Havana, April 30 (ACN) This century will see the end of the US empire, said Hugo Chavez on Saturday during a rally in Havana, where he highlighted the progress of Latin American integration efforts.
Addressing thousands of youth present at a rally, Chavez proclaimed you will witness the fall of the US empire, since this century will see the birth of our common homeland.
cubaweb.cu
Peruvian candidate for President Alan Garcia compared Sunday Venezuelan President Hugo Chvez with ex Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein and ascribed him a double moral with regard to the United States.
“He is a meddler who is breaking fundamental international principles. What does he think he is? Is he a Saddam Hussein who, because of having oil can take ownership of other countries?” Garcia commented based on Chavez’ support of Nationalist candidate Ollanta Humala.
Additionally, Social-Democrat Garcia called Chavez “corrupt and alcoholic” in a new round in the clash following Venezuela’s decision to leave the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) a week ago, AFP reported.
“I am not afraid of Chavez. I am not a Venezuelan conscript,” Garcia emphasized.
Garcia, who was the Peruvian President from 1985 to 1990 and a friend of ex Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, a major political opponent of Chavez, stated, “I will not make further remarks. I will not waste more time with you, Mr. Chavez.”
eluniversal.com
Lima recalls ambassador from Venezuela
LIMA, Peru — Peru said yesterday it withdrew its ambassador to Venezuela for the second time this year over “persistent and flagrant interference” in the country’s affairs by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
The Peruvian government cited Mr. Chavez’s threat Friday to withdraw his ambassador to Lima and cut relations with Peru if former President Alan Garcia won the Peruvian presidential election. Mr. Chavez favors leftist Ollanta Humala.
“The Peruvian government has decided to withdraw its ambassador to the Republic of Venezuela with immediate effect, due to its persistent and flagrant interference in Peru’s domestic affairs,” the Foreign Ministry said.
Venezuelan officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
Mr. Chavez, a self-proclaimed socialist revolutionary sharply at odds with Washington, first clashed with Peru at the start of the year after openly backing Mr. Humala, who won the first round of the April 9 presidential election.
Peru temporarily withdrew its ambassador from Caracas on Jan. 5 after President Alejandro Toledo accused Mr. Chavez of “political meddling” in the election by supporting Mr. Humala.
Mr. Humala has pledged greater state intervention in Peru’s free-market economy and to radically redistribute Peru’s wealth in favor of the poor.
In Havana earlier yesterday, Mr. Chavez criticized both Mr. Garcia and Mr. Toledo as “crocodiles from the same water hole.”
Bolivia weighs in on Peru vote along with Venezuela
LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) – Bolivian President Evo Morales invited nationalist Peruvian candidate Ollanta Humala on Sunday to visit Bolivia, after Peru withdrew its ambassador to Caracas over Venezuela’s comments backing Humala in its presidential election.
Bolivia’s President Evo Morales decreed the nationalization of the country’s natural gas industry today, following through on an election pledge to increase control over the energy industry.
Under the decision, he ordered foreign firms to send production to a state company for sales and industrialization, and said that the state will also recover Bolivian hydrocarbons companies that were privatized in the 1990’s, with the state taking over shares that are in the hands of foreign companies and of semi-public Bolivian entities, according to an Associated Press report based on Mr. Morales’s speech, which was delivered at the country’s San Alberto gas and oil field.
He also ordered the military to occupy the natural gas fields, the A.P. said.
“The time has come, the awaited day, a historic day in which Bolivia retakes absolute control of our natural resources,” Mr. Morales said from the facility, which is operated by Petrobras of Brazil in association with Repsol-YPF of Spain, the A.P. said.
The move highlights a regional trend in Latin America of a struggle over who controls energy resources. Protesters in Bolivia have in the past called for the outright expropriation of private gas installations operated by British Gas, Repsol, and Petrobras. Such protests over energy policy have weakened or forced out of power a number of presidents in Bolivia, which has South America’s second largest natural gas reserves.
In the past, Mr. Morales has raised concerns in the United States and Europe with his plans to increase government control of the energy industry, and with his pledges to decriminalize the cultivation of coca, the plant used to make cocaine.
Mr. Morales warned that companies that rejected the decree would have to leave Bolivia.
He said all the companies must turn their production over to the state’s Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos, which was privatized in 1996 and 1997, it reported.
nytimes.com
They never fail to put th coca part in…
“Politically speaking, it is an excellent tool devised by the United States to privatise the peace process.”
Montaser Oklah, Jordanian Ministry of Industry and Trade
On an industrial park in the middle of Jordan, rows of factory workers stitch jeans for the American market.
On a good day they can turn out thousands of pairs and put in a shipment to New York and the mid-west.
For the owners of this factory, the economics make good sense but this is really a political project designed to change the Middle East.
More than a decade ago, Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty. But it is cold peace – there is little trade or travel between the two countries.
Among ordinary Jordanians, the treaty is deeply unpopular.
Hence this scheme designed to encourage interaction between the two countries.
The jeans being made in Jordan are allowed into the United States without duty or quota restrictions.
To secure that valuable concession, they must have 8% Israeli contents.
“That’s a big advantage – one of the main reasons we came here,” explained the director of the company, Ali Imran.
“Ultimately, we are business people, we have to look after our business.”
Businessmen like Mr Imran have helped produce a huge expansion in Jordanian exports to the United States.
bbc.co.uk
Yup, turn the Arab world into a giant “Free Trade Zone”, which is the new term for slave colony. Exporting democracy indeed.
The Arab League, which has collected $70 million for the Palestinians, will pay the salaries of civil servants straight into their bank accounts.
A Hamas government spokesman said on Monday: “We have given the list and bank account details of the civil servants to the Arab League so that the salaries can be paid to them directly.
“We have had a lot of contact with the Arab League and secretary general Amr Mussa to find a solution to the financial crisis as quickly as possible” Ghazi Hamas said.
He could not say when the money would be transferred.
The money collected by the 22-member Arab League only covers a fraction of the needs of the cash-strapped Hamas-led government, which requires about $240 million to pay its 160,000 employees for March and April.
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Rubber bullets being fired in the occupied West Bank have seriously injured another Palestinian civilian.
Ruba Mahmoud Awayes, 21, was on her way home from college when she was hit in the face. Her eye was so badly damaged doctors later removed it. A friend who was with her was also hit and wounded in the hand.
Awayes’ family, who lives in Nus Jbeil, outside Nablus, is angry that the media has not picked up on the incident and turned to Al Jazeera.net to tell their story.
Palestinians are routinely injured and some killed by rubber bullets fired by the Israeli occupation army.
aljazeera.net
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Iraq should be divided into three largely autonomous regions — Kurd, Sunni Arab and Shiite Arab — with a weaker central government in Baghdad, Sen. Joseph Biden said on Monday.
In an op-ed article in The New York Times, Biden, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee’s top Democrat, said the Bush administration’s effort to establish a strong central government in Baghdad had been a failure, doomed by ethnic rivalry that had spawned widespread sectarian violence.
“It is increasingly clear that President Bush does not have a strategy for victory in Iraq. Rather, he hopes to prevent defeat and pass the problem along to his successor,” said Biden and co-author Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Iraq’s Sunnis, the driving force behind the insurgency, would welcome the partition plan rather than be dominated by a Shiite-controlled central government, Biden said.
He said the division of Iraq would follow the example of Bosnia a decade ago when that war-torn country was partitioned into ethnic federations under the U.S.-brokered Dayton Accords.
Biden billed his plan as a “third option” beyond the “false choice” of continuing the Bush administration policy of nurturing a unity government in Iraq or withdrawing U.S. troops immediately.
As part of the plan, the United States should withdraw most of its troops from Iraq by 2008, except for a small force to combat terrorism, Biden said.
Under Biden’s proposal, the Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite regions would each be responsible for their own domestic laws, administration and internal security. The central government would control border defense, foreign affairs and oil revenues.
reuters.com
The British and the Americans are guarding Iraq’s Persian Gulf oil platforms — the troubled country’s only real sources of revenue — like crown jewels. But Iraqi oil is flowing sluggishly at best, while hoped-for investments haven’t materialized and the Iraqi oil industry is on the verge of collapse — both technical and political.
spiegel.de
THE leader of al-Qa’ida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is trying to set up his own mini army and move away from individual suicide attacks to a more organised resistance movement, according to US intelligence sources.
Faced with a shortage of foreign fighters willing to undertake suicide missions, Zarqawi wants to turn his group into a more traditional force mounting co-ordinated guerilla raids on the US-led coalition forces.
Al-Qa’ida is sending training and planning experts to help set up the guerilla force and infiltrate members into Iraq with the assistance of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the sources said.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, deputy leader of al-Qa’ida, claimed in a video posted on an Islamist website yesterday that 800 “martyrdom operations” in three years had “broken the back of America in Iraq”.
The change of strategy will make it easier for Zarqawi to link up with Iraqi insurgents and evade the special operations teams trying to track him down.
Zarqawi came close to capture two weeks ago, international news weekly Defense News reported at the weekend.
theaustralian.news.com.au
Istanbul — The Turkish armed forces have launched their first military operation along the Iraqi border where Turkish troops have concentrated for days.
The Northern Iraqi cities of Amedi and Zaho, sheltering Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) militants, were hit with mortar attacks in “Operation Crescent.”
First reports say that locations where militants were lodged in the regions of Geliye, Pisaxa, Pirbela, Sheshdara, Sheranish and Elanish were demolished.
The “Burgundy Beret” units performed a recognizance mission in the area a while ago as part of the Special Forces Command.
Troop deployment to the region from different parts of the country continues.
Along with the transfer of commandos, heavy construction equipment is also being brought to the border for use during a possible cross-border operation.
The Iranian military extended their operation 10 kilometers to maintain security along the border.
aina.org
So Turkey and Iran are cooperating on this operation.