Venezuela’s government and opposition staged rival demonstrations yesterday, each seeking to lay claim to the country’s democratic mantle as cancer-stricken Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez convalesces in Cuba.
Both sides claim to be marking a key anniversary — Jan. 23, 1958, the day then-Venezuelan military dictator and president Marco Perez Jimenez was overthrown — but from very different perspectives.
This year, the opposition has seized on the date to protest the way the government has handled Chavez’s prolonged absence and uncertain condition after his fourth round of cancer surgery in Havana on Dec. 11 last year.
The Venezuelan leader was too sick to attend his scheduled inauguration on Jan. 10, forcing the government to indefinitely delay his inauguration under an interpretation of the constitution vehemently criticized by the opposition.
The Chavez-controlled National Assembly and Supreme Court both approved the arrangement, which keeps his administration in place under Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro until Chavez can be sworn in.
Chavez has not been seen in public since Dec. 10 and official information about his health has been sketchy.
In a sign that he may be improving, Maduro predicted on Sunday that the president would return home soon and Bolivian President Evo Morales said Chavez was undergoing physical therapy in preparation.
“I communicated with Cuba and, brothers and sisters, we have good news about our brother, President Hugo Chavez. He is already undergoing physical therapy to return to his country,” Morales said in a speech to parliament in La Paz.
However, the dueling shows of force still went ahead yesterday, with the pro-Chavez camp planning to march from three points in the center and west of Caracas.
The main opposition umbrella group has decided to gather in a park in the east of the capital to avoid clashes.
Jan. 23 is a date that has long been uncomfortable for Chavez, who has railed against the bipartisan democracy that came to power in Venezuela after the 1959 coup, branding it as corrupt and blaming it for glaring income inequalities.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion