Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced on Thursday that his government had ordered the expulsion of the naval attache at the US embassy in Caracas for spying, further increasing tensions with the Bush administration.
Speaking on the seventh anniversary of his ascension to power, Chavez also warned that he would order the detention and removal of any other US military officials caught spying.
"If accredited military officials continue with the espionage, we will imprison them, we will order them thrown out," Chavez said.
The embassy denied the accusations against the attache, John Correa, and other high-ranking military officers.
"None of the military attaches in Caracas was or is involved in inappropriate activities," Salome Hernandez, a spokeswoman in the embassy, said by phone from Caracas.
Chavez's comments came on the same day that senior Bush administration officials, who have been relatively silent after weeks of constant verbal volleys by the Venezuelan leader, harshly criticized his governing style.
Warning that Chavez is consolidating power at the expense of democracy, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld went so far as to compare Chavez to Hitler.
"He's a person who was elected legally just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally and then consolidated power and now is, of course, working with Fidel Castro and Morales and others," Rumsfeld said, referring to the Cuban leader and the new president of Bolivia, Evo Morales. "It concerns me."
In testimony on Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, John Negroponte, director of national intelligence, said Chavez "appears ready to use his control of the legislature and other institutions to continue to stifle the opposition, to reduce press freedom, and entrench himself through measures that are technically legal, but which nonetheless constrict democracy."
Negroponte also said that Chavez's populist government was seeking closer economic and military ties with Iran and North Korea, while meddling in the internal affairs of neighboring countries.
Little, if anything, has ever been publicly raised about ties to North Korea, and Negroponte did not offer evidence. But Chavez, whose country has the hemisphere's largest oil reserves, has met with Iranian leaders and has vigorously defended Tehran's goal of developing a nuclear program.
The barbs from Washington are sure to infuriate Chavez, an outspoken leftist who at every turn -- in speeches, inaugurations of public works projects, his weekly television show -- warns that the Bush administration is out to assassinate him.
In recent days, Venezuelan officials have claimed that US embassy officials are part of a spy ring involving dissident Venezuelan military officers.
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
RSS