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UNITED NATIONS — A former Nicaraguan foreign minister who once called President Ronald Reagan “the butcher of my people” has been appointed to represent Libya at the United Nations after its delegate was denied a visa, the Nicaraguan government said on Wednesday. Nicaragua said the former minister, Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, 78, an outspoken critic of the United States and a Catholic priest, would replace the Libyan diplomat Ali Abdussalam Treki, who had been unable to obtain a visa to enter the United States. Libya’s ambassador to the United Nations, Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalgam, defected in late February after denouncing Col. Muammar...

The moment that made Gingrich was when he got Tip O'Neill so all fire mad that Tip made statements in violation of House rules and had his words "taken down," a major parliamentary slap on the hindquarters. You can watch the C-SPAN video here: Tip O'Neill's words taken down. Now, this week we've heard the RINOs try to slam Gingrich's attitude to Reagan's foreign policy vis-a-vis the communists, trying to claim that when the liberals in the House were criticizing Reagan's policy and threatening to cut off funding for the Contras, Gingrich was right along them agreeing with it. How...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defended his country's nuclear program as he began a four-nation tour of Latin America, joining his ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in accusing the U.S. and its allies of using the dispute to unjustly threaten Iran.[snip] Both leaders planned to travel to Nicaragua on Tuesday for the inauguration of newly re-elected President Daniel Ortega, and then Ahmadinejad will also visit Cuba and Ecuador.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — One-time Sandinista revolutionary Daniel Ortega took a big early lead in presidential elections Sunday, according to preliminary results, amid reports of protests and international observers being blocked from participating. Electoral council President Roberto Rivas said Ortega, the incumbent and heavy favorite, had almost 64 percent of the votes compared to 29 percent for his nearest challenger, Fabio Gadea. Conservative Arnoldo Aleman, a former president, was a distant third with 6 percent. The result came with almost 7 percent of the votes counted, but Rivas said a quick count representative of the entire vote gave Ortega a...

Daniel Ortega, the president of Nicaragua, has attacked the British monarchy and said he was offended by William and Kate's gala marriage ceremony. Left-winger Mr Ortega said the hands of the monarchy "are stained with blood because they are celebrating while Libya is being bombed, while blood is being spilled in Libya". Nicaragua's leader made the comments in a speech to thousands of supporters hours after the lavish royal wedding that was watched by an estimated two billion people around the world. The governments of Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia are staunch allies of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and have...

Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi is well known now for the abuses he has inflicted on his own people during more than four decades of brutal rule in Libya, but few remember the vast campaign of carnage and terrorism he orchestrated across West Africa and Europe when he was at the height of his powers. Nor are his more recent alliance with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and his long-standing relationship with Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua -- both of whom are busy trampling their constitutions and moving toward dictatorship -- well understood. And the fact that all three governments support the Revolutionary Armed...

21st Century SocialismThe attempt to destroy democracy in Latin America.  The Obama administration started out on the wrong foot in world affairs. It used techniques better suited for domestic political campaigns — popularity contests — in its foreign policy. In our own hemisphere, the result was confusion for our allies and our enemies alike. The overriding objective of U.S. policy — in Latin America and elsewhere — should be to advance U.S. national interests, not to curry favor with foreign leaders. If we can be liked while advancing our interests, so much the better. But when we try to befriend...

The head of the Sandinista Government in Nicaragua protected one of the world’s top drug barons and helped him to establish trafficking routes through the country, a former high-ranking officer has claimed. During the 1980s Daniel Ortega, the revolutionary leader and current President, gave Pablo Escobar, the head of Colombia’s Medellín cartel, access to drug corridors as well as sanctuary and a military guard, according to the allegations. Cuba and Panama, then led by Fidel Castro and Manuel Noriega, are also said to have participated in the deal, with Panama acting as a financial and money-laundering centre and Cuba protecting...

Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WedxY61d60

Nicaragua's President on Monday urged Latin American peoples to unite in order to force the removal of airbases in Colombia that the U.S. military intend to use. President Daniel Orgeta, a main ally to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, announced that the greatest struggle for Latin American countries was to "make dissappear once and for all ... the military bases that threaten the sovereignty, integrity and peace of our people." Ortega denounced the recent Colombia - U.S. military agreement (which he believes to have been initiated by the George W Bush administration) as the greatest threat to Colombia and Latin American...

SNIPPET: "Lula and Chavez have established a "strategic relationship," and recently agreed upon a joint Brazilian-Venezuelan oil venture worth billions of dollars. Lula and Chavez have joined with Daniel Ortega, the returned Nicaraguan Marxist dictator, to form an anti-U.S. Latin American military alliance - all with Russian assistance - funded by the region's abundant oil reserves. Brazil is engaged in its own arms build-up and Lula is determined that Brazil will become at least a first-rate regional power. Unfortunately, Lula is establishing Brazil as an anti-American military power by aligning with nations hostile or potentially hostile to the U.S. Lula...

Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega (R) and his wife Rosario Murillo gesture during a meeting in Managua October 20, 2009. REUTERS/Cesar Perez/Nicaragua Presidency/Handout WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Thursday expressed concern about a Nicaraguan court ruling that opens the way for leftist President Daniel Ortega to seek re-election in the 2011 election. Nicaragua's Supreme Court on Monday issued a ruling that helped to clear the way for Ortega to run for another term, following a petition from him and a group of mayors last week. The country's electoral court said it would comply with the ruling. The U.S. State...

It's good, occasionally, to take a trip down memory lane. It helps to put things into perspective. Hugo Chavez ought never to have been elected president. By rights, he ought to be growing old in a jail cell somewhere. Well, it's been seventeen years, maybe he’d be in a half-way house by now. As an army officer in 1992, he led a military revolt against the legal, constitutional government of Venezuela, and attempted to overthrow the democratically elected president of the time, Carlos Andres Perez. He gambled that once the shooting started, the minister of defense and the rest of...

Edén Pastora threatened to attack Honduras According to the former military, the Honduran conflict could only be resolved by guns. 18.07.09 - Updated: 18.07.09 06:56 pm - Writing: redaccion@elheraldo.hn Tegucigalpa, Honduras . Former Nicaraguan guerrilla Eden Pastora, threatened to take up arms if there is no agreement in Costa Rica on the return of Manuel Zelaya as president. Pastora, a former Sandinista commander, is known for having led the command that took the National Palace, in the late 70s, during the Somoza dictatorship. See the biography of Eden Pastora According to El Universal of Venezuela, "Commander Zero," he told the...

Ecuador aligns itself with Venezuela, Bolivia, and Cuba In speeches against imperialism and neoliberalism, the presidents of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, and Bolivia, Evo Morales, and the Ecuadoran President-Elect Rafael Correa, who should assume the government of his country Monday, expressed common ideological and political agreement Sunday. Chavez, Morales, and Correa, who also exalt the figure of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, met together in Zumbahua, an indigenous [Ecuadoran] locality 90 kilometers south of Quito, for a symbolic inauguration of Correa before the indigenous peoples [of Ecuador]. In a speech before a multitude congregated in the central plaza, Correa emphasized that "[Latin]...

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago -- President Obama endured a 50-minute diatribe from socialist Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega that lashed out at a century of what he called terroristic U.S. aggression in Central America and included a rambling denunciation of the U.S.-imposed isolation of Cuba's Communist government. Obama sat mostly unmoved during the speech but at times jotted notes. The speech was part of the opening ceremonies at the fifth Summit of the Americas here. Later, at a photo opportunity with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Obama held his tongue when asked what he thought about Ortega's speech. "It was 50...

From PoliticalWarfare.org... Compañera Panetta, with Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega January 10, 2009 This photo shows Chavez with his arm around Linda Panetta, while former Sandinista junta leader Daniel Ortega smiles on, at left. You saw it here first. If the adult daughter of a CIA Director-designate hangs out with sworn enemies of the United States, it's a matter for the United States Senate to probe aggressively. And so the Senate really has to ask some very pointed questions about Linda Panetta, daughter of President-Elect Obama's pick to lead the CIA, and her ties to Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega and...

If the adult daughter of a CIA Director-designate hangs out with sworn enemies of the United States, it's a matter for the United States Senate to probe aggressively. And so the Senate really has to ask some very pointed questions about Linda Panetta, daughter of President-Elect Obama's pick to lead the CIA, and her ties to Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega and Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Linda Panetta is a noted anti-military activist who has accused the US military of teaching Latin American officers how to torture. She has also been close to causes hostile toward the United States and friendly...

(Abridged English-language translation) While President Daniel Ortega asked last night "to eradicate violence as a method of struggle", hundreds of Sandinista followers who attended the swearing-in of municipal officials held at Plaza de la República became violent towards the liberals who were protesting against election fraud. Ten minutes had barely passed after Ortega asked to eliminate violence in Nicaragua when a large Sandinista mob attacked mayors and [municipal] councilmen with the [opposition] Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC) who came to be sworn in by the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE). Once Ortega's speech ended, the Sandinistas attempted to lynch PLC Managua councilman...

MANAGUA (Reuters) - Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, angry because the United States is rethinking an aid program, pressed Washington on Monday for billions of dollars in war reparations dating back to a 1980s civil war. The International Court of Justice, based in the Hague, ordered the United States in 1986 to pay reparations to Nicaragua for training, arming and financing Contra rebels and mining Nicaraguan ports during a conflict that killed tens of thousands of people. "The United States has not honored the judge's order," Ortega said on national television. The World Court never set a figure for compensation but...

What nice things oil buys.

President Daniel Ortega, who led the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua, says Barack Obama’s presidential bid is a “revolutionary” phenomenon in the United States. “It’s not to say that there is already a revolution under way in the U.S. … but yes, they are laying the foundations for a revolutionary change,” the Sandinista leader said Wednesday night as he accepted an honorary doctorate from an engineering university. Ortega led a Soviet-backed government that battled U.S.-supported Contra rebels before he lost power in a 1990 election. He returned to office last year via the ballot box. In statements broadcast on Sandinista Radio...

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is expressing his condolences over the death of the leader of Colombia's largest rebel group, calling him "our brother" in the fight against social injustice. Ortega spoke Sunday in Uruguay at a gathering of leftist parties and organizations in Latin America. He praised rebel commander Manuel Marulanda, who the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia confirmed died in March of a heart attack. Ortega called Marulanda an "extraordinary fighter" who struggled for decades to reverse "profound inequalities." The Nicaraguan president urged attendees at the Sao Paulo Forum to topple "the tyranny of global capitalism," and accused Washington...

In a region beset by runaway food costs, the socialist government of Hugo Chávez's Venezuela and its leftist allies appear to have found fertile ground to plant the seeds of revolutionary discourse. At an emergency food-security summit held Wednesday in Managua, Nicaragua, 14 Latin American and Caribbean nations convened under the umbrella of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), the leftist trade bloc founded in 2004 by Cuba and Venezuela as an alternative to United States free-trade agreements. The summit was supposed to focus on how the countries can prevent food shortages and unrest as the global food crisis...

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — The government billboards and graffiti in this sultry city tell a visitor a lot about the ideological battle racking Nicaragua. President Daniel Ortega Saavedra beams from the billboards, promising “Citizens Power” as a solution to Nicaragua’s endemic poverty. “The world’s poor arise!” the signs say. But beneath the billboards, on walls and benches all over town, others have scrawled “No to CPC. No to dictatorship.” The graffiti alludes to Citizens Power Councils — or C.P.C.’s. In December, Mr. Ortega established the neighborhood committees, which are controlled by his left-wing Sandinista party and administer antipoverty programs, despite a...

MANAGUA, Nicaragua: President Daniel Ortega, who led the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua, says Barack Obama's presidential bid is a "revolutionary" phenomenon in the United States. "It's not to say that there is already a revolution under way in the U.S. ... but yes, they are laying the foundations for a revolutionary change," the Sandinista leader said Wednesday night as he accepted an honorary doctorate from an engineering university. Ortega led a Soviet-backed government that battled U.S.-supported Contra rebels before he lost power in a 1990 election. He returned to office last year via the ballot box.

President Daniel Ortega, who led the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua, says Barack Obama's presidential bid is a "revolutionary" phenomenon in the United States. "It's not to say that there is already a revolution under way in the U.S. ... but yes, they are laying the foundations for a revolutionary change," the Sandinista leader said Wednesday night as he accepted an honorary doctorate from an engineering university. Ortega led a Soviet-backed government that battled U.S.-supported Contra rebels before he lost power in a 1990 election. He returned to office last year via the ballot box.

MIAMI - At the end of Nicaragua's civil war, Juan Gregorio Rodriguez traded his life as a Contra rebel for that of auto mechanic in Florida. He kept in touch with other rebels and supported their political efforts, but mostly from afar. That changed in 2006, when the Contras' nemesis, Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, was elected president, 16 years after his Soviet-backed government lost power in a vote that ended the guerrilla conflict in which some 30,000 people died.

Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega is reverting to radicalism, writes JAIME DAREMBLUM. But the opposition is fighting back. When Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega returned to power as president of Nicaragua last year, there were encouraging signs that this time would be different. Ortega’s first term as president in the 1980s was marred by failed socialist economic policies, his support of Communist revolutions in the region, and a military conflict with the U.S.-backed Contra rebels. Even so, at the time of Ortega’s election in late 2006, Latin American democrats hoped this onetime revolutionary had abandoned his radical past in favor of a...

The most profound speech delivered to last week's United Nations General Assembly session was that of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. Returned to the leadership of his country after decades in a wilderness fashioned by U.S. interventions against the man and his ideas, Ortega returned to the world stage as a popular elected leader with a blunt message. "The presidents of the U.S. change," he told the Assembly. "And they may come to office with the greatest of intentions and they may feel that they are doing good for humanity, but they fail to understand that they are no more than...

UNITED NATIONS - Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega accused the U.S. of imposing a worldwide dictatorship and defended the right of Iran and North Korea to pursue nuclear technology in a speech Tuesday before the U.N. General Assembly meeting. Ortega also angrily denounced President Bush for criticizing Cuban leader Fidel Castro during his speech earlier in the day. Ortega, who took office in January, said little had changed since he last addressed the world body as the Marxist leader of Nicaragua's Sandinista-run government two decades ago. "The presidents of the U.S. change. And they may come to office with the greatest...

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said he does not trust the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration because its operations mask "unexpected interests" and "terrible things." During a celebration of the Nicaraguan Navy's 27th anniversary on Monday, Ortega remarked, "You have to be careful with the DEA. You can't be blind." The DEA has cooperated with Nicaragua's army and the police since 1990 in the fight against drug traffickers, but Ortega insisted that behind the DEA's operations exist "unexpected interests" and "terrible things." He did not elaborate. "We have to wage the war against drugs (but) don't come to us with stories about...

Iran and Nicaragua in Barter Deal August 05, 2007 BBC News Iran is to help Nicaragua develop its infrastructure in return for farm products, according to a trade deal between the two countries. Under the agreement, Iran will help develop a port and build houses and industrial sites. In return, Nicaragua will export coffee, meat and bananas to Iran. The two countries, which have strained relations with the US, have improved ties since Daniel Ortega became Nicaraguan President in January 2007. Under the accords, Iran will fund a farm equipment assembly plant, four hydroelectric plants, five milk-processing plants, a health...

President Felipe Calderon of Mexico reacted sourly to news of the Senate's rejection of the proposed immigration law overhaul, calling the senators' action "a grave error." "It's a grave mistake first because it's a problem that's not being confronted, and with this evasive action the U.S. Senate is making it worse," Calderon told reporters in Mexico City during a joint news conference with President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, who is finishing a two-day visit to the Mexican capital. "Secondly, because to close the door on legal immigration, the only thing the Senate does is open the door to illegal immigration"...

HAVANA - Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega met with Fidel Castro for four hours Saturday, the third leftist head of state to visit Cuba's ailing "Maximum Leader" in little over a week. The pair discussed Nicaragua's recent energy crunch, which has included blackouts and a shortage of basic materials, as well as a literacy drive in the Central American country and how the use of biofuels can combat global warming, according to a Cuban government statement. Ortega was joined in the closed-door meeting by his wife and presidential spokeswoman, Rosario Murillo, the statement said. "Fidel was very satisfied with the meeting...

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who has raised eyebrows in Washington by forging ties with Iran, said on Sunday he will travel to the country aboard a jet on loan from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Ortega, a Cold War-era enemy of Washington who is an ally of U.S. antagonist Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, told reporters he was leaving for Caracas, the first stop in a 10-day tour that will take him to Iran, Algeria, Libya and Cuba. " We want to improve relations with Iran in all fields, in all areas,"... A former Marxist guerrilla who fought U.S.-backed Contra rebels during...

Last October, Nicaragua’s congress unanimously passed a bill outlawing all abortions in that small Central American nation. Nicaragua’s then-president signed it into law, and the current president supports it. In fact, the current president announced his support for the law before the election, and the Nicaraguan people apparently liked what they heard. The law closed a loophole for “therapeutic abortions” that was, of course, being used to justify abortions of all kinds—-even though, with modern technology, there is never a need for direct abortion to save a mother’s life.

This past week, the chief proponent of Jihadi Islam and the use of terror to force people to believe in his religion, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, traveled to Latin America to create an alliance with three atheistic Communists: Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, and Rafael Correa of Ecuador. This emerging "Marxist-Islamist entente," as it has been described, has caught a lot of folks by surprise. How in the world, they ask, could Chavez toast Ahmadinutjob by hailing him as the leader of "a revolution kindred to the Venezuelan revolution: the Islamic revolution." What could the imposition of...

It was a bittersweet week for Sen. Christopher J. Dodd. On Tuesday, his new pal Ned Lamont saw his senatorial dreams dashed, but old pal Daniel Ortega took away some of the sting by winning the Nicaraguan presidency. As head of the Sandinista communists, the iron-fisted Ortega ruled Nicaragua from 1985-90 with financial support from Moscow and Havana and the moral support of career diplomats left over from Jimmy Carter's State Department. Ortega's reign was renowned for human-rights abuses, including torture, summary executions, genocide, and the seizure of homes and businesses. Since his defeat, Ortega has sought to regain power...

The popular rejection of Bush's war in Iraq, the centrepiece of its foreign policy, has emboldened other powers to sidetrack, or even defy, Washington in a manner they had not envisaged before. This is particularly true of Russia and China. ... Gone are the days when Russian leaders referred to "a strategic partnership" with Washington. Now Russia is a crucial energy supplier to Europe as well as an influential investor there. Under President Putin, the state has regained control over the nation's oil and gas reserves, thus facilitating the Kremlin to use the energy card to further its diplomatic aims,...

Nicaraguan President-elect Daniel Ortega says he hopes for increased trade with all countries, including the United States, despite his criticism of some of Washington's policies. The leftist leader told supporters during a victory rally in Managua Wednesday that President Bush's Republican Party has lost power because of the Iraq occupation, which has been "rejected by the entire world." He said he hopes the U.S. government "listens to its people and pulls its troops out of Iraq."

MANAGUA, Nicaragua ? Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, a former Marxist revolutionary who fought a U.S.-backed insurgency in the 1980s, has won Nicaragua's presidential election, according to results released Tuesday. With 91 percent of the vote counted, Ortega had 38 percent of the vote compared to 29 percent for Harvard-educated Eduardo Montealegre. Under Nicaraguan law, the winner must get 35 percent and have a 5 percentage point lead to win the election outright and avoid a runoff. Montealegre immediately recognized the results, but said he and his party's lawmakers would spend the next five years ensuring that Ortega stayed true to...

As supporters of Sandinista Daniel Ortega celebrate what they claim is a victory in Nicaragua’s presidential election, his chief rival Eduardo Montealegre insists Ortega did not win enough votes to avoid a runoff. A candidate needs 35 percent of the vote and a lead of five points to win outright and avert a second round of voting. Early results showed Ortega – who led Nicaragua from 1985 to 1990 – garnering slightly more than 40 percent of the vote. Montealegre was in second with 33 percent. But Montealegre declared that the partial result "is not a tendency,” and said "there...

Daniel Ortega elected, according to a radio Sandinista MANAGUA - the ex-guerillero Daniel Ortega would be elected with the first turn of the presidential election, according to the radio "primerissima", a radio operator pro-Sandinista who quotes a nonofficial fast calculation. The Face Sandinista of release Nationale (FSLN) would obtain 40,22% of the votes, in front of national Alliance nicaragueyenne (ALN) of Eduardo Montealegre with 30,3O%, the Party Liberal Constitutionaliste (PLC) of Jose Rizo 22%, the movement of restoration Sandinista (MRS) of Edmundo Jarquin 6,67% and Alliance for the change (AC) of Eden Pastora 0,4%. Close of the district géneral...

WASHINGTON – Three more members of Congress are warning of dire consequences if Daniel Ortega wins the presidential election in Nicaragua this Sunday. With polls showing the Sandinista leader within a whisker of winning the 35 percent of the vote necessary, four Republican House members have suggested a cutoff of all U.S. dollars to that country should the "pro-terrorist" friend of Iran and North Korea succeed in the Nov. 5 election. As WND reported, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., chairman of the International Relations Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, wrote to Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, to...

On Nov. 5, Nicaraguans will go to the polls. It is very likely that Daniel Ortega, despite the rejection he provokes, will return to power 16 years after leaving it. A survey I saw placed him at the head of the voters' preferences, with 29 percent of the popular support. He is followed by Eduardo Montealegre, a youthful-looking liberal in the classic sense, former banker and former minister, with 27 percent. Lawyer José Rizo, vice president in the current government, gets 16 percent, and economist Edmundo Jarquín, a former Sandinista returned to sanity by his experience at the Inter-American Development...

The sight of a moustachioed former Marxist revolutionary and American Cold War foe hugging babies and autographing baseball caps as he embraces democracy should bring a frisson of pleasure to the US.But instead, the fact that the election campaign of the Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega is going so well that he may return to power in Nicaragua next month is causing alarm in Washington. For although Mr Ortega's old Soviet mentors have gone, his country is once again the focus of a crucial regional power play in Washington's Latin American back yard. Some 27 years after his Sandinista movement overthrew...

When Nicaraguans go to the polls on Nov. 5 to elect their next president, they may end up choosing an old-time communist – who could win without even getting a majority of the votes. A victory by Daniel Ortega, whose brutal Sandinista rule in the Central American country ended 16 years ago, is a growing likelihood because of millions being pumped into his campaign by the stridently anti-U.S. Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. Add to the mix indifference from the U.S. State Department, and Chavez and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro will have a new ally in their growing axis of anti-American...

Moscow's $1 billion sale of top-flight military aircraft to Venezuela's erratic dictator isn't just business. It's unfriendly to the U.S. and a sign of a revived Cold War. ... His latest recruit was Belarus, where he signed an "anti-U.S. pact" Monday with this Russian satellite, praising Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, who admits to having a soft spot for Stalin. "Our countries must keep their hands at the ready on the sword," Chavez said. ... There isn't any doubt Russia's $1 billion contract to sell Venezuela 30 Sukhoi jet aircraft and 33 helicopters will be trouble. ... All are perfect for...

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez's plans to build the first Kalashnikov factory in South America are stirring fears Venezuela could start arming his leftist allies in the hemisphere with Russian assault rifles. Chavez denies such ambitions, saying his government bought 100,000 Russian-made AK-103 assault rifles and a license from Moscow to make Kalashnikovs and ammunition to bolster its defenses against "the most powerful empire in history" — the United States. Some political opponents and critics suspect Chavez, a former paratrooper, has other intentions, such as providing allies such as Bolivia with arms while forging an anti-Washington military alliance. "Our...