La Guinea Ecuatorial es una ex-colonia española en Africa y forma parte del mundo hispanoparlante y es por eso yo me dedico en especial a la causa de la democracia en la Guinea Ecuatorial. Son nuestros hermanos en lengua y ellos viven la peor dictadura que sacude la Africa. Es tiempo que los hispanos les pongamos atención a los destinos de las ex-colonias españolas en Africa, la Guinea Ecuatorial y la Sahara Occidental. No podemos abandonar a nuestros hermanos. Tenemos en Zapatero una oportunidad histórica para llamar la atención del mundo a la realidad de estos pueblos olvidados y que sufren en ese olvido. Si eres hispano, estas también son sus causas.
Following up on French Doc’s post on the verdict and the sentence of Simon Mann today in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, I want to add that if you are a Hispanic we have two brother nations in Africa living under the worst imaginable conditions. Spain’s former colonies in Africa languish under the most brutal dictatorships. Equatorial Guinea has been described as the “Dachau of Africa” and the Western Sahara is under a brutal occupation from Morocco. The Hispanic world must do better in bringing attention to horrific conditions in these countries.
It is a story that has made headlines in the UK because it involves some high-level British players, via The Guardian:
“The British mercenary Simon Mann was today sentenced to 34 years in prison for plotting to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea.
The Eton-educated former SAS officer was sentenced after a trial last month during which it was claimed that a number of western governments knew about the coup plans. The court heard that Sir Mark Thatcher, the son of the former British prime minister, was a committed member of the group.
Mann was arrested in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 2004 with dozens of mercenaries when their private plane landed. He acknowledged knowingly taking part in the attempt to topple the government, but his lawyer argued Mann was a secondary player.
There are many reasons that I don’t like John McCain but on the issue that I care most about, energy, McCain is a breath of fresh air. He didn’t vote for the Bush-Cheney Energy Policy unlike Senator Obama who crossed the aisle to vote for an estimated $30 billion in subsidies for the oil & gas sector. No wonder, they adore Obama. The Oil & Gas sector has given more to Obama than all other candidates combined. Corn ethanol, Obama loves that idea. McCain not so much. McCain wants to lower tariffs on Brazilian ethanol and eliminate subsidies to corn ethanol producers. Why? Because it makes sense. Corn ethanol only nets 1.3 times the fossil fuel energy required to produce it, sugar-based ethanol can return 8 times the fossil fuel energy.
There are many reasons to vote against John McCain but energy is not one of them.
Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is facing ever more resistance to her economic programme. This week the lower house of the Argentine Congress narrowly approved her export taxes hikes issued by decree back in March that have set off months of continuing protests throughout Argentina. The rural sector and the agrarian interests that have been at the center of these protests, however, are not responsible for these riots today in Buenos Aires’ famed Plaza de Mayo. These riots were primarily led by the radical left using the vote in Congress as a pretext for their actions.
Argentina is on the precipice. Shortages of basic foods, including dairy items and meat, have beewn reported across the country as the disruption spreads. Its agricultural exports have stalled. The stand-off is threatening to cripple the country’s most lucrative export trade, notably of beef, corn, soy beans and wheat. For what?
With her stubborn resistance not to give in and repeal the 30% hike in the export tariffs, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is threatening to undo the progress that her husband made during his tenure in office. Is it worth this?
I have been a member since April 23, 2008. Just eight days after launching this blog, I was invited to join the Capital Hill Forum, a political forum organized by refugees from the Democratic Underground that support Senator Clinton. Over these past few months, the Capital Hill Forum has been instrumental in helping me find content for By The Fault. It is an intrepid bunch of slouths and political activists with a Clintonian bent. It is a great site for breaking news to be shared.
The Capital Hill Forum is now open to all. Check them out, there is lots there. There is always a vibrant conversation on a plethora of topics.
Jim Webb, the Virginia senator and former Republican who packs his own heat most places, has withdrawn himself from consideration as Barack Obama’s Democratic vice presidential running mate.
In a statement released moments ago, Webb said: “Last week I communicated to Senator Obama and his presidential campaign my firm intention to remain in the United States Senate, where I believe I am best equipped to serve the people of Virginia and this country.
“Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for Vice President.”
Webb joins Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland as firmly removing himself from consideration as the Democratic No. 2. Strickland, you may recall, was and presumably still is a staunch supporter of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and helped deliver a lopsided Ohio primary win to her column this spring. Strickland, whose Buckeye State will be crucial in determining the presidential winner Nov. 4, was equally unequivocal: “If drafted, I will not run; nominated, I will not accept; and if elected, I will not serve. So, I don’t know how more crystal clear I can be,” he said in early June.
Webb had once been considered a leading candidate to seek the Democratic presidential nomination himself but took himself out of that running too. His vice presidential potential stems from his proven political crossover appeal in another important state that has been trending Democratic in recent elections.
His statement today also said:
“A year and a half ago, the people of Virginia honored me with election to the U.S. Senate. I entered elective politics because of my commitment to strengthen America’s national security posture, to promote economic fairness, and to increase government accountability.
“I have worked hard to deliver upon that commitment, and I am convinced that my efforts and talents toward those ends are best served in the Senate.”
Don’t worry Barack, Bill Richardson and Claire McCaskill both want the job and then there’s always Tom Daschle (though I think he really wants the White House Chief of Staff). Have you talked to Sam Nunn lately?
He has been a horrible President and fiscally irresponsible cutting taxes in wartime providing subsidies to the oil and gas sector that are beyond the pale. He has assaulted our sensibilities and our civil liberties. The incompetence of his Administration allowed a city to drown becoming the first US President to lose a city since Jame Madison in 1814, only Bush lost New Orleans to a storm.
Still, this is likely his finest hour, the best year of his Presidency though certainly he was more popular during his first two years in office in the wake of the attacks of 9/11. Despite an imploding economy, I have applauded Bush a few times this year. Still I have never liked him and do not care for him. I opposed the war on Iraq because I am a Westphalian and on every policy propopsal of his I generally I took the opposite tack. No Child Left Behind was in my view a back door move to destroy public schools. The Bush-Cheney Energy Policy, the one that Obama voted for and McCain against, the worst piece of legislation since the US Mining Law of 1872 (another piece of legislation that Obama supports, he helped block reforming it). Bush’s Healthy Forest Initiative, No Tree Left Behind, allowed big corporations and industry insiders to determine government policies that seriously weakened environmental standards behind closed doors. It left management of national forests to Weyerhauser and Georgia-Pacific. And I could go on and on.
Matt Friedman of the Associated Press went to the Washington Mall and spoke with 1,700 people to get their impressions of McCain and Obama. McCain is viewed as old and Obama as an outsider. Both were viewed favourably by half and unfavourably by four in ten. Here’s the kicker: those viewing Obama unfavourably came to that conclusion recently. Yup, he’s in trouble.
The Aspen Institute, founded in 1950, is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering enlightened leadership and open-minded dialogue. President Clinton was the featured speaker at its annual Aspen Ideas Festival conference this past week. Here are some highlights of his comments:
Here is my profile of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf about whom President Clinton speaks in the above segment.
“It’s a simple little thing that philanthropists should be doing anywhere: Change the business model,” the former president said while discussing a market-based solution for distributing affordable HIV/AIDS drugs in the developing world. Clinton explained how, by changing the system of drug production and sales, his Clinton Foundation was able to cut their costs drastically while still allowing manufacturers to turn a profit.
He took a similar tack on addressing starvation in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions facing food shortages. Clinton said America needs to “get the show on the road” by aiding farmers and developing native agriculture in ailing nations, rather than simply dumping American foodstuffs on them.
“It’s crazy for us to keep using the old way of delivering food aid,” he said, explaining how Canada now devotes half of its outgoing aid to cash for farmers. Even the current suffering in Zimbabwe, he argued, could be alleviated by implementing a system that effectively tapped into its natural resources for food production. “This was a nation that could have been Africa’s bread basket,” he said.
I also agree with President Clinton’s comments from the second clip on how the nature of food chain is about to change dramatically. Local produce is the future. He is just super smart. A policy wonk. That’s not Barack Obama in the least.
It’s July 7th and the annual start of the week long fiesta of San Fermín in Pamplona or most Anglo-Saxon speakers know it — the running of the bulls.
I grew up with bull fights so I am used to them. I don’t particularly care for the torture of the animal but I admit I adore the pagentry especially the music. I have also seen two gorings in my life. I was not that thrilled to see that either. Bulls do not always end up butchered, they do win reprieves for courage. Bull fighting is, of course, a long tradition in Spain and in the Mediterrarean dating back to at least to Crete. But the fiesta in Pamplona is more than just about running with bulls (I’ve done it twice during my stupid years — I was 21 and 24). Here is some background from Fiestas of Spain:
The festival in honour of San Fermín celebrated in Pamplona -los Sanfermines- is a mixture of the official and the popular, the religious and the profane, for local people and outsiders, the old and the new, order and chaos. And all of this packed into one long week starting with a bang at midday on the sixth of July and ending with the nostalgia tinged with expectation at midnight on the fourteenth.
The San Fermines have always been a special festival but when Pamplona was still a small unknown city -provincial and clerical- the San Fermines found their most fervent supporter in the American writer Hemingway.
The Sanfermines offer the visitor an open and hospitable festival where anything out of the ordinary is welcomed and soon becomes part of the tradition, so long as ¡t shows the respect due to others. The Sanfermines is a fiesta where no one is an outsider, everyone is equal and in which the festive spirit is never broken, centred around the people of Pamplona in the widest sense: all the people in the city during the always too short 204 hours of revelry, dancing, prayers and bacchanalian extravagance.
It shouldn’t be forgotten that the Sanfermines is a festival of religious origins and that this aspect is still relived in huge demonstrations such as the Procession on the morning of the seventh. But the religious celebration is in perfect harmony with the cult of the bull -a symbolic animal- and with the cult of Bacchus, the god of wine -a drink which ¡s no less symbolic. The Sanfermines are, in short, a total, absolute and radical festival in which the people of Pamplona play the leading part, but in which outsiders feel immediately at home -there’s no question of being a mere onlooker- as for nine days Pamplona becomes the world capital of happiness.
The festival is carried live on Spanish television. Pamplona is also in Navarra and it’s part of the Basque Country. Here’s a clip from the Chupinazo San Fermín 2007, the official start. You dress in white and carry a red handkerchief forming a triangle above your head. It’s an amazingly good time. I even made it to Mass. Whodathunkthat?
I am sure Italians would disagree and certainly I am biased but Spain has Europe’s greatest parties. This is one of them. My favorite, however, is Las Fallas in Valencia. But for more on that, you will have to wait until March 17, 2009.
