George at The Real Cuba is on blogging fire today:
Rep. Connie Mack blasts Joe Kennedy for ads praising Chávez
Rep. Connie Mack, R-14, earlier today blasted former Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy for his support of Venezuelan Communist President Hugo Chavez and called on Kennedy to cease airing television ads that Mack said praise “the most dangerous man in the Western Hemisphere,” according to a news release from Mack’s office.
Close to 500 Cuban slave doctors have defected in the last few months
Cesar Rodriguez left his hometown of Havana three years ago as part of an army of Cuban doctors sent to Venezuela under an economic accord between the two nations. Only seven months after beginning work, Rodriguez said, he deserted his post in northwestern Venezuela and paid a smuggler $47 to take him illegally into Colombia. He is now among 480 Cuban health professionals working in nearly 40 countries who have applied for entry to the U.S. under a controversial initiative announced last summer by President Bush.
Most of the defectors worked in Venezuela and either remained there to file their petition or fled to Colombia, where they await word of their fate.
Chavez’s XXI Century Socialism: Little food but plenty of drugs
A Boeing DC-9 can carry as many as 90 passengers or, as one recent drug case showed, about 128 suitcases of cocaine. Last April, Mexican authorities seized 5.1 tons of cocaine aboard a DC-9 coming from Venezuela. The traffickers had removed the seats in the airplane and packed the drugs in identical suitcases that somehow got past security at Caracas’ principal airport, Maiquetía.
The case was a watershed, illustrating the brazen attitude with which drug traffickers seemed to be operating in Venezuela and apparent cover they could expect from high-level Venezuelan government officials.
Another giant step toward food rationing: Chávez may take control of food distributors
Hugo Chávez’s government is preparing a decree that would let officials take control of food distribution chains, possibly including supermarkets and storage depots, if services are interrupted, officials said Sunday.
Industry and Commerce Minister María Cristina Iglesias told a news conference the decree would help curb supply problems that have caused severe shortages of meats, milk and sugar in Venezuela in recent weeks.
Read the rest of all of the above at The Real Cuba.