Thread: Chavez urges Africa to unite against US

Chavez urges Africa to unite against US
By Daniel Flynn
2 hours, 17 minutes ago



BANJUL (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on Africa on Saturday to forge closer ties with Latin America to combat what he called a threat of U.S. hegemony.


Chavez, whose repeated criticism of America has raised hackles in Washington, called on an African Union summit to cooperate with Latin America in everything from oil production to university education to counter "colonial" meddling in developing nations.

Citing the example of Venezuela and Bolivia, he urged Africa to seize greater control of its energy resources. He described the low royalty payments made by some foreign oil companies as "robbery."

"We should march together, Africa and Latin America, brother continents with the same roots ... Only together can we change the direction of the world," he told the opening day of the AU summit, to applause.

"The world is threatened by the hegemony of the North American empire," said the former paratrooper, following speeches from African leaders which had criticized colonialism.
(Idi Amin claimed to be an ex paratrooper also this little fool Chaves remindes me of old idiot Idi, COI)
http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/amin.html

Africa's abundant natural resources -- ranging from precious metals to iron ore and oil -- should make it a wealthy continent if it were freed from outside exploitation, Chavez said.

"Africa has everything to become a pole of world power in the 21st century. Latin America and the Caribbean are equipped to become another pole," he said.

In a nod to another outspoken opponent of U.S. foreign policy, Chavez hailed Iran's right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also attending the summit in the Gambian capital Banjul.

The Venezuelan leader called for a commission to evaluate joint energy projects between Africa and Latin America, as well as a media venture dubbed Telesur (TeleSouth) and a joint bank Banco del Sur (Bank of the South).

"In Venezuela, we were tired of all our oil going to Count Dracula," said Chavez, referring his government's decision to raise taxes on U.S. oil companies. "Now Venezuela is free and we have recovered control over our oil."

Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil exporter.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060701/wl_ ... nezuela_dc

"The world is threatened by the hegemony of the North American empire," said the former paratrooper, following speeches from African leaders which had criticized colonialism

An EMPIRE are we? Seems they all know something we're not quite sure about. As I see it we're a bankrupt country with a real internal upheavel going on that isn't too keen on where this "empire" is taking us.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on Africa on Saturday to forge closer ties with Latin America to combat what he called a threat of U.S. hegemony.

I sure wish Chavez would start working on Mexico! Were Mexico to become aligned with Venezuela, our federal government and corporate America would probably have less luck exploiting them.

Yes, our federal government and corporate America is exploiting Mexico, all in the name of greed. Unfortunately, with that exploitation, comes pandering.

Say! I heard our voting machines are made by a co in Venezuela. Are we stupido or what?

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Say! I heard our voting machines are made by a co in Venezuela. Are we stupido or what?

Complete friggin morons!!! Isn't that a kicker? Voting machines in Venezuela and American Flags in China.

Voting machines in Venezuela and American Flags in China.

And a president in Mexico.

Bolivia's Morales pushes radical overhaul By FIONA SMITH, Associated Press Writer
13 minutes ago



LA PAZ, Bolivia - Bolivia's first Indian president, Evo Morales, is hoping for a big win by his socialist allies in elections Sunday to chose an assembly that will rewrite the constitution.

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Morales is pushing for a radical overhaul of government and the economy. He has promised to "recreate Bolivia" with a constitution that would empower the majority Indian population, long a poor and politically marginalized underclass.

The main opposition party is making Morales' close relationship with leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez the central issue, saying he is directing the constitution process from behind the scenes.Bolivians will elect 255 delegates to the assembly, which will begin its work Aug. 6. They have up to a year to retool the constitution. Two-thirds of the body must approve the changes, which then must be endorsed in a nationwide referendum.

No polls have been conducted, but the president's Movement Toward Socialism party, or MAS, is favored to win a majority. Morales remains highly popular five months after he took office.

While the government has used decrees to advance some of its goals, such as nationalizing natural gas on May 1, it wants the constitution to enshrine its accelerated transfer of state-owned land to peasants and the seizing of unproductive lands.

The Movement, which includes landless peasants, coca growers and middle-class intellectuals, wants to give civic movements the power to vet government spending and to guarantee access to free health care.

Morales asked his supporters to identify political enemies at his final campaign rally on Thursday night.

"I need the support of the people to confront provocation, aggression. The foreign companies are not sleeping; the bourgeoisie that democracy pushed out is still organizing to turn us back," Morales told thousands of supporters as fireworks exploded overhead.

The main opposition party, Podemos, favors switching to a parliamentary system which would weaken the presidency in a country that has seen 189 coups d'etat since its 1825 independence. Podemos would also introduce direct elections for more political offices and increase prison terms for violent criminals.

Critics claim that Morales will use the assembly to increase his power like Chavez, who held a constituent assembly in 1999 which concentrated executive power and hastened his re-election.

Many in the MAS support a reform that would allow Morales to run for another five-year term after this one ends. His critics, however, say the reform could be the first step for Morales to stay in power long-term.

The president himself has remained quiet on the issue of re-election. Current law would force him to sit out the 2010 elections.

Opposition leader Jorge Quiroga attacked Morales' ties to Chavez again at his closing campaign rally.

"Chavez can buy the MAS, but never Bolivia," Quiroga said to a large Podemos party gathering in the city of Santa Cruz. He asked supporters to make a sign of the cross to defend Catholicism, which the MAS has said it wants to remove as the country's official religion.

Perhaps the most divisive issue Sunday is a separate ballot question asking whether voters favor shifting many executive and financial powers to the states from the central government.

Santa Cruz, Bolivia's wealthiest and largest state in the country's eastern lowlands, is spearheading the "yes" campaign.

On Wednesday, some 150,000 people gathered in the state capital of Santa Cruz, 355 miles from the federal capital La Paz, waving the Santa Cruz state flag and chanting "autonomy" in one of the country's largest demonstrations ever.

Santa Cruz generates a third of Bolivia's wealth and its elite complain its revenues are being siphoned away to subsidize the poorer and more heavily Indian highland regions.

It's also the center of opposition to Morales, who has said he'll vote "no," claiming autonomy will only benefit "oligarchs" and not the majority poor population
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060701/ap_ ... referendum

Chavez is going to be bad news for us in the not to distant future.

And a president in Mexico.
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For now........who knows whats next.

I'm not fond of Chavez either.......he scares me.

An EMPIRE are we? Seems they all know something we're not quite sure about. As I see it we're a bankrupt country with a real internal upheavel going on that isn't too keen on where this "empire" is taking us.

The empire he is referring to is Washington D.C. current puppet administration. Unfortunately American citizens pay for the actions of the rogue foreign policy decisions being made.