Informant38

Mira:

A former Catholic bishop popular with the poor is favourite to win Paraguay's presidential election tomorrow and sweep away six decades of de facto one-party rule.
Opinion polls give Fernando Lugo a 5% lead, which could be enough to usher him in as the latest member of Latin America's "pink tide" of leftist governments.
The bearded 57-year-old heads the Patriotic Alliance for Change, a coalition of centre and centre-left opposition parties coupled with grassroots political movements, farmers organisations and other social groups.
The Colorado party, the world's longest-ruling party still in power, has responded to the mood for change by fielding a female candidate, Blanca Ovelar.

GuardianUK
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Think of countries that were on the brink of the verge of going full-on leftist, or even more unthinkably, socialist, in the last few decades, but then saw the sudden appearance of mediagenic female politicians with vague but caring middle-of-the-road affect. Women who could attract large blocks of timid and unbrave voters who nevertheless desperately wanted change.
The monstrous thing that drives this age is nothing if not pragmatic. Preferring death squads and the iron heel of dictatorship, it will settle for cartoon versions of democracy if it has to. As long as it can control what controls the people's thinking, democracy's never a real problem. These dirty little countries in the South though, people are so damned poor they can't be brainwashed easily. Hunger and poverty keep you outside looking in. Paraguay's possibly as important as Nicaragua was back in the 70's to the domino tumble of socialist change. Only this time the monster's already got its nasty paws full.
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Across the Chaco to the east, U.S. Special Forces are garrisoned at Mariscal Estagarribia, strategically positioned to keep an eye on the purportedly terrorist-ridden Triple Frontier (Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay) at Iguazu Falls, the largest fresh water reserve on the continent, and the breakaway Bolivian provinces.

Counterpunch
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Five hundred U.S. troops arrived in Paraguay with planes, weapons, and ammunition in July 2005, shortly after the Paraguayan Senate granted U.S. troops immunity from national and International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction. Neighboring countries and human rights organizations are concerned that the massive air base at Mariscal Estigarribia, Paraguay is potential real estate for the U.S. military.
While U.S. and Paraguayan officials vehemently deny ambitions to establish a U.S. military base at Mariscal Estigarribia, the ICC immunity agreement and U.S. counterterrorism training exercises have increased suspicions that the U.S. is building a stronghold in a region that is strategic to resource and military interests.

democraticunderground
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Paraguay also has some pretty bizarre animal life, though the weirdest ones are mostly migratory.