Infinite Unknown

MOSCOW (AFP) - A fleet of Russian warships led by a massive missile cruiser set sail from their Arctic base on Monday for naval exercises off Venezuela near US waters that have not been seen since the Cold War.

“They left at 10:00 am (0600 GMT). It’s the nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser Peter the Great, the anti-submarine warship Admiral Chebanenko and other accompanying ships,” Russian navy spokesman Igor Dygalo told AFP.

Dygalo said he could not reveal how many ships were involved in the deployment or when they would arrive. The exercises in the Caribbean Sea are expected to take place in November or December, officials said.

The deployment follows the arrival of two Russian Tu-160 nuclear bombers in Venezuela earlier this month also for exercises, an event that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez branded a “warning” to the US “empire.”

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Tags: Hugo Chavez, Military, Politics, Russia, Venezuela

Supporters of Bolivia’s President Evo Morales burn dolls representing Leopoldo Fernandez, governor of the opposition state of Pando, in La Paz, Monday, Sept. 15, 2008. Several opposition provinces are seeking greater autonomy from Morales’ government and insist on the cancellation of a Jan. 25, 2008 referendum on a new constitution that would help him centralize power, run for a second consecutive term and transfer fallow terrain to landless peasants. At least 30 people have been killed in clashes this week, according to authorities (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) - South America’s presidents converged on Chile for an emergency summit Monday aimed at preventing the collapse of Bolivia, whose leftist president has lost control of about half the country and said bloody unrest there amounts to an attempted coup.

Evo Morales said he would explain to his fellow presidents how his political foes in Bolivia’s rich eastern lowlands have mounted a “civic coup,” inciting “crimes against humanity by groups massacring the poorest of my country.”

At least 30 people were killed in political violence last week, prompting Bolivia’s first indigenous president to declare martial law in the rebellious state of Pando - where Morales says thugs used machine guns against his supporters - and seek the arrest of its governor.

Gov. Leopoldo Fernandez denied any responsibility for the deaths, calling it an armed clash between rival groups and accusing Morales of “mounting a farce.”

Morales has lost control over most of eastern Bolivia, where protests have blocked highways and closed border crossings and pipeline sabotage has forced a cutoff of nearly half his nation’s natural gas exports to Brazil.

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Tags: Bolivia, Economy, Evo Morales, Government, Hugo Chavez, Martial Law, Politics, U.S., Venezuela

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez said the U.S. ambassador has 72 hours to leave Venezuela and that he’s recalling his ambassador from Washington.

Chavez said Thursday night that he is asking U.S. Ambassador Patrick Duddy to leave in part to show solidarity with Bolivian President Evo Morales, who expelled Washington’s envoy in La Paz.

“They’re trying to do here what they were doing in Bolivia,” Chavez said.

“That’s enough … from you, Yankees,” he said, using an expletive.

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Tags: Government, Hugo Chavez, Politics, U.S., Venezuela

MOSCOW, September 8 (RIA Novosti) - A Russian naval task force from the Northern Fleet will go on a tour of duty in the Atlantic Ocean and participate in joint naval drills with the Venezuelan navy in November, a Navy spokesman said on Monday. (Russian Navy modernized - Image gallery)

“In line with the 2008 training program and in order to expand military cooperation with foreign navies Russia will send in November a naval task force from the Northern Fleet, comprising nuclear-powered missile cruiser Pyotr Velikiy and support ships, to the Atlantic Ocean,” Capt. 1st Rank Igor Dygalo said.

During the tour of duty, the Russian warships will participate in joint naval exercises with the Venezuelan navy.

Related article: Russia to send naval squadron, planes to Venezuela

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Tags: Hugo Chavez, Military, Politics, Russia, Venezuela

MOSCOW - Russia said Monday it will send a naval squadron and long-range patrol planes to Venezuela this year for a joint military exercise in the Caribbean, an announcement made at a time of increasingly tense relations with the United States.

The apparently retaliatory move follows the U.S. deployment of warships to deliver aid to the former Soviet nation of Georgia, barely a month after Russian armor and aircraft crushed the Georgian military in a five-day war.

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Tags: Dmitry Medvedev, Georgia, Government, Hugo Chavez, Military, Politics, Russia, South Ossetia, U.S., Venezuela, Vladimir Putin

Food riots have broken out across the globe destabilizing large parts of the developing world. China is experiencing double-digit inflation. Indonesia, Vietnam and India have imposed controls over rice exports. Wheat, corn and soy beans are at record highs and threatening to go higher still. Commodities are up across the board. The World Food Program is warning of widespread famine if the West doesn’t provide emergency humanitarian relief. The situation is dire. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez summed it up like this, “It is a massacre of the world’s poor. The problem is not the production of food. It is the economic, social and political model of the world. The capitalist model is in crisis.”

Right on, Hugo. There is no shortage of food (This is disinformation - The Infinite Unknown); it’s just the prices that are making food unaffordable. Bernanke’s “weak dollar” policy has ignited a wave of speculation in commodities which is pushing prices into the stratosphere. The UN is calling the global food crisis a “silent tsunami”, but its more like a flood; the world is awash in increasingly worthless dollars that are making food and raw materials more expensive. Foreign central banks and investors presently hold $6 trillion in dollars and dollar-backed assets, so when the dollar starts to slide, the pain radiates through entire economies. This is especially true in countries where the currency is pegged to the dollar. That’s why most of the Gulf States are experiencing runaway inflation. Continue reading »

Tags: Ben Bernanke, Bush administration, CFTC, China, Commodities, crisis, Dollar, Enron, Financial Tsunami, Food Prices, Food Riots, Futures, Hugo Chavez, India, Indonesia, Inflation, Oil, rice, rice exports, Speculators, tsunami, U.N., Vietnam, Wall Street

ROME: Consumer countries and international oil firms keen to gain greater access to the world’s energy resources are likely to walk away empty-handed from talks with producer nations in Rome.

Record high oil, which struck $117 a barrel on Friday, has helped to drive up the profits of oil majors, but it has also increased the spending power of national oil companies and made them ever more reluctant to grant access to their resources.

“The relative positions of international energy companies and national energy companies are changing — and not in our favour,” Paolo Scaroni, chief executive of Italian oil and gas company Eni said in a speech at the opening of the International Energy Forum (IEF).

OPEC member Venezuela, under President Hugo Chavez, has spearheaded a global trend towards resource-holders seeking to maximise their returns from their energy wealth.

International firms have found themselves faced with tougher terms and shut out of the best energy territory.

During the 1970s, the international oil companies controlled nearly three-quarters of global oil reserves and 80 percent of production, Scaroni said.

Now, they control 6 percent of oil and 20 percent of gas reserves, and 24 percent of oil and 35 percent of gas production, he said. National oil companies hold the rest. Continue reading »

Tags: barrel, Hugo Chavez, Iran, Oil, OPEC, War

March 5, 2008 — CUCUTA, Colombia - Venezuela and Ecuador reinforced their borders with Colombia yesterday as the three nations traded increasingly bitter accusations over Colombia’s cross-border strike on a leftist guerrilla base in Ecuador.Rejecting a Colombian apology as insufficient, Ecuador sought international condemnation of the attack during an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States, convened in Washington to help defuse one of South America’s most volatile crises in years. Continue reading »

Tags: Colombia, Ecuador, guerrilla, Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Maduro, Uribe, Venezuela, War