For Armchair Revolutionaries Everywhere

The BBC reports that a new pan-Latin American TV channel, Telesur, has begun its first broadcast from the Venezuelan capital, Caracas. Communications minister Andres Izarra told viewers across Latin America that Telesur was intended to counter cultural imperialism, which he said had gone unchallenged in the region for 50 years.

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to enable the Bush administration to begin broadcasting its own TV signals to Venezuela.

"Several international advisors to the new channel, including the Pakistani-British broadcaster and activist Tariq Ali, spoke against the attempts on Capitol Hill to get the US government to counter Telesur with broadcasts of its own."