Chavez
Sean Penn sucks up
Just a couple of weeks ago, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, demonstrating his contempt for the principle of free speech, “announced that foreigners who visit Venezuela and criticise his government will be escorted to the airport and expelled.” Sean Penn doesn’t have anything to worry about. Penn has visited Venezuela and been warmly received by Chavez. It’s fairly certain he
Journalism, from Venezuela to Iraq
Very pleased to see this savaging of Hugo Chavez in the lefty New Statesman. Alice O’Keeffe comments on the aftermath of Hugo’s shutdown of the RCTV network: RCTV has been replaced by TVes (pronounced té vès, or “you see yourself”), a government channel that has the apparently laudable aim of moving away from a western, consumerist agenda and reflecting the
Choose a side
Morgan Tsvangirai (pictured at left), leader of Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change, has been savagely beaten by Robert Mugabe’s thugs; thankfully he is up and walking and was able to appear in court. His crime? Opposing a regime that has reduced Zimbabweans to hunting mice for food, and that has managed to halve the country’s average life expectancy since 1990.
“The devil”
Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has made this UN General Assembly an event to remember, referring to President Bush as “the devil.” Interesting that he should resort to religious symbology. During Ahmadinejad’s recent Venezuela visit, Chavez declared that Islam is “revolutionary.” (In fairness, he said the same of Christianity, though he probably didn’t have “Jesus Camp” in mind.) Marc Cooper notes that