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LATEST NEWS OF OCTOBER 2010 |
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FARC leader SURRENDERS WITH the 200
FIGHTERS that were under his command
BOGOTA,
COLOMBIA--
The second-in-charge of a guerrilla
front active in south-central Colombia
has turned himself in along with seven
other combatants, military officials
said. An army communique said Thursday
that alias “Ciro Pereza” or “Ciro Cañon”
had been a member of the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC,
guerrilla group for the past 14 years
and led a group of roughly 200 rebel
fighters. The rebel chief demobilized in
a rural area outside Mapiripan, a hamlet
in the south-central province of Meta.
Due to the number of men under his
command, military officials said Ciro
Pereza’s surrender is the most
significant setback for the FARC since a
military operation last month in which
the group’s military leader, known as
Jorge Briceño Suarez or “Mono Jojoy,”
was killed. Jojoy was slain on Sept. 22
in an operation against the FARC
leader’s jungle camp in Meta. “Ciro
Pereza” was the second-in-command of the
FARC’s 44th Front and had been in the
guerrilla ranks since the age of 14, as
had four of the other deserters. The
guerrillas turned in four rifles,
ammunition clips for different types of
firearms, 500 bullets of different
calibers, communications gear and other
items. Army officials said the army was
continuing its operations against the
44th Front and that it expects that
pressure and low morale within that unit
to bring about more desertions.
The demobilized FARC fighters will now enter a government
program to help them re-enter civilian
life, including the provision of
psychological aid, education and
financial support. In recent years, the
FARC’s numbers have fallen by more than
half to roughly 8,000 fighters and the
group has suffered a series of setbacks,
including the dramatic rescue of its
highest-profile hostages in 2008 and
Jojoy’s death. The guerrilla
organization, which has fought a
succession of Colombian governments for
decades, is on both the U.S. and EU
lists of foreign terrorist
organizations. Drug trafficking,
extortion and kidnapping-for-ransom are
the FARC’s main means of financing its
operations. |
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U.S. TROOPS TALIBAN ATTACK AND
KILLED 30 INSURGENTS
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN--
U.S. troops killed as many as 30
insurgents after calling in air strikes
to repel a Taliban attack on
their outpost in southeast Afghanistan
on Saturday, the NATO-led coalition
said. Five U.S. troops were wounded in
the attack when the base in Paktika
province came under fire from
rocket-propelled grenades, gunfire and
mortars, the NATO-led International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and a
regional army spokesman said.
Rising violence and record casualties
among foreign troops and civilians are
likely to weigh heavily on U.S.
President Barack Obama's review of his
Afghanistan war strategy in December and
at a NATO summit in Lisbon next month.
"Insurgents attacked from all directions
with rocket-propelled grenades, small
arms and mortar fire," ISAF said.
"Initial operational reporting indicates
more than 30 insurgents were killed in
the failed attack." U.S. Army Major
Patrick Seiber, a spokesman for the ISAF
regional command in the east which
includes Paktika, said at least 19
insurgents had been confirmed dead.
NATO-led forces were checking the area
for more dead and wounded, he said.
Afghan army general Zemarai, who has
only one name, earlier said the bodies
of at least 15 insurgents were seen
lying on the battlefield after the
attack. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah
Mujahid said the Islamist group had
attacked the base, claiming that six
police outposts had been overrun in the
assault. Speaking by telephone from an
undisclosed location, Mujahid said
Taliban fighters had inflicted "high
casualties" on ISAF and Afghan forces
but gave no further details. He said
eight Taliban fighters had been killed.
The Taliban often make exaggerated or
unconfirmed claims about such attacks.
The Taliban and other insurgents such as
the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network have
launched a series of brazen assaults on
foreign bases and government buildings
in the past year in a bid to topple
President Hamid Karzai and force out
foreign troops. |
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U.S. AND RUSSIAN FORCES TEAM UP FOR
AFGHAN DRUG BUST
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN--
Russian counternarcotics agents teamed
up with U.S. and Afghan forces in
an unprecedented joint raid that
destroyed nearly $56 million worth of
heroin near the Pakistani border,
officials said Friday. The seizure of
approximately 932 kilograms of heroin
came less than a week after Russia's
anti-narcotics chief accused the U.S. of
failing to dismantle Afghan drug labs
and slow down the flow of heroin into
Russia. The country produces enough raw
opium to manufacture 360 tons of heroin
a year, according to the U.N. Office on
Drugs and Crime. But the level of
cooperation between U.S. and Russian
forces was significant and suggested an
improvement in relations between the
former Cold War foes, two decades after
U.S.-financed Afghan militias chased the
Soviet military out of this country.
The two nations nowadays occasionally
cooperate on terrorism and drug issues,
but Moscow has offered only lukewarm
support for the U.S.-led war in
Afghanistan. So far, Russia has limited
itself to providing its territory for
U.S. military transit, turning down
requests to provide helicopters and
training for pilots or to train
counter-narcotics police. Nevertheless,
the export of Afghan drugs is an issue
of paramount concern to Russia, which
now has 2 million opium and heroin
addicts. Moscow had been urging the
U.S. military to take action against
Afghan drug labs, which process
unrefined opium into heroin or
morphine. Nine helicopters and 70 men
were involved in the raid, said Russian
anti-narcotics chief Viktor Ivanov,
adding that his agency told the U.S.
where the labs were located.
Ivanov said four Russians were involved in the raid, and that
Russia may increase the number of its
drug agents in Afghanistan in the
future. Four labs were shut down in the
operation, which involved three branches
of Afghan law enforcement as well as
NATO, the U.S. and the Russians, said
U.S. embassy spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden
in Kabul. A DEA press release said the
raid originally targeted one lab but
then found three others hidden by
vegetation. In addition to the 932
kilograms of heroin, agents seized 156
kilograms of opium in the raid in the
village of Zerasari, part of the
district of Achin. It takes about 10
tons of opium to make one ton of
heroin. U.S. officials said the heroin
had a street value of $55.9 million.
Ivanov gave much higher figures: He was
quoted by Russian media as saying the
seized drugs were worth at least $250
million and probably even up to $1
billion. |
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LAYOFFS REACH CUBA'S HEALTH SECTOR
HAVANA,
CUBA--
Layoffs scheduled by the government of
Raul Castro in the state payroll
will affect the health sector, one of
the pillars of the Cuban Revolution, but
officials say physicians have nothing to
worry about. “Never will a doctor be
made redundant, neither a stomach expert
nor a technician,” Health Minister
Roberto Morales said in comments cited
Thursday by Communist Party daily
Granma. “Those who remain available ...
(on) the necessary payroll will have the
possibility to work at other centers
within or outside the country through
medical collaboration,” Morales said
Wednesday at the 10th Congress of the
Health Workers Union in Havana.
Morales said that the health payrolls
must be tailored “to fit like a suit” at
each facility, following the government
policy to eliminate 500,000 state
employees over the coming six months.
The 350 delegates from all over the
country who are attending the congress
have been discussing “the essential
transformations” that are being made in
the sector, including the
“reorganization, regionalization and
compression of the health services.”
The agenda for the meeting includes the analysis of the
“labor reordering” as a way to avoid
“waste of human resources,” as well as
how to best ensure economic efficiency
and service quality, Granma said. In
addition, a more rational use of
resources and greater application of the
clinical method was proposed. According
to official figures, the health care
union currently has more than 500,000
members, and some 37,000 workers are
providing medical services in 69
countries. |
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BRAZILIAN OPPOSITION CANDIDATE JOSE
SERRA ATTACKED WHILE CAMPAIGNING
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL--
Jose
Serra, the opposition candidate for
Brazilian president, was attacked
Wednesday during a campaign walk in the
Rio de Janeiro neighbourhood of Campo
Grande, allegedly by supporters of his
rival Dilma Rousseff. As a result of the
attack, the centre-right candidate
cancelled the remainder of his campaign
in Rio ahead of the runoff presidential
election on October 31.
Serra's advisors said a clash broke out
between supporters of his Party of
Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB) and
supporters of the Workers' Party (PT) of
the centre-left Rousseff and of outgoing
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da
Silva. Supporters of the PT shouted
abuse and threw objects at Serra's
party, the candidate's camp said. After
the attack, Serra got into a car that
drove about 100 metres before he got out
to continue his campaign walk. He was
later taken to hospital, where doctors
recommended that he rest. He cancelled
two more events in Rio on Wednesday and
was planning to return to his native Sao
Paulo later in the day. In brief
comments to reporters, Serra blamed the
attack on "PT shock troops" and said the
group's behaviour was "typical of
fascist movements."
PT Secretary General Jose Eduardo Cardozo,
however, said the PT does not promote
violence and that the hostile atmosphere
in the campaign was triggered by the
PSDB, which "started this campaign of
hatred." "I regret the incident, it is
not good. Our party in no way promotes
such actions. But this campaign promotes
hatred, and that does not start with
us," Cardozo said. "Unfortunately it was
they who started this campaign of
hatred. But we are against any act of
violence, and we do not accept actions
like this one," he said. |
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VENEZUELAN DICTATOR HUGO CHAVEZ PREVENTS
VISIT OF UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR FRANK LA
RUE
UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK--
Frank La Rue, the UN Special
Rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and
Expression, wants to verify the status
of free expression in the country.
The Venezuelan government still does not
allow a United Nations rapporteur to
verify the status of freedom of
expression in the South American
country. The complaint was made by
Guatemalan lawyer Frank La Rue, the UN
Special Rapporteur for Freedom of
Opinion and Expression, who presented on
Tuesday his annual report at the General
Assembly of the UN agency.
La Rue said in the report that in 2009 he requested
Venezuelan authorities a permit to visit
the South American country. He renewed
the request made in 2003 by his
predecessor. So far, the Venezuelan
government has not replied to his
petition. The UN special rapporteur said
that the most dangerous countries
regarding violations to freedom of the
press in 2009 were the Philippines,
Somalia, Iraq, Pakistan, Mexico and
Russia. |
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¡
ANTES MUERTA, QUE SENCILLA..!
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leaders of venezuela's business
association kidnapped;
ex-fedecamaras president WOUNDED
caracas,
venezuela--At
11:30 p.m. on Wednesday, a group of
hooded armed men in black kidnapped
Albis Muñoz, a former president
of Venezuela's main business association
Fedecámaras; Noel Álvarez, the current
president of the Venezuelan Federation
of Trade and Industry Chambers
(Fedecamaras); Executive Director Luis
Villegas and Ernesto Villasmil, the
treasurer.
Álvarez said that the business leaders were near
Fedecámaras' headquarters located in an
eastern district of Caracas when a group
of five men with machine guns driving a
silver van intercepted shot at them.
Albis Muñoz, the former president of
Fedecámaras, was injured. Kidnappers
tied their victims' hands and took them
for about three hours in a car across
the Venezuelan city.
Muñoz was abandoned near the Pérez Carreño Hospital,
while Villegas, Villasmil and Álvarez
were anywhere else. Albis Muñoz was
admitted at the Pérez Carreño Hospital
with three bullets lodged in her body,
the president of Fedecámaras said. The
top officer has not ruled out that the
action was intended to intimidate them.
"The government has the responsibility
to safeguard the life and property of
citizens," Álvarez said. |
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cuban FOREIGN MINISTER CONDEMNED THE
EUROPEAN UNION FOR NOT CHANGING ITS
"COMMON POSITION"
UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK--
The European Union
is “dreaming” if it thinks it can
normalize relations with Cuba without
discarding EU demands for political
liberalization on the communist-ruled
island, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno
Rodriguez said. Foreign ministers from
the 27 EU member-states agreed this week
to authorize the bloc’s top foreign
policy official, Catherine Ashton, to
make an approach to Havana, but only
within the limits set by the “common
position,” which makes better bilateral
ties conditional on steps to open up the
Cuban political system.
“It is said that the so-called common
position has been surmounted. Well,
we’ll see, the deeds will tell,”
Rodriguez said in the U.N. General
Assembly. “But the EU is dreaming if it
thinks it will be able to normalize
relations with Cuba, the so-called
common position existing,” he said prior
to Tuesday’s vote on a resolution urging
the United States to end its 48-year-old
economic embargo against Cuba. Replying
to a European diplomat’s criticism of
Cuba’s human rights record, Rodriguez
said EU governments should focus on
their own treatment of emigrants and
minorities – alluding to France’s recent
deportations of Gypsies – and on how
their police deal with people protesting
economic austerity policies.
He also blasted the European
Parliament for awarding its Sakharov
Prize for human rights to Cuban
dissident Guillermo Fariñas. “With
complete shamelessness and in a
despicable way, (the European
Parliament) dedicates itself to honoring
paid agents of the government of the
United States,” the Cuban foreign
minister said. The EU decision to have
Ashton reach out to Havana represents a
compromise between countries determined
to maintain the common position and
other members, notably Spain, that say
the bloc must acknowledge Cuba’s release
of 42 political prisoners and measures
to liberalize the island’s economy. |
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ETA MEMBERS RESIDING IN VENEZUELA AND
CUBA ARE SUBPOENAED TO TESTIFY FOR
TERRORIST LINKS
MADRID, SPAIN--ETA members residing in Venezuela and
Cuba, who have been investigated for the
alleged collaboration between the Basque
terrorist group ETA (Basque Homeland and
Freedom), the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia, a rebel group; and the
Venezuelan government were subpoenaed by
a Spanish court.
In a four-page indictment, Judge Eloy
Velasco, of the Spanish National Court,
subpoenaed alleged ETA member Arturo
Cubillas, head of security at the
National Lands Institute (INTI), and
José Ángel Urtiaga, who is living in
Cuba, after they disclosed their
respective addresses in Caracas and
Havana, AP reported.
Cubillas and Urtiaga submitted this
week two powers of attorney for lawsuits
in which they appointed Jone Goirizelaia
as their attorney in Spain. Goirizelaia
is the usual lawyer of ETA prisoners. In
the document, Cubillas and Urtiaga, who
are theoretically at large because there
is an arrest warrant against them, gave
their addresses. Meanwhile, Gustavo de
Aristegui, a spokesman of the People's
Party in the Committee of Foreign
Affairs in the Congress of Deputies,
asked the new Spanish Foreign Minister
Trinidad Jiménez to change the Spanish
foreign policy with regard to Venezuela. |
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...Y
SIGUEN LLEGANDO..
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former colombian president alvaro uribe
warns of VENEZUELA nuclear threat
BOGOTA,
COLOMBIA--
Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe
Velez on Tuesday said that
Venezuela's "nuclear development" poses
a serious threat to the region's
security, reports W Radio. Speaking
after receiving an award from Spain's
International Observatory of Victims of
Terrorism, Uribe said that Venezuela's
"arms race" is very dangerous both for
the security of its own citizens and
Venezuela's neighbors.
Uribe added that the Venezuelan
government has signed the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, but has not
signed its additional protocols. Earlier
in October Russia and Venezuela
announced a deal under which Russia will
help the South American country to build
its first nuclear power station.
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, a
long-time antagonist of Uribe, claims
that his country only seeks to diversify
energy sources.
Uribe was presented with the award by John Frank Pinchao
Blanco, a police officer who was
kidnapped by the FARC in 1998 and held
captive until his escape in 2007. The
former president dedicated his award to
members of the Colombian police and
armed forces currently fighting
terrorism in Colombia. The former
president also commented that the
proposed legalization of marijuana in
California is a threat to regional
security. |
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DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
officials insist nukes lost on weekend
could have been used if needed
WASHINGTON, D.C.--The
U.S. military temporarily lost contact
with 50 nuclear armed missiles over the
weekend, but Defense Department
officials insist that the missiles could
have been launched at any time if
needed.
A military official from Global Strike
Command said Wednesday that early on
Saturday morning five ground control
centers at Warren Air Force Base, each
of which has launch control for the same
50 nuclear armed intercontinental
ballistic missiles, experienced a
communication glitch that caused them
all to lose contact with the 50 nukes
for about 45 minutes. The Air Force
could have, if needed, launched any of
these 50 missiles using a separate air
platform, which this official could not
discuss in detail because of its
classified status.
The United States Air Force has a total of 450 active
ICBMs in the country. Four of the
control centers came back on line within
an hour, but one of them is still
off-line while experts attempt to
diagnose the technical breakdown.
Officials are confident this was not a
result of human error. |
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VENEZUELAN WORKERS STRONGLY REJECT
NATIONALIZATION OF OWENS ILLINOIS
CARACAS, VENEZUELA--The
announcement of the expropriation of
US-based glass maker Owens Illinois'
unit in Venezuela was followed by
the presence of National Guard troops in
two factories owned by the US bottler.
The presence of troops did not stop the
protests of the workers of the US glass
manufacturer, who rejected the seizure
of the company and said that they would
defend their jobs and their collective
bargaining agreement.
At Owens-Illinois plant located in Los
Guayos, in the central state of
Carabobo, Rigoberto Méndez, one of the
union leaders of the expropriated
company, rejected the Venezuelan
dictator statements according to which
the workers of the company were
exploited. He also said that the workers
of the plant were aware that the
nationalization was a threat to the
country's giant food and beer
conglomerate Empresas Polar. "If we get
a flu, Polar gets pneumonia," Méndez
said. The union representative said that
in the coming days the workers of the
plants will continue the protests
against the expropriation of Owens
Illinois' local affiliate.
For his part, Frank Quijada, the president of the
union of Brewers and Soft Drink Workers
and union representative of the Polar
plant located in the area of Los
Cortijos (Caracas), promised to carry
out demonstrations to support the
workers of the glass manufacturer and
defend what they consider an attack
against Empresas Polar. "The government
is cornering us. We must take the
streets" to protest, the union leader
said. Quijada said that in coming days
they would go the Attorney General
Office to sue the State for
psychological damage to workers due to
the expropriations announcements made by
the government. According to them, these
actions could tantamount to labor
terrorism. |
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IRAN INJECTS FUEL INTO FIRST NUCLEAR
REACTOR
TEHRAN
, IRAN--Iran
began loading fuel into the core of its
first nuclear power plant on
Tuesday, moving closer to the start-up
of a facility that the U.S. once hoped
to stop over fears of Tehran's nuclear
ambitions. Iranian and Russian engineers
started moving nuclear fuel into the
main reactor building in August but a
reported leak in a storage pool delayed
injection of the fuel into the reactor.
"Fuel injection into the core of the
reactor has begun," the state television
announced.
The U.S. withdrew its opposition to the plant after
Russia satisfied concerns over how it
would be fueled and the fate of the
spent fuel rods. Worries remain,
however, over Iran's program to enrich
uranium for nuclear fuel since the
process can also be used to create
weapons grade material. Iran says the
1,000-megawatt nuclear plant, built with
the help of Russia, will begin
generating electricity in early 2011
after years of delays. Under a contract
signed between Iran and Russia in 1995,
the Bushehr nuclear power plant was
originally scheduled to come on stream
in July 1999 but the start-up has been
delayed repeatedly by construction and
supply glitches. Iranian officials have
sporadically criticized Russia for the
delays, some calling Moscow an
"unreliable partner" and others accusing
Russia of using the reactor as a lever
in nuclear diplomacy with Iran.
Russia began shipping fuel for the plant in 2007. At
the plant's inauguration on Aug. 21,
Iran's Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi
had said loading the fuel into the
reactor core would take place over two
weeks and the plant would then produce
electricity two months later in
November. Earlier this month, he said
that the start up was postponed because
of a small leak. Originally there had
been speculation that a computer worm
found on the laptops of several plant
employees might have been behind the
delay. |
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VENEZUELA IS CONSIDERED ONE OF THE
WORLD'S
MOST CORRUPT COUNTRIES
BERLIN, GERMANY--Venezuela
is one of the world's most corrupt
countries, according to a report
released Tuesday by Transparency
International in Berlin. The report says
that Chile is the most transparent
country in Latin America.
Venezuela occupies the 164th position of the 178 countries
included in the Corruption Perceptions
Index 2010, below Paraguay and Haiti
(both ranked 146th). Honduras (134),
Nicaragua and Ecuador (127 both) as well
as Bolivia (110) were the other
countries with low scores.
Chile was near the top of the global ranking among the
178 countries with a score of 21,
followed by Uruguay (24), Puerto Rico
(33) and Costa Rica (41). Brazil and
Cuba are in lower positions (both ranked
69). Since 1995 Transparency
International has published the annual
Corruption Perceptions Index ranking
countries on a scale from 0 (perceived
to be highly corrupt) to 10 for a
country perceived to have low levels of
corruption or transparent. |
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TARIQ AZIZ, FORMER IRAQI FOREIGN
MINISTER AND DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER,
SENTENCED TO DEATH BY HANGING
BAGHDAD, IRAQ--Saddam
Hussein's longtime foreign minister,
Tariq Aziz, was sentenced to
death by hanging Tuesday for persecuting
members of Shiite religious parties
under the former regime. Iraqi High
Tribunal spokesman Mohammed Abdul-Sahib
did not say when Aziz, 74, would be put
to death. Aziz has 30 days to launch an
appeal. If the Appeals' Court upholds
the death sentence, the law says Aziz
should be hung within 30 days of the
final decision. The Iraqi president also
needs to sign off on an execution order.
Aziz, a Christian who became the
international face of Saddam's regime,
was in court on Tuesday. He was wearing
a blue suit and sat alone, bowing his
head and frequently grasping the
handrail in front of him, as the judge
read out the verdict.
It was not immediately clear if Aziz's Jordan-based
lawyer, Badee Izzat Aref, will appeal
the verdict, which he called politically
motivated. Aziz has already been
convicted and sentenced to 15 years in
prison for his role in the 1992
execution of 42 merchants found guilty
of profiteering. He also received a
seven-year prison sentence for a case
involving the forced displacement of
Kurds in northern Iraq. Aref questioned
the timing of the death sentence,
accusing al-Maliki's Shiite-led
government of trying to divert attention
from recent WikiLeaks revelations of
prisoners' abuse by Iraqi security
forces and the U.S. military. "This
sentence is not fair and it is
politically motivated," he said.
Aziz predicted in a recent interview with the AP that
he will die in prison, citing his old
age and lengthy prison sentences. Aziz
surrendered to U.S. forces about a month
after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in
March 2003. He was held at an American
prison in Baghdad until the U.S. handed
over control of the facility in July to
the Iraqi government. A fluent English
speaker and the only Christian in the
senior leadership of Saddam's mainly
Sunni regime, Aziz became
internationally known as the dictator's
defender and a fierce critic of the
United States both as foreign minister
after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait and
later as a deputy prime minister who
frequently traveled abroad on diplomatic
missions. |
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CUBAN DICTATOR RAUL CASTRO "HAS BEEN HIT
WITH FOUR BUCKETS OF COLD WATER" THIS
WEEK
HAVANA,
CUBA--A
prestigious human rights prize awarded
to dissident Guillermo Fariñas on
Thursday was the fourth admonition to
the Cuban government this week that its
reforms are not enough, Cuba watchers
said Thursday. Fariñas, 48, a
psychologist and independent journalist
whose 135-day hunger strike earlier this
year put him near death, was awarded the
Sakharov prize and more than $60,000 by
the European Parliament.
"This is a message that the democratic governments in the
civilized world are sending to the Cuban
government that freeing some political
prisoners is not enough,'' he told El
Nuevo Herald by phone from his home in
the central city of Santa Clara. ``It's
not a prize for Guillermo Fariñas,'' he
added. ``It's a prize for the
rebelliousness of this people against
the dictatorship, the prisoners, the
people on the streets receiving blows
and threats,'' he added.
The four clear messages are: Las Tuesday, President Barack
Obama declared that Cuba has not changed
enough to merit U.S. gestures, on
Wednesady, Spanish Foreign Minister
Miguel Angel Moratinos, often criticized
as too friendly to Havana, was replaced;
and the The European Union yesterday
reaffirms its common policy that ties
assistance to Cuba's human rights
record. ``These are four clear messages
to Cuba that it's not doing enough, that
it needs a more defined policy of
change.'' ”Raul
Castro has been hit with four buckets of
cold water,''
emphatically said a former analyst for
the Central Committee of the Cuban
Communist Party now living in South
Florida. |
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THE EUROPEAN UNION KEEPS ITS COMMON
POSITION BUT RECOGNIZES SOME CHANGES
IN CUBA; WEIGHS BETTER TIES
LUXEMBOURG CITY, LUXEMBOURG--
The European Union said Monday it
is considering an improvement of its
relations with Cuba because of changes
taking place there.
Catherine Ashton, the European Union foreign affairs chief,
said the Europeans "want a period of
reflection" to see if and how ties can
be improved. She did not elaborate,
except to say, "I have no plans at the
moment to travel to Cuba." Under
President Raul Castro, Cuba has
undergone changes, including the removal
of officials from the era of Fidel
Castro and the freeing of some political
prisoners.
Last week, the European Parliament awarded its annual
human rights prize to Guillermo Farinas,
the Cuban dissident whose 134-day hunger
strike helped draw attention to the
plight of political dissidents jailed in
a 2003 crackdown on dissent. Farinas
opposes an improvement in EU-Cuba
relations and says the release of
political prisoners in recent months
does not make Cuba a democracy. |
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NUCLEAR INTER-GOVERNMENTAL AGENCY WARNS
THAT VERIFICATION IS MANDATORY
CARACAS, VENEZUELA--VENEZUELAN
DICTATOR
Hugo Chávez said that Venezuela
would not accept any external monitoring
of its nuclear development plan, the
Secretary General of the Agency for the
Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin
America and the Caribbean (Opanal),
Gioconda Ubeda Rivera, said that
verification is mandatory. The Costa
Rican diplomat, who resides in Mexico,
the host country of Opanal responded to
questions from the Venezuelan leading
newspaper El Universal.
Opanal is an inter-governmental agency created by the Treaty
of Tlatelolco (1967) to ensure that the
nuclear non-proliferation obligations of
the Treaty be met in Latin America and
the Caribbean. "Countries that use
nuclear energy for peaceful purposes are
required to comply with a series of
international agreements such as the
Safeguards System of the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which
provides for the verification," Ubeda
said. The senior officer added that the
"verifications are one of the natural
procedures established worldwide for the
states that develop nuclear energy to
allow the implementation of the IAEA
safeguards.
"The Treaty of Tlatelolco has 33 Member States from Latin
America and the Caribbean. All of them
signed the safeguards agreements with
the IAEA, and all of them most comply
with the control and verification rules
adopted by the agency," the Opanal
secretary general said. Ubeda said that
"it is absolutely normal" that Venezuela
intends to start developing the use of
nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in
cooperation with Russia. She said that
every country has the right to do so,
provided that it fulfills international
obligations. |
|
venezuelan dictator hugo chavez rejects
president obama's nuclear stance
tripoli,
lIbya--Venezuelan
dictator Hugo Chavez has
criticized President Barack Obama for
saying that Caracas must abide by
international rules governing nuclear
energy as it looks to build a reactor.
Chavez says Venezuela doesn't "obey any
empire" and has the right to peacefully
develop nuclear power. The Venezuelan
president spoke Saturday in Libya where
he received an honorary degree from
Tripoli's Academy of Higher Education.
His comments come in response to remarks Obama made Tuesday.
The U.S. leader said Venezuela has the
right to a peaceful nuclear program but
also an obligation not to pursue atomic
weapons. Chavez met with Libyan leader
Moammar Gadhafi and other officials
while in Tripoli to sign economic
cooperation agreements. Details of the
accords were not immediately available. |
|
jesuit priest jose korta continues
hunger strike in venezuela
CARACAS, VENEZUELA--On
Monday 18 Jesuit priest José María Korta,
indigenous rights activist, began
a hunger strike outside the headquarters
of Venezuela's National Assembly to
demand the immediate demarcation of
indigenous territories and the freedom
of members of indigenous groups, sent to
jail for fighting for their rights.
Korta requires that the Venezuelan
government complies with the
Constitution, the Organic Law of
Indigenous Peoples and Communities and
the Convention 169 of the International
Labour Organization, in terms of
territorial rights and jurisdiction to
indigenous communities. The problem of
demarcation of indigenous lands in
Venezuela from the presence of interests
of some sectors of government and the
industrial livestock sector, who planned
the construction of a multimodal
transportation system on indigenous
territory.
This project was opposed by the Yukpa and Wayuu
indigenous groups, whose leaders were
arrested and jailed, to be tried by
ordinary courts, when the Venezuelan
Constitution and the Law of Indigenous
Peoples and Communities state that these
trials should be conducted under the
principles of indigenous jurisdiction.
The Jesuit priest José María Korta has
stated that kept her hunger strike until
there is a rectification of the
Venezuelan justice system to resolve
cases of detention of indigenous leaders
and the immediate demarcation of their
territories. |
|
VENEZUELAN BISHOPS ASK UP COMING
CONGRESS TO ABANDON POLARIZATION
CARACAS, VENEZUELA--A
National Assembly (AN) which works for a
country model and leaves
polarization and confrontation behind
was required by the Venezuelan Bishops'
Conference (CEV) in a press release made
known by Mérida state archbishop
Baltazar Porras.
In reading out the communiqué, the
Catholic Church prelate underscored that
the election for parliament last
September 26 meant for the country "a
clear sign" that solutions to social
troubles can be found "by means of
mutual respect, dialogue and solidarity,
without exclusions."
He said that what the people are
asking for is to "be heard and taken
care of," to be given concerted and
agreed upon solutions to their real
problems and "legitimate wants." The
bishops said that Venezuela faces the
challenge of a democratic model based on
cooperation "instead of finishing the
adversary off." |
|
MORE THAN 500 PEOPLE RALLIED IN MOSCOW
DEMANDING THE RESIGNATION OF PUTIN
MOSCOW,
RUSSIA--MORE
THAN 500 people rallied in central
Moscow on Saturday to demand the
resignation of Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin and political reform. Opposition
activists from left-wing and liberal
groups gathered at the statue of the
19th-century Russian poet Alexander
Pushkin, known for his anti-government
stance, in a rare opposition protest
allowed by the Moscow authorities.
Former chess champion turned opposition
leader Garry Kasparov and activists from
other political groups demanded the
dismissal of Putin and his government,
whom protesters blame for economic
problems and lack of political freedoms
in Russia. "I don't think the regime
will last long, but every day it stays
it causes tremendous damage for Russia,"
Kasparov told The Associated Press.
Leader of the Left Front Sergei Udaltsov said the campaigners
also want to restore free elections to
all governmental offices and carry out
drastic political and economic reforms.
Popular support for vocal opposition
groups is minimal in Russia, and their
activities have been thwarted in regions
like Moscow where authorities ban their
rallies and police regularly break up
their gatherings. |
|
SPANISH LAWMAKER SKEPTICAL ABOUT
CUBILLAS' TRIAL IN VENEZUELA
MADRID, SPAIN-Gustavo
de Arístegui, a Spanish lawmaker
and member of the opposition People's
Party, does not believe that the
Venezuelan government extradites Arturo
Cubillas, who has been accused of
allegedly training members of the Basque
terrorist group ETA in Venezuela.
De Arístegui does not believe either
that the suspected ETA member and
Venezuelan national will be prosecuted
in the South American country. "Mr.
Cubillas has to be prosecuted and
imprisoned in Venezuela, but this is not
going to happen ever; or he has to be
sent to Spain and spend years in prison
to expiate his crimes against democratic
societies in the world," the Spanish
lawmaker said in an interview with the
Venezuelan radio station Unión Radio.
He knows that there is nothing he can do if the
Venezuelan government does not extradite
Cubillas or does not prosecute him. The
only option is to take the case to
international organizations such as the
United Nations. Aristegui questioned
claims that the Venezuelan government
was not aware of the actions of Cubillas
in Venezuela. |
|
GUNMEN KILLED 15 IN Massacre at a
birthday party in ciudad juarez, mexico
CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO--Gunmen
stormed two homes and massacred 15 young
people at a birthday party in the
latest large-scale attack in this
violent border city, even as a new
government strategy seeks to restore
order with social programs and massive
police deployments.
Attackers in two vehicles pulled up to
the houses in a lower-middle-class
Ciudad Juarez neighborhood late Friday
and opened fire on about four dozen
partygoers gathered to celebrate a
teenager's birthday. The dead identified
so far were 13 to 32 years old,
including six women and girls, Chihuahua
state Attorney General Carlos Salas told
reporters at a news conference at the
crime scene. The majority of the victims
were teenagers or people in their early
20s.
Salas said a total of 20 people were wounded, including a
9-year-old boy. Authorities earlier gave
lower numbers for the wounded because
some victims were taken by relatives to
hospitals throughout the city and were
not immediately located. Police found 70
bullet casings from assault weapons
typically used by drug gangs whose
bloody turf battles have killed more
than 2,000 people this year in Ciudad
Juarez, across the border from El Paso,
Texas. But Salas said the attackers
escaped, and police said had no
immediate information on any suspects or
possible motive. The Interior Department
condemned the killings in a statement
and pledged "to help the efforts of
state and local authorities re-establish
order in Ciudad Juarez." |
|
GUILLERMO FARIÑAS
EMPHASIZES THAT IT IS TIME TO END
'DICTATORSHIP' IN CUBA
SANTA
CLARA, CUBA--CUBAN
Political
dissident Guillermo Fariñas on
Thursday dedicated the Sakharov human
rights prize awarded to him by the
European Parliament to the people of
Cuba struggling for an "end to the
dictatorship." The 48-year-old
independent journalist and psychologist
has gone on hunger strike 23 times to
press for greater freedom in the
communist-ruled island, most notably for
135 days following the February 23 death
of fellow dissident Orlando Zapata. He
ended his protest when President Raul
Castro authorized the release of 52
political prisoners following talks with
senior Catholic Church clerics in
Havana.
"The civilized world, the European
Parliament, is sending a message to the
Cuban governing class that it's time for
democracy and freedom of thought and
expression in Cuba, an end to the
dictatorship," said Farinas, speaking
from his home in the central Cuban city
of Santa Clara. The award "was not for
Guillermo Farinas," he told AFP, "but
rather for the Cuban people, who for the
past 50 years have been struggling to
get out of this dictatorship. Showing
the physical signs of 23 hunger strikes
against the Cuban regime, the
still-emaciated rights activist got word
of his award at his home some 270
kilometers (170 miles) east of Havana.
Everyone "who aspires for democracy in
any part of the planet with their
solidarity and calls for the release of
(political) prisoners also deserves and
has contributed to this award," said the
rights campaigner known as "Coco" to his
friends and family.
Farinas is the third Cuban recipient
of the prize, after Oswaldo Paya in 2002
and the Ladies in White, a group of
women whose husbands are jailed, which
received the award in 2005. "Farinas ...
is an example of dignity, a man that has
been willing to give his life for the
freedom of political prisoners and who
has never surrendered in his struggle,"
said Laura Pollan, the head of the
Ladies in White. "He is an example for
all," Pollan said. The Cuban government
"should take note that by giving this
award," said another leading dissident,
Elizardo Sanchez, the European
Parliament "is reflecting the concern
that exists in the international
community over the unfavorable condition
of human rights in Cuba. We cannot go on
this way any more," Sanchez told the
international press. |
|
US TO CHECK WHETHER VENEZUELA-IRAN DEALS
VIOLATE SANCTIONS
WASHINGTON, D.C.--The
United States will be vigilant of
the deals made between Venezuela and
Iran to make sure that they do not
violate sanctions against Tehran, US
State Department spokesman Philip
Crowley, said on Thursday. "We will
watch to see if any of these deals
amount to anything and if they do,
whether they constitute a violation of
the (UN) Security Council resolutions
and sanctions against Iran," the US
Department of State spokesman said, as
reported by AFP.
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez signed
on Wednesday several memorandums of
understanding (MoU) with his Iranian
counterpart President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad focused on energy
cooperation. Crowley added that
Washington has not been able to know the
agreements in detail. According to
reports from Tehran they include the
establishment of a joint oil company,
stakes of the state-run oil company
Petróleos de Venezuela in an Iranian gas
field and the construction of a refinery
in Syria.
"Venezuela like all countries has clear
responsibilities," the State Department
spokesman told reporters. "It is hard
for me to see how President Chavez's
current travel can be seen as
constructive," Crowley said. He added
that the US continues to seek ways to
"lower tensions in bilateral relations"
with Venezuela. Chávez signed an
agreement with his Russian counterpart
Dmitry Medvedev to build a nuclear
plant. "Venezuela has a right to pursue
civilian nuclear energy," Crowley added,
though "it also has a responsibility to
make sure that any nuclear program does
not represent a proliferation risk,"
Crowley said. |
|
venezuelan dictator hugo chavez to meet
with lybia's gaddafi
DAMASCUS, SYRIA--
VENEZUELAN DICTATOR HUGO CHAVEZ
postponed his visit to Libya, scheduled
for Friday, because he decided to stay
another day in Syria.
Sources of the Venezuelan Foreign
Ministry said that the Venezuelan Head
of State could travel on Friday night or
Saturday morning to Tripoli, the Libyan
capital, and that the visit to Portugal
would be postponed until Sunday in order
to end his international tour. Chávez
will meet with the Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi in Tripoli. They will discuss a
project to establish the so-called South
Atlantic Treaty Organization (SATO), as
opposed to NATO, composed of northern
countries, said a report published by
the international press.
The project championed by Gaddafi and supported by
Chávez seeks to create a cooperation
organization based on a South-South
dialogue between Africa and Latin
America. During the tour, the Venezuelan
president has also visited Russia,
Belarus, Ukraine, Iran and Syria. The
tour will end in Lisbon on Sunday. |
|
VENEZUELAN DICTATOR HUGO CHAVEZ TO
IRANIAN PRESIDENT AHMADINEJAD: "WE SHALL
STAY VICTORIOUS"
TEHRAN,
IRAN--Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
told Venezuelan dictator Hugo
Chávez that they would defeat their
common foes, in the latest defiant
message against the Western countries
that according to the Iranian President
are failing in their attempts to isolate
Iran.
At the end of a two-day visit, Chávez
condemned the United States' and
Israel's military threats against Iran.
The two countries have said they could
strike the Islamic revolution to prevent
it from getting a nuclear bomb, Reuters
reported. "I should use this
opportunity to condemn the military
threats Iran has been receiving," Chávez
told a news conference in which the two
leaders called each other "brother."
"We know that they will never be able
to stop the Islamic revolution... We
will always stand together. We shall not
only resist, we shall also stay
victorious beside one another," Chávez
said.
Meanwhile, in a comment which showed his ambition to
represent the developing countries that
feel oppressed by the West, Ahmadinejad
said that Iran and Venezuela were part
of a revolutionary front from Latin
America "which stretches all the way to
East Asia." "If one day my brother
Chávez and I and a few other people were
alone in the world, today we have a long
line of revolutionary officials and
people standing alongside each other,"
he said. "The enemies of our nations
will go one day. This is the promise of
God and the promise of God will be
fulfilled," Ahmadinejad said as reported
by Reuters. |
|
PRO-CHAVEZ VENEZUELAN LABOR UNIONS URGE
GOVERNMENT TO STOP EXPROPRIATIONS
CARACAS, VENZUELA--Representatives
of pro-government labor unions in
the food sector rejected likely
expropriation of Venezuelan food
manufacturer and supplier Empresas Polar
and US food giant Cargill. "They will
have to kill us, because we will not
accept the expropriation of the plants,"
said Juan Crespo, the president of the
Trade union Federation of Flour Workers
(Fetraharina).
He added that unions want to act as
intermediaries between the government
and the corporations to consult their
workers if they support the seizures or
not. Carlos Osorio, the Venezuelan
Minister of Food, said last week that
food manufacturer and supplier Empresas
Polar and US food giant Cargill should
be owned by the state. Union leaders
criticized this statement and urged the
government not to create "a climate of
labor terrorism."
For his part, Frank Quijada, the president of the union of
Brewers and Soft Drink Workers,
questioned the socialist productive
model that is being built in Venezuela.
He argued that such model "does not work
and it will never work." He recalled
that the Executive Office promised the
workers of the seized companies that
they would become the owners of the
industries, through a social ownership
model. "But there was a mere
substitution of a private employer for a
public employer," he stressed.
|
|
MEXICO'S LARGEST-EVER SEIZURE OF
MARIJUANA ALREADY PACKAGED FOR SALES
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO--Mexico's
largest-ever seizure of marijuana
packaged for sale is even bigger
than the original estimate of 105 tons
and probably belonged to the country's
most powerful drug-trafficking cartel,
authorities said Tuesday. The Sinaloa
cartel run by Mexico's most wanted
fugitive, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, now
is moving drugs through the Tijuana
corridor "unimpeded," said a U.S. law
enforcement official in Mexico, a
possible reason why violence has dropped
in the city across the border from San
Diego, California, since a bloody peak
in 2008.
President Felipe Calderon recently
praised the city's new calm as a success
story in Mexico's drug war. Many have
speculated the drop in violence just
means the Sinaloa cartel has cut a deal
with remnants of the Arrellano Felix
gang, which became one of the country's
dominant cartels in the 1990s through
control of Tijuana's lucrative land and
sea routes leading into California, but
has suffered from the arrests and deaths
of its top leaders since 2002. Calderon
dismissed the idea of an arrangement in
a recent interview with The Associated
Press, saying the new calm came in part
from government cooperation and the
arrests of key cartel leaders. "The
truth is that in the last two years, the
government has made important hits on
the criminal structures."
Mexican soldiers and police grabbed the
U.S.-bound marijuana in pre-dawn raids
Monday in three neighborhoods when 11
people arrested after a shootout led
authorities to the drugs. Army officials
first said the drugs weighed 105 tons
and had an estimated street value of 4.2
billion pesos, about $340 million. But
authorities said the haul was even
bigger Tuesday, counting 15,300 packages
- 5,000 more than first announced. It
weighed 134.2 tons, said Ramon Gomez, a
spokesman for the federal Attorney
General's office. By comparison, U.S.
authorities seized a total of 123 tons
of marijuana during 2009 at all San
Diego-area border crossings. Calderon's
security spokesman, Alejandro Poire,
agreed the drugs likely belonged to
Sinaloa and called it a historic
seizure. "This is an important milestone
that demonstrates the ability of the
Mexican state when security forces in
three levels of government coordinate
and take responsibility around a common
goal," he said. |
|
AT LAST, VERY GOOD NEWS FROM MADRID:
PRESIDENT ZAPATERO FIRES MORATINOS
MADRID,
SPAIN--Embattled
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis
Rodriguez Zapatero, trailing in
the polls and squeezed by an economic
downturn, announced a broad cabinet
shuffle on Wednesday, bringing in new
deputy prime minister and a new foreign
minister. Speaking on national
television from the prime minister's
compound here, Zapatero said the new
first deputy prime minister will be
Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, the interior
minister who will also retain that post.
He will replace Maria Teresa Fernandez
de la Vega, who has been first deputy
prime minister since Zapatero was first
elected in 2004. Perez Rubalcaba,
considered an effective leader of the
government and police campaign against
the armed Basque separatist group ETA,
is no stranger to the prime minister's
sprawling compound on the western
outskirts of Madrid. He worked there
years ago as an aide to then Socialist
Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez.
Zapatero also confirmed that Foreign
Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, also
part of Zapatero's team since 2004, will
be replaced by longtime Zapatero aide
Trinidad Jimenez, currently health
minister. Moratinos forcefully promoted
a change in the European common position
to benefit the Castro brothers. A group
of political prisoners recently
expatriated to Spain accused Moratinos
of lying to them. The group felt it was
“misled” because Spain is not making
good on its promise of help as they try
to start new lives. “We signed a series
of undertakings in front of a Spanish
Embassy employee in Havana,” Galvez told
a news conference. “Moratinos wants only
one thing, to help Cuban dictator Raul
Castro,” Galvez said, adding he was
speaking on behalf of the group.
As part of the shakeup, Zapatero
aims to save public funds by eliminating
two small ministries, the Ministry of
Equality, and the Ministry of Housing.
They will be become departments of other
ministries. Spain on Wednesday had
simply been expecting the announcement
of a new labor minister, following
Zapatero's pledge, before the general
strike, that Labor Minister Celestino
Corbacho would be leaving. His
replacement is Valeriano Gomez. Instead,
Zapatero announced the much broader
changes. They include the creation of a
new Ministry of the Presidency, led by
Ramon Jauregui, to handle some duties of
the outgoing deputy prime minister.
There is a new minister of environment
and agriculture, Rosa Aguilar, and a new
minister of health, Leire Pajin,
portfolios which require constant
contact with domestic voting
constituencies that Zapatero is trying
to shore up. Zapatero said the new team
has "good communication skills to
explain what we are doing." |
|
ARCO PROGRESISTA, A CUBAN DISSIDENT
GROUP, ACCUSES CUBA'S LABOR UNION OF
BETRAYING THE CUBAN PEOPLE
HAVANA, CUBA--Cuban
DICTATOR Raul Castro’s plans to lay off
some 500,000 state employees and
expand the scope for self-employment
represent a betrayal of socialism, the
social democratic dissident group Arco
Progresista said Tuesday. “The entire
global revolutionary left and a good
part of the social democratic left have
supported a political project that
culminates as a great social farce,”
Arco spokesperson Manuel Cuesta Morua
told reporters in Havana, reading from a
prepared statement.
Arco also accused Cuba’s only labor
union, the CTC, of betraying the working
class to become the mouthpiece of the
government. The CTC is a “bureaucratic
enterprise at the service of employers,”
according to Arco Progresista, which is
demanding the resignation of union chief
Salvador Valdes. “The combination of
massive layoffs with the way in which
self-employment is being reintroduced,
and with a new project in conjunction
with foreign capital – which is hidden
from Cuban citizens – constitutes the
opening to a late, harsh and primitive
neoliberalism,” Arco said, using leftist
shorthand for the kind of economic
policies associated with figures such as
Margaret Thatcher and the late Ronald
Reagan.
Arco cited other traces in Cuba of the “typical model of
archaic neoliberal modernization,”
including the monitoring and repression
of civil society and “the creation of a
happy bubble for the military and
repressive sectors.” Far from being
“strategic reforms,” the Castro
government’s economic initiatives are a
“chaotic response to the structural
crisis” plaguing Cuba, Arco Progresista
said. Pointing to the accelerating
“stampede” of emigrants, the
organization urged Cuba’s government to
embark on a program of rebuilding the
nation. |
|
THE BRAVEST WOMAN OF MEXICO: A 20 YEAR
OLD STUDENT APPOINTED POLICE CHIEF OF A
VIOLENT MEXICAN TOWN
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO--A
twenty year old criminology student
was recently appointed police
chief of one of northern Mexico’s most
violent bordertowns. Marisol Valles
Garcia took control of the Guadalupe
Distrito Bravo, Chihuahua police
department on Monday, October 18, 2010.
She was the only applicant for the
position. Valles Garcia is studying
criminology in Mexico’s most violent
city, Ciudad Juarez, some 60 kilometres
west of Guadalupe. Raging territory
battles between rival drug gangs have
caused more than 7000 violent deaths and
over 230,000 people to leave Ciudad
Juarez since 2008.
Much of Chihuahua state has suffered
from the spiral of drug violence,
including in the less than 10,000
citizen town of Guadalupe, where the
mayor was murdered in June and previous
police officers have been kidnapped and
killed, some of them beheaded. Last week
alone there were at least eight murders
in Guadalupe, in an area deemed a
high-traffic transit point for illegal
drugs across the border into the US
state of Texas.
Upon taking office Valles Garcia stated her priority is not
to combat drug cartels and trafficking
as the war against drugs is the
responsibility of other government
bodies. She said her mission is to
establish prevention programs in
neighborhoods and schools, reestablish
security in public areas and seek
neighborhood involvement in forming
networks of preventive monitoring.
Additionally she said she is not ruling
out the possibility of creating a
cycling police patrol and requesting
older adults to join preventive
surveillance programs in and around all
educational establishments. The
Guadalupe police department at this time
has only one police patrol car and
receives security assistance from the
Mexican army. |
|
LOS CUENTAPROPISTAS
|
|
VENEZUELAN DICTATOR HUGO CHAVEZ ARRIVES
IN IRAN TO CEMENT "STRATEGIC RELATIONS"
TEHRAN,
IRAN-The
Venezuelan DICTATOR is to pay its ninth
two-day official visit, during
which more than 80 cooperation projects
will be reviewed. The presidential
aircraft landed on Mehrabad airport,
where the Venezuelan Head of State was
welcome with honors by Iranian Minister
of Industry and Mines Ali Akbar
Mehrabian and Venezuela's Ambassador to
Iran David Velásquez.
Continued "strategic relations between the two countries,
mirrored in the existence of more than
80 cooperation projects will allow to
explore not only bilateral integration
areas, but also (integration) at the
level of the South-South schemes, and
the schemes to strengthen social
development and integration policies in
the context of the fight for peoples'
wellbeing, sovereignty and social
justice," the diplomat said.
Velásquez added that the ninth presidential visit to
Iran would help reinforce joint projects
"in the agricultural and trade areas, as
well as the exchange of knowledge to
keep on moving forward in the roadmap
approved by the presidents last April
and May." |
|
THE VENEZUELAN
DICTATOR TO BUY S-300 MISSILES
THAT MOSCOW REFUSES TO DELIVER TO IRAN
KIEV, UKRAINE--DICTATOR
Hugo Chávez said Monday that
Venezuela will buy S-3000 air defense
systems that Moscow refused to deliver
to Iran, due to the sanctions imposed by
the UN Security Council.
"We are acquiring S-300 missile systems and other weapons
from Russia, and this process is well
underway," Chávez said. The Venezuelan
president arrived in Ukraine on Monday
for his first visit to the country,
Interfax-Ukraine news agency said.
Russian military analysts said last
week, during Chávez's visit to Moscow,
that Venezuela could receive the S-300
missiles, because Russia is looking for
a buyer for the air defense systems.
Venezuela has bought Russian weapons amounting to USD
4.4 billion since 2005 and has emerged
as the main Latin American client of the
Russian military industry. This fact has
ignited concern in the US and Colombia.
|
|
VENEZUELAN AMBASSADOR TO SPAIN DOUBTS
THAT ARTURO CUBILLAS IS EXTRADITABLE
CARACAS, VENEZUELA--Venezuela's
ambassador to Spain, Julián Isaías
Rodríguez, said Tuesday that
deported ETA member Arturo Cubillas, who
is a Venezuelan national, will not be
taken to Spain because the Bolivarian
Constitution provides that Venezuelan
citizens "shall not be extradited."
"This does not mean that there will
be impunity because Venezuela can open
an investigation and if there is sound
evidence, the guilty will be punished
for sure. If there is criminal
responsibility, he will pay for it in
Venezuela," said the Venezuelan
Ambassador in an interview with the
Basque station Radio Euskadi. Rodríguez,
who is visiting the Basque Country, also
mentioned the statements he made on
October 5, when he said that he had
"serious doubts" as to whether the
confessions of two alleged ETA members,
Javier Atristain and Juan Carlos Besance
Zugasti were "completely voluntary." The
two alleged ETA members said that they
were trained in Venezuela.
Rodríguez stressed that he "trusts"
the Spanish judiciary "to the point of
denying the possibility of torture,
violence or any irregularity that would
force someone to confess." He said that
at the time of his statements he made
some assumptions about the value of a
confession. The Ambassador also said
that the Venezuelan government "has no
reasons to believe" that the alleged
training of ETA members in its territory
"is absolutely true." However, "this
does not mean that these events could
have occurred," he added. "We are just
not aware of them and (this is the
reason why) we are investigating,"
Rodríguez said. |
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russian prime minister, vladimir putin,
announces sale of 35 tanks T-72 AND T-90to venezuelan
dictator hugo chavez
MOSCOW,
RUSSIA--Russian
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
announced that he will soon provide 35
tanks to Venezuela, after his meeting
with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez,
to whom he vowed to sell other weapons.
"Russia fully complies with the
bilateral agreements in the field of
military-technical cooperation. Shortly,
Russia plans to provide a new batch of
weapons. They are 35 tanks," said Putin
at a joint press conference with Chávez
at his residence Novo-Ogoriovo, outside
Moscow. Although Putin would not
elaborate, experts believe that the sale
involves T-72 and T-90 tanks, which
would replace the French MX-30 tanks and
which have already been purchased by
some 30 countries, including Iran and
Syria. "We are willing to supply tanks
and, with respect to other types of
weapons, we will do it broadly. Russian
companies have started to work according
to their orders," he said.
For his part, Chávez emphasized that
"the issue of military cooperation, for
which we are under attack, is going very
well." "Now, we do have an armed
force," said Chávez, who mentioned some
of the purchases of Russian weapons by
Caracas in recent years, including
tanks, Sukhoi fighters, which he
described as "the best aircraft in the
world," and Kalashnikov rifles. Earlier
on Friday, Russian President Dmitri
Medvedev said that Moscow will not
reduce military-technical cooperation
with Caracas, after his meeting with
Chávez at the Kremlin. "In this field,
we have not slowed down, not even now,"
Medvedev said at a joint press
conference with Chávez in the Malachite
Room of the Kremlin.
Last April, during his visit to Venezuela, Putin said that
Venezuela planned to buy Russian arms
worth over USD 5 billion. That figure
includes a USD 2-billion loan Moscow
will grant to Caracas for the
acquisition of heavy weapons.
Venezuela, which according to
Venezuelan sources has bought Russian
weapons worth USD 4.4 billion since
2005, has emerged as a major Latin
American customer of the Russian
military industry, which has ignited
concerns in the US and Colombia.
Military experts quoted by the
RIA-Novosti news agency said on Friday
that Caracas would receive the S-300
antiaircraft missile system that Moscow
decided not to supply to Iran because of
the sanctions imposed by the UN Security
Council. According to these sources,
Russia has provided to Venezuela a dozen
Tor-M1 air defense systems, the same
ones Tehran acquired in late 2005.
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U.S. SAYS IRAN HAS A ROLE IN AFGHAN
TALKS
ROME, ITALY--
U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke said
on Monday, as Iran attended talks with
other nations on the issue for the first
time. An Iranian representative joined
senior officials in the international
contact group on Afghanistan in Rome to
discuss progress on the transfer of
security responsibility to Afghan
forces, the first time Iran has sent an
envoy to the talks. "We were asked
whether we had any problems with that
and we said 'No,'" Holbrooke, the U.S.
special representative to Afghanistan
and Pakistan, told a news conference.
"We recognize that Iran, with its long,
almost completely open border with
Afghanistan and with a huge drug problem
... has a role to play in the peaceful
settlement of this situation in
Afghanistan. So for the United States
there is no problem with their
presence."
The United States has periodically
accused Iran of providing some
assistance to insurgents in Afghanistan.
Tehran denies supporting militant groups
there and blames the presence of Western
troops for causing instability. Mainly
Shi'ite Muslim Iran was strongly opposed
to the strict Sunni Taliban when they
ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
Tehran has growing economic influence in
the country, especially in western
Afghanistan via cross-border trade.
Holbrooke said the talks between the two
sides at Monday's meeting did not extend
to issues beyond Afghanistan. "What we
are discussing here is not affected by,
nor will it affect the bilateral issues
that are discussed elsewhere concerning
Iran," he said.
The United States fears Iran's
civilian nuclear energy programme is a
cover for producing weapons. Tehran
denies it is developing nuclear arms and
said it needs nuclear fuel-making
technology to generate electricity.
Separately, Holbrooke sought to play
down any suggestion that a NATO summit
in Lisbon next month would specify areas
that could be handed over to Afghan
control in coming months. "We want to
make clear that in Lisbon there is not
going to be any specific announcement on
the number of provinces to be put into
the transition category, we are not
going to announce specific provinces, we
are going to talk about the transition
process," he said. "Transition is
probably the most important word being
uttered here today." |
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CHINA'S VP,
Xi
Jinping, IS EXPECTED TO REPLACE HU
JINTAO
BEIJING, CHINA--Chinese
politicians have appointed the
vice-president, Xi Jinping, to a key
military position, state media
reported today, reinforcing expectations
that he will become the country's next
leader. Xi has long been expected to
take over when Hu Jintao steps down as
party general secretary in 2012 and as
president the following year. The state
news agency Xinhua announced that Xi had
become a vice-chairman of the central
military commission, which oversees the
People's Liberation Army, after a
four-day meeting of the party's central
committee. Xi, 57, is a "princeling",
the son of a party veteran, Xi Zhongxun,
who was an ally of Deng Xiaoping and
helped to oversee the economic opening
process in southern China.
Xi Jinping was sent to the countryside
as an educated youth during the cultural
revolution and later studied chemical
engineering at the prestigious Tsinghua
University, going on to gain a law
doctorate. He was party secretary of
Fujian and Zhejiang provinces before
taking the top job in Shanghai when Chen
Liangyu was brought down by a corruption
case. Months later Xi joined the party's
standing committee and took
responsibility for the Olympics. It was
around that time that Henry Paulson, the
then US treasury secretary, described
him as "the kind of guy who knows how to
get things over the goal line". Xi's
wife, Peng Liyuan, is a popular folk
singer. In an official magazine she
described him as frugal, hard-working
and down-to-earth. Overseas, Xi may be
best known for remarks that were never
reported by China's state media. On a
foreign trip last spring, he told his
audience: "There are some well-fed
foreigners who have nothing better to do
than point fingers at our affairs.
China does not, first, export revolution; second, export
poverty and hunger; third, cause
troubles for you. What else is there to
say?" Ni Lexiong, a professor at
Shanghai's University of Political
Science and Law, told Associated Press:
"Barring anything unexpected, Xi will be
taking over as party leader". Some had
expected Xi to take the post last year,
largely because Hu was appointed to the
commission three years before taking
over. Moses said analysts would be
watching for a clearer articulation of
Xi's views after today's announcement,
particularly with regard to the armed
forces. "We are not sure exactly what
Xi stands for or against … his own
policy preferences remain quite
unclear," he said. "We really have a
much clearer sense of Li Keqiang's
views; he is quite loquacious. Xi
prefers not to have a high public
profile." |
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IRANIAN PRESIDENT AHMADINEJAD: PLANS
BEING MADE FOR ISRAEL TO "GO TO HELL"
TEHRAN
, IRAN--Coming
off a provocative visit to the
Lebanon-Israel border area, Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
suggested that Israel and countries that
support Israel will 'soon go to hell.'
While claiming Iran's desire to resume
talks over its nuclear program - a
program that he insists is for peaceful
civilian purposes - Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday also
alluded to plans in the works that will
ensure that Israel and its allies "soon
go to hell." Ahmadinejad agreed to
negotiate with the West on the terms of
the controversial Iranian nuclear
facilities, but he also sought to link
the talks to Israel's nuclear arsenal -
with particular interest on establishing
more transparency there.
A failure to tie Iran's nuclear program with that of Israel's
suggests the West "supports the Zionist
regime's atomic bomb and is not seeking
to have a friendship (with Iran) through
the talks," Ahmadinejad said, according
to The Canadian Press. However,
Ahmadinejad also suggested preparations
were underway to send Israel to hell.
"Grounds are being prepared for the
Zionist regime [Israel] to go to hell
soon and any country supporting this
regime will join it on its trip to hell
as well," Ahmadinejad said in a public
speech that was broadcast live on the
news network Khabar, according to
Haaretz. Sanctions against the Iranian
government are starting to show their
teeth. Iranian aircraft from national
carrier Iran Air are disallowed from
refueling in Europe. Western oil
companies have scrapped plans for
investments in Iran, and a major
Japanese oil firm has recently followed
suit.
Fuel refiners are no longer supplying Iran with
gasoline and other refined products.
"The goal here is . . . to end companies
from doing business within Iran," Deputy
Secretary of State James B. Steinberg
said, according to the Washington Post.
But Ahmadinejad is determined to resist
the Western pressure, looking to remind
his friendly neighbors in Lebanon that
they too are heroes in this struggle.
"You are heroes, you are those who
protect Lebanon's independence,"
Ahmadinejad told the tens of thousands
of Shi'ites during his visit to Lebanon,
Haaretz reported. "The Zionists planned
to destroy this community [Bint Jbail],
but it stood strong against the
occupiers. The entire world should know
that the Zionists are destined to
disappear from the world, while Bint
Jbail will remain alive. And the sons of
Bint Jbail will know how to defeat the
Zionist enemy." |
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SPAIN: VENEZUELA IS COOPERATING IN CASE
OF ALLEGED ETA ACTIVIST arturo cubillas
MADRID, SPAIN--The
Spanish government said on October 15
that Venezuela "is cooperating"
in the case of Arturo Cubillas, an
alleged member of the Basque separatist
group ETA whom Spanish courts have
fingered as the trainer of ETA activists
in the South American country.
"Venezuela is cooperating," said on October 15 Spanish First
Deputy Prime Minister María Teresa
Fernández de la Vega, in a weekly press
conference after the Council of
Ministers, AFP reported. "We are still
waiting for the judges of the Spanish
National Court (the main criminal court
in Spain) to determine whether they are
to file a formal extradition request.
When they do so, the government will
forward the request," De la Vega said.
A Spanish court issued in March an international arrest
warrant against Cubillas, who is
considered responsible for ETA's
activities in Latin America since 1999.
Cubillas has reportedly acted as "the
liaison" with the rebel Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and
provided "explosives training to ETA
members." |
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DICTATOR HUGO CHAVEZ PLEDGES OIL TO
BELARUS FOR 200 YEARS
-- (THE GHOST CITY)
MINSK, BELARUS-
In one of his typical flamboyant
gestures, Venezuelan DICTATOR Hugo
Chavez on Saturday promised to
provide oil to the former Soviet
republic of Belarus for the next 200
years. Chavez, who was visiting Belarus
on Saturday, promised that Belarusian
refineries - the backbone of the
country's economy - "would feel no
shortages of oil in the next 200 years."
Venezuela in March agreed to ship 80,000
barrels of heavy crude a day to Belarus
as well as create a joint venture to
develop oil and natural gas projects in
this South American country.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, who critics have
dubbed "Europe's last dictator," is
anxious to diversify away from Russian
oil supplies as his relations with
Moscow grow increasingly sour.
Lukashenko is facing a presidential
election in December but Moscow has so
far refrained from endorsing his bid.
Chavez was in Moscow earlier this week,
where he reached a deal with Russia to
build Venezuela's first nuclear plant
and signed a few energy pacts.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Friday Russia would
soon deliver 35 sophisticated tanks to
Venezuela, but did not elaborate.
Venezuela has since 2005 spent $4
billion on Russian arms, including
helicopters, warplanes and Kalashnikov
assault rifles. Chavez also used his
visit to Minsk as yet another occasion
to lambast global capitalism: "There are
no debtors in our relationship," he
said. "We are comrades and we are
building an alternative to imperialism -
a multipolar world." |
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US DEMANDS RUSSIA AND VENEZUELA TO
RESPECT INTERNATIONAL PACTS
WASHINGTON,
D.C.--The
United States reminded Russia and
Venezuela that they have "international
obligations" in the nuclear field,
following the announcement that Moscow
will build a nuclear plant in the South
American country. "Whatever happens
with today's announcement, Venezuela and
Russia have international obligations
and we hope they meet them," said US
State Department Spokesman Philip
Crowley, DPA reported.
Crowley added that Washington "is not concerned about"
the relationship between Venezuela and
Russia, which are two "sovereign"
countries that "have the right have the
right to associate with whoever they
wish." However, in view of the close
relationship that Venezuelan President
Hugo Chávez has with his Iranian
counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
Crowley pointed out that the US will
"watch very closely" the evolution of
the agreement announced in Moscow.
"The relationship between Venezuela and Russia is not really
of concern to us, but clearly, we want
to make sure that for this particular
civilian nuclear cooperation arrangement
that all international obligations are
met and that whatever results from this
announcement is done in concert with the
highest international standards, because
the last thing we need to do is see
technology migrate to countries or
groups that should not have that
technology." He added, however, that
"countries have a inherent right to
pursue civilian nuclear energy. That's
not an issue. The real issue is how do
they do it, but we have confidence in
Russia." |
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MARIO VARGAS LLOSA: "DICTATORS REPEAT
THEMSELVES LIKE MANIC-DEPRESSIVES"
PORTO ALEGRE, BRAZIL--Mario
Vargas Llosa, the
Peruvian-Spanish writer who was recently
awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in
Literature, attacked again dictators and
his main "political enemy" Hugo Chávez
during a visit to Brazil to participate
in a seminar held in the southern city
of Porto Alegre.
In a talk with reporters of Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao
Paulo, Vargas Llosa said that he is not
interested in writing a novel whose main
character would be inspired by Chávez:
"When you write about a dictator, you
write about all of them. Dictators
repeat themselves like
manic-depressives. I do not feel like
writing any novel about dictators."
Llosa said.
According to the Peruvian author, President Chávez combines
characteristics of Peruvian dictator
Manuel Odría and Dominican autocrat
Rafael Trujillo: "I think that Chávez is
a mixture of Odría and Trujillo". The
Peruvian-Spanish writer added that
dictators have a "natural distrust" of
literature: "They know by intuition that
there is something dangerous in it. And
I think they are right. There is
something dangerous in the chimera that
literature is." |
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THE YOUNG WOMAN MUTILATED BY A TALIBAN
FAMILY IN AFGHANISTAN GETS A NEW NOSE
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA--The
Afghan girl featured on a
controversial Time magazine cover in the
US has been given a new prosthetic
nose. Aisha told Time her nose and ears
had been cut off - with the approval of
a Taliban commander - by her abusive
husband as punishment for running away.
The front cover generated debate over
the headline "What Happens if We Leave
Afghanistan" and over the use of the
photo itself. Her surgery was done in
California.
The Grossman Burn Foundation, which carried out the
work, campaigns on the issue of violence
against women, as well as doing free
plastic surgery work. Foundation surgeon
Peter Grossman carried out the
reconstruction surgery. Aisha was
widely photographed and filmed earlier
this week receiving the Enduring Heart
award at a benefit ceremony staged by
the foundation. She was given the award
by California first lady Maria Shriver,
the wife of California Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
The cover generated much discussion in the US "This is the
first Enduring Heart award given to a
woman whose heart endures and who shows
us all what it means to have love and to
be the enduring heart," Ms Shriver said.
Aisha - whose surname has not been
revealed - replied: "Thank you so much."
The 18-year-old was reportedly given
away by her family in childhood as a
"blood debt" and was subsequently
married to a Taliban fighter. His family
abused her and she ran away but was
recaptured and mutilated by her
husband. Aisha's case has been used in
the West to illustrate the fear of what
will happen if US, British and other
international forces leave prematurely.
Some critics questioned the tone of the
Time cover arguing that it was using
emotional blackmail and gender politics
to justify continued US involvement in
Afghanistan. |
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venezuelan armed forces refuse
cuba-style indoctrination
caracas,
venezuela--In
the opinion of the director of the
Projective Policy Study Center (CEPPRO),
José Machillanda, out of the
recent remarks of the former chief of
the Operational Strategic Command,
General Jesús Gregorio González González,
it can be "inferred that there is inside
the military component a group of
professional military chiefs that openly
rebuts intended indoctrination, fracture
and breakup in the armed forces of the
21st century socialism."
In the words of González González, "we
cannot link our military to the
president or the leftwing trend under
the current government." For Machillanda,
the general's message mirrors "a
behavior nearing military
professionalism and contains a
political-military request for the
president to observe the Constitution."
Militias "have not a raison d'être in a
postmodern military component," the
military expert said, according to a
notice issued by the opposition
Democratic Unified Panel, which queried
Machillanda into the issue.
Machillanda noted that the creation of militias
trespass on the results of a referendum
held on December 2, 2007, where a
government-proposed constitutional
reform was dismissed. He considers that
"President Chávez's intention to
directly manage and command the militias
is another expression of his top
discretionary power and disrespect of
state laws." "The military sector
should comply with the Constitution (…)
Articles 328 and 329 are the ethical
principles that should guide military
chiefs and the state armed institution."
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dictator hugo chavez says that venezuela
will develop nuclear energy
MOSCOW, RUSSIA-dictator
Hugo Chávez said in Moscow that
Venezuela is not preparing to make an
atomic bomb. However, he said
that Venezuela will develop nuclear
energy. The Venezuelan dictator’s
comments came as part of his speech in
the forum Bicentennial of the
Independence and Bolivarian Revolution,
held in Moscow, Russia. Chávez began
his international tour in the Russian
capital. He will also visit Ukraine,
Belarus, Iran, Syria and Portugal,
state-run news agency Agencia Venezolana
de Noticias (AVN) reported.
Chavez hailed its alliance with Russia
and said his country had a right to
develop nuclear energy as he started a
visit to Moscow on Thursday. He is
planning to buy tanks in Russia, after
committing to $5 billion in earlier arms
deals, and discuss construction of a
nuclear plant which will use Russian
technology. "We are going to develop
nuclear power and nothing will stop us,"
he told Russian and Venezuelan students
at the Library of Foreign Literature in
Moscow. Chavez said he was going to sign
"important deals" in the oil and gas
sector without elaborating, and also
agree on the supplies of Venezuelan
coffee and chocolate to Russia. He
denied that two members of the ETA
militant group were trained in Venezuela
and called Spain's charges "part of the
aggression by the (U.S.) empire."
Earlier on Thursday, he said in televised comments in Moscow
that Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA
had agreed the sale to Russian buyers of
the four Ruhr Oel refineries that it
owns jointly with BP in Germany. BP was
also negotiating to sell up to $1
billion worth of its Venezuelan assets
to Russian TNK-BP to make up for the
losses it incurred due to the oil spill
in the Gulf of Mexico, a source close to
the deal said last month. Chavez gave an
emotional 45-minute speech in which he
attacked the United States. "We are so
far away from God and so close to the
damned empire," he said. Chavez will
meet President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday. He
will then continue his ten-day trip
visiting Ukraine and Belarus, which get
shipments of Venezuelan oil, and U.S.
foes Syria, Lebanon and Iran in the
Middle East. |
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RUSSIA VOWS TO HELP DICTATOR HUGO CHAVEZ
BUILD NUCLEAR PLANT IN VENEZUELA
MOSCOW, RUSSIA--Venezuelan
DICTATOR Hugo Chavez reached a
deal with Russia on Friday to build the
South American country's first nuclear
plant, as questions arose why a nation
rich in oil and gas would feel the need
to venture into nuclear energy. The two
nations also signed other energy
agreements. Russia has cultivated close
ties with Chavez's government to expand
its global clout and counter U.S.
influence in Latin America. The
ITAR-Tass news agency said Russia plans
to build two 1,200 megawatt nuclear
reactors at the Venezuelan plant. The
cost of Friday's nuclear deal wasn't
immediately announced. The deal is
likely to raise concern in President
Barack Obama's administration but
continues a pattern of Russia pressing
to export its nuclear expertise.
Russia has just completed Iran's first
nuclear power plant and recently reached
new deals to build nuclear reactors in
China and Turkey. It's talking with
Indian officials about building a dozen
of nuclear reactors there and also wants
to build a nuclear reactor in the Czech
Republic. Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev sought to pre-empt questions
about why Venezuela would need nuclear
power by saying the deal would help
Caracas reduce its dependence on global
market fluctuations. "I don't know who
will shudder at this," Medvedev said at
a news conference after the signing.
"The president (of Venezuela) said there
will be nations that will have different
emotions about that, but I would like to
emphasize that our intentions are
absolutely pure and open: We want our
partner Venezuela to have a full range
of energy possibilities."
Medvedev said Russia sees nuclear energy as a priority,
despite its own hydrocarbon wealth, and
described Russia's civilian nuclear
technology as highly competitive abroad.
"We are building many plants in
different countries, so why wouldn't
build such a plant in our close partner,
Venezuela?" he said. "That will offer a
certain degree of independence in case
of a drop in world energy prices."
Chavez said Venezuela wants to reduce
its dependence on oil and gas and
praised Russia for helping his country.
"Strategic cooperation with Russia gives
my country a huge advantage," he said.
The Venezuelan leader has grown
increasingly close to Russia, Iran and
China while assailing U.S. policies, and
his rhetoric about the need for a
"multi-polar world" has resonated in
Moscow. "Russia and Venezuela staunchly
support the creation of modern and fair
world order, so that our future doesn't
depend on the will and the liking of
just one country, its welfare and mood,"
Medvedev said in a veiled reference to
the United States. |
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EL CABALLO DE TRALLA
Your Job is “to infiltrate and soften
them” We will take care of the rest.
|
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THE ENTIRE FREE WORLD CHEERS FOR 33
MINERS FREED IN CHILE
SAN
JOSE MINE, CHILE--
After more than two months entombed half
a mile beneath the Chilean desert,
the last of 33 trapped miners has been
pulled to safety, ending a dramatic
rescue effort that happened quicker than
anyone expected, and sparked jubilation
around the world. Shift foreman Luis
Urzua, 54, the group's de facto leader,
emerged from the escape capsule shortly
before 10 p.m. local time and was
greeted by an emotional Sebastian Pinera,
Chile's president. "Mission
accomplished, now we can all go and have
a rest!" Pinera told the crowd gathered
at "Camp Hope" above the mine. He
praised "Don Luis" as a "good captain"
who made his country proud.
"A shift of 70 days, that's a long
shift," Urzua joked, hugging rescuers.
"We have done what the entire world was
waiting for," he said, turning serious.
"The 70 days that we fought so hard were
not in vain. We had strength, we had
spirit. We wanted to fight, we wanted to
fight for our families and that was the
greatest thing." The president told
Urzua: "You are not the same, and the
country is not the same after this. You
were an inspiration. Go hug your wife
and your daughter." Then, holding their
hardhats to cover their hearts, Pinera
and Urzua led the assembled crowd in
singing Chile's national anthem.
Pinera ceremoniously placed a metal cap
over the top of the mine shaft early
today, signaling that the disaster has
officially come to a close. The whole
rescue -- a feat of seamless engineering
that was executed without a hitch -- was
completed in less than 24 hours. At one
point, engineers thought the miners
would have to remain underground through
Christmas. "The whole world watched the
scene at Camp Esperanza as the first
miner was lifted out from under more
than 2,000 feet of rock and then
embraced by his young son and family,"
President Barack Obama said Wednesday at
the White House. "And the tears they
shed after so much time apart expressed
not only their own relief, not only
their own joy, but the joy of people
everywhere. It was a thrilling moment." |
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SPANISH MINISTER OF JUSTICE, FRANCISCO
CAAMAÑO: venezuela's support in fight against eta
is "essential"
MADRID, SPAIN--Francisco
Caamaño, the Spanish Minister of
Justice, said on Thursday that
support from Venezuelan judicial
authorities is "essential" in the fight
against Basque terrorist group ETA
(Basque Homeland and Freedom). Reference
was made to the alleged training of ETA
members in Venezuela. "The Spanish
government is working closely with
Venezuelan authorities as far as legal
cooperation is concerned," the minister
said, adding that (Venezuela's) "support
is essential to take measures in Spain
or in that country." For this reason,
the Spanish Justice Minister stressed in
talks with reporters that "comprehensive
efforts have been deployed to address
this issue, both by the Spanish
Administration of Justice and diplomats,
through the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs."
In this sense, Caamaño downplayed the
statements made by Venezuela's dictator
Hugo Chávez, who early on Thursday
replied to Spanish Foreign Minister
Miguel Ángel Moratinos. Moratinos
urged the Venezuelan government to
provide a "final answer" on the presence
of alleged ETA terrorists in Venezuelan
territory and, at the same time, he
ensured that the Spanish government will
use "all political, diplomatic, judicial
and police mechanisms to defeat ETA."
"Turn a deaf ear to foolish words," the
Venezuelan dictator said in reply to Moratinos' words. Chávez made it clear
that those seeking to relate his
administration with terrorists "will
fail" in their attempt.
"Do not give importance to words, the
important thing is that the terrorists
who were in France and tried to go to
Portugal did not succeed thanks to the
work of the government, and thanks to
the government's moves they will not go
to Venezuela either," Caamaño said.
According to the Spanish Minister of
Justice, the fact that both Venezuela
and Spain can "work for a common cause,"
that is, preventing "ETA's terrorist
actions from taking place in Spain or
anywhere else in the world," is more
important than any statement.
"Cooperation among judicial authorities
is of foremost importance," said Caamaño
at the end of his speech during the
opening session of a meeting held in the
city of Valladolid, in central Spain. |
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SPAIN ATTORNEY GENERAL, CANDIDO
CONDE-PUMPIDO, URGES VENEZUELA TO EITHER
TRY OR HAND OVER ETA MILITANT ARTURO
CUBILLAS
MADRID, SPAIN-Attorney-general
Candido Conde-Pumpido urged
Caracas to investigate the activities of
Arturo Cubillas, a Spanish-born
Venezuelan government official who has
lived in the Latin American country
since 1989. If there were 'rational
indications' that Cubillas worked for
ETA, Caracas needed to extradite him or
put him on trial, the attorney general
insisted. Spain would not 'tolerate
that terrorism has any kind of
international support,' Conde-Pumpido
warned. Foreign Minister Miguel Angel
Moratinos, meanwhile, said Spain wanted
a 'definitive answer' from Venezuela on
allegations that it protected an
alliance between ETA and the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Spain would use all available mechanisms
to 'make (any ETA members) return' from
Venezuela, the minister vowed. Two ETA
suspects who were detained in late
September said Cubillas had supervised
weapons training they received in
Venezuela in 2008.
Spanish judge Eloy Velasco earlier
issued an arrest warrant for Cubillas.
The judge has charged Cubillas and 12
other ETA or FARC suspects with crimes,
including plans to kill Colombian
politicians in Spain. However, Caracas
has declined to extradite Cubillas on
the grounds that Cubillas is a Venezuelan
citizen. Venezuelan diplomats and media
have suggested that the two ETA suspects
who accused Cubillas may have spoken
under torture, a charge that Madrid
categorically denies. Cubillas himself
recently asked the Venezuelan judiciary
to investigate the Spanish charges
against him, complaining that they
tarnished his reputation.
Venezuela has meanwhile requested that
Interpol order the arrest in any country
of Nestor Gonzalez, a former Venezuelan
general who was implicated in a 2002
coup attempt against dictator Hugo
Chavez, and who is believed to be in
exile in some Central American country,
the Spanish daily El Pais reported.
“Velasco wants to question Gonzalez as a
witness on the alleged links between ETA
and FARC. Caracas was seeking Gonzalez's
arrest in an attempt to block Velasco's
probe, Venezuelan opposition
representatives claimed in Madrid.
Venezuela, however, denies any links
with ETA and attributes such allegations
to an international propaganda campaign
against Chavez's leftist 'revolution.'
Venezuela shunned an invitation to
participate in Spanish national day
military parades alongside several other
Latin American countries on Tuesday.
However, the ambassador who would have
represented Venezuela attributed his
absence to being "away from Spain" at the
time, and described bilateral relations
as excellent. |
|
ONE BY ONE, ALL 33 CHILEAN MINERS MAKE IT TO
FREEDOM
SAN
JOSE MINE, CHILE-- the 33 miners trapped half a mile
under the Chilean desert for a
record-breaking 69 days have emerged to
fresh air, tearful hugs from
their families and the nation's
president and jubilation from around the
world. The first miner to emerge was
31-year-old Florencio Avalos. His
sobbing 7-year-old son, Bairon, threw
his arms around him in what's likely to
become an iconic image of celebrations
after the miners' perseverance, which
quickly became a national symbol for
Chile and a global media obsession. "I
told Florencio that few times have I
ever seen a son show so much love for
his father," Chilean President Sebastian
Pinera said, according to The Associated
Press.
Wearing sunglasses to protect his eyes,
Avalos was freed shortly after midnight,
ascending in a 28-inch-wide escape
capsule painted with Chile's red, white
and blue colors, and named Phoenix for a
mythical bird that rises from ashes.
Horns blared across the Atacama desert
in darkness as the capsule finally
reached the manhole-sized opening, to
cheers of "Chi! Chi! Chi! Le! Le! Le!"
Avalos climbed out and hugged his two
sons and wife, then Pinera, and gave a
thumbs-up before boarding an ambulance
for medical checks.
The de facto deputy chief of the miners,
Avalos was chosen to be rescued first
because he's in the best health and able
to troubleshoot glitches along the
harrowing pathway up. There appeared to
be none. He was followed an hour later
by fellow miner Mario Sepulveda, who
emerged with his physical strength --
and sense of humor -- intact. He jumped
up and down, pumped his arms and led a
crowd of onlookers in a chant for Chile.
Then while being hauled away on a
stretcher, he asked his wife "How's the
dog?" and handed out rocks as joke
souvenirs to his rescuers. The Chilean
newspaper Las Ultimas Noticias splashed
his picture on its front page under the
headline "Super Mario." Speaking to
reporters, he turned serious: "I've been
near God but I've also been near the
devil," Sepulveda said, according to The
Daily Telegraph. "They fought but God
won." |
|
EL DICTADOR VENEZOLANO HUGO CHAVEZ TO
STRENGTHEN TIES WITH RUSSIA, IRAN AND
LYBIA
CARACAS,
VENEZUELA--Venezuela's
dictator Hugo Chávez is starting
in Moscow on Thursday an international
tour that will take him to Iran,
Belarus, Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Algeria
and Portugal, in order to strengthen his
political and economic relations with
these countries. "It is an extremely
important trip that will allow us to
deepen our relations in a multipolar
world," said the Venezuelan dictator.
Chávez, who is an advocate of a new
world order and has worked to counteract
the traditional influence of the United
States over Latin America, has
established for years a web of relations
with countries such as Iran, Russia,
Syria or Libya, based on political
affinity. Later, he has signed important
cooperation agreements. One of the best
examples is Russia, where dictator
Chávez will start his tour.
The establishment of a Russian-Venezuelan bank, which
was proposed in 2008, will be one of the
main items in the agenda between Chávez
and his Russian counterpart Dmitry
Medvedev. The bank will fund joint
projects from 2010, according to the
Venezuela's Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. Chávez and Medvedev will also
set up a project to build 7,000 housing
units in Venezuela, AFP reported. The
Russian government is also willing to
help Venezuela to develop nuclear energy
projects for peaceful purposes. |
|
100,000 unemployed cubans forced to
enter the agrarian sector
HAVANA CUBA-
About 100,000 Cubans have been
forced to join the ranks of the
country’s farmworkers as part of a
strategy by the government of Raul
Castro to spur food production, the
government daily Juventud Rebelde
reported Tuesday. The paper cited
remarks by Vice President Ulises Rosales
del Toro at a meeting with leaders of
the Union of Young Communists, or UJC,
at which he said that 30,000 young
people had entered the agrarian sector.
Rosales del Toro, who up until June was
agriculture minister, said that the
figure was achieved “when some skeptics
thought it could not be reached.” In
addition, he emphasized that the UJC
leaders were being counted upon to
“mobilize the masses of youth” with the
aim of strengthening the economy and
achieving efficiency and good quality in
production. In August, Juventud Rebelde,
the voice of the UJC, reported that
young people are in the majority at
present in requesting newly available
farm land.
According to government figures, people under 35 have
acquired more than 50 percent of the
more tan 1 million hectares (2.47
million acres) distributed since 2008,
when the government approved a law
promoting the turning over of idle state
lands to individuals to make those
territories productive. President Castro
has insisted on a number of occasions
that food production is a “national
security” matter and has reiterated his
effort to spur agricultural production
on the communist island. Cuba has been
importing more than 80 percent of the
food that its 11.2 million citizens
consume, and it spends more than $1.5
billion annually on purchasing food from
abroad. |
|
CHACUMBELE SE QUEDA SIN SHOW
|
|
DRAMATIC ENDGAME NEARS FOR TRAPPED CHILE
MINERS
SAN
JOSE MINE, CHILE--
They'll come up one by one in
green overalls bearing their names on
their chests -- first the fittest, then
the weakest, twisting in a steel cage
that proved itself with four flawless
test runs deep into the earth. The
dramatic endgame hastened Monday for the
33 Chilean miners who have braved two
months underground, with rescuers
reinforcing the escape shaft and the
13-foot-tall rescue chamber sliding, as
planned, nearly all the way to the
trapped men. "It didn't even raise any
dust," Mining Minister Laurence Golborne
said. If all goes well, everything will
be in place late Tuesday to begin
pulling the men out, officials said. The
lead psychologist for the rescue team
recommended the extractions begin at
dawn Wednesday. No official decision was
announced, but Andre Sougarret, the
rescue team coordinator, tweeted Monday
evening that "today the miners sleep
their last night together!"
On Monday, the Phoenix I capsule -- the
biggest of three built by Chilean navy
engineers, named for the mythic bird
that rose from ashes -- made its first
test run after the top 180 feet of the
shaft was encased in tubing, the rescue
leader said. "We didn't send it (all the
way) down because we could risk that
someone will jump in," a grinning
Golborne told reporters. Engineers had
planned to extend the piping nearly
twice as far, but they decided to stop
after the sleeve -- the hole is angled
11 degrees off vertical at its top
before plumbing down, like a waterfall
-- became jammed during a probe. Rescue
team psychologist Alberto Iturra said he
recommended the first man be pulled out
at dawn because the miners are to be
taken by Chilean air force helicopters
to the nearby city of Copiapo and fog
tends to enshroud the mine at night.
Officials have drawn up a secret list of
which miners should come out first, but
the order could change after paramedics
and a mining expert first descend in the
capsule to evaluate the men and oversee
the journey upward. First out will be
the four fittest of frame and mind, said
health minister Jaime Manalich. Should
glitches occur, these men will be best
prepared to ride them out and tell their
comrades what to expect. Next will be 10
who are weakest or ill. The last out is
expected to be Luiz Urzua, who was shift
chief when the men became entombed,
several family members of miners told
the AP, speaking on condition of
anonymity because they did not want to
upset government officials. The men will
take a twisting, 20-minute ride for
2,041 feet up to the surface. It should
take about an hour for the rescue
capsule to make a round trip. "They're
in for the surprise of their lives. From
here on out, their lives will have
changed," Fisher predicted. "There
aren't too many of those guys who get
along because of all the attention, the
lawsuits, the movie deals. Once money
gets involved, it gets ugly." |
|
BEIJING COMPLAINS THAT OTHER COUNTRIES
ARE USING NOBEL PEACE PRIZE TO attack
CHINA
BEIJING, CHINA--China
has held the Norwegian government
responsible for the "erroneous" decision
of the Nobel Committee to name jailed
activist Liu Xiaobo for the coveted
Peace Prize and accused other countries
of using the award to attack it. In an
apparent reference to countries like US
which have demanded the release of Liu,
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma
Zhaoxu said trying to change the
country's political system by awarding
the prize to an imprisoned dissident was
a mistake. "To give the peace prize to
a convicted person in China...this shows
no respect for judicial system in China.
What a convicted person should be
allowed or not allowed to do is up to
judicial authority," Ma told reporters
here.
He was replying to a volley of questions
on China's anger over awarding of the
Nobel Peace Prize to Liu, who is
currently serving a 11-year jail
sentence for subverting state power. Ma
evaded a direct reply when asked whether
China would allow his wife to receive
the award in Oslo later this year. When
told that Liu's wife Liu Xia had no
cases against her, he said "You are
talking about his wife is it. I have no
information." "Politicians from some
counties are using this opportunity
(award) to attack China. This is not
only disrespect to China's judicial
system but also put a big question on
their true intention," he said.
US President Barack Obama and several global leaders
have demanded the release of Liu after
he was named this year's Nobel peace
prize winner. "If some people try to
change China's political system in this
way and try to stop Chinese people
moving forward, that is obviously making
a mistake," the spokesman said. Ma
attacked the Norwegian government,
saying that the the award was given
despite a warning from China that such a
move would damage the ties. "Norwegian
Government supported the erroneous
decision of the Nobel committee. What it
did has hurt the bilateral relations.
There is every reason for Chinese people
to be unhappy." "As a responsible
government, it (Norway) is supposed to
know what it should and should not do,"
he said. The bilateral ties between
the two countries "maintained sound
momentum" in the recent times but the
award to Liu "however ran counter to the
principles of the Nobel prize and
damaged the China- Norway relations".
(More) PTI KJV ETB AKJ ETB 10121659 NNNN
|
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VENEZUELAN DICTATOR HUGO CHAVEZ
NATIONALIZES VENOCO AND FERTINITRO
CARACAS, VENEZUELA--In
his weekly radio and TV address No. 365,
on Sunday DICTATOR Hugo Chávez
focused on political rectification of
several aspects that he previously
deemed a dogma of faith. Further,
Chávez decided to strengthen his
expropriation policy and announced the
nationalization of Venezuelan motor
lubricants company Venoco, and
Fertinitro, a producer of nitrogen
fertilizer. He also renamed Spanish
farming company Agroisleña as Agropatria
and appointed of a new board of
directors.
The Venezuelan head of state said that
"not all private property is evil" and
"socialism does not disavow private
property." The Venezuelan president
announced that he will not visit China
during his tour of Russia and Asia, as
his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao told
him that he wanted to visit Venezuela
soon. Chávez said that he would visit
Syria and Ukraine instead.
Chávez criticized the opposition umbrella group
Democratic Unified Panel (MUD) because
the opposition parties requested China
to release the winner of the Nobel Peace
Prize and accused the Chinese government
of being a "totalitarian" regime. He
defended the importance of Venezuela's
partnership with China. |
|
cuban state media criticizes nobel prize
winners
HAVANA,
CUBA--Cuban
state-controlled media says it is
disappointed with the Nobel prizes
awarded to imprisoned Chinese dissident
Liu Xiaobo and Peruvian novelist Mario
Vargas Llosa, an outspoken critic
of dictatorships across Latin America.
The website Cubadebate, where Fidel
Castro posts his opinion columns,
carried an article over the weekend
saying, "Let's hope to God this is just
one of those ideological strikes that
this once-prestigious honor has
delivered over its long history, and not
a new rule." The opinion was signed by
M. H. Lagarde, a longtime commentator
for Cuban government media.
Liu, a 54-year-old literary critic who
is in the second year of an 11-year
prison term for inciting subversion, was
picked for the Noble Peace Prize last
week. Lagarde compared Liu to the sort
of dissidents here that Cuba's
government considers agents of
Washington. "The curriculum vitae of Liu
Xiaobo is, as a matter of fact, not the
least bit different from the type of
'dissident' the United States has for
decades employed. Another ally of Cuba
and China, dictator Hugo Chavez of
Venezuela, expressed solidarity with
China on Sunday and criticized his
country's opposition media for alleging
that Chinese failure to broadcast news
of Liu's award showed "the repressive
character" of the government there.
"They are lackeys. They are worse than
the Yankees," he said of critics.
Vargas Llosa once sympathized with
Castro but became a critic of Cuban
politics in the early 1970s. The
74-year-old often criticizes what he
views as threats to democracy and
freedoms in Latin America. As he basked
in praise for winning the literature
prize last week, Vargas Llosa singled
out Venezuela and Cuba, saying they
represent a step backward for a
hemisphere emerging from an era of
strongman leaders. Lagarde said that
Vargas Llosa's agreement "with the
most-reactionary of the international
right is as unquestionable as his
silences on the unjust war brought by
the United States against Iraq and
tortures in the concentration camp of
Guantanamo," a reference to the U.S.
naval base in eastern Cuba where the
U.S. houses terror suspects. He "should
have received the award many years ago,
when ... he was more of a writer than a
politician," Lagarde wrote. |
|
iran acknowledges espionage at nuclear
facilities
TEHRAN, IRAN--Iran
acknowledged that some personnel at the
country's nuclear facilities were lured
by promises of money to pass secrets to
the West but insisted increased
security and worker privileges have put
a stop to the spying. The stunning
admission by Vice President Ali Akbar
Salehi provides the clearest government
confirmation that Iran has been fighting
espionage at its nuclear facilities. In
recent weeks, Iran has announced the
arrest of several nuclear spies and
battled a computer worm that it says is
part of a covert Western plot to derail
its nuclear program. And in July, a
nuclear scientist who Iran says was
kidnapped by U.S. agents returned home
in mysterious circumstances, with the
U.S. saying he was a willing defector
who was offered $5 million by the CIA
but then changed his mind.
The United States and its allies have
vigorously sought to slow Iran's nuclear
advances through U.N. and other
sanctions out of suspicion that Tehran
intends to use a civil program as cover
for developing weapons. Iran denies any
such aim and says it only wants to
generate nuclear power. Saturday's
revelation was the first public word
that some personnel have engaged in
espionage, although Tehran has arrested
suspects in the past. With the
announcement, Iran appears to be trying
to raise public awareness about what it
says are plots by the U.S. and its
allies to derail Iran's nuclear
activities.
Salehi said access to information has been restricted within
nuclear facilities as part of the
increased security measures. "In the
past, personnel had easy access to
information but it is not the case
anymore now," Fars quoted him as saying.
Salehi said Iran's nuclear agency also
published booklets for its personnel
alerting them to the various techniques
the West uses to try to lure them into
espionage. The booklets "spell out
precautionary measures to protect
(information) and the life of
scientists," he was quoted as saying.
"The issue of spies existed in the past
but now we see that it is fading day by
day." Salehi said measures have been
taken to provide welfare to nuclear
personnel including housing in order to
enhance their living conditions as a way
of protecting them against offers by the
West. |
|
SPANISH REPORTER TELLS OF HIS SIX YEARS
UNDERCOVER EXPERIENCE IN TERRORIST
TRAINING CAMPS IN VENEZUELA
MADRID, SPAIN-
Spanish investigative reporter Antonio
Salas, who spent six years
undercover as Mujahideen Muhammad
Abdallah, said in a book and a TV show
that members of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC) and of the
Basque terrorist group ETA were trained
in Venezuela.
Salas, who now lives in hiding for the
importance of his revelations, said in
an interview with Spanish private TV
channel Antena 3, "I met several times
with ETA members and Basque people in
Venezuela between 2006 and 2008."
He added that he met members of the pro-government
Venezuelan Bolivarian Circles, whom he
asked about Arturo Cubillas Fontán, a
representative of the Basque separatist
movement in Venezuela, according to a
video broadcast on Antena 3. In an
interview with Infobae, Salas said, "I
can prove, because I lived it, that the
training of guerrillas in Venezuela is
possible because I was trained by a
colonel and also by police officers..." |
|
CUBA TO FREE 3 PRISONERS NOT INCLUDED IN
THE CHURCH DEAL
HAVANA,
CUBA--Cuba
will release into exile in Spain a
lawyer jailed for allegedly revealing
state security secrets and two
hijackers, none of whom were on a list
of 52 political prisoners the government
has agreed to free in a deal with the
Roman Catholic Church. The church said
Saturday that Rolando Jimenez Posada, an
attorney considered by Amnesty
International to be a "prisoner of
conscience," has agreed to accept early
release from prison in exchange for
leaving Cuba with his family. Two other
inmates, Ciro Perez Santana and Arturo
Suarez Ramos, will also be freed and
sent to Spain with their relatives. Both
were held for "piracy," which translates
to hijacking an airliner or a ferry in
an attempt to flee to the U.S.
Perez Santana was arrested in 1994 and
had been serving a 20-year sentence,
while Suarez Ramos was arrested in 1987
and got a 30-year sentence. The three
weren't among the 75 opposition
activists, community organizers,
dissidents and independent journalists
defying state controls on media who were
arrested in a 2003 crackdown on
political dissent. Twenty-three of that
group were released before July, when
Raul Castro's government promised church
leaders it would free the remaining 52.
The release of inmates not in the group
of dissidents indicates Cuba is
expanding its moves to liberate other
prisoners considered by international
human rights organizations as jailed for
their political beliefs.
Cuba had previously maintained it
held no political prisoners, saying the
75 were sentenced to lengthy prison
terms on charges that included treason
and taking money from the U.S. to
destabilize the island's communist
government. Jimenez Posada, the lawyer,
was arrested in April 2003 and was
serving a 12-year sentence for
disrespecting authority and "revealing
secrets about state security police"
after he publicly pledged support for
the political prisoners captured the
previous month. Cuban Cardinal Jaime
Ortega "called Rolando this morning at
around 11 and told him we should be
ready to go" to Madrid, Jimenez Posada's
wife, Lamasiel Gutierrez, said Saturday
night, when reached at her home on Isla
de la Juventud, south of mainland Cuba.
London-based Amnesty International had
listed Jimenez Posada as the only
"prisoner of conscience" who would have
been left in Cuban jails if the
government made good on its pledge with
the church to free the 52 dissidents. |
|
KIDNAPPED BRITISH AID WORKER KILLED IN
AFGHANISTAN IN RESCUE ATTEMPT
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN--A
British aid worker has been
killed during an attempt by US forces to
free her after she was kidnapped in
Afghanistan two weeks ago.
Thirty-six-year-old Linda Norgrove was
abducted along with three Afghan
co-workers when a two car convoy was
ambushed in the remote Kunar province, a
lawless region bordering Pakistan. The
mission to free her had been approved by
the British government. Foreign
secretary William Hague said she was
killed by her captors during the rescue
attempt. "Responsibility for this
tragic outcome rests squarely with the
hostage takers. From the moment they
took her, her life was under grave
threat," he said in a statement on
Saturday (local time). American forces
killed eight people they said were
holding her.
It is thought the group had been moving
Linda Norgrove from village to village
in a mountainous and remote area. Local
tribal leaders had been trying to
negotiate her release and are reported
to have advised against any rescue
attempt. Norgrove, an ex-UN worker,
headed a $150 million US aid project
designed to build local economies.
British prime minister David Cameron
praised her work in Afghanistan and
offered his condolences to her family.
Her death highlights the increasing
dangers faced by aid workers in
Afghanistan, where insurgents and other
armed groups hold sway in many parts of
the country. "This is devastating news,"
said James Boomgard, president of her
organisation DAI, a private company
involved in development.
In August, eight foreign medical workers, including a
British female doctor, as well as two
Afghans, were killed by unidentified
gunmen in the remote north-east.
Insurgents are still holding two French
journalists seized last December. Ms
Norgrove's rescue attempt was not the
first such operation. A raid that freed
New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell,
a Briton, from his Afghan captors last
year provoked anger after his Afghan
colleague and a British soldier were
killed. The Afghan war is weighing
increasingly on US president Barack
Obama's administration as he and his
NATO allies face pressure at home to end
the unpopular war. The focus now is
increasingly on possible talks between
Afghan president Hamid Karzai and the
Taliban. |
|
VENEZUELA AND SPAIN NEGOTIATING "AN
IMPORTANT NAVY CONTRACT"
MADRID, SPAIN--Spanish
newspaper El Mundo said that the
Venezuelan and Spanish governments are
negotiating "an important Navy contract"
to increase the purchase orders of
state-run shipyards and the revenues of
the Spanish company Navantia."
This negotiation is carried out despite
a recent impasse between the two
countries following the confession of
two ETA members arrested in Spain.
According to El Mundo, the government of
President Hugo Chávez is "willing to
negotiate, but it has proposed that the
two countries join efforts in the
shipbuilding industry and has requested
technology transfer to renew its Navy
and upgrade its shipyards"
"The president of the state-run company Navantia told local
reporters that it has submitted a bid to
Venezuela to extend the 2005 huge
agreement. Reference is made to the
controversial order under then Defense
Minister José Bono to manufacture in
Spanish public shipyards four ocean
surveillance ships and four coastal
surveillance boats for Venezuela. The
deal was valued at 1.2 billion euros and
represented a key workload for Navantia
and its auxiliary industries of five
million hours," the newspaper added. |
|
WAY OUT, AT LAST, FOR CHILE'S 33 TRAPPED
MINERS
SAN
JOSE MINE, CHILE--Sixty-six
agonizing days after their gold and
copper mine collapsed above them,
33 miners were offered a way out
Saturday as a drill broke through to
their underground purgatory. Word of the
drill's success prompted cheers, tears
and the ringing of bells by families in
the tent camp outside the mine. Some who
have kept a vigil since the Aug. 5
disaster ran up a hill where 33 Chilean
flags were planted, chanting and
shouting with joy as a siren rang
throughout "Camp Hope," confirming the
breakthrough.
The "Plan B" drill won a three-way race
against two other drills to carve a hole
wide enough for an escape capsule to
pull the miners out one by one. While
"Plan A" and "Plan C" stalled after
repeatedly veering off course, the "Plan
B" drill reached the miners at a point
2,047 feet (624 meters) below the
surface after pushing through the final
128 feet (39 meters) overnight. The
milestone thrilled Chileans, who have
come to see the rescue drama as a test
of the nation's character and pride, and
eased some anxiety among the miners'
families. But now comes a difficult
judgment call: The rescue team must
decide whether it's more risky to pull
the miners through unreinforced rock, or
to insert tons of heavy steel pipe into
the curved shaft to protect the miners
on their way up.
President Sebastian Pinera reminded
Chileans Friday that he had promised "to
do everything humanly possible" to keep
the miners safe. Steel pipe would
prevent stones from falling and
potentially jamming the capsule, but it
wouldn't save a miner if the unstable
mine suffers another major collapse, and
might itself provoke a disastrous
setback, Mining Minister Laurence
Golborne said. "You would have to put
though a 600-meter hole a lot of pipes
that weigh more than 150 tons," he
warned. "And this structure can be set
in a position that also could block the
movement of the Phoenix (escape
capsule). It's not an decision easy to
make." If Saturday's close video
examination persuades engineers that the
shaft is smooth, strong and uniform
enough to let the capsule pass without
significant obstacles, then rescuers
plan to start pulling the men out one by
one as early as Tuesday, in a
made-for-TV spectacle that has
captivated the world. |
|
THE PAKISTANI GOVERNMENT DECIDES TO
REOPEN MAJOR SUPPLY ROUTE FOR NATO
FORCES
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN--The
Pakistani government on Saturday
announced its decision to reopen the
Khyber Pass border into Afghanistan for
NATO supply convoys. "After
assessing the security situation in all
its aspects, the government has decided
to reopen the ... supply from the
Pakistan-Afghanistan border at Torkham
with immediate effect," the government
said in a statement. "Our relevant
authorities are now in the process of
coordinating with authorities on the
other side of the border to ensure
smooth resumption of the supply
traffic." A U.S. military official
earlier said that the decision was
anticipated in Pakistan, but full
traffic is not expected until Monday.
Pakistan closed the main land route for
NATO supplies crossing from Pakistan to
Afghanistan after U.S. helicopter
strikes across the border killed two
Pakistani soldiers. A report from a NATO
and Pakistan assessment team concluded
that soldiers fired warning shots to let
them know of their presence, but the
helicopter crews assumed they were
insurgents and fired the shots. "Two
coalition helicopters passed into
Pakistan airspace several times," NATO's
International Security Assistance Force
said in a report this week.
"Subsequently, the helicopters fired on
a building later identified as a
Pakistan border outpost, in response to
shots fired from the post. The
assessment team considered it most
probable that they had fired in an
attempt to warn the helicopters of their
presence. Unfortunately, following the
engagement, it was discovered that the
dead and wounded were members of the
Pakistan Frontier Scouts."
While the main route has been closed, at least seven attacks
on convoys carrying supplies for NATO
have taken place in Pakistan. The
convoys are generally operated by
contracted Pakistani firms, using
Pakistani trucks and drivers. The holdup
has been unsettling for truckers who
worry about possible militant attacks,
driver Fayaz Mohammed said after the
route's closure. "We are very poor
people, and these trucks are everything
we possess," he said. "And we fear the
Taliban might come here and burn our
containers." Shortly after Pakistan shut
down the supply route, most trucks just
stayed at the side of the road. But many
have been moved to safer yards and lots
out of fear they might be attacked by
militants. Since October 1, at least six
people have been killed in attacks on
supply vehicles. The Pakistani Taliban
has claimed responsibility for the most
recent attack, which took place Saturday
in Pakistan's western Baluchistan
province. Assailants attacked 28 oil
tankers with a machine gun and rockets,
said Meeran Bukhsh, a police official in
the Bolan district. Police said the
tankers caught fire, and two people were
injured. |
|
EX-GUERRILA REVEALS SECRETS OF MONO
JOJOY'S CASH SUPPLY
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA--Demobilized
guerrilla Juan Arturo Wilches, alias
"Ricardo," tells El Tiempo how
easy it was, until security crack-downs
in 2005, for the FARC to move cash in
bags across the country. "Mono Jojoy"
had 36 men whose sole job was to each
carry two bags full of pesos and dollars
through the jungle, with up to COP1
billion ($560,000) arriving every two
weeks.
"The money arrived in trucks or on the
river and was used at the front, for
secretary expenses and for Mono's
undercover agents," recalls Ricardo, who
was a member of Mono Jojoy's inner
security ring. He added that guerrillas
in the two outer security rings were not
allowed to carry money. If they were
caught with money it meant that they had
been stealing from the leader.
From this money that was used to maintain the security
of guerrillas, a part was used for the
leader's diet which consisted of fruits
and vegetables and another part was used
to get boots and American weapons,
Ricardo recalls. "He himself said it was
ironic that he hated America but
recognized the quality of their arms and
war equipment," the former guerrilla
added. Ricardo eventually escaped with
$3 million. |
|
gen. jim joneS resigns as national
security advisor. he will be replaced by
his deputy, tom donilon
washington,
d.c.--President
Barack Obama's national security
advisor, Gen. Jim Jones, will
step down in two weeks and will be
replaced by his deputy, Tom Donilon,
senior administration officials said
Friday. Jones, whose resignation has
been rumored for months, has struggled
to fit in with the Obama team from the
early days of the administration, and
reportedly struggled to overcome
friction between him and the president’s
closest aides, including senior advisor
David Axelrod, press secretary Robert
Gibbs and former chief of staff Rahm
Emanuel. Administration officials said
Jones had previously told Obama he
intended to leave by the end of the
year, mid-way through his first term.
Obama announced Jones' departure and
Donilon's promotion in the Rose Garden.
Donilon, who is seen as a rising star in the West Wing, had
been on Obama’s short list to replace
Emanuel, who resigned last Friday to a
run for mayor of his native Chicago. But
Donilon's move to the NSA post could
spawn more high-level staff changes,
particularly at the Defense Department.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has told
associates that Donilon’s appointment to
NSA would be a disaster, according to
journalist Bob Woodard's recently
published book, “Obama’s Wars.” But
Gates issued a statement Friday morning
from the Pentagon praising Jones and
dismissing rumors of his dissatisfaction
with Donilon. “I have thoroughly
enjoyed working with Gen. Jones and I
have, and have had, a very productive
and very good working relationship with
Tom Donilon, contrary to what you may
have read,” Gates said, “and I look
forward to working with him.”
Administration officials, speaking over the last month, have
said that Donilon’s ascent could trigger
an earlier exit by Gates, a holdover
from the Bush administration who has
developed a good rapport with Obama.
Donilon, Woodward reported, had a deep
skepticism of the military’s chain of
command – and the feeling was mutual,
with many commanders viewing Donilon as
a political dilettante who was in over
his head. According to Woodward, Jones
had tensions with members of Obama’s
inner circle, whom he nicknamed, “waterbugs.”
The revelations in Woodward’s book are
seen as inspiring Obama to expedite
Jones’ already-planned, two-year-mark
departure. Donilon, Woodward wrote, was
especially close to Emanuel. The former
chief of staff would often walk past
Jones’ office to relay Oval Office
requests directly to Donilon – which
irritated Jones to the point he
personally confronted Emanuel, according
to the book. “I’m the National Security
Adviser. When you come down here, come
see me,” Woodward quotes Jones as
saying. Jones also seemed to have his
doubts about Donilon last year, advising
him to travel to Iraq and Afghanistan –
something he hadn’t done before – while
telling him to tone down his opinions of
military leaders and NSC staffers. |
|
JAILED CHINESE DISSIDENT, LIU XIAOBO,
WINS 2010 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
OSLO, NORWAY--Chinese
democracy activist Liu Xiaobo,
who is less than a year into an 11-year
prison sentence for "subverting state
power," won the Nobel Peace Prize today
-- much to the chagrin of his communist
government. Iconic images of the
chain-smoking, leather-jacketed Liu, who
shot to fame as an adviser to the
student protesters at Tiananmen Square
in 1989, have become symbols of a feisty
home-grown human rights campaign that
China's authoritarian regime has sought
to snuff out. An infuriated Chinese
Foreign Ministry called the
international award "an obscenity,"
according to Reuters. The Nobel
announcement was blacked out on Chinese
TV stations. Liu is the first Chinese
citizen to win the Nobel Peace Prize,
and a rare recipient of the award while
behind bars. The Nobel Committee said
the 54-year-old Liu deserved the prize
"for his long and non-violent struggle
for fundamental human rights in China."
The former literature professor now banned from teaching is
the co-author of Charter 08, a manifesto
calling for political reform and human
rights in China, which was backed by
hundreds of academics, lawyers and
intellectuals. Liu's recognition puts
the spotlight on China's human rights
record at a time when the country's
power and influence are growing as a
result of its booming economy. Nobel
committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland
said it's appropriate for China to come
under increasing scrutiny as its power
grows. "We have to speak when others
cannot speak," Jagland told reporters.
"As China is rising, we should have the
right to criticize ... We want to
advance those forces that want China to
become more democratic."
On Christmas Day, Liu was sentenced to prison for at
least the third time. He previously did
time for his role in the Tiananmen
protests, including three years in a
forced labor camp for speaking out
against China's one-party system. That
camp is where he met his wife. It's
unclear whether Liu has heard the news
of his prize. His wife, Liu Xia, told
CNN she can't wait to visit him in
prison in northern China to tell him,
and said she thinks he will feel
"surprised and humbled," but also feel
"a greater sense of responsibilities"
because of the honor. "I am totally
shocked and feel so happy," she said.
"I've never dreamed about this. ... It's
an affirmation of what he has fought
for." China had warned Norway not to
award the prize to Liu, saying he didn't
qualify for the honor. Experts say China
could react to today's move by
intensifying its already brutal
crackdown on dissidents like Liu, or by
lengthening his prison sentence. "This
is an obscenity against the peace
prize," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma
Zhaoxu said in a statement. "The Nobel
Peace Prize is meant to award
individuals who promote international
harmony and friendship, peace and
disarmament," the ministry said,
according to ABC News. "Liu Xiaobo is a
criminal." |
|
MILITARY ENROLLMENT VITAL FOR PROCEDURES
WITH GOVERNMENT IN VENEZUELA
CARACAS, VENEZUELA--Venezuelans
citizen aged 18-60 who do not register
with the compulsory military draft will
be labeled as "reluctant draftee"
and will be fined with 12 tax units, as
established under the Conscription and
Military Draft Registration Law, which
was passed in October 2009. The law has
become a source of concern for many
Venezuelans, as the deadline to submit
the requirements for military enrollment
is October 21. Otherwise, people will
have to pay a fine amounting to VEB 780
(USD 181.4).
The law lacks regulations even though it was passed eight
months ago and regulations should be
drafted by now. Rocío San Miguel, an
attorney and president of civil
association Control Ciudadano para la
Seguridad, la Defensa y la Fuerza Armada
Nacional (Citizens' Control for Safety,
Defense and the National Armed Forces)
said that the law violates Article 134
of the Constitution, which provides that
"Everyone, in accordance with law, has
the duty to perform such civilian or
military service as may be necessary for
the defense, preservation and
development of the country."
Although the expert thinks that the law is
unconstitutional, she recommends not to
avoid military enrollment, as the
document, according to Article 81 of the
law, will be required by "employers,
whether public or private" to sign
contracts. |
|
PERUVIAN WRITER MARIO VARGAS LLOSA WON
NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE
STOCKHOLM,
SWEDEN- -Mario
vargas llosa, an outstanding member of
the a generation of writers that led a
resurgence in Latin American literature
in the 1960s, was a champion of
the left in his youth and later evolved
into an outspoken conservative, a shift
that infuriated much of Latin America's
leftist intelligentsia. "I hope they
gave it to me more for my literary work
and not my political opinions," the
74-year-old author said at a news
conference in New York. "I think Latin
American literature deals with power and
politics and this was inevitable. We in
Latin America have not solved basic
problems such as freedom," Vargas Llosa
said. "Literature is an expression of
life and you can't eradicate politics
from life," he added.
The Swedish Academy awarding the 10 million crown ($1.5
million) prize said Vargas Llosa had
been chosen "for his cartography of
structures of power and his trenchant
images of the individual's resistance,
revolt and defeat." The author of more
than 30 novels, plays and essays, Vargas
Llosa made his international
breakthrough in the 1960s with "The Time
of the Hero", a novel about cadets at a
military academy. Many of his works are
built on his experiences of life in Peru
in the late 1940s and the 1950s. Long
tipped as a potential winner, Vargas
Llosa is the Latin America's first Nobel
winner for literature since Mexico's
Octavio Paz took the prize in 1990.
He joins winners from the region that include Pablo
Neruda of Chile and Colombia's Gabriel
Garcia Marquez. In the 1970s, Vargas
Llosa, a one-time supporter of the Cuban
revolution, denounced Fidel Castro's
communism, maddening many of his leftist
literary colleagues like Garcia Marquez.
The writer said he never had any desire
to become a politician when he ran for
president in 1990 as Peru battled high
inflation and the Maoist Shining Path
insurgency. He lost to Alberto Fujimori,
who has since been convicted of
harboring paramilitaries. Frustrated
after his unsuccessful election run,
Vargas Llosa went to live in Spain but
remains influential in Latin America as
an acclaimed writer and columnist.
Vargas Llosa has become a staunch
supporter of free markets and has
harshly criticized a new wave of
populist left-wing leaders led by
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
|
|
SPANISH JUDGE ELOY VELASCO BELIEVES THAT
ETA, FARC PRODUCED WEAPONS IN VENEZUELA
MADRID, SPAIN--Spain's
National Court Judge Eloy Velasco,
who is investigating the alleged links
between Basque separatist group ETA and
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC), a guerrilla group,
thinks that both armed organizations
developed and produced weapons in
Venezuela, as reported by Spanish
newspaper El Mundo.
Judge Velasco, who instructed the Spanish police to travel to
Colombia to interrogate nine former FARC
members who said that they met with ETA
members in camps established in
Venezuelan territory, has also ordered
Spanish security forces to prepare an
expert report about the activities of
ETA and the Colombian guerrilla in the
development of new weapons. According
to El Mundo, the investigation suggests
that Basque separatist group ETA and the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
shared information, mainly in Venezuela,
on explosives and grenade launchers. The
probe also suggests that part of the
weapons were developed in Cuba, DPA
reported.
The two rebel groups have used similar grenades and
mortars. ETA calls these weapons "Jotake-Handia,"
while Colombian authorities call them
"cylinder bombs." The alleged training
of ETA members in Venezuela, according
to a testimony produced by two suspected
members of the Basque separatist group,
has stirred controversy in Spain.
Mariano Rajoy, the president of
dissenting Spanish People's Party (PP),
urged the government of José Luis
Rodríguez Zapatero to demand
"explanations" from Chávez's government.
|
|
DOZENS OF TALIBAN KILLED AS WAR ENTER
10TH YEAR IN AFGHANISTAN
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN--
Airstrikes and ground operations by NATO
and Afghan troops killed dozens
of insurgents, including a senior
Taliban leader who spearheaded attacks
against security forces, the alliance
said Thursday as the war in Afghanistan
entered its 10th year. Sixteen militants
were killed in air raids and ground
fighting overnight in the Darqad, Yangi
Qala and Khwaja Bahawuddin districts of
Takhar province, Gen. Shah Jahan Noori,
provincial police chief, told The
Associated Press. More than a dozen
insurgents were wounded.
Northern Takhar has been the scene of escalating military
operations in recent days, as NATO and
Afghan forces step up the battle for
control of the Taliban-dominated south.
Noori said his convoy was ambushed
early Thursday and four attackers were
killed in a gunbattle that lasted
several hours. No joint force casualties
occurred, he said. Taliban commander
Maulawi Jawadullah - accused of
organizing deadly ambushes, roadside
bombings, and abductions of Afghan
police and soldiers in northern
Afghanistan - was killed in an airstrike
Wednesday in Yangi Qala district, NATO
said. Jawadullah was linked to the
recent deaths of 10 Afghan National
Police officers during an attack on a
police station in neighboring Kunduz
province, an alliance statement said.
Seven other Taliban also died in the
assault, including three who opened fire
from a forest when coalition forces
moved in following the airstrike.
Thursday was the ninth anniversary of the American
invasion of Afghanistan, a frustrating
benchmark for those who expected a quick
exit after small targeted special forces
toppled the Taliban from power in 2001.
This week also marked another milestone
as the death toll for NATO forces
surpassed 2,000. At least 2,004 NATO
service members have died fighting in
Afghanistan since Oct. 7, 2001,
according to an AP count. A NATO service
member was killed Thursday in an
insurgent attack in the country's north,
and another died in a roadside bombing a
day earlier in the south, the alliance
announced, without providing their
nationalities or the specific locations.
The attacks brought to at least 15 the
number of NATO deaths so far in October.
"NATO is here and they say they are
fighting terrorism, and this is the 10th
year and there is no result yet," Afghan
President Hamid Karzai said in an
emotional speech last week. "Our sons
cannot go to school because of bombs and
suicide attacks." |
|
spain's prime minister, jose luis
rodriguez zapatero, demands a prompt
response from dictator hugo chavez
regarding eta training
MADRID,
SPAIN--SPAIN'S
PRIME MINISTER, JOSE LUIS RODRIGUEZ
ZAPATERO,
asked in a televised interview for "an
answer" from Venezuelan dictator Hugo
Chavez, after Madrid urged Caracas to
help investigate the alleged presence of
members of Basque separatist group ETA
in Venezuela for purposes of receiving
armstraining.
"The statements -which prompted this
controversy- of two suspected members of
ETA are plausible suspicion for delving
into this issue and for the Venezuelan
government to give us an answer,"
Rodríguez Zapatero said in an interview
broadcast live in Spanish private TV
channel Telecinco, AFP reported. Two
suspected ETA members arrested last week
in Spain told police that they took
training courses in Venezuela in 2008,
Spanish authorities said on Monday. "We
are convinced that no government in the
world is sheltering a terrorist group,"
he said.
"But the point is that no terrorist should feel more or less
free in any country, and this requires
cooperation among us and all
governments, also with the Venezuelan
government, where no ETA member will be
neither at ease nor quiet: they will be
persecuted," Rodríguez Zapatero
stressed. "If they are in Venezuela,
we're going to bring them back from
Venezuela, and if they are playing any
role in society, they will no longer be.
This can be achieved by cooperating with
the government of Venezuela, just like
with all governments," said the Spanish
head of government. "If that is
occurring, which in any case should have
a limited scope because ETA capacity is
very limited, such capacity will be
eradicated in Venezuela," he added. |
|
FARMING COMPANY AGROISLEÑA
ASKS THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT TO "FULLY"
DEFEND ITS INTERESTS
CARACAS, VENEZUELA--David
Santana, a grandson of the founder of
Agroisleña, whose seizure was announced
a few days ago by Venezuelan dictator
Hugo Chávez, asked the Spanish Foreign
Ministry to defend his interests.
Two days ago, Agroisleña, a company with
Spanish capital, rejected the seizure
announced by Chávez and considered that
the decision is based on "insufficient
and possibly distorted" information.
Santana told the international press
that the Spanish government has helped a
number of Spanish companies in Venezuela
to attain compensation agreements with
Venezuelan authorities. He stressed,
however, that they "will never receive"
the actual value of the company.
Santana asked Canary Islands' authorities and the
Spanish government to provide all media,
political and institution support to his
family. He added that the government of
the Canary Islands and the Mayoralty of
the island of Tenerife have been
involved in the case. He added that such
injustices should not be allowed and
that his first goal is to avoid the
expropriation of the company. However,
if the seizure finally takes place,
Santana's objective is to start fair
negotiations. Santana said that "the
expropriation is illegal; an act of
injustice like others that have occurred
in recent times." |
|
seizure of spanish company agroisleñA
termed unconstitutional
CARACAS, VENEZUELA--For
Luis Herrera Orellana, an attorney
expert in administrative law and
university professor, the
decision against Spanish company
Agroisleña , Venezuela's leading
provider of inputs in the agriculture
sector, failed to meet the fundamental
constitutional in case of seizures.
In his view, this is a forcible
decision, without adherence to the law
on private property. "They neither the
victims nor the rest of the country knew
the technical studies and reasons behind
the decision. There was just an informal
announcement on television, and then the
decision was published in the Official
Gazette," he added. The university
professor called upon the government of
President Hugo Chávez to respect the
provisions of the Constitution, noting
that Chávez's whole intended economic
model violates the system of social
market economy as set forth under the
Constitution. He stressed that "seizures
are a guarantee of the right to
property, rather than a mechanism for
the state to take what it does not own."
Even if based on the grounds of food security, Herrera
Orellana insisted that the decision
lacks legality because the Venezuelan
government is seizing food production
and distribution operations, rather than
a specific work or land for the
construction of infrastructure in the
interest of the community. "If you
review the Constitution and other
regulations, you realize that operations
cannot be declared public interest,"
Herrera Orellana told El Universal. |
|
ETA MEMBERS RATIFY LINKS BETWEEN HUGO
CHAVEZ AND ETA FOUND IN RAUL REYES'
COMPUTERS
MADRID,
SPAIN--Javier
Atristain and Juan Carlos Besance,
two activists of the Basque separatist
group ETA, attested that they received
arms training courses in Venezuela,
which ratifies some of the evidence
found in the computers of Raúl Reyes, a
deceased leader of the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
According to an indictment filed by the
Spanish National Court in February 2010,
some documents found in Reyes' computers
mentioned the courses members of the
Basque separatist group ETA and FARC
guerrillas took jointly in Venezuela.
At least 15 e-mails found in the
computers of Raúl Reyes, the deceased
leader of the rebel Colombian
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC),
referred to some courses taken by
members of the Basque separatist group
ETA and FARC guerrillas. Some arms
training courses were allegedly taken in
Venezuela and others in Colombia, near
the border with Venezuela. According to
the attestations of Javier Atristain and
Juan Carlos Besance, they received arms
training in Venezuela between July and
August 2008. In Venezuela, they were
welcomed by ETA suspect, Arturo Cubillas
Fontán, who worked at that time for the
Venezuelan Ministry of Agriculture and
Lands. Spanish newspaper ABC reported
on Monday that the government of José
Luis Rodríguez Zapatero asked Venezuela
for information about the statements of
the two ETA members arrested.
Venezuela's ambassador to Spain, Isaías
Rodríguez, has denied allegations that
Caracas has links with ETA or any
terrorist organization. According to
the attestations of Javier Atristain and
Juan Carlos Besance, they received arms
training in Venezuela between July and
August 2008. In Venezuela, they were
welcomed by ETA suspect, Arturo Cubillas
Fontán, who worked at that time for the
Venezuelan Ministry of Agriculture and
Lands. |
|
SPANISH OPPOSITION ASKS GOVERNMENT FOR
"STRONG PROTEST" BEFORE VENEZUELAN
DICTATOR HUGO CHAVEZ
MADRID, SPAIN--The
People's Party (PP), the main opposition
party in Spain, asked the Spanish
government to issue a "strong diplomatic
protest with all its consequences"
against Venezuela, after two ETA members
confessed to having received training in
Venezuelan territory in 2008. Juan
Carlos Besance Zugasti and Xavier
Atristain Gorosabel -arrested last week
in Spain- said they received military
training in Venezuela in 2008, thus
prompting the Spanish government to
request additional information from
Caracas as part of antiterrorist
cooperation, said AFP. Besance and
Atristain, members of the Imanol
command, created in 2005, first took
"training courses" in France on
"encryption methods, weapons disassembly
and cleaning, and firing positions," in
the village of Luz-Saint-Sauveur
(southwest), before "continuing training
workshops" in Venezuela, between July
and August 2008.
They contacted "two persons identified
as Arturo Cubillas Fontán and José
Lorenzo Ayestarán Legórburu, who teach
the courses." Then, they returned to
Spain, according to the indictment of
Judge Ismael Moreno, of the Spanish
National Court, the top Spanish court.
The publication of the indictment has
led Spain to request more information
from Venezuela "in the framework of
bilateral cooperation agreements to
fight terrorism," between the two
countries, said sources of the Spanish
Foreign Ministry. The Spanish Justice
suspected for months that Venezuela
serves as a refuge for ETA members,
which has led the Association of Victims
of Terrorism (AVT), a leading victims'
organization, to ask Madrid to break
relations with Venezuela "if this
country continues to train ETA members."
"We cannot continue to have relations
with a country that is training
murderers who then come to kill us,"
said President of AVT, Ángeles Pedraza.
The
Coordinator of International Relations
of PP, Jorge Moragas, confirmed that the
indictment of the judge of the Spanish
National Court confirmed the suspicion
that Venezuela "has served as a safe
haven, sanctuary or training site" for
members of the Basque terrorist group.
According to Moragas, the information
contained in the indictment is
"extremely serious" and is "intolerable"
that the government of Venezuela has
ignored the claims of the Spanish
judicial authorities, reported Efe.
"This is not simply about requesting
information," said Moragas. Spanish
Foreign Affairs Minister Miguel Ángel
Moratinos should issue a" formal
protest" against Venezuela. "The
government cannot show fear when
exercising its rights," said Moragas,
who added that "Spain will be respected
in the international arena to the extent
that it ensures respect" from other
nations and governments. |
|
VENEZUELAN GOVERNMENT INTERVENES SPANISH
FARMING COMPANY AGROISLEñA
CARACAS, VENEZUELA--As
expected, the decree that makes official
the seizure of farming supply company
Agroisleña, an heir of Enrique
Fraga Afonso, was published on Tuesday
in the Venezuelan Official Gazette No
39,523. Dictator Hugo Chávez announced
on Monday night that he had signed the
decree, against the will of the board of
directors of the Spanish firm who had
requested the Venezuelan head of state
to reconsider the decision. Chávez
argued that the farming company had
become an oligopoly in the market of
agriculture inputs, contrary to the
provisions of the Constitution.
The process to take control of the
company will take three months. Chávez
has said that the Spanish farming
company will become people's property,
and it will allow the country to make
progress in food security and reduction
of production costs. "One of the
short-term impacts of the measure is the
immediate reduction of production costs,
because we are going to eliminate the
chain of speculative middlemen,"
state-run news agency Agencia Venezolana
de Noticias (AVN) reported. The decree
instructs the government to ensure the
constitutional rights of workers. Next
October 6, farmers who are members of
different associations of agricultural
producers are holding an extraordinary
meeting in the premises of Agroisleña
Acarigua. Workers of farming supply
company Agroisleña reject seizure
With the announced take over of Agroisleña by the
state, Hugo Chavez has made his first
real communist “economic” move. You
might wince at this but bear with me a
little bit longer. With the seizure of
Agroisleña a new threshold has been
crossed. With this move Chavez has
decided to take control of the
agricultural sector by becoming its
biggest player, by more than 50%. To do
bigger than Agroisleña you need to seize
Polar altogether, which is of course the
last step for Chavez, the end of the
road in many ways. The aim of Chavez is
not anymore to control a portion of a
given sector: his aim this time around
is to control the whole agricultural
apparatus. If the Agrosileña take over
is carried out, it will make it
inevitable that within a year at most
Chavez also takes over Polar, and other
concerns depending on grain
availability, like Proagro or Plumrose
whose animal feed plants depend on grain
supply. |
|
AS DE DEUX: ¡FELICIDADES ALICITA..!
|
|
venezuelan DICTATOR hugo CHAVEZ SAYS
THAT HIS REVOLUTIONARY MILITIA MUST BE
ARMED FULL-TIME
CARACAS,
VENEZUELA--Venezuelan
DICTATOR Hugo Chavez said Sunday
that members of the country's
revolutionary militia must be issued
weapons to be armed and ready at all
times. The Bolivarian Militia is a force
of chavistas formed in recent years by
the ruler, who says it is a crucial
component of the nation's defenses.
Until now, members of the militia have
regularly trained at weekend boot camps,
but their guns have usually been locked
away in military depots when not in use.
"Who has seen a militia without
weapons?" Chavez said during his Sunday
television and radio program.
Chavez said he was surprised when he met some militiamen
standing guard recently and learned they
had no guns. "The militias are the
people with weapons in hand," Chavez
told an audience including military
officers and high-ranking officials in
rural Guarico state. "We need to break
old paradigms because we're still seeing
the militias as if they were a
complementary force, some battalions
that get together once a month over
there, or go and march somewhere,"
Chavez said. "No, buddy. The militia is
a permanent territorial unit and it
should be armed, equipped and trained -
campesinos, workers." Chavez also
suggested that the country should
accelerate the formation of militia
units. The militia is named after Simon
Bolivar, the independence hero who is an
inspiration for Chavez, and its members
range from housewives to engineers to
public employees. Men and women in the
militia regularly attend weekend
training sessions where they learn to
fire cannons, mortars and machine guns.
Diosdado Cabello, one of Chavez's longtime confidants,
has said the militia comprises about
120,000 fighters and is growing. Chavez,
who survived a failed coup in 2002, says
the militia should be prepared to defend
the country against any threat, foreign
or domestic. He has said he believes the
United States poses a threat to his
oil-exporting country, though U.S.
officials strongly deny it. Opponents of
the leftist president say the militia is
essentially a personal army for Chavez
aimed at intimidating his adversaries,
maintaining control and keeping him in
power. The Bolivarian Militia is a
force of volunteers ranging from
students to retirees formed in recent
years by Chavez, who says it is a
crucial component of the nation's
defenses. |
|
DICTATOR CHAVEZ CONCEDES THAT HIS
SOCIALIST PARTY WAS OVERWHELMINGLY
DEFEATED IN THREE STATES
CARACAS, VENEZUELA--Venezuela's
DICTATOR Hugo Chávez resumed
broadcasting of his weekly radio and TV
show "Hello, President," which he
suspended for more than six weeks amidst
the election campaign. Chávez's show
was broadcast from the facilities of Río
Tiznado Socialist Farming Project, in
Guárico state (central Venezuela), where
he announced that his government would
seize a Spanish farming supply company
Agroisleña. He also announced the
nationalization of plots of land owned
by the Compañía Inglesa, a subsidiary of
British meat products company Vestey. "Agroisleña
has now became people's property; it
will be owned by Venezuela," said the
leftist president.
In his speech, which lasted almost five hours, Chávez
admitted that his ruling United
Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) was
overwhelmingly defeated in some states
of the country in the parliament
election held on September 26. The
Venezuelan head of State mentioned the
western states of Zulia, Táchira and the
northeastern state of Anzoátegui, "which
was a surprising" defeat. He also
mentioned the northeastern state of
Sucre. "We won all over the country,
but we lost in some places. We were
overwhelmingly defeated in the states of
Zulia, Táchira and Anzoátegui, which was
a surprising defeat. In (the state of)
Sucre, we did not lose, but there was a
tie," Chávez said. He hinted that the
"electricity sabotage" had an impact in
the election results in the northeastern
states of the country.
Chávez stressed that no agreements are possible with
Venezuela's private business chamber
Fedecámaras. The Venezuelan dictator
also referred to the pending elections
for governor of Guárico state, after the
death of Governor William Lara. He said
that the PSUV is evaluating potential
candidates in the central state and that
he will appoint the candidate. "In one
month, the CNE (National Electoral
Council) has to call election. We will
win the election. I will appoint the
candidate," Chávez said. The Venezuelan
president added that the candidate will
be selected soon because he will begin a
tour of Russia, Belarus and Iran on
October 11. Chávez referred to the
militia and wondered, "Who has seen a
militia without weapons?" He said it is
necessary to create militias everywhere
and that members of the militias should
have and carry weapons. |
|
ecuadorean judge releases 3 colonels arrested in police mutiny
QUITO, ECUADOR--Three
colonels arrested in the course
of the investigation of last week’s
police mutiny in Ecuador have been
released by a judge, officials said. The
judge released the officers on Saturday,
Pichincha province Attorney General
Marco Freire said. “He substituted the
measure. Instead of preventive
imprisonment, he ordered them not to
leave the country, to report every 15
days and to not dispose of assets,”
Freire said. The three police colonels –
Manuel Rivadeneira, Julio Cesar Cueva
and Marcelo Echeverria – were the first
suspects arrested for their alleged role
in the uprising. “The case is
continuing,” Freire said, adding that
the colonels were being investigated
“for all of the incidents of
insubordination that happened on
Thursday.”
President Rafael Correa told foreign
ministers from across South America on
Friday that the mutiny by disgruntled
police officers was an attempted coup
and that, when that strategy failed,
“plan B” was to kill him. Correa, who
recently underwent knee surgery, went to
the police hospital Thursday morning
after being injured when mutinous police
accosted him and his bodyguards as they
tried to leave the main police barracks
in the capital after he addressed the
disgruntled cops. Rebellious police also
occupied the National Assembly and
disturbances spread across Ecuador,
prompting presidential aide Alexis Mera
to declare a state of emergency, giving
the armed forces responsibility for both
external and domestic security.
Loyal police officers and army
troops managed to rescue Correa from the
siege at the police hospital. During the
dramatic military rescue, the SUV used
to remove Correa from the hospital was
hit by rifle fire. The armored vehicle
withstood the impact of the bullets.
The government announced the replacement
late Friday of the entire top police
brass following the uprising. Freddy
Martinez resigned as National Police
chief and was replaced by Patricio
Franco, Interior Minister Gustavo Jalkh
said. Correa blamed the political party
founded by former President Lucio
Gutierrez for the uprising. Gutierrez,
who took office in January 2003 and was
ousted by Congress in April 2005, has
denied any role in the rebellion and
said Correa was to blame for heightened
tensions in the country. A total of
eight people were killed and 274 others
were wounded in disturbances across the
Andean country linked to the uprising,
the Health Ministry said Friday. |
|
IRAN PRESIDENT MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD CALLS
FOR US LEADERS TO BE "BURIED"
TEHRAN, IRAN--Iran's
president Sunday called for U.S.
leaders to be "buried" in response to
what he says are American threats of
military attack against Tehran's nuclear
program. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is known
for brash rhetoric in addressing the
West, but in a speech Sunday he went a
step further using a deeply offensive
insult in response to U.S. statements
that the military option against Iran is
still on the table. "May the undertaker
bury you, your table and your body,
which has soiled the world," he said
using language in Iran reserved for
hated enemies.
Several top U.S. officials including Adm. Mike Mullen,
chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of
Staff have said in recent months that
the military option remains on the table
and there is a plan to attack Iran,
although a military strike has been
described as a bad idea. The crowd of
military men and clerics in the town of
Hashtgerd just west of the capital
chuckled at the president's insult and
applauded. Ahmadinejad's remarks come in
sharp contrast to ones he made to
Al-Jazeera Arabic news channel in August
in which he offered the U.S. Iran's
friendship. In Sunday's speech,
Ahmadinejad also questioned once more
who was behind the Sept. 11 attacks in
the U.S. and said they gave Washington a
pretext for seeking to dominate the
region and plunder its oil wealth.
During his speech in front of the United Nations General
Assembly in New York, he said a majority
of people in the U.S. and around the
world believe the American government
staged the attacks, drawing a strong
rebuke from President Barack Obama.
Ahmadinejad often resorts to provocative
statements to lash out enemies. He has
already compared the power of Iran's
enemies to a "mosquito," saying Iran
deals with the West over its nuclear
activities from a position of power and
he has likened the United States to a
"farm animal trapped in a quagmire" in
Afghanistan. Iran also condemned the
latest U.S. sanctions slapped on eight
Iranian officials Wednesday, saying they
show American interference in Tehran's
domestic affairs. Washington this week
imposed travel and financial sanctions
on the eight Iranians, accusing them of
taking part in human rights abuses
during the turmoil following Iran's June
2009 presidential election. |
|
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION ISSUES TRAVEL
ALERT FOR AMERICANS IN EUROPE OVER
TERROR
WASHINGTON,
D.C.--The
Obama administration issued a travel
alert Sunday for Americans in Europe,
warning about the possibility of an Al
Qaeda strike and advising U.S. citizens
to be vigilant. The State Department
alert did not offer specifics about the
targets and countries that could be most
at risk but generally urged Americans to
be careful around transportation hubs
and other popular tourist locations.
"Current information suggests that Al
Qaeda and affiliated organizations
continue to plan terrorist attacks.
European governments have taken action
to guard against a terrorist attack and
some have spoken publicly about the
heightened threat conditions," the State
Department said.
"Terrorists may elect to use a variety of means and weapons
and target both official and private
interests. U.S. citizens are reminded of
the potential for terrorists to attack
public transportation systems and other
tourist infrastructure. Terrorists have
targeted and attacked subway and rail
systems, as well as aviation and
maritime services." The State
Department is urging U.S. citizens to
"take every precaution" and adopt
"appropriate safety measures" while
traveling. If this is true, this would
be the most involved role that bin Laden
has played in plotting attacks since
Sept. 11, 2001. "It's clear and the
plot is clear.
The clarity of detail on the plans for these attacks is
disturbing," the official told Fox
News. There was "some degree of
coordination between the multiple teams
of attackers targeting at least three
Western European cities, but not all
know when to hit," the official said,
adding the goal was to kill many, many
more than the 173 killed in Mumbai. The
State Department did not issue a "travel
warning," which would advise Americans
to stay away from the countries cited.
But the alert could still have negative
implications for tourism in Europe is
travelers fear there's the possibility
of attack. The travel alert, which
stressed that U.S. officials are working
"closely" with the Europeans to track
down terror threats, expires Jan. 31,
2011. The alert urges Americans to
register their travel plans online with
the consular section of the U.S. Embassy
at the State Department website.
Travelers can also get updates on
security conditions by calling
1-888-407-4747. |
|
ARMED GANG KIDNAPS 22 MEXICAN TOURISTS
IN ACAPULCO
ACAPULCO,
MEXICO--Acapulco
is the scene of a violent turf war
between rival drug cartels An armed gang
has kidnapped 22 Mexican tourists in the
resort city of Acapulco, the
prosecutor's office in the southern
state of Guerrero said. The office said
the group, from the neighbouring state
of Michoacan, was abducted on Thursday.
The tourists were looking for a hotel
when they were seized by gunmen, local
media reported. Acapulco is popular with
visitors but it is also the scene of a
violent turf war between rival drug
cartels.
The prosecutor's office said it did not know the motive for
the kidnapping, or who was behind it.
Director of the investigative police in
Guerrero state Fernando Monreal said the
kidnapping had been reported by a man
who had been travelling with the group.
The man said they all worked for an car
mechanics company and had come to
Acapulco for a weekend stay. He said he
got out of one of the cars the group had
been travelling in to buy something in a
nearby shop. When he returned, his
colleagues had disappeared.
Mr Monreal said the man provided police with the names of the
abducted and a description of their cars
but had since vanished. "It is very
probable that he went back to where he
was from," Mr Monreal told the Reuters
news agency. "We are looking for
evidence. The information is very thin."
Police later found the cars abandoned
close to where the abductions took
place. Michoacan is the power base for
La Familia Michoacana, a violent drug
cartel active on Mexico's Pacific
coast. The BBC's Julian Miglerieni in
Mexico City says that while violent
attacks have become more common in
Acapulco, this is the first mass
kidnapping to happen in the popular
tourist spot. |
|
CUBA TO ADD NEW DOCKS, TERMINAL AT
CIENFUEGOS PORT
HAVANA, CUBA--Cuba
will build three additional loading
docks and a terminal large enough to
accommodate modern supertankers by 2014
at its port in Cienfuegos, part
of the communist government's effort
with Venezuela to rehabilitate and
modernize the area's oil refinery.
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, a
self-described socialist and close
friend of Fidel Castro, attended the
December 2007 re-inauguration of the
Soviet-era facility on central Cuba's
southern coast, and since then it has
refined 55 million barrels. Cuba and
Venezuelan plan to expand capacity there
to 150,000 barrels refined per day and
the new berths and terminal will ensure
tankers carrying more oil can come and
go more freely, said Luis Medina,
director of Cuba's national port
authority, at a news conference Friday
in Havana, 185 miles (300 kilometers)
northwest of Cienfuegos.
Chavez's government ships more than
100,000 barrels of oil a day to Cuba in
exchange for island doctors who provide
free medical care in his country and
other social services. The expanded
capacity at Cienfuegos will allow
Venezuela to ship more petroleum
products that can be refined on the
island. Cuba independently operates its
largest oil field, the Varadero field
discovered by Russian scientists in
1971, but the communist government
relies on energy companies from Canada,
Spain, Norway, India, Malaysia and China
for other drilling operations. The
government has laid out zones in the
Gulf of Mexico where private energy
companies, mostly from Canada and
Europe, have said they could one day
drill deep-water test wells searching
for crude.
A 2004 test well by a Spanish company was not considered
commercially viable, however, and
Washington's 48-year-old trade embargo
prohibits U.S. companies from investing
in Cuban oil exploration and production,
even though the island's Gulf waters are
close to the Florida coast. A meeting of
U.S., Mexican and Cuban scientists
wrapped up Wednesday in Sarasota,
Florida, with an outline for a plan to
better protect the Gulf of Mexico and
western Caribbean through collaborative
management and conservation. It
includes actions that scientists in each
country will undertake to conserve coral
reefs, marine mammals, sea turtles and
shark and other fish populations.
Examples include a regional monitoring
protocol for sea turtles to make sure
results are compatible among nations and
continued research expeditions focused
on sharks. |
|
HEINZ DIETERICH SAYS THAT HUGO CHAVEZ
CAN BE DEFEATED IN 2012
CARACAS,
VENEZUELA--ALTHOUGH
THE RULING UNITED SOCIALIST PARTY OF
VENEZUELA (PSUV) did not reach the 110
seats it needed to have a supermajority
at the Venezuelan National Assembly and
only won 100,000 votes more than the
opposition, government leaders said that
they won the legislative elections held
last Sunday.
However, some people do not have a
positive perception of the results. On
the contrary, they warn that President
Hugo Chávez can be defeated in 2012,
when he is expected to seek a third
consecutive presidential term. One of
the analysts who have warned against a
bleak outlook for Venezuela's ruling
party is Heinz Dieterich, a German
sociologist and a political analyst
residing in Mexico. Dieterich said in an
article entitled "Venezuela must change
the model or it will collapse like the
Cuban model," that President Chávez has
eight months to change the course.
In his article, Dieterich claimed
that the Venezuelan Head of State has
been unable to "dismantle the opposition
electoral group, despite having
conditions to do so, such as
skyrocketing oil prices, an absolute
Executive and legislative power, no
opponents at the National Assembly and a
fragmented opposition lacking a national
project and prominent leaders." Dieterich
advised Chávez to follow the steps of
Cuban President Raúl Castro who is
abandoning the 20th century socialism.
"Otherwise, the system will collapse,"
he warned. |
|
US SLAPS SANCTIONS ON 8 IRANIAN
OFFICIALS
WASHINGTON,
D.C.--The
Obama administration stepped up
pressure against Iran's government on
Wednesday, slapping financial and travel
sanctions on eight Iranian officials and
accusing them of taking part in rampant
human rights abuses. Under an executive
order signed this week by President
Barack Obama, the State and Treasury
departments jointly announced the
sanctions that target Iranians who
"share responsibility for the sustained
and severe violation of human rights in
Iran," notably after last year's
disputed presidential elections. At a
State Department news conference,
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton said it was the first time the
United States has imposed sanctions on
Iranians for violating human rights.
The step adds another layer to already
heavy U.S. sanctions on Iran, which in
the past have been imposed over the
country's nuclear and ballistic missile
programs. "On these officials' watch or
under their command, Iranian citizens
have been arbitrarily arrested, beaten,
tortured, raped, blackmailed and
killed," Clinton said. "Yet the Iranian
government has ignored repeated calls
from the international community to end
these abuses." The move bars the eight
Iranians from entering the United
States, blocks any of their U.S. assets
and prohibits Americans from doing
business with them. Although none of the
eight is believed to have substantial
assets in U.S. jurisdictions, Treasury
Secretary Timothy Geithner said he
expects foreign financial institutions
to stop doing business with them. "We
have found that when we single out
individuals and expose their conduct,
banks, businesses and governments around
the world respond by cutting off their
economic and financial dealings with
these individuals, these institutions,
these businesses," Geithner said.
Among the eight Iranians targeted Wednesday is Mohammad Ali
Jafari, commander of Iran's powerful
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and
one his top deputies, Hossein Taeb.
Jafari is already subject to U.S.
sanctions related to Iran's nuclear
program. The administration said that
forces under the command of Jafari and
Taeb participated in beatings, murder
and arbitrary arrests of peaceful
protesters in the aftermath of the June
2009 Iranian election. Also named were
Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar
Moslehi, four current and former police
chiefs and prosecutors, and Sadeq
Mahsouli, currently Iran's minister of
welfare and social security. Mahsouli
was minister of the interior at the time
of the June 2009 election, and in that
role had authority over all police
forces and Interior Ministry security
agents, the administration's
announcement said. The White House
portrayed the sanctions as a reflection
of U.S. efforts to support peaceful
change in Iran. "The United States will
always stand with those in Iran who
aspire to have their voices heard," a
White House statement said. |
|
HOW HUGO CHAVEZ LOST POPULAR VOTE --
AND WON BY A LANDSLIDE
WASHINGTON, D.C.--
HUGO CHÁVEZ must be feeling grateful
to the number-crunchers who helped him
redraw Venezuela's congressional
districts. The strongman turned last
weekend's National Assembly election
into a referendum on himself; he
inundated the country with propaganda
via the state-controlled media and even
refilled government food stores. The
result was an unmistakable rebuff. On a
day of heavy turnout, 52 percent of
voters chose opposition parties, vs. 48
percent for Mr. Chávez's Socialists.
In a normal democratic country -- even
in Venezuela itself up until this year
-- that outcome would have produced
something close to a tie between
government and non-government deputies
in the congress. Instead, thanks to the
blatant gerrymandering he ordered, Mr.
Chávez probably will have 98 seats,
compared with 67 for the main opposition
coalition and a small leftist party.
That allowed the caudillo to claim
victory in a news conference, during
which he heaped abuse on a reporter who
dared to ask about the discrepancy
between votes and seats. Mr. Chávez,
however, didn't deliver the victory
address he had planned from the balcony
of the presidential palace -- an
encouraging sign that he grasps the
election's real implications. In
addition to the popular repudiation, the
result means that beginning in December,
Mr. Chávez should no longer have the
ability to rule by decree or to appoint
supreme court justices and members of
the electoral authority without the
opposition's consent. He also faces the
threat that his announced plan to rule
Venezuela for at least another decade
will be interrupted in 2012, when a
presidential election is due that should
be decided by majority vote.
There was good reason for Mr.
Chávez's loss: Alone in Latin America,
Venezuela is still deep in recession,
and it leads the hemisphere in inflation
and violent crime. A normal democratic
leader might respond by correcting
errant or highly unpopular policies,
such as Mr. Chávez's steady
nationalization of the economy or his
import of Cuban advisers and
intelligence operatives. His record,
however, suggests that the president
will merely step up his attacks on
opposition leaders and journalists -- a
number of whom have been imprisoned or
driven into exile -- and seek to
circumvent the new checks on his power.
Mr. Chávez's apologists will be pointing
to the congressional vote as proof that
he still leads a democracy. But in
democracies, elections produce
consequences in line with the results.
In Mr. Chávez's Venezuela, they usually
lead to less democracy. |
|
FORMER DICTATOR FIDEL CASTRO DEFENDS
OUSTED COLOMBIAN SENATOR PIEDAD CORDOBA
HAVANA,
CUBA--Former
dictator Fidel Castro considers
drastic and "arbitrary" the decision by
Colombian authorities to unseat an
opposition senator accused of
collaboration with leftist rebels. The
latest of the former Cuban president's
"Reflections" is dedicated to "Piedad
Cordoba and Her Fight For Peace," in
which he says that the Colombian
lawmaker is "a courageous, intelligent
person, a brilliant speaker of well
articulated ideas." He says he is not
surprised by the decision of the
Colombian Inspector General's Office to
oust the senator and bar her from public
office for 18 years for alleged
collusion with the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, or FARC, because "it
is in line with the official policy of
that country virtually occupied by
Yankee troops."
The United States has given Colombia
more than $7 billion in mainly military
aid over the past decade and hundreds of
U.S. military personnel and contractors
are on the ground in the Andean nation.
Cordoba, who has helped broker the
unilateral release of a dozen prisoners
held by the FARC, says all her contacts
with the rebels were authorized by the
Colombian government. In his article,
Fidel Castro also analyzed the
circumstances of the death last week of
the FARC's top military strategist,
Victor Julio Suarez, better known as
Jorge Briceño or "Mono Jojoy,"
dismissing Bogota's account of a battle.
"The U.S. government supplied its ally
with more than 30 smart bombs. And in
the boots they supplied to the guerrilla
chief they installed a GPS. Guided by
that instrument, the programmed bombs
exploded on Jorge Briceño's camp," the
former Cuban dictator writes.
He also slams erstwhile Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe, who left office in August
after two four-year terms, as one of the
"main creators of paramilitarism." About
the FARC, Fidel Castro said once again
that he has been critical of its
strategic ideas and of the Colombian
guerrillas' practice of kidnapping
politicians, but has never denied the
revolutionary character of the movement.
Fidel Castro recalls Friday in his
article the figure of FARC founder
Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda, who died of
a heart attack in 2008, whom he praises
as "one of the most outstanding of
Colombian and Latin American
guerrillas." "When many names of
mediocre politicians are forgotten,
Marulanda will be acknowledged as one of
the most resolute and worthy fighters
for the well-being of peasants, workers
and the poor of Latin America," Cuba's
former president says. |
|
veneuzelan hugo chavez urges the us "to
keep its imperialist hands" out of the
region
CARACAS,
VENEZUELA--VENEZUELAN
DICTATOR
Hugo Chávez urged the US
government to "keep its old imperialist
hands" out of Latin America. "We must
demand the US government to keep its old
imperialist hands out of this
continent," Chávez said in Buenos Aires,
where he attended an extraordinary
meeting of the Union of South American
Nations (Unasur), which was urgently
convened following a police revolt in
Ecuador.
The Venezuelan president warned that the
United States "provides millions of
dollars to far-right wing movements;
many of them are trying to destabilize
the governments of the Bolivarian
Alliance for the Americas (ALBA)," DPA
reported. Chávez added that such
destabilization plans are "particularly
aimed at countries whose governments are
legitimate and democratic. We have
raised the banner of socialist
revolution in democracy."
"The US Department of State says that presidents such as
Chávez, Bolivia's (Evo Morales, and
Rafael Correa, are totalitarian and
authoritarian dictators, but it plots
coup d'états," the Venezuelan President
said before leaving Buenos Aires. |
|
PRESIDENT RAFAEL CORREA BLAMES COUP
ATTEMPT AS UNREST ROCKS ECUADOR
QUITO, ECUADOR--Police
protesters attacked Ecuadorean President
Rafael Correa in an eruption of
political unrest over austerity measures
on Thursday, leaving the leftist leader
holed up in a hospital with
demonstrators outside. Correa told local
media by phone that police protesters
were hunting for him in the building and
would be responsible if he was hurt.
Some of the president's supporters then
descended on the hospital and hurled
stones at police outside. Foreign
Minister Ricardo Patino had called on a
large crowd who gathered outside the
presidential palace to march with him
and save their trapped leader.
"President Correa has said that there
are people trying to get in from the
roof and attack him," Patino told a
large crowd outside the presidential
palace. "I want to invite the brave
people here below to go with us to
rescue the president."
Ecuador, a South American OPEC member of
14 million people, has a history of
political instability. Street protests
toppled three presidents during economic
turmoil in the decade before Correa took
power. "The president is being held
hostage inside," shouted Fernando
Jaramillo, 54, a Correa supporter at the
hospital. Witnesses said police were
stopping the supporters entering.
Correa, a socialist ally of Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez, said his rivals
were plotting a coup against him, and
that he and his wife were stunned by an
exploding tear gas canister as he tried
to speak to demonstrators. Visibly
furious, he earlier confronted police
demonstrating at the planned budget cuts
and challenged them: "Kill me if you
want to. Kill me if you have the
courage."
Venezuela's government said Correa spoke
to Chavez by telephone from the Quito
hospital and that Correa had confirmed
that the unrest was a coup attempt
against him. Correa is looking at the
option of dissolving Congress, where
members of his own left-wing party are
blocking legislative proposals aimed at
cutting state costs. Ecuador's
two-year-old constitution allows the
president to declare a political
impasse, dissolve Congress and rule by
decree until a new presidential and
parliamentary election can be held. The
measure would, however, have to be
approved by the Constitutional Court to
take effect. Police apparently led the
protests on Thursday but some soldiers
joined in solidarity. "We are demanding
that the president revoke the military
service law," one soldier at the airport
told Reuters, asking not to be named. If
he doesn't, protests will continue." |
|
U.S. CONGRESS PANEL DELAYS VOTE ON
ENDING CUBA TRAVEL BAN
WASHINGTON,
D.C.--The
House Foreign Affairs Committee
announced the indefinite postponement of
a vote on a bipartisan bill that would
end the U.S. ban on travel to Cuba.
The panel’s chairman, Rep. Howard Berman
(D-Calif.), said the congressional
agenda was too crowded to hold the vote
on Wednesday, as originally planned.
“Accordingly, I am postponing
consideration of H.R. 4645 until a time
when the Committee will be able to hold
the robust and uninterrupted debate this
important issue deserves,” he said
Tuesday in a statement.
When lawmakers ultimately vote on the
bill, “the right to travel will be
restored to all Americans,” the chairman
said. Congress is expected to go into
recess soon so members can campaign for
the Nov. 2 midterm elections. Though the
Foreign Relations Committee could take
up the bill in the post-election
session, there is no assurance the
measure would be passed before the
Christmas recess. And the new Congress
that will convene in January is likely
to have an increased representation of
conservative Republicans, traditionally
opposed to loosening Washington’s
restrictive Cuba policies. Currently,
only Cuban-Americans with relatives in
their homeland can freely travel to the
communist-ruled island.
The Center for Democracy in the Americas criticized
Berman’s decision to postpone the vote,
while acknowledging the California
Democrat’s three decades of “great
leadership” on Cuba issues. “I think
it’s a shame that when real economic and
political changes are taking place right
now in Cuba that neither the president
nor Congress is able to acknowledge them
until after the November elections,” the
center’s Sarah Stephens said in a
statement. Separately, Senate Finance
Committee Chairman Max Baucus and 23
colleagues from both parties sent
President Barack Obama a letter Tuesday
urging him to eliminate bureaucratic
obstacles to exports of medicine and
farm products to Cuba, which are
permitted under the embargo. The letter
also advocated easing the ban on travel
to Cuba. A study by Texas A&M University
forecasts that eliminating the travel
ban and liberalizing trade regulations
would boost U.S. agricultural exports by
$360 million a year and create 6,000 new
jobs. |
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VENEZUELAN CONGRESS TO PRIORITIZE LAWS
TO UNDERPIN SOCIALISM
CARACAS,
VENEZUELA--The
parliamentary group of the ruling United
Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)
held a meeting on Wednesday afternoon.
The current members of the National
Assembly set the "final agenda" to be
discussed by the Venezuelan legislature
during its three final months. Lawmaker
Francisco Torrealba said that the work
plan set for this session only includes
the discussion of draft laws that were
previously scheduled. He said, however,
that the National Assembly could
disregard some bills and focus on those
required to advance the socialist
project.
Meanwhile, deputy Oswaldo Vera stressed
in the meeting of the parliamentary
bloc, that the PSUV legislators would
decide the priority legislation to be
approved by the National Assembly before
the new legislators elected last Sunday
take office. Some Venezuela's
Congressional Committees started to
point out the main bills to be passed
before January 5, 2011, when the newly
elected deputies will take up their
seats. Deputy Simón Escalona, who is
the Vice President of the National
Assembly's Finance Committee,
highlighted that the Law on Bank
Activity will be a priority, in addition
to the 2011 Budget Law, which is
traditionally discussed at this time of
the year.
The new law is aimed at replacing the
General Law on Banks and other Financial
Institutions. The regulation to be
discussed will force banks to finance
the communal economy, which is closely
related to the production model to be
built by Hugo Chávez's government. The
Law on Bank Activity is part of the
legal instruments related to the
financial system that were created under
the Organic Law on the National
Financial System. The other two laws
which have been already enacted are
related to the insurance sector and the
stock market. The legal framework to
advance the socialist model also
includes the amendment to the Organic
Law on Labor, under which the government
seeks to introduce left-leaning elements
in labor relations. The current
National Assembly will also discuss a
new Law on Health and a Law on the
National Electricity System. |
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