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.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
At a calligraphy class in Hanoi, Hoang Thi Thanh Huyen slides her brush across the page to form the letters and tonal marks of Vietnam’s unique modern script, in part a legacy of French colonial rule. The history of romanized Vietnamese, or Quoc Ngu, links the arrival of the first Christian missionaries, colonization by the French and the rise to power of the Communist Party of Vietnam. It is now reflected in the country’s “bamboo diplomacy” approach of seeking strength through flexibility, or looking to stay on good terms with the world’s major powers. A month after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) visited,