Current Affairs

A US company, Pandemic, is going to sell a videogame, named Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, in which a US invasion is simulated in a country ruled by a tyran with the grasp of the oil refineries and with the final objective to throw out the tyran. This has worsened even more the US-Venezuelan relationship.

“The players take the place of soldiers to throw out a hungry tyran/dictator who varies the supply of Venezuelan oil, unleashing an invasion that makes the country a war place“. The simulated mission is began by a Marines’ commando to take it by a military assault.

This happens when Caracas has reinforced its alliance with Iran about the nuclear crisis. Ahmadinejah said:

“We hace a lot of common ideals and aims that unites us profoundly. And our common enemies’ position are each day less strong”.

Their common interests are so great they lack the same thing: oil refineries. As a result they are just making a new one jointly.

This came afterwards Bush said he was worried about an important erosion in democracy both in Bolivia and Venezuela.

Newsweek comments also about Chávez:

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez is the new rock star of world politics. His impassioned rants against globalization, with animated poses to match, make front-page headlines almost daily. The commentariat-particularly in Europe-seems to buy Chávez’s line that Latin Americans are so disenchanted by their short tryst with liberalism that they now prefer a strongman to spread the benefits of a commodity boom. The recent moves by a Chávez soulmate, Evo Morales, to renationalize the energy resources of Bolivia reinforce a growing perception that Latin America is lurching to the radical left.

Read it all.

US had made arrangements to consider Lybia is fighting against terrorism. I was not the least happy about it. And at the same time Gadaffi says he is going to receive Chávez. As a result, Washington is going to suspend the selling of weapons to Caracas because of its lack of collaboration with the fighting of terrorism.

So Chávez is going to ask Oliver Stone to make a film about the failed coup d’état that took place in April 2002. “I am sure that there are a lot of people that are not willing the truth to come out because this people is going to investigate to have the truth and is going to tell both the good and the bad that happened then”, Chávez said. What? The same man who said that Castro is one of the wisest man on Earth is going to find the truth?

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These last days, we have been living here the “Debate on the State of the Nation”, although no one has told us which Nation they are referring to. One of the things everyone was very anxious to see is what does Zapatero wants to do about ETA. But nothing was spoken about it in the 1st day of the Debate.

Of course, the second day it was considered, but just because the PP had no possibility of contradicting and critisize the Zapatero Administration.

ETA terrorists have been appearing in TV in an Ossama bin Laden style. But the PM said he wanted, nevertheless, to begin talks with them.

He said: “Just as I announced, next month I will communicate to the political forces the start of the process of dialogue to achieve the end of violence with Eta.”

BBC is biased as ever: they titled a special about ETA “The end of an era”. That is curious: there is no end, really. There are a lot of people, ETA victims, which are there, suffering the pain of having lost parents, wifes, husbands, sons, daughters, etc. Or being themselves severely wounded.

With ETA terrorists happens just the same as with Islamic terrorists. If I criticize the terrorists, I am only critisizing people who are using terror and force to achieve political gains. But there are people who are confounding both the Islamic terrorists with all Muslims and Eta terrorists with all Basques, just as Barcepundit says here.

Of course, ETA victims have been organising peaceful demonstrations to show their reject to Zapatero’s program. This photo is from the one of June 4th 2005:

Anyway the Government has made everything posisble to diminish the importance of these protests. Here you can read what one of the victims’ association thoght about Zapatero in May 3rd 2005, just three months before this demonstration.

Another photo from Times On Line:

In this stage Rajoy asked in Parliament: are you going to negotiate the autodetermination right with Basque Country? And Zapatero said: No, what happens? don’t you listen to the PM? See this video:

(video in Spanish). Found here.

So, now the President of PSE (Basque Socialists) Patxi López, has said they are going to have talks with Batasuna, the political wing of the terrorist organization. Then José Blanco, the Secretary of Organization from PSOE, also said they were supporting that, but only “if Batasuna respects the law”. Well, it’s curious but the Antiterrorist Agreement between PSOE and PP, and the subsequent Political Parties Law, said political parties who were interested in violence or defended it were going to be illegalised. This is the case of Batasuna, which has not condemned any of the terrorist attacks ETA has made along these years. Zapatero has also added he will negotiate even if there is no peace, even if ETA is not for an end of violence. What people here believe is that they are going to be legalised again without any consideration to those Agreement and Law. PP has just said that any possible meeting will be illegal.

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Uribe won the elections in Colombia last Sunday with a 62.2 per cent of all the votes. Those are good news, taking into account the consequences of elections in other parts of Latin-America.

But looks like there are also bad news from Colombia: from HazteOir.org:

La Corte Constitucional de Colombia ha determinado que “no se incurre en delito de aborto, cuando con la voluntad de la mujer, la interrupción del embarazo se produzca en los siguientes casos : a) Cuando la continuación del embarazo constituya peligro para la vida o la salud de la mujer, certificado por un médico; b) cuando exista grave malformación del feto que haga inviable su vida, certificada por un médico; c) cuando el embarazo sea resultado de una conducta, debidamente denunciada, constitutiva de acceso carnal o acto sexual sin consentimiento, abusivo, o de inseminación artificial o de transferencia de óvulo fecundado no consentidas, o de incesto”.

So the Colombian Constitutional Court has determined that “it is not abortion and therefore not a crime when with the woman’s consentment, the pregnancy interruption is produced in any of these cases: a) when the continuation of the pregnancy is a danger for the mother’s life or health, certificated by a doctor; b) when there is a grave malforming of the foetus that makes makes him/her impossible to die; c) when the pregnancy is the result of a conduct that rightly denounced, constitutes the result of a sexual act without consentment, abusive, or of artificial insemination or fertilized ovule with no consentment or derived from incest.

Those are the same -nearly a copy- of the 3 causes for abortion we have in Spain (link in Spanish). -And, unluckily, we are the country in which abortions grow quicker -.

Hazteoir.org brings everyone the possibility to sign a petition who will be sent to UN, Human Pro-Life International, and several Latin-American and European pro-life associations that are fighting for this cause. If you read this and you are a pro-lifer, please sign the petition, it’s free and it’s written in English and in Spanish.

This cames after the UN has declared they are supporters of abortion for Latin-America (link in Spanish).

Tags: Colombia, Pro-Life issues

Blogging is a very curious experience. When I began blogging a long time ago, I confess I never thought I was going to have so many readers. Yes, this blog is not a very good example, but if you sum up, the visits from all my blogs (Las Noticias de Eurabia, Eurabian News, Eurabian News II, The Anti-Jihad Pundit and the last Anti-Jihad Pundit -the only one in which I really write lately-), you can see that in less than a year we (my companions at EN are also included) have been quite prolific.

There are sometimes in which blogging has been very good both to read different point of views and also to get to some conclusions about the subjects in which I have been reading and writing.

In Spain, though the right-wing blogosphere is somewhat developed, I cannot say that we have had so much importance as in US. Internet is not used in such proportions, although I really think the number of Internet reading and users is growing.

Anyway, whatever our importance is -at least, some are very important- we are not journalists. That is why I was so surprised when I read so much controversy about some news which were very shocking: the Iranian Dress Code. The news were that Iran was going to impose Badges on Non-Muslim people and it resulted in a hoax. As a result the Canadian National Post, the paper which published it, suffered severe critics.

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I read some time ago about a girl aged 11 who was pregnant and who smoked constantly in My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. I was totally shocked. Imagine what I have felt when I read this: WorldNetDaily: Pedophiles launch own political party:

UPDATE:

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From BBC:

France and Morocco have agreed to work together to combat terrorism, drug trafficking and illegal immigration.

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy agreed the deal with his Moroccan counterpart, Chakib Benmoussa.

Mr Sarkozy was in Morocco as part of an African tour, widely seen as a prelude to his presidential bid next year.

He has already visited Benin and Mali, where there were street protests over his tough immigration policy, designed to keep out “unskilled” foreigners.

French MPs have already backed Mr Sarkozy’s immigration bill but it can only become law after it has been passed by the Senate.

Wow! This is marvellous. I am very confident in them working together. They are just going to send more inmigrants to Spain, that’s all. From Spain Herald:

Saharan human rights activist Aminetu Haidar said yesterday in Seville that prime minister Zapatero’s support for his own Alliance of Civilizations project is “incompatible with permitting the tortures that the Moroccan government inflicts on the Saharan people.” After speaking before the Andalusian regional parliament, Haidar said that if the Spanish government does not act in favor of self-determination for the Western Sahara, “it will be responsible for the genocide and massacres that are going to begin, if they have not already…Spain and France are the two governments that support Morocco’s state terrorism against the Saharan people.”

She called Zapatero’s proposed Alliance of Civilizations “a makeup job that the administration applies to its face while it turns its back on the Saharan people, who have not received any support from this government, despite the strong support that the Spanish people have given us.” Haidar added, “Morocco does not respect the Saharans.”

Aminetu Haidar also called on Spain to accept “its historical and legal responsibility with respect to the Sahara, and recognize the crimes committed against the Saharan people.” Therefore, she said, “Spain should take a clear position on self-determination.”

I think that we are more indebted with this people that with American indigene population. While our American domination was ended because of an independence war, Saharan people were left alone after Franco’s death and Morocco, with international support or at least not much critisizing of their position, invaded their territory.

But the aggressions to Saharan people continue: you can see photos here. The problem is that most of the documents are in Spanish. Anyway,there has been arbitrary detentions made to Saharan activists since the Moroccan invasion. The problem is that with the new antiterrorist measures, they are detained as Islamists or terrorists, being none of that (someone has heard of a Saharan terrorist? ehh, … NOPE).

Socialists at first were very much interested in defending Saharan cause as they thought that it was so good to oppose right-wingers. But everything changed with Mr. Zapatero new political approach. As Perejil conflict showed, Mr. Aznar’s relationship with Morocco was not the best. And so Mr Zapatero had to change this policy as well, not taking into account that most of the accused in March 11th bombings were Moroccans. He has not said anything about Saharan situation before Moroccan king, Mohammed VI, -in fact, he has not said it at any time- and several Socialists have praised them openly. Even when international opinion was critical with Spanish handling of inmigrants in Ceuta and Melilla last year and it was proved that Moroccan police killed two inmigrants and the rest were obliged to walk thrpugh Moroccan desert, where 24 -at least- were dead of thurst.

Moroccan authorities have been denying pass to foreign delegations that intended to defend Saharan Human Rights. For example, from Norway, Spain. Spanish journalists have also been expelled (example).

By the wat, there are also connections with the Oil-for-Food scandal, coming from Morocco.

That is why when I read this kind of news, I just burst out laughing… just for not crying. I know Islamism is a threat -that is why I keep TAJP- but at the same time, I do think these decissions are nothing more than an international pose just to appease foreign critics and as such to diminish the importance of democracy and opposition movements inside it.

UPDATE: I am even more concerned now that I have read this: France and Morocco will help Spain with inmigration problem. According to Sarkozy and Benmoussa joint communiqué, “taking into account the situation of the arrival of inmigrants to the Canary Islands coasts, the ministers have decided to take the necessary measures without waiting, (…) mainly the related with technical and financial support to benefit the countries that need it“.

Related posts:

• Spanish Inmigration Problem.
• New EU Directive on free Movement.

Tags: Aznar, Human Rights, Inmigration, Moratinos, Morocco, religious freedom, Sahara, UN Security Council, Zapatero

From BBC:

A senior United Nations official has met Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, sources close to the military rulers say.

The talks between Ms Suu Kyi and UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari lasted for about an hour, the sources say.

Ms Suu Kyi has been in prison or under house arrest since 2003.

The last foreigner to see the Nobel Peace laureate was UN special envoy Razali Ismail in 2004.

Ms Suu Kyi and Mr Gambari met in a government guesthouse, the sources say.

A spokesman for Ms San Suu Kyi’s opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) later confirmed that the meeting took place, according to the AFP news agency.

In Burma:

Military-run enterprises control key industries, and corruption and severe mismanagement are the hallmarks of a black-market-riven economy.

The armed forces - and former rebels co-opted by the government - have been accused of large-scale trafficking in heroin, of which Burma is a major exporter. Prostitution and HIV/Aids are major problems.

US wants the Burmese Government to be referred to the Un Security Council. I agree with US this time: they have even tried three youths for writing a poem and:

have been tried behind closed doors inside the local prison, without having access to legal representatives. The three, Aung Aung Oo of A20 Computing Business, Zeya Aung of King Star teashop and Aung Than, are currently detained in Pegu Prison.

Related information in Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), Burma Net News,

Tags: Burma, UN Security Council

It appeared in an Italian television…

Tags: Italy, Spain, Zapatero

From Spain Herald:

Police union spokesman Rodrigo Gavilan said yesterday that the administration canceled a flight that would have carried 90 officers to Grand Canary island in order to proceed to the deportation of 180 illegal immigrants to Mauritania and Guinea. However, those two countries were not willing to accept the deportees. Gavilan added that, as it is not possible to deport the immigrants, “all those that arrive are transported to mainland Spain, five thousand so far.”
Deputy prime minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega said that due to the mass arrival of open boats carrying illegals to the Canary coasts, that all illegal immigrants would be repatriated. She also announced agreements with the illegals’ countries of origin to return them. According to Gavilan, however, reality is very different.

News24.com:

With the Canary Islands struggling to cope with a stream of would-be immigrants from Africa, the Spanish government has launched a diplomatic offensive to bring the situation under control.

On Thursday, foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said a special ambassador and a team of diplomats would begin “three to six-month” missions in Africa from Sunday. He said the diplomats would operate in Senegal, Gambia, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Niger. Almost 7 000 people have survived the maritime odyssey to reach the Canaries in makeshift vessels so far this year. Moratinos, speaking a day after Madrid called on African governments to help stem the number of arrivals, said the diplomats would “work jointly with the countries to face up to the migratory flux”.

Thursday saw dozens of more arrivals, with 57 immigrants picked up at Los Cristianos port in southern Tenerife.The immigrant hopefuls added to the 278 who landed on the island in “cayucos”, makeshift boats from Senegal and Mauritania, on Wednesday.

6 785 illegal immigrants have arrived so far

Moratinos said the Spanish cabinet would approve the “immediate” sending of an ambassador to Mali on Friday. Malians make up a large proportion of the immigrants coming to Spain. He said: “Spain will set up a bureau for the centralisation of all efforts (to deal with the immigrant issue) in sub-Saharan capitals.”

In fact they are so much that they are overflowing Canarian facilities, whatever Vice-President De La Vega says (By the way, she was proposing that Spanish people should use an “inhabitant solution of only 30 m2 while she has built for herself one of 505 m2. What a good example of equality! Just like the Chinese one I was referring to in this post).

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Who would guess someone was going to take advantage of the physical similarity of Che and Aznar?

Well, at first no one. But Converse’s poster designer, the Polish Andrej Dragan, has infuriated the far-leftists in Spain with this new campaign (poster: right). Because for them Che, is so opposed to Aznar that this is an insult. And they are seeing both united in one photo.

For them, Aznar is the one who caused March 11th terrorist attacks -just forgetting about the real authors of it-. They have just changed his support, more moral than real, for Iraqi intervention, into the leit-motiv of their oposition.

But I really think it is going to be somewhat difficult to make Ché and Aznar the same thing. Che was nothing but a intelectual terrorist and Castro supporter who defended :

hate as a fight factor; intransigent hate against the enemy, who impulses human being to a place far beyond his limitations, and makes him a violent and cold killing machine”.

I really can not imagine someone who made Spain rise above the corruption scandals and the dirty war against ETA, saying or even thinking, something like that.

But that Polish designer, has accomplished what he wanted: that people talk about his campaign.

Note: Trackback sent to Carnival of Trackbacks.

Tags: Aznar, Converse, Publicity

Tha Canadian National Post published some news about a law that would make Christians, Jews or Zoroastrians wear different colors each. Anyway, it looks like it is not true, BUT there are reports that says that this and other measures could have been at least thrown around or considered. I have written about it here.

From Reuters:

A prominent U.S.-based rights group has said it did not expect China to promote human rights at home despite its new position on the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Human Rights in China (HRIC) said that China should use the opportunity to promote human rights as befits its role as an increasingly important global player, but expressed doubts that the country with the world’s largest population would change.

“While there has been some improvement in the human rights situation in China, over the past 17 years HRIC has documented continued and increasing detentions, arrests and other forms of persecution,” the group said in a statement seen on Wednesday.

“China’s position that countries can differ on human rights due to cultural and historic differences undermines the universality and indivisibility of human rights,” it added.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said on Wednesday that Beijing will honor its commitment to protect human rights.

“As a member of the council, the Chinese government will comprehensively push forward the human rights cause in China and seriously carry out its obligations under relevant international human rights conventions,” Liu said in a statement on the ministry’s Web site (www.fmprc.gov.cn).

China was elected to the council along with Russia, Cuba, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan.

The six counties, identified by New York-based Human Rights Watch as unworthy of membership on the new U.N. body, were on Tuesday among the 47 nations that won seats on the council for its first session, due to open on June 19 in Geneva.

Amnesty International has also urged all the newly elected states to fulfill their obligation “to uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights”.

It seems that is a bit impossible: They have jailed another blogger for the great crime of …. supporting free elections (HT: Free Thoughts):

CHINA sentenced a veteran dissident writer to 12 years in jail for subversion yesterday, after he posted essays on the internet supporting a movement by exiles to hold free elections.

The sentence on Yang Tianshui, 45, is one of the harshest to be handed down to a political dissident since the trials that came after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on students demanding greater democracy. It underscores the determination of the ruling Communist Party to brook no opposition and to maintain a tight grip on the internet.

Yang is one of several writers and dissidents to be tried over the content of internet postings. He has no plans to appeal because he regards his trial as illegal. Li Jianqiang, his lawyer, said: “He is most dissatisfied but he had expected such a sentence. He refused to answer questions because he does not recognise the legality of the court.”

If that is the way they have to fulfil their obligations and to push Human Rights, errr, well, …

Anyway, there is another truly amazing sign of equality between all the Chinese citizens:

Chinese want cars. Lots of them. More than 1,000 new cars hit the streets of Beijing every day.

A lot of those cars are compact cars - designed with the average Chinese consumer in mind. After all, the average Chinese car buyer is looking for an engine-powered vehicle to replace his bicycle or the tyranny of the crowded bus.

But some people in this country, where many still struggle on the poverty line, have rather bigger budgets.

By the way, in this blog from TimesOnLine there is not a mention to the jailed Chinese bloggers, although it seems to me it is so an important matter to examine. Global Voices On Line is announcing the launching of a page to track current cases from all the world.

There is someone missing though: Alejandro Fariñas. Even if he has ended his hunger strike (HT: “La Ventanita”), it seems to me it’s necessary to who who is and why has been 56 days on a hunger strike. You can read about him in Babalu’s Blog.

Tags: China, dissidents, freedom of expression, Human Rights, Release Hao Wu, Cuba

Astounding:

Interior minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said yesterday that the administration “has not yet reached the conviction that ETA wants to put an end to violence…although the process has solid foundations.” After the interview with two masked terrorists published in the ETA-front newspaper Gara, which made it clear that ETA had not renounced any of its objectives, and the report from the French police that ETA is still stealing cars in the south of that country, Rubalcaba backed off the Zapatero administration’s former optimism.

Well, he must be the only optimist in Spain after the televised interview of two ETA members I wrote about here. But there is more: looks like Mr. Zapatero is going to ask the Congress an authorization to negotiate with ETA.

Rubalcaba also said that there won’t be bringining together all the ETA prisoners in Spain. Well, I really do not believe him…

As ElenaB writes in her blog, there are people who say openly that we, people who are for the defense of freedom and justice and, so, against any treatment that means a negotiation with ETA, we do not want its end. Yes, that is a very normal and common “theory”, but really that is NOT true. We want peace, but not a peace that means surrendering to criminals who only intend to impose their political projects by terror.

Meanwhile, Mexico is going to extradite 6 ETA terrorists (whatever the link says they are no activists).

By the way, what has to do South Africa in Spanish Affairs? I do think that anything. But they do not:

The African National Congress is encouraged by prospects for a peaceful and lasting resolution to violence in the Basque region of Spain, it said on Thursday.

This was after a meeting between the Basque political party Batasuna and the ANC in Johannesburg on Wednesday.

The ANC was represented by secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe and Batasuna by Urko Aiartza Azurtza, the ANC said in a statement.

In March Basque separatist group ETA announced a permanent ceasefire.

“The ANC is further encouraged by the stated intention of Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and the Spanish Socialist Workers Party … to seek a peaceful and just outcome,” the ANC said.

Even if the last post that I wrote was about Morales, I think he deserves another one. looks like he is not only accusing Spain of breaking aid promise and nationalising the oil and gas sectors but now he is also going to review the contract with the Spanish firms AENA and Abertis, united in SABSA, which is in charge of the management of Bolivian airports (link in Spanish). The workers of the firm has denounced it because, apparently, it has not done the investments at first it promised.

Even if I really do not know if they have really made the investments or not, it is somewhat similar to the nationalization of oil companies. The last news are that Morales has said Bolivia was not going to pay anything also to BBVA, who was obliged to turn over the shares in Andina (background). According to EL MUNDO, he said

“there is nothing to compensate, we are not nationalising, we are just recovering what belongs to Bolivian people”

Hmm, yes of course. Now, just a bit a reasoning: if you take something without the will of his proprietor and without paying him/her its price, how on earth that action should be named? Exactly: STEALING.

But the link goes on:

Solbes [Second Vicepresident and Economy Minister] has said in Spanish Cadena Ser [left-wing] that “taking goods from someone without compensation is utterly unnaceptable. But if they are only deprivin them of the management, then we will see what is the compensation. In any case, we have to study it very carefully”.

I totally agree with Sandmonkey:

Nationalization doesn’t help Faisal, and capitalism isn’t the problem. It’s a difference in approach. Trust me when I tell you that capitalists don’t want poor people in the world, because the more people with money there is the more goods they buy and more money they make. It’s just how we see things. For example, socialists see that a good way to help poor people is to give them welfare. Capitalists disagree, because welfare doesn’t really improve the person’s life, it just helps make it more tolerable. Capitalists for example champion micro-banking and micro-financing: Lend the people money to start their own businesses and not need your charity to live. We want the people to live with dignity, and welfare checks from the government is anything but dignified, and the door is always open for its abuse. Look at China: Capitalism helped move 300 million chinese from the poverty they lived under during the days of communism. When has socialism ever done that?

It is very interesting that even Alejandro Toledo, Peruvian President, and also an Indian reasons against the nationalization:

“If you do not have clear rules for the game, capital is not
going to come. If there is no capital, there is no growth. If there is no growth, there is no employment. If there is no employment, there is no income. If there is no income, there is nothing to invest more in nutrition, health and education, which are the most powerful weapons for reducing poverty,” the Peruvian president said.

Hmm, can you please tell all this to our President Mr. Zapatero? I’m sure he hasn´t know it yet…

So, in Spain, people are claiming for yet another boicot (Catalans are boycotting Castillian products and viceversa) against Morales.

Lastly, Barcepundit has written also about this. He reproduces a Fake photo of Morales and Spanish FM Moratinos (right). He has seen this image in Spanish Blog Zapaterías Rimadas, whose author writes the news in poetry.

In fact this image is very appropriate because looks like Spanish Administration is divided over Bolivian nationalisation: while Solbes does not agree with it and says it does not sound good:

foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said, “It’s just a change in the management of the titles.” Bolivian president Evo Morales answered Solbes, “There’s nothing to indemnify. We’re not expropriating anybody.”

I think however that the image is not correct: Morales is not punching on Moratino’s nose, but on the one of the workers and shareholders of these frims… and his own people, because of the lack of credibility, his country is going to have in the future.

But this is not all: According to Spanish blog Zetapolleces, Bolivia will also nationalize all the improductive large states. I do really believe that nationalising is not the solution at all. Firstly, they would have to examine WHY these states are improductive and provide a solution. And I expect that the proprietors are given some money in return….

You can read also DOCE DOCE comments, in which he remarks that the Leftists European MPs applauded Evo when after he said he was not going to compensate the firms. Hmm, what a wonderful world…

Tags: BBVA, Bolivia, European Union, Evo Morales, PSOE, Repsol, Spain, Zapatero

Spain Herald:

Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Bolivian president Evo Morales met on Friday for about 45 minutes in Vienna at the EU-Latin American summit there. Zapatero said the meeting had been “positive, sincere, and clarifying,” but did not mention any advantage over the agreement previously negotiated by a Spanish delegation in La Paz.

He did announce that Morales had sent an official letter praising Spain’s cooperation, in contradiction of the harsh accusations Morales had launched last Thursday. Morales’s letter said that he had never accused Spain of not fulfilling its commitments to Bolivia, but instead expressed hope that aid to development and debt forgiveness “would soon be a reality.” Meanwhile, PP leader Mariano Rajoy demanded that Zapatero defend Spanish interests in Bolivia and that Morales obey the law and international agreements.

And so he is putting into effect the cooperation: Spain Herald

Bolivian president Evo Morales said yesterday that his nationalization of Bolivian fossil fuel resources “does not expel or expropriate anyone,” to the applause of the Euro-MPs. Meanwhile, the Bolivian government announced that Spanish bank BBVA must turn over the shares in Andina, Repsol’s Bolivian subsidiary, that it manages through a pension fund, within three days.

“These pension funds will be closed down in three days if they do not obey the decree. That’s it,” said Bolivian vice president Alvaro García Linera, who signed a further decree allowing Bolivia to “take absolute control” over the fuels industry.

BBVA and Zurich Financial Service have managed two Bolivian pension funds since 1997. They were created with the government’s shares resulting from the partial privatization of Bolivian state companies in strategic sectors carried out during the 1990s, which attracted a great number of foreign investors.

Just a few minutes previously, Morales told the European Parliament, “Any company that invests in my country has the right to recover its investment and make a profit, but not to have control. They will be partners, not the owners of our natural resources.” He added, “Without social security, there can be no legal security.”

EL MUNDO reports:

they will have to hand to Bolivian state the shares they are managinig in the oil companies Andina (48%), which belongs to Spanish-Argentinian Repsol YPF; Transredes (34%), from the US Enron and the Dutch Shell, and Chaco (48%), from British Petroleum. These companies were created with the division of the State Company Bolivian Fiscal Oil fields (or Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos), which will recover control over them. They represent (approx.) 700 of the $1,600 million which this fund has.

Tags: BBVA, Bolivia, British Petroleum, Enron, European Union, Evo Morales, Shell, Spain, Zapatero, Zurish Financial Services

From Iranmania:

Visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said in case of a military attack against Iran, no country in the world would have access to crude oil, according to IRNA.

Chavez made the remark at a press conference, adding, “As Iran’s President Ahmadinejad has reiterated, if Tehran would come under attack, oil would get scarce for everyone.”

He also said that the US President George W. Bush should be put to trial at the international court of justice for having launched genocide in Iraq.

The Venezuelan President added, “For all the horror it has created around the globe in the course of the past century, the United States’ war machine should be dismantled, since under the current conditions it is a threat against the entire mankind, particularly against our children.”

HT: Noisy Room.Net.

UPDATE: I posted yesterday that Chávez was not going to meet Blair. If you read the BBC’s news, I posted upon it was Chávez who did not like to meet Blair. looks like it’s the other way round (HT DOCE DOCE, in Spanish).

UPDATE 2: E-nough quotes Chávez saying:

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez said at the Vienna “social forum” that he, Evo Morales, and Fidel Castro “would continue being the bad boys of the empire, the axis of evil.”

Do you know who where there?

Among those president were Spanish communist leaders Gaspar Llamazares and Paco Frutos.

Marvellous…

Tags: Bush, Chávez, European Union, Iran, USA

The Spain Herald

Two masked ETA members, interviewed by the pro-ETA newspaper Gara, confirmed on Sunday that its extortion letters sent to Navarrese businesses were mailed out after its declaration of an “indefinite cease-fire,” contradicting prime minister Zapatero’s claim that the letters had been mailed before the declaration. The terrorists said, “There are economic needs in order to carry on the struggle, and today the struggle for liberation continues, causing these needs, including economic ones.” The etarras stressed that the truce is conditional, depending on whether the Zapatero administration accepts ETA’s political price, self-determination and the annexation of Navarre. The two showed no sign of the “flexibility” and “correct path” that the administration had attributed to ETA. According to the terrorists, ETA has already done its part to promote the peace process by declaring the cease-fire, and they insinuated that further steps would be taken if the administration made its commitments specific.

So really there are no truce: they are only trying to impose themselves on all the other Spanish people. And Zapatero has lied… again.

EL MUNDO (in Spanish) adds -this is new- that “France says this is an Spanish issue. They are lying: this is also a French issue “. Otegi also paid homage to the ETA prisoners dead in the French prisons. But the French press has not published anything about this issue. The site of the French Government does not say anything either.

But there are also good news: Alcaraz reelected president of AVT - The Spain Herald

Francisco Jose Alcaraz was reelected president of the Association of Victims of Terrorism on Saturday by 601 votes in favor to 43 against. There were nine abstentions. Opposing candidate Pablo Broseta pulled out of the race after the AVT’s assembly approved the association’s budget. The PP praised Alcaraz’s reelection because “the victims want to be in the center of the process to put an end to terror.”

Alcaraz said at a press conference, “The results make it very clear that the previous board of directors was supported by the majority of the members.” He added that some members had asked him to continue working in favor of psychological aid for the victims of the March 11, 2004 bombings in Madrid. Alcaraz promised that the new board of directors would “fight for memory, dignity, and justice toward the victims of terrorism.”

I agree.

UPDATE: VIA Pajamas Media, I read Barcepundit has written about this topic.

Tags: Alcaraz, Asociación de Víctimas del Terrorismo, AVT, ETA, PSOE, Spain, terrorism, Truce, Zapatero, France, Villepin

Fistful of Euros writes about it:

Rondot made inquiries, consulting Lahoud, and concluded that the allegations were baseless. That was when things began to get weird, though, as the lists and a CD-ROM were sent anonymously to Renaud van Rumbeyke, the judge investigating the long-running urtext of French political corruption, the Taiwanese frigates affair. But the lists were not quite the same lists as those shown to General Rondot. Instead they included accounts in the thinly disguised name of Sarko, but also the Socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the hard-right Alain Madelin, and the centre-left semi-gaullist Jean-Pierre Chevénément, as well as top Thales and EADS executives.

[…]It must have seemed a perfect opportunity to whack Sarko, destabilise the Left with a scandal that would worsen their coalition fighting, punish Madelin for straying from the Gaullist core of the Right and Chevénément for voting against the European Constitution (or something), eliminate obstacles to Forgeard’s elevation, and perhaps even get Van Rumbeyke off their case…literally.

UPDATE: From Adam Smith Institute Blog:

President Chirac declared that 2006 would be “a useful year for France.” He may be right, in that it seems to have discredited the government there. With France still licking its wounds from last year’s street conflagrations by the economically excluded, this year has seen the riots which saw off France’s very modest efforts at labour market reform. (Clue: it’s because the rioters always win that they always do it).

Awful… And even harder times are yet to come…

Tags: France, Villepin, Sarkozy, Madelin, Jean-Pierre Chevénément

Oh oh:

Until now the Internet has been a uniquely bottom-up, nonhierarchical, seamless form of global communication. But all that is changing, as governments, multinational companies and individuals battle for control over the digital landscape. Nations are arguing over how the Web should be governed and regulated, dragging old foreign-policy grudges into cyberspace. Countries like China, Iran, North Korea and Vietnam (why I am not surprised?) are coming up with new ways to censor citizens’ online communications, often with the help of Western multinationals. At least one, Iran, has threatened to set up its own alternative-reality Internet-as protest groups already have-the kind of thing that could wreak havoc with global Web traffic, and create confusion among users who no longer knew if the sites they peruse were legitimate.

Even as they deregulate other industries, European bureaucrats are using taxpayer money to create national Internet champions. Telecoms in the United States and Europe are battling high-tech behemoths such as Google and Microsoft over who should reap the financial benefits of the digital superhighway. Poor countries are begging rich ones for better online infrastructure, while activists urge governments and companies alike to keep Web access free and unrestricted. The bottom line? Instead of a borderless, well-functioning, economically efficient communications network, the Internet is poised to become a quagmire of special interests, competing political agendas and international bureaucracy. “Sadly, it looks like the period in which the Internet functions seamlessly is over,” says Vint Cerf, one of the Internet’s better-known creators, now “chief Internet evangelist” for Google.

This are indeed bad news. if the regulate Internet, free speech is going to be diminished really…

Tags: blogosphere, freedom of expression, Web

After Somalia, looks like another country is risking the beginning, well, er, continuing of another bloody war: Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Rebels sink Sri Lankan navy boat

Background of this issue in TIME.com:

Civil War Looms After Sri Lanka Sea Battle - Examiner.com

The truce monitor says they are at war.More in Yahoo News.

Eeh, and the Tamil Rebels Threaten a Return to War - Examiner.com

You can see a chronology of the attacks of the Tamil TERRORISTS here (CAUTION: harmful photos). BBC also has a report on them.

From Times On Line:

Violence has cost Sri Lanka dear. About 64,000 people have been killed and a million displaced. Investors have been scared away, development has been stunted, tourism hurt; terrorism has got a grip in the island and among Tamil communities overseas. With evidence of widespread intimidation of Tamils abroad, many countries, including Britain, have proscribed the Tigers. After India’s ill-fated attempt at peacekeeping and the assassination in 1991 of Rajiv Gandhi, there is concern at the possible spread of the conflict into India - though, so far, little evidence of this or of support from Indian Tamils for the rebels. A return to war would be a disastrous setback. Both the Government and rebels must be made to see the cost of such folly.

With that results is astonishing they want to begin another civil war. Or continue the last one.

And to the calls by the European Union about the attack, the Tamil rebels have answered: From News from Russia:

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on Wednesday denounced as unfair and one-sided the European Union’s decision to bar the Sri Lankan separatists from entering EU member countries.

“The Tamil people and the Liberation Tigers are shocked at this decision by the EU,” the guerillas’ political wing chief S.P. Thamilselvan told reporters in the northern rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi.

The EU said in a statement Monday that Tamil Tiger representatives will be refused entry to member states until further notice while the body decides whether to add the group to its list of terrorist organizations, according to the AP.

The statement said the Tigers’ “continuing use of violence and terrorism” threatened the country’s fragile peace process.

Well, er, this in fact is undermining the European Union policy about the word terrorism. Hmm, well, that is ONLY for Islamic terrorists in fact…

Tags: Sri Lanka, terrorism, Tamil Tigers, terrorist organisations, European Union