Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday said he was divided in his feelings toward US President Barack Obama, whom he labeled a “grand enigma” with two very different faces.
“That one is a grand enigma: Obama, smiling, who speaks about women’s rights ... about social security, who says he wants a world without atomic bombs,” Chavez mused on his Hello Mr President radio and TV broadcast.
On the other hand, the Venezuelan leader said “Obama is the president of the imperialist country,” which he linked to “the coup in Honduras and the seven bases in Colombia.”
The reference was to a Pentagon plan opposed by several Latin American countries to allow the US to use Colombian bases for anti-narcotics operations.
Chavez made his remarks as he mulled whether to attend the UN General Assembly meeting.
“It’s been a few years since I’ve been to the United Nations,” Chavez said. “I still don’t know if I’ll be going to the United Nations this year, we’re weighing it.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
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China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing