The Venezuelan government was forced to begin importing 50 million rolls of toilet paper this week, due to massive shortages in consumer goods, and food in the country. Venezuela has found itself in a downward spiral of increased crime, and a struggling economy, after more than a decade of rule by it’s socialist president Hugo…
The administration of Cristina Fernández has been increasingly under fire by opposition forces, as her Peronist policies have predictably driven the economy into the ground, after irresponsible debt defaults, runaway inflation, and private sector takeovers. Her government has drawn accusations of fascism, as her government has even taken steps to control the independence of the press, and stifle unfavorable economic reports.…
Venezuelan opposition leader, Henrique Capriles, has been protesting the hairline margin by which the incumbent clung to the position bestowed on him by Chavez since the election results were announced. On Thursday, the Consejo Nacional Electoral (National Electoral Council) was unable to make a decision about concerns presented by Capriles regarding irregularities during April’s election. It is unclear whether or not this board operates independently…
Uruguay’s colorful president, José Mujica, was caught speaking making a candid, and decidedly undiplomatic observations by a hot mic, regarding Argentina’s president and her late husband, during a radio interview on April the 4th. Tensions between Argentina and Uruguay have been on the rise, due to protectionist rules put in place by Cristina Fernández, intended…
A recent article in The Atlantic extensively documents and details the extent to which Chavez had institutionalized and consolidated his power over the past 14 years, before passing away last month. Intimidation, corruption, manipulation, and outright violence prevented any serious opposition from having a chance at fair representation in recent dubious elections. In 2005, exasperated voters flat out boycotted…
Venezuelan opposition leader, Henrique Capriles, has been questioning the value of ties built by the regime of Hugo Chavez between Venezuela and Cuba over the last fourteen years. Recently, Capriles posed a simple rhetorical question to clarify his hesitations over the value of working so closely with the communist nation, by asking, “If the Cuban…
Chile is the worlds largest producer of copper by far. The next largest producer of copper, the United States, only manages 25% of Chile’s output. All told, Chile produces a third of the world’s copper, and income from Chile’s nationalized mines have come to represent nearly a third of government revenue since President Salvador Allende completed the nationalization…
Uruguay is a tiny nation on the Atlantic sandwiched between a behemoth to the north (Brazil), and Argentina to the south. Argentina has twelve times the population of Uruguay, sitting on a land mass fifteen times larger. And so, the decision last Monday by the government of Cristina Fernández in Argentina to raise taxes on most tourism…
Nicolás Maduro started his political career while driving a bus full time for the Caracas Metro system in the 1980s, when he began unofficially organizing workers of the transportation system. In the 1990s, he helped to found the Movimiento V República (Fifth Republic Movement) as a left-wing, Socialist political party which Hugo Chavez represented in…
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