Lino Oviedo, 69, famed for his role in the overthrow of dictator Alfredo Stroessner, found dead in wreckage Paraguayan presidential candidate Lino Oviedo, one of the leaders of the 1989 coup that overthrew dictator Alfredo Stroessner, died in a helicopter crash over the weekend. A retired general known as a dynamic public speaker, the 69-year-old Oviedo was planning to stand in the presidential election...
Overseas Development Institute says knock-on effect of sovereign debt crisis will hit trade, aid and investment The world's poorest countries will receive a $238bn (£152bn) hit from Europe's sovereign debt crisis as the knock-on effects from weak growth and austerity in the single currency zone affect trade, aid, investment and remittances, one of the UK's development institutes said. A study...
This hasty, trumped-up impeachment of President Lugo amounts to a coup d'etat. The US must back democratic process A coup d'etat is taking place right now, Friday afternoon, in Paraguay. That is how it has been described by a number of neighboring governments. And the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) is treating it as such, taking it very seriously. All 12 foreign ministers (including those...
Venezuelan foreign minister denounces senate vote in impeachment trial as 'new type of coup' Paraguay's senate removed president Fernando Lugo from office in a rapid impeachment trial on Friday, and the leftist former priest said he was stepping aside even though he considered his ouster a blow to democracy. Vice president Federico Franco was promptly sworn in as president after tense hours during...
Lugo urges followers to remain peaceful but suggests local and international outcry could lead to his reinstatement The ousted president of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, has denounced his removal from office as a "parliamentary coup" that was not based on proper evidence. Lugo, who was impeached on Friday by a Congress which accused him of failing to maintain social harmony, said his opponents...
s difficult for conservative candidates to move forward because inequality is such an entrenched issue," said Ana Quintana, a Latin America expert at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. "And it's hard to implement free-market, institutional reforms when you need to make sure a significant portion of the population can get enough to eat." Latin America's right could once identify itself as pro-business...
s questions (Cameron's crack at Labour's liaisons, 21 November), Michael White refers to the question I asked the prime minister and opines that I "had read somewhere that UK business investment lagged behind Mali and Paraguay. If you can believe that, you can believe anything. Meacher does. Cameron's contempt was understandable". The source I had quoted was the Economist. On 6 July it ran an article...
s cancelled visit, over NSA spying, ought to jolt the US out of its arrogant disrespect for Latin America Tuesday's cancellation of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's state visit to the White House, scheduled for next month, came as little surprise. Documents leaked by Edward Snowden, and reported by Glenn Greenwald and TV Globo, had caused an uproar in Brazil. According to the documents and reports,...
s one and only landfill orchestra. The Cateura Orchestra of Recycled Instruments is made up of 30 schoolchildren – the sons and daughters of recyclers – whose instruments are forged from the city's rubbish. And while its members learned to play amid the flies and stench of Cateura, they are now receiving worldwide acclaim, culminating earlier this month with a concert in Amsterdam that included Pachelbel's...
Favio Chávez combined his passion for music and his work as a technician to help children turn discarded items into musical instruments ...
s campaign headquarters on Sunday night, waving flags, blaring music from cars and letting off fireworks. Cartes made a brief victory speech in which he called for unity. "I won't work alone," he told the crowd. "We have to work together to move Paraguay forward." "I'm so happy we're back in power," said Norma Silva, 48, a member of the party celebrating on the back of a pick-up truck with her family....
s tarnished reputation Even by the historically dire standards of corruption in Latin America, the two frontrunners in this weekend's presidential election in Paraguay may well represent a new low. In the far right is the favourite, Horacio Cartes, a homophobe who has been jailed after accusations of currency fraud, investigated for alleged tax evasion and widely accused of drug trafficking. His main...
More than 200 parrots rescued from animal traffickers just before Christmas are being looked after at a national park in Paraguay ...
s downfall Gunmen murdered one of the last surviving leaders of a peasant movement in Paraguay whose land dispute with a politician prompted the end of Fernando Lugo's presidency in June. Vidal Vega, 48, was hit four times by bullets from a 12-gauge shotgun and a .38-caliber revolver fired by two unidentified men who sped away on a motorcycle, according to an official report. A friend, Mario Espinola,...
The first 500 people in line get the best seats to see the US singer in concert at Jockey Club Del Paraguay in Asunción ...
s membership on Friday for having impeached and ousted its president, but will not apply economic sanctions to the poor, landlocked country. The South American bloc also announced that Venezuela will become its fifth full member from 31 July. Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo was impeached by the country's congress a week ago in a fast-track trial triggered by a land eviction that killed 17 people...
m next," said President Rafael Correa of Ecuador, after the Honduran coup. This turned out to be correct: in September of 2010, a rebellion by police held Correa hostage in a hospital until he was freed, after a prolonged shootout between the police and loyal troops of the armed forces. It was another attempted coup against a social-democratic president in Latin America. Last week, Cristina Fernández'...
s stance on land reform. In Paraguay, 2% of the population control more than 75% of the fertile land, while small-scale farmers – about 40% of the population – own a mere 5%. One-third of the rural population is landless . Despite attempts to shift away from an agricultural and natural resource-based economy, the land remains the key to wealth and power in Paraguay, just as it has for hundreds of years....
s democracy and, although accepting he is now out of office, has termed it an "express coup d'etat". President Lugo was given just 24 hours to prepare a defence against an impeachment instituted by a temporary rightwing majority in parliament, using procedures the Lugo government has previously declared illegal and unconstitutional. There have been reports of human rights abuses from the new regime....