Well, at least for some:

The booming economy may make elective surgery and luxury vehicles affordable for the upper-middle class, but the Venezuelans who are amassing the immense fortunes are the Boliburguesa, or the members of President Chávez’s inner circle. (The name refers to the president’s leftist Bolivarian revolution and the bourgeoisie.) Boliburgueses had constructed mega-mansions in the most storied Caracas neighborhoods and bought spanking new jets. A journalist friend who shadowed one of Chávez’s closest allies was chauffeured around in a bulletproof BMW, flanked by Korean bodyguards who can allegedly brain a would-be assailant with a butter knife at a distance of 20 meters. “It was like something out of Goldfinger,” my colleague said, still somewhat incredulous. Just as bizarre was his description of a Caracas sushi restaurant that had been enthusiastically recommended: rare tuna could be served—for an exorbitant fee—on the belly of a woman in the buff.

To be sure, this hedonism is out of reach for the great majority of Venezuelans. Even with the billions of dollars that have arrived in the country, four out of 10 residents subsist on two dollars a day or less.

(via FP Passport)

To be fair the Korean bodyguards are hardly a luxury item, seeing as Venezuela has the highest murder rate in the world, outside of Baghdad. And at $50 a pop, even those of the proletariat can afford to occasionally indulge.

But here’s Bolivian President Evo Morales with a pancake on his head:

Thats Evo “Bunny” Morales from now on. The resemblance is truely striking.

Meanwhile some of Evo’s countrymen are trying to take the ‘coca’ out of Cola-Cola, claiming the “sacred plant is part of Bolivia’s cultural heritage”, according to FP Passport. I think Coca-Cola should counter-attack and demand a reclaimation of their other brandname currently tarnished by the South Americans - Coke.

I posted recently about the rapid growth of Pentecostal Churches in Developing countries. In fact sociologist of religion Philip Jenkins wrote in his book “The Next Christendom”, that Christianity will be the dominant idea of the 21st Century. He believes in the next 25 years the world population of Christians will grow to 2.6 billion, with half of these in Africa and Latin America.

But that is not the only way evangelicalism is set to shape the world - its influence in the First World is set to be no less profound. Walter Russell Mead, the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, has written in the September/October issue of Foreign Policy on how the rise of the Evengelicans in the US is set to influence American foreign policy in the years to come.

You can also read his article on a single page, (rather than over 7 in FR), over at Real Clear Politics.

(their) summary:

Religion has always been a major force in U.S. politics, but the recent surge in the number and the power of evangelicals is recasting the country’s political scene — with dramatic implications for foreign policy. This should not be cause for panic: evangelicals are passionately devoted to justice and improving the world, and eager to reach out across sectarian lines.

Extract:

The growing influence of evangelicals has affected U.S. foreign policy in several ways; two issues in particular illustrate the resultant changes. On the question of humanitarian and human rights policies, evangelical leadership is altering priorities and methods while increasing overall support for both foreign aid and the defense of human rights. And on the question of Israel, rising evangelical power has deepened U.S. support for the Jewish state, even as the liberal Christian establishment has distanced itself from Jerusalem.

In these cases as in others, evangelical political power today is not leading the United States in a completely new direction. We have seen at least parts of this film before: evangelicals were the dominant force in U.S. culture during much of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth. But the country’s change in orientation in recent years has nonetheless been pronounced.

Evangelicals in the Anglo-American world have long supported humanitarian and human rights policies on a global basis. The British antislavery movement, for example, was led by an evangelical, William Wilberforce. Evangelicals were consistent supporters of nineteenth-century national liberation movements — often Christian minorities seeking to break from Ottoman rule. And evangelicals led a number of reform campaigns, often with feminist overtones: against suttee (the immolation of widows) in India, against foot binding in China, in support of female education throughout the developing world, and against human sexual trafficking (the “white slave trade”) everywhere. Evangelicals have also long been concerned with issues relating to Africa.

This certainly put a new light for me on the recent visit to several African countries by Illinois Senator Barrack Obama, who is seen by many to be drumming up evengelical support for the Democrats:

“And one of the reasons I am here today, I don’t come today, as was said, as a grandson of this community. I come here as a United States senator and a representative of the United States government,”

And his earlier statements from The Chicago Tribune:

“Unfortunately, our foreign policy seems to be focused on yesterday’s crises rather than anticipating the crises of the future,” Obama said. “Africa is not perceived as a direct threat to U.S. security at the moment, so the foreign policy apparatus tends to believe that it can be safely neglected. I think that’s a mistake.”…”It’s critically important to capture a sense of hopefulness,” Obama said, “to give people in Africa and people outside Africa a sense that for all the strife and hardship that the continent has been through, the spirit of the people remains resilient.”

An interesting side note: Obama converted from Islam to Christianity in his early twenties. He was brought up a Muslim by his Indonesian stepfather.

One piece of the demographic puzzle for the 21st century that Mark Steyn did not address in his lecture was that while “post-modern Christianity” may be sinking in Europe, hand in hand with its demographic decline, in other parts of the world Christianity is set to neither sink nor to lose itself in post-modernism.

MercatorNet is currently running a series of articled on “Developing World Christianity”, particularly focusing on the rise of the Pentacostal Churches in Latin America and Africa.

Here are some projections :

Sociologist of religion Philip Jenkins, a lecturer in history and religious studies at Pennsylvania State University, believes that Christianity will, in fact, be the dominant idea of the 21st Century. This is the theme of his 2002 book The Next Christendom: The Rise of Global Christianity.

[..]

Jenkins doesn’t seek to assess the truth of Christianity, although as a Protestant, he is sympathetic. He is simply analysing obvious trends which few people in this part of the world have heeded.

The first, and possibly, the most decisive, is demographic. Birth rates have plummeted in Europe, the historic home of Christianity. Other English-speaking countries, with the exception of the United States, are having trouble replacing themselves without immigration. In the US, the birth rate has risen to about replacement level — thanks in great measure to immigration and higher fertility amongst Latinos, who have strong religious traditions.

“Within the next 25 years the population of the world’s Christians is expected to grow to 2.6 billion (making Christianity by far the world’s largest faith). By 2025, 50 per cent of the Christian population will be in Africa and Latin America, and another 17 per cent will be in Asia. Those proportions will grow steadily. By about 2050 the United States will still have the largest single contingent of Christians, but all the other leading nations will be [in the] Southern [hemisphere]: Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, and the Philippines. By then the proportion of non-Latino whites among the world’s Christians will have fallen to perhaps one in five.”

Amongst Catholics, Jenkins says, the trend toward “Southern” Christianity is particularly marked. In the early 1950s, Africa had about 16 million Catholics; now there are 120 million and by the year 2025 there will probably be 228 million. According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, almost three-quarters of all Catholics by the year 2025 will be found in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

..

(via IRIS)

It is generally known that there are active Hezbollah cells, as well as funders and recruiters, in the US. It is also known that Hezbollah cells operate in South America, working with local drug syndicates, criminal gangs and terror groups.

It appears that Hezbollah members from South America are currently moving into position inside the US.

..

Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., chairman of the House subcommittee on terrorism and non-proliferation, told UPI he is concerned Hezbollah might be positioning itself for an attack against the United States.

“We’re seeing a pattern of activities on the border and elsewhere,” he said, indicating “a renewed operational focus by Hezbollah on getting their people in over the border, between the ports of entry,” because that way, U.S. authorities will not know they are in the country.

Royce said there was a rise in the number of ethnic Lebanese with Brazilian nationality apprehended at the border. “We’re seeing a pattern of (Hezbollah) operatives” from Latin American countries “attempting to come into the United States,” he said.

The tri-border region of South America, where the frontiers of Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina all meet, has a large Lebanese-origin population and has long been identified by some in U.S. intelligence as a hotspot for Hezbollah activities

Royce referenced recent statements from militants linked to Hezbollah in Iran that said they had the capability to stage suicide attacks against U.S interests around the world.

“We know that there are Hezbollah people here,” he said, adding that as many as 300 “individuals doing work for Hezbollah” had been apprehended — arrested or convicted — “over the years.” He said they were involved in fundraising or other logistical support operations for the group.

..