Posts Tagged ‘Venezuela’
On Monday,Barack Obama met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Their main point of discussion was Iran’s nuclear program. Obama, while still pushing for a diplomatic solution to the problem, expressed a growing impatience with Iran’s recalcitrance. Erdogan, however, maintained his view that the world could only coerce Iran through diplomatic efforts, and called criticism that his country’s close relationship with Iran isolating it away from the West “ridiculous.”
The New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee passed a same-sex marriage bill Tuesday night. Heading to the floor tomorrow, the bill is not likely to pass. Regardless, this is the first time the NJ legislature passed an equal-marriage bill out of committee.
A Chicago man has been charged with “conspiracy to murder and maim in a foreign country” because of his involvement in last year’s terrorist attack on Mumbai. David Coleman Headley, from Chicago, went to India to do recon for Laskkar-e-Taiba He, along with former military man Abdur Rehman, are also connected to a plot to bomb the Danish newspaper that ran controversial cartoons negatively depicting Islam. Headley has, fortunately, begun to cooperate with the FBI in their investigation. Chicago business man Tahawwur Rana has also been charged.
It is getting harder and harder to separate truth from hype on the border of Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Iranian news source Alalam claims that Houthi rebels have pushed Saudi away from the Sa’ada, the Yemeni province where Saudi and Yemeni forced are carrying out“Operation Scorched Earth.” The BBC, however, reports that Yemeni commanders have announced that they will have the city of Sa’ada under their control by the end of today. Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate has passed a non-binding resolution on the conflict, calling for the global community “to use all appropriate measures to assist the people of Yemen to prevent Yemen from becoming a failed state.”
In an address to an audience of families of those killed during the 1980’s war against Iraq, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahjmadinejad claimed to have documented proof that the U.S. is trying to stop the coming of the Mahdi, the Imam that Muslims believe will save man-kind. “They have devised all these plans to prevent the coming of the Hidden Imam because they know that the Iranian nation is the one that will prepare the grounds for his coming and will be the supporters of his rule.” He also said that the West was caught in a quagmire in Afghanistan and asked – “Is there not one sane person in your country to tell you these things?”
Russia and India have agreed to work more closely on nuclear power in a round of discussions to strengthen ties between the two countries.
“Of the total number of crimes with filed complaints, 15% to 20% are committed by police officers, particularly those involving most violence such as homicide and kidnapping” said the Interior minister during the program “Aló, Presidente” anchored by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
In a renewed effort to revive nuclear disarmament talks, President Barack Obama has sent veteran diplomat Stephen Bosworth to North Korea to meet with high level North Korean officials. “The main question is whether Bosworth will meet with Chairman Kim Jong Il,” said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean studies at Seoul’s Dongguk University. “Such a meeting would demonstrate that both the U.S. and North Korea intend to resolve the nuclear issue.”
Through French President Nikolas Sarkozy, Syria has informed Israel that it is ready to return to peace talks without the precondition that Israel pull completely out of the Golan Heights. Talks may resume with a mediator, the question is who. Israel would like to continue discussion through Sarkozy, but Syrians prefer Turkey. To that, Netanyahu responded that an “honest broker” is needed, and he is “not certain” the Turks fit the bill given their behavior since Israel’s war in Gaza nearly a year ago.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said Monday “the time has come” for the government to make a decision on the fate of the Futenma military facility in Okinawa Prefecture and convey it to the United States, but he wouldn’t say what it will be or precisely when it will be.
Google on Tuesday unveiled a new approach to presenting news online by topic, developed with The New York Times and The Washington Post, and said that if the experiment was successful, it would be made available to all publishers.
Also on Tuesday, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson declared greenhouse gas a threat to human health. This “endangerment finding” could lead to the modification of power plants, factories, refineries, and automobiles with new technologies, and caused an almost immediate jump in solar energy holdings & drop in crude oil.
Carbon dioxide output from the U.S. energy sector has already fallen half as much as needed to meet the 2020 emissions reduction target the Obama administration took to the Copenhagen climate-change summit. Falling U.S. emissions are the result of the “weak economy,” which grew at an annual rate of 2.8 percent in the third quarter after shrinking for a year, and a cleaner fuel mix in the electricity sector, according to a new report.
Lula da Silva and Chavez: Are these two on the same team but playing different games?
Hugo Chavez’s “revolutionary” economic and political policies may be alienating his neighbors and greatest political allies. As U.S. attention turns further toward the Middle East, Latin American countries are looking elsewhere for world trading partners, and its leaders are emerging with potential to take the region to a different version of the Left.
Venezuela is still waiting to be incorporated into Mercosur, the South American trading bloc that includes Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador. After Chavez’s most recent bellicose threats against Colombia, the legislatures of Brazil and Paraguay have stalled or tossed out provisions that would bring Venezuela’s entry to a vote.
“President Chavez with his statements is not helping; sometimes it seems he is not interested in Venezuela’s integration to Mercosur given his repeated contentious attitude”, said Paraguayan Senator Alberto Grillon vice president of the Foreign Affairs Upper House committee.
Earlier this week Mercosur officials headed to the EU, where Chavez has few friends, on a mission to increase trade and technical meetings between the two economic bodies. On Saturday, they signed a measure creating Econormas, a program designed to promote economic integration and sustainable development in Mercosur member nations. The $27 million plan is comprised of $18 million from the EU and $9 million from Brazil Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.
Elsewhere in Latin America, both leaders and country residents have been speaking out against Chavez and his version of populism, but not against the political and economic left. Last week former Mexican President Vicente Fox told Latin American and European leaders that Chavez’s influence and increasing authoritarianism was a danger to the region. Also in the week, Uruguay‘s former leftist guerilla Jose Mujica won the presidency by moving away from Chavez. He dismissed Chavez’s regime and claimed to have a deeper connection to South American golden boy, President Lula da Silva, of Brazil.
“[Voters] were afraid of the guerrilla past and the identification with Chávez,” says Oscar Bottinelli, a political analyst and head of the Factum polling group in Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo. “They were afraid he will affect liberty and be repressive… It’s the model of Lula,” says Mr. Garcé. “To win the elections [in Brazil] he put on an Armani suit and said he wanted a government of the left but moderate to permit a political economy respectful of capitalism.”
Brazil’s boom and Lula’s capitalist-loving left can’t help but look attractive compared to Chavez’s handling of the Venezuelan economy. The country has fallen captive to lower oil prices, the global recession, and now is in recession itself. Its GDP, an indicator Chavez dismissed as an instrument of capitalism, contracted by 4.6% in the 3rd quarter. Private investment shrank as Chavez expanded the public sector under his state-driven economic model. By this week the government will have taken control of 7 small, private banks to be “rehabilitated” by the state. Possibly most damning for Chavez’s regime is the fact that the price of a common Venezuelan food basket is steadily increasing, by 1.6 percent in the last month and by over 20 percent in the last year.
Now, more than ever, Venezuela could use friends, but it seems the country’s losing them faster than its gaining them. Porfirio Lobo, the new and controversial President of Honduras, has announced he won’t let Venezuela meddle in the country’s internal affairs as Manuel Zelaya, his ousted predecessor, did. Chavez has been increasingly hostile to Colombia — its main trading partner. As a result, analysts project that trade between the two countries will be down 36 percent by the end of 2009. At the request of Colombia’s President, Alvaro Uribe, Dominican President Leonel Fernandez has offered to mediate between Venezuela and Colombia. According to Fernandez, the DR, “given its geographic position and friendly relations with its neighbors, has had other opportunities to mediate in regional conflicts and seek solutions to these differences.” Chavez should be hoping Fernandez is correct.
“We should explore the potential for linking the US, Nato and Russia missile defense systems at an appropriate time,”Rasmussen said while speaking in Brussels. He then assured Eastern European countries that their sovereignty would not be threatened by such an alliance. (France 24)
This just after the President Obama announced that he would end Bush administration plans to place missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. (AP)
While in 2001 Bush and Putin looked into each others eyes and seemed to share a deep kinship (BBC World), their love turned into something quite bitter towards the end of Bush’s tenure. In 2005 he told Putin he was “concerned” for Russian democracy (Telegraph). By 2008 Bush was calling Russia a “bully” following the brief and bloody conflict it had with Georgia that summer (The Washington Post).
Obama’s new plan tables long range missile defense discussions to 2015 and concerns itself with shorter ranged missiles that Iran is currently developing. Administration officials tried to pacify the hawkish Polish government with promises to continue defense dialog and protect Warsaw in the future, as it was to do in the Bush plan. (The Economist)
Feelings are divided down ideological lines on this issue in both the Czech Republic and Poland. Right wingers expressed betrayal while left wingers expressed relief. That aside, September 17th marks the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Poland, perhaps an insensitive day to discuss back peddling with Polish defense (Reuters)
Why would the U.S. choose to improve relations with Russia this way? On September 15th the White House expressed dismay at a potential arms race in Latin America after Russia agreed to give Venezuela a $2.2 billion credit toward arms purchases. Venezuela feels threatened by Colombia’s decision to allow the U.S. to build new bases on Colombian territory. (Defense Talk)
Iranian protesters signaled another divide in U.S.-Russian relations as they cried “death to Russia” at opposition rallies yesterday (NYT, The Lede)
The result of all of this is a happy Putin and a happy Putin gives clues as to how the United States could use soft power to twist Russia’s arm…
“I very much hope that this right and brave decision will be followed up by the full cancellation of all restrictions on cooperation with Russia and high technology transfer to Russia as well as a boost to expand the WTO to embrace Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan,” Putin said at an investment forum in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi. (CBS News)
Now lets see what the Obama administration and Nato can do with that.
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