Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday warned Colombia that he would hit back hard militarily if Colombian troops were to stray into Venezuelan territory as they did in Ecuador.
“Sadly, and it would hurt me to the bottom of my soul, I would immediately have the Suhkoi fighters fired up and the armored tanks; I am not going to let anyone disrespect Venezuela’s sovereignty for anything in the world,” Chavez said on his weekly television and radio show Alo, Presidente.
Chavez called Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos a “threat to the peace in South America” and said that he hoped to “turn Colombia into the Israel of South America.”
He also said he had discussed the issues with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe by phone.
The Venezuelan president was responding with a verbal broadside after Santos, in an interview on March 1 in the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, argued that Colombia had a legitimate right to self-defense that allows it to attack what Bogota sees as “terrorists systematically attacking the country even if they are not located inside its own territory.”
He referred to a case last year in which Colombian troops crossed inside Ecuador’s border on the trail of Marxist FARC rebels and killed about 20 people including No. 2 rebel leader Raul Reyes.
“I spoke yesterday with President Uribe to confirm that we do not want conflicts with Colombia,” Chavez said. “Well watch out President Uribe with this far rightwing trend, because I don’t even want to think about it crossing Minister Santos’ mind to do the crazy thing in Venezuela you did last year in Ecuador.”
Santos has said he would run for president next year.
Chavez ventured that from the US’ point of view, “a war between Colombia and Venezuela, between Colombia and Ecuador would be ideal to justify an intervention.”
“I hope [US] President [Barack] Obama keeps his word and respects sovereignty around the world,” Chavez said.
Colombian Foreign Minister Jaime Bermudez was set to meet in Caracas with Chavez yesterday, sources in Caracas said.
An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen, China, to pursue technology the Chinese government has identified as a national priority: embedding electronics into the human brain. Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world’s leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and restoring movement in paralyzed people. It also has potential military applications: Scientists at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting
Jailed media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai (黎智英) has been awarded Deutsche Welle’s (DW) freedom of speech award for his contribution to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The German public broadcaster on Thursday said Lai would be presented in absentia with the 12th iteration of the award on June 23 at the DW Global Media Forum in Bonn. Deutsche Welle director-general Barbara Massing praised the 78-year-old founder of the now-shuttered news outlet Apple Daily for standing “unwaveringly for press freedom in Hong Kong at great personal risk.” “With Apple Daily, he gave journalists a platform for free reporting and a voice to the democracy movement in
PHILIPPINE COMMITTEE: The head of the committee that made the decision said: ‘If there is nothing to hide, there is no reason to hide, there is no reason to obstruct’ A Philippine congressional committee on Wednesday ruled that there was “probable cause” to impeach Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte after hearing allegations of unexplained wealth, misuse of state funds and threats to have the president assassinated. The unanimous decision of the 53-member committee in the Philippine House of Representatives sends the two impeachment complaints to deliberations and voting by the entire lower chamber, which has more than 300 lawmakers. The complaints centered on Duterte’s alleged illegal use and mishandling of intelligence funds from the vice president’s office, and from her time as education secretary under Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Duterte and the
School bullies in Singapore are to face caning under new guidelines, but the education minister on Tuesday said it would be meted out only as a last resort with strict safeguards. Human rights groups regularly criticize Singapore for the use of corporal punishment, which remains part of the school and criminal justice systems, but authorities have defended it as a deterrent to crime and serious misconduct. Caning was discussed in the parliament after legislators asked how it would be used in relation to bullying in schools. The debate followed stricter guidelines on serious student misconduct, including bullying, unveiled by the Singaporean Ministry of
RSS