Russia and Venezuela’s leaders on Wednesday vowed closer cooperation to establish what they called a “multi-polar” world, ahead of naval exercises seen as sending a defiant signal to the US.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev defended Russia’s arms sales to Venezuela — criticized by the US and Colombia as potentially destabilizing — and said military cooperation with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez would continue.
Russian military cooperation with Venezuela “is not a market relationship or aimed at any other state but is based on partnership ... It should strengthen multi-polarity in the world including in South America and Latin America,” Medvedev said.
“We will develop our military cooperation,” he said.
Chavez said US “hegemony” was the source of global “catastrophes” after he greeted Medvedev at a ceremony featuring scarlet-clad soldiers carrying spears, in a courtyard decorated with palm trees, fountains and statues of ancient gods and dolphins.
“We should fight to make a world of catastrophes caused by hegemony and unilateralism a thing of the past,” said Chavez, going on to denounce what he called the “dictatorship of the dollar” and announcing efforts to move away from dollar transactions in trade with Russia.
On the commercial front the two countries signed a cooperation agreement in the civilian atomic energy sector.
The head of Russian atomic energy corporation, Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, said Venezuela had the right to peaceful nuclear energy and had given no cause for “questions” about its fitness for nuclear energy.
Officials also signed an agreement on cooperation in the fossil fuel sector, aimed at stepping up existing exploration projects in Venezuela by companies such as Gazprom.
Medvedev and Chavez went on to dine with leaders of several South and Central American countries, some of which have formed an economic group meant to counter-balance US influence.
Medvedev was to visit Russian warships yesterday that arrived in Venezuela earlier this week to carry out exercises in the Caribbean Sea, close to US waters.
Medvedev’s visit was part of a tour aimed at revitalizing Cold War-era ties with left-leaning countries of Latin America and was seen as aimed at rebuffing US moves in formally communist parts of Europe such as planned missile defense facilities.
Medvedev earlier visited Brazil, which announced it would buy 12 attack helicopters from Russia.
The arrival in Venezuela of the Russian warships led by a nuclear-powered cruiser has been portrayed by Russian media as mirroring US deployments in the Black Sea in support of Moscow’s adversary, Georgia.
Russian officials have repeatedly denied the exercises are aimed at “third countries” and Venezuela’s president rejected talk of provocation on Monday, describing the exercises as an exchange between “free, sovereign countries.”
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the arrival of Russian ships could hardly reflect a change in the regional power balance.
“A few Russian ships is not going to change the balance of power,” she said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS