GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Global Witness, an NGO (non-governmental organization) that was a key founding member of the Kimberly Process to end violence linked to the diamond trade, says it is pulling out.
“‘Nearly nine years after the Kimberley Process was launched, the sad truth is that most consumers still cannot be sure where their diamonds come from, nor whether they are financing armed violence or abusive regimes’”, said Charmian Gooch, a founding director of Global Witness. ‘The scheme has failed three tests: it failed to deal with the trade in conflict diamonds from Côte d’Ivoire, was unwilling to take serious action in the face of blatant breaches of the rules over a number of years by Venezuela and has proved unwilling to stop diamonds fuelling corruption and violence in Zimbabwe. It has become an accomplice to diamond laundering – whereby dirty diamonds are mixed in with clean gems.’”
Growing disillusion reached the breaking point over approval in November by the Kimberly Process of diamond exports from the Marange mines in Zimbabwe, where Global Witness and Human Rights Watch say the army continues to use violence to exploit workers. Robert Mugabe’s government denies the reports.
PARIS, FRANCE – Carlos, known as the Jackal, is on trial in Paris for crimes committed some 30 years ago, and the courtroom proceedings promise to be colourful, if the first day was anything to go by. His lawyer, who is also his wife, argued that the statute of limitations is not three decades, while the defendant, born in Venezuela as Ilich Ramírez Sánchez blew kisses to a comedian in the audience, looked bored and then at one point leaped to his feet to talk about respecting victims.
Carlos came to fame as a terrorist in the early 1970s when he wounded the head of Marks & Spencers British department store chain, in London. He held several Opec oil ministers hostage in Vienna in 1975 and he is now accused of four bombings in Paris in the early 1980s. Carlos says he wasn’t responsible for them.
French secret service agents kidnapped him in Sudan in 1994 and took him to France, where he was tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1997. He is 62 years old.
Wikipedia notes that “Carlos was dubbed “The Jackal” by The Guardian after one of its correspondents reportedly spied Frederick Forsyth‘s novel The Day of the Jackal near some of the fugitive’s belongings.”
Links to other sites: Figaro (Fr), Guardian, Independent, Reuters video
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is back in the country after his first week of chemotherapy in Cuba.
Chavez has only said a cancerous tumor “the size of a baseball” was removed from the pelvic area and that chemotherapy is necessary to ensure cancer cells do not reappear.
Chavez seeks to be reelected in 2012 in spite of his illness something that could well happen. A poll in Venezuela shows the President’s public approval rating remains at 50 percent and has not significantly varied since his cancer diagnosis.
Chavez said “it is not yet time to die” but that his medical team has advised him to slow down.
Further details: El Universal (sp), BBC News
States of emergency have been declared 30 November in four states in Venezuela, including in the capital Caracas, ravaged by torrential rains for more than a week, causing flooding and mudslides. Thousands of people have lost their homes and are taking refuge in more than 800 emergency shelters. Twenty-one people are believed dead, according to AP, eight of them confirmed 30 November. The Venezuelan army has taken charge of emergency efforts in the western state of Falcón, one of the worst affected.
President Hugo Chavez said that he would shelter five to ten families in the presidential palace.
Links to other sites: BBC, El Universal (Spa)
Colombia and Venezuela have re-established diplomatic relations with leaders from both countries agreeing to do more to ease each other’s worries.
The Colombian government, through prickly relations with its predecessor Alvaro Uribe, has been accusing Venezuela of harboring dangerous guerrillas in its territory.
Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has accused Colombia of planning an invasion and – Uribe in particular – of trying to stir up a war in his last days of office.
The new Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, sworn in Saturday, was previously Uribe’s defense minister.
Former Geneva UN representative suffers heart attack after taking office
Angelino Garzon
Hours after being sworn in, Vice President Angelino Garzon suffered a heart attack.
Doctors say Garzon, 63, will return to work in a month, after undergoing a four-hour emergency heart bypass this week.
Garzon who worked as the Colombian representative before the UN in Geneva, left Switzerland at the beginning of 2010 to join the presidential campaign.
Under Colombian law, there is no mechanism to replace a vice president in the case of temporary absence. In case of permanent vacancy the Constitution only provides for a stand-in.
Additional details: Colombia Reports in English and SurTitulares in Spanish
India, Algeria, China, Venezuela, Malaysia and Syria are the main customers for the Russian arms industry, which expects to see a 12 percent increase in international sales in 2010, to $9.5 billion. Vietnam also recently became a client, ordering submarines, aircraft and “other military hardware”, reports Russian news agency Ria Novosti. Russia’s main competitors are China, Germany and the US.
The breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia began to use Russia’s international direct dialling phone code, +7, Sunday 15 November, instead of Georgia’s, +995, in a further break with Georgia. Russia and Georgia fought a war in July over South Ossetia, another breakaway region in Georgia.
“The old codes will work until Jan 1. Then they will be turned off and people will use the new codes of independent Abkhazia,” said Nadir Bitiev, a senior aide to Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh, reports Reuters. Two-thirds of the International Telecommunications Union‘s (ITU) members must agree to admitting a new member. Only the Russian Federation recognizes Abkhazia as an independent country, along with Venezuela and Nicaragua. Moscow Times
North and South Korea navy ships have exchanged fire along the countries’ disputed Western maritime border. The Northern vessel was reportedly hit by gunfire, and one North Korean was killed, and three injured, after it crossed a demaracation line Tuesday, 10 November, say several reports in Seoul, South Korea. CNN, Los Angeles Times.
Colombia may make a complaint to the United Nations and the Organization of American States, following Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’ call Sunday, 8 November for his country to prepare for war, and prepare the people for war. Chavez has been irritated by Colombia’s newly signed bases agreement with the USA, which will allow a US military presence in Colombia. Chavez says that this is a preparation for an invasion of Venezuela. CNN, Reuters India.
China says it has executed nine people involved in the deadly rioting in Urumqi, in China’s Xinjiang province last July. The US urged China to ensure that detentions and judicial processes be handled “in a transparent manner”, according to US State Department spokesman, Ian Kelly. AFP, New York Times
The Honduran government issued a decree 27 September limiting civil rights on the eve of an expected massive demonstration in the capital Tegucigalpa in favour of ousted President Manuel Zelaya. The measures make it easier for the army to arrest protesters, and allows the government to act against pro-Zelaya media. The government refused entry into the country 27 September of a delegation from the Organisation of Amerian States (OAS) that flew into Tegucigalpa in the hope of reopening talks aimed at defusing the crisis. In Washington, the US representative to the OAS called on the de facto government to exercise restraint and caution and said Zelaya’s return to the country without a settlement was “irresponsible and foolish”, adding that he should “desist … from acting as though he were starring in an old movie.”
Brazil’s president Lula da Silva said while in Venezuela that he would ignore a Honduran government demand to hand Zelaya over to Honduran authorities within 10 days to face trial, or to grant him asylum in Brazil. Zelaya has spent the past week in the Brazilian embassy after secretly returning to the country. Lula has warned the Honduran de facto government to respect the integrity of the Brazilian embassy in Honduras. Honduras has cut electricity and water supplies to the embassy. The Vienna convention on diplomatic rights prohibits the use of force against diplomatic personnel and installations. It also proscribes the use of diplomatic installations for political purposes. Zelaya has been using the media to call for his supporters to converge on Tegucigalpa to force an end to the political crisis. At least one person was killed following clashes with the police over the weekend.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced on his weekly radio show Sunday 13 September that his government was buying 92 Russian T-72 tanks and several Russian S-300 surface-to-air (SAM) missile systems. Chavez was in Moscow, Russia a week ago. Venezuela views neighbouring Colombia’s efforts to upgrade its military relationship with the US, including a standing US military presence in Colombia, as potentially a first step in a US intervention in Venezuela.
The S-300 system is considered one of the best in the world and has been deployed in several countries. The US bought one for evaluation.
He said Russia was lending the government $2.2. billion to make the purchase. A consortium of Russian oil companies has paid Venezuela $1b for access to Venezuela’s Orinoco oil fields, the Venezuelan oil company PdVSA announced. BBC, El Nacional, El Tiempo
Minister Doris Leuthard samples chocolates in Broc
Nestle master chocolate maker at work in Broc
Vevey/Broc, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Nestlé Monday 7 September opened its CHF25 million Chocolate Centre of Excellence in Broc, in the hills above the company’s home office in Vevey. A slew of dignitaries, including Switzerland’s minister for economic affairs, Doris Leuthard, and top company officials were present to underscore the unit’s importance.
The new centre is a research and production operation for Nestlé’s premium and luxury chocolate segment, but it “will influence the company’s entire chocolate range,” the company noted in its press release for the event.
Nestlé says that of its CHF9.8 billion in chocolate sales in 2008, some 70 percent came from local sales rather than the global brands for which it is well-known, which had sales of CHF1 billion.
Whitney Toyloy, Miss Swiss 2009
Toyloy shining in the Bahamas
Nassau, Bahamas (GenevaLunch) – Hurricanes headed north to Canada and in the sunny Bahamas beauties lined up for the Miss Universe pageant, where Whitney Toyloy of Switzerland was among the top 10 Sunday 23 August. The winner was, again, a Venezuelan, Stefania Fernandez, making Venezuela the first country ever to take the title two years running. Miss Amiability is from China, Wang Jingyao, and Miss Photogenic from Thailand, Chutima Durongdej.
Related, TSR (Fre)
Honduras ordered all members of the Argentine embassy in Tegucigalpa to leave the country within three days, Tuesday 18 August. But Argentine foreign minister, Jorge Taiana, on a trade mission in Mexico, said he had not been informed of the deadline, and his diplomats were staying put. The Honduran ministry of foreign affairs said it was expelling the diplomats in line with “strict reciprocity” for the expulsion last week of the Honduran ambassador in Buenos Aires, who stated publicly that she approved of the forced removal of Manuel Zelaya as Hondura’s president last 28 June. The interim government of Honduras said its relations with Argentina would be conducted through the Argentine embassy in Israel. Honduras previously expelled Venezuelan diplomats, most of whom have stayed because President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela says he will not take orders from the interim government. BBC, Clarin (Spa), CNN, La Nación (Spa)
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced economic sanctions against neighbouring Colombia which last week asked the Venezuelan government to explain the presence of arms traced to Venezuela found in rebel Farc arms depots. Venezuela has halted the import of 10,000 vehicles and canceled the participation of a Colombian oil company in an oil auction in Venezuela’s oil-rich Orinoco region. Trade between the two countries is worth about $7 billion. Venezuela imports almost all its food from Colombia.
The Colombian government announced last week that Swedish-made arms captured from the rebel group Farc had been traced to Venezuela. Chavez said 5 August that the arms had been stolen from a Venezuelan naval post in 1995. Tensions between the two countries remain high, with Colombia and the US negotiating a military bases treaty that would see US troops on Colombian soil to aid in the fight against drugs trafficking and the 40 year-old conflict with Farc, accused of involvement in the drug trade. Venezuela opposes the presence of foreign troops in Latin America. BBC, CNN, El Tiempo (Spa)
Russia and Cuba have signed agreements to explore for oil in the North Cuba Basin of the Gulf of Mexico, with Cuba saying there could be as much as 20 billion barrels of oil, although the United States says it is more likely to be around five billion barrels. Part of the agreement is a Russian loan for $120 for equipment and technology. Cuba currently buys more than half of its oil from Venezuela. BBC, Miami Herald
The government of Colombia said 27 July that it was investigating how Swedish-made weapons supplied to Venezuela were found in the possession of the rebel narco-terrorist group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc). Colombia’s Vice-president Francisco Santos said “In several operations we have been able to capture arsenals of the Farc. We have found heavy weapons, including anti-tank weapons” that were purchased in Europe.
Jan-Erik Lovgren of the Swedish Inspectorate for Strategic Products, says that, based on the serial numbers, it appears that the weapons were sold to Venezuela in the 1980s. He told Swedish radio that arms sales to Venezuela had stopped in 2006 and that Sweden had never authorized arms sales to Colombia. The Venezuelan government, already embarrassed by findings linking it to Farc when Colombian troops overran a Farc camp in Ecuador in 2008, has rejected the claims. Venezuelan Justice and Interior Minister Tarreck El Aissami said it was a “media show” and “an aggression against our people, our government and our institutions”. BBC, CNN, El Nacional (Spa), Reuters.
At least 1,200 passengers on board the Spanish-owned Ocean Dream cruise liner off the coast of Venezuela were refused permission to land 17 June after three crew members were diagnosed with A/H1N1 flu. Eleven more crew members are suspected of being infected. “The virus was detected in three crew members and the boat must now stay in quarantine until June 24,” said Venezuelan health official Jorge Alchaer, reports the BBC. Venezuela has 25 confirmed cases of the flu, according to the WHO (World Health Organization). Local Venezuelan news sources report that the 376 Venezuelan passengers have been allowed onto the island of Maragarita for testing. Reuters, WHO, El Nacional (Spa)
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered a Cargill unit that produces parboiled rice to be seized, Reuters reports: “Chavez said he ordered the takeover because Cargill — one of the largest privately owned U.S. companies — avoids producing basic rice that is subject to government price controls.”
Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s inflammatory president who has been in power for 10 years, has won voters’ approval to change the constitution, allowing the president and politicians in other political offices to run for several terms and in theory to remain in power for decades. Reuters (Latin American newspaper reactions will be added later in the day, as they come in)
Voters in Venezuela are going to the polls 15 February to decide if President Hugo Chavez and other politicians should have unlimited terms of office. Voters in 2008 defeated a similar motion that applied to the presidency, but this time, according to the Los Angeles Times, Chavez has included all the country’s politicians.
