Saturday, March 04, 2006

The Chavistas are in Washington and the dissidents send their views. A group of Chavista personalities are having a three day meeting this weekend in Washington to coordinate a national solidarity network with Chavez's goverment in the US. The news about the event can be found here. and the program can be found here. There will be two days of conference and the last day will be dedicated to the Chavistas lobbying of members of Congress. As a protest for the Chavez's sponsored event, The Standup for Venezuela Democracy Project is organizing a signature campaign to send a letter to your member of congress so that he/she gets the other view of what is happening in Venezuela. If you are a US resident, a US citizen or a Venezuelan currently living in the US , you can sign a petition here. It is important that you know what is your US Congressional district. To get the information, access this link. Jorge Arena Favorite ghost blogger 6:07:14 PM    comment []

*Why being a journalist in **Venezuela** is becoming a dangerous line of work. * Marcel Granier, the director of RCTV had a hearing yesterday in front of a National Assembly Committee. You can know more about it reading Daniel’s latest post. However, there is one detail that I have not seen anywhere except in today's El Nacional that shows the dangers of being a member of the non-official Press in Venezuela. Here is the link: According to El Nacional, after the hearing, Granier had to be escorted out of the building by the National Guard because a Chavista crowd was waiting for him outside. The reason being his recent declarations questioning President Chavez. The majority of the crowd were middle age women that were chanting slogans and menacing to burn all private media. Even though Granier was able to get unharmed out of the ambush, other journalists were not so lucky. Yaradis Adrián of Televen and Francia Sánchez of RCTV were KICKED by the crowd and their technicians were pushed. The team of Globovision was luckier. Journalist Ruth Villalba commented that one of the cameraman was told what was happening outside and they decided to get out of the building through the basement that communicates with another building. Meanwhile the journalists of VTV (official media) were applauded when they got out of the building. Reporting from cyberspace where the angry ladies cannot kick me, Jorge Arena Distinghished cyber ghost http://arenaspace.blogspot.com http://chavezfortheun.blogspot.com 5:21:37 PM    comment []