The US ambassador to Venezuela has grown used to facing protests and shouts of "Yankee go home!," but supporters of President Hugo Chavez appeared to cross the line when they pelted his car with eggs and tomatoes, then chased after his convoy on motorcycles.
The incident on Friday drew a strong response from Washington, which summoned Venezuela's ambassador and warned him of "severe diplomatic consequence" if anything similar should happen again.
US Embassy spokesman Brian Penn said Venezuelan police escorts did nothing to intervene as a car carrying Ambassador William Brownfield was pounded, kicked and pelted. No one was hurt.
"We were under attack by these motorcyclists throwing fruits and vegetables," Penn said. "They were pounding on the cars, including pounding on the ambassador's car while they were driving. There was no one stopping them."
It was the third time in three weeks that Brownfield has been met by protesters; other times, demonstrators have burned tires and torched an American flag.
Emotions have run high among Chavez's supporters as the Venezuelan leader has accused the US of plotting against him and US officials have denied it while accusing him of stifling democracy.
The latest protest began when Brownfield visited a baseball stadium in a poor neighborhood to hand out bats and other donated equipment for a youth league.
He often holds public events to donate to charities and meet community leaders -- even in Chavez strongholds.
This time, a Chavez supporter who described himself as an official of the mayor's office walked up and said people in the area wanted Brownfield to leave, Penn said. The ambassador stayed and finished the event, while a few dozen people outside chanted, "Go home! Go home!"
Penn said the barrage of tomatoes, eggs, onions and other items began when the convoy pulled out and drove through an adjacent market.
The US Embassy released a video taken from inside a convoy car, its windows splattered with broken eggs, showing motorcyclists racing up to the four-car convoy and then dropping back.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
A retired US colonel behind a privately financed rocket launch site in the Dominican Republic sees the project as a response to China’s dominance of the space race in Latin America. Florida-based Launch on Demand is slated to begin building a US$600 million facility in a remote region near the border with Haiti late this year. The project is designed to meet surging demand for the heavy-lift rockets needed to put clusters of satellites into orbit. It is also an answer to China’s growing presence in the region, said CEO Burton Catledge, a former commander of the US Air Force’s 45th Operations
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
RSS