Wednesday, January 22, 2003

Blog Day for Venezuela tomorrow! Please help, democracy is severely wounded in Venezuela now! See story right below 7:49:32 PM    comment []

Supreme Court stops referendum The Venezuelan Supreme Court issued a precautionary measure against the referendum scheduled for February 2nd. on the basis that it questions the validity of the participation of one of the members of the Electoral Board in the decision. Such is democracy here, a request by two million people can be stopped because of only one..... (By the way, it was a weird decision, announced by the Vice-President (!!!) before the Court had a chance to do it and one of the Justices of the Electoral Hall that made the decision was an alternate, different from the one that was part of the Hall this morning, such is justice in the Vth. Republic. Democracy, ha!, the decision, if ratified implies, there is no electoral Board in Venezuela and there can not be an election until the Chavez controlled Assembly selects a new Board!) Note added: Later today, in a very curious move, the Constitutional Hall of the Supreme Court ruled that the referendum suspended by the Electoral Hall, was valid from the point of view of the question. The Hall ruled the question valid and the effect to be non-binding.....So we are f....... on a technicality and pardon my french, I am not very happy today. 3:18:33 PM    comment []

Caracas Chronicles on the march in Charallave From  Caracas Chronicles on the march in Charavalle two days ago, see the pictures of the Chavistas shooting below: And I am mindful of the way the term has been abused for political gain over the last 17 months, but when I look at what happened in Charallave yesterday I can think of only one word to describe it: terrorism. And state terrorism, at that. It's not just the incredible cowardice of the attack, its openness, its shamelessness. Perhaps even worse is the way the chavista mayor of Charallave more or less claimed responsibility for the attacks, in a statement that can't be that far off from what Hezbollah issues after shooting up some Israeli settlers. After proudly announcing that Charallave is | chavista territory,| mayor Marisela Mendoza said she hoped "it won't even occur to the opposition to try to march here again," apparently not fully aware that she was coming perilously close to confessing to being an accessory to murder. Because, oh yes, did I forget to mention that? Among the dozens of wounded there was one guy who never made it out of that march. 3:00:09 PM    comment []

Foreign Currency Trading suspended The Venezuelan Central bank has suspended foreign currency trading for the next five days....here we go again...the more things change, the more they stay the same.... 9:13:40 AM    comment []