Facts about Hugo Chavez

Marisabel Rodriguez stands next to her husband, Hugo Chavez, as he is sworn in as president in 2000.Marisabel Rodriguez, an attractive blonde former television anchor, is one of the president's fiercest critics

coca use
reuters: Jan 26, 2008 :Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez switched from coffee to another stimulant during a speech on Saturday -- he popped a coca leaf into his mouth and chewed it while defending the use of the plant.
"Capitalism and international mafias have converted (it) into cocaine, but coca is not cocaine," he said.

teetotaler
The New York Times: Chávez, a teetotaler, appears to have touched a nerve with the ban on alcohol sales, which initially confused many people and caught them off guard.

Shut up, Spain's king tells Chavez



bbc news:Spain's King Juan Carlos told Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez to "shut up" as the Ibero-American summit drew to a close in Santiago, Chile.



Hugo Chavez has condemned doctors who 'convince some women that if they don't have some big bosoms, they should feel bad'.The Daily Telegraph

Nepotism

The Guardian Chávez's father ruled as governor for a decade until handing over to the president's brother, Adán, in an election marred by fraud allegations. Other brothers are also thriving: Aníbal is mayor of nearby Sabaneta; Adelis is a top banker at Banco Sofitasa, which enjoys government contracts; Argenis wields enormous clout as a political fixer; Narciso is reportedly planning his own election run.

Members of what is dubbed the "royal family" travel in convoys of 4x4s. The president's once-matronly mother, Elena, has had a makeover with plastic surgery, designer clothes, bling jewellery and a poodle named Coqui.


Michael Moore

The New York Times:Michael Moore, the filmmaker who is a bête noire of conservatives in the United States, now appears to have made some enemies among the leftist supporters of President Hugo Chávez.
During a recent appearance on ABC’s late-night program “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Mr. Moore gave an account — apparently tongue in cheek — of how he drank a bottle-and-a-half of tequila with Mr. Chávez at the Venice Film Festival in September, and how he mistook Venezuela’s burly foreign minister, Nicolás Maduro, for a bodyguard.
Those comments have created an uproar here among some of Mr. Chávez’s loyal supporters, known as Chavistas.

Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad
reuters:In 2004, Libya awarded its annual Gaddafi International Human Rights Prize to Chavez for resisting "imperialism" and being a champion of the poor.

* In 2006, Libya named a new 11,000-seater soccer stadium after Chavez near the Mediterranean city of Benghazi.

After the meeting on Venezuela's Caribbean resort island of Margarita, Chavez presented Gaddafi with a replica of a sword of South American independence hero Simon Bolivar.

bbc news 26 April 2011:On Monday, President Chavez expressed his support for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, blaming "terrorists" for the protests in the town of Deraa.

The protests have been met with deadly force by the Syrian security forces.

Syrian human rights organisation Sawasiah says more than 400 civilians have been shot dead in the government's campaign to crush the month-long pro-democracy protests

Venezuela's Chavez funding Glover film

variety: The president's year-old state-sponsored studio complex Villa del Cine will funnel $18 million into "Toussaint," the pet project of thesp-activist Danny Glover, who plans to co-produce as well as make it his feature directing debut.

"Eighteen million could fund five years of local cinema in Venezuela," said helmer Jose Novoa ("Sicario"). "And the film's not even about Venezuela."

"With so much poverty in our country, I can't deny that it infuriates and hurts me deeply," said "Secuestro Express" writer-helmer Jonathan Jakubowicz of Chavez's film foray.

Hugo Chávez claims videogames are 'poison

The GuardianHugo Chávez:"Those games they call 'PlayStation' are poison. Some games teach you to kill. They once put my face on a game; 'you've got to find Chávez to kill him.'"

Chavez calls for ban on Halloween
BBC NEWS :Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has urged families not to mark Halloween, calling it a US custom alien to the South American nation.

Hugo Chavez bans singing in the bath

The Daily Telegraph :It’s official: baths and jacuzzis are anti-socialist. Not for nothing do their opponents describe the proletariat as the great unwashed. That worthy heir to Kadar and Ulbricht, successor to the great Fidel as liberator of Latin America, Hugo Chavez the President of Venezuela has written a new chapter in the Marxist canon. Henceforth, nobody is to sing in the bath or the shower, since it is a distraction from the basic business of washing, and no more than three minutes is to be spent in the shower.

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez defends 'Carlos the Jackal'

bbc news:Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has defended jailed killer "Carlos the Jackal" and several world leaders he says are wrongly considered "bad guys"

Israel:good relations with Iran

This satellite image of the Airline of the Islamic Republic of Iran, also known as Iran Air, was taken by Google Earth and reveals a Star of David symbol.

Military

The Daily Telegraph :in the Iran-Contra affair, Washington authorised Israel to sell US. weapons to Iran in violation of an international embargo. Some of the proceeds later went to fund anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

Economy

NPR:WASHINGTON May 24, 2011
The Obama administration on Tuesday hit seven foreign companies, including an Israeli shipping firm
Ofer Brothers Group,The Israeli company, along with Tanker Pacific of Singapore, are accused of failing to exercise due diligence in participating in the 2010 sale of an oil tanker to the Iranian national shipping company, which is already under U.S. and European sanctions. The two firms are now barred from getting loans of more than $10 million from American banks and from getting U.S. export licenses.

bbc news:Fears that an Iranian ban on imports from its arch foe Israel was flouted by the sale of Jaffa oranges have sparked an inquiry in Tehran, reports say.

City authorities asked the judiciary to take action after the Israeli fruit was allegedly imported in boxes marked as Chinese, local media report.

The fruit was imported via Dubai and put on sale at markets and in shops in and around Tehran, one report says.

Los Angeles Times:For years, the U.S. has been pressuring Israel to break the habit of buying Iranian pistachios from third-party markets such as Turkey and turning a blind eye to trade-embargo issues (although the U.S. trade sanctions seem to have their own quirks).

Sexual Harassment In Egypt

Sexual Harassment in Africa Cup 2006-cairo (egypt)


Lynn Doan :Just one kiss, he says, waving five Egyptian pounds at me.

One kiss on the mouth, and he'll give me the equivalent of a dollar. I am walking through a bazaar in Cairo when I realize that sexual harassment has no limits here.

One man says he wants to marry me. Another grabs me by the arm and asks my name. A few simply yell, "China," and hope I'll turn around - I'm Asian, but not Chinese.

Harassment in Italy is notorious. But the catcalls I experienced in Venice and Rome pale in comparison to the shockingly sexual statements and shameless groping my roommate and I endured in Egypt.SFGate

Incidents

During rioting in 2006, attacks by throngs of men on young women in the streets attracted the attention of the media. In 2009, during a soccer celebration in the Cairo neighborhood of Mohendeseen, almost 100 young men chased down two girls, attempting to rip their clothes off. That same night women in a horse drawn carriage were attacked by a similar sized group, and only retreated when the driver started using his whip. That same year, men attacked women during a protest in front of the journalist's syndicate in downtown Cairo source:ABC News

Noha Ostath,young film-maker told the BBC she was repeatedly groped in broad daylight by a van driver in a Cairo traffic jam as she walked on the pavement.
His behaviour made her so angry she ran after the van and held on to the side mirror to force the driver to stop so she could take him to a police station.bbc news


Survey

While there are few credible statistics about rape and sexual harassment in Egypt, a study done by the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights in 2008 showed that 83 percent of all women surveyed had experienced some form of sexual harassment, including stalking by telephone, being followed in the streets and even groping. The survey covered only a small portion of the country and did not use rigorous scientific sampling.source:ABC News

According to the center, 98 percent of the foreign women and 83 percent of the Egyptian women surveyed said they had been sexually harassed in the country.

About half of the women, Egyptian and non-Egyptian, said they were harassed every day as they went about the streets. The survey polled 2,020 Egyptian men and women and 109 non-Egyptian women.source:washingtonpost


Two-thirds of the Egyptian men surveyed admitted to harassing women, in actions ranging from staring openly at their bodies, shouting explicit comments, touching the women or exposing themselves.source:washingtonpost

Among Egyptian women, 72 percent of those who described incidents of harassment said they were veiled at the time.source:washingtonpost

Film&video
Film "678": Fayza is wearing loose clothes and a veil that covers her hair as she boards an old bus numbered 678 and overflowing with people on an afternoon in the Egyptian capital Cairo.

Without a free seat in sight, she stands in the middle aisle along with dozens of other passengers.

Just as the bus begins to move, a stranger tries to grope her from behind. Fayza turns around and stabs him in the groin with a small blade. The man falls to the ground in pain. In the ensuing confusion, Fayza gets off the bus and walks out onto the chaotic street.

So begins the main plot in the star-studded movie Masr 678, the first Egyptian-produced feature film to directly deal with the problem of sexual harassment.Monsters and Critics

Egypt's most notorious case of harassment occurred in 2007, when two fully veiled Gulf Arab women were surrounded by dozens of men on a street and molested.

Bystanders filmed the episode and posted it on YouTube. It became an embarrassment to Egypt's government and a spark for the first public debate on sexual harassment in Egypt.source:washingtonpost

travel advisories

The United States and Britain both warn female visitors in travel advisories that they may face unwanted attention, or sexual attacks, in Egypt.source:washingtonpost

The U.S. State Department warned female travelers to Egypt that "Unescorted women are vulnerable to sexual harassment and verbal abuse. The Embassy has received increasing reports over the last several months of foreigners being sexually groped in taxis and in public places."source:ABC News

When Egyptian lawmakers objected to Britain's advisory , calling it a slur, Britain responded that more female British tourists were harassed and assaulted, even raped, while in Egypt than in any other country.source:washingtonpost