Venezuela said on Friday it will expand a program to provide cheap home heating oil to poor US citizens, bringing savings to low-income families in Vermont and Rhode Island, as well as four Indian tribes in Maine.
Venezuela's Citgo Petroleum Corp. has already begun selling millions of liters of discounted fuel in Massachusetts and the Bronx in New York City as part of a plan by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to aid poor communities that he says are neglected by Washington.
Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuela's ambassador to the US, said he will sign an agreement on Thursday in Maine to start providing heating oil to four Indian tribes -- the Penobscot, Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians.
PHOTO: AP
"The Penobscot Nation is very grateful," tribal chief James Sappier said by phone from the reservation near Bangor, Maine. "This is probably one of the greatest decisions for our tribe in years."
Many in the tribe of 2,261 people are facing tough times economically as jobs have moved out of the area, and the discounted fuel could save a family US$1,000 or more this winter, he said.
Sappier said heating oil prices have been hovering around US$2.40 in the area recently, and Venezuela estimates participants in will save US$0.15-US$0.20 cents per liter.
Alvarez said Venezuela also will extend the deal next week to Vermont and Rhode Island. Other communities in New York City -- Harlem, Queens and Brooklyn -- will soon begin benefiting, he said.
Chavez's opponents accuse him of using Venezuela's oil wealth to win friends while trying to embarrass US President George W. Bush, whom he calls a "madman." But Chavez's supporters defend the heating oil program an example of generosity by a president leading a socialist revolution for the poor.
Alvarez was accompanied by a group of US activists on a tour of a state-funded cooperative in Caracas where the poor receive free health care and hundreds work in textile and shoemaking shops.
The visitors included singer Harry Belafonte, actor Danny Glover, Princeton University scholar Cornel West and farm worker advocate Dolores Huerta.
"It was impressive for everyone to see that progress is being made," said Tavis Smiley, who joined the group and hosts a talk show on PBS television.
Belafonte, who has praised the heating oil program, said the group came to learn about the situation in Venezuela. He was sharply critical of the situation in the US, noting poverty and a huge prison population.
West, a professor of religion, spoke admiringly of Chavez's programs, saying they show "this revolution is real; it's not something that people are just talking about."
Meanwhile, Sappier said snow was falling in Maine, and his tribe was grateful for Chavez's help.
FORUM: The Solomon Islands’ move to bar Taiwan, the US and others from the Pacific Islands Forum has sparked criticism that Beijing’s influence was behind the decision Tuvaluan Prime Minister Feletei Teo said his country might pull out of the region’s top political meeting next month, after host nation Solomon Islands moved to block all external partners — including China, the US and Taiwan — from attending. The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders’ meeting is to be held in Honiara in September. On Thursday last week, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele told parliament that no dialogue partners would be invited to the annual gathering. Countries outside the Pacific, known as “dialogue partners,” have attended the forum since 1989, to work with Pacific leaders and contribute to discussions around
END OF AN ERA: The vote brings the curtain down on 20 years of socialist rule, which began in 2005 when Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer, was elected president A center-right senator and a right-wing former president are to advance to a run-off for Bolivia’s presidency after the first round of elections on Sunday, marking the end of two decades of leftist rule, preliminary official results showed. Bolivian Senator Rodrigo Paz was the surprise front-runner, with 32.15 percent of the vote cast in an election dominated by a deep economic crisis, results published by the electoral commission showed. He was followed by former Bolivian president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in second with 26.87 percent, according to results based on 92 percent of votes cast. Millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina, who had been tipped
Outside Havana, a combine belonging to a private Vietnamese company is harvesting rice, directly farming Cuban land — in a first — to help address acute food shortages in the country. The Cuban government has granted Agri VAM, a subsidiary of Vietnam’s Fujinuco Group, 1,000 hectares of arable land in Los Palacios, 118km west of the capital. Vietnam has advised Cuba on rice cultivation in the past, but this is the first time a private firm has done the farming itself. The government approved the move after a 52 percent plunge in overall agricultural production between 2018 and 2023, according to data
ELECTION DISTRACTION? When attention shifted away from the fight against the militants to politics, losses and setbacks in the battlefield increased, an analyst said Recent clashes in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubaland region are alarming experts, exposing cracks in the country’s federal system and creating an opening for militant group al-Shabaab to gain ground. Following years of conflict, Somalia is a loose federation of five semi-autonomous member states — Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West — that maintain often fractious relations with the central government in the capital, Mogadishu. However, ahead of elections next year, Somalia has sought to assert control over its member states, which security analysts said has created gaps for al-Shabaab infiltration. Last week, two Somalian soldiers were killed in clashes between pro-government forces and
RSS