The publication is published four reports of secret former U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua Paul Trayvelli (Paul Trivelli), dated 2007, which alleged that Mohamed Lashtar cooperates with the Libyan secret services. "Mohamed Lashtar is a key figure of Daniel Ortega and the environment associated with the intelligence service Gaddafi. Through it carried secret funding Nicaraguan President "- said in a secret report dated January 23, 2007. In the secret dispatches the U.S. Embassy in...

Who’d have thought it? Less than a year ago the presidents of Venezuela and Colombia were practically at each other’s throats. With the inauguration of Juan Manuel Santos as Colombia’s new leader last August, many assumed things would get worse. How wrong they were. The burgeoning “friendship” between him and Hugo Chávez, practically ideological opposites, just keeps on delivering surprises. Now, Santos is telling the world that the camps of the leftwing...

Developments in over the past two weeks brought to my mind. Why does a similar rebellion against five decades of repression there still appear to be a far-off dream? Part of the answer is in the relationship between the brothers - Fidel and Raúl - and the generals. The rest is explained by the regime's significantly more repressive model. In the art of dictatorship, Hosni Mubarak is a piker. That so many Egyptians have raised their voices in Tahrir Square is a testament to the...

"I think the United States sees everything upside down, at least part of the world," said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in an October 2010 interview. "It's hard to imagine the destiny of this [U.S.] society. But of course we have to hope for the better, for the winds of change coming from the south." Latin America and the Western hemisphere face serious challenges today, threatening regional stability and U.S. national security. First and foremost among them is Hugo...

The Libyan war has nothing to do to with humanitarian concerns, a senior member of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's ruling party this week. According to Carlos Escarra Malave, vice president of Venezuela's standing committee on foreign policy, the United States and its European allies "invaded" Libya so they could confiscate $200 billion in frozen assets belonging to the family of Muammar Gaddafi. They "could save their own economies by confiscating those assets," he...

Markets and Democracy Briefs are published by CFR’s Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy initiative. They are designed to offer readers a concise snapshot of current thinking on critical issues surrounding democracy and economic development in the world today. Opening Mexico's Economy Mexico began to open up its economy in the 1980s when collapsing petroleum prices and rising international interest ratesmade its import-substitution economic model?characterized by high levels of...

Venezuelan Ambassador to Syria, Imad Saab Saab (right), meets with his counterpart from Iran, Ahmad Mousavi (center), at the Venezuelan Embassy in Damascus in May 2010. President Obama's trip to South America has showcased promising partnerships in Brazil and elsewhere. His visit, however, should also focus attention in the region and within his administration on the fact that Iran and Venezuela are conspiring to sow Tehran's brand of proxy terrorism in the Western Hemisphere. On Aug....

The last journalist detained since the March 2003 “Black Spring” crackdown, Pedro Argüelles Morán, was released from a prison in Ciego de Ávila, his home town, on the evening of 4 March and was reunited with his family, concluding a sad episode in Cuba’s history for Reporters Without Borders. There is now only one journalist in prison in Cuba. It is Albert Santiago Du Bouchet, who was given a three-year jail sentence in April 2009 on a charge of...

Joel Fishman is a historian and a fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He recently served as the Chairman of the Foundation for the Research of Dutch Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Dr. Fishman is co-author (with Efraim Karsh) of La Guerre d’Oslo and is presently carrying out research on political warfare, particularlymedia warfare and propaganda. I Incitement to hatred and violence is a weapon of political warfare. It is not the result of a...

Terrorist groups and armed insurgents regularly exploit illicit markets to launder money, traffic illegal goods, and purchase arms. In such an environment, the line between armed political organizations and criminal groups appears to break down. However, through a comparative study of paramilitary groups and Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-FARC) in Colombia, this article finds that group goals, the political environment, and membership...