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Security forces fire tear gas and plastic bullets at thousands of protesters in Caracas and elsewhere after RCTV is banned for violating a law that requires stations to air the president's speeches.Reporting from Caracas, Venezuela, and Quito, Ecuador -- Protests broke out in Venezuela on Monday after cable companies dropped transmission of a popular channel that the government declared had broken telecommunications laws by not broadcasting President Hugo Chavez's speeches.Government critics and supporters of Radio Caracas Television took to the streets of Caracas, the capital, and several other cities after companies dropped RCTV's programming under threat of losing their licenses.

HAVANA — Activists from 32 little-known organizations opposed to Cuba's communist government issued a call for an end to social repression on the island at a Thursday gathering in the home of a prominent human rights activist.The event took place in the western Havana home of internationally known activist Francisco Chaviano, a veteran Cuban dissident who was released in 2007 after 13 years in prison.Participants crowded into a small room where Chaviano read a statement on behalf of the grass-roots political groups from 10 Cuban provinces.They demanded free elections, the release of all prisoners held for political motives and full state respect for human rights. The statement also said the only way for Cuba to survive the global economic crisis was for the government to ease bans on private business ownership and free enterprise.

The go-ahead to build the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, planned for the Xingu river in the Brazilian Amazon, has been delayed following protests by Indians and objections by local and international organisations.If constructed, the dam will be the third largest in the world, costing over US$10 billion, bringing more than 200,000 workers into the area and forcing an estimated 20,000 people from their homes.A large proportion of those displaced will be indigenous peoples who have been living in the area for centuries. Nine million hectares of rainforest will be affected.

Tens of thousands of people, government protesters and supporters alike, demonstrated Saturday in the Nicaraguan capital of Managua."The only way for the government to change, as it has been shown in all these years, is for the people to go to the streets," said Dora Maria Tellez, who was a main figure in President Daniel Ortega's government during the 1980s but who now leads an opposition party."There is no other way," she said at the protests, which appeared to be peaceful. It was not immediately clear how many of the masses were demonstrating against the government and how many had gathered to support it.

Failed Elections in Honduras: Peaceful Resistance Boycotted Coup efforts while Repression causes one Dead and Dozens Tortured and Detained A peaceful resistance movement in Honduras successfully boycotted today's marred presidential elections. Following a plan of civil disobedience, most Honduran citizens didn't vote today as a sign of protest against the coup government of Roberto Micheletti. Since the coup d'etat carried on June 28 this year, the opposition in Honduras have organized what is known as the National Front of Peaceful Resistance. Today they organized several acts of disobedience to boycott the elections that will not be recognized by most countries in the Americas -except the United States- and which only included candidates of the officialism, and ignored the popular demand for a ballot that supported a Constitution reform.

While most international news organizations took obedient dictation of the Honduras coup regime's claims of more than 62 percent voter participation in the November 29 "elections," authentic journalist Jesse Freeston did what real reporters are supposed to do: He went directly to the source, asked questions, took notes, and videotaped the evidence.Freeston today publishes this bombshell report, above, on The Real News that documents definitively that Honduras electoral officials knowingly lied about their claims of more than 60 percent voter turnout. The hard results in possession of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE, in its Spanish initials) demonstrate only 49.2 percent turnout: That means that a majority - more than 50 percent - of Honduran citizens abstained in the "elections" that the National Front Against the Coup d'Etat had called unfair, unfree and placed under boycott.

It is a popular saying in Latin America that women always get what they want. In Sarayaku, Ecuador, women from the Kichwa tribe proved the saying to be true. When an oil company came onto their forest lands for oil exploration for future drilling, the women decided to stop them with a simple but flawless plan.Esperanza Martinez says on the blog Ecoportal [es], that women told their husbands that if they allowed the companies to work on their lands, they would have to find other women …on different lands. The Kichwas organized a united front against the oil company until it finally had to leave.This group of Kichwas live in province of Pastaza, on 140 thousand hectares in the Amazon, an area the Ecuadorian Ministry of Mines and Oil identified as Block 23. Several companies attempted to work there throughout the years, but they failed every time due to Kichwa’s opposition to drilling.

Within hours of the polls closing the celebrations began. Cavalcades of honking cars raced up and down Boulevard Morazan. The Hotel Maya filled with cheering people in blue T-shirts. The media fell into paroxysms of delight.A wealthy rancher named Porfirio Lobo had just won Honduras's presidential election, heralding a "democratic fiesta". By dawn today the revellers were heading home, perhaps stopping for breakfast at one of Tegucigalpa's myriad Pizza Huts, Burger Kings and Wendy's."This is a wonderful day. The country has regained its equilibrium," beamed Ana Gomez, 29. After days of grey skies even the tropical sunshine returned.

The Strike Committee and the Frente de Defensa de Espinar (Front for Defense of the Interests of Espinar District) did not accept the proposal made by the Prime Minister Javier Velásquez Quesquén, and resumed their strike, announcing they will take more radical actions, breaking the truce they had agreed  upon. The Espinar people do not agree with the projected usage of the waters of the Apurimac River in favor of draft-Siguas Majes II, so they are against the construction of the Angostura Dam, which (according to the villagers) would damage their water supply. Apart from halting activities in the city, protesters are taking control of bridges, and currently more than 3,000 people are blocking the road Arequipa-Juliaca, according to La Republica.

TEGICUGALPA, HONDURAS, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2009: Nine days before the Honduran elections are scheduled to take place, Channel 36, Cholusat Sur, has been taken off the air once again. A parallel signal has been transmitting over the station. Initially airing pornography, now the same movie has been on repeat for the second day in a row. This new attack on the press comes the morning after Micheletti announced that he would be leaving the Presidency ‘provisionally’ from November 25 until December 2 for the country “to concentrate on the electoral process and not on the political crisis.”Micheletti’s announcement has been “welcomed” by the US State Department which currently along with Panama and Colombia are the only countries recognizing the elections. Micheletti added that he would return if there were threats to security. Officially the armed forces have been turned over to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) 30 days prior to the elections. The National Front Against the Coup D’état in an announcement called the “absence” of Micheletti’s “dictatorship…only a maneuver to hide the totalitarian role of the de facto regime and the armed forces that have been applied to an illegitimate, illegal and fraudulent electoral process.”

Venezuela is one of the world's most corrupt countries and the worst in Latin America after being ranked 162nd. By contrast, Chile and Uruguay are considered role models, since both are ranked 25th, followed by Costa Rica (43rd) and Cuba (61st), according to the annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), released by Transparency International on Tuesday. New Zealand, Denmark and Singapore top the list of the most transparent countries in the world according to the report, which measures the perceived level of public-sector corruption in 180 countries and is based on 13 different expert and business surveys conducted by 10 independent organizations.

As I reported yesterday, I submitted seven questions to the American president, Barack Obama. He kindly took the time to respond; following are the answers I received from the White House.President Obama's Responses to Yoani Sanchez's QuestionsThank you for this opportunity to exchange views with you and your readers in Cuba and around the world and congratulations on receiving the Maria Moore Cabot Prize award from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for coverage of Latin America that furthers inter-American understanding. You richly deserve the award. I was disappointed you were denied the ability to travel to receive the award in person.Your blog provides the world a unique window into the realities of daily life in Cuba. It is telling that the Internet has provided you and other courageous Cuban bloggers with an outlet to express yourself so freely, and I applaud your collective efforts to empower fellow Cubans to express themselves through the use of technology. The government and people of the United States join all of you in looking forward to the day all Cubans can freely express themselves in public without fear and without reprisals.

The Cuban president, Raúl Castro, has crushed dissent and continued repression in the country since taking over from his brother Fidel, according to a Human Rights Watch report published today.The government has extended use of an "Orwellian" law that allows the state to punish people before they commit a crime on suspicion they may do so, a tactic designed to cow actual and potential opponents, it said.The report, New Castro, Same Cuba, paints a near-dystopian image of an island where those who step out of line risk being beaten and jailed in horrific conditions which verge on torture.Since taking over from Fidel in July 2006 Raúl has kept up repression and kept scores of political prisoners locked up, it said. "Raúl Castro's government has used draconian laws and sham trials to incarcerate scores more who have dared to exercise their fundamental freedoms," said the report.

The U.S. State Department has told Cuba it deplores last week's ``assault'' on blogger Yoani Sánchez, one of the toughest of several expressions of support for the Havana writer.Sánchez and fellow blogger Orlando Luis Pardo said they were beaten Friday by presumed state security agents to keep them away from a ``march against violence.'' Blogger Claudia Cadelo and another woman were detained in the incident, but without violence.``The U.S. government strongly deplores the assault,'' said a State Department statement issued late Monday. ``We have expressed to the Cuban government our deep concern . . . and we are following up with inquiries to [the three bloggers] . . . regarding their personal well-being and access to medical care.''

The history of Bertha Oliva de Nativi is the history of Honduras.  If the storyline of the past one hundred years of this continent has been ‘so few with so much, and so many with so little’, then Bertha has been the fearless protagonist racing to rewrite the chapters that will hence come.   In 1982 Berta’s husband, Professor Tomas Nativi disappeared.  One of hundreds of Hondurans and tens of thousands of Central Americans to lose their lives to state sanctioned violence, Tomas and all of those who have disappeared remain the most terrifying and silencing bootprint of the military regimes of the 1980’s.  The stories are all too common: "they came to our door in the middle of the night" or "he just never came home ever again."  Their families must find ways to grieve, to cope, and to say goodbye to their loved ones without the benefit of closure or resolution.  Some, however, began to demand answers.

Of the many lessons to be learned from the Honduran political crisis, perhaps the most important one for would-be deal brokers is that if you get involved, prepare to stay involved.The Organisation of American States, Costa Rican, Brazilian, Chilean and, most recently, US negotiators at even the highest levels have thrown up their hands in dismay at the intransigence on display. The agreement at the end of last month, which was praised by the Obama administration as a landmark in inter-American diplomacy, is now yet another in a line of broken ones.If the US wants its stamp on this quagmire to be any different from those of the other scorned negotiators, it will send its team back down to Honduras and do all it can to get the broken deal back on track.

The international headlines all read something to this effect, "In Uruguay: Ex-Guerrilla Fighter Headed for Runoff Vote in November." Attention-grabbing as it is, that headline doesn't do justice to the complex story behind this ex-guerrilla fighter being on the verge of becoming Uruguay's next president. This story intertwines plot lines of economic hardship's goad towards anger, social inequity's call to action, violence's inevitable escalation, democracy's slide into dictatorship, impunity's lingerings and a society's tremendous capacity to persevere through it all, heal itself and ultimately advance. This story offers several timely lessons that the world could benefit from learning, as the present economic situation requires an understanding of the links between economic justice, the use of violence and the upholding of, as well as the straying away from, democratic principles.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- The scene outside the U.S. Embassy last week illustrated fraying tensions in this capital where the Sandinista government has been maneuvering for reelection: Agitated pro-government youths hurled fireworks, rocks and eggs at the embassy grounds and shouted ``Death to the Yankees! Death to the empire!'' The following day, a Sandinista mob surrounded a university campus where U.S. Ambassador Robert Callahan was attending a cultural festival, forcing him to flee with the help of riot police. The Sandinistas want Callahan's ouster, and went so far as to declare him persona non grata in a theatrical ``popular assembly'' held in front of the embassy Thursday evening.

A Time magazine article of 24 October entitled “Honduran Tourism: Selling Against a Coup” explains that the post-coup decrease in foreign visitors to Honduras has led the de facto regime of Roberto Micheletti to promote internal tourism:“Working with resorts and hotels on Roatán Island, a popular Caribbean dive spot off Honduras' northern coast, the de facto tourism board is promoting special two-for-one vacation deals. Many Hondurans have taken the bait, flocking to the white sands of Roatán and filling hotel rooms that were once occupied by U.S. and European travelers. Hondurans who support the de facto regime, such as tour operator Vilma Sauceda of Rema Tours, says the fact that Hondurans are ‘traveling like crazy’ is a sign of support for the Micheletti government.”Sauceda’s interpretation of Honduran migratory patterns was somewhat contradicted by an informal survey I conducted in the Guanacaste neighborhood of Tegucigalpa yesterday afternoon, the results of which suggest that Honduran trips to Roatán are still less frequent than Honduran trips to the Mexico-Texas border – with return trips often courtesy of the United States government. A recent deportee currently selling cheese on the street while planning his next journey north stated that he harbored no resentment toward the US for jailing him for 3 months and that he recognized the importance of defending national borders; as for resentment and border permeability elsewhere, Micheletti continues to waver between accusing the international community of interfering in internal Honduran affairs and insisting that said community come to Honduras to understand what is really going on.

Less than two weeks after U.S. diplomats announced a historic agreement to reverse a coup in Honduras, the accord is in danger of collapse and both Honduran officials and U.S. lawmakers are blaming American missteps for some of the failure. Ousted president Manuel Zelaya, who was expelled by the military in June, said in a telephone interview that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had assured him as recently as last week that the U.S. government was seeking his return to the presidency. But he said that U.S. pressure had eased in recent days and that he no longer had faith in the agreement.