For the umpteenth time, speculation is running rampant about Fidel Castro's health. El Comandante has reportedly suffered a major cerebral hemorrhage and embolic stroke according to Dr. José Marquina, a Venezuelan doctor who told El Nuevo Herald that he has access to "firsthand sources and information."

Castro's public absence since March had given rise to a new round of death rumors that were "quelled" just yesterday when a letter was released congratulating recent medical graduates on the 50 year anniversary of the Havana Medical School.

So basically, Castro "responded" to ill-health humors by writing a letter for a known upcoming historic occasion, while concurrently also having a stroke so severe that he is approaching a neurovegetative state and has been left unable to recognize faces. Word on the street is that Castro is dying in his Havana home where Hugo Chavez visited him on Tuesday to inquire about his health.

As expected, there's been no announcement or verification from the Cuban government. 

Via Tyler Cowen's excellent new food-only Twitter feed, an AP story of economic scarcity, climate change, conflict, and the favorite superfood of American yuppies: 

Bolivian authorities say at least 30 people have been injured in a fight between two communities over land for growing quinoa, the Andean "supergrain" whose popularity with worldwide foodies has caused its price to soar.

Oruro state police chief Ramon Sepulveda says combatants used rocks and dynamite against each other Wednesday and Thursday. A government commission was dispatched to the two high plains communities south of La Paz.

Farmland in the region is owned not by individuals but communities.

Authorities say the dispute is related to climate change because quinoa can now be cultivated in areas previously subject to frequents frosts. Bolivia produces 46 percent of the world's quinoa, which has nearly tripled in price in the past five years.

For the "How Food Explains the World" package for the last May/June issue, I looked at how quinoa's international popularity has effected eating habits in Bolivia. Prices have skyrocketed thanks to export demand and domestic consumption of the nutritious grain has fallen by more than a third, prompting fears of an obesity epidemic as Bolivians switch to rice and white bread. President Evo Morales' government subsidizes quinoa as a "strategic foodstuff."

Earlier this year we ran a piece by Julia Ioffe on some of the eccentrics and entertainers elected to Russia's Duma under the front-page headline "Send in the Clowns." Now I feel like we may have used that one too early:

The exam was held on Thursday and apparently Tiririca both "read and wrote" during it, though it's not yet clear if he was proficient enough to hold office. 

Just for the record, in Brazil, people like Tiririca and "Chico bin Laden" are allowed to run for office, but professional comedians aren't allowed to make fun of them. This makes a lot of sense.

Russia may have recently scrapped a missile defense deal with Iran -- but the Russians are now seemingly helping out another aspiring nuclear power/purpoted "axis of evil" stand-in: Venezuela.  

According to news reports,

Russia agreed ... to help build Venezuela's first nuclear power plant, sell it tanks and buy $1.6 billion of oil assets, reinforcing ties with President Hugo Chavez who shares Russian opposition to US global dominance.

The announcement comes at the end of a two-day visit to Moscow by Chavez; if Venezuela keeps this up, they may be able to take Iraq's beloved lost spot on the roster and become the media darling commentators have been longing to find.

While the agreement between the two powers is preliminary, the move is aimed at concerns over Venezuela's heavy dependence on oil. The Guardian reports, "Venezuela's economy is 94 or even 95% made up of oil... They [the Venezuelans] want to widen their sources of energy so they are less dependent on it."

In remarks that can only be interpreted as congratulatory, State Department Spokesman Philip Crowley stated, "This is something that we will watch... very, very closely."

First of all, whatever you think of his politics, give Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa -- who was assaulted and briefly held hostage by his own police officers yesterday in what he describes as an attempted coup d'etat -- some credit for cojones:

Mr. Correa had gone to the barracks to address the police complaints in person. A shouting match ensued, and at one point, he loosened his tie and opened his shirt as if to show that he was not wearing a bulletproof vest. “If you want to kill the president, here he is,” he said. “Kill him, if you want to. Kill him if you are brave enough.”

They didn't.

One day later, Correa seems to be reasserting control. The police chief has resigned and Correa plans to overhaul the force. While order seems to be returning for now, some observers are interpreting yesterday's events -- coming on the heels of last year's coup in Honduras -- as a sign that democracy is increasingly under threat in Latin America and that the region may be at risk of returning to the bad old days where coups and armed insurrection were a regular feature of politics.

Ecuador certainly doesn't have the best track record in this respect -- the country went through eight presidents in the decade before Correa took power, three of them driven from power by street protests -- but it would still be a mistake to read too much into the latest instability. 

First of all, it's not quite clear yet if yesterday's events really did constitute a coup d'etat. Correa has blamed the opposition Patriotic Society Party for fomenting the unrest, but no political groups have taken credit for what was -- on the surface at least -- an out-of-control wage strike by the police force. 

Secondly, if it was a coup, it was a remarkably ineffective one. The military leadership stood behind Correa, ultimately rescuing him from the police, and the country's top military officer went on the radio to say, "“We are a state of law... We are subordinated to the maximum authority, which is the president of the republic.”  

The left-wing Correa is a controversial leader internationally, but yesterday he received the unanimous support of foreign leaders, from Venezuela's Hugo Chavez to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 

Some may not like the fact that the U.S.  government is pledging "full support" for a leader of unabashedly advocates "socialist revolution" and directly opposes U.S. military interests. But the fact that coup-plotters can no longer count on superpower backing for knocking over unpopular governments is a big reason wh coups happen a lot less often than they used to and why and are more likely to result in a quick return to democracy -- as in Honduras -- when they do happen. (In any case, the ideological categories are a bit jumbled on this one since it was a backlash against a socialist leader for cutting benefits to state workers -- perhaps another sign of the times.)

This Sunday, Brazilians will go to the polls to elect a new president. Just 25 years after the end of military dictatorship, that country's democracy today seems unassailably robust and despite the country's many problems, its citizens are remarkably optimistic about the future. If this weekend's events in Brazil are a hopeful sign of Latin America's future, yesterday's violence in Ecuador is a ghost of a darker past, but not a reason to think that the bad old days are coming back. 

Looking for some summer reading? FP's got you covered. In coming weeks, we'll feature reading lists from some of the top thinkers and experts on the topics they have made their own. Today's list -- a collection of the best English books about Latin America -- comes from Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington: 

Mario Vargas Llosa, The Feast of the Goat

It's not surprising Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa's take on a dictator novel, a popular Latin American genre, is superb. Blending fiction and history, Vargas Llosa offers shrewd insights into how Rafael Trujillo, or El Jefe -- the boss, was able to extend his rule of the Dominican Republic for three decades. The novel was published in 2000, a decade after Vargas Llosa himself lost as a candidate to Alberto Fujmori in Peru's presidential elections. 

Sally Bowen, The Fujimori File: Peru and its President, 1990-2000

Fujimori's election as Peru's president in 1990 was the most stunning political upset in recent Latin American history.  Through meticulous research, Bowen, a British journalist who worked for the Financial Times, draws a vivid portrait of the "man who came from nowhere," as she put it.  Bowen later wrote a fine biography of Fujimori's right-hand man,  The Imperfect Spy: The Many Lives of Vladimiro Montesinos.

"The Fall of Fujimori" (Documentary Film, Directed by Ellen Perry)

After watching this documentary, it is not hard to understand why Alberto Fujimori enjoyed high approval levels during most of his decade-long presidency and why his daughter Keiko, a congresswoman, is a serious contender for next April's presidential elections.  This prospect is striking in light of her father's regime -- one marked by human rights abuses and spectacular corruption for which Fujimori is now serving a 25-year prison sentence.

Gabriel Garcia Márquez, "The Two Faces of Hugo Chávez" (essay)

Garcia Márquez's short essay, written after a flight from Havana to Caracas accompanied by Hugo Chávez at the start of the Venezuelan president's rule in February 1999, contains some of the most perceptive observations about Chávez ever written. The concluding lines are remarkably prescient:  "I was struck by the impression that I had traveled and talked delightfully with two opposite men -- one who good luck had given the opportunity to save his nation. And the other, an illusionist, who could go down in history as just another despot."

Cristian Marcano and Alberto Barrera Tyszka, Hugo Chávez: The Definitive Biography of Venezuela's Controversial President

There have already been many Chávez biographies and there are doubtless many more to come, but unfortunately most tend to be either hagiographies or hatchet jobs. This one, by contrast, is a judicious and measured treatment of Chávez by two young Venezuelan journalists who did extensive research and succeed in shedding light on his complex personality and what drives him. It nicely shows how particular events shaped Chávez, and it depicts how he, in turn, is shaping his country's and the region's history.

Tad Szulc, Fidel: A Critical Portrait

No Latin American leader has drawn as much attention as Fidel Castro.  There have been many biographies, some of them quite good, but this one by longtime Latin American journalist Tad Szulc particularly stands out. Szulc, who covered the Cuban Revolution for the New York Times, had extraordinary access to Castro and to Cuban government archives. Though the book is a bit dated (it was written in 1985), it contains incomparably rich material and captures the many contradictions of this larger-than-life figure who remains the subject of endless fascination.    

Heraldo Muñoz, The Dictator's Shadow: Life Under Augusto Pinochet

Chilean intellectual and diplomat Herald Munoz has written what he calls a "political memoir" on the 17-year dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. After two decades of a center-left coalition in power and the recent shift to a conservative government in Chile, Pinochet's legacy is still hotly debated. Munoz does not pretend to be unbiased, but he makes a cogent argument that Pinochet's repression was terribly costly and that the foundation for the country's recent economic success could only have been achieved in a democracy.  

Two words sum up Argentina's national stance towards the atrocities committed under the 1976-1984 military dictatorship: "Nunca más" -- never again. But while the junta remains firmly in the past, the effects of its clandestine crimes remain potent in the present. The national outcry, the investigations conducted by the Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared, and even the tireless marching and protesting by mothers of "desaparecidos" on Mayo Square have failed to yield information on what happened to the estimated 30,000 victims of state-sponsored abuse.

But last month, after being hidden beneath floorboards for 34 years, a secret list emerged to give some Argentinians what they thought they might never get: answers.

Throughout its rule, the military junta enforced a meticulous policy of destroying all their documents. But apparently it wasn't meticulous enough: one accused subversive named Juan Clemente escaped from his detention center with 259 pages of the military government's records. Clemente feared divulging the papers would cost him his life, and so kept them hidden underneath his house for over three decades; but a new safeguard from the witness protection program and a sense of urgency elicited from the imminent verdict of the Tucuman trial has motivated him to bring them forward.

Certainly with the lack of available evidence, the incriminating notes -- easily attributed to junta operatives by the flagrant signatures on each page -- will bolster the case against the four Dirty War perpetrators on trial. The new evidence could even be to thank for a more just verdict come July 8.

But perhaps the list has delivered an even greater form of justice: some reprieve for those left oblivious as to the fates of their abducted loved ones. Families of the Dirty War's "desaparecidos" have flooded into the courts to examine the papers -- even the sadistic notes on intelligence operations, torture sessions, and the victims' decrepit physical states.

The families were also able to access the pages in which the junta took stock of their victims, recording their names in the left columns and the outcome of their detentions in the right. For some of those reading, two letters beside their loved one's name -- DF, or "disposition final" -- may bring both heartbreaking finality and bittersweet relief.

A batch of 50-peso coins, each worth about a dime, have returned to cause a headache for the Chilean mint. The coins spell the country's name C-H-I-I-E -- a typo that has recently cost the the general manager of the mint his job. The most remarkable aspect of this story, perhaps, is that the coins were released in 2008 -- but the spelling mistake was not noticed until late last year.

New reports of 11,000 people killed by Brazilian police over the past six years are perhaps one indication that violence in the super-star Amazon country has gotten a wee bit out of hand.

Never fear, there is a long term solution already under consideration: prohibit "offensive" video games, with the option to punish their distribution with jailtime. In all honesty, Brazilian Senator Valdir Raupp probably did not have human rights violations in mind when he proposed the bill, which was recently approved by Senate's Education Committee. It follows on the ban last year on violent computer role-playing games "Counter-Strike" and "EverQuest," and Venezuela and China's bans on warlike and mobster-glorifying games respectively.

CNET's Dave Rosenberg has lambasted Brazil's move, suggesting they deal with "larger social issues, including lack of parental oversight," instead. They praise the US system of industry self-regulation, which relies on ratings to isolate children from violent games.

The Brazilian law is probably overkill, but lets not get all starry eyed about the glories of free-market entertainment violence. Did nobody notice a few years back when U.S. generals begged Hollywood producers to stop showing torture in a favorable light, since troops were getting inspiration on prisoner treatment from 24?

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

This weekend, Honduran citizens voted Porfirio Lobo president, months after a coup ousted Manuel Zelaya. Here, Foreign Policy contributor and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Otto J. Reich replies to criticism of his FP article on the coup.

How does one rebut so many errors and distortions as those in Christopher Sabatini and Daniel Altshuler's response ("Calling a Coup a Coup," from Nov. 2) to my Foreign Policy article on Honduras ("Honduras is an Opportunity," from Oct. 27). Let us deal with just some of them.

By my count, Sabatini and Altshuler (hereafter, "SA") repeat the term "coup" 11 times, an incantation designed to cast a spell over the reader. But no matter how many times the liberal duo recite the mantra to misidentify the events that removed Manuel Zelaya from office, it was not a coup. Since the entire letter is based on that false premise, its conclusions are equally false.

SA accuse me of "ideological revisionism," for saying the U.S. should recognize the transitional government that is based on Honduran law, while they insist on calling a constitutional removal of a law-breaking president by a unanimous vote of a nation's Supreme Court, a "coup." Curiously, SA dismiss the Supreme Court action by citing two obscure U.S. academics' papers which portend to rebut a U.S. Law Library of Congress report that supported the legality of Zelaya's ouster. Is that ideological on their part, or just plain confused?

The ousted president, Manuel Zelaya, had violated several articles of the Honduran Constitution (as documented in the aforementioned Supreme Court decision), and therefore according to Honduran law (not my opinion) he was no longer president of Honduras when he was deported (the deportation was not legal, but it occurred after the legal removal from office). Further evidence that Zelaya's removal was not a coup was the ratification of his removal by a nearly unanimous vote of the Honduran Congress. SA gloss over Zelaya's violations of the law and focus instead on his subsequent -- and inexcusable -- deportation.

SA claim that "Reich vigorously defended Micheletti's assumption of power as the victory of the rule of law and a stand against Latin American leftists." False. I not only did not defend (or condemn) Micheletti, I mention Micheletti only once in my article, in passing, acknowledging that he replaced Zelaya. This is only one example of the paucity of facts in SA's article. I am not sure whose article they were rebutting, but I don't think it was mine. Their allegations are directed at "conservatives," "Micheletti apologists," and others -- people I know did not write my FP article.

Attacking "conservatives" put SA in a bind. They charge that "U.S. conservatives have argued that Barack Obama's administration should recognize the Nov. 29 elections in Honduras as a way out of the political crisis." Actually, it is not only U.S. conservatives, but also the Obama administration that has come to that conclusion, as evidenced in the agreement brokered by Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon in late October. It was Zelaya who renounced the agreement just days after he had signed it. Shannon then said the U.S. would recognize the winner of the Nov. 29 elections as the legitimate head of the next Honduran government.

In their letter to FP, SA praise the U.S.-brokered accord as follows: "[Most] importantly, the prospective settlement sets the stage for internationally recognized elections that will transfer power to a new president and help the country move forward." I agree. And contrary to SA's implication, I support that accord and think it is the best way out of the current crisis. I would hope that Zelaya's retreat from it has not caused SA to reverse course.

Although most of their letter can be dismissed as confused and self-contradictory, Sabatini-Altshuler's ideological motivation in attacking "U.S. conservatives'" position on the Honduras electoral crisis (as embodied by me, I assume) is serious. In concluding, SA claim that the "conservative" posture on Honduras they have attacked in their letter "would have mirrored the United States' foreign-policy blunders in Central America in the 1970s and 1980s. During this period, the United States supported façade democracies -- deadly authoritarian regimes that held civilian elections to legitimize their rule -- to pursue questionable geopolitical aims. This position cheapened elections and weakened nascent democracies."

This not only reveals a clear leftist ideological direction by SA, but also a revisionism resulting in crass historical distortion. This is a contemptible and ignorant slap at Ronald Reagan, the president in "the 1980s," under whom unprecedented progress was made in hemispheric democracy. When Reagan took office in 1981, a majority of Latin Americans lived under military dictatorships. When the conservative Reagan left office eight years later, the situation had been reversed: An overwhelming majority of our neighboring countries had transitioned to democracy after long and brutal dictatorships, such as Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Guatemala, Uruguay, and Chile. Which of those governments were "façade regimes," as in SA's accusation? Which were U.S. policy blunders? In which of those countries did the U.S. weaken "nascent democracy"?

As someone who worked for Ronald Reagan for those eight years, I can attest that democratic progress was no accident. It was the result of a policy designed and implemented to bring freedom and democracy to our hemisphere. That two American liberals attempt to re-write history and thus demean the U.S. role in the advance of freedom in this region, imperfect as it was but one that came at a high cost in lives and treasure, is an obvious illustration of the moral bankruptcy of American liberalism today.

But SA are not satisfied with running down their country: Their despicable and rude anti-Reagan screed reaches another ridiculous nadir with the statement that those (1980s) U.S. policies were based on "the pursuit of questionable geopolitical aims." Really? What aims were those? The main geopolitical aim of Ronald Reagan, as I remember, was the defeat of communism. The policy succeeded. And with it came an unprecedented global spread of freedom, human rights and prosperity. By whose standards was this policy "questionable?" I do recall it was questionable to the Kremlin, many western Marxist "intellectuals," and most Third World socialist despots and guerrilla leaders. It was not questionable to the hundreds of millions of people of Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union whom it helped to liberate from oppression. We now know they supported Reagan. As did the other hundreds of millions people who benefitted from the end of the Cold War and from the ensuing prosperity resulting from the "peace dividend".

Why does U.S. Cold War policy appear to be a "blunder" to Sabatini-Altshuler? For the same reason they cannot see why the U.S. should support free elections in Honduras. Historical ignorance and political ideology blinds them.

The border between Peru and Chile became increasingly fraught Wednesday -- with France stepping into the fray by (inadvertently?) publishing a map that seems to side with Peru.

Peru and Chile are awaiting a ruling from the International Court of Justice, to decide the maritime boundaries between the two. In the mean time, Peruvian media is crowing with delight at the French National Geographic Institute's slip-up, saying "If it is not a prediction, it is at least an encouraging fact."

But Chile's diplomats will not let the issue rest, government officials pressed the Gallic institute for answers, while at the same time assuring their people that this cannot influence The Hague's final decision.

The French chancery today put out a statement assuring their neutrality in the matter, saying the map in question has "no official value."

Tensions have been running high for a while, with Peru protesting Chilean military demonstrations as threatening and proposing a regional non-aggression pact in order to stop a Latin American arms race.

More seriously, Bolivia is staying out of this dispute, although it too has a strong interest in two countries' ocean borders. Chile and Bolivia are negotiating to give the latter country sea access for the first time in 140 years, having lost its ocean view in the 19th century War of the Pacific, in which Chile annexed portions of Peru and Bolivia.

In the Guardian, Jonathan Franklin provides a first-hand look at "cocaine tourism" in Bolivia:

"Tonight we have two types of cocaine; normal for 100 Bolivianos a gram, and strong cocaine for 150 [Bolivianos] a gram." The waiter has just finished taking our drink order of two rum-and-Cokes here in La Paz, Bolivia, and as everybody in this bar knows, he is now offering the main course. The bottled water is on the house.

The waiter arrives at the table, lowers the tray and places an empty black CD case in the middle of the table. Next to the CD case are two straws and two little black packets. He is so casual he might as well be delivering a sandwich and fries. And he has seen it all. "We had some Australians; they stayed here for four days. They would take turns sleeping and the only time they left was to go to the ATM," says Roberto, who has worked at Route 36 (in its various locations) for the last six months.

Franklin reports that in addition to the low prices a number of reasons conspire to make Bolivia the perfect location:

This new trend of 'cocaine tourism' can be put down to a combination of Bolivia's notoriously corrupt public officials, the chaotic "anything goes" attitude of La Paz, and the national example of President Evo Morales, himself a coca grower.

While the rest of the article is great, I'm not sure about the "national example" factor of Morales. I'm pretty sure the president is not selling his crops for processed cocaine. Morales did want to destigmatize coca crops when he won the presidency, but it was to restore the leaf's role in Bolivia's cultural heritage, not to give the thumbs up to full scale cocaine production. 

Obviously more coca crops make more cocaine much easier, but I wouldn't quite say Morales is explicilty in approval. 

AIZAR RALDES/AFP/Getty Images

In June, I wrote about how many of the world's biggest soccer clubs are facing crippling debt. Over the summer, several individual clubs have faced disbandment over their debts, and now an entire league is facing a season being postponed, as Argentina's Football Association has been forced to suspend the beginning of its fall season. Many of the top division's clubs are have very large debts, including its most famous clubs, Buenos Aires-based River Plate and Boca Juniors.

Latin American football is a tenuous financial affair at the best of times; club directors are hired and fired by a club's members (anyone can pay a membership fee), encouraging lavish promises to the membership, and there is little regulation of financial practices. Furthermore, the die-hard fan clubs known as "Barra Bravas" have become more assertive and violent in recent years, leading to falling attendances (the AFA president's office was attacked within two hours of the postponement, with about 100 people throwing stones and breaking windows). With the global recession pushing down revenues even further, all that the AFA can do is try negotiating a larger TV rights payment, and it's unclear at this point how long that will take.

If the season is delayed for too long, the damage to the league's talent level could be critical: while the Argentine league is no longer among the world's best, like many South American leagues it remains a key breeding ground for top talent (big stars who got their start in Argentina include Diego Milito, Carlos Tevez, Javier Mascherano, Diego Forlan and Sergio Agüero). But a long delay could lead to many top prospects moving to leagues in Mexico, Brazil, and the United States, where they could continue developing while actually getting paid. Still, those angry supporters shouldn't worry too much - as a new book points out, 97 percent of the 88 clubs that started England's football league in 1923 still exist today, whereas less than the world's biggest companies then have survived that long. 

ALEJANDRO PAGNI/AFP/Getty Images

Meet the new head of the LTTE, or at least what's left of it:

Selvarasa Pathmanathan was the rebels' chief of international relations and allegedly ran an international weapons smuggling ring. The Sri Lankan government has appealed to foreign governments to find and arrest him. [...]

Pathmanathan said earlier the Tigers would abandon their armed struggle and use nonviolence to achieve their goals, and he promised the group would reorganize itself based on democratic principles - a major change from Prabhakaran's dictatorial leadership style.

A former weapons smuggler certainly makes an unlikley candidate for the Tamil Gandhi. Peru's Sendero Luminoso -- which has largely made the transition from Marxist guerrilla movement to cocaine cartel -- might be an instructive model though.