News roundup (half the news, some of the time)

Trade-in, che?

Venezuela has recalled its ambassador to Peru 'for consultations' by way of protest against Peru's granting of asylum to Manuel 'BraveSirRobin' Rosales. Hugo himself has been pretty quiet about the whole Peru thing.........so far.

Ecuador. Only in Spain would Studmuffin have to field such dumbass questions about an Axis between Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela. Sincerely, the Spaniards make your average US Joe look smart on LatAm and there's not even the language barrier to deal with. Anyway, Mr Prez-Til-2013 said (and I quote), "I've probably travelled more to Brazil than to Venezuela. I've travelled many more times to Argentina. If they (you) want to look for axes, look for them and find them....If there were an axis it wouldn't (necessarily) be a bad thing, but explicitly there isn't one. There's too much talk and popular is confused with popularism."

Yay, The Muffin still rules!

Fox News again accuses Mexico of...being slow off the mark with its swine flu prevention program. They even managed to find some Neocon doctor to agree with them.....que sorpresa.

Argentina, and big agromachinery company Agco reports country tractor sales down 60% in the first quarter even though they climbed 3% in Brazil in the same period. The reasons being a combo of the drought weather period and total dumbasses in government. Klishtina&Co still insist that GDP is rising in Argentina....it's skin-crawlingly embarrassing.

Manuel "Brave Sir Robin" Rosales granted political asylum by Peru

Brave Sir Robin ran away
Bravely ran away, away
When danger reared its ugly head
He bravely turned his tail and fled
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin

The Ballad of Sir Robin, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975

In news almost as unshocking as Studmuffin's election win yesterday, Peru's APRA party has just decided to accept the large brib....SORRY!...grant political asylum to Manuel Rosales.

Pisco sours served. The end.

Interpol Issues "Red Notice" for Manuel Rosales

Just so you know. Here's the link. Below also find the explanation as to what kind of notice has been issued, as there's some confusion in the press. Interpol has not issued an arrest warrant. However it's interesting that:



A Red Notice is only issued by INTERPOL if the request from the member country (Venezuela) meets the requirements of the Organization’s constitution which prohibits any actions of a political, racial, religious or military character. "



So unfortunately for Rosales, Peru and Fox News, even the world police recognize that Rosales is running from criminal charges and not political persecution.

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Wanted

ROSALES GUERRERO, Manuel Antonio

Legal Status
Present family name: ROSALES GUERRERO Forename: MANUEL ANTONIO Sex: MALE Date of birth: 12 December 1952 (56 years old) Place of birth: MERIDA, Venezuela Nationality: Venezuela

Physical description
Weight: 78 kg <-> 172 pounds Colour of eyes: BLACK Colour of hair: GREYING

Offences
Arrest Warrant Issued by: TRIBUNAL DECIMO NOVENO DE CONTROL / Venezuela

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION CONTACT
YOUR NATIONAL OR LOCAL POLICE GENERAL SECRETARIAT OF INTERPOL

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LYON, France - Following a request from Venezuelan authorities, the INTERPOL General Secretariat headquarters has issued a Red Notice, or international wanted persons notice, for a former mayor wanted for corruption.



Manuel Antonio Rosales Guerrero is wanted by Venezuela in connection with charges relating to the time he held the position of Governor of Zulia between 2004 and 2008.



A Red Notice is only issued by INTERPOL if the request from the member country (Venezuela) meets the requirements of the Organization’s constitution which prohibits any actions of a political, racial, religious or military character.

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An Interpol Red Notice is not an international arrest warrant.

These Interpol 'Red Notices' represent only a tiny fraction of the number of red notices issued by Interpol.

The persons concerned are wanted by national jurisdictions (or the International Criminal Tribunals, where appropriate) and Interpol's role is to assist the national police forces in identifying or locating those persons with a view to their arrest and extradition.

These red notices allow the warrant to be circulated worldwide with the request that the wanted person be arrested with a view to extradition.

A distinction is drawn between two types of red notice: the first type is based on an arrest warrant and is issued for a person wanted for prosecution; the second type is based on a court decision for a person wanted to serve a sentence.

Warning

The person should be considered innocent until proven guilty.

If any member of the public has any information about one of the wanted persons, they should not contact the General Secretariat directly, but contact the police in the place where the person has been located or identified.

An official Interpol Wanted Fugitives list is maintained on the Interpol website. This information may be copied and distributed. However, it must be clearly stated that this list represents a very small proportion of the full list - only those notices approved for public dissemination appear on the web site. Any unauthorised alteration of any portion of Interpol Wanted Fugitives notices is considered as a violation and subject to legal prosecution.

BREAKING! Manuel Rosales escaped from Venezuela and entered Peru disguised as saxophonist Kenny G

I'm not ruining this one by blogging a ton of words here. Go to the link and find out for yourself. Phenomenal photo.

Birds of a feather

Cook da bookz

So Manuel Runaway Rosales lands in Peru last Sunday and applies for some kind of weirdass political asylum by filing a 350 page petition/report/life story/gawdknowswhat with the Peruvian judiciary.

But guess who he has as his legal council? (update: Aww gawd..it's "counsel". All those wasted years at skool) None other than disgraced Prime Minister and Twobreakfasts right-hand man, Jorge MiniMe Del Castillo! Yes indeed, the PM that was caught up in the middle of the massive Petrogate corruption scandal last year has decided to "help" Rosales because he's some sort of "democrat".

OH THE HUMANITY! LOL!

Reuters has all the details in this report right here.

Manuel Rosales decides on Peru for his vacation this year

Brave Sir Robin ran away
Bravely ran away, away
When danger reared its ugly head
He bravely turned his tail and fled
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin

The Ballad of Sir Robin, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975

As noted by Bina last week and confirmed today, the Mayor of Maracaibo Manuel Rosales has done a brave Sir Robin and ran away to Peru to escape the court case he faces in Venezuela. The charge is that he evaded $66,000 worth of taxes which might not sound that much, but it's very much the example charge for a guy that has been suspected as a classic corrupt LatAm politico for decades.

But of course it's all being politicized as Rosales is one of the main opposition figures to Chávez in Venezuela and there's little doubt that Hugo would love to see Rosales thrown in the slammer. So is it a straight case of weeding out corruption or a political witchunt? Probably both, methinks.

However, your humble correspondent loses 100% of any respect he might have had for Rosales' case now that he's confirmed as having bolted the country. If you want to play the "I'm a political prisoner" card you gotta be a prisoner first, and jailtime for your ideology is one of the calling cards round here. They all do it, y'know. Lula, Michelle, Evo, Hugo...the list goes on and on. So if you want to make a point, Manuel, do some time. But if you want to hang out in a 5 star hotel in Miraflores Lima for a while, be clear that you are a plain old lilly-livered yellow-bellied chickenshit coward.

UPDATE: Let's add Bina's comment below to the main section so that you can all see it easily. BTW, if anyone wants to write an equal&opposite rebuttal to Bina and defend the Rosales position I'll put it up in the same way, too.

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It's not just tax evasion; he's also suspected of huge embezzlement. He's failed to keep up local infrastructure, such as the Port of Maracaibo, for years, and no wonder. He made off with enough public money (some of it from the Zulia state lottery) to buy numerous large estates and put them in the names of various family members. And that's not even counting all that fancy real estate in Florida...But of course it's political--in a socialist country where there's a land reform law forbidding ownership of large, non-productive tracts of land (hey, campesinos gotta eat and grow local food, can't go on living in slums and depending on importation, y'know), this kind of thing is just pure politics. (We'll just ignore the fact that the Inter-American Human Rights Commission never received his claims of political persecution while we're at it. You'd think someone so rich and well-lawyered would at least be able to present a case, wouldn't you?)

BTW, did I mention he paid off the media with Cartier watches? No wonder that "witch-hunt" meme keeps cropping up. Where will they get their fancy bling from if he's forced to give back what he stole? Gotta earn those gold watches...

Like I keep saying: I can't respect the oppos if they don't clean up their corruptos.

Venezuela, and Chávez shows his sensitive side

Chávez photographed at his poetry class while discussing the relative

merits of William Shakespeare as applied to the Bolivarian revolution

(click to enlarge)

That Chávez guy isn't always rough'n'tough and blather and bombast and glorious leader, you know, as it's clear he's fully in touch with his feminine side. The H-man has recently had his feelings hurt it seems, and as a result is threatening to slap a defamation charge on the Zulia governor (and bitter political enemy Manuel Rosales) after Rosales accused Chávez of keeping secret bank offshore/overseas bank accounts. In the words of Rosales, Chávez "should be in prison for shamelessness."

Well bad news for you, Manny: You've just gone a bridge too far with your President just weeks before the key regional elections. Chávez responded yesterday by saying, "Today I will instruct my lawyers, and if he (Rosales) manages to demostrate that I have ill-gotten gains, then let me be destituted from the Presidency. If not, he will end up in prison for defamation and slander against the Head of State."

You gotta wonder how well Rosales slept last night.........