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FIRST QUARTER MOON - May 25-31

This week is backed by good energy and great enthusiasm — which doesn't always correspond to an adequate ability to plan. Until next month, it's necessary to proceed with baby steps at work. Mercury's retrograde can be confusing and can compromise your capacity to make yourself understood. Couples should pay attention to dialogue — especially towards the end of the week, when a word out of place could ignite tempers.

TEMPO: allegretto con cautela


Work progresses and in many cases is improving, but this "hiccuping" way of functioning is getting exhausting, especially for those who work on a freelance basis. Working hours are often overshadowed by the benefits: Though you are working today, you've been rolling with the punches for too many months now. But you have to bite the bullet because a new Golden Age is coming. In love, the second half of the week will be pleasantly surprising.

TEMPO: andantino squattrinato


Mercury and Mars are in your sign: It's time to rethink many aspects of your life, especially professionally. You must be cautious, and weigh projects and proposals better. Trust less people — only those who deserve it. Be rigorous and selective, and then you will be less exposed to looters and profiteers. Keep it up: You're on the right track towards recovery. There's an air of expectancy in love too — wait for Venus to arrive in the summer when even the sleepiest of hearts will awaken.

TEMPO: energico di rifondazione


This week will flow under the wonderful influence of Venus in your sign, which bestows inner light, harmony and charm. Mercury and Mars in Gemini may make you feel "suspended" — unsure of how to proceed. If I were you I would try to shake off this lethargy as this week is full of gifts and surprises. You can grasp some small chances in love or at work. Everything will be fine.

TEMPO: andantino tentennante


You discover outbursts of energy and enthusiasm, while the world seems to proceed at a reduced speed. Especially if you work on a freelance basis, the answers are coming in slowly and there will be some unexpected tests for your patience. Look around you as much as possible: You must renew friendships and seek new allies to expand opportunities and deliver new solutions. Love awaits the arrival of Venus, which will light up the sky with shooting stars for the entire summer.

TEMPO: andante grintoso


Work anxiety and stress are part of the sky this week — accomplices of the quadrature of Mars and Mercury in Gemini. But this week ends with an extra gear, as the Moon comes in your sign and Venus seems finally ready to smooth out the edges and soften dialogue. For lonely hearts, love can come from the sphere of friendships. It's worth being seen out and about and extending your circle of acquaintances.

TEMPO: allegretto addolcito


This week is a bridge to a beautiful Sun in Gemini, which slows the "crazy" carousel that has been going round and round for a while. You're back in business with added enthusiasm. Lately, you've been dealing with commitments and deadlines at an exaggerated pace, but now you can breathe a sigh of relief. And, between promotions and substantial rewards, you can now enjoy some satisfaction. Love is still in the background, but Venus' long sextile is coming up, which will put your heart back on track.

TEMPO: presto con fuoco


This is a week of recovery with a beautiful trine of Venus from Cancer. This will awaken the desire to achieve a goal or take new roads, especially for those who have been fatigued from long-distance relationships. Everything begins to appear possible. You are finishing a journey of profound metamorphosis that has lasted almost three years. The snake sheds its skin, rebuilding new surroundings and certainties. Work is about to take off from the end of the summer, sustained for a full year from Jupiter's sextile. You'll go back to flying high …

TEMPO: allegretto di rinascita


Because of Mercury's retrograde and Mars' opposition from Gemini, your patience and tolerance will be tested. At work, your closest collaborators won't always understand you, hence some friction. Mind you, the working sky is well-protected by good transits from Jupiter and Uranus, and indeed some will receive important commissions, awards and economic incentives — though accompanied by new responsibilities and additional loads of stress. Keep calm, everything will be alright.

TEMPO: rondò nervosetto


This week may prove decisive for work, provided you do not repeat certain assessment errors from the past and make bigger investments than you can handle. Especially for contracts and freelancers, it is sometimes better to go it alone than in bad company. It's good to remember — and evaluate well — who you are dealing with before you make agreements that will last for some time. In love, some chickens are coming home to roost and it's time to free them once and for all.

TEMPO: lento revisionista


There's a battle on two fronts to express your creativity. On one hand, a family commitment consumes your free time; on the other, there is a much more formidable "enemy": Your ideas get twisted, like a confused vine. There are those who write one line, then the next minute erase half of it. This fog will soon lift and the exhausting transits of May will give way to June, when everything flows better — even in love, where you have forgotten your soul in some remote drawer.

TEMPO: adagetto affannato


There's some concern coming from family or home that prevents you from concentrating on your projects as much as you would like to. The middle of the week is the most anxious; it would be better to appeal to your patience and the beautiful trine of Venus in order to save your partner some discontent. Lonely hearts can rely on a sky that blesses new meetings.

TEMPO: adagio irritabile

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Geopolitics

Why The Latin American Far Left Can't Stop Cozying Up To Iran's Regime

Among the Islamic Republic of Iran's very few diplomatic friends are too many from Latin America's left, who are always happy to milk their cash-rich allies for all they are worth.

Image of Bolivia's ambassador in Tehran, Romina Pérez Ramos.

Bolivia's ambassador in Tehran, Romina Pérez Ramos.

Bolivia's embassy in Tehran/Facebook
Bahram Farrokhi

-OpEd-

The Latin American Left has an incurable anti-Yankee fever. It is a sickness seen in the baffling support given by the socialist regimes of Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela or Bolivia to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which to many exemplifies clerical fascism. And all for a single, crass reason: together they hate the United States.

The Islamic Republic has so many of the traits the Left used to hate and fight in the 20th century: a religious (Islamic) vocation, medieval obscurantism, misogyny... Its kleptocratic economy has turned bog-standard class divisions into chasmic inequalities reminiscent of colonial times.

This support is, of course, cynical and in line with the mandates of realpolitik. The regional master in this regard is communist Cuba, which has peddled its anti-imperialist discourse for 60 years, even as it awaits another chance at détente with its ever wealthy neighbor.

I reflected on this on the back of recent remarks by Bolivia's ambassador in Tehran, the 64-year-old Romina Pérez Ramos. She must be the busiest diplomat in Tehran right now, and not a day goes by without her going, appearing or speaking somewhere, with all the publicity she can expect from the regime's media.

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