Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has warned he will lodge a complaint against the US at the UN and other international bodies if the US government fails to act against television evangelist Pat Robertson, who has called for Chavez's assassination.
"If the US government does not take action that it must take, we will go to the UN and Organization of American States to denounce the US government," the Venezuelan leader said Sunday as he addressed participants at talks on a social charter for the Americas.
He added he believed that by failing to act against Robertson, the US was "giving protection to a terrorist, who is demanding the assassination of a legitimate president."
PHOTO: AP
Robertson caused a diplomatic stir last Monday when he said on the air that if Chavez believed the US was trying to kill him, "I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it."
Robertson apologized Wednesday, but then went on to compare Chavez to former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and to suggest the US could one day be at war with his oil-rich country.
Chavez, a twice-elected leftist and close ally of Cuban President Fidel Castro, has often said Washington would like to assassinate him, and accuses the Bush administration of involvement in a coup d'etat that toppled him for 47 hours in April 2002. US officials last week distanced themselves from Robertson's comments.
The Venezuela president said he had already instructed his foreign minister and the country's ambassador to Washington to begin the process in the international bodies.
He said Venezuela could use international treaties and conventions to demand the extradition of the television preacher.
Chavez said he believed Robertson "should be sent to prison to serve as an example for the entire world."
Meanwhile, visiting US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson lent his support to Chavez, saying Robertson's remarks were "repugnant, immoral, illegal." Addressing the Venezuelan National Assembly, Jackson called for the US Justice Department to investigate the statement. Jackson, on a three-day visit to Venezuela to meet Chavez, politicians and community leaders, also called on US President George W. Bush to issue "a swift rejection" of Robertson's statement.
"It must be unequivocally clear that such a heinous act is not desirable nor designed nor planned. We must use power to reduce tensions, reduce the rhetoric of our threats," Jackson said.
The US State Department sought to distance itself from Robertson last week, calling his remarks "inappropriate" but said the evangelist spoke as a "private citizen."
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
The Philippines said it has asked the country’s Supreme Court to allow it to arrest former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s chief drug war enforcer to stand trial in an international tribunal. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last week unsealed an arrest warrant against Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, accusing him along with Duterte and other “coperpetrators” of the “crime against humanity of murder.” Dela Rosa briefly sought refuge in the Philippine Senate last week while asking the Philippine Supreme Court to stop an ongoing attempt by government agents to arrest him. “By his own conduct, he has placed himself outside the protection of
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
The researchers in Ireland looked at their computer screen, marveling at a medieval book tracked down in a Roman library. They flipped through its digitized pages and found their sought-after treasure: the oldest surviving English poem. “We were extremely surprised. We were speechless. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we first saw that,” said Elisabetta Magnanti, a visiting research fellow at Trinity College Dublin’s school of English. The poem was also within the main body of Latin text, she said, calling it “extraordinary.” Composed in Old English by a Northumbrian agricultural worker in the 7th century, Caedmon’s Hymn appears within some copies of
RSS