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Posts Tagged ‘Hugo Chavez’

Hugo Chavez Says “Drink Your Juice, Support Iran”

22 Jun 2009

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez continues his quest to drive the population towards consumption of local goods and, like a good marketer, he’s telling his people to set down their Coca Cola and pick up a new grape juice product called Juvita. On Chavez’s weekly TV show this past weekend, the message rang like a late-night informercial: Juvita means eternal youth, Coke means evil. From Reuters TV transcripts:

“It is a soft drink that is healthy, nutritious, here it is, its called Juvita. To maintain eternal youth, Juvita. Drink Juvita. Be young eternally instead of drinking that soft drink that, I don’t know, coca, I don’t know, cola, I don’t know what. Drink Juvita. Let’s taste it to see, to stay young eternally. You fathers and the mothers, encourage all parents to drink Juvita.” CHAVEZ BEGINS TO DRINK FROM BOTTLE OF JUVITA SOFT DRINK, SAYING: “Let’s see. Ah, eternal youth. Drink Juvita. How tasty. Did you all try?”

Getting Latin Americans to put down Coca-Cola is a mission impossible. Kind of like getting people in América Latina to give up corn-based products. Not gonna happen. Read more…

Hugo Chavez Hearts Obama

3 Jun 2009

After all that hate, then some awkward moments, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez appears to be warming up to Barack Obama…if you consider calling Obama more leftist than he and Fidel Castro showing love (and I do). Reuters reports:

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday that he and Cuban ally Fidel Castro risk being more conservative than U.S. President Barack Obama as Washington prepares to take control of General Motors Corp.

During one of Chavez’s customary lectures on the “curse” of capitalism and the bonanzas of socialism, the Venezuelan leader made reference to GM’s bankruptcy filing, which is expected to give the U.S. government a 60 percent stake in the 100-year-old former symbol of American might.

“Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama! Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his right,” Chavez joked on a live television broadcast.

Chavez’s message is not lost on Republicans, who were quick to jump on Obama’s bones for the move. Check out the RNC’s video attacking Obama after the jump. Read more…

Vargas Llosa Detained in Venezuela

28 May 2009

Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa didn’t have such a good time today at Caracas International Airport, Maiquetia, upon arriving to Venezuela from Colombia. Accompanied by his wife for a conference, Vargas Llosa says he was detained for an hour and a half by police who allegedly held him because a “as a foreigner he didn’t have the right to make political statements” in Venezuela. Spain’s Estrella Digital reports:

“They said that very politely and I responded that being in the land of (…) they shouldn’t try to hinder free thinking,” said Vargas Llosa, in the middle of a press mob that surrounded him upon leaving the airport. Álvaro Vargas Llosa, son of the writer, was also arrested for several hour by airport authorities on Monday, when he arrived in Venezuela to participate in the same conference, along with intellectuals from various countries.

Vargas Llosa’s statements to press can be seen in the video above (in Spanish). Estrella Digital also reports that conference organizers said that police would accompany he and his wife to their hotel “so he wouldn’t make statements to press” and that he had already been warned about making political statements.

What’s unclear to me is what political statement he could have made getting off of a plane? It seems like if you were going to do something messed up like detain someone for speaking their mind, you’d do it after they had already done so, not before. Apparently Bolivian ex-president Jorge Quiroga also got the same warning, but wasn’t detained. But actually is already making statements, particularly saying that Evo Morales is merely a pawn of Hugo Chavez.

Via / Estrella Digital

Does Venezuela Want to Ban the Internet?

6:56 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Internet|Venezuela · Comments Off

26 May 2009

chavez-conf-bests-04 So is access to the internet a right or a luxury? Decree No. 6649 coming out of Venezuela seems to side with it as luxury.

The decree seeks to eliminate “luxuries” or “superfluous expenses” among the public expenditure, among which includes the Internet.

This seems to go against an earlier decree No. 825 from 2000 that said that internet access and use were a priority.

A campaign, Internet Prioritaria, has launched in response to the latest decree, with a goal of keeping the internet as a government priority.

A Cultural Revolution in Venezuela…through Books?

4:02 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Books|Controversia|Culture|Latin America|Venezuela · 5 Comments

14 May 2009

littleprince While conservatives here in the U.S. sling the word “socialism” around like an insult, in Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez is leading a crusade for children to learn all about it via books. Chavez’s “Plan Revolucionario de Lectura” (“Revolutionary Reading Plan”) is getting off the ground now, with the goal, according to Chavez, of “constructing the new man”.

Chavez says he’ll be doing this by encouraging the reading of “revolutionary books”, while at the same time ridding libraries of classics such as “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupery and Cervantes’ classic Don Quijote for “ideological reasons”. I wonder what ideology he is referring to. No, I mean really…I don’t get what ideology is espoused in either of those books that he might disagree with. Maybe I need to read them again?

Chavez’s critics say he’s trashing lots of other books as well, citing that they must be thrown out because they are infested with mold or moths. According to La Tercera, among them are Hitchcock’s The Mummy, another one I don’t get. The books were allegedly sold to a recycling company for pennies on the kilo.

First it was RCTV, now it’s library books? Is this a harder push towards a cultural revolution in Venezuela? What do you think of what Chavez is doing? Let us know in the comments.

Via / La Tercera

Chavez’s Daughter + Allende’s Grandson = LOVE

10:45 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities|Chile|Chismes|Latin America|Venezuela · 2 Comments

7 May 2009

It’s not often that we hear about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s personal life or family, but this latest bit of chisme about Huguito’s daughter is quite interesting. It seems that María Gabriela Chávez is dating the grandson of slain Chilean president Salvador Allende, Pablo Sepúlveda Allende. Chavez introduced the couple this week on his weekly TV show, Aló Presidente. Spain’s El País reports:

“Pablo!”, exclaimed the Venezuelan leader, embracing [him] told said that [he] was “a Chilean doctor, María’s partner and the grandson of Salvador Allende”, who he regularly says he admires and calls “the martyr president.”

The Venezuelan press had recently reported that the journalist, second daughter from Chavez’s first marriage, had managed to convince Sepúlveda Allende that he leave the medical center where he worked in the Chilean city of Coquimbo, opened by his grandfather who was also a doctor, to reside in Venezuela.

Might this be the making of a Latin American left political superfamily?

Via / El País

Why the Hell Does Joe Scarborough Insist on Making Chavez Sound Kind of French?

12:07 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Media|Obama|Politics|Venezuela · Comments Off

21 Apr 2009

I am grateful I don’t have cable so I don’t stumble upon the cable news nonsense pretending to be fair and balanced.
While the Summit of the Americas has come and gone, some people just can’t let it go, especially U.S. President Obama shaking hands with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

What did Joe want? For Obama to punch Chavez? Or tell Ortega to shut up the way the Spanish King told Chavez once.

You also have to love the revisionist history that vilifies Ortega with no mention of the U.S. supported coup that led to civil war in Nicaragua pero instead wonders why Obama didn’t school the two Latin American presidents on Democracy.

May I suggest that people start sending Scarborough a copy of the book “Shavez” gave to Obama?

Via / Media Matters

Galeano Book Blowing Up on Amazon Thanks to Chavez-Obama Exchange

19 Apr 2009

The Eduardo Galeano book that Hugo Chavez gave President Obama yesterday, “The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent”, has gone from an Amazon rank of 54,295 to number 2 today. Hey, not bad in just over 24 hours, and if this gets Americans to understand the history of the U.S. and Europe in Latin America, all the better.

Check out the interview with Chavez above where he talks about giving the book to Obama and how apparently awesome his meeting with the U.S. president was.

Via / AP

Obama and Chavez Make Nice

18 Apr 2009

While Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez might have called President Obama a “poor ignoramous” last month, he appears to be changing his tune — at least a little. At the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago last night, the South American leader had something very different to say about his U.S. counterpart:

“I think it was a good moment,” Chavez said about their initial encounter. “I think President Obama is an intelligent man, compared to the previous U.S. president.”

OK, so he’s not calling him Einstein, but he isn’t calling him ignorant either.

In the meeting, Chavez gave Obama the Eduardo Galeano book, “The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent” (video after the jump…check out Chilean President Michelle Bachelet’s reaction when that happens). And if you’re wondering if Obama took the hint, not right away. AP reports that he thought Chavez was giving him his own book and wanted to give Huguito one of his, too. Oh, well. Understanding comes poco a poco.

Read more…

Not All Americans Welcomed at the Summit of the Americas

6:49 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Cuba|Latin America|Obama|Politics|Puerto Rico · 2 Comments

17 Apr 2009

h22161americasschenk A poet friend of mine invited me to join a Facebook Group called , “AMERICA” is not U.S.A. AMERICA is the name for a whole continent”. This US-centrism has been a peeve of mine for at least ten years now, specifically from when I lived in Chile and found myself in the very difficult position of defending my Latina/Puerto Rican identity (Yes, Kai I’m talking about being Rican again, sigh).

Now the idea of who is “America” comes up again against the context of The Summit of the Americas, which started yesterday in Trinidad. Love him or hate him, President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua raised a good point at the start of the Summit, saying:

“It is not of the Americas , because Cuba is missing, Puerto Rico is missing,”

So how can you have a Summit of the Americas without two nations facing important challenges rooted in colonialism?
Read more…

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