Venezuelan Socialists win state elections

Venezuela’s ruling Socialists won more than two-thirds of Sunday’s regional elections — prompting opposition claims of fraud.

With the result in Bolivar state too close to call, the United Socialist Party (PSUV) won 17 of 23 state governorships to the Democratic Unity Roundtable (Mud) coalition’s five.

Mud candidates won in the alliance’s Colombian border strongholds Zulia, Merida and Tachira, along with central Anzoátegui and the island state of Nueva Esparta.

President Nicolas Maduro asked the recently-elected constitutional reform assembly to order the National Electoral Council (CNE) to audit 100 per cent of the ballot papers — calling the opposition’s bluff.

“As we have absolute faith the the electoral transparency, I ask, as head of state, that the National Constituent Assembly order an audit of the entire electoral process from A to Z.”

Earlier Mr Maduro praised the conduct of the election, saying: "There has not been a single incident, electoral process in peace, perfect."

Mud campaign chief Gerardo Blyde alleged vote rigging before CNE president Tibisay Lucena even announced the results, threatening a return to “street actions.”

Four months of opposition regime-change riots from April to July left 124 people dead.

“At this moment we don’t recognise any of the results,” Mr Blyde said, vowing: “We’re going to fight and we invite the venezuelan people to change the electoral system that isn’t trustworthy.”

"We have already alerted the international community and we are alerting the country," he added.

Turnout was significantly higher than the 8 million for the July 31 Constituent Assembly election that the Mud boycotted.

The CNE said almost 11 million people vote — 61 per cent of the 18 million electorate — a vindication for the government after the summer violence.

Mr Maduro called it a "A triumphant victory for Chavismo" — the ideology of late President Hugo Chavez.

Bolivian President Evo Morales congratulated "Democracy has won over intervention and conspiracy. The people defend their sovereignty and dignity."

International election observers said the vote was free and fair.

Council of Electoral Experts of Latin America (Ceela) Ecuadorean representative Alfredo Arevalo called it: "One of the best electoral processes, audited many times by all parties and political actors."

The mystery of the Guanches

The origins and language of the indigenous people of the Canary Islands remain a mystery, writes Dr Sabina Goralski Filonov Translation by James Tweedie The guanches, the aboriginals of the Canary Islands whose origin, lost in the mists of time, still arouses intense and passionate debate and great controversy about their origins and the how the seven Canary Islands were populated – which according to some studies occurred between 10,000 and 8,000 years BC. Literally, the word ‘Guan’ means man or person and ‘Chenech’ or ‘Chinet’ is applied to the island of Tenerife, thus meaning a man or inhabitant of Tenerife – although according to Núñez de la Peña, the Spanish named them the Guanchos during the conquest of the islands. But with the passage of time, experts in the subject are questioning whether the word Guanche was used to designate the primitive inhabitants of all the islands in the pre-Hispanic period. The term ‘Guanche’ has also ceased to be applied to the di...

Homeless dogs’ home fights for compensation

Dingo Dogs owner Phil Nelson at his since-demolished home. DOGS’ home owner Phil Nelson has vowed to take legal action following his eviction from his Dingo Dogs animal sanctuary in August. by James Tweedie Indian-born Mr Nelson, along with former girlfriend and Dingo Dogs treasurer Leigh Crouch were left homeless by the court-ordered eviction and have been sharing a small hut in the mountains near Las Chafiras with ten dogs and three cats ever since. Mr Nelson’s dispute with his former landlord began in September 2004, after he officially registered his rented hillside finca as an animal sanctuary. It was a requirement of his registration that he keep proper financial records, including receipts for payment of rent. Mr Nelson says that despite having a rental contract and paying his rent “as regular as clockwork” for years, his landlord never gave him a receipt even after he began asking for one every month in 2004. In May 2005, after his landlord ha...

No 'day in court' for Zuma as supporters take Durban

The trial of South Africa's ex-president Jacob Zuma was postponed for two months on Friday pending his legal challenge to the resurrection of decade-old corruption charges. Outside the Durban High Court, thousands of Mr Zuma's supporters from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and other organisations brought the Indian Ocean port city to a standstill. Zuma supporters rally around a stage set up outside the Durban High Court The ANC Women's League, Youth League and Umkhonto we Sizwe Veterans' Association were present, along with the Black land First Campaign, National Interfaith Council of South Africa, the Commission for Religious Affairs. Revellers wore ANC t-shirts and other merchandise in defiance of warnings by Police Minister Bheki Cele Former minister Des van Rooyen and Eastern Cape ANC leader Andile Lungisa accompanied Mr Zuma to the doors of the court. Inside he sat smiling a few feet apart from Christine Guerrier, a representative of Fre...

Sun-crossed haters endanger 220,000 lives

My stepmother Shanthie Naidoo and her sister Ramnie were on an overnight flight from Johannesburg to Heathrow for a speaking tour when Extinction Rebellion offshoot Heathrow Pause began wilfully endangering aircraft by flying drones over the airport this morning. Shanthie is an ANC struggle veteran who lived in exile in London from 1973 to 1993, apart from some time in the exile community in Mazimbu, Tanzania. She and all her immediate family were jailed by the Apartheid government for political reasons. Shanthie's late brother Indres did 10 years on Robben Island and later wrote the book 'Island in Chains'. Their grandfather Thembi Naidoo worked alongside Mohandas K Gandhi during the civil disobedience campaigns against the early form of Apartheid. Extinction Rebellion has chosen for its logo a variation on the 'sonnenkreuz', a symbol used by both proto-fascist neo-pagan organisations and modern neo-Nazis. Around 220,000 passengers fly in and out of Heathr...

The Labour-Snatchers

WHAT do you call an event that would see a country lose a third of its population? A catastrophe? An apocalypse? In Europe they call it “Union.” According to the Vienna-based International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the “free movement of labour” between European Union member states will see that fraction of some countries' populations emigrate in the next 40 years. A recent IIASA study, reported on Friday by the EU Observer website, says Romania and Croatia's populations will fall by 30 percent by 2060, and Lithuania's by 38 percent. By contrast, eight years of the West's proxy war on Syria, when much of the country was overrun by terrorists who behead followers of other religious sects, has seen between 12 and 23 percent of the population flee the country. The 1983-85 Ethiopian famine killed about 1.2 million people and drove another 400,000 out of the country, about five per cent of the population at the time. Another 41 years of EU...

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