There’s a new political boss in Venezuela. So far, he’s acting just like the old boss.
Hugo Chávez was purportedly still in his death throes last week when his designated political heir, eager to snatch the reins of power before anyone could stop him, signaled that he was just as capable of playing the anti-American card as the dying president by summarily expelling two U.S. military attachés from the U.S. Embassy in Caracas.
Accredited Third States
UNITED NATIONS, CMC – The United Nations on Wednesday, lauded the commitment Hugo Chávez to the cause of social justice in the Caribbean, as the General Assembly paid tribute to the memory of the late President of Venezuela. Chávez, a socialist firebrand, died on March 5 after struggling with cancer for almost two years. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Chávez ensured that Venezuela provided crucial assistance to Haiti following the devastating earthquake of 2010.
NEW YORK, CMC – Police here say that at least 18 people were arrested as fights between them and angry youth erupted for the third consecutive night in the predominantly Caribbean district of East Flatbush in Brooklyn over police shooting death of a Caribbean youth. On Thursday police reported that they struggled to control an irate crowd that broke away from a planned peaceful vigil after attendees learned that 16-year-old Kimani “Kiki” Gray, the son of Guyanese and Jamaican parents, was shot in the back on Saturday night.
WASHINGTON, CMC – The United Nations expert on torture has called on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to investigate the practise of solitary confinement and its harmful effects in the Americas, including the Caribbean. Juan E. Méndez, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture, also called for stronger regulation on solitary confinement. “I am concerned about the general lack of official information and statistics on the use of solitary confinement,” Méndez told the Commission at its first-ever briefing on solitary confinement in the Americas.
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis, barely 12 hours after his election, quietly left the Vatican early on Thursday to pray for guidance as he looks to usher a Roman Catholic Church mired in intrigue and scandal into a new age of simplicity and humility. Francis, the Argentinian cardinal who has become the first pope born outside Europe in 1,300 years, went to Rome's 5th-century Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore; there he prayed before a famed icon of Mary, the mother of Jesus, which is known as the Salus Populi Romani, or Protectress of the Roman People.
NEW YORK, CMC – The US-based Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has lowered its foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on Grenada to 'SD' (selective default) from 'CCC+/C'. "The downgrade to 'SD' follows the government of Grenada's announcement that it will not pay the coupon due March 15, 2013, on its U.S. dollar and Eastern Caribbean dollar bonds due in 2025," said Standard & Poor's credit analyst Joydeep Mukherji. The newly elected Grenada government recently announced that it does not expect to have the funds to pay the coupon during the relevant grace periods.
(New York Times) Venezuela will create a scientific panel to investigate the illness of Hugo Chávez, after an accusation by the interim president last week that the former president’s cancer was mysteriously caused by his enemies. “We have this intuition that our Commander Chávez was poisoned by dark forces that wanted to get rid of him to destroy the Bolivarian revolution and strike at Latin America and the Caribbean,” Nicolás Maduro, the interim president, said Monday night. Mr. Chávez, a charismatic leftist, died last week after 14 years in office.
GEORGETOWN, Guyana - Much comment has been made, following the recent death of President Hugo Chávez, emphasizing forebodings about the fate of the PetroCaribe initiative and other forms of assistance, including the creation of the Alba; and the effects of any disappearance of these initiatives on the economic welfare of the Caricom countries, among other countries of the hemisphere.
What does Hugo Chávez leave to the Venezuelan people? Three legacies, all of which are poisoned_ a harebrained way to govern, the mindless 21st-Century socialism, and a neopopulist model based on welfare-patronage.
CARACAS, Venezuela — The United States said Monday that it had expelled two Venezuelan diplomats in response to the ouster last week of two American military attachés by Venezuela.
“Around the world, when our people are thrown out unjustly, we’re going to take reciprocal action,” Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokeswoman, said at a news conference. “And we need to do that to protect our own people.”