I was able to find the exact text of the plebiscite that Manuel “Mel” Zelaya wanted to proffer to the citizens of Honduras this past Sunday. The text and a photo of the ballot that was to be used can be found here. The odd thing, and a fact that hasn’t made it into a [...]

The events in Honduras today have been some of the more dramatic in recent Latin American (and especially Central American) politics. The events are certainly of relevance to the democratic evolution of Honduras. Dave Schuler asked that I post a few comments given my academic focus on Latin America. If anyone is interested in the [...]

Via the BBC: Farc ‘co-ordinator’ held in Spain Spanish police say they have arrested the representative of the left-wing Colombian rebel group Farc in Spain. Maria Remedios Garcia Albert, a Spanish national, was detained near Madrid, as part of a joint operation by the Spanish and Colombian authorities. [...] It is claimed that Ms Garcia [...]

The daring rescue of Ingrid Betancourt from FARC terrorists misused the Red Cross symbol in violation of the Geneva Conventions. A member of the military mission that tricked Colombian rebels into freeing 15 hostages wore the insignia of the International Red Cross during the operation, President Alvaro Uribe said Wednesday. Mr. Uribe said his government [...]

Íngrid Betancourt Pulecio was freed yesterday in a daring rescue by the Colombian National Army after more than five years of captivity by FARC narco-terrorists. [S]he and 14 other hostages — including three U.S. military contractors held since 2003 — were airlifted to freedom in an audaciously “perfect” operation involving military spies who tricked the [...]

James Cason, the U.S. Ambassador to Paraguay, has achieved rock star status in that country. Literally. [H]e learned the obscure Paraguayan Guaraní language, recorded a music album of indigenous folk songs and sold 1,000 tickets to a concert in a downtown theater. Now, in the final year of his four-decade diplomatic career, Cason has suddenly [...]

Absolut Vodka has got some ‘splainin’ to do: Laura Martínez found the ad in the print edition of Quién magazine in Mexico City and it’s going viral. Jim Hoft has picked it up, calling it an “Absolut-ly Outrageous Ad,” Pierre Legrand profanely calls for a boycott, and Brian Ledbetter goes with “Absolut-ly Insulting.” Michelle Malkin [...]

Here’s a follow-up to a story I noted yesterday: (via the BBC), Ecuadorean death report confirmed Colombia has confirmed that an Ecuadorean was killed when its troops attacked a rebel camp inside the neighbouring state three weeks ago. Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos said his body was taken to Colombia after the raid along with [...]

Via the LAT: Peru sees cocaine making a comeback Peru’s cocaine industry, the world’s largest and most violent in the late 1980s and early 1990s, is again on the upswing. Plots of coca bushes, whose leaves yield cocaine, have increased by about one-third since 1999, to about 127,000 acres, according to Peruvian and United Nations [...]

Via the BBC: Ecuador warns Colombia over raid Ecuador President Rafael Correa has warned of diplomatic tension if an Ecuadorean is found among the victims of a Colombian raid inside Ecuador. Mr Correa said Ecuador would not forgive the murder of Franklin Aisalia, if he had indeed died during the raid on Farc rebels inside [...]

Fidel Castro has finally resigned the presidency of Cuba. Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on Tuesday that he will not return to lead the country as president or commander-in-chief, retiring as head of state 49 years after he seized power in an armed revolution. Castro, 81, who has not appeared in public for almost [...]

Via the BBC: Castro ‘well enough for election’ The health of Cuban President Fidel Castro is good enough for him to be a candidate in next month’s parliamentary elections, his brother Raul has said. Which raises the question: apart from breathing, how healthy is “enough” to run, given that he won’t have to campaign or [...]

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez will have to make do with the powers he currently has after voters narrowly rejected two packages of constitutional amendments proposed by Chávez and the Chavista-dominated national legislature: Venezuelan voters narrowly rejected a constitutional referendum that would have bolstered President Hugo Chavez’s embrace of socialism and granted an indefinite extension of [...]

In light of the recent flap over whether the United States should issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, USA Today helpfully notes that Mexico requires proof of legal residency before issuing licenses. Which, I’m sure, is a real inconvenience for all those gringos headed south of the border to take jobs from hard-working Mexicans. Photo: [...]

Glenn Reynolds wonders, “WHY IS THE WORLD MORE CONCERNED with Musharraf’s coup than with Hugo Chavez’s emerging dicatatorship? Because enemies of the United States, like Chavez, get a pass.” Tom Maguire responds, reasonably enough, “because Pakistan has nuclear weapons and harbors (willingly or otherwise) the remnants of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. What’s that compared [...]

Cuban dictator Fidel Castro is dead. Unless he’s not. Val Prieto had a flurry of updates yesterday reporting Castro’s death, with imminent announcements expected. Half the political blogosphere linked the post and his server couldn’t handle the strain. In a Communist plot, no announcement was forthcoming. Meanwhile, celebrity blogger Perez Hilton got into the act [...]

Duncan Hunter is warning about the threats posed by Iran and Venezuela, according to two separate UPI reports. “As a regional neighbor of the United States, Venezuela is increasingly threatening stability in the Western Hemisphere. The country’s leadership is determined to move the country away from democracy and toward socialism; maintains close relations with Cuba [...]

GWU economics professor Robert Dunn argues that the flood of illegal immigration from Mexico will stop of its own accord because a sharp decline in the birth rate is cutting the supply of out-of-work Mexican teenagers. More interesting still is his explanation for the trend: Better education and improved job opportunities for women mean that [...]

Foreign Policy has published the latest edition of The Failed States Index 2007. It is not a cause for celebration: Few encouraging signs emerged in 2006 to suggest the world is on a path to greater peace and stability. The year began with violent protests that erupted from Indonesia to Nigeria over the publication of [...]

Cross-posted from La Política Colombiana: Shockingly, the AP reports that the number of hectares of coca under cultivation has risen, despite the increased eradication effort: Colombia’s president says White House survey shows 8 percent rise in coca Despite record drug eradication efforts, a White House survey found production of coca in Colombia rose for the [...]

Cross-posted from PoliBlog: Reuters has an interesting piece on Hugo Chávez and the recent political confrontation over Venezuelan TV: Unpopular TV closure consolidates Chavez’s power. Some key passages that get to the heart of the problem in terms of the threat to free speech in Venezuela: dependent on the government for advertising revenue, major private [...]

Cross-posted from La Política Colombiana: Via the BBC: Colombia releases top Farc rebel The Colombian government has released a jailed guerrilla leader in the hope he will encourage the rebels to release the 56 hostages they hold. Rodrigo Granda, known as the Farc rebel group’s “foreign minister”, was freed as the authorities prepare to release [...]

Cross-posted from PoliBlog: Via the BBC: Chavez supporters back TV closure Tens of thousands of supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have marched to show they back his decision to close an opposition TV network. Radio Caracas TV openly called for Mr Chavez to be removed from power during a failed coup attempt in 2002. [...]

Via the BBC: Cuba shows new images of Castro Cuban TV has shown brief video images of President Fidel Castro meeting the head of the Vietnamese Communist Party, Nong Duc Manh. [...] These were the first video images for four months. He is shown in a tracksuit, standing, and appearing less frail than in previous [...]

Cross-posted from PoliBlog: WaPo has a piece on the political fallout from the move by Hugo Chávez to take broadcast rights away from RCTV: Protests in Venezuela Reinvigorate Opposition. The piece notes a number of groups and governments which have protested the move: Spain’s Socialist government, in a joint declaration with the United States, called [...]

Cross-posted from PoliBlog: Via the BBC: Castro almost ‘fully recovered’ Cuban President Fidel Castro has almost completely recovered from the stomach surgery he had last year, says the head of the country’s national assembly. Speaking in a US TV interview Ricardo Alarcon gave no indication of when the Cuban leader might return to power. But [...]

Lou Dobbs that is. Daniel Drezner points to New York Times op-ed that looks at some of Lou Dobbs claims, and the results aren’t pretty. The [60 Minutes] segment was a profile of Mr. Dobbs, and while doing background research for it, a “60 Minutes” producer came across a 2005 news report from Mr. Dobbs’s [...]

Cross-posted from PoliBlog: Via the BBC: Venezuela head in new TV warning In a national address shown by all TV stations, Mr Chavez defended his decision to close RCTV as a public service, denouncing the 53-year-old station – Venezuela’s most popular – as a “permanent attack on public morals”. He also called news network Globovision [...]

Cross-posted from PoliBlog: Via the BBC: Second Venezuela TV is under fire Venezuela’s government has accused a TV station of inciting a murder attempt on President Hugo Chavez, hours after taking another network off the air. It said footage shown on Globovision implicitly called for Mr Chavez to be killed. The station denies the claim. [...]

Well it seems that Hugo Chavez has decided to show his true colors: A dictator and thug. CARACAS (AFP) – President Hugo Chavez’s clampdown on opposition television stations widened Monday as police used rubber bullets and tear gas on demonstrators protesting what they called an attack on free speech. [...] On Monday several people were [...]

Cross-posted from PoliBlog: Here is an interesting bit of video from Gallup World Poll on the RCTV situation in Venezuela: Additionally: El Universal reports the following regarding Human Rights Watch’s response to the move by Chávez: The Venezuelan government decision not to renew a broadcast license for private TV channel Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) endangers [...]

Cross-posted from PoliBlog: Via the BBC: Venezuela court orders TV seizure: Venezuela’s top court has allowed the government to take control of private TV transmitters as it prepares to replace commercial with state-run TV. Radio Caracas Television, a station critical of the government, is being forced to stop broadcasting on its public frequency. At a [...]

The Russian embassy in Costa Rica has been taken over by some guy with a gun. An armed Uzbek man took Russia’s ambassador and seven other people hostage Friday at the Russian Embassy in Costa Rica, police said. Security forces quickly surrounded the building in San Jose, the capital, police spokesman Francisco Ruiz told The [...]

Venezualan dictator Hugo Chavez has increased his control of the nations oil supply by taking operational control from the oil companies for the Orinoco Belt crude projects. The Orinoco Belt has four projects that are estimated to be worth $30 billion and can convert 600,000 barrels of crude into synthetic oil in a single day. [...]

Via Reuters: Venezuela launches Zeppelin to tackle rampant crime. I haven’t even read the story yet, but could there be a a headline that is a better combination of cool and ridiculous with something you just never expect to read? Update: Ends up it is some kind of surveillance blimp, which isn’t so cool, I’ll [...]

Many Americans have a very healthy level of skepticism for price controls in general. Apparently Hugo Chavez doesn’t and now his country is paying the price. CARACAS – Meat cuts vanished from Venezuelan supermarkets this week, leaving only unsavory bits like chicken feet, while costly artificial sweeteners have increasingly replaced sugar, and many staples sell [...]

I’ve long noted the irony that neo-conservatism is the furthest thing from conservatism. In fact, it is the logical successor to Woodrow Wilson’s imperialistic vision. John Ikenberry uses the just-past 150th anniversary of Wilson’s birth and impending 88th anniversary of his 14 Points speech to reflect on the legacy of the 28th President of the [...]

A new Gallup poll shows that two-thirds of American favor renewing diplomatic ties with Cuba. This isn’t particularly surprising: Over the past 32 years, a majority of Americans have consistently said they support establishing diplomatic ties with Cuba, with the exception of one poll conducted in 1996. So, there is longstanding, overwhelming, bipartisan support for [...]

While Holocaust deniers from all over the world are enjoying the hospitality of Tehran, National Review Online is having its own symposium of denial, only here they’re whitewashing the terrorist regime of Augusto Pinochet. Of the six participants, only one person, Thor Halvorssen, actually had the strength of character to condemn Pinochet for his crimes. [...]

The fact that a sick 91-year-old man who left power by democratic means sixteen years ago died barely captured my attention over the weekend. The irony, noted by Blake Hounshell, that it happened to be the 58th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is worth noting, however. I was also somewhat amused this [...]

Venezualan president Hugo Chavez was easily re-elected. Emboldened by a resounding re-election, President Hugo Chavez pledged to shake up Venezuela with a more radical version of socialism and forge a wider front against the United States in Latin America. Opposition contender Manuel Rosales accepted defeat Sunday night, but promised to continue countering a leader whom [...]

Mexico is considering asking the U.N. to stop the U.S. from building a fence along its southern border. Mexico’s foreign secretary said Monday the country may take a dispute over U.S. plans to build a fence on the Mexican border to the United Nations. Luis Ernesto Derbez told reporters in Paris, his first stop on [...]

In yet another strange story revolving around the visit of the tyrant, umm (sorry, can’t figury out the strike-through coding) President of Venezuela to the United Nations, now the Foreign Minister of that country is having immigration problems, and even the glorious New York Times dismisses him a merely an “Aide” in the headline (Try [...]

Monday’s New York Times carries an article on immigration hearings planned by the House that rests on a rather odd premise–that the only people who care about immigration reside in states along the Mexican border: When House leaders announced their plan to hold 21 immigration hearings in 13 states during the August recess, they said [...]

The Associated Press is uncritically reporting that Elian Gonzales sincerely hopes that Castro recovers from his unknown illness. Elian Gonzalez sent a note Sunday wishing a speedy recovery to “my dear grandpa Fidel,” and Cuba’s vice president said the world’s longest-serving leader is recuperating well after surgery. [...] Gonzalez, the Cuban boy at the center [...]

As Daniel Drezner notes, Mexico’s electoral tribunal has ordered a partial recount in the country’s recent presidential election, falling short of demands by left-leaning presidential candidate Andres Manuel López Obrador for a full recount: In Mexico City’s central Zocalo square, thousands of Mr Lopez Obrador’s supporters chanted “Vote-by-vote!” as they watched the tribunal’s session on [...]

Felipe Calderón, the candidate of incumbent president Vicente Fox’s National Action Party (PAN), has been declared the winner of Mexico’s presidential election by the country’s independent election commission: After days of uncertainty, election officials declared Thursday that Felipe Calderón, a conservative, had won the race for president by less than 1 percent of the official [...]

The lead continues to change in Mexico’s tight presidential race, with conservative candidate Felipe Calderon apparently holding a slight edge. Twelve hours ago, we had this headline from Reuters: “Leftist has surprise lead in Mexico recount drama.” As of 7 a.m., AP has it: “Conservative leads in Mexico vote recount.” The two front-runners in Mexico’s [...]

The Contra Costa Times has a good story about the little-noticed fact that the Mexican economy is booming. Lost in all the publicity about the rising tide of poor Mexican workers besieging the U.S. border in search of better-paying jobs is one fact: From Tijuana on the border with California to Merida in the Yucatan [...]

Three cops and an American resident too. But not much press attention. Why? Maybe because it didn’t happen 6000 miles away in Baghdad, but 25 miles away in Rosarito Beach, Baja California Norte (BCN), Mexico (near Tijuana, and in the same municipality/municipo). The LA Times reports Mexican authorities discovered the decapitated bodies of three police [...]