BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) – Hugo Chavez is getting a journalism award in Argentina.

The Venezuelan leader regularly clashes with critical media, but the University of La Plata is giving him its Rodolfo Walsh Prize on Tuesday for what it describes as his work giving people without a voice access to the airwaves and newspapers.

Chavez’s government has bankrolled the growth of the Telesur network, providing a state-funded alternative to privately financed broadcast stations across Latin America.

He met Tuesday with his ally President Cristina Fernandez, who is trying to transform Argentina’s communications industry through a law that would break up media monopolies and force cable TV providers to include channels run by unions, Indians and activist groups.

The two presidents also plan to sign commercial accords dealing with food, transport and energy, and to visit a state-run factory where Argentina will build ships for Venezuela’s oil industry. (more…)

Vicky Pelaez

The 11 arrests so far are the tip of iceberg. Many more to follow, many in South Florida.

The “South American country” where Vicky Pelaez picked up her payments from Russia’s SVR was Venezuela.

Russia’s SVR, Castro’s DGI (Directorio General de Inteligencia) and Chavez’ SEBIN, (Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia) (are all linked. They all share agents and information.  Castro-Cubans run Chavez’ intelligence agency practically lock, stock and barrel.

Vicky Pelaez was a frequent traveler to Cuba where she met with Castro’s DGI Pictures exist of those meetings.

Prominent figures in South Florida under investigation and net is closing on them. One suspect was very close to a U.S. Presidential candidate during the 2008 campaign.

Sensationalist?..Perhaps. But I quote Cuban-American Arturo Cobo, a Bay of Pigs veteran and former Castro political prisoner who had a key role in identifying Castro spies and alerting the FBI to their attempted infiltration into the U.S. during the Mariel Boatlift. Details of his vital work here. (more…)

So the Cold War’s Over?

Tell it to Fidel Castro and his agents.  Among the ten spies just nabbed by the FBI and accused of working for the Russian Federation we find a Vicky Pelaez, weekly columnist for New York’s  largest circulation Spanish-language paper, La Prensa/El Diario.  You will never guess who they endorsed for President.

Besides this New York paper, please note who proudly publishes Vicky Pelaez’ articles and displays her byline.

Now please note who proudly publishes the articles confected by the Huffington Post’s Margarita Alarcon and proudly displays her byline. The Huffington Post’s “conflict of interest” was revealed on this site just the other day (if I may so say myself.)

Cubadebate, for anyone poised to spout off about “McCarthyism at Big Journalism!” is blatantly and unapologetically the Castro regime’s house organ.  Note that Fidel, Raul and Hugo’s pronouncements, decrees and fiats appear just to the right of The Huffington Post writer’s articles (and those of the recently arrested and accused Russian spy’s.)

Among Vicky Pelaez most recent articles was a paean to Hugo Chavez for his “lifting Venezuelans’ from abject poverty and restoring their pride” and to Oliver Stone for documenting and publicizing the glorious process. (more…)

Max Blumenthal, a blogger who has frequently accused prominent conservative activists of racism, has trashed a highly respected annual report on antisemitism as “propagandistic.” The report, by the Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University, is the product of meticulous research by a team of scholars that collects and scrutinizes data from all over the world.

Yet to Blumenthal, the Roth Institute and its “collaborators” (more on that word later) “appear more interested in insulating Israel from scrutiny…than in generating education and dialogue to combat bigotry.”

He claims that the Roth Institute shares the objective of the Israeli government “and its international supporters” (again, more on that curious choice of words below) to undermine criticism of Israel’s policies.

As someone who has witnessed the last decade of anti-Israel protest–first as a freelance journalist, and then as a pro-Israel activist–I can testify to the truth of what Blumenthal so blithely denies. At the University of Chicago last fall, outside a speech given by former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, I photographed anti-Israel demonstrators carrying swastikas, and was taunted by shouts of “Hitler was a great guy.” (more…)

President Obama this week announced that his administration would ease-up on the long moratorium on offshore drilling for oil and natural gas.  Congress may not have made up its collective mind on the issue but some in the American media have made their positions clear.  Observe if you will this headline from the April 1 edition of the Miami Herald:

Obama offshore drilling plan spares South Florida

Here’s a parallel line from a story on the website of KEYT-TV in Santa Barbara, California:

It looks as if California’s coastline was spared, as President Obama announced plans for renewed efforts of offshore oil exploration.

Without getting into the relative merits of the president’s proposal, my question is, from what exactly are these two states being spared?  It’s not as if ExxonMobil is planning to plop oil derricks along the strip in South Beach or adjacent to the millionaire mansions of Santa Barbara.  But what about the pristine scenery in these areas?

The drilling would not be permitted any closer than 125 miles from any shoreline, which is well into international waters. In fact, nobody would ever see the drilling platforms.  A person of average height can only see about three miles into the horizon and even folks in the tallest luxury hotels have a vista that extends maybe 25 or 30 miles tops.  No, wrecking the view isn’t something that folks are being spared from. (more…)

Hugo Chavez’ inspirational debt to Ernesto “Che” Guevara is such that he titled his regime’s socio-economic model, “Mision Che Guevara.” Don’t look for much of this in the MSM–but as I write Venezuela’s youth are hitting the streets in the tens of thousands and with raised fists–against socialism (having gotten a taste of it.)

In response, Chavez’ police and brownshirt goon-squads (some mimicking their national leader by wearing Che T-shirts) bludgeon, tear gas, shoot and arrest hundreds of rebellious Venezuelan youth.

In fact, nothing could be more fitting. In a famous speech in 1961, Che Guevara denounced the very “spirit of rebellion” as “reprehensible.” “Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates” commanded Guevara. “Instead they must dedicate themselves to study, work and military service.”

And woe to those youths “who stayed up late at night and thus reported to work (government forced-labor) tardily.” Youth, wrote Guevara, “should learn to think and act as a mass.” Those who “chose their own path” (as in growing long hair and listening to Yankee-Imperialist Rock & Roll) were denounced as worthless “lumpen” and “delinquents.” In his famous speech Che Guevara even vowed, “to make individualism disappear from Cuba!  It is criminal to think of individuals!” he raved. (more…)

This week, thousands of Haitians will be the beneficiaries of Pat Robertson.  In fact, long before the horrific earthquake struck on Tuesday, when many of the more fashionable humanitarians who always flock to every tragedy probably would have been hard-pressed to find the island of Hispaniola on a map, Robertson’s Operation Blessing was already hard at work, helping to address the centuries-old tragedy that is Haitian poverty.  Many Haitian bellies have been filled in the past, and undoubtedly many more Haitians will live and be fed in the coming days, because of Robertson and his organization, which has given more than $500 million in aid to suffering people since it began in 1978.

Just a little thought worth bearing in mind about Robertson while watching this clip of his High Moral Majesty, Keith Olbermann, discuss damning him to hell:

Of course, Olbermann is also outraged by Rush Limbaugh (Olbermann is always outraged by Rush Limbaugh), but Rush’s deliberate tweaking of the left by using the words of their own party’s leader in the Senate doesn’t need any defense from me, nor does the irony of Olbermann attacking his political rival while people are still dying in Haiti need any further exploration. (more…)