Today, El Universal of Venezuela has changed its web format, for now its really slow but good enough for us to get their reporting.
Nicaragua has recognized the states of South Ossetia and Abkhazia - Daniel Ortega's insistence in getting world attention takes a new turn with this calculated but mostly irrelevant announcement . The Herald tribune(NYT) reported but besides this it gathered almost no attention. President Hugo Chavez has also recognized the Ossetian statehood with of course much more prominence than Ortega. The Ossetians should be pessimistic about Chavez sympathy since he also crucified his FARC allies at the time when it most counted.
The young student movement in Venezuela keeping up with the resistance - The authoritarian government of Hugo Chavez is once again at it after passing 26 new laws by decree, some of them containing legislation rejected by the december 2007 referendum. This time its not only the conpiratory pro-yankee students expressing their discontent but it is also the communist party of Venezuela (PCV, whose official views include unconditional support for the FARC). I haven't found any international reporting for this one.
Piedad Cordoba has called for spontaneous student led resistance to Colombia's current regime. She touched upon the governments blaming the FARC for any trouble in Colombia similar to the one in the early 90's where "every Colombian problem had to do with Pablo Escobar." I believe that Colombia's problematic is incredibly complex and Cordoba is right in the sense that not every problem has to do with the FARC. Neither all "state terrorism" as she refers to it has everything to do with Colombia's culture of violence. In fact Cordoba undermines her statements by employing the same language that the government does, specially by the use of the super T word and concept, "terrorism." Its basically the same kind of demagogic speech, mirror image. I am happy though, that she's calling for student resistance, because this is the same resistance that in Venezuela is going to take down Mr. Chavez. Lets see how Cordoba does on this one... Uribe on the other hand is against the ropes once again and if his constant blunders continue I'll doubt he'll even pursue an unethical third term. These are of course great news, but it will be tough to find such a game changing leader for Colombia such as Alvaro Uribe. Keeping the student resistance topic alive its important to note that Chavez chess bishop Rafael Correa of Ecuador is quite concerned for his own brewing student resistance movement, apparently supported by Venezuelan'07 veterans. As reported by rebelion.org Correa is quoted saying "The same tactic was employed against Chavez, pushing young university leaders to create confrontation and then blame the government." Among authoritarians, spontaneous student confrontation is perhaps the most despised, because there is nothing more difficult for them than to try to discredit the nobility and energy of young men and women.
