Chavez Castro

Caracas Marches

6th June 2004 Tony Phillips 1

Updated (postscript below: 2004/6/28) The results came back from the voting commission and the independent observers Thursday as promised. Over 2,500,000 signatures were shown to be valid. That number is sufficient to launch the recall referendum, a vote planned for […]

Chavez and the Sheikhs

Tense Week in Caracas

2nd June 2004 Tony Phillips 0

It is Wednesday and all is quiet on the Western front; the Eastern front is quite another matter. Caracas, the divided city, is in a state of suspended animation; the silence eerie, the tension tangible. The black market still functions […]

Car Panama Canal

Trouble in Panama

27th May 2004 Tony Phillips 0

Yesterday I drove from Panama City to Colon, crossing this narrow country in an hour and ten minutes driving parallel to the Panama Canal. My vehicle was never to return, I had my problems getting back too. All shiny and […]

Car Shopping in Costa Rica

11th May 2004 Tony Phillips 0

So I’m stopping by to pick up my clean clothes from the launderette called Lava Splash in Barrio Los Yoses in San Jose, Costa Rica and what do I spot on the corner of the street but a new car […]

Secretary General

21st. Century Resource Wars

9th May 2004 Tony Phillips 0

“What’s happening in South America these days?” Not something you ask yourself too often? Don’t worry you are not alone! For its size and economic clout South America remains largely ignored by most of the ‘West’ outside of Spain and […]

Cocaine economics 101

Cocaine Economics

5th May 2004 Tony Phillips 0

Product OverviewProduction costs are minimal. Low-paid farmers grow a common plant on inexpensive land. After harvesting, an extract is removed by a simple laboratory technique in much the same way instant coffee is produced from the coffee plant. The result […]

Omoa Honduras

Honduras; Omoa to La Ceiba

1st March 2004 Tony Phillips 0

We began our trip that day in the quaint little resort town of Omoa on the coast about 10 miles WSW from Puerto Cortes. Omoa is a backpacker destination which usually means cheap places to stay. For six of seven […]

Eastern Guatemala

Travels in Eastern Guatemala

18th February 2004 Tony Phillips 0

Things started to move quickly after Ixil. I was traveling alone but sharing gas with various people on the way. The transport industry in Guatemala makes sense given the price of transportation and the needs of the people. A gallon […]

Rios Montt

Guatemala on the cusp

15th February 2004 Tony Phillips 0

The Guatemalan army is a force to be reckoned with, or, if you are smart, to be given a wide berth. It has fought a 36-year war of counter-insurgency preserving the US-backed right wing Republican Front of Guatemala (FRG) against […]

Chajul, Ixil, Guatemala

Burying the Dead, Ixil Guatemala

10th February 2004 Tony Phillips 0

Chajul is a remote indigenous town in the Ixil triangle, about 150Km. north of Antigua in Guatemala. Ixil is an area of east-west valleys surrounded by higher mountain peaks. It is home to the Ixil people, a group of related […]