Colombia — One leader sometimes wears a red beret and calls himself a revolutionary. The other prefers pressed white shirts and considers himself a no-nonsense crusader against a bloody leftist insurgency.

Presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Alvaro Uribe of Colombia are diametrically opposed in style and ideology, but they have largely put aside their differences and overcome disputes over the years, building what appears to be an uncommon friendship.

Uribe, whose close ties with President Bush contrast with Chavez’s frequent criticism of United States “imperialism,” assured Chavez he would not allow Colombia to serve as a base for opponents who may be plotting to overthrow the leftist leader.

After studying documents provided by Chavez, Uribe said he had confirmed that a group of former Venezuelan military officers recently went to a government building in Bogota to meet with Colombian military officers.

Uribe offered no details about the meeting but said he took full responsibility and had issued a warning that no conspiracy against Chavez would be tolerated.
chron.com

Colombian President to US: Stop Meddling
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, one of Washington’s best friends in South America, told the United States to stop “meddling” in his country’s affairs after the U.S. ambassador urged him to take steps against corruption in regional elections.

U.S. Ambassador William Wood, in a speech in the capital Friday, said the 2003 elections for mayors and governors saw many unopposed candidates because potential opponents were bribed, scared off and, in some cases, murdered.

He said rightist paramilitary groups were often to blame for those abuses and warned the same could happen in elections scheduled for March elections.

The illegal paramilitaries recently signed a peace deal that makes fighters who disarm eligible for benefits such as reduced prison sentences, pardons, job training and stipends. Wood said fighters who seek to manipulate elections should be stripped of their benefits.

Uribe responded in a sharply worded statement late Friday.

“The Colombian government does not accept the meddling of foreign governments, even if it is the United States,” he said, adding that it is already clear that paramilitary leaders lose benefits if they break the law.

Uribe said Washington should not try to use Plan Colombia, an anti-drug program funded mostly by a $4 billion aid package from Washington, “to put pressure on our country.”

The U.S. Embassy said Wood meant no offense by his remarks.

“There was no intention to interfere in any way with Colombian elections, but rather to support the democratic, free, open and impartial process,” the embassy said in a statement Saturday.

Uribe, a conservative who took office in 2002, is viewed as Washington’s main ally in Latin America.

Colombia peace talks begin in Cuba
— Exploratory peace talks between Colombia and its second-largest rebel group began Friday in Cuba with help from Nobel Prize winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez and facilitators from Spain, Norway and Switzerland.

Given the history of failed attempts at peace in Colombia, the nation’s peace commissioner urged all parties involved in the talks to work to regain the confidence of Colombia’s people.

“Our main concern at this time is to gain trust,” said Luis Carlos Restrepo, speaking at the official opening of negotiations. “Colombia can’t take any more setbacks.”

Restrepo, who was representing the Colombian government, promised to be realistic and responsible in talks with the rebels.

For his part, the representative of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, promised to listen to the Colombian government’s position, but said the rebels would not accept any superficial solution and called for massive changes in the social, economic and political structure of the country.

Antonio Garcia, the military commander of the ELN, promised, however, that his rebel group won’t give up easily.

“We are not going to run,” Garcia told reporters. “If the obstacles are big, we’ll have to look for support in society, support in the international community. We’ll have to reflect deeply on the obstacles, and work hard to overcome them … to clear the way to peace.”

Several informal talks between the Colombian government and the ELN have failed since 1998. Earlier this year, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe accused Garcia of frustrating peace efforts.

“It should make then ashamed if they don’t arrive at anything this time,” said Garcia Marquez, talking with officials on the sidelines of the event. The author did not address the gathering.

When Cuba last hosted Colombia’s talks with the ELN, in 2002, then-President Andres Pastrana pulled out, saying the rebel group was not interested in peace. Friday’s talks mark the Uribe administration’s first formal negotiations with insurgents.

Garcia urged patience this time, warning that the ELN’s 41-year war against the Colombian state would not end overnight.

“Peace is not a moment, it’s not an act,” Garcia said. “It’s a process, it’s the construction of a stage.”

It’s pretty obvious that Castro and Chavez are doing some clever long-term strategizing. Fidel has been waiting a long time for an ally, and now there’s Chavez and Morales and Lula (maybe) and the president of Uruguay too. The indigenous democratic values of Latin America may finally have their day.

The long-suffering people of Haiti suffered a catastrophic blow in February, 2004 when U.S. Marines kidnapped and deposed democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The U.S., supported by Canada and France, forced him into exile, forbade him from even returning to the hemisphere, and reestablished a despotic interim puppet government backed and enforced by so-called UN peacekeepers and a brutal Haitian National Police. U.S. officials also threatened Aristide with a second abduction followed by a trial and imprisonment in the U.S. [on totally fraudulent charges of looting the Haitian treasury, money laundering and taking payoffs from drug traffickers] if he dared act or speak out forcefully against his ousting, forced exile and the deplorable situation now in Haiti. These charges are currently included in a baseless lawsuit the so-called Interim Government of Haiti has filed against President Aristide even as they carry out a reign of terror against the Haitian people. And as they do it, conditions in the country continue to deterioriate as the occupying forces clamp down on the people ahead of so-called Presidential and legislative elections in January. With Haiti an occupied country, the freedom and democracy they had is now lost and along with it a decade of impressive social, economic and political gains they never had before.
zmag.org

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid called the Republican-led Congress “the most corrupt in history” on Sunday, and distanced himself from lobbyist Jack Abramoff, at the center of an escalating probe.

The Justice Department is investigating whether Jack Abramoff directed illegal payoffs to lawmakers, including Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, who was forced to step down as House Republican leader in September after indicted in his home state of Texas on unrelated charges.

“Don’t lump me in with Jack Abramoff. This is a Republican scandal,” Reid told Fox News Sunday, saying he never received any money from Abramoff.

Reid, like many members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, has received campaign contributions from Abramoff clients. Some lawmakers have returned those donations, but Reid gave no indication he would do so.
news.yahoo.com

KASUR: Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri has said Pakistan strictly opposes any expected US attack on Iran, and will stand by Iran if this extreme step is taken by Washington.

Iranian foreign minister’s statement during his recent visit to Pakistan provides testimony to our policy towards Tehran. Pakistan aspires to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue according to the principles of the IAEA, he added.

Kasuri told newsmen here on Saturday neglecting defence would be a suicide in the present scenario and Pakistan would acquire latest technology and defence equipment at all costs to maintain a balance of power in the region.
jang.com.pk

What about Israeli aggression, privately sanctioned but publically ‘condemned’?

Remote and Poked, Anthropology’s Dream Tribe
LEWOGOSO LUKUMAI, Kenya – The rugged souls living in this remote desert enclave have been poked, pinched and plucked, all in the name of science. It is not always easy, they say, to be the subject of a human experiment.

“I thought I was being bewitched,” Koitaton Garawale, a weathered cattleman, said of the time a researcher plucked a few hairs from atop his head. “I was afraid. I’d never seen such a thing before.”

Another member of the tiny and reclusive Ariaal tribe, Leketon Lenarendile, scanned a handful of pictures laid before him by a researcher whose unstated goal was to gauge whether his body image had been influenced by outside media. “The girls like the ones like this,” he said, repeating the exercise later and pointing to a rather slender man much like himself. “I don’t know why they were asking me that,” he said.

Anthropologists and other researchers have long searched the globe for people isolated from the modern world. The Ariaal, a nomadic community of about 10,000 people in northern Kenya, have been seized on by researchers since the 1970’s, after one – an anthropologist, Elliot Fratkin – stumbled upon them and began publishing his accounts of their lives in academic journals.

Other researchers have done studies on everything from their cultural practices to their testosterone levels. National Geographic focused on the Ariaal in 1999, in an article on vanishing cultures.

Frist AIDS Charity Paid Consultants
WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s AIDS charity paid nearly a half-million dollars in consulting fees to members of his political inner circle, according to tax returns providing the first financial accounting of the presidential hopeful’s nonprofit.

The returns for World of Hope Inc., obtained by The Associated Press, also show the charity raised the lion’s share of its $4.4 million from just 18 sources. They gave between $97,950 and $267,735 each to help fund Frist’s efforts to fight AIDS.

Time Honors Bill and Melinda Gates, Bono
…”For being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow, Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono are Time’s Persons of the Year,” the magazine said.

…These results lead to the unfortunate conclusion that we value white life more than black life. Intentional or not — and I believe it is not — this is an indefensible and untenable position for the state. Whether one supports or opposes the death penalty in principle, all reasonable people understand that before we exercise the ultimate sanction, we must be confident that the system is, at a minimum, fair and accurate.
washingtonpost.com

NEW ORLEANS — The come-on was irresistible: Hop in the truck. Go to New Orleans. Make a pile of cash.

Arturo jumped at it. Since that day when he left Houston, more than two months ago, he has slept on the floors of moldy houses, idled endlessly at day-laborer pickup stops and second-guessed himself nearly every minute.

For Arturo and countless Latinos, many of them also in the country illegally, flooded-out New Orleans has not turned out to be a modern-day El Dorado, where the streets are paved with gold. Instead, they have often been abandoned without transportation or shelter by the contractors who brought them to the city. They have struggled to find employment and been paid less than they were promised — or not at all — when they can find work.
washingtonpost.com

…Take a look at Nigeria, which has the misfortune of possessing more than 35 billion barrels of oil, much of it around the Niger Delta. When I visited last year, traveling through stunted mangrove swamps near Port Harcourt, there was a near-absence of birds, and oil was everywhere – not only dripping from rusty platforms atop the delta waters, but in the water itself, in the air, which smelled of petroleum, and in the gas flares that are a scalding feature of the injured landscape. Because of a host of political and economic ills triggered by the drilling, the Niger Delta is alive not with marine life but with violence – bands of tribal warriors wage an off-and-on war against one another and army troops.

Ecuador is another victim. After oil was discovered in its Oriente region in 1967, Texaco and a state-owned oil company operated an extraction program that, a quarter century later, had reduced parts of the Amazon to a deforested miasma of pollution and poverty. Chevron, which purchased Texaco, now faces a billion-dollar lawsuit accusing it of poisoning the land. Ecuador had a negligible foreign debt before oil was found but now owes $16 billion and, the greatest insult of all, more than 70 percent of the population now lives in poverty.

The harms suffered by these countries (and many others) are symptoms of what is known as the resource curse. Though it seems counterintuitive – countries with a lot of oil are lucky and rich, right? – a succession of studies, the most notable of which was conducted by the economists Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner, show that countries dependent on natural-resource exports experience lower growth rates than countries that have nonresource economies, and they suffer greater amounts of repression and conflict too. The reasons are complex – and there are exceptions to these dismal rules – but in general, a reliance on oil discourages investment in other industries, makes governments less responsive to the desires of citizens and fosters corruption by officials seeking and receiving funds that are not their due. An oil state is, almost by definition, a dysfunctional state.
nytimes.com

World is at its hottest since prehistory, say scientists

Hong Kong was hit by its most violent street clashes in more than 30 years last night as riot police fought running battles with protesters on the penultimate day of World Trade Organisation talks.

While negotiators inside the conference hall struggled to agree to a watered-down compromise on the future of global commerce, demonstrators outside ratcheted up their attempt to derail a deal that they believe sells poor countries short.
guardian.co.uk

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 – It would be “wholly imprudent” for the Supreme Court to hear Jose Padilla’s challenge to his military detention as an enemy combatant, the Bush administration told the court in urging the justices to dismiss Mr. Padilla’s case as moot now that the government plans to try him on terrorism charges in a civilian court.

In a brief filed late Friday, the administration argued that Mr. Padilla’s indictment last month by a federal grand jury has given him the “very relief” he sought when he filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in federal court. Any Supreme Court decision now on his petition, which a federal appeals court rejected in September, “will have no practical effect” on Mr. Padilla, the brief said.
nytimes.com

Sick, ain’t it?