Iran to open 2 health clinics in Bolivia

Iran to build 2 health clinics in Bolivia, looks to expand medical aid to Latin America

10 October 2008

LA PAZ, Bolivia -Iran's top diplomat in Bolivia says his country will open two low-cost public health clinics in South America's poorest nation.

Business attache Hojjatollah Soltani said Friday the Islamic republic plans to use Bolivia as a base for future Red Crescent medical programs across the continent.

He did not offer details or cost figures for the clinics.

Bolivia and Iran, both outspoken critics of the United States, have only recently opened diplomatic relations.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pledged US$1 billion in aid to Bolivia alone during a visit last year.

Bolivian Health Minister Ramiro Tapia said the Iranian clinics will expand on medical aid already provided by Cuba and Venezuela.

In other News:

Pakistan, Iran agree to rewrite IPI as IP gas line

Bolivia Calls for War with U.S.

Activists from El Alto, 12 km from La Paz, take part in an anti-US demonstration, on 15 September 2008, in La Paz.

16 September 2008

The U.S. State Department is organizing at least two evacuation flights for Americans who want to leave Bolivia amid widespread and increasing anti-American feelings.

Officials in Washington and at the U.S. Embassy in La Paz say the flights will leave Bolivia on Wednesday for neighboring Peru.

The move comes as relations between the United States and Bolivia have plummeted in the past week, with each country expelling the other's ambassador along with alleged accusations towards Bolivia by the U.S., on drug trafficking.

At this time, four countries have declared war and there are 15 preparing war on the U.S. Those at war at this time, include Venezuela, Russia, Pakistan, and now Bolivia; it has been reported.

Chavez Expelled U.S. Ambassador

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez speaks during a meeting in Caracas, on 11 September 2008.

12 September 2008


Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has expelled the U.S. ambassador due to alleged allocations of unacceptable treatment by Washington.

Chavez said Washington was behind an alleged plot by retired military officers to kill him and said it had plans to bomb him from planes marked as Venezuelan.

It has been further assessed that other types of aggressions has been aimed at not just Chavez, but Venezuela.

Chavez told his own ambassador to the United States to come home before he was thrown out.

The U.S. State Department said it had not been officially notified of the expulsion. Which is not surprising when it is a ‘they do not wish to do so,’ so say this scenario; especially since more then Venezuela has requested the explosion of U.S. ambassador’s, but Embassy closures.

Update:
Venezuelan leader orders U.S. ambassador out
(Chavez gives envoy 72 hours to leave)

Venezuela Says U.S. Violated Airspace as Provocation

19 May 20008

By Daniel Cancel and Matthew Walter

Venezuela's defense minister accused the U.S. of seeking to provoke sharper tensions between his country and U.S. ally Colombia by flying into Venezuelan airspace last weekend.

The plane, which the U.S. said strayed into Venezuelan jurisdiction because of a navigation failure, was detected over Venezuela's Orchila island, about 180 kilometers (119 miles) north of Caracas, at 8:40 p.m. (9:10 p.m. New York time), Defense Minister Gustavo Rangel Briceno told reporters today in Caracas. The pilot said he mistook his location, Briceno said.

``We think this was a conscious act on the part of the North American navy, and is another knot in the chain of aggressions in which they seek to involve our country,'' Briceno said. ``It's possible this sort of incident happened in the past, but now we have the capacity to detect them.''

Venezuela, the fourth-biggest supplier of foreign crude oil to the U.S., has accused President George W. Bush of trying to stoke a conflict between Venezuela and neighboring Colombia to justify a U.S. intervention. Venezuela asked U.S. Ambassador Patrick Duddy to provide an explanation for the unauthorized incursion, the defense minister said.

`Situational Awareness'

The plane, identified as a Navy S-3 aircraft, flew into Venezuelan airspace off the mainland coast after losing ``navigational situational awareness,'' according to a statement issued today by the U.S. Southern Command's Joint Interagency Task Force, which conducts the counter-narcotics missions.

A U.S. Defense Department spokesman, Navy Commander J.D. Gordon, said an S-3 experienced navigation problems while on a mission from Curacao on May 17. Gordon said the plane's crew was contacted by Venezuela's Maiquetia air traffic control center and a ``polite and professional'' conversation ensued, lasting about three minutes. The Task Force statement said the Venezuelans helped guide the plane back to international airspace.

Both the Pentagon and Southern Command said the incident is being investigated.

Venezuelan General Jesus Gonzalez Gonzalez told reporters today in Caracas he found it hard to believe the incident was accidental given the distance between Curacao and Orchila Island.

`Delicate'

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro also said today during a news conference that his government is seeking a diplomatic resolution to conflicts with neighboring Colombia, which he said is working with the U.S. to destabilize Chavez's government.

Maduro said he spoke with Colombian Foreign Minister Fernando Araujo today, and they agreed to form a commission to determine what happened in an incident involving Colombian troops on the border between the two countries on May 16.

Maduro said 60 Colombian soldiers crossed into Venezuela, which Colombia has denied.

``We're going to use diplomatic mechanisms as the way to clarify what happened,'' Maduro told reporters today in Caracas. ``The climate between the two countries is delicate right now.''

Diplomacy between Venezuela and Colombia has been strained this year since Colombian President Alvaro Uribe accused Chavez of supporting Colombia's biggest guerrilla group.

Uribe's military raid on a guerrilla camp in Ecuador, a Chavez ally, also prompted the Venezuelan president to order troops to the Colombia border in March.

Fact Finding

Chavez said last week he'd put all economic and diplomatic relations with Colombia under ``deep review.'' Trade between the two countries rose to more than $5 billion last year.

Uribe says files recovered from laptop computers belonging to a slain leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia show that Chavez was giving the rebels financing and weapons.

Colombia's Araujo confirmed today that he spoke with Maduro and agreed to participate in the commission to determine what happened on the border between the two countries in Venezuela's Apure state.

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry sent a complaint to Colombia on May 17, and said the 60 troops were found 800 meters (0.5 mile) into Venezuelan territory.

Bush sends Congress Colombia trade pact

President George W. Bush looks toward President Vladimir Putin Sunday, April 6, 2008, while making remarks during a joint press availability at the State Resident of the President of Russia in Sochi. (White House photo by Chris Greenberg)

7 April 2008

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer

President Bush will announce that he is sending a controversial free trade agreement with Colombia to Congress, an administration official said Monday. The move will force a congressional vote within 90 days.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Bush will make the announcement in the White House Rose Garden.

Bush's action will force Congress to take up the proposal under a fast-track process that will require votes within 90 days. Officials said Bush is acting now in order to force a vote before Congress leaves in the fall for the campaign season.

The agreement would tear down trade barriers between the two nations but is heavily opposed by Democrats in Congress who contend that Colombia has not done enough to halt violence, protect labor activists and demobolize paramilitary organizations.

Bush, who has staked out free trade as one of his top legacies, is also hoping to win congressional approval before he leaves office on pending free trade agreements with Panama and South Korea.

Bush's action was coming one day after Mark Penn quit as Sen. Hillary Clinton's chief campaign strategist after it was reported that he had met with Colombia's ambassador to the United States to discuss proposion of the free trade agreement which Clinton opposes.

The administration a year ago struck an agreement with Democratic leaders who wanted future free trade agreements to include protections regarding workers' rights and the environment. The deal was intended to smooth passage of future trade agreements through a Congress now in the hands of Democrats.

However, the pact with Colombia had drawn heavy opposition because of such issues as violence against union organizers. Moreover, Democratic leaders balked at forcing the matter to a vote.

"We've tried to work with members of Congress very diligently over the past 16 months or so since we concluded the Colombia agreement," White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said Monday. "We have had literally hundreds of meetings and contacts with members of Congress. A lot of members of Congress have traveled to Colombia on trips that we've sponsored."

In economic terms, the deal would largely open up the Colombian markets for American goods without many of the duties that now exist. Colombia is already able to send most products to the United States duty-free, but the deal would strengthen that preferential access, a boon to the country and to its investors.

Bush has acknowledged that the slumping U.S. economy has eroded support for trade. Many blue-collar workers blame it for costing them their jobs. The president has said the answer is trade assistance and education, not isolation.

The president also has said that failing to approve a free-trade deal with Colombia would have the effect of encouraging Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez's anti-American regime and casting the United States as untrustworthy and impotent across South America.

Castro Looking Alert in New Video

This image from a broadcast on Cuban television station Cubavision, shows Cuban leader Fidel Castro speaking at an unidentified location Friday, Sept. 21, 2007. Castro looked alert and healthier in a surprise video aired on state television Friday, the first images released of the ailing 81-year-old Cuban leader in more than three months. (AP Photo/Cubavision via AP Television News)

22 September 2007

By WILL WEISSERT

HAVANA (AP) — Looking alert in his first video aired in three months, Cuban leader Fidel Castro responded to rumors of his death with a simple answer: "Well, here I am."

During an hour-long interview taped and aired on Cuban television Friday, the ailing 81-year-old revolutionary also said he thought the U.S. would go to war with Iran and he lamented the high costs of military operations in Iraq.

In the video, Castro appeared pale and stayed seated the entire time. He spoke slowly and softly and didn't always look the interviewer in the eye. But he appeared to be thinking clearly.

Mocking rumors of his death that have circulated in Miami and elsewhere in the U.S., he said "they say 'I was dying' and 'if I die' and 'I will die the day after tomorrow' or something."

"Nobody knows the day they are going to die," said Castro, who was forced to cede power to his younger brother Raul in July 2006 following emergency intestinal surgery. He has not appeared in public since.

Early in the interview, Castro often trailed off mid-sentence, and needed some prompting by the interviewer. He had bags under his eyes, sunken cheeks and his thin gray beard looked as wispy as ever. But he appeared to get stronger and more comfortable as time passed.

The video's release came as a surprise. Cuban officials broke into regularly scheduled programming only minutes before the video was broadcast to announce that a "conversation" with Castro would be shown. They said the interview was taped Friday.

Backing up the assertion, Castro mentioned recent prices of oil and the value of the euro against the dollar. He also discussed an essay he signed that was published in state media on Wednesday.

"Yesterday the euro was at US$1.41. Oil I think about US$84 a barrel," Castro said.

He also held up a copy of the new book by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World." At one point he quoted from it, reading excerpted passages in very large type instead of using the book itself.

The Cuban leader wore a red, blue and white jumpsuit with "F. Castro" in small block letters.

"They criticize me" for wearing the tracksuit, Castro joked. But he said he was "not looking for anything elegant."

Castro's condition and exact ailment are state secrets, though he wrote in one of his many essays that he had undergone multiple surgeries, at least one of which went poorly. He is recovering in an undisclosed location.

For months, official photographs and videos were released to show Castro's recovery, but no new images had surfaced since he appeared in an interview on Cuban television June 5.

Arnaldo Fuster, who watched the Castro interview with his wife and children in his old Havana home, said he thought the Cuban leader looked better in the latest video.

"He's whole. He's better, I think, than ever," Fuster said. "He's old, but he's whole. His memory is normal, he looks normal."

But in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, people greeted the Castro video with a mixture of skepticism and disappointment. Some doubted the tape was made on Friday.

"Could be six months ago. Could be one year ago," said Cuban-born Victoria Martinez, 76, of Hollywood, Fla., who called the leader's talk "incoherent."

Although there are frequent rumors of Castro's demise, they had reached a fever pitch in Miami last month after the leader's 81st birthday came without any news.

Earlier Friday, Vice President Carlos Lage told reporters that the essays Castro has signed every few days since late March are evidence that his health is strong.

"Fidel continues to recuperate. It's a productive recuperation as we can see in the press," said Lage, apparently referring to the publication in state newspapers of Castro's "Reflections of the Commander in Chief."

In Venezuela, ally President Hugo Chavez started a speech with an announcement that Castro was speaking on Cuban state television. "A long life to Fidel and the Cuban revolution," he shouted.

Earlier while traveling in Brazil, Chavez said Castro was "close to death" but underwent several operations and has regained weight.

Castro had "three operations, and he's 81, imagine that. They changed almost all the blood with transfusions. Fidel is alive because he is Fidel," Chavez said.