Free Republic

Iran and Middle East-based extremist groups are stepping up their activities in South America, aiming to make friends and score cash, a senior U.S. military official says. Tehran intends to build military drones in Washington's backyard for the Venezuelan military led by Hugo Chavez, U.S. Southern Command chief Gen. Douglas Fraser told reporters Wednesday during a breakfast meeting in Washington "I would put it in the Scan Eagle class of UAV," Fraser said. "It's not up into the Predator class." The Southern Command chief was referring to two U.S.-made drone aircraft used by the American military. The Scan Eagle is...

The Spanish term "caudillo" (pronounced cow-THEE-yo) refers to a strongman or autocratic leader. Latin America has had a number of caudillos. Some have been right-wing (i.e., anticommunist, pro-American, such as Somoza in Nicaragua), others left-wing (socialistic and anti-American, like Perón and Chávez), but since Jimmy Carter used his one-term presidency to achieve the extinction of the pro-American species, today's caudillos are all leftists. Caudillos typically bulldoze political opposition, become the dominant force in the economic life of the country, and establish a personality cult around themselves. They love power as much as they love themselves, and they aren't bashful about...

The scattered islands of the vast Pacific Ocean were settled by seafarers who set out from the eastern coasts and islands of Asia and traveled thousands of kilometers by boat. Meanwhile pre-Columbian South America was populated by people who crossed a now-vanished land bridge far to the north. Did these two groups ever meet in the New World? There's a good chance of that, according to a new study, which finds evidence that Easter Islanders may have reached South America and mixed with the Native Americans already there. University of Oslo immunologist Erik Thorsby first began analyzing the people of...

Due to economic instability, in January of 2000, then Ecuadorian President Jamil Mahuad instituted a policy instating the United States dollar as the official currency of Ecuador. Despite disapproval of the policy by current Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa’s administration, no plans are currently in the works to replace the US dollar as the official currency. However, the administration has indicated that it would replace the US dollar in favor of a South American currency if one became available. The dollar replaced "sucres" in Ecuador, at a rate of 1 for every 25,000 sucres. While Ecuador has officially replaced their own...

An international arbitration panel has ruled that Venezuela must pay Exxon Mobil more than $900 million in a long-simmering dispute over the nationalization of Exxon’s assets in Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt, one of the most coveted oil reserves outside the Middle East.

<p>Top secret papers are set to prove that the warship Belgrano was heading into the Falkland's exclusion zone when it was sunk, and not heading back to port as the Argentinians claimed.</p> <p>For decades debate and recrimination has raged over where the ship was heading when it was torpedoed by a Royal Navy submarine.</p>

The Uruguayan Senate has passed legislation to decriminalise abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. A similar move in 2008 was vetoed by President Tabare Vasquez, but current President Jose Mujica has signalled he will sign the bill into law. The legislation now goes to the lower house, which, like the Senate, is controlled by Mr Mujica's allies. Opinion polls suggest a majority of Uruguayans back easing the restrictions on abortion. Under the current legislation, women who have an abortion and the people who assist them face prison. Abortion is only allowed in the case of rape or when...

Brazil boosts naval power to protect oil bonanza SAO PAULO — As it bids for great power status, Brazil is boosting its naval power in the South Atlantic with an ambitious submarine program to protect its huge deep-water oil reserves and project its growing influence. The emerging powerhouse already boasts Latin America's largest navy, but its aging fleet, including the Sao Paulo aircraft carrier -- formerly the French Navy's Foch -- nine British-built frigates and five coastal diesel-electric submarines, is in urgent need of modernization. "The fleet is currently inadequate to carry out its assigned missions" in the South Atlantic,...

Chile’s Constitutional Tribunal has rejected an effort seeking to force the country to recognize the “marriages” of three same-sex couples. The court, which is the nation’s highest authority on constitutional matters, voted 9-1 on Nov. 3rd against the suit challenging the constitutionality of Chile’s Civil Code, which recognizes marriage as the union of “a man and a woman.” The three homosexual couples, who were aided by Chile’s Homosexual Integration and Liberation Movement (MOVILH), sought to register themselves as “married” in September 2010, but were refused. Two of the couples had already contracted “marriages” in Canada and Argentina respectively. The justices...

Uturuncu is a nearly 20,000-foot-high (6,000 meters) volcano in southwest Bolivia. Scientists recently discovered the volcano is inflating with astonishing speed. "I call this 'volcano forensics,' because we're using so many different techniques to understand this phenomenon," said Oregon State University professor Shan de Silva, a volcanologist on the research team. Researchers realized about five years ago that the area below and around Uturuncu is steadily rising — blowing up like a giant balloon under a wide disc of land some 43 miles (70 kilometers) across. Satellite data revealed the region was inflating by 1 to 2 centimeters (less than...

Face of evil: MOHSEN RABBANI The Islamic Shiite cleric active in Latin America since the early 1990s. Responsible for the 1992 and 1994 anti-Jewish massacres in Argentina. Wanted in that country and by the Interpol for the crimes. Called for Israel to be "wiped off," in 1994. 'Chief' Islamic operator of Hezbollah - Quds activities of: Islamizaton --including 'recruting converts for Islam'-- and terror networks in Latin America, resides in Brazil. Lightning Out of Lebanon: Hezbollah Terrorists on American Soil - Pages 122-3Tom Diaz, Barbara Newman - Random House Digital, Inc., 2006 - History - 272 pagesThe man directly responsible for this cell-building...

Who says women shouldn’t use sex to get what they want? In the far-away Colombian town of Barbacoas, female residents are making international headlines by withholding sex until the government provides a safe passageway from their village to other towns in the province. The “crossed legs movement” has been going on for the better part of the summer. Barbacoas’ roads in and out of the town are not paved, making travel hazardous, access to medical care difficult, and commodities prices five or six times higher than other areas of the country.

History: President Salvador Allende of Chile really did commit suicide in 1973, an inquest concluded on Tuesday. Now will the Left stop saying the U.S. and Chile's army did him in? Except perhaps for Che Guevara, no one has quite been the heroic totem to the global left than the late Marxist president of Chile, whose death in 1973 made him a martyr to socialism. Allende seemingly legitimized socialism as a democratically elected leader, the first Marxist who in 1970 didn't shoot his way to power.That gave the left hope for more. Elected with just 36% of the vote in...

First it was Venezuela, then Bolivia, then Ecuador, then Nicaragua. Now it’s my native Peru. One by one, largely unremarked here, Latin America’s nations are turning to the authoritarian Left. Ollanta Humala, who won yesterday’s presidential run-off, is typical of the breed of modern caudillo. A cashiered former army officer, he had concocted an angry and aggrieved programme which mingled ethnic nationalism, hostility to private enterprise, nostalgia for pre-Columbian times and anti-Chilean revanchism..... Humala’s opponent in the run-off was Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the man who, as president in the 1990s, closed down Congress and gave himself autocratic powers, and...

Peruvian opposition candidate Ollanta Humala is headed to victory over Congresswoman Keiko Fujimori in the Andean nation’s presidential runoff, according to a quick count of ballots and three exit polls. Humala won 51.5 percent compared with 48.5 percent for Fujimori, according to a quick count of 91 percent of ballots at selected polling stations nationwide by Lima-based researcher Ipsos-Apoyo.

Peru’s Keiko Fujimori conceded defeat in yesterday’s presidential election to Ollanta Humala, who won a narrow victory as voters overlooked his past support for Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and rallied behind his pledges to stamp out corruption and extend a mining boom to the nation’s poor. Fujimori, speaking to reporters in Lima, said she will lead a responsible opposition and “build bridges” with Humula’s government. She said she will offer him her personal congratulations in a meeting later today. “I recognize his triumph,” said the 36-year-old congresswoman. “It’s important that the country continues its economic course and that it has clear...

Having experienced the Cuban Missile Crisis at the CIA, Langley, ion 1962, I have little enthusiasm for a repeat. But we may get one. A German newspaper is running a disturbing report: BERLIN – The Iranian government is moving forward with the construction of rocket launch bases in Venezuela, the German daily Die Welt wrote in its Friday edition. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is Teheran’s most important South American ally. Iran is building intermediate- range missile launch pads on the Paraguaná Peninsula, and engineers from a construction firm – Khatam al-Anbia – owned by the Revolutionary Guards visited Paraguaná in...

CIUDAD DEL ESTE, Paraguay — The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia has taken root in South America, fostering a well-financed force of Islamist radicals boiling with hatred for the United States and ready to die to prove it, according to militia members, U.S. officials and police agencies across the continent. From its Western base in a remote region divided by the borders of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina known as the Tri-border, or the Triple Frontier, Hezbollah has mined the frustrations of many Muslims among about 25,000 Arab residents.... An investigation...has uncovered details of an extensive smuggling network run by Hezbollah...The operation funnels...

Government Report: 50% of Brazil’s Military Equipment Is Obsolete BRASILIA – Half of the Brazilian armed forces’ military equipment is obsolete and in no condition to be used in combat, according to a government report obtained and published on Sunday by the daily Folha de Sao Paulo. The document, which according to the newspaper was prepared by the Defense Ministry, also criticizes the strong concentration of troops and bases in the prosperous southeastern part of the country, something that “reveals the fragility of the armed forces” and the scarce presence of the military in other regions of the country. The...

Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi is well known now for the abuses he has inflicted on his own people during more than four decades of brutal rule in Libya, but few remember the vast campaign of carnage and terrorism he orchestrated across West Africa and Europe when he was at the height of his powers. Nor are his more recent alliance with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and his long-standing relationship with Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua -- both of whom are busy trampling their constitutions and moving toward dictatorship -- well understood. And the fact that all three governments support the Revolutionary Armed...