…To minimize or omit the historical significance of February 4th 1992 by the mainstream media inhibits a broader understanding of this large-scale mobilization of the Venezuelan people. Chavez was a young paratrooper when he led the failed but popular ‘Bolivarian Movement’ military rebellion on February 4, 1992. He served two years in prison before rising to political power on a promise to better the lives of the impoverished majority.

Chavez was then described as “a type of Saddam Hussein, not bright but very determined, a “Rambo” among “anachronistic nationalists with fascist tendencies and no defined ideology,” according to retired General Carlos Julio Penaloza, the army’s former commander general until June 1991(IPS, Feb 5th, 1993). Later, the BBC would characterize Chavez and the Bolivarian movement with the label that would stick, that of their having “ultra-leftist leanings.”

Although the trajectory of Chavez’s political endeavors was hindered, it would only be for a short period:

“Comrades: unfortunately, for the moment, the objectives that we had set ourselves have not been achieved in the capital…those of us here in Caracas have not been able to seize power,” said Chavez on National television after surrendering. It is also apposite to mention the words of Vice President Vincent Rangel, who marched alongside the people and would precede Chavez with a short and inspirational speech on February 4th, 2006.

Striking a prophetic chord, in 1992 Rangel defended the actions of Chavez and his young Bolivarian Movement, “This crisis should not be considered over because the uprising has been crushed. To think that way would be an illusion,” wrote El Diario de Caracas, quoting Rangel – cited in AP, February 5th, 1992, ‘Coup Struck a Chord in Economically Ailing Venezuela’

It was on this historic day that the Bolivarian Revolution was sparked and has since resulted in over a dozen popular democratic ratifications of the Movement. The Presidential elections scheduled for late 2006 will only be the latest in a long process of popular consolidation of the Revolution, the thing that the NED and its State Department overseers fear the most: the ever-looming threat of a good example.
zmag.org

Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, said he would resist an “imperialist attack” after Washington announced it would pursue an “inoculation strategy” against his government by creating a united front against its policies.

The rhetoric reflected a rapid deterioration in relations between the two countries after Venezuelan espionage allegations against the US and tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats.

The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, used her harshest language to date in testimony to Congress on Thursday in which she called Venezuela and Cuba “sidekicks” of Iran, and launched a campaign to rally international opposition to the Chávez government.
guardian.co.uk

Chavez Warns U.S. on Oil Exports
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned on Friday he could cut off oil exports to the United States if Washington goes “over the line” in what he has said are attempts to destabilize his left-leaning government.

Chavez made his threat a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the Venezuelan government posed “one of the biggest problems” in the region and that its ties to Cuba were “particularly dangerous” to democracy in Latin America.

“The government of the United States should know that if they go over the line, they are not going to have Venezuelan oil,” Chavez said.

“I have already taken measures regarding this. I’m not going to say what because they think that I can’t take these measures because we would not have any place to send the oil,” Chavez said.

A Nigerian militant commander in the oil-rich southern Niger Delta has told the BBC his group is declaring “total war” on all foreign oil interests.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta has given oil companies and their employees until midnight on Friday night to leave the region.

It recently blew up two oil pipelines, held four foreign oil workers hostage and sabotaged two major oilfields.

The group wants greater control of the oil wealth produced on their land.

The warning came as militants and the army exchanged fire after a government helicopter gunship attacked barges allegedly used by smugglers to transport stolen crude oil.
bbc.co.uk

Nigerian military launches attack on targets in the Delta
Military officials said a helicopter gunship equipped with rocket launchers attacked about eight barges used to smuggle stolen crude oil on Wednesday after spotting them on a routine flight in the western delta. The government says it is trying to cut down on oil theft, known locally as “bunkering”.

Militants said local villages had been randomly sprayed with machine gun fire. No casualty figures are available. The operation coincided with a visit by Jack Straw, UK foreign minister, to the delta, where he met oil industry officials to discuss security issues.

Fire razes Shell oil well
PORT HARCOURT–AN oil well operated by Shell 30 kilometres south of Port Harcourt caught fire yesterday 24 hours after militant youths threatened revenge against it for making its facility available for an attack on an Ijaw community in Delta State.

Ijaw leaders said yesterday that the death toll in Wednesday’s helicopter gunship attack on Perezouweikore-gbene had risen to 30, and asked the Federal Government to call the Joint Task Force in the Niger Delta to order.

Shell, defending itself on the allegation of allowing its Osubi airstrip in Warri to be used by the military as base for the attack said it had no control over the use of the airfield.

Fire-fighters were battling the blaze on a well head in the Cawthorne Channel, near Port Harcourt last night, the Anglo-Dutch oil giant said.

Ask Huda Naeem how she intends to use her influence as a newly elected MP for Hamas and she ticks off a list of wrongs done to women in the name of religion.

Forced marriage, honour killings, low pay and girls being kept out of school are her priorities for change in the Palestinian parliament. That is when she is not preparing her 13-year-old son to die in the fight against Israel.

“A lot of things need to change,” she said. “Women in Gaza and the West Bank should be given complete rights. Some women and girls are made to marry someone they don’t want to marry. This is not in our religion, it’s our tradition. In our religion, a woman has a right to choose.

“As a woman and an MP, there are areas I want to concentrate on but that does not mean we have forgotten our struggle for our homeland, and preparing our children to die when the homeland calls for it.”

Mrs Naeem, a 37-year-old social worker at the Islamic University in Gaza City and a mother of four, is one of six women elected to parliament on the Hamas ticket in the Islamist party’s landslide victory last month. They will be sworn in when the new parliament opens today.
guardian.co.uk

A military order that took effect last week bars Palestinians in the West Bank from entering Israel via the roads that Israelis use, even if they are transported by Israelis. Instead, Palestinians must use one of 11 crossing points earmarked for them.

…The order was signed by Major General Yair Naveh, the commander of the IDF forces in the West Bank, on December 15. It authorized the Civil Administration to determine which crossings could be used by non-Israelis, and also to determine “the arrangements that will apply at these crossing points.” In addition, it defined who is an Israeli, using
the same language that is now posted on the signs at the various crossings.
haaretz.com

By the next millennium the global map will have been redrawn by disastrous climate changes, according to a new forecast

AN APOCALYPTIC vision of life 1,000 years from now has been painted by a team of scientists studying the effect of global warming.
If mankind does not put its house in order, temperatures could have risen by 15C (27F) by the year 3000 and sea levels by more than 11 metres (36ft), flooding much of London, the team, from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, says in a report for the Environment Agency. Abrupt changes could make Britain much hotter, or even — such is the uncertainty of the predictions — first colder and then hotter.

This could happen if the North Atlantic current system collapsed, denying Britain the warming effect of the Gulf Stream. Ocean surface temperatures would fall by 3C (5.4F), but as the Arctic sea ice melted, they would rise again by 8C (14.4F) in an abrupt turnabout over a period of no more than about 20 years.
timesonline.co.uk

Climate change: On the edge
A satellite study of the Greenland ice cap shows that it is melting far faster than scientists had feared – twice as much ice is going into the sea as it was five years ago. The implications for rising sea levels – and climate change – could be dramatic.

Yet, a few weeks ago, when I – a Nasa climate scientist – tried to talk to the media about these issues following a lecture I had given calling for prompt reductions in the emission of greenhouse gases, the Nasa public affairs team – staffed by political appointees from the Bush administration – tried to stop me doing so. I was not happy with that, and I ignored the restrictions. The first line of Nasa’s mission is to understand and protect the planet.

A continent that inflicted colonial brutality all over the globe for 200 years has little claim to the superiority of its values.

Is the argument over the Danish cartoons really reducible to a matter of free speech? Even if we believe that free speech is a fundamental value, that does not give us carte blanche to say what we like in any context, regardless of consequence or effect. Respect for others, especially in an increasingly interdependent world, is a value of at least equal importance.

Europe has never had to worry too much about context or effect because for around 200 years it dominated and colonised most of the world. Such was Europe’s omnipotence that it never needed to take into account the sensibilities, beliefs and attitudes of those that it colonised, however sacred and sensitive they might have been. On the contrary, European countries imposed their rulers, religion, beliefs, language, racial hierarchy and customs on those to whom they were entirely alien. There is a profound hypocrisy – and deep historical ignorance – when Europeans complain about the problems posed by the ethnic and religious minorities in their midst, for that is exactly what European colonial rule meant for peoples around the world. With one crucial difference, of course: the white minorities ruled the roost, whereas Europe’s new ethnic minorities are marginalised, excluded and castigated, as recent events have shown.
guardian.co.uk

Dozens of Western multinationals have made millions of pounds in profits from exploiting African bio-resources taken from some of the poorest nations on earth, with not a penny offered in return.

Pharmaceutical firms are accused of breaching the United Nations convention on biodiversity, which states that nations have sovereignty over their own natural resources, by scouring continents for samples of unique materials, from plants to bacteria.

A ground-breaking report identifies numerous materials, taken from Africa to Western laboratories, which have developed and patented products worth hundreds of millions of pounds – from a trailing plant beloved of gardeners across Europe to a natural cure for impotence and a microbe used in fading designer jeans.

In some cases companies accept that their product is based on a traditional source and yet there is no evidence the companies have compensated countries from which they took them.

“It’s a new form of colonial pillaging,” said Beth Burrows, of the US-based Edmonds Institute, the environmental group that published the report. “We have identified a number of cases that require a lot of explanation. The problem is that we have a world [where companies] are used to taking whatever they want from wherever and thinking they are doing it for the good of mankind.”
independent.co.uk

The Paraguayan government confirmed on Tuesday that a British prospecting company has found oil and natural gas in the north of Paraguay, whose energy has depended on import.

The company, CDS Energy, has spotted oil and gas in Independencia III, an exploratory well in Gabino Mendoza, in Chaco, Public Works and Communications Minister Jose Alderete told Paraguayan daily ABC Color.

The CDS has sent its latest samples to laboratories in Texas in the United States, and the results are expected by the end of February, the newspaper said.

CDS sources told the paper that the well would produce fuel. The final well will be 3.2 km deep, but the test wells went no deeper than 1.6 km, they said.

Experts involved in the exploration said they had found sizeable quantities of natural gas and small amounts of crude oil.
The CDS has drilled a total of five holes in Paraguay, under a contract signed by the country’s ministry of public works.
people’sdaily/China

The landing of hundreds of US troops at a port city in the Dominican Republic, barely 80 miles from the Haitian border, sparked protests and warnings that Washington may be preparing another military intervention aimed at quelling the popular unrest that has erupted in Haiti over attempts to rig the presidential election.

Some 800 US troops have disembarked at the Dominican port of Barahona as part of the “New Horizons” military exercise that is to extend for several months and will reportedly involve as many as 14,000 military personnel. The city is the closest major port in the Dominican Republic to the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.

Hundreds of demonstrators marched on the US Embassy in Santo Domingo as well as on the US military camp in Barahona, approximately 120 miles southwest of the capital.
wsws.org

Haitian Front-Runner [President] Breaks Silence; Charges Fraud
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 14 — René Préval, whose support among the poor masses has made him the favorite to become Haiti’s next president, stepped out of the silence he began after the election last week to charge Tuesday that “massive fraud and gross errors had stained the process.”