Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was to visit Venezuela yesterday for talks with firebrand anti-US leader Hugo Chavez and naval exercises set to send a defiant message to Washington close to US shores.
Medvedev’s two-day visit is part of a Latin American tour that is aimed at revitalizing Cold War-era ties with left-leaning countries of the region and is also seen as an attempt to rebuff US moves in former Soviet territories.
The visit of a group of Russian warships led by a nuclear-powered cruiser, which moored off the coast yesterday, has been portrayed by Russian media as mirroring US deployments in the Black Sea in support of Moscow’s adversary Georgia.
Some 1,600 Russian forces traveling on four Russian ships were joining 700 Venezuelans for patrol and rescue exercises in the Caribbean Sea that are due to start on Monday, officials said.
Russian officials have denied the exercises are aimed at “third countries” and Chavez rejected talk of provocation on Monday, describing the exercises as an exchange between “free, sovereign countries that are getting closer.”
However, the flamboyant Venezuelan leader has joined forces with Medvedev and his predecessor Vladimir Putin in denouncing US global might and US President George W. Bush administration’s plans for missile defense facilities in Eastern Europe.
In September, Chavez described Russian air force exercises over Venezuela as a “warning” to the US “empire.”
On a tour that also includes Peru, Brazil and Cuba, Medvedev has said he wants to restore “privileged relations” with Latin American countries in a fierce contest for influence. Of those only Cuba was formally aligned with Russia prior to the Soviet collapse.
Russian officials are expected to pursue new arms deals with Venezuela following sales that have included radars, fighter jets, helicopters and tens of thousands of Kalashnikov rifles.
The US and neighboring Colombia have voiced concern about the Venezuelan purchases, warning of a potential arms race and destabilization.
Venezuela’s state-run energy company is to sign a deal with five Russian oil companies to produce and refine Venezuelan oil in the Orinoco Basin, officials have said, adding that there are plans for a civilian nuclear power station.
US officials have played down the military significance of the Russian-Venezuelan naval exercises, while saying they will keep a close eye on them.
Some analysts have detected an element of bluff in current Russian moves in Latin America, saying that the economic crisis now buffeting Russia is likely to hinder plans such as possible Russian involvement in a South American gas pipeline.
Others have criticized the timing of Russia’s show of defiance as inept given the imminent arrival in office of a US leader, president-elect Barack Obama, who has attracted support from countries around the world and may prove more flexible on the missile defense issue.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate
RSS