Venezuela: Iran to place medium-range missiles inside Venezuela that can reach the US

See?? That's where we are going to build the base, Mahmoud

[...] According to Die Welt, Venezuela has agreed to allow Iran to establish a military base manned by Iranian missile officers, soldiers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Venezuelan missile officers. In addition, Iran has given permission for the missiles to be used in case of an “emergency”. In return, the agreement states that Venezuela can use these facilities for “national needs” … radically increasing the threat to neighbors like Colombia. The German daily claims that according to the agreement, Iranian Shahab 3 (range 1300-1500 km), Scud-B (285-330 km) and Scud-C (300, 500 and 700 km) will be deployed in the proposed base. It says that Iran also pledged to help Venezuela in rocket technology expertise, including intensive training of officers

via Huge Problem: Iran to place medium-range missiles inside Venezuela that can reach the U.S. :: Political News and commentaries :: Hyscience.

More here and here.

An Iranian Shahab 3 missile. (UPI)

(via GP).

Venezuela: Chávez buys 20% of Globovisión and announces an Internet regulation

Hugo Chávez

The Venezuelan State has just “bought” 20% of Globovisión, although that would not change (for now) its political positioning, as the majority stakeholder will continue to be Guillermo Zuloaga. Globovisión is the only independent TV station, after the Government shut down RCTV.

The Venezuelan Government is also going to impose its “revolution” on Internet. As Venezuelan blogger Martha Colmenares writes, the Government wants to impose its hegemony in the media, and that includes Internet. So they have sent to the National Assembly a draft of amendment to the Law on Social Responsbility in Radio and RV to regulate “the Internet and reform aspects of the Law concerning the media in general“. It will be presented next week in the plenary sessions.

The amendment refers to all digital media, including websites and blogs, and the use of social networks such as Twitter or Facebook. As a result, all the messages that don’t support Hugo Chávez, that are against Hugo Chávez even occasionally or that show Venezuelan reality, will be affected by the new law. “This is just pure censorship“. And of course, the dissidents won’t go unpunished.

Venezuela: Chávez’s relatives are millionaires in the US

Hugo Chávez, laughing after knowing how much he and his family have in bank accounts across the world

Weapons, parties, concerts, jewelry, cars, travels, changes of look are part of the lifestyle of the family of the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, who is a staunch defender of socialism and a tough anti-capitalist.

DEA reports from 2008, indicate that you have identified five bank accounts in U.S. financial institutions amounting to nearly $ 140 million belonging to the brothers and mother of the president of Venezuela.

But you know? Then he will insist he is a suporter of the “socialism of the XXI century” and talk about the “Bolivarian revolution”. And people like Sean Penn will of course, support him.

Anyway, looking on the bright side. As he has blamed “criminal capitalism” for the recent heavy rains that have fallen in Venezuela, we can, safely, blame his family for them… and for global warming!!

Nobel Peace Prize ceremony boycott grows due to Chinese pressure

Free Liu Xiaobo

Liu Xiaobo was imprisoned for 11 years due to his participation in the document called Chapter 08, in which several people supported democracy and the end to the “one-party”

… China and 18 other countries have decided not to be represented “for various reasons.” It noted that number has tripled from six weeks ago.

The countries joining China in its boycott include Russia, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Tunisia, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Serbia, Pakistan, Egypt, Morocco and the Philippines.

The 58 countries who have embassies in Oslo were invited to attend.

China strongly objected to Liu’s win last October and levelled more criticism Tuesday, calling members of the Nobel committee “clowns” who are “interfering in China’s judicial affairs.”

The 54-year-old writer and academic was jailed in December 2009 to serve an 11-year term for subversion. He was detained just days before the publication of what has turned out to be an explosive political document, Charter 8, which he co-wrote.

Charter 08 calls for an end to one-party rule and the introduction of democratic reforms in China. It was signed, via the internet, by thousands of people, some of them Communist Party officials.

via CBC News – World – Nobel Peace Prize ceremony boycott grows.

Venezuela: remarks like ‘Hitler didn’t finish the job’ are routine

This is really worrying.

In Venezuela, remarks like ‘Hitler didn’t finish the job‘ are routineMore than half the Jews in Venezuela left the country since Chavez has been in power, and those who remain say there is official antisemitism in the country.

“I am not even horrified anymore when I see swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans such as ‘Hitler didn’t finish the job’ on walls near my synagogue,” says a former Israeli who lives in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela.

“This is an influence that trickles down from the top – from the government – against the Jews. I know that Chavez is exerting efforts not to appear anti-Semitic to the outside world, and that he welcomed the leaders of the Jewish community, but I haven’t heard of him ever punishing someone for anti-Semitic writings or remarks.”

She would rather her name not be mentioned. “This gets translated and immediately appears on various internet sites. I don’t need trouble,” she says. “A few years ago it was heaven here, who could have believed that it would turn into such a burdensome place?“

She isn’t the only one who feels this way. According to data from the Venezuelan Confederation of Israelite Associations, the number of Jews in Venezuela sharply decreased in the ten years President Hugo Chavez has been in power.

In 2000, there were some 18,000 Jews listed, and today the number stands at a little less than 9,000. The outward flow of people amplified in the last two years, when more than 5,000 Jews left the country, in particular to Miami in the United States.

via In Venezuela, remarks like ‘Hitler didn’t finish the job’ are routine – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

This is worrying. But then it’s me the one who is “generating hate”…

UK: Venezuelan embassy to commemorate intifada

Venezuela insists on supporting any terrorist organization in the world. Venezuelan ambassador to Spain recently supported ETA, saying the terrorist organization was “fighting for just causes”… like Marxism, I add, because that their real objectif. And now Venezuelan Ambassador to UK supports the intifada:

The Venezuelan Embassy in London has been accused of glorifying terrorism ahead of its commemoration on Saturday of the 10th anniversary of the outbreak of the second intifada.

The intifada was “at the forefront of the world struggle against white supremacist neo-colonialism and settler-colonialism,” according to the embassy.

The legation’s website describes the event, titled “Ten years since the second intifada: making the empire turn back,” as an exploration of the reason for the eruption of the intifada and “its ramifications for the Palestinian revolution and national liberation struggle.”

It also says that the intifada “has been a catalyst, and formed part of the process of an emerging multi-polar world and the growing strength and confidence of the South.”

The event will “explore the intifada’s relationship with movements of resistance against Anglo-American aggression, invasion and occupation in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas and conflicts in the ‘war on terror’.”

A message will be delivered on behalf of the Venezuelan Ambassador Samuel Moncada at the event. Other speakers include former MP and veteran anti-Israel activist George Galloway; the former plane hijacker Leila Khaled, who will address the event by video, and Massoud Shadjareh, chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, organisers of London Al-Quds Day – an annual event in support of the resistance movements against Israel.

via Venezuelan embassy in UK to commemorate intifada.

UN: Cuba, Venezuela, Iran Top the List of Countries Lining Up to Scrutinize U.S. Human Rights Record During U.N. Review

Shameful.

A lawmaker who chairs Iran’s parliamentary human rights committee, Zohreh Elahian, said this week that the countries registering to take part in the UPR are doing so “to declare their criticisms of the U.S. policies in area of human rights.”

Charging that the U.S. holds itself up as the example for others to emulate even while violating rights at home, Elahian told Iran’s Fars news agency that this had “redoubled the importance” of the U.S. review.

She said Iran’s delegation planned to address the session and would also hold sideline meetings with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on the subject of the U.S. human rights record.

As part of the UPR  process, every U.N. member state presents its rights record, once every four years, for the rest of the international community to examine, question and offer recommendations. More than 100 countries have gone through the process since it was inaugurated in mid-2008.

…according to diplomats cited Wednesday by a Geneva-based NGO, U.N. Watch, Cuban officials “took the lead last week in circulating an advance sign-up sheet.”

“We are concerned that Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and other non-democracies are planning to hijack the session to score propaganda points and drum up anti-American sentiment worldwide,” said the organization’s executive director, Hillel Neuer.

via Cuba, Venezuela, Iran Top the List of Countries Lining Up to Scrutinize U.S. Human Rights Record During U.N. Review | CNSnews.com.

Meanwhile, Iran is rumoured to be, with Saudi Arabia, in the governing body of UN Women’s Rights Agency. There is a group in FB to protest about this.

More here: “Cuba Organizing Rogue Speakers’ List of Hardliners in Bid to Ambush U.S. at Friday’s U.N. Review. UN Watch Backgrounder on U.N.’s 1st UPR Review of America’s Human Rights Record“.

Al-Qaeda, Drug Cartels and Chávez, united in drug trafficking

Powerful cartels have made a fortune in the drug trade along the U.S.-Mexico border. Now, rogue dictators and Islamic terrorist groups are following their example.

Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez differ in many ways, but they share a common enemy — the United States. And according to U.S. officials, drugs help connect and fund the dangerous networks.

West Africa is the center of their interests in the multi-billion dollar business. The region has become a transit point for cocaine bound for Europe.

Iran welcomes Chavez as partner against Western "bullies"

Iran welcomes Chavez as partner against Western “bullies” [ WORLD BULLETIN- TURKEY NEWS, WORLD NEWS ]:

“Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received his close Latin American ally Hugo Chavez on Tuesday and welcomed the Venezuelan president’s support against the Islamic Republic’s western ‘bullies’.

The leaders of the two major oil exporters inspected a guard of honour before heading into talks which Iranian media said were aimed at boosting cooperation in the oil, gas, and petrochemical sectors.

‘The progressive and fraternal stance of Venezuela in condemning sanctions against Iran imposed by the bullying powers is indicative of the deep and firm ties between the two countries,’ Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the student news agency ISNA.”

Related:
Obama: Nuclear Venezuela is OK by him.
Ahmadinejad: “Promise of God is that the enemies of our nations will go one day”.

Photo: AFP.

MSM: Spanish journalist goes undercover inside Jihadist groups… in Venezuela

…Salas decided to go undercover with his hidden cameras after the bombings that killed 191 people on Madrid commuter trains on 11 March 2004. He had been as stunned as other Spaniards by the blasts, despite the country’s experience of Basque terrorist group Eta. “I wanted to know what goes through the mind of a person who is capable of killing for an ideology.”

Salas’s previous undercover investigations – as a skinhead supporter of Real Madrid football club, and in the world of prostitute-trafficking – had taken him to the heart of some of the most violent groups in Spain. “My aim was to understand terrorism in the same way that I came to understand skinheads or prostitute-traffickers.”

…Salas picked the Venezuela of President Hugo Chávez as his base. “I had been told Venezuela was a mecca of international terrorism,” he says. “The Farc group from Colombia was there, as were people from Eta.” Numerous other small revolutionary groups had also set up under Chávez’s benevolent gaze. There, in what the New Yorker journalist Jon Lee Anderson calls “the parallel reality that is the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela today”, Salas established himself as yet another niche radical – flying the flag for Palestine and running a local branch of Hezbollah. More importantly, he got close to the family of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez – Carlos the Jackal.

…By tracking the Arabic news channel al-Jazeera, Venezuelan TV and the internet for mentions of The Jackal, Salas discovered that Chávez himself was one of his biggest fans. “For him, Carlos is not a terrorist but a revolutionary – a model internationalist, like Che Guevara. Just as Che went to fight for other peoples, so Ilich went to fight for the Palestinians. Whenever Chávez mentioned The Jackal, I would record it and send it to him, which he loved.”

Not that Salas agrees with Chávez’s view of The Jackal. “He is considered responsible for 82 killings; I don’t call that being a revolutionary. I call him a terrorist.” – though he would probably not, he admits, use the term to his face. “It helps that he is in jail.”

…In Venezuela’s fringe community of political extremists, he bumped into people from Eta, the Túpac Amaru (a group of armed Venezuelan radicals who support Chávez), and other groups. Repeated requests for hands-on training eventually saw him invited to a camp in Venezuela, where he learned to handle pistols, rifles and machine guns, including a Kalashnikov AK-103, an Uzi sub-machine gun, the American M4 carbine and a Belgian-designed FN FAL. He also practised with a sniper’s telescopic sight and received explosives training. “I learned all that a jihadist might need to take his message of terror to a city in Europe or the United States,” Salas says. “There was nothing glamorous about it. It was just a question of learning to kill better.”

His instructors included a Venezuelan army colonel, though Salas insists the camp was not run by the Chávez regime. “It just so happened that my instructors, as well as being supporters of revolutionary causes, were Venezuelan army officers.”

…So what conclusions does Salas draw from rubbing shoulders with international terror? His answer is coloured by the fact that half a dozen people he met during his investigation have since died – often violently. “I don’t justify violence, but I can understand it. I never found any glamour or sophistication in that world, nor anyone especially intelligent – except for The Jackal. Terrorists really have only two ends – they either die or go to jail. You have to be a bit stupid to do that.”

Read it all.

Venezuela: "We are carrying studies to start a nuclear energy program", Chávez says

FOXNews.com – Chavez: Venezuela Studying Nuclear Program:

“Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Monday that his government is carrying out initial studies into starting a nuclear energy program.

Chavez brought up the issue during a news conference, saying the South American country needs an atomic energy program.

‘We’re taking on the project of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and they aren’t going to stop us,’ Chavez said. ‘We need it and we’re carrying out the first studies.’

Chavez is a close ally of Iran and has defended the Iranian nuclear program, saying he is sure Iran is not making atomic weapons in spite of U.S. and European suspicions.”

Just after the legislative elections in which he lost his “supermajority”. Wasn’t Venezuela one of the most important oil producers in the world? So, why do they need nuclear energy? Just the same Iran needs it?

If I were Colombian, I would be really worried.

US: indictment links Hezbollah with Mexican drug cartels

MYRICK: Hezbollah car bombs on our border – Washington Times:

“An indictment was handed down Aug. 30 by the Southern District Court of New York that shows a connection between Hezbollah – the proxy army of Iran and a designated terrorist organization – and the drug cartels that violently plague the U.S.-Mexico border.

In short, a well-known international arms dealer was trying to orchestrate an arms-for-drugs deal in which cocaine from FARC – the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which works with Mexican drug cartels to take cocaine into America – would be traded for thousands of weapons housed by a Hezbollah operative in Mexico.

… Highly sophisticated tunnels for transferring drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border, ones very similar to the tunnels dug by Hezbollah into Israel. The close relationship between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the increase in Iranian nationals traveling through Venezuela to receive false documents, which they use to cross into the United States. Mexican officials raising concerns about Hezbollah operatives possibly training Mexican drug cartel enforcers in making car bombs.

Michael Braun, a former Drug Enforcement Administration chief of operations, has even been quoted as saying, “Hezbollah relies on the same criminal weapons smugglers, document traffickers and transportation experts as the drug cartels. … They work together; they rely on the same shadow facilitators. One way or another, they are all connected.”

Only a few weeks after I sent this letter, it was reported that Jameel Nasr, a Mexican national with ties to Hezbollah in Lebanon, “entrusted with forming a base in South America and the United States to carry out operations against Israeli and Western targets,” was arrested by the Mexican government. Days later, a cell-phone-detonated car bomb – the first of its kind reported used by Mexican drug cartels – was deployed just across the U.S.-Mexico border in Juarez. On Aug. 27, another car bomb exploded in a U.S.-Mexico border state. These car bombs show an evolution in the tactics being used by the drug cartels and bear a strong resemblance to those employed by Hezbollah, raising questions as to who trained the cartels.”

But then there will be people who would deny these facts saying that Jihadists don’t ally themselves with atheists….

Related:

Venezuela cancels round-trip “terror-flight” to Syria and Iran.

Background:

Counter-terrorism investigators find criminal ring of activities related to terrorism.

Hizbullah and Colombian drug traffickers.

Report: Hizbullah’s drug trafficking.

US: "I haven’t seen any evidence of Iranian military presence in Venezuela"

Image via Wikipedia

Iran is expanding its diplomatic and economic ties with Venezuela but has no military presence in the South American country, a US general said on Tuesday.
The comments came as Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez denied allegations from the Pentagon that members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force were stationed in his country.
The leftist leader, who often heaps scorn on the United States, called a recent report “absolutely false” at a military ceremony.
The head of US Southern Command, General Douglas Fraser, said Iran was bolstering its relations with Venezuela.
“We see a growing Iranian engagement with Venezuela,” Fraser told reporters.
Iran has a “diplomatic, commercial presence” but, “I haven’t seen any evidence of a military presence,” he said.

It would be somewhat helpful if they just firstly agree, then write the reports and then speak in public, instead of publishing reports and after critizise those same reports. In this case, the report says just the opposite to what this guy says. There is no middleground here: or Iran has military presence in Venezuela or it hasn’t.

What they don’t get is that each error diminish their capacity to convince people about what they say. And that’s not really helpful…

Related articles by Zemanta

• US downplays Iran threat in Latin America (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Venezuela’s Chavez rebuffs Pentagon report (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Social networks: Chávez opens a Twitter account

Hugo Chavez is starting to use Twitter to counter his opponents online, forcing a president who often talks for hours to sum up each thought in 140 characters or less.

Chavez urged Venezuelans to watch his newly created account – chavezcandanga – after midnight Tuesday, saying “at that point is when I let loose.”

His first tweet in Spanish popped up at 14 minutes after midnight: “Hey how’s it going? I appeared like I said I would: at midnight. I’m off to Brazil. And very happy to work for Venezuela. We will be victorious!!”

By late Tuesday, the socialist leader had more than 18,000 followers before posting a single tweet, and that increased to more than 23,000 early Wednesday.

More:

Given Chávez’s penchant for speaking on Venezuelan TV for hours at a stretch, the biggest challenge facing el presidente is how to restrict his musings to 140 characters or less.

Whether he’s capable of keeping it short remains to be seen, although this will not in fact be the Venezuelan government’s first foray into Twitter.

According to Spanish singer Alejandro Sanz, dark forces moved against his account after he criticised the Chávez regime. In 2007, the Venezuelan powers that be banned a Sanz show when the popular crooner said he didn’t much like the cut of the president’s jib.

He now claims he’s been hacked by Chavistas who’ve posted “racist and faked” tweets in his name.

Background:
Chávez will write a blog.
http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/video/xcnub7
Trinchera
Cargado por noticias24. – Mira las noticias más recientes en video.

Look carefully to the TV channel (top right of the screen)

http://www.youtube.com/v/nfhgyCPEp6g&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1
Via.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Hugo Chavez to join Twitter (telegraph.co.uk)
• Hugo Chávez embraces Twitter revolution to fight online ‘conspiracy’ (guardian.co.uk)
• Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez takes to Twitter (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Hugo Chávez goes a-twittering (go.theregister.com)

Raúl Castro, Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales: what a trio!!

Image by LeX (O\_!_/O) via Flickr

On the 200 anniversary of Venezuelan independence’s acts:

Raúl Castro said that Venezuela and Cuba “are increasingly the same thing” and added that he goes back to Cuba very satisfied, because “all our meetings are very important, whether we hold htem here or in Habana”.

On the other hand, Hugo Chávez, took his chance to ratify that he agrees with the “magnificent”speech that Bolivian president, Evo Morales, gave, in which he spoke about “Mother Earth”.

Vía.

That speech was pretty interesting indeed. In it, Evo Morales, who was named “World Hero of the Mother Earth (Pachamama)” by the UN last year, has said that coke serves as a plunger and transgenic chickens produce baldness and homosexuality because for growing them, female hormones are used. He also critisized in similar ways Dutch potatoes (video in Spanish).

http://www.youtube.com/v/vHNU1WvZnGE&hl=es_ES&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b

Evo is also supporting “Coca Colla”, a drink made with cocaine, which its producers are hoping would be a Coca-Cola’s competitor in the market. No imperialistic drinks in Bolivia!!

If these guys didn’t have power over so much people (and in Cuba’s case for so many years, now) this would be funny. As it is, they are only a disgrace.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Gay and bald? Evo Morales thinks you ate too much chicken (guardian.co.uk)
• Venezuela marks its bicentenary (news.bbc.co.uk)

Iran: Increasing Qods Force presence in Venezuela

What a dreadful photo!!

Iran is increasing its paramilitary Qods force operatives in Venezuela while covertly continuing supplies of weapons and explosives to Taliban and other insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to the Pentagon’s first report to Congress on Tehran‘s military. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), the Islamist shock troops deployed around the world to advance Iranian interests, “maintains operational capabilities around the world,” the report says, adding that “it is well established in the Middle East and North Africa and recent years have witnessed an increased presence in Latin America, particularly Venezuela.”

Via.

More here and here.

Related: Ahmadinejad is now in Africa, increasing ties with Zimbabwe and Uganda.

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• A look at the Pentagon’s Iran report (powerlineblog.com)

Syria: columnist for Govt daily Al-Thawra blames US, Israel for Moscow bombings

Ibrahim Za’ir, columnist for the Syrian government daily Al-Thawra, stated

that the U.S. had carried out the attacks with the aim of forcing Russia into making concessions to help resolve the crisis with Iran, and also to push Russia into signing the arms reduction treaty: “Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared that regional and international elements may have been behind the criminal operation that caused… the killing of 40 innocent civilians…

“Like the innocent victims of terror operations in Moscow, Dagestan, and other places in the world, the perpetrators of these operations also did not know the political goals of the operations [that they carried out]. [These perpetrators are] young men or women, in the full flower of their youth, who have been brainwashed with hatred and whose minds have been filled with elements of religious and ideological consciousness removed from the textual context of the books [holy to] the monotheistic religions – particularly [those] of the religion of Islam [i.e. the Koran] that bans the killing of innocents.

“But the planners of the terror operations know full well how to exploit the religion to accomplish their unique goals. It is they who are the most distant from Islam and its commandments… [The fact is that] the leader of the terror operations in the Caucasus, who was killed by Russian intelligence about a month before the recent Moscow operations, was… Sa’id Buryatsky, a Russian whose real name is Alexander Tikhomirov, who was connected to several foreign intelligence networks, particularly the American CIA.

“The U.S.’s condemnation of this does not mislead us. Many terror organizations have weapons and explosives… manufactured by the U.S. and Israel, sent to them via Georgia and other countries close to the U.S.

“Against this backdrop, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s trip to Venezuela to sign 30 agreements with President Hugo Chavez can be understood. Several U.S. and Western newspapers [saw these agreements] as Russia’s response to Washington, and as an indirect accusation against it, vis-à-vis the two Moscow subway bombings… [Washington had] hoped that this terror operation would pressure the Russian leadership to make many concessions in all things regarding the signing of the Strategic Missile Arms Limitation Treaty – SALT II [sic][1] with Russia not demanding that the U.S. stop its missile defense project in Eastern Europe and change its position towards Iran, and [forcing] Russia to impose harsh sanctions on Iran [in accordance with Washington's wishes]…

Syria, that country which is a dictatorship and which is giving Scud missiles to Hizbullah.

South America: China is the key investor now

Image via Wikipedia

China has supplanted the US as Brazil’s biggest trading partner, a boom repeated across the region. Once almost invisible in Latin America, China has seen its trade here rise from $10bn a year in 2000 to well over $100bn today. Latin officials are rolling out the red carpet to Chinese delegations and hopping on planes not only to Beijing but also Guangzhou, Nanking and Shanghai.
Unlike the Russians, who grab attention by sending warships to visit anti-US leaders, such as Venezuela‘s Hugo Chávez, but struggle to deliver economic deals, the Chinese are all business. They are importing soy from Argentina, copper from Chile, iron ore from Brazil and zinc from Peru, and export clothes, cars and electronic equipment across the region.
The trade helped Latin America to weather the global economic crisis, but there is concern about a “neo-colonial” pattern in which the region’s commodities are sucked abroad while industry loses out to cheap imports aided by China’s undervalued currency. When Argentina accused China of dumping goods, Beijing bared its teeth and banned Argentine soya oil, citing safety concerns.

Just yesterday, Chávez announced more investments from China:

President Hugo Chavez has announced an agreement with China that would have the Asian economic giant devote $20 billion to financing long-term development projects in Venezuela.
The Venezuelan president says the financing would go toward industrial and infrastructure projects, among other development plans.
He spoke Saturday during a televised appearance attended by China’s natural resources minister.
Chavez is providing few other details about the investments. 

This change is related with the lack of Human Rights’ requirements China imposes.

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• China Beats Brazil in Own Backyard as BRIC Summit Seeks Unity (businessweek.com)
• Chavez Touts New China Projects (online.wsj.com)
• Chavez raises sword before militia loyalists (seattletimes.nwsource.com). Chavez rallied the civilian militia at an outdoor speech while marking the anniversary of a failed 2002 coup against him. Organizers estimated about 35,000 militia members in the crowd, which filled a downtown avenue in Caracas… “If they were to do it … you know what you would have to do. Simply take all power in Venezuela, absolutely all, sweep away the bourgeoisie from all political and economic spaces, deepen the revolution,” he said.

Spain: NC judge accuses Venezuela of ETA/FARC terrorism (U)

In recent months, Venezuela has been linked to Islamic terrorism in the Sahara desert. But there was no direct evidence of the implication of Chávez’s Government in the support of terrorism till some Swedish weapons sent to Venezuela were found in a FARC camp. From AP:

A Spanish judge yesterday accused Venezuela of collaborating with Basque separatist militants (terrorists!!!!!) and Colombian rebels (terrorists!!!!) and said the two groups plotted to assassinate Colombia’s president while he visited Spain.Judge Eloy Velasco made the allegation in a 26-page indictment in which he charged six members of Basque group ETA, most of them exiled in Latin America, and seven members of Colombian leftist rebel group FARC with crimes including terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder.

Spain has asked Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s government for an explanation, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said.

Velasco wrote that a Spanish probe launched in 2008 turned up evidence “that demonstrates Venezuelan governmental cooperation in the illicit collaboration between FARC and ETA.”

Chávez as ever has answered defiantly that he:

Venezuela: Chávez creates militias to defend “Bolivarian revolution”

And of course, “Castroite” thugs are enchanted that their Government’s colony –something real after the arrival of Cuban dark lord Ramiro Valdés (right, with Chávez)-, really defends them:

President Hugo Chávez called on the popular power authorities today to create militias to defend the Venezuelan Revolution in the 184 communes that are constituted at national level.

According to the Head of State, the residents in those areas, made up by hundred of families with low resources, will receive military training to resist any attack.

We won’t attack anybody, but we have to get ready to defend hand to hand, millimeter by millimeter, the territory of this Revolution, he pointed out during his Sunday program Aló, Presidente.