A US-based think tank has awarded a US$500,000 prize to the leader of a student protest movement that has posed a potent challenge to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
University student Yon Goicoechea became a household name in Venezuela last year after he led protests that were widely seen as a key factor in the defeat of sweeping constitutional changes proposed by Chavez.
The Washington-based Cato Institute was to announce the 23-year-old as winner of the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty yesterday.
“I see it as a collective prize. The prize is being given to me, but it’s being given to me as a representative of something much bigger,” Goicoechea said in an interview.
“It’s an acknowledgment of the work that has been done in promoting freedom,” he said.
Goicoechea took a central role last year in rallying students to oppose what he sees as threats to personal liberties and democracy in Venezuela. The constitutional changes rejected by voters in December would have let Chavez run for re-election indefinitely and would have granted him broad powers to reshape the economy and society in a socialist mold.
The libertarian think tank said Goicoechea was chosen for his leadership in advocating for democratic values.
“He managed to effectively give voice to millions of Venezuelans who believed in democracy, tolerance and modernity, and who felt that they were being left out of politics,” said Ian Vasquez, director of the institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity.
Goicoechea, a law student who will soon graduate from Andres Bello Catholic University in Caracas, said he planned to use the prize money to support Venezuela’s student parliament, donate to his university and former school and support a foundation he is helping to set up that will offer training to young leaders who want to play a role in politics.
He and others working to establish the foundation have traveled to other countries, including Bolivia and Argentina, in recent months, meeting with student groups there.
The foundation aims to eventually draw young people from across Latin America to take part in leadership training, Goicoechea said.
Asked his views on the state of democracy in Venezuela, Goicoechea said he was concerned about the concentration of power under Chavez and an absence of checks and balances.
“It’s growing dangerously close to a totalitarian regime,” he said.
There was no immediate reaction from the government. Chavez denies that personal freedoms are being restricted by his government and says student leaders are being manipulated by the US.
Goicoechea, who says he regularly receives threats by phone and e-mail due to his activism, said he wasn’t particularly concerned what the government might say about the award from a US-based organization.
“The government already says we’re financed by the CIA. It already says we’re paid by the empire. So if they say it one more time, it really isn’t that important,” he said.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
RSS