There are 16 people named 'Obama' running for city hall in Brazil this year

Also, five Batmans. The NY Times reports that Brazil's 'superhero' politicians are coming out from the shadows to contest seats in the upcoming municipal elections across the country. Now if we could just get them to square off in the same race we could settle the debate on who's the greatest superhero once and for all.

AMLO & Televisa

From The Guardian's investigative report about Televisa's concerted effort to take down Lopez-Obrador's 2006 campaign and boost Pena-Nieto and the PRI to victory in 2012:

"One of the documents is a PowerPoint presentation which explicitly states its aim of making sure "López Obrador does not win the 2006 elections". That bitterly contested election saw the leftwing candidate lose a commanding lead and ended with him claiming he had been cheated.

It was apparently created just after midnight on 4 April 2005, hours before President Fox was reported to have met the heads of Televisa and TV Azteca.

Fox was facing growing criticism for an attempt to get Lopez Obrador, then mayor of Mexico City, impeached over a minor planning dispute. The document outlines short-term measures for controlling the backlash, a period of national mourning for the recently-deceased Pope John Paul II to distract attention from the growing row. The next day Fox declared a day of mourning for the pontiff.

Longer-term strategies proposed to "dismantle the public perception that Lopez Obrador is a martyr/saviour," by boosting news coverage of crime in the capital and revisiting old corruption cases involving his former allies. The plan also envisaged "promoting personal stories of crimes suffered [in the capital] by showbiz celebrities" and "urging the inhabitants of the Big Brother house" to do the same. Some Televisa celebrities did just that, both on showbiz programmes and in the Mexican version of Celebrity Big Brother broadcast that May.

The document also advises that scriptwriters of a popular political weekly satire show called El Privilegio de Mandar should make the character who represented López Obrador appear "clumsy" and "inept." The final episode of the show, broadcast immediately after the 2006 elections – when the result of a recount was still pending – ended with a non-humorous speech by an actor calling on López Obrador to accept defeat."

"The Walton Way?" How Wal-Mart became Mexico's largest retailer

Investigative journalism at its very best, making the complex and attenuated coherent. As a side-note, I always wondered how Wal-Mart was able to plant its flag so close to Teotihuacan. I think we can now assume that some part of the alleged $24 million in bribes played a part.

Dinged for "Stirring Public Anxiety"

The last of Venezuela's networks critical of Hugo Chavez's government has been fined over $2 million USD for their reporting on the Rodeo II prison riots. Globovision was sanctioned under articulo numero 27 de la Ley de Responsibilidad Social de Radio y Television for, among other things, "failing to transmit the government's point of view in a timely manner."

The June standoff between the military and prisoners, which led to the deaths of 22 people, was a massive crisis for the Venezuelan government and an international black eye which focused attention on the hellish conditions of the country's prisons. The government did not officially comment on the riots until the six days had passed and have disputed independent reports about the number killed, among other key facts.

The principal government response in the aftermath of the riots was to appoint a new prisons chief, an observably unstable legislator and close confidante of Chavez, who promptly ordered wardens to suspend all prisoner intake. Why didn't the last guy think of that?

Globovision, which has a long history of doing battle with the Chavista government, says that the fine, which must be payed prior to any appeals, equals 7.5% of the network's 2010 gross income and puts existence on very thin ice.

Prison Reform al estilo Chavez

Last week Presidente Hugo Chavez appointed Iris Varela, a PSUV diputado known as La Comandante Fosforito (Commander Firecracker), to be his new prisons minister. This follows the month-long stand-off between Venezuelan security forces and inmates at the wretched El Rodeo I and II prisons. Reports from independent media and watchdog groups claim that between 30-60 prisoners and guards were killed in the unrest. For its part, the Chavez government countered through its interior minister that, "Fortunately, the massacres they talked about in headlines occurred only in the minds of these people who look down on the masses and hate the inmates." So utterly constructive Señor Ministro.

The Miami Herald reported back in July about Venezuela's prison system:

"The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has issued “provisional measures” against seven of Venezuela’s 33 prisons, including Rodeo II, citing the government for dangerous overcrowding and failing to set up controls to keep weapons and drugs out. A penal system designed for 14,000 inmates is crammed with almost 50,000. About 80 percent are awaiting trial.

Venezuela has one of the highest murder rates in the hemisphere. But being in jail is particularly deadly. In 2010 there were 466 prison murders and almost 1,000 assaults, according to the IACHR. And more than 4,500 inmates have been killed in the last decade. By comparison, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons reported 15 homicides in 2010 — that in a prisoner population four-times larger than Venezuela’s."

Varela announced today that she plans to release up 40% of Venezuela's inmates, over 20,00 of them. Fine. Overcrowding is an obvious problem and has contributed to an institution rife with human rights violations and deadly violence. But like everything else in Chavez' Venezuela, this will be accomplished through the prerogative of the claudillo and that of his circle of appointed compadres. The rough and tumble Varela threatened, "Si un juez me pone una traba, le digo a la presidenta del TSJ que lo saque del cargo," (if a judge gets in my way, I'll tell the president of the Supreme Court to strip them of their office).

What a wonderful endorsement of the rule of law and the balance of powers.

And why isn't Varela the one in prison herself? She has a record of bloodying up opposition diputados and intimidating journalists. Witness her inexcusable harassment of the journalist and politician Gustavo Azócar, a former prisoner of conscience from the state of Tachira and a man still under threat from the capricious justice system of Venezuela.

The Most Interesting Man in the World?

One of the bright spots in the coverage of the Chilean terremoto has been the work of TVN periodista, Santiago Pavlovic Urrionabarrenechea. If not "the most interesting man in the world", then certainly his brother in arms. As a war correspondent with an eye patch, he may in fact be his superior.

For your viewing pleasure, I present to you some of the reporting, more like commentary (and who wouldn't want this man's opinion?), of Don Santiago de la Cordillera de los Andes. The text reads, "the rage held by a reporter of a thousand battles".

"His organ donor card also lists his beard"