Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was a guest of honor yesterday at the inauguration of leftist Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, who won an election late last year as a fervent critic of the US.
Correa will take the oath of office in the presence of many foreign dignitaries, including his key regional allies, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales.
The president-elect ran on the promise to improve the plight of the Ecuadoran people, but now needs money to implement his ambitious development plans.
"The new president of this country shares common views with us; we will talk about deepening and expanding ties between Iran and Ecuador," Ahmadinejad said on Friday, before embarking on his Latin American tour.
The trip was designed to cultivate Washington's critics and rally backing for Tehran's nuclear program, which the US government insists conceals ambitions to build nuclear weapons.
The Iranian president flew in shortly after late on Sunday from Nicaragua, where he held talks with newly elected President Daniel Ortega, a Cold War-era foe of the US.
The two leaders announced the restoration of full diplomatic relations and the re-opening of embassies in each other's capitals.
"Rest assured that we will improve our relations to the point of fulfilling every wish and thing that we desire. It is our will to walk hand in hand," Ahmadinejad said through a translator after meeting Ortega.
Ortega said Ahmadinejad's visit was "not merely a matter of protocol."
The Iranian president came to Nicaragua from Venezuela, where he signed commercial agreements with Chavez, an outspoken critic of US President George W. Bush and advocate for Tehran's nuclear program. Each proclaimed the other an ideological "brother."
Ahmadinejad plans to burnish relations with other leftist Latin American critics of the Bush administration when he attends the inauguration of Correa, who has pledged to forge stronger ties with Venezuela and allow a lease for a US military airbase on the country's Pacific Coast to expire.
The Iranian president will also meet in Ecuador other South American presidents, including Bolivia's Evo Morales, on the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony, before finishing his tour today.
Ortega, who was the Marxist leader of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front that ousted US-backed dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, told reporters that Iran is willing to join Nicaraguans in a "battle to eliminate poverty among our people."
The Central American country is one of the poorest in the Americas.
"The imperialists don't like to see us helping each other, getting ahead and developing our countries," Ahmadinejad said.
"But let the world know that the people of Nicaragua and Iran will march together and that Iran will support Ortega with all our strength," he added.
The death of a former head of China’s one-child policy has been met not by tributes, but by castigation of the abandoned policy on social media this week. State media praised Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), former head of China’s National Family Planning Commission from 1988 to 1998, as “an outstanding leader” in her work related to women and children. The reaction on Chinese social media to Peng’s death in Beijing on Sunday, just shy of her 96th birthday, was less positive. “Those children who were lost, naked, are waiting for you over there” in the afterlife, one person posted on China’s Sina Weibo platform. China’s
‘NO COUNTRY BUMPKIN’: The judge rejected arguments that former prime minister Najib Razak was an unwitting victim, saying Najib took steps to protect his position Imprisoned former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak was yesterday convicted, following a corruption trial tied to multibillion-dollar looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state investment fund. The nation’s high court found Najib, 72, guilty on four counts of abuse of power and 21 charges of money laundering related to more than US$700 million channeled into his personal bank accounts from the 1MDB fund. Najib denied any wrongdoing, and maintained the funds were a political donation from Saudi Arabia and that he had been misled by rogue financiers led by businessman Low Taek Jho. Low, thought to be the scandal’s mastermind, remains
‘POLITICAL LOYALTY’: The move breaks with decades of precedent among US administrations, which have tended to leave career ambassadors in their posts US President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered dozens of US ambassadors to step down, people familiar with the matter said, a precedent-breaking recall that would leave embassies abroad without US Senate-confirmed leadership. The envoys, career diplomats who were almost all named to their jobs under former US president Joe Biden, were told over the phone in the past few days they needed to depart in the next few weeks, the people said. They would not be fired, but finding new roles would be a challenge given that many are far along in their careers and opportunities for senior diplomats can
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday announced plans for a national bravery award to recognize civilians and first responders who confronted “the worst of evil” during an anti-Semitic terror attack that left 15 dead and has cast a heavy shadow over the nation’s holiday season. Albanese said he plans to establish a special honors system for those who placed themselves in harm’s way to help during the attack on a beachside Hanukkah celebration, like Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Syrian-Australian Muslim who disarmed one of the assailants before being wounded himself. Sajid Akram, who was killed by police during the Dec. 14 attack, and
RSS