12 September 2008

Two long-range bombers that flew to Venezuela in the first Western Hemisphere flight since the Cold War carried no nuclear weapons, Interfax cited an Air Force official as saying Thursday.

The bombers flew to Venezuela before planned joint military maneuvers that appear to be a tit-for-tat response to the U.S. warships being used to deliver aid to U.S.-allied Georgia.

The Tu-160 jets did not have any such weaponry on board, Major General Vladimir Drik said, Interfax reported. There was no word on other armaments. Russian officials earlier had confirmed the planes' arrival in Venezuela but refused to say whether they were carrying weapons.

The two Russian strategic bombers landed in Venezuela on Wednesday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said, adding that he hopes to "fly one of those things" himself.

Chavez called the deployment part of a move toward a "pluri-polar world" -- a reference to moving away from U.S. dominance. "The Yankee hegemony is finished," Chavez said in a televised speech.

NATO fighters escorted the two Russian bombers on their 13-hour trip to Venezuela over the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, the Defense Ministry said.

Later, Chavez called the U.S. the "empire" as he addressed troops at the christening of a new coast guard patrol ship.

From unleashed...

Despite the lack of in-depth coverage by the international media, the recent political crisis in Bolivia has made two things clear.

For a start, it seems the government of Evo Morales still has the backing of the majority of the population and, until now, most of the rank and file of the armed forces.

Secondly, the crisis has allowed South American countries to rally behind Morales through the new Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) in contrast to the U.S. led Organisation of American States (OAS) - traditionally the forum to discuss such matters.

Having won the presidency in 2005 by 54% - the largest electoral victory in the country's history - Morales' Movement for Socialism (MAS) took office after a backlash against neoliberal economics and the mobilisation of Bolivia's indigenous peoples who represent over 60% of the population.

While some social movements have been far from happy at the pace of change, the MAS administration has taken many measures to address poverty.

Renationalising the hydrocarbons sector, the government from 2004-2007 increased its revenue by $US1.3 billion dollars - approximately 10% of GDP - according to the Washington based Center for Economic and Policy Research.

In 2007, six new national hospitals were built as MAS - with Venezuelan funds and through the aid of Cuban doctors and teachers - has been aiming to establish basic health care and education for Bolivians.

Placing his administration to a recall referendum last August, Morales triumphed by 67.4% of the vote making inroads by up to 20% into opposition territory such as the resource-rich eastern departments of Beni, Pando and Tarija.

None of these trends have curtailed the actions of the local opposition and Washington from destabilising the Morales government.

Soon after their defeat in the referendum, the opposition, headed by right-wing separatists and their paramilitary groups in Santa Cruz, engaged in violent demonstrations and takeovers of government buildings.

Flux in Latin America Affects Russia’s Diplomacy

This article was reported by Simon Romero, Michael Schwirtz and Alexei Barrionuevo and written by Mr. Romero.

CARACAS, Venezuela — When President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia planned his coming trip through Latin America, his country seemed poised to present one of the most visible challenges in years to American influence in the region. With oil prices high, Russia was flush with cash and planning a variety of measures, including helping Venezuela build a nuclear reactor and strengthening military ties with Cuba, a former cold war ally of the Soviets.

But when Mr. Medvedev reaches the region next week, he will find it in flux in reaction to recent events — and in some cases less receptive to his overtures. Plunging oil prices and the global financial crisis, which have hammered Russia particularly hard, have raised questions about Russia’s reliability as an economic partner, while Barack Obama’s victory in the presidential race has raised hopes throughout Latin America of a new era of improved relations with the United States.

In this rapidly changing landscape, most Latin American countries are recalibrating their political interests, frustrating Russia’s efforts to deepen regional ties, like the ones China established in the past decade.

“Russia’s elites, including President Medvedev, look on China’s rising diplomatic and economic successes in Latin America and in Africa with envy,” said Stephen Kotkin, the director of Russia studies at Princeton University. “They also perceive an opportunity, much exaggerated, to send the U.S. a message in its supposed backyard.”

But Mr. Medvedev faces a hard sell in the region. In Cuba there are lingering suspicions over Russian intentions, as the Cuban economy collapsed when the Soviets withdrew in the 1990s, as well as a reluctance to alienate an incoming Obama administration that might push to end the trade embargo.

South American leaders at a regional summit have expressed fresh concerns over Colombian plans to grant American troops access to its military bases.

But at the gathering in Ecuador, they rejected a proposal to formally condemn the proposals, which would allow US access up to seven Colombian bases.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned that "the winds of war were beginning to blow" across the region.

Colombia says it needs US support to tackle drug lords and left-wing rebels.

The US wants to relocate its base for anti-drug operations in Latin America to Colombia, after Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa refused to extend an agreement allowing US access to a military base in Ecuador.

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see toon at top...

Nobody else in British politics has been around as long as Ken Livingstone. He was a household name before Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were even in Parliament, when David Cameron and Boris Johnson were still at Eton. He was cutting his teeth in politics as a young London councillor before George Osborne was born.

Now, for the fourth time in a little over a decade, the nation’s best known newt fancier is asking the Labour Party to adopt him as their candidate for the London mayoral election.

His rival for the nomination, Oona King, is of the same generation as Ed Balls and the Miliband brothers, whereas Livingstone is at least 20 years older than the next Labour leader, whoever he may be. If he wins the Labour nomination, he will be running for Mayor at the age of 66, and if he wins that, he will be nearly 71 when his term of office ends.

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see toon at top.

When Boris Johnson was campaigning to become London mayor three years ago, he accused his predecessor, Ken Livingstone, of "flagrant propaganda" when he issued millions of copies of a City Hall paper called The Londoner, packed with pictures of Ken and articles boosting his endeavours.

"It must be scrapped," said Boris, vowing that if he were elected mayor, Londoners would no longer have to put up with this "Pyongyang-style freesheet" being pushed through their letter-boxes.

Three years is a very long time in politics. Now, with his bid for re-election less than a year away, Boris has just overseen the release of millions of four-page freesheets to London homes, extolling the cracking record of his mayoralty and inviting readers to Back Boris in May 2012.

There are not one but two photographs of the mop-haired mayor on pages one, two and four - while page three carries a stunning three images. No other face figures in the handout.

To give a flavour of the editorial coverage, headlines include 'Boris secures record transport upgrades'... 'Olympics: on time and on budget'... and 'How our borough is safer under Mayor Boris Johnson'.

To add to the enjoyment, there's a special Boris Wordsearch game where, among the jumble of letters, readers must try to find the phrases BOOZE BAN, ROUTEMASTER and CYCLE HIRE among others.

To be fair to Boris, there is one key difference between his rag - named variously the Camden Record, the Barking & Dagenham Chronicle, the Bromley Record etc etc - and The Londoner (or 'Ken's Pravda', as his enemies at City Hall used to call it). It is not paid for by taxpayers.

If Johnson's life reads like a riotous bedroom farce, part Jilly Cooper, part Just William, Livingstone offers us an exhaustive account of internal local government machinations, city hall bureaucracy, transport policy memos and more psephological detail than even the nerdiest anorak could conceivably want. I don't see it troubling his rival's biography on the bestseller list. And yet, from the gaps between the lines in this great encyclopedia of minutiae emerges a portrait of one of the most fascinating characters in British politics today.

I'm not sure Livingstone realises this, because when we meet he says he can't see the point of being interviewed at all. We have fish and chips in a west London cafe, and he seems genuinely bemused that his memoir could have left any questions unanswered. "Everything is there in my book. What's left to add?" But it's precisely what he left out that makes the author so interesting. Readers will scour Livingstone's memoir in vain for an account of his inner emotional life, still less any acknowledgment of mayoral mistakes or regrets, let alone clarification of his puzzling private life. The omissions might make sense if the book were conceived as a campaigning tool for the coming election – but nothing, he says with surprise, could have been further from his mind.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/21/ken-livingstone-you-cant-say-that-memoir