Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez arrived in Cuba late on Sunday to meet with former Cuban president Fidel Castro as Caracas’ firebrand leader sets out on a tour that includes China, Russia, Portugal and France.
He was greeted at Jose Marti International Airport by Cuban President Raul Castro, who wore his customary military uniform. In an article published Sunday in Cuba’s state-run press, Castro, 82, said the one-hour meeting with his close friend Chavez will be “a great honor for me.” The meeting follows a tete-a-tete between the two leftist leaders in June.
Chavez had been authorized by the legislature to stop in Belarus as well, but said Sunday in his Hello Mr. President weekly broadcast that he would not be traveling there, without explaining why.
Chavez has said his travels hold “great strategic interest,” for his country. Venezuelan lawmakers approved his week-long tour, designed to “strengthen international relations with those countries and sign exchange and cooperation deals on economic, social and cultural matters.”
After his stop in Cuba, Chavez travels to China for talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) on the capitalization of a US$6 billion bilateral investment fund which he says Caracas will use for “socialist productive projects.”
China is contributing US$4 billion and Venezuela US$2 billion, Chavez said.
While in China Chavez could firm up announced plans for Venezuela’s purchase of 24 K-8 Chinese training and combat planes, which could be part of Venezuela’s air force next year.
Chavez will then head to Moscow. Caracas in recent years has been broadening its military ties to Moscow, and Chavez backed Russia in the recent Georgian conflict.
Earlier this month, Russian supersonic Tu-160 heavy bombers for the first time flew training runs with Venezuela in an area of the Caribbean traditionally considered the US military’s sphere of influence.
Caracas and Moscow have naval maneuvers planned for the Caribbean in November or December.
Chavez will then travel to France, where he will meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
On the last stop in Portugal, Chavez will sign agreements on housing and computer technology. Portugal is a partner in natural gas projects in Venezuela.
Chavez will also purchase 50,000 prefabricated homes in Portugal, and is seeking to sign a deal to build a factory for prefab homes in Venezuela.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS