Peru leads the way against Colonel Gaddafi

Peru's President Alan Garcia

It looks like Peru’s President Alan García could teach the UN Security Council a thing or two. After a week of increasing bloodshed in Libya, as Colonel Gaddafi lives up to his promise of fighting demonstrators down to the last bullet, President García cut diplomatic ties with the country, while the UN Security Council still stands dumb. His was the first nation to do so.

García condemned Gaddafi’s violent tactics of ordering army units and trained militia to attack anti-government protesters and mourners. Earlier this week he said: “Peru expresses its most energetic protest at the repression carried out by the Libyan dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi against his people, who are demanding democratic reforms to change a government led by the same person for 40 years.”

From Carácas to London: the Venezuelan Brass Ensemble

Since making their debut at the BBC Proms in 2007, the Venezuelan Brass Ensemble has wowed audiences with their energy and passion. Theirs is one of the few classical concerts where the audience knows that whooping and cheering is not off the cards. The ensemble’s 60 members did not grow up with a burning desire to grace the world’s concert halls with their musical talent. Instead they were fortunate to become part of the Sistema, a programme which has used classical music to tackle Venezuela’s social problems for over 30 years. The Sistema has helped turn thousands of children away from drugs, alcohol and gang crime by offering them free instruments and tuition after school. Thirty professional orchestras have sprung up as part of the programme, one of them being the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra created by its musical director Gustavo Dudamel, himself a product of the Sistema. The Venezuelan Brass Ensemble hails from Dudamel’s widely acclaimed orchestra.

Hugo Chavez out in the cold for Venezuelan flood victims

After flooding in Venezuela has left thousands homeless, President Hugo Chávez has taken the opportunity to show off his Socialist fair thinking and house the homeless in his office while he sleeps, and works, in a tent outside.

There are 25 families living in the Miraflores palace in Caracas while Chávez governs the country from the Bedouin tent given to him by the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who he greatly admires. And now the pair have two things in common: their drafty accommodation and, certainly according to the USA, poor human rights records.