Joaquín Villalobos: The Arab Revolution and the Latin American Left

By James Kimer | Published: February 26, 2011

Earlier this week we came across a very interesting article published in the Spanish newspaper El Pais by Joaquín Villalobos, a former Salvadoran FMLN guerrilla fighter turned peace ambassador. His experiences working to bring change under one of the most repressive dictatorships of the world have led him to become a prolific commentator on the […]

» Read More

Chávez and The Algorithm of Authoritarianism

By Robert Amsterdam | Published: January 26, 2011

The following is an excerpt from a new article I contributed to the U.K. magazine Prospect.  Since the time of writing, several important events have taken place in Venezuela.  Chávez has used his decree powers to pass new internet regulations, allowing the government of a degree of control and censorship online similar to China or […]

» Read More

Tucson shootings the result of too much freedom?

By James Kimer | Published: January 15, 2011

Oh boy.  You’d think this reporter worked for RT rather that ITAR-Tass – usually they’re the ones who specialize in that whole political-sadism-at-moments-of-national-tragedy shtick.  That said, this is totally being blown out of proportion.  From Kathleen Parker in the Washington Post: Adjectives sharpen their elbows as they vie to properly describe the Cold War-ish moment […]

» Read More

Free Afiuni, Political Prisoner of Hugo Chavez

By Robert Amsterdam | Published:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez maintains in detention varying numbers of political prisoners at any given time, but the case which has stood out the most over the past year has been that of Judge Maria Lourdes Afiuni.  Imprisoned for no reason and no crime beyond the personal recrimination and vengeance of the president, Judge Afiuni […]

» Read More

Robert Amsterdam Profile in the Toronto Star

By James Kimer | Published: January 8, 2011

Today the Toronto Star is running an extensive profile of Robert Amsterdam – we’re grateful for their interest, and hope you enjoy.  By Monday we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming. “I don’t think any regime likes him, particularly semi-authoritarian ones,” says Peter Solomon, a political scientist at the University of Toronto. (…)

» Read More

Mr. Lukashenko’s Prisoners

By Robert Amsterdam | Published: January 4, 2011

When Belarussian dictator Alexander Lukashenko stole an election last Dec. 19, followed by a violent crackdown against protesting citizens and the arrests of some 600 political prisoners, among them, five presidential candidates, you could hardly say that this was his first rodeo.  Lukashenko, though only 56, has enjoyed a stranglehold on power ever since he […]

» Read More

Republicans Picked the Wrong Treaty to Try to Block

By James Kimer | Published: December 22, 2010

Now that New START has finally been passed by the Senate – which was going to happen at some point or another – conservative commentator Jacob Heilbrunn observes that the Republicans damaged their national security credibility by opposing the treaty, and have given the Obama administration another opportunity to trumpet the Russia relationship as a […]

» Read More

WikiLeaks: Russia’s Arms Sales to Venezuela

By James Kimer | Published: December 9, 2010

Moscow’s relationship with Hugo Chavez has long been a topic of obsession on this blog, so it’s been pretty interesting to get access to some of the leaked diplomatic cables underscoring U.S. concern over arms transactions between the two countries.  In this cable released last night, a pretty hostile meeting between diplomat Kirk Augustine and […]

» Read More

Russia to Control Half of U.S. Uranium

By James Kimer | Published: December 6, 2010

We’ve been following this developing deal between Canada’s Uranium-One and the Rosatom subsidiary ARMZ, but it’s only this week that it looks like the transaction is wrapping up with U.S. approval from CIFIUS.  The Financial Times has the story, including a comment that “the deal is the latest sign of how, after a three-decade hiatus […]

» Read More

Brazil-China Trade Yet to Take Off

By James Kimer | Published: November 17, 2010

I saw this interesting article in the Financial Times earlier this week, and did not want to let it go by unmentioned.  The journalist reports from some excerpts of a new Standard & Poor’s report on trade relations and economic growth between Brazil and China, the bookends of the beloved BRIC grouping. The authors also […]

» Read More