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BOGOTA, Colombia - INTERPOL today presented the results of its forensic examination of eight seized FARC computer and hardware exhibits following a request for assistance in March of this year by Colombia, one of INTERPOL's 186 member countries. INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble advised senior Colombian law enforcement officials that INTERPOL's team of forensic experts discovered 'no evidence of modification, alteration, addition or deletion' in the user files of any of the three laptop computers, three USB thumb drives and two external hard disks seized during a Colombian anti-narcotics and anti-terrorist operation on a FARC camp on 1 March...

Files linking Hugo Chavez to rebels 'not faked' Last Updated: 11:22PM BST 15/05/2008 Computer files that Colombia claims prove President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is a state sponsor of terrorism have not been faked, Interpol has said. Colombia insists that data seized during a raid on a guerrilla camp show that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), a rebel group trying to overthrow the government, planned and launched operations from Venezuela against Colombian security forces. The computers and hard drives also contained letters. In a communication from early last year, Farc allegedly asked Mr Chavez for a loan of...

Bloomberg, so cannot be posted (why?).Title says it all, but the story can be found here.

Terrorism: Interpol's authentication of FARC computer data Thursday leaves little doubt about Venezuela's bid to destabilize Colombia. So should the U.S. declare it a terror sponsor and stop buying its oil? Or do nothing?The Interpol examination confirmed that the contents of three FARC computer laptops, three USB thumb drives and two hard disks, recovered from the camp of FARC chieftain Raul Reyes after a March 1 raid, were authentic. Many of the 37,872 files implicated Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as a supporter of the FARC Marxist narcoterrorists who have been trying to overthrow Colombia's government since 1966. A nervous Chavez...

The US will likely receive an eviction notice at the end of its ten-year lease from Ecuador for its base in Port Manta. Rumor has the Bush administration negotiating with Colombia to move the only American military base in South America to a peninsula on the Caribbean Sea, near the border with Venezuela. Hugo Chavez vociferously protested that idea, calling it a provocation and warning Alvaro Uribe that Chavez won’t allow it: President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday warned Colombia not to allow a U.S. military base on its border with Venezuela, saying he would consider such an act an “aggression.”Chavez...

The German government has shrugged off a verbal attack on Chancellor Angela Merkel by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez who called her a political descendant of Adolf Hitler and stopped just short of telling her to go to hell. The two leaders might meet at an upcoming summit in Peru. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has joined a long list of government leaders to receive a verbal savaging from Venezuela's outspoken President Hugo Chavez, but she appears to be intent on ignoring the abuse. Chavez, speaking on Sunday in his weekly TV and radio program, said of Merkel: "She is from the...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday attacked German Chancellor Angela Merkel, comparing her to Adolf Hitler in response to her criticism of the South American leader's policies. Merkel belongs to the political right, "the same right that supported Hitler, fascism," Chavez said on his television programme, Alo Presidente. Chavez's remarks came after Merkel said that the left-wing leader is not the voice of the region. Merkel, speaking in an interview to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa ahead of the European Union-Latin American summit, indicated that leftist polices pursued by leaders like Chavez were not the solution. Pointing to the emergence of "left-wing...

BOGOTA, Colombia - Documents that Colombia says it recovered from a slain guerrilla leader give the clearest indication yet that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sought to arm and finance insurgents across the border. The documents — more than a dozen internal rebel messages — detail several years of close cooperation between top officials in Venezuela's government and military and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, including the construction of rebel training facilities on Venezuelan soil. They also suggest Venezuela was preparing to loan the rebels at least US$250 million (euro190 million), provide them with Russian weapons and possibly...

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday denied backing Colombia's Marxist FARC rebels following renewed charges by U.S. officials that have heightened tensions between the United States and the OPEC nation. U.S. officials, speaking anonymously, last week said Chavez's ties to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, were more extensive that previously thought, citing files found in a slain FARC commander's laptop computer. "Whatever they want they will find -- it's ridiculous," Chavez said during a weekly broadcast in which he accused Colombian authorities of faking the computer files to smear his government. The Wall Street...

U.S. Wary Of Small Boat Terrorism As boating season approaches, the Bush administration wants to enlist America's 80 million recreational boaters to help reduce the chances that a small boat could deliver a nuclear or radiological bomb somewhere along the 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline and inland waterways. According to an April 23 intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press, "The use of a small boat as a weapon is likely to remain al Qaeda's weapon of choice in the maritime environment, given its ease in arming and deploying, low cost, and record of success." While the United States...

The Hemisphere: Oil spiked $4 Friday on new evidence of Venezuela's deep involvement in terrorism. There's no glossing over such news: Hugo Chavez intends to destabilize the region. The U.S. will need to take action.After poring over some of the 10,000 documents captured from the computer of dead FARC terrorist Raul Reyes, killed in a raid on March 1, U.S. intelligence officials are convinced that Chavez's involvement is deeper than anyone realized, according to a front-page story by the Wall Street Journal. "There is complete agreement in the intelligence community that these documents are what they purport to be," a...

2008 Milton Friedman Award by: Bethany Stotts, May 01, 2008 Yon Goicoechea, the leader of the Venezuelan Student Movement, has recently been declared the winner of the 2008 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty. The CATO Institute-sponsored prize of $500,000 will be presented to Goicoechea on May 15 at the Waldorf=Historia Hotel in New York City. Many credit Goicoechea with thwarting a 2007 referendum which contained 69 constitutional amendments designed to centralize unprecedented economic and political power within the government. At a March 2008 CATO briefing, Gustavo Tovar (another movement leader) said of his fellow panelist, Goicoechea, that “The leaders...

Mary Anastasia O'Grady writes in today's Wall Street Journal that George Soros's Open Society Institute has been funding terrorism. In a column entitled Friends of Terror in Peru, O'Grady notes that Thursday's vote by the European Parliament to take the Peruvian guerrilla group known as the Tupac Amaru (aka MRTA) off its terrorist list has Peru in an uproar. For good reason: The MRTA is notorious for kidnapping, torturing and murdering civilians to advance its political agenda. More recently, Peruvian officials have linked it to Hugo Chávez's "Bolivarian Movement," which seeks to destabilize democracies in Latin America, and to the...

President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday ordered the expropriation of Venezuela's largest steel maker after attempts by the government to acquire a majority stake in the company failed. Venezuela's government will turn Siderurgica del Orinoco, which was controlled by Luxembourg-based Ternium SA., into "a socialist company," Chavez told workers gathered at a Caracas theater. Sidor, as the company is known, "has now recuperated by the revolutionary government," Chavez said. Since winning re-election in 2006 on promises to steer his country toward socialism, Chavez has made nationalizing major industries a top priority. His government last year seized majority control of the country's...

LORETITO, Mexico — It's the end of the day here. Down one lonely street two young boys kick a ball between them, as an elderly woman slowly makes her way nearby. On most days, this little town about 300 miles northwest of Mexico City feels like the set of a Hollywood movie — its narrow streets and alleyways silent, stark, deserted. From the sidewalk outside his small liquor shop, Edmundo Cruz takes in the vast emptiness, pointing out one house after another left vacant when families headed north — to Seattle. It is said more Loretito people now live in...

Diplomacy: Bill Richardson met Hugo Chavez Sunday ostensibly to help U.S. hostages held in Colombia by FARC terrorists. But Colombia doesn't want Chavez involved, so it's worth asking what Richardson's up to. By his engagement in private diplomatic initiatives, the governor of New Mexico seems to be running for secretary of state in the Cabinet of the candidate he has endorsed, Barack Obama. Nothing wrong with that, but let's be upfront: Richardson's aim doesn't seem entirely pure. Winning the release of U.S. hostages held for five years in Colombia's jungle would demonstrate his diplomatic chops. But because Richardson insists on...

CARACAS, VENEZUELA: President Hugo Chavez threatened on Sunday to expropriate Venezuela's largest steel maker due to what he said are the soon-to-be-nationalized company's excessive compensation demands. Chavez said he could not help but laugh when he heard that Sidor's parent company, Luxembourg-based Ternium SA, is asking for at least US$4 billion (euro2.56 billion) in compensation for its 60 percent stake in Sidor. "I'm not going to pay $4 billion for that company," Chavez said during his Sunday radio and television program. "If they don't want to reach an agreement with us, I'll sign an expropriation decree. I'll take immediate control...

Venezuela’s Chavez plans to bury old empire of USA Front page / World / Americas 25.04.2008 Source: Pravda.Ru Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez harshly criticized the US administration again after the unauthorized passing of the USS George Washington along the coast of the Latin American country. Chavez promised to bury the USA in the 21st century. “When Americans appear near our shores with their navy, the George Washington aircraft carrier, one should not forget that it happens at the time when we together with Brazil are creating the Defense Council of South America,” Chavez said in a speech that was broadcast...

Washington, D.C. –The Cato Institute has announced that Yon Goicoechea, leader of the pro-democracy student movement in Venezuela that successfully prevented President Hugo Chávez’s regime from seizing broad dictatorial powers in December 2007, has been awarded the 2008 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty. * Milton Friedman Prize * Registration for the Milton Friedman Prize2008 Biennial Dinner Registration * Yon GoicoecheaYon Goicoechea Recipient of the 2008 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty * Youtube video: Student demonstration in San CristobalAbout the Student Movement * Youtube video: Student demonstration in San CristobalQuotes from Yon Goicoechea * Youtube video: Student demonstration in...

Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, is in political trouble. He is clearly hoping that a new expropriation spree will fire up his supporters, at least long enough to keep his allies from suffering heavy defeats in November’s state and municipal elections. What is certain is that the country’s economy will suffer. Mr. Chavez’s cronies have proved that they don’t have the skill — or the honesty — to run these businesses. Bungled management is responsible for a decline in production at the state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, known as Pdvsa. The expropriations, added to exchange controls and price controls, are...

Anger as Hugo Chavez gives film star £9m By Charlie Devereux in Caracas Last Updated: 1:20am BST 20/04/2008 For years Venezuela's struggling film industry has eagerly welcomed visiting Western stars keen to show their solidarity with the country's radical president Hugo Chávez. Kevin Spacey, Sean Penn and Harry Belafonte are among those who have trooped to Caracas to witness first hand the country's Bolivarian revolution and Mr Chávez's crusades against globalisation and American imperialism. But Venezuela's hard-pressed film makers are no longer quite so enthusiastic about these glamourous "sandalistas". Last week the country's national assembly agreed to pay the second...

CARACAS, April 15 (Reuters) - Venezuela expects income of $9 billion a year through a new oil law obliging companies to give "windfall earnings" to the leftist government when world prices are above $70 a barrel, a minister said on Tuesday. President Hugo Chavez, who has for years squeezed more revenue from oil companies operating in the OPEC nation and nationalized all foreign-run oil fields, wants the funds to be spent immediately on social programs in this election year. The government will take in about 92 cents for every extra dollar when world prices are above $70 a barrel and...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said his government is working to create a NATO-like South America defense council along with Brazil and other countries. During a speech Sunday night, Chavez said the council would unite the region's countries to "design our own defense policies." He said Venezuelan officials planned to discuss it with Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim when he visits Caracas on Monday. The leftist leader said he brought up a similar proposal at the start of his presidency in 1999 but that it met with opposition in the region. "I once said that if NATO exists — the North...

There is little doubt that our reputation and motivations are under siege by demagogues around the world. Only a few work as diligently at undermining the United States and threatening neighboring democracies as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Chavez’s recent efforts to destabilize Latin America by amassing troops on the Colombian border in response to the killing of a terrorist leader cannot be ignored. Nor can we look the other way after a captured computer reveals Chavez’s direct funding of the notorious terrorist group FARC. Ecuador, where the strike on the FARC camp took place, has frozen relations with Colombia. Meanwhile,...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Washington’s favorite Latin American bete noir after Fidel Castro, unsettled Washington again last year by negotiating a $1 billion deal with Moscow to purchase a number of 636-model Varshavianka-class (NATO designation “Kilo”) diesel electric submarines (Agentstvo Voyennykh Novostei, April 4). Various Russian and Venezuelan media reports say that the initial delivery will consist of three to four boats with an eventual nine submarines from Russia. President Chavez is reportedly traveling to Moscow next month for the inauguration of Russia’s new president, Dmitry Medvedev, and while there will sign an agreement for the delivery of the first...

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — Venezuelan armed forces occupied 32 sugar plantations Thursday, the latest in a wave of takeovers that some say is a bid by President Hugo Chavez to regain political momentum and reverse his recent slide in the polls. The farms in Lara state were taken over by army units at the request of the Chavez government's National Land Institute, or INTI. The institute in recent years has handled the takeover of thousands of acres of farmland and turned them over to worker cooperatives. The government last week said it would seize privately owned cement manufacturers, and Wednesday it...

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Thursday that his close friend Fidel Castro predicted the fall of the U.S. dollar. Chavez said Cuba's 81-year-old former president mentioned the prediction some time ago before signs of a weakening dollar had begun to appear. "Fidel told me one day, 'Chavez, it won't be long before the crisis of the dollar occurs,'" the Venezuelan leader said in a televised speech. Chavez said Castro handed him a document he had written during one of their meetings in Havana that said "the United States has bought half the world with paper bills that...

CARACAS [EL COMERCIO/AGENCIAS]. Last week it was the cement industry and now it is the Andean and Caribbean steel giant’s turn. The Venezuelan government ordered the nationalization of the steel company Siderúrgica del Orinoco (owned by Ternium-Sidor, which has majority Argentine ownership) after the collapse of contract talks with the workers, announced the Venezuelan vice-president Ramon Carrizales. "After a long process of negotiations were fruitless in solving the conflict between Sidor and its workers, president Hugo Chavez decided to assume control of Siderúrgica del Orinoco which has been privatized for some 10 years", said Carrizales. The company "took a radical...

There is an emerging mini-me of Hugo Chavez — Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia. And his country is starting to pay the price for it. Bolivia may end up not merely fragmented but wracked by bloodshed if Mr. Morales continues to emulate the senseless and destructive policies of his patron. Mr. Morales has turned frequently to the Chavez playbook on "revolutionary" brinkmanship for policy guidance. From promoting a bespoke constitution, which removed inconvenient term limits, to undermining democratic institutions, to approving populist measures that hurt poor people the most, he has made all the moves favored by his role...

President Hugo Chavez ordered the nationalization of Venezuela's cement industry, saying his government cannot allow businesses to continue exporting raw materials needed to help tackle a domestic housing shortage. Speaking during a nationally televised address Thursday, Chavez said the affected cement companies, which include Mexico's Cemex SAB, France's Lafarge SA and Switzerland's Holcim Ltd, will be paid fair compensation in the state takeover. "We are going to prepare a plan to modernize these cement plants," he said. Chavez, who says he is leading Venezuela toward "21st century socialism," said the nationalization would take place in the "short term," but did...

MIDI - MICKEY MOUSE - scroll down to Children section

This photograph was taken by Reuters. Today, the website of the Venezuelian government accused the Reuters agency to "humiliate" the antiamerican Hugo Chavez.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez may sign a contract for four Russian diesel submarines on a visit to Moscow next month, the Kommersant daily has reported, citing unidentified officials. Chavez has been invited to the May inauguration of Dmitry Medvedev as Russian president. If he takes up the invitation, the Venezuelan leader may use the opportunity to sign a contract to buy four Kilo-class diesel submarines agreed to at the start of this year, the paper said. Kommersant said the submarine contract, worth about $1 billion ($1.27 billion), had been set to be signed in February. Venezuela is seeking a loan...

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Congressional Democrats are renewing their call for a federal holiday honoring the late farmworkers' rights activist Cesar Chavez. Chavez was born March 31, 1927, and in 2000 California became the first state to create an official state holiday in his honor. Other states including Texas and Arizona also observe the day. In Washington, D.C., members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and others have pushed for a federal holiday since Chavez's death in 1993.

Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

Obama, who has struggled to overcome Clinton's significant advantage among Latino voters in state after state, sought to one-up his rival for the Democratic presidential nod by joining the call for creating a national holiday to commemorate the father of the United Farm Workers. "That's why I support the call to make Cesar Chavez's birthday a national holiday. It's time to recognize the contributions of this American icon to the ongoing efforts to perfect our union." Eight states commemorate Chavez' birthday in some fashion. In California, all state offices are closed, but local government facilities and public schools are open....

HOLLYWOOD — FOXNews.com readers may remember the film "Team America: World Police," a puppeteer's parody about the American government, its foreign policy and its home-grown critics in Hollywood. One of the puppets lampoons Oscar-winner Sean Penn, who, in the film, laments the invasion of Iraq by harking back to the time it "was a happy place. They had flowery meadows and rainbow skies, and rivers made of chocolate." Penn was so angry about the film's message that he wrote the film's creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, a blistering public letter signing off with a scatological reference.

RECIFE, BRAZIL — Venezuela is not interested in seeing oil prices rise further and is pushing to stabilize the market, President Hugo Chavez said Thursday after visiting the site of a Brazilian refinery being built to process Venezuelan crude. The comments were a departure for Venezuela, which has been hawkish on prices and consistently opposed production increases as an OPEC member. It was not clear whether Chavez would support production increases to limit oil prices, which are trading around $107 a barrel for light, sweet crude. "We are not interested in seeing the oil prices continuing to rise," Chavez said...

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela's National Assembly opened an investigation Wednesday into a congressman's accusations that two of President Hugo Chavez's brothers acquired 17 ranches in recent years — if true a potential stain on the image of Chavez's socialist movement. Lawmaker Wilmer Azuaje detailed his allegations in a closed-door committee session, presenting documents that he says show how an assortment of ranch lands were obtained by Chavez's brothers Argenis and Narciso. Azuaje said afterward that he asked the congressional audit commission to visit the haciendas for an inspection and to summon those who sold the properties for questioning. Azuaje, of...

Hugo Chavez has made sure Americans understand his preferences for the upcoming presidential election. He says he could work with the US — but only if we do not elect John McCain as President: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a socialist and fierce U.S. critic, warned on Tuesday that relations with Washington could worsen if Republican candidate John McCain wins this year’s presidential election.Chavez said he hopes the United States and Venezuela can work better together when his ideological foe, U.S. President George W. Bush, leaves the White House next year, but he said McCain seemed “warlike.”“Sometimes one says, ‘worse than...

Venezuela's Chavez blames U.S. for Tibet unrest 24 Mar 2008 03:57:42 GMT Source: Reuters CARACAS, March 23 (Reuters) - Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez blamed the United States for violent protests in Tibet during the last two weeks that he said were aimed at trying to destabilize China. In comments reported by his press office on Sunday, Chavez said the protests were an example of the U.S. "empire" "going against China" and trying to divide the Asian powerhouse. Communist China has occupied Tibet, a Buddhist region previously ruled by monks, since a military invasion in 1950. At least 19 people...

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a socialist and fierce U.S. critic, warned on Tuesday that relations with Washington could worsen if Republican candidate John McCain wins this year's presidential election. Chavez said he hopes the United States and Venezuela can work better together when his ideological foe, U.S. President George W. Bush, leaves the White House next year, but he said McCain seemed "warlike." "Sometimes one says, 'worse than Bush is impossible,' but we don't know," Chavez told foreign correspondents. "McCain also seems to be a man of war." Chavez -- who has called Bush "the devil", "a...

Prominent Cuban author and dissident, Armando Valladares, has predicted the collapse of communism in Cuba after the death of former president Fidel Castro. Valladares said that people in Cuba were tired of 'acquiescing to state terrorism' like others had in communist Romania, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Valladares said that the young "sons of the revolution, are becoming ever more politically active... The author who spent 22 years in prison was in Italy to present a new edition of his most popular work, Against All Hope: a Memoir of Life in Castro's Gulags, in the Italian capital in Rome. He also critised...

In a speech given during the swearing in of the new national leadership of the Socialist United Party of Venezuela (PSUV), president Chávez announced the nationalisation of the country's largest chain of slaughterhouses and of a milk company, as part of a plan to struggle against food sabotage. "We nationalized, through an acquisition, a large chain of (slaughterhouses) that makes up 70% of the installed capacity in Venezuela" Chavez said. "We're also acquiring milk-products company 'Los Andes' that represents 30% of the milk-processing capacity in the country," he added. In his speech Chavez insisted that one of the lines of...

Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan president, yesterday won a key boost in a legal battle with ExxonMobil after a UK court cancelled an order freezing $12bn of Venezuelan oil assets. The US oil group is seeking billions in compensation from Mr Chavez's government over last year's nationalisation of a series of major energy projects in Venezuela's vast Orinoco oil basin. The High Court in London yesterday lifted an injunction blocking the sale or movement of as much as $12bn in assets controlled by PDVSA, Venezuela's state oil company, that had been put in place in connection with the case, ruling that Exxon...

LONDON (AFP) — A London High Court judge on Tuesday suspended a court order which froze 12 billion dollars (7.6 billion euros) of assets owned by Venezuela state oil firm PDVSA in a dispute with US energy giant ExxonMobil. Judge Paul Walker, announcing his ruling at the High Court, said he would publish a "short document" later in the day to outline his reasoning before releasing a longer document on Thursday. The public hearing was brought before the High Court at the end of February but Walker said that some of the arguments were heard in private. ExxonMobil declined to...

WASHINGTON — Colombia's military recently had one of its finest moments: the killing of a senior leader of FARC, a resilient guerrilla group that had never lost a member of its top leadership in combat...

President Hugo Chavez dared the U.S. on Friday to put Venezuela on a list of countries accused of supporting terrorism, calling it one more attempt by Washington to undermine him for political reasons. Chavez said the "threat to include us on the terrorist list" is Washington's response to his own successes in the region. U.S. lawmakers including Rep. Connie Mack and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, both Florida Republicans, have called for the State Department to add Venezuela to its list of terror sponsors, which currently includes North Korea, Iran, Syria, Sudan and Cuba. They have expressed concerns about what they call...

President Chavez tried hard to start a war, or at least look like he wanted to start a war. His excuse, of course, was the raid on Colombian rebels by Colombian troops — on Ecuadorian soil. What all this had to do with Venezuela might not have been clear to outsiders, but Mr. Chavez knew what he was doing. His posturing was strategic, designed to deflect public attention from the increasingly evident failures of his regime. He desperately needed something big to distract disaffected Venezuelans from his failures, and a skirmish with Colombia might have done the trick. Creating an...

<p>Venezuela's proposed budget includes more than $250 million for 'anti-imperialist' groups in the United States and Latin America.</p> <p>In an ambitious push to extend President Hugo Chávez's revolutionary ideology, the Venezuelan government's draft 2008 budget includes more than $250 million to finance pro-Chávez groups and ''anti-imperialist'' movements in the United States, Central and South America and Mexico.</p>