The Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chavez “is moving forcefully to silence critics by introducing a Media Crimes bill that would give it sweeping authority to jail journalists, media executives, and bloggers who report on anything that the government considers to be harmful to state interests,” said a new assessment (pdf) by the Intelligence Community’s Open Source Center (OSC).
The Chavez government “is simultaneously moving to shut down more than 200 radio stations,” the OSC report said, and may take over the opposition news station Globovision. “Silencing his critics would allow Chavez to completely control the media message, but it would also deprive him of his long-standing scapegoat of what he describes as the oligarchic media,” the OSC said.
Like most other OSC analyses, the latest report has not been approved for public release, but a copy was obtained by Secrecy News. See “Venezuela — Chavez Moves to Silence Opposition Media,” Open Source Center, August 3, 2009.
Satellite imagery of RAF Lakenheath reveals new construction of a security perimeter around ten protective aircraft shelters in the designated nuclear area, the latest measure in a series of upgrades as the base prepares for the ability to store U.S. nuclear weapons.
It will take consistent leadership and action to navigate the complex dangers in the region and to avoid what many analysts considered to be an increasingly possible outcome, a nuclear conflict in East Asia.
Getting into a shutdown is the easy part, getting out is much harder. Both sides will be looking to pin responsibility on each other, and the court of public opinion will have a major role to play as to who has the most leverage for getting us out.
How the United States responds to China’s nuclear buildup will shape the global nuclear balance for the rest of the century.