What Really Happened in #Iran in 1953?

Conventional wisdom about the 1953 coup in Iran rests on the myth that the CIA toppled the country's democratically elected prime minister. In reality, the coup was primarily a domestic Iranian affair, and the CIA's impact was ultimately insignificant.

What Really Happened in Iran

Back in 2009, during his heavily promoted Cairo speech on American relations with the Muslim world, U.S. President Barack Obama noted, in passing, that “in the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government.” Obama was referring to the 1953 coup that toppled Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq and consolidated the rule of the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Obama would go on to remind his audience that Iran had also committed its share of misdeeds against Americans. But he clearly intended his allusion to Washington’s role in the coup as a concession -- a public acknowledgment that the United States shared some of the blame for its long-simmering conflict with the Islamic Republic.

Yet there was a supreme irony to Obama’s concession. The history of the U.S. role in Iran’s 1953 coup may be “well known,” as the president declared in his speech, but it is not well founded. On the contrary, it rests heavily on two related myths: that machinations by the CIA were the most important factor in Mosaddeq’s downfall and that Iran’s brief democratic interlude was spoiled primarily by American and British meddling. For decades, historians, journalists, and pundits have promoted these myths, injecting them not just into the political discourse but also into popular culture: most recently, Argo, a Hollywood thriller that won the 2013 Academy Award for Best Picture, suggested that Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution was a belated response to an injustice perpetrated by the United States a quarter century earlier. That version of events has also been promoted by Iran’s theocratic leaders, who have exploited it to stoke anti-Americanism and to obscure the fact that the clergy itself played a major role in toppling Mosaddeq.

In reality, the CIA’s impact on the events of 1953 was ultimately insignificant. Regardless of anything the United States did or did not do, Mosaddeq was bound to fall and the shah was bound to retain his throne and expand his power. Yet the narrative of American culpability has become so entrenched that it now shapes how many Americans understand the history of U.S.-Iranian relations and influences how American leaders think about Iran. In reaching out to the Islamic Republic, the United States has cast itself as a sinner expiating its previous transgressions. This has allowed the Iranian theocracy, which has abused history in a thousand ways, to claim the moral high ground, giving it an unearned advantage over Washington and the West, even in situations that have nothing to do with 1953 and in which Iran’s behavior is the sole cause of the conflict, such as the negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program.

All of this makes developing a better and more accurate understanding of the real U.S. role in Iran’s past critically important. It’s far more than a matter of correcting the history books. Getting things right would help the United States develop a less self-defeating approach to the Islamic Republic today and would encourage Iranians -- especially the country’s clerical elite -- to claim ownership of their past.

Day in court: Mohammad Mosaddeq on trial, November 1953. (Getty / Carl Mydans)

HONEST BROKERS

In the years following World War II, Iran was a devastated country, recovering from famine and poverty brought on by the war. It was also a wealthy country, whose ample oil reserves fueled the engines of the British Empire. But Iran’s government didn’t control that oil: the wheel was held by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, whose majority shareholder happened to be the British government. By the early 1950s, as assertive nationalism swept the developing world, many Iranians were beginning to see this colonial-era arrangement as an unjust, undignified anachronism.

So strong was the desire to take back control of Iran’s national resources that it united the country’s liberal reformers, its intelligentsia, elements of its clerical establishment, and its middle-class professionals into a coherent political movement. At the center of that movement stood Mosaddeq, an upper-class lawyer who had been involved in Iranian politics from a young age, serving in various ministries and as a member of parliament. Toward the end of World War II, Mosaddeq reemerged on the political scene as a champion of Iranian anticolonialism and nationalism and managed to draw together many disparate elements into his political party, the National Front. Mosaddeq was not a revolutionary; he was respectful of the traditions of his social class and supported the idea of constitutional monarchy. But he also sought a more modern and more democratic Iran, and in addition to the nationalization of Iran’s oil, his party’s agenda called for improved public education, freedom of the press, judicial reforms, and a more representative government.

In April 1951, the Iranian parliament voted to appoint Mosaddeq prime minister. In a clever move, Mosaddeq insisted that he would not assume the office unless the parliament also approved an act he had proposed that would nationalize the Iranian oil industry. Mosaddeq got his way in a unanimous vote, and the easily intimidated shah capitulated to the parliament’s demands. Iran now entered a new and more dangerous crisis.

Ollanta wins in Peru - Who's who on Humala's economics team

Ollanta wins in Peru

hope for the best, but prepare for the worst...

Who's who on Humala's economics team

1:55pm EDT

(Reuters) - Left-wing former army officer Ollanta Humala has claimed victory in Peru's presidential election and sought to reassure investors he has shed his radical past and will adhere to responsible economic policies.

He has surrounded himself with experienced technocrats who are more moderate than his earlier advisers.

Still, critics say some of his advisers came of age in the 1970s and favor a strong state that rejects some tenets of a neoliberal model implemented in Peru in the 1990s, which emphasized deregulation, little or no public subsidies, privatizing state-run companies, and free trade.

Below is a rundown of some of his key advisers. Some of them may get named to top policy posts or Humala may try to generate a "shock of confidence" by picking someone with deep experience in banking and markets.

The timing of an announcement has not been made clear but appointments will be hugely important to signal to markets how Humala will manage the economy.

FELIX JIMENEZ

A professor at Lima's Catholic University, Jimenez authored Humala's campaign platform, which was later modified several times over criticism it was too radical. Jimenez has a doctorate in economics from the New School in New York, which is known as a contrarian department skeptical about the monetarism and neoliberalism taught at most major universities in the United States. A former director in the finance ministry's debt department, Jimenez teaches courses on monetary policy.

OSCAR DANCOURT

Also a professor at Lima's Catholic University, Dancourt has been a director and president of Peru's central bank. He has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Julio Velarde as central bank chief. Velarde is widely viewed as Peru's most successful central banker ever, having slain hyperinflation and averted deflation in two different mandates.

KURT BURNEO

An economics professor at the San Ignacio de Loyola University, Burneo has a doctorate in business administration. He has served as vice finance minister, a central bank director, and president of state-run Banco de la Nacion. He previously worked for the campaign of former President Alejandro Toledo. He has been mentioned as possibly being named the next finance minister.

DANIEL SCHYDLOWSKY

A former chief of Peru's development bank Cofide and central bank director, Schydlowsky has a doctorate in economics from Harvard University. He was an aide to Toledo's government.

SANTIAGO ROCA

A professor at the ESAN business school in Lima, Roca has a doctorate in economics from Cornell University. He was president of Indecopi, Peru's anti-trust regulator, during the Toledo government.

(Reporting by Terry Wade, Teresa Cespedes, Patricia Velez and Caroline Stauffer; Editing by Andrew Hay)

© Thomson Reuters 2011. All rights reserved.

Factbox: Who's who on Peru Humala's economics team | Reuters

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Why Glenn Beck lost it - The Washington Post

Why Glenn Beck lost it

By Dana Milbank, Wednesday, April , 5:19 PM

On Friday, the unemployment rate dropped to 8.8 percent, as businesses added jobs for the 13th straight month.

On Wednesday, Fox News announced that it was ending Glenn Beck’s daily cable-TV show.

These are not unrelated events.

When Beck’s show made its debut on Fox News Channel in January 2009, the nation was in the throes of an economic collapse the likes of which had not been seen since the 1930s. Beck’s angry broadcasts about the nation’s imminent doom perfectly rode the wave of fear that had washed across the nation, and the relatively unknown entertainer suddenly had 3 million viewers a night — and tens of thousands answering his call to rally at the Lincoln Memorial.

But as the recession began to ease, Beck’s apocalyptic forecasts and ominous conspiracies became less persuasive, and his audience began to drift away. Beck responded with a doubling-down that ultimately brought about his demise on Fox.

He pushed further into dark conspiracies, urging his viewers to hoard food in their homes and to buy freeze-dried meals for sustenance when civilization breaks down. He spun a conspiracy theory in which the American left was in cahoots with an emerging caliphate in the Middle East. And, most ominously, he began to traffic regularly in anti-Semitic themes.

This vile turn for Beck reached its logical extreme two weeks ago, when he devoted his entire show to a conspiracy theory about various bankers, including the Rothschilds, to create the Federal Reserve. To make this case, Beck hosted the conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin, who has publicly argued that the anti-Semitic tract “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” “accurately describes much of what is happening in our world today.”

Griffin’s Web site dabbles in a variety of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, including his view that “present-day political Zionists are promoting the New World Order.”

A month earlier, Beck, on his radio program, had described Reform rabbis as “generally political in nature,” adding: “It’s almost like Islam, radicalized Islam in a way.”

A few months before that, he had attacked the Jewish billionaire George Soros, a Holocaust survivor, as a “puppet master” and read descriptions of him as an “unscrupulous profiteer” who “sucks the blood from people.” Beck falsely called Soros “a collaborator” with Nazis who “saw people into the gas chambers.”

Fox deserves credit for finally putting an end to this. Its joint statement with Beck’s production company, claiming that they will “work together to develop and produce a variety of television projects,” is almost certainly window-dressing; you can be confident Fox won’t have Beck reopening what his Fox News colleague Shepard Smith dubbed the “fear chamber.”

In banishing Beck, about whom I wrote a critical book last year, Fox has made an important distinction: It’s one thing to promote partisan journalism, but it’s entirely different to engage in race baiting and fringe conspiracy claims. Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity may have their excesses, but their mainstream conservatism is in an entirely different category from Beck.

Fox has rightly, if belatedly, declared that there is no place for Beck’s messages on its airwaves, and Beck will return to the fringes, where such ideas have always existed. Because his end-of-the-world themes will no longer be broadcast by a mainstream outlet, there will be less of a chance for him to inspire off-balance characters to violence.

There are, happily, signs that the influences that undermined Beck are doing the same to other purveyors of fear. The March Washington Post-ABC News poll found that Sarah Palin’s favorability rating among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents had dropped to 58 percent from 70 percent in October and 88 percent in 2008. Her negative ratings among Republicans are higher than those of other prospective Republican presidential candidates.

In another indication of abating anger, a CNN poll released last week found that the percentage of the public viewing the Tea Party unfavorably had increased to 47 percent, from 26 percent in January 2010. Thirty-two percent have a favorable view.

Beck, in losing his mass-media perch, is repeating the history of Father Charles Coughlin, the radio priest of the Great Depression. Economic hardship gave him an audience even greater than Beck’s, but as his calls to drive “the money changers from the temple” became more vitriolic, his broadcast sponsors dropped him. He gradually faded from relevance as his angry themes lost their hold on Americans and his anti-Semitism became more pronounced.

It is a sign of the nation’s health and resilience that Beck, after 27 months at Fox, is meeting a similar end.

danamilbank@washpost.com

Why Glenn Beck lost it - The Washington Post

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In this 1970 photo released by the Public Archive of Sao Paulo State, Dilma Rousseff is seen in a police photo. Rousseff, who is running for president in Brazil's Oct. 3, 2010 elections, was a key player in an armed militant group that resisted Brazil's 1964-85 military dictatorship, and was imprisoned and tortured for it. She is a cancer survivor and a former minister of energy and chief of staff to the current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. (AP Photo/Public Archive of Sao Paulo State)

Welcome to the Mania!

Welcome to the Mania!

Submitted by Jeff Clark of Casey Research

With gold punching the $1,300 mark, thoughts of what a gold mania will be like crossed my mind. If we're right about the future of precious metals, a gold rush of historic proportions lies ahead of us. Have you thought about how a mania might affect you? Not like this, you haven't…

You log on to your brokerage account for the third time that day and see your precious metal portfolio has doubled from last week. Gold and silver stocks have been screaming upward for weeks. Everyone around you is panicking from runaway inflation and desperate to get their hands on any form of gold or silver. It's exhilarating and frightening in the same breath. Welcome to the mania.

Daily gains of 20% in gold and silver producers become common, even expected. Valuations have been thrown out the window – this is no time for models and charts and analysis. It's not greed; it's survival. Get what you can, while you can. Investors clamor to buy any stock with the word "gold" in its title. Fear of being left behind is palpable.

The shares of junior exploration companies have gone ballistic. They double and triple in days, then double and triple again. Many have already risen ten-fold. You have several up 10,000%. No end is in sight. Your portfolio swells bigger every day. Your life is changing right in front of you at warp speed.

Every business program touts the latest hot gold or silver stock. It's all they can talk about. Headlines blare anything about precious metals, no matter how trivial. Weekly news magazines and talk-radio hosts dispense free stock picks. CNBC and Bloomberg battle to be first with the latest news. Each tick in the price of gold and silver flashes on screen, and interruptions offering the latest prediction seem to happen every fifteen minutes. Breathy reporters yell above the noise on the trade floor about insane volume, and computers that can't keep up. Entire programs are devoted to predicting the next winner. You watch to see if some of your stocks are named. You can't help it.

The only thing growing faster than your portfolio is the number of new "gold experts." It's a bull market in bull.

You can feel the crazed mass psychology all around you. Your co-workers know you bought gold some time ago and pepper you with questions seemingly every hour, interrupting your work. They ask if you heard about the latest pick from Fox Business. They want to know where you buy gold, who has the best price, and, by the way, how do I know if my gold is real? They all look at you differently now. Women smile at you in the hallway. You worry someone may follow you home.

Your relatives once teased you but now hound you with questions at family get-togethers – what stocks do you own? What's that gold newsletter telling you? Where can I keep my bullion? You don't want to be the life of the party, but they force it – it's all anyone wants to talk about. Your brother tells you he dumped his broker and is trading full-time. Another relative shoves his account statement in front of you and wants advice. You sense someone will ask for a loan. You don't know what to tell people. The attention is discomforting, and you feel the urge to escape.

At first it was exciting, then breathtaking. Now it's scary. You're drowning in obscene profits but are becoming increasingly anxious about how long it can last. Worry replaces excitement. You don't know if you should sell or hold on. Nobody knows what to do. But the next day, your portfolio screams higher and you feel overwhelmed once again.

You grab the local paper and read the town's bullion shop had a break-in last night. They hired a security company and have posted several guards outside and inside the store. Premiums have skyrocketed, but lines still form every day. The proprietor hands out tickets when locals arrive: your number will be called when it's your turn… the wait will be long… please have your order ready… yesterday we ran out of stock at 11am.

You begin to worry about the security of your own stash of bullion – those clever hiding spots don't feel quite as secure as you first thought they'd be. Is the bank safe deposit box really secure? Shouldn't they hire a security guard? Should I move some of it elsewhere? Is there anywhere truly safe? You find yourself checking gun prices online.

And it's all happening because the dollar is crashing and inflation has scourged every part of life. You curse at those who said this couldn't happen and mock past assurances from government. Cash is a hot potato, and spending it before it loses more purchasing power is a daily priority. Everyone is clamoring to get something that can't lose value, but mostly gold and silver.

Your wife calls and says the $100 you gave her that morning isn't enough to buy groceries for dinner. Prices change often on everything. She urges you to get some bread and milk before the stores raises the price again. You suddenly remember you're low on gas and make plans to leave work early to beat others to the filling station. Restaurants and small businesses post prices on a chalkboard and update them throughout the day. Employers scramble to work out an "inflation adjustment" for salaries. 

On your way home, the radio broadcaster reports the government has convened an emergency summit of all heads of state. They're working urgently on the problem, and all other agendas have been tabled. Outside experts have been called in. We're going to solve this rampant flood of inflation for the American people, they say. In your gut you know there's nothing they can do.

You change the channel and hear about the spike in arrests of U.S. citizens at the Canadian border. Scads of people are caught trying to sneak bullion and stock certificates out of the country – from airports to rail stations. Violence at borders has escalated, and stories of bloodshed are getting common. The White House ordered heightened security at all U.S. borders, with the media reporting it can take days to cross. Foreign governments offer meaningless help, others mock U.S. leaders for their shortsightedness. Their countries are suffering, too.

You think about the gains in your portfolio and wince at the taxes you'll pay when you sell. Nothing has been indexed to inflation, so everyone has been pushed into higher tax brackets. Citizens are furious with government. Agencies have been swarmed with bitter taxpayers and revolting benefit recipients. One government office was set on fire. A riot erupted in Washington, D.C. last week and martial law was temporarily declared. It's too dangerous to travel anywhere.

As crazy as things are, it's hard not to smile. You're in the middle of a mania. Your life has changed permanently. You're part of the new rich. You can quit work, live off your investments. Your wife is ecstatic, and you both feel as if it's your second honeymoon. Your kids are amazed and gaze at you with the same awe they did when they were children.

You're thankful you bought gold and silver before the mania, along with precious metal stocks. You daydream of where you might go, what you might buy. New options open up daily. You realize you'll need to meet with your accountant, maybe hire a second one to protect your sudden wealth. You wonder what you'll invest in next. You ponder what charities are worthwhile. Better meet with the attorney to redraft the will.

As night settles and your house quiets, you log on to your brokerage account one last time. Even though you're ready for it, your mouth drops when you see your account balance. It is truly overwhelming. You think of others who own gold and silver stocks and wonder if any have sold yet. Has Doug Casey exited?

You stare at the blinking screen, hand on the mouse, the cursor hovering on the sell button…

View article...

Venezuela's oil exports down 16% in second quarter - Oil & Gas Journal

Venezuela's oil exports down 16% in second quarter

Aug 25, 2010

Eric Watkins
OGJ Oil Diplomacy Editor

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 25 -- Venezuela’s oil exports dropped 16% in this year’s second quarter, largely due to increased use of domestic fuels for electric power, according to a quarterly report by the central bank.

The report showed the country’s gross domestic product down by 1.9%, led by a 2% drop in oil sector GDP.

“The behavior of this activity in the quarter is mainly due to lower crude output, which was offset by the growth in refined products to satisfy higher demand in the internal market related to the use of thermoelectric plants for energy generation,” the bank said.

The bank’s report coincided with the latest statistics from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which said oil exports brought Venezuela revenue of around $54.2 billion in 2009, down nearly 40% from $89.1 billion in 2008.

OPEC blamed the fall in international oil prices across global markets for the country’s drop in revenue, with Venezuela's basket price for 2009 averaging $57.08/bbl, down from $86.49/bbl in 2008.

However, Venezuela’s export revenues could decline as the country plans to take advantage of its hefty reserves of oil and gas to increase its use of thermoelectric power over hydropower during the next 5 years.

Venezuela now relies on hydropower for 80% of its electricity supply, while thermoelectric plants only supply 20%. Caracas wants to bring that ratio to 50-50 by 2015, according to official media.

Electricity shortage
The Agencia Venezolana de Noticias (AVN) reported the balance is needed as Venezuela faced shortages of electricity earlier this year due to a drought that reduced the power generation at main hydropower plants.

AVN last week reported water levels at the country's main hydroelectric dam, Guri, are 3.04 m below optimum levels. The Guri plant supplies 70% of Venezuela’s electricity, but a drought brought water levels so low that the government was forced to introduce rationing across the country.

According to AVN, Venezuela aims to install 15,000 Mw of new electricity capacity over the next 5 years, of which 12,000 Mw would be generated by thermoelectric plants, while 3,000 Mw would come from new hydropower plants.

But that plan could create problems of its own. While more thermoelectric power could insulate Venezuela from electricity shortages due to drought, the use of more oil and gas could substantially reduce the country’s exports, its main source of foreign exchange.

In fact, Venezuela depends on oil for more than 90% of its export income, and a continued drop in revenues could affect its ability to meet spending and debt obligations.

PDVSA continues drilling
Meanwhile, Venezuela’s state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA this week said it began drilling in the Jusepin oil field with one of the rigs seized from Tulsa-based Helmerich & Payne Inc. earlier this year (OGJ Newsletter, July 12, 2010).

According to Venezuela’s Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez, who also serves as president of PDVSA, costs at the project have fallen more than 50% to $20,000/day from $43,000/day when H&P ran it. PDVSA said the well drilled by the nationalized rig should produce 2,000 b/d of oil.

Contact Eric Watkins at hippalus@yahoo.com

Oil & Gas Journal Topic and Resource Categories:Venezuela's oil exports down 16% in second quarter - Oil & Gas Journal

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Clash mars Venezuela election campaign start | Reuters

Clash mars Venezuela election campaign start

Wed Aug 25, 2010 7:03pm EDT

* Legislative vote tests Chavez support ahead of 2012

* Opposition gains assured after boycott five years ago
(Adds polling numbers, more details on rallies)

By Frank Jack Daniel

CARACAS, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Venezuelan soldiers fired tear
gas at opposition candidates  on Wednesday at the start of
campaigning for legislative elections that will test support
for President Hugo Chavez amid a recession and high crime.

Struggling opposition parties are all but guaranteed gains
in the Sept. 26 vote after boycotting an election for lawmakers
five years ago, leaving the major U.S. oil supplier's national
assembly entirely in the hands of the president's allies.

National Guard soldiers, who have policing powers, used
tear gas to repel a small group of opposition candidates near
the legislature on a busy downtown street, TV images showed,
after they appeared to clash with parliament workers.

"We were walking towards the assembly. We were going to
read a document, and without warning the National Guard started
firing tear gas," candidate Stalin Gonzalez told opposition TV
station Globovision. The parliament issued a statement accusing
the candidates of trying to force their way into the building.

Elsewhere, thousands of bouyant Chavez supporters dressed
in the Socialist Party's signature red color flocked to large
rallies across the country of 30 million people to kick off a
race the president dubbed "Operation Demolition." Pre-campaign
debate has been dominated by criticism of the government's
record on tackling Venezuela's murder rate.

"Let's go to battle!" Chavez's campaign chief Aristobulo
Isturiz bellowed at one raucous rally.

The elections -- a barometer of backing for Chavez's
policies ahead of a presidential vote in two years -- are a
chance for opponents to take back some of the power he has
accumulated over more than 11 years in office.
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For background, click [ID:nN24260828] and [ID:nLDE67M0MB]

Insider video clip, go to link.reuters.com/duq27nn
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Despite sky-high crime and economic woes, Chavez remains
Venezuela's most popular politician, helped by social spending.
But the ex-soldier, who has also polarized the country between
backers of his policies favoring the poor and those who call
him a dictator, has seen his ratings dive this year.

Opposition parties have fielded unity candidates to
increase their chances of denting Chavez's grip on parliament.

They hope to capitalize on his relative weakness after
months fighting crises such as electricity cuts and a scandal
over rotting food that dragged on his ratings.

Pollster Saul Cabrera of Consultores 21  on Wednesday said
his most recent survey conducted in July showed Chavez's
popularity down 7 points this year to 36 percent. Other polling
firms tend to put Chavez's popularity slightly higher, but they
have also shown a ratings downturn this year.

Most analysts expect Chavez's socialist party to lose seats
but still hold its majority, helped by changes to electoral
districts that critics call gerrymandering.

It is possible the socialists will end up with a majority
of seats without winning a majority of votes, an embarrassing
outcome for a populist leader such as Chavez.

There is a slim chance the opposition will win the most
seats, which could cause political instability. Their goal is
to win at least a third of the legislature and limit Chavez's
ability to pass major legislation.

CRIME AGENDA

Usually an expert at setting the political agenda,
especially ahead of elections, Chavez seems to have been caught
off balance by an early campaign from opposition media to
highlight the government's failure to tackle violent crime.

Venezuela has one of the world's highest murder rates with
between 13,000 and 16,000 people killed last year, according to
leaked police numbers and a non-governmental watchdog,
respectively.

Last week a court ordered two newspapers not to publish
violent pictures after they printed a gory archive photo of
bodies piled up in a morgue. [ID:nN18125440]

The government, which also responded angrily to a New York
Times story comparing Venezuela's violence to Iraq, says it is
working hard to bring down crime and that a new national police
force has slashed homicide rates in a Caracas pilot project.

A handful of lawmakers who defected from Chavez's ranks in
2007 are the opposition's only presence in the current
parliament, giving Chavez legislative carte blanche.

He has used that power to start remolding one of the
continent's most Americanized nations as a socialist society,
while expanding his sway over courts and other institutions.

Critics say the 56-year-old ally of Cuba is following his
mentor Fidel Castro and installing an autocratic communist
dictatorship in the baseball-mad nation studded with fast food
restaurants and shopping malls.

Chavez, who has lost just one of over a dozen elections
since 1998, says he is a democrat committed to freeing
Venezuela from U.S. dominance and local oligarchs.
(Additional reporting by Eyanir Chinea, Patricia Rondon,
Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Cynthia
Osterman)

UPDATE 2-Clash mars Venezuela election campaign start | Reuters

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Venezuela, More Deadly Than Iraq, Debates Why - NYTimes.com

August 22, 2010

Venezuela, More Deadly Than Iraq, Wonders Why

By SIMON ROMERO

CARACAS, Venezuela — Some here joke that they might be safer if they lived in Baghdad. The numbers bear them out.

In Iraq, a country with about the same population as Venezuela, there were 4,644 civilian deaths from violence in 2009, according to Iraq Body Count; in Venezuela that year, the number of murders climbed above 16,000.

Even Mexico’s infamous drug war has claimed fewer lives.

Venezuelans have absorbed such grim statistics for years. Those with means have hidden their homes behind walls and hired foreign security experts to advise them on how to avoid kidnappings and killings. And rich and poor alike have resigned themselves to living with a murder rate that the opposition says remains low on the list of the government’s priorities.

Then a front-page photograph in a leading independent newspaper — and the government’s reaction — shocked the nation, and rekindled public debate over violent crime.

The photo in the paper, El Nacional, is unquestionably gory. It shows a dozen homicide victims strewn about the city’s largest morgue, just a sample of an unusually anarchic two-day stretch in this already perilous place.

While many Venezuelans saw the picture as a sober reminder of their vulnerability and a chance to effect change, the government took a different stand.

A court ordered the paper to stop publishing images of violence, as if that would quiet growing questions about why the government — despite proclaiming a revolution that heralds socialist values — has been unable to close the dangerous gap between rich and poor and make the country’s streets safer.

“Forget the hundreds of children who die from stray bullets, or the kids who go through the horror of seeing their parents or older siblings killed before their eyes,” said Teodoro Petkoff, the editor of another newspaper here, mocking the court’s decision in a front-page editorial. “Their problem is the photograph.”

Venezuela is struggling with a decade-long surge in homicides, with about 118,541 since President Hugo Chávez took office in 1999, according to the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, a group that compiles figures based on police files. (The government has stopped publicly releasing its own detailed homicide statistics, but has not disputed the group’s numbers, and news reports citing unreleased government figures suggest human rights groups may actually be undercounting murders).

There have been 43,792 homicides in Venezuela since 2007, according to the violence observatory, compared with about 28,000 deaths from drug-related violence in Mexico since that country’s assault on cartels began in late 2006.

Caracas itself is almost unrivaled among large cities in the Americas for its homicide rate, which currently stands at around 200 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to Roberto Briceño-León, the sociologist at the Central University of Venezuela who directs the violence observatory.

That compares with recent measures of 22.7 per 100,000 people in Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, and 14 per 100,000 in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city. As Mr. Chávez’s government often points out, Venezuela’s crime problem did not emerge overnight, and the concern over murders preceded his rise to power.

But scholars here describe the climb in homicides in the past decade as unprecedented in Venezuelan history; the number of homicides last year was more than three times higher than when Mr. Chávez was elected in 1998.

Reasons for the surge are complex and varied, experts say. While many Latin American economies are growing fast, Venezuela’s has continued to shrink. The gap between rich and poor remains wide, despite spending on anti-poverty programs, fueling resentment. Adding to that, the nation is awash in millions of illegal firearms.

Police salaries remain low, sapping motivation. And in a country with the highest inflation rate in the hemisphere, more than 30 percent a year, some officers have turned to supplementing their incomes with crimes like kidnappings.

But some crime specialists say another factor has to be considered: Mr. Chávez’s government itself. The judicial system has grown increasingly politicized, losing independent judges and aligning itself more closely with Mr. Chávez’s political movement. Many experienced state employees have had to leave public service, or even the country.

More than 90 percent of murders go unsolved, without a single arrest, Mr. Briceño-León said. But cases against Mr. Chavez’s critics — including judges, dissident generals and media executives — are increasingly common.

Henrique Capriles, the governor of Miranda, a state encompassing parts of Caracas, told reporters last week that Mr. Chávez had worsened the homicide problem by cutting money for state and city governments led by political opponents and then removing thousands of guns from their police forces after losing regional elections.

But the government says it is trying to address the problem. It recently created a security force, the Bolivarian National Police, and a new Experimental Security University where police recruits get training from advisers from Cuba and Nicaragua, two allies that have historically maintained murder rates among Latin America’s lowest.

The national police’s overriding priority, said Víctor Díaz, a senior official on the force and an administrator at the new university, is “unrestricted respect for human rights.”

“I’m not saying we’ll be weak,” he said, “but the idea is to use dialogue and dissuasion as methods of verbal control when approaching problems.”

Senior officials in Mr. Chávez’s government say the deployment of the national police, whose ranks number fewer than 2,500, has succeeded in reducing homicides in at least one violent area of Caracas where they began patrolling this year.

Still, human rights groups suggest the new policing efforts have been far too timid. Incosec, a research group here that focuses on security issues, counted 5,962 homicides in just 10 of Venezuela’s 23 states in the first half of this year.

Meanwhile, the debate over the morgue photograph published by El Nacional is intensifying, evolving into a broader discussion over the government’s efforts to clamp down on the news outlets it does not control.

The government says the photograph was meant to undermine it, not to inform the public. The authorities are also threatening an inquiry into “Rotten Town,” a video by a Venezuelan reggae singer that shows an innocent child struck down by a stray bullet. For all the government’s protests, the video has spread rapidly across the Internet since its release here this month.

Given the government’s stance in these cases, many here worry it is focusing on the messenger, not the underlying message.

Hector Olivares, 47, waited outside the morgue early one morning this month to recover the body of his son, also named Hector, 21. He said his son was at a party in the slum of El Cercado, on the outskirts of Caracas, when a gunman opened fire.

Mr. Olivares said Hector was the second son he had lost in a senseless murder, after another son was killed four years ago at the age of 22. He said he did not blame Mr. Chávez for the killings, but he pleaded with the president to make combating crime a higher priority.

“We elected him to crack down on the problems we face,” he said. “But there’s no control of criminals on the street, no control of anything.”

María Eugenia Díaz contributed reporting.

Venezuela, More Deadly Than Iraq, Debates Why - NYTimes.com

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Caracas Journal - Building a New History By Exhuming Bolívar - NYTimes.com

Caracas Journal

Building a New History by Exhuming Bolívar

By SIMON ROMERO

Published: August 3, 2010

CARACAS, Venezuela — The clock had just struck midnight. Most of the country was asleep. But that did not stop President Hugo Chávez from announcing in the early hours of July 16 that the latest phase of his Bolivarian Revolution had been stirred into motion.

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Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

Venezuelans waiting under a banner of Bolívar to buy reduced-rate food at a government office in Caracas.

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Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

Museum visitors looking at the box that Bolívar had been buried in.

Marching to the national anthem, a team of soldiers, forensic specialists and presidential aides gathered around the sarcophagus of Simón Bolívar, the 19th-century aristocrat who freed much of South America from Spain. A state television crew filmed the group, clad in white lab coats, hair nets and ventilation masks, attempt what seemed like an anemic half-goose step.
Then they unscrewed the burial casket, lifted off its lid and removed a Venezuelan flag covering the remains. A camera suspended from above captured images of a skeleton. Insomniacs here with dropped jaws watched live coverage of the Bolívar exhumation on state television, with narration provided by Interior Minister Tareck El Aissami.
For those unfortunate enough to have dozed off, there was always Twitter.
“What impressive moments we’ve lived tonight!” Mr. Chávez told followers in a series of Twitter messages sent during the exhumation that were redistributed by the state news agency a few hours later. “Rise up, Simón, as it’s not time to die! Immediately I remembered that Bolívar lives!”
Even Venezuelans used to Mr. Chávez’s political theater were surprised by the exhumation, which pushed aside issues like a scandal over imported food found rotting in ports, anger over an economy mired in recession and evidence offered by Colombia that Colombian guerrillas are encamped on Venezuelan soil.
With all this going on, Venezuelans have been scratching their heads in recent weeks over the possible motives for Mr. Chávez’s removal of Bolívar’s remains from the National Pantheon.
The president offered his own explanation. It involves the urgent need to do tests to determine whether Bolívar died of arsenic poisoning in Santa Marta, Colombia, instead of from tuberculosis in 1830, as historians have long accepted. A commission assembled here by Mr. Chávez has been examining this theory for the past three years.
Their work is based on claims among some Bolivarianólogos, as specialists here on the history of Bolívar are called, that a long-lost letter by Bolívar reveals how he was betrayed by Colombia’s aristocracy. By deciphering the letter using Masonic codes, they suggest the conspiracy was even broader, including Andrew Jackson, then president of the United States, and the king of Spain.
Findings presented at a medical conference this year in the United States have encouraged Mr. Chávez further. At the conference, Paul Auwaerter, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University, said Bolívar likely died of arsenic ingestion, an assertion seized upon by state media here to support the claim that Bolívar was murdered.
It matters little that Dr. Auwaerter says his research has been misconstrued, since an ingestion of arsenic could have been unintentional through arsenic-containing medications common in that era or contaminated drinking water. “I do not agree with President Chávez’s theories,” he said by e-mail.
Undeterred, the government here says it will get to the bottom of Bolívar’s death. The attorney general attended the exhumation, making it clear that the authorities view the mystery of Bolívar’s bones as the equivalent of a crime scene and a matter of national importance.
The exhumation could serve multiple purposes. If Mr. Chávez can say Bolívar was murdered in Colombia, he could try to use that against Colombia’s current government, with which Venezuela’s relations are cold, while reinforcing his longstanding claims that Colombians and others are plotting to assassinate him.
It would also allow Mr. Chávez to rewrite a major aspect of Venezuela’s history. The president already closely identifies himself and his political movement with Bolívar, renaming the country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, his espionage agency the Bolivarian Intelligence Service and so on. Portraits of Bolívar hang alongside Mr. Chávez’s in federal government offices.
This country’s intelligentsia fixates on Bolívar’s legacy and the use of Bolívar not just by Mr. Chávez but by rulers stretching back to the 19th century.
Slip into a bookstore and titles like “Divine Bolívar,” “The Cult of Bolívar,” “Thought of the Liberator” and “Why I’m Not Bolivarian” line the shelves. Scholars argue over how it was possible for one 20th-century dictator, Juan Vicente Gómez, to have conveniently shared the dates of his birth and death with Bolívar’s.
Some of Mr. Chávez’s top aides have begun using the exhumation as a method for attacking his opponents. Last month, the culture minister, Francisco Sesto, chastised Baltazar Porras, a Venezuelan archbishop, for “verbal desecration” for contending that Bolívar was, in fact, dead.
Political movements drawing strength from the remains of the dead are not new here or elsewhere in Latin America. One recent example came from Carlos Menem, Argentina’s former president, who returned the remains of the 19th-century warlord Juan Manuel de Rosas from England for burial in Argentina in 1989.
“Disputes over bodies are disputes over power, power over the past and power in the present,” said Lyman Johnson, a historian at the University of North Carolina who specializes in Latin America’s body cults. “These powerful meanings force new life into long-dead bodies.”
Mr. Chávez, with his removal of teeth and other bone fragments from Bolívar’s skeleton for DNA testing, may be taking the appropriation of the dead to new levels. The authorities here have ignored requests from descendants of Bolívar’s family (Bolívar himself is not widely believed to have had children) to leave the remains alone.
“The exhumation was one of the most grotesque spectacles I have ever seen,” said Lope Mendoza, 71, a prominent businessman here who is a great-great-grandnephew of Bolívar’s.
Still, the authorities here say they are far from finished. They plan to build a new pantheon for Bolívar to be completed by next year in which the bones will be deposited in a golden urn instead of a lead sarcophagus.
Next up for exhumation, said Vice President Elías Jaua, is Bolívar’s sister María Antonia Bolívar, whose remains lie at the Caracas Cathedral. Mr. Jaua said DNA testing must be done on her skeleton as well to determine whether the bones found in Bolívar’s tomb are actually Bolívar’s.
“Once we are certain that these are the Liberator’s remains,” Mr. Jaua said, “we will prepare a documentary in order to bestow testimony to history.”

María Eugenia Díaz contributed reporting.

A version of this article appeared in print on August 4, 2010, on page A7 of the New York edition.

Caracas Journal - Building a New History By Exhuming Bolívar - NYTimes.com

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L'Oréality check - Not so pretty Sarkozy...

Not so pretty Sarkozy.. 

Nicolas Sarkozy's approval ratings

L'Oréality check

Nicolas Sarkozy's approval ratings have hit a record low in recent weeks

Jul 13th 2010 | From The Economist online

“CALUMNY and lies!” was how a defiant President Nicolas Sarkozy countered the allegations against him and Eric Woerth, his labour minister, in an hour-long interview on July 12th. By appearing on live prime-time television, Mr Sarkozy hoped to defuse apolitical crisis prompted by a party-financing and alleged tax-evasion scandal centred on Liliane Bettencourt, heiress to the L’Oréal cosmetics empire. In recent weeks, the Bettencourt affair has dragged Mr Sarkozy’s poll ratings down to a record low. Dire as Mr Sarkozy’s poll numbers seem, however, they are not yet as bad as those of Jacques Chirac, his predecessor. In 2006 Mr Chirac’s approval rating sank to a miserable 16%, four years into his second mandate.

                  

Click below for the interactive chart

http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=7933596&story_id=16580631

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Sleaze Factor | Foreign Policy

It's not just the third world where they like unmarked envelopes....

Sleaze Factor

Is there an epidemic of corruption in the world's democracies?

BY JOSHUA E. KEATING | JULY 12, 2010

From Angola to Uzbekistan, Haiti to Zimbabwe, in far too many countries around the world, blatant official corruption not only goes unpunished -- it's the norm. But while we normally associate bribery, cronyism, and extortion with fragile developing states, the leaders of some of the world's most stable and prosperous democracies have recently been investigated on criminal charges. Is this a case of those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, or does it mean that we're getting better at catching powerful crooks?

FRANCE

The target: President Nicolas Sarkozy

The alleged crimes: Illegal cash payments

The investigation: French prosecutors recently investigated allegations that Sarkozy illegally received cash in unmarked envelopes from Liliane Bettencourt, France's richest woman, as a presidential candidate in 2007. According to Bettencourt's former accountant, the L'Oreal heir's financial advisor gave €150,000 to the treasurer of Sarkozy's campaign -- an allegation denied by both parties. The former treasurer, who is now labor minister, was officially cleared of wrongdoing, but opponents say the investigation by France's finance inspector was not impartial.

"L'affaire Bettencourt" is just the latest scandal to hit Sarkozy's administration, including the resignation of two junior ministers who spent thousands of dollars on cigars and Caribbean vacations, and a corruption scandal involving one of Sarkozy's closest friends and political allies who was implicated in a multimillion-dollar insider-trading scheme in 2007. But in the wake of the financial crisis and an unpopular pension-reform plan, this time the president might be fighting for his political career: On July 12, Sarkozy took the unusual step of appearing on national television to deny the charges.

Sarkozy's allies have denounced the allegations as a left-wing "political plot," and indeed there seem to be some large holesin the allegations made by Bettencourt's advisor. But Sarkozy's opponents will likely have little sympathy. His longtime political rival, former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, was the subject of a five-year investigation and trial over allegations that he faked documents that linked Sarkozy to bribes while the two politicians were angling for the presidency. De Villepin was cleared of the charges -- though three of his colleagues were convicted -- and has maintained that the investigation was nothing but a political vendetta by the president.

ITALY

The target: Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi

The alleged crimes: Corruption, organized crime

The investigation: Berlusconi claims with pride that he is "the most legally persecuted man of all time." More than 109 cases have been brought against him, ranging from nonpayment of taxes to false accounting, bribery to prostitution. By his own count, he has been subjected to more than 2,500 court hearings. But despite the best efforts of prosecutors and political opponents, the 73-year-old Berlusconi seems unlikely to ever see the inside of a jail cell or be forced to step down.

The Teflon prime minister has managed four times to pass laws granting himself immunity from prosecution, though each of which has been judged unconstitutional by the courts. For his part, Berlusconi has accused the Italian judicial system of having an ingrained left-wing bias.

The most recent legal scandal involving Berlusconi concerns his longtime friend, business partner, and political ally Marcello Dell'Utri, who has been convicted of serving as a liaison between the mafia and Italy's political elite. In the course of the trial, a convicted Mafia hit-man testified that senior Mafia leaders had boasted of their ties to Berlusconi during the 1990s.

ISRAEL

The target: Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert

The alleged crimes: Bribe-taking

The investigation: With internal probes into the 2008 offensive in Gaza and the controversial boarding of a pro-Palestinian flotilla earlier this year, Israel certainly doesn't lack for high-profile investigations. But the country is riveted by the ongoing corruption investigation against former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who was plagued by corruption charges throughout his term. New York businessman Morris Talansky claims he gave Olmert more than $150,000 for his campaign for mayor of Jerusalem in 1997, but the money was spent on fine hotels, cigars, and watches.

Perhaps more shockingly, Olmert is accused of charging multiple nonprofit groups -- including a charity for the disabled and the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial -- for the same fundraising trips. Olmert announced his resignation in 2008 and wascharged with fraud a year later.

He has yet to be convicted, but investigations are ongoing. Most recently, Olmert was questioned over accusations that he accepted bribes in exchange for helping win contracts for a Jerusalem real estate developer. His administration didn't come off looking that clean either: A finance minister was investigated for embezzlement, a justice minister resigned after being convicted for sexual harassment, and President Moshe Katsav resigned amid scandal after allegations of sexual assault.

Olmert is the first Israeli head of government to be indicted on corruption charges, though current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been the subject of investigations in the past. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is also under investigation for a number of crimes, including bribery, fraud, and money-laundering.

TAIWAN

The target: Former President Chen Shui-bian

The alleged crimes: Corruption, embezzlement

The investigation: Chen was named as a suspect in a $450,000 embezzlement case within hours of stepping down as president of Taiwan in 2008 and sentenced to life imprisonment less than a year later -- an ignominious end to the political career of the once renowned human-rights-lawyer-turned-politician.

Prosecutors had long been gunning for Chen, who enjoyed immunity from prosecution as president -- his wife and son-in-law were arrested on charges of forgery and insider trading while he was still in office. Chen's political opponents also maintained that Chen faked an assassination attempt in 2004 to win voter sympathy in his reelection bid.

Chen and his wife, who was also given a life sentence, continue to appeal their convictions. Their sentences were reducedfrom life imprisonment to 20 years in June when the court found that less money was involved in the corruption than previously thought. The former president remains in detention as his appeal continues.

But the current administration isn't squeaky clean either: President Ma Ying-jeou, Chen's political rival, was twice tried and acquitted on corruption charges before taking office.

* A deleted section of this article implied that President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea is being investigated in connection with allegations of illegal surveillance. While several senior South Korean officials are being investigated, including several in the prime minister’s office and one in the president’s office, Lee has not been named as a suspect. FP regrets the error.

Sleaze Factor - By Joshua E. Keating | Foreign Policy