[rcne]

There is a bias here in the states - where we are effectively censored with what "news" we hear. This issue came up recently on another board (that member was from South America) and she couldn't understand why Americans didn't care about the political situations in South America.

We just don't know about it, in fact other than the BBC, which in itself is minimal, "news' just trickles out.

It may be an internal censorship issue where only news bites get out, and I'm sure there is much more to the story, but without their news getting out, and our government filtering it we are left with a tiny filtered snapshot of events.

I agree though that if this country doesn't approve of a leader, not much about them gets out. It's similar to Cuba, we could and should drop all sanctions against them - but since we don't approve of their leadership we ban them.

We are the only ones who continue this policy though, so what good did it do. Our Cuban-Americans won't let it go, and our politicians to keep a hope for their vote think its a third rail issue.

We need to have real diplomatic relations with all countries in the final analysis.