SITUATION UPDATE

GOVERNMENT TROOPS STORM PROTESTORS

BANGKOK (various sources): The stand-off between anti-government protesters and Thai troops is escalating in Bangkok, as the government launched an aggressive push to clear 3,000 demonstrators from their fortified camp in the center of the city. “This is D-Day,” one soldier said. Troops are using armored vehicles to break through the protesters’ barricades, made of tires and bamboo, and firing tear gas ahead. The Red Shirts, as the protestors are known, have been enclosed in the encampment since Thursday, and have no plans to back down. "We're asking everybody to be ready for a crackdown," one protest leader said. They have been rallying against Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who they say came to power illegitimately in 2008, since mid-March. The riots have so far claimed 68 lives and injured more than 1,700.






Rioting and fires swept Bangkok on Wednesday after troops stormed a protest encampment, forcing protest leaders to surrender, but sparking clashes that killed at least four people and triggered unrest in northern Thailand.

At least five people, including an Italian journalist, were killed Wednesday during an army crackdown on an anti-government protest site in Bangkok, police and a hospital said. "An Italian man was shot and died before arriving at the hospital," said Police Hospital director Jongjet Aoajenpong. "He's a journalist. He was shot in the stomach," he added. Meanwhile elite troops deployed in the protest-hit capital have been authorized to shoot on sight people looting, committing arson or inciting unrest, a police spokesman has said.

NOTHING GOOD WILL COME OF THIS

Nice clenched-fist salute there, Seňor Presidente-for-Life - you remind me of someone: MUSSOLINI







Hugo Chavez will visit Iran in the first week of September.

According to Venezuelan ambassador to Iran David Velasquez, Chavez's September tour is in line with unity and commitment to world peace. Chavez will also tour Syria, Libya, Iran and Russia to discuss Iran-Venezuela projects and the adverse military situation in Latin America "created by the US".

"Chavez does not want nefarious forces to rule a society, whereas today West with its imperialist forces and Washington is a threat to the world."

In the meantime Hugo Chavez has gone on the record stating he'd welcome Russian troops in Venezuela "because the North American empire has plans to invade Venezuela, to disarm Venezuela."

You can judge a man's character by the people he hangs out with; birds of a feather flock together:

The strategic alliance between Chavez and Fidel Castro, initiated in December 1994 when Chavez visited Havana for the first time and formally constituted in 2000, Chavez’s second year as president of Venezuela, facilitated the entry of the People’s Republic of China, Iran, and more recently Russia into Latin America.

North Korea, aka the hermit kingdom, also has expanded its presence in Latin America quietly through a strategic alliance with the Chavez regime which has been deepening since Pyongyang established an embassy in Caracas in 2006.

During the decade Chavez has been in power, non-state actors like the FARC and ELN of Colombia, European militant groups like the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and ETA (the Basque seperatist movement), and Islamic militant groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, among others, also have established a presence in Venezuela.

IRA and ETA, which also have longtime links with the Cuban regime in Havana, travel in/out of Venezuela via Cuba. Islamic militants – like Hezbollah, Hamas, etc. – use commercial air routes between Caracas, Tehran and Damascus.

Some local independent intelligence analysts also believe that radical Islamic activists loosely associated with militant groups possibly tied to al Qaeda have established a presence in Venezuelan territory over the past six or seven years.

International ethnic organized crime groups also known to be operating in Venezuelan include several Chinese triads, Russian mafiya, Neapolitan ‘camorristas,’ and Spanish, Brazilian, Mexican and several West African crime groups. Their core “business” in Venezuela is narcotics smuggling, the illegal arms trade, and money laundering.

Presidente Chavez routinely reaffirms that the United States is the greatest enemy of Venezuela, and the greatest evil in the world. He is on record, literally hundreds of times in the past decade, as saying that he wants to destroy the US Empire, destroy US capitalism, bring the US to its knees, etc.

Sounds like a nice enough guy, the kind of guy I'd like to kick back and have a beer with sometime. NOT.