents, and mosquito nets.
Now those who wish to help from outside of Ecuador can donate through a national bank account set up by the government for reconstruction efforts.
- Details
- Written by Other sources
Published on 13 Aril 2016 by teleSUR English
According to the Iawyer and journalist, "there is a very strong possibility that President Chavez was assassinated."
Renowned journalist Eva Golinger spoke to teleSUR about the alleged assassination of Hugo Chavez.
Do you think that Hugo Chavez was murdered and, if so, who do you think might have been involved?
I believe there is a very strong possibility that President Chavez was assassinated. There were notorious and documented assassination attempts against him throughout his presidency.
Most notable was the April 11, 2002 coup d’etat, during which he was kidnapped and set to be assassinated had it not been for the unprecedented uprising of the Venezuelan people and loyal military forces that rescued him and returned him to power within 48 hours. I was able to find irrefutable evidence using the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), that the CIA and other U.S. agencies were behind that coup and supported, financially, militarily and politically, those involved.
Later on, there were other attempts against Chavez and his government, such as in 2004 when dozens of Colombian paramilitary forces were captured on a farm outside of Caracas that was owned by an anti-Chavez activist, Robert Alonso, just days before they were going to attack the presidential palace and kill Chavez.
There was another, lesser-known plot against Chavez discovered in New York City during his visit to the United Nations General Assembly in September 2006. According to information provided by his security services, during standard security reconnaissance of an event where Chavez would address the U.S. public at a local, renowned university, high levels of radiation were detected in the chair where he would have sat. The radiation was discovered by a Geiger detector, which is a handheld radiation detection device the presidential security used to ensure the president wasn’t in danger of exposure to harmful rays. In this case, the chair was removed and subsequent tests showed it was emanating unusual amounts of radiation that could have resulted in significant harm to Chavez had it gone undiscovered. According to accounts by the presidential security at the event, an individual from the United States who had been involved in the logistical support for the event and had provided the chair was shown to be acting with U.S. intelligence agents.
- Details
- Written by Other sources
Published on 8 April 2016 by teleSUR
In only two days over two and half million Venezuelans have signed a petition expressing their rejection of a bill approved by the opposition-controlled National Assembly that aims to grant amnesty to a number of jailed opponents of the socialist government.
President Nicolas Maduro told a crowd of supporters Thursday that he believed the country's Supreme Court would declare the bill unconstitutional, which will now be sent to the country's highest court for final consideration.
“The people should rebel against unconstitutional laws,” exclaimed Maduro.
“It is my duty as head of state to ensure constitutionality (and) justice so there may be peace in Venezuela,” he added.
Supporters of the government will continue to collect signatures against the law for the next few days before presenting them to the Supreme Court.
The protest was convened by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, or PSUV, and was joined by other social and political movements.
The so-called “Amnesty Law” covers the period beginning with the arrival of former President Hugo Chavez to the presidency in 1999 to the present.
The legislative measure seeks to release approximately 115 incarcerated convicted criminals, including some who participated in the coup against President Hugo Chavez in 2002, as well as many of those that both organized and participated in violent protests.
- Details
- Written by Other sources
Published on 10 April 2016 by teleSUR
Independent investigations continue to continue to cast doubt on Mexico's official story about what happened to the 43 Ayotzinapa students.
The Mexican government’s claims about what happened to the 43 forcibly disappeared Ayotzinapa students has been dealt another blow, this time by Austrian forensic experts who found no DNA links between the missing students and human remains treated as key evidence in the case, the Mexican daily La Jornada reported Saturday.
Investigators from Austria’s University of Innsbruck studied 53 samples of bones, hair, and clothing found on the bus where the students were traveling before they were kidnapped and almost a dozen samples from the garbage dump and river where authorities claim the bodies were burned and dumped.
But with no DNA links to the 43 students, none of the samples offered evidence of the whereabouts of the 43 students’ remains.The Austrian experts plan to carry out new genetic testing to further investigate the samples.
The analysis comes as the relationship between Mexican prosecutors and the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts working on the case, known as GIEI, has suffered a breakdown after the Mexican authorities unilaterally presented study results that manipulated findings to serve the government’s political interests of closing the case.
Mexican authorities have insisted on solidifying the version of events they call the “historical truth” of the Ayotzinapa case. This official version claims that the 43 students were burned in the Cocula garbage dump, located about 18 miles (almost 30 km) south of Iguala, Guerrero, where they were kidnapped on Sept. 26, 2014.
Independent experts and families of the victims have rejected the story. An opposition lawmaker recently called it the “historical lie” of Ayotzinapa. Preliminary analysis by independent foreign fire experts recently found that there was enough evidence to prove that there was a fire in the Cocula garbage dump, but added that a “large scale test” would be needed to scientifically determine whether the students’ bodies were indeed burned. Mexican authorities argued the evidence suggests that “17 adult human beings were burned.”
Amnesty International has now joined the GIEI in slamming the Mexican government for exaggerating the findings of the latest study, saying it was “totally absurd” to paint this evidence as groundbreaking news in the case, La Jornada reported Saturday. The organization argued that by presenting the findings as “conclusive,” the Mexican government “only played with the suffering of the families, denying their right to truth and justice.”
- Details
- Written by Other sources
Published on 28 March 2016 by venezuelanalysis.com.
Caracas, March 28, 2016 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Haitian-Venezuelan political leader and solidarity activist Fritz Saint Louis, 54, was shot dead in his home by masked gunman on Saturday evening.
According to a statement by the Public Prosecutor’s office, Saint Louis was reportedly inside his home located on the outskirts of Caracas in Santa Lucia del Tuy, “when a group of armed men entered and, without a word, shot the politician various times, causing his immediate death.”
Saint Louis’ son, Louis Nervil Fritz Jr., 23, was also injured in the incident, suffering a shot to the arm.
Two suspects in the case, Victor Jose Cisneros (22) and Henry Anthony Torrealba (23), reportedly died in a shootout with police on Sunday afternoon, while three others were arrested by authorities. Police recovered two 16mm shotguns without serial numbers alleged to have been used in the murder.