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Chinese control of the Panama canal has fuelled wild speculation in the US as to Beijing's plans for this strategic piece of real estate. Though I am not party to Beijing's military intentions I do know that they do not include submarine bases or sabotage, both of which would be obviously self-defeating. On the contrary, the Chinese will, as former President Clinton inadvertently blurted out, bend "over backwards to make sure that they run it in a competent and able and fair manner." What matters, however, is not how the canal is managed but how Beijing will use the Hutchison...

Colombian troops backed by helicopters stormed a Marxist rebel camp in the country's northeast, killing 16 guerrillas, the army commander said on Saturday. Troops, following orders to crack down on Colombia's confusing array of illegal armed groups, also gunned down six far-right militiamen in Santander province, Gen. Carlos Alberto Ospina told local television. Troops overran a camp used by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- a Marxist rebel army known as FARC -- in Chita, Boyaca province, about 200 miles (300 km) northeast of Colombia's Andean mountain capital Bogota. "Sixteen FARC bandits were killed," Ospina said. "Their equipment was...

<p>CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) -- Venezuela declared war on Friday against what it called an unfair world trade system and urged developing nations not to subscribe to any new agreements at upcoming global trade talks next week.</p> <p>The world's No. 5 oil exporter made clear it would take an aggressive stance at September 10-14 World Trade Organization negotiations in Cancun, Mexico, which aim to lower barriers to world trade. Venezuela's chief trade negotiator Victor Alvarez said the world's poorest countries had only a tiny share of world exports, which were hogged by rich nations: "It's clear who are the winners and losers of today's world trade system."</p>

A day after blasting industrialized economies for allegedly wreaking environmental and financial woe on third world countries, Venezuela's leftist dictator received a verbal pummeling of his own Tuesday. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez spoke Monday at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, held in Havana, Cuba where one of Chavez' political allies - Fidel Castro - served as host. Chavez blamed globalism and what he called the "neo-liberal" policies of the industrialized world for the failures to address some of the major problems in Latin America and on the African continent. "What they have done is absolutely insignificant given the...

Over the last few weeks, Brazil suffered two institutional crises with far reaching consequences. They were sparked by statements and attitudes of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whose image was inevitably damaged. Political analysts point out Lula’s growing messianic and populist tone. He has now shed his moderate image adopted during his election campaign and first few months in power. They also note a growing climate of intolerance and confrontation in Brazil. The first crisis was unleashed by a speech in which Lula confronted both the Judiciary Branch and Congress, breaking the most basic rules of any democratic state....

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's government on Wednesday stepped up its offensive against an opposition bid to hold a referendum on his rule, calling for a criminal investigation into a group that collected pro-vote signatures. This followed comments by left-winger Chavez in Cuba on Tuesday that he would not accept opposition signatures calling for a poll, even if they were approved as legitimate by the country's newly appointed National Electoral Council. The government's verbal and legal offensive against the referendum bid stoked fears of renewed conflict in the world's No. 5 oil exporter, which has been rocked...

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela's high court late Monday denied ever ruling that President Hugo Chavez couldn't run if there are new elections, saying a statement purportedly from the court making that claim was a forgery. The court said that someone rewrote a sentence of a ruling, which had been given to reporters earlier Monday. It said that the forgery read that the justices had decided that Chavez wouldn't be able to run if he were to lose a possible recall referendum later this year. In a statement posted on its Web site late Monday, the court said that the ruling...

<p>Venezuela's Economy Shrank 9.4% in the Second Quarter (Update3) Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuela's economy shrank 9.4 percent during the three months ended in June, led by a decline in construction, as the country's worst recession on record entered a sixth quarter.</p>

Latin America’s fastest-growing faith resents terror allegations from U.S. By Michele Salcedo Staff Writer September 1, 2003 PORLAMAR, MARGARITA ISLAND, Venezuela -- Margariteños cannot figure out how their picturesque island off the coast of Venezuela became a battleground in the war on terrorism. No bomb ever exploded here, no shot fired. But the Bush administration has the island, and other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, under scrutiny as a place where terrorists might live, raise money or move contraband. "The television commentators are distorting information," said Sulenma Reyes, who, like other villagers of El Magüey, learned from television...

<p>The Bush administration plans to announce in the next few weeks a new set of Cuba initiatives to undermine the regime of Fidel Castro, the State Department's senior diplomat on Latin America said yesterday.</p> <p>"We are reviewing where we are in meeting the president's commitment to promote democratic change on the island," Roger Noriega, assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, said in an interview.</p>

<p>A videotape now under study by the FBI shows three Americans captured by Colombian rebels -- the first "proof of life" of the three since their plane crash-landed in rebel territory six months ago, officials said Thursday.</p> <p>The three American contract workers were seized by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, after the Feb. 13 landing in southern Colombia.</p>

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - The FBI has obtained a videotape of three apparently healthy Defense Department contractors captured by Colombian rebels when their light aircraft crashed in February, U.S. officials said on Thursday. The tape, which was obtained by a television documentary maker and handed over to the FBI as evidence, shows the three clean-shaven American men inside what appears to be a house, one official told Reuters. The video is the first proof of life for the three men since they were captured by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia when their Cessna crashed on a rugged hillside on...

<p>The Bush administration yesterday welcomed Venezuela's appointment of a new electoral agency as a first step toward resolving a long-running political crisis with a referendum on the presidency of Hugo Chavez.</p> <p>"We expect that this decision will facilitate the peaceful, democratic, constitutional and electoral solution to Venezuela's political crisis," said Philip Reeker, State Department spokesman.</p>

SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - A fresh bid to have Chile's former strongman Augusto Pinochet (news - web sites) face human rights charges failed on Wednesday when a panel of judges voted against taking away his immunity. "The petition to strip him of immunity was rejected by a vote of 15 to eight," Alfred Pfeiffer, president of the Appeals Court told reporters after a one-day hearing in the case of five Communist Party leaders kidnapped and presumed killed in 1976. Human rights lawyers who accused Pinochet of ordering the four men and one woman killed because they opposed his military government...

<p>Suspected rebels fired at a U.S. drug-spraying plane piloted by an American contractor, forcing the pilot to make a crash-landing that injured him, authorities said Wednesday.</p> <p>The plane was flying above the town of Santa Rosa, 220 miles north of Bogota, on Monday when it was hit by small-arms fire, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity. Colombian police are investigating which of the country's two main rebel groups are responsible.</p>

<p>Donald Rumsfeld's recent visit to Colombia is a welcome signal of solidarity toward America's most reliable Latin American ally in the war on terror.</p> <p>"The Colombians are in every sense holding up their side of the partnership against narcoterrorism, and so we are always trying to find ways that we can be helpful," the Secretary of Defense said in an interview en route to Bogota. Perhaps even some holdouts in the State Department will now get the message.</p>

<p>Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's trip to Colombia last week was preceded by visits made earlier this month by Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard B. Myersand U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick. There are a number of reasons why the Bush administration may be assigning this level of importance to Colombia, but Jim Garamone, writing for the American Forces Press Service, put it most succinctly: "The narcoterrorists already have a smuggling pipeline into the United States, and it is no stretch to imagine other terror groups allying themselves with the narcoterrorists, said U.S. Embassy officials."</p>

BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA - Just as momentum is building for President Alvaro Uribe's push to end Colombia's four-decade civil war, the country's two main leftist rebel groups have renewed their efforts to stop him. The 17,000-member Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the 5,000-member National Liberation Army (ELN) publicly declared on Monday that they had joined forces in their war against the government. Until the declaration, the ELN was thought to be amenable to a possible peace deal. The declaration comes at a time when Mr. Uribe is engaged in peace talks with right-wing paramilitaries and has proposed granting alternative...

CARACAS - Venezuela's Supreme Court has achieved the remarkable feat of uniting supporters and opponents of President Hugo Chávez in praise of its choice of members for the new national electoral council. The council now faces the delicate task of organizing a possible recall referendum against Chávez. The appointment of the five-member council, unveiled by the court late Monday, had been held up for months by a deadlock in the legislative National Assembly between the pro-Chávez majority and the opposition. ''We are confident this is the best decision,'' Chávez said Tuesday as he called on all sides to respect the...

Darkness had descended outside, and a bare light bulb illuminated Mayor Teófilo Torres in his office here as he explained the danger posed by the reemergence of the Shining Path guerrillas deep in the Peruvian jungle. ''Shining Path could enter San Francisco at any time and shoot me,'' Torres said. ``They look for the mayors first.'' A decade after the Shining Path was believed to have been vanquished, the guerrillas -- known in Peru by their Spanish name, Sendero Luminoso -- are making a comeback in a potentially dangerous alliance with traffickers of coca paste, the basic ingredient of cocaine,...