The General Speaks! and Sumate shows your vote is NOT secret

This audio recording was taken from "Noticiero Digital" which published General Néstor González González message clandestinely. You can also download it HERE. Essentially his message is to not vote on Aug. 7th and that seems to be the feeling in Venezuela, however the CNE says 70% of the population will vote. Who is to argue with the CNE? they should know! since they have to computer systems all set up!! Maybe Granda and Papillon will vote!

SUMATE - describes how your vote is not secret in Venezuela

Sumate has an "on-line" visual description of how voting in Venezuela is NOT secret under the current electoral conditions. Based on this the govt. can find out who voted for who, thus they can intimidate the population as they did in last year. Remember, Chavez saying "We will know who you vote for" and they can take the appropriate action against citizens who vote against Chavez's party "MVR", remember the Luis Tascon list?

The Economist Forecast - Venezuela

The Economist Forecast
Jul 20th 2005
From the Economist Intelligence Unit
Source: Country Forecast

The president, Hugo Chavez Frias, has emerged strengthened after the failure of recent opposition attempts to remove him from office and is the favourite to win the presidential election at the end of 2006. The weakening of the opposition has removed obstacles to policymaking, but with the political environment still polarised, the risk of further political instability is high. Emerging divisions within the government also have the potential to affect stability and governability. Fiscal profligacy will keep the public finances in deficit, despite firm oil prices. Oil revenue will decline moderately in 2006 as prices begin to fall, but in light of electoral pressure the Economist Intelligence Unit does not expect any fiscal retrenchment to take place until after the forecast period. Efforts to attract foreign direct investment to exploit Venezuela's abundant energy reserves will continue, with the aim of maintaining fiscal oil revenue. Most non-oil investment will continue to be put off by the uncertain legal and regulatory regimes and by price and exchange controls, which will be maintained throughout the outlook period. Little will be done to encourage economic efficiency and private investment, and growth will slow markedly in 2005-06 as a result.

Key changes from last month

Political outlook
Local elections are scheduled for August 7th. The run-up to the polls has brought to light internal divisions within the pro-Chavez movement. Although pro-government candidates are expected to perform well, emerging internal conflicts could become more damaging later in the forecast period.

Economic policy outlook
The government is attempting to pass legislation that will allow the transfer of "excess" international reserves to the government to finance investment spending. If passed, the law will seriously undermine the effectiveness of monetary policy and raise further questions over government transparency.

Economic forecast
We have made no substantive changes to our economic forecast. However, if enacted, changes to the Central Bank Law to allow transfers of a portion of the reserves to the central government would prompt forecast revisions.

My comments
Essentially the forecast hasn't changed much from last month although two significant events have taken place. 1) The transferring of money from the Central Bank and 2) oil prices, are likely to begin their correction (decreasing).
If you ask any Venezuelan they will tell you that the only way Chavez will leave is when oil prices begin to fall (Lo tumba el petrolio). What I find amazing is that even with oil at $60 the government shows signs of sever shortage of money to fund its revolution, why else would it need to transfer money from the Central Bank? sale of bonds? oh ya, be on the look out for the possible sale of Citgo too! However, the poor are not seeing the benefits and they are starting to get restless by staging almost daily protests around Venezuela to demand what the revolution has promised. So once oil prices fall, Chavez's days are counted, and it won't take a big fall in price either!

Voting in Venezuela

On Aug 7th Venezuelans will once again head to the voting booth, or will they? It is safe to say that many will not heed the call to vote due to the lack of confidance in voting transparency. Case in point is a rather interesting story published in the "Financial Times". Now this is just on problem with the voting you also have to take into account that Colomiban guerrilla fighters (including Rodrigo Granda voted in Venezuela), that the electoral commision is highly biased, there is no proper auditing, the electoral commision has the source code to the voting machines, etc... So would you vote?

TeleSur or TeleTerrorism?

El Tiempo |Test Transmissions of Telesur include imagenes of Tirofijo

The channel, that is to debut on July 24, has signed agreements so that some of their droadcasts are transmitted by Capital Channel and Telepacífico. On the television sets of some Venezuelans, Argentineans, Cubans, and Uruguayan they have already begun to receive a clear test signal of Telesur, a channel that looks to spread the Latin American values under the optics of its four partners: the governments of Venezuela, Argentina, Cuba and Uruguay, that already have injected into it more than 10 million dollars, about 25 billion Colombian pesos.

"It is without a doubt a political and strategic project", admitted by its director, the Uruguayan Aram Aharonian, in several interviews, and adds: "we are trying to recover our voice that has been kidnapped for more than three decades by dictators, corrupt and genuflects politicians before capital". Thus it is not a mystery that the channel will have a clear leftist content, still more if it considers that Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader, inspired the idea: "We have to make something similar to CNN", he said some time ago. However, the test signals of the new channel - that already has nine correspondents in all the continent - have members of Colombian intelligence community worried. They have assured El Tiempo that the channel includes elements related to national and international terrorism and that it paints Colombia in a negative image.

The president of Capital Channel, Héctor Pinilla, clarified that he will choose himself what is transmitted and what will not be shown on Telesur. However, he added that he thinks that, sometimes, the Government suffers from too much paranoia.
On the other hand, the manager of Telepacífico, Jaime Fernandez, emphasized: "We know clearly what is what we can transmit, what is suitable to our public and audience. The citizen is our audience, and what is in their best interest ".
In any case, to sustain their affirmations, the investigators exhibit several fragments of the test transmission of Telesur and stress three specific episodes.

ETA Shower?

The first transmission shows a young woman in a shower, singing a song whose choris is "eta, eta, eta".
The image then shows an amazonian landscape and after that one on the Tunjuelito river (in the south of Bogota ') and its contamination. The investigators think that the song of the woman is a clear reference to the Basque terrorist group that, coincidently, exploded several bombs yesterday, while the governments of Colombia and Spain where at a joint press conference on binational agreements.

The second image that they make reference shows the head of the guerrilla of the FARC, Pedro Antonio Marín, "Tirofijó", like part of the promotion of a denominated program "Memories de fuegó" that, according to the channel (Telesur), will be documentary against the forgetfulness. The face of ' Titofijó alternates with marches of protests in different countries, among them the one that provoked the murder of the Colombian leader of Unión Patriótica (UP), Jose Antequera, which happened on March 3, 1989.

Finally, they call the attention on the prolonged images of a demonstration on on May day (May 1) - world-wide day- at Plaza Bolivar in Bogota. In the clip, the demonstrators shout insults against the Government and show placards in which they blame the Armed Forces as authors of recent massacres and reject governmental policies. "Colombia Plan: war and death against the town ", say one of the placards that are seen in the test images. These, also appear in the test transmissions.
El Tiempo tried to communicate with the directors of the Telesur channel, whose main seat is in Caracas (Venezuela), to formulate these questions to them. But to the closing of this edition an answer had not been obtained.



I find it rather interesting that Telesur is broadcasting all anti-Colombian broadcast (except the ETA one). Chavez and Castro seem to be so intent on overthrowing the Uribe government, and installing a radical left wing one, that now they are attacking it using media broadcast along with the tacit support towards the FARC.

Click the title link above to see the test video transmissions being broadcast by Telesur.

Poor demand homes

Marcha de Damnificados

Caracas. - Flood victims today went to the Palace of Miraflores to stage a protest with the objective to demand the Executive (Chávez) to take care of their housing problem.
They protested that, although on several occasions they have promised them a home, they have not received one, this according to Globovisión news channel.
Anabel Ribero, victim of the refuge of the parishes Macarao and Caricuao, protested that after five months at a shelter, they have not had their housing situation solved, and two of their babies have passed away. "we are demanding the right and our necessity to have a worthy house". It requested that it is investigated to IVI of Miranda.
Also, the victims indicated that they have received information of irregularities at Conavi (government housing authority) in the process of awarding houses. "They have not given any house to us (...) They told us when we were transferred to the Polyhedron (shelter) that to those of the Macarao parish we had 15 days left in the refuge nothing more", they said. "these houses do not exist. The lands are empty ".
The Honor Guard of the Palace maintains security around the zone.
In the high mirandinos also they demand house
In the early hours this morning, a group of victims of the high Mirandinos protested in the Pan-American highway that communicates the city of the Teques with Caracas, to demand a worthy house.
Afterwards, the group also went to the Palace of the government to demand president Hugo Chávez meet with them and listens to their requests. - LP

To the readers I would like to remind them housing construction has been at lowest levels in Venezuela under Chávez than under any previous government. However, what I find worse is that fewer people have the ability to actually purchase a home, instead they must rely on the government to build them homes. Thus creating a huge welfare state.

Venezuela's "Independence" day

July 5th was the celebration of Venezuela's independence day, but only now, after 194 years, is Venezuela truly free from imperialism.

Venezuela exporting weapons?

"Bogotá" - The colombian army seized 70,000 bullet cartridges in the Orinoco river on the border with Venezuela. These were destined for the 16th regiment of the FARC. The bullets were for different caliber weapons and of Russian and Venezuelan origin, they were transported near the Capital of Amazona state in Colombian waters. This adds to the 500,000 bullet cartridges that were seized on the 30 May of Indonesian origin.