Polls closed in Caracas, Venezuela at 1800 October 7. Months of anticipation came down to the following four hours as the National Electoral Commission (CNE) counted ballots. Current president Hugo Chavez won the election with over 7.4 million votes, some 54 percent of the vote. Opposition candidate and first runner up Henrique Capriles Radonski obtained […]
Early October will see an election in one of the most politically influential states in Latin America, Venezuela. Since Hugo Chavez was elected he has become the face of leftists in Latin America and populists worldwide. This upcoming election against rival Capriles is likely to be the closest race in Chavez’s career with polls contradicting […]
Mitt Romney isn’t the only presidential candidate having to answer for a controversial event caught on video. The presidential election in Venezuela will take place on October 7, 2012 and corruption is becoming that race’s primary issue. When Venezuelans go to the polls in less than a month (they will vote using an electronic system […]
With Venezuela’s presidential election coming up on October 7, one question looms large – can Hugo Chávez possibly lose? Perhaps the question should actually be, can his challenger win? From what I have read, the opposition is unified, pragmatic, and proactive in a manner different from prior campaigns. Checking my past posts, I haven’t written […]
Student protests this year in the streets of Montreal over a relatively small tuition hike took the Quebec government by storm. In reality, it is likely more than just tuition that fuelled this year’s protests with the Liberal Party of Quebec facing allegations of corruption after nine long years in power. The Parti Quebecois, the […]
In 2011 Jack Layton, the left of center leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party, changed the political landscape of Canada by campaigning for his party’s position as the third party in the Canadian political system. The New Democrats, known as the NDP, always was Canada’s third party behind the Conservative Party and Canada’s natural governing […]
What will Venezuela look like after Hugo Chávez’s reign? Given the secrecy surrounding Chávez’s cancer status and the growing popularity of Henrique Capriles, Chavez’s rival in the October 7 election, the question is more relevant now than anytime since 2003. Last week Wikistrat, a geostrategic consulting firm I am associated with, published a piece on […]
Now published! The introduction can be downloaded from Amazon for free.
OPEC’s meeting in Vienna a couple days ago ended without the cartel agreeing on a production level. This hasn’t happened in years (if memory serves, the last time was during the Iran-Iraq War), and it has left many questioning the organization’s future. After 5 hours of talks, the Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said, […]
Last week, Alberta’s Energy Minister Ron Liepert was in the US to promote his province’s energy sector. During breakfast at the Penn Club in Manhattan organized by the Canadian Consulate-General, he discussed a wide array of energy-related subjects. The message he had for US foreign policy was simply that Alberta (and by extension Canada as […]
The fact that government outrage continues to provide the international media with grist for its insatiable mill is one of the great ironies in this scenario: perturbed at the site’s revelation of embarrassing diplomatic discussions and fumblings–tales only mildly interesting to the average reader–government officials are now in the process of creating a better, and far more spectacular story over First Amendment rights and the ‘treasonable’ activities of a Dutch citizen accused of committing “sex by surprise” (in Sweden?).
Even worse, the official call from some quarters for draconian regulation of the internet has given Russia (which suggests nominating Assange for the Nobel Peace Prize) and China, a human-rights violator of mammoth proportion, opportunities to ‘prove’ to an already hostile world that when Washington suddenly finds itself looking out through wall-to-wall glass, this nation of stone-throwers is no better than anyplace else.
There is evidence that FARC has been trading cocaine for arms brokered by Venezuelan middlemen, entrepreneurs who are, at the same time, supplying weapons to Mexico.
A major Venezuelan newspaper is butting heads with the government over the right to publish graphic photos on their front page. El Nacional, one of the country’s oldest newspapers, has been ordered to stop publishing certain types of photos. According to the Associated Press: A court ordered one of Venezuela’s leading newspapers on Tuesday to […]
According to the law of comparative advantage in economics, each country has production advantages in comparison to other states. Venezuela too, has its strengths. It produces more Major League baseball players per capita than most other countries. Along with Puerto Rico, it has won the most Miss Universe crowns over the past two decades. Venezuela […]
This blog does not purport to cover all relevant news that takes place in Venezuela, but instead provides some insight into major issues. Now, however, if you wish to get the latest update straight from President Hugo Chávez you can do so by following his Twitter feed @chavezcandanga. The move appears to be an effort […]