Wonder of wonders -- Venezuela and Colombia still recognize each other

Actually, the only surprise in what Venezuela does anymore is that its radical leftist leader, President Hugo Chavez, hasn't gotten into any new trouble internationally. To the contrary, Venezuela appears to have become a more-or-less responsible member of the South American community of nations. Case in point: Tuesday's agreement to restore full diplomatic relations with its oft-estranged neighbor, U.S. ally Colombia. Chavez was in Santa Marta for Tuesday's ceremony announcing the resumption of relations and agreement to form commissions for economic and security cooperation between the two countries, according to Cable News Network (CNN). "I think we've taken a step forward in re-establishing confidence, which is one of the basic tenets of any relationship," Colombia's newly elected president, Juan Manuel Santos, said at the announcement, CNN reported. The countries have been arguing for years over allegations by former President Alvaro Uribe that Venezuela was harboring Marxist guerrillas seeking to overthrow Colombia's pro-U.S. government. Chavez was particularly aggrieved by Colombia's 2008 raid on rebel camps across the border in Ecuador, and by last year's military agreement between Colombia and the United States. Santos was Colombia's defense minister in the Uribe government. But both countries' leaders were all smiles Tuesday. "I came here to turn the page," Chavez said, according to CNN. There are billions of dollars in trade at stake. Bilateral trade between Caracas and Bogota reached $7.3 billion in 2008 but has fallen sharply since then as relations between the countries soured, CNN said.

Leftist Morales expected to win again in Bolivia

The aftershocks of the eight-year term of former U.S. President George W. Bush are still reverberating in South America, where Bolivia's leftist president, Evo Morales, is expected to win a second term in office and his Movement Toward Socialism party to win control of Congress. Morales, a self-proclaimed admirer of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro and an ally of Venezuela's anti-U.S. leader Hugo Chavez, is wildly popular among the 60 percent of Bolivians who live in poverty but has attracted the ire of the country's business elite. Morales is the first Andean Indian to be elected the country's president, and his re-election probably will lead to more government control over the economy, according to the Reuters international news service. The former coca leaf farmer and llama herder has already nationalized the country's energy and mining industries, and used the income to give cash payments to schoolchildren, new mothers and the elderly, Reuters said. Morales, known for fiery speeches in which he rails against capitalism and calls the United States "the empire," also was successful in changing Bolivia's constitution to allow him to run for a second term, as have other South American leaders. Morales faced two more-conservative challengers, Manfred Reyes Villa, a former governor, and Samuel Doria Medina, who made a fortune in the cement business. Reyes Villa, the stronger challenger, contended during the campaign that Morales was bent on accumulating more and more power, Reuters said. "What's in play in this election is democracy," he said. Bolivia's economy is expected to grow nearly 3 percent in 2009 despite the global economic downturn, the continent's most robust growth rate, Reuters said.

Antigua and Barbuda beneficiaries of the 'other' Hugo Chavez

What does it mean that Venezuela's virulently anti-United States president, Hugo Chavez, just gave $50 million to help the Caribbean two-island country of Antigua and Barbuda cope with financial losses from the collapse of a bank owned by Texas billionaire Allen Stanford? Antigua's prime minister, Baldwin Spencer, announced Thursday that Venezuela had agreed to loan the tiny country $50 million on favorable terms to help it weather the crisis. "Today, I am pleased to advise the nation that at one o'clock this morning President Hugo Chavez signed the necessary paperwork to approve the immediate transfer of the full amount of $50 million to the government's call account at the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank," Spencer said, according to the Reuters international news service. Spencer led Antigua to join the Chavez-inspired ALBA alliance of leftist Latin American countries two months ago, an alliance that includes Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba, which was created as an alternative to U.S. economic influence in Latin America, Reuters said. Aiding Antigua is another way for Chavez to gain influence in the region, since the United States has not offered such aid because it believes Antigua's government was involved in a $7 billion fraud allegedly perpetrated by Stanford through his Antigua-based Stanford International Bank. The U.S. Justice Department handed down indictments in June accusing Stanford, three bank executives at the bank and Antigua's chief bank regulator with complicity in the fraud. Investors from the United States, Mexico, Colombia and Peru have sued Antigua for $24 billion, accusing the country of helping the fraud. Venezuelan investors also lost money in the investment scheme, which involved certificates of deposit from the bank, Reuters said. Antigua is a member of another Chavez-inspired group, PetroCaribe, which allows poor countries in the region buy oil on credit. This is not the first time Chavez's dislike for the United States has "encouraged" him to help his neighbors -- hopefully, it won't be the last.

Venezuela and Colombia break diplomatic relations

News from Caracas that Venezuela will withdraw its ambassador from Colombia and "freeze relations" with its neighbor should be no surprise to U.S. residents and can even be seen as reassuring. The cantankerous disagreements between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and former U.S. President George W. Bush reflected badly on the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, given how well Chavez seemed to get along with others. Now, the Bush administration looks a lot better. Tensions began rising Monday between Venezuela and Colombia, a staunch U.S. ally, over Bogota's announcement that it had found weapons in the hands of Marxist rebels that had originally been purchased by Venezuela. "I've ordered to withdraw our ambassador from Bogota, to withdraw our diplomatic personnel," Chavez said in a televised Cabinet meeting, according to the Reuters international news service. "We will freeze relations with Colombia." Colombia's government has been battling FARC insurgents since the 1960s. Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos said his government would investigate how the antitank weapons got to FARC but had no comment on the severing of diplomatic relations with Venezuela, Reuters said. Chavez called allegations that his country sold the antitank missiles to FARC a "big manipulation," Reuters said, and said Venezuela would import farm products from other countries. Venezuela and Colombia have a recent history of sour diplomatic relations despite billions of dollars in trade annually. According to Reuters, Chavez believes Colombia's invitation to host U.S. troops to fight drug trafficking is a threat to his government. But Chavez also needed to bolster his popularity, which has suffered in the past year as falling oil price crimped government spending, Reuters said. In 2008, the two countries massed troops along their long border after Colombia bombed a rebel camp in Ecuador.

Honduras takes giant step backward -- military coup topples leftist government

No doubt, the military geniuses who engineered Sunday's dawn overthrow of the democratically elected president of Honduras, leftist Manuel Zelaya, thought they were doing the right thing. And maybe they were. The Supreme Court said it had ordered military commanders to remove the president after he precipitated a political crisis last week by firing the armed forces chief, Gen. Romero Vasquez, over a disagreement about a national election Zelaya had called in an effort to change the constitution to allow him to run again, according to the Reuters international news service. Zelaya was put on a plane and flown to exile in Costa Rica over objections from the United States, the European Union and other nations; and the Honduran legislature named Roberto Micheletti, a member of Zelaya's Liberal Party, as the new president of the poor Central American nation. Micheletti immediately declared a curfew for Sunday and Monday nights as the streets of the capital, Tegucigalpa, filled with pro-Zelaya protesters, Reuters said. U.S. President Barack Obama called for the reinstatement of Zelaya but Micheletti refused, Reuters said. "I don't think anybody here, not Barack Obama and much less Hugo Chavez, has the right to come and threaten," Micheletti said. It was Zelaya's growing relationship with Chavez, the leftist Venezuelan president famous for his angry anti-U.S. rhetoric, that appears to have upset the generals, Reuters said. The court ordered Zelaya's removal, saying he had exceeded his authority by firing Vasquez. The coup was a rather painful reminder of the political turmoil that characterized Central American governments last century, but which had calmed down in the past few decades as democracies became firmly established. The United States still has 600 troops stationed at Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras, Reuters said.

Venezuela turns attention to soda pop

Nice to see Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez still has a sense of humor. Chavez's government, which has in the last few years concerned itself with harsh criticism of the United States while cracking down on critics at home, banned the sale of Coke Zero today and ordered the product removed from store shelves. "The product should be withdrawn from circulation to preserve the health of Venezuelans," Health Minister Jesus Mantilla told the government news agency, the Reuters international news service reported. The ban appears to be in line with recent nationalizations and stepped-up government examination of businesses operating, Reuters said. Venezuela has seized two Cargill facilities and threatened U.S. drug giant Pfizer this year. Coca-Cola Co. introduced Coke Zero in Venezuela in April, around the same time that CocaCola Femsa of Mexico announced that it would increase its sale of low-calorie sodas, Reuters said. Chavez had toned down the anti-U.S. rhetoric since the election of Barak Obama, and even hugged the U.S. leader at the Summit of the Americas conference in Trinidad and Tobago in April. Chavez and former U.S. President George W. Bush were famously opposed to each other, with Chavez calling Bush a "devil" at the United Nations in 2006.

Top U.S. official attends inauguration of leftist as president of El Salvador

Just in case anyone still thought things hadn't changed in Washington, word comes from San Salvador that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attended Monday's inauguration of Mauricio Funes as president of El Salvador. Funes is the leader of the FLMN, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, the formerly Marxist group that fought a bloody civil war against a series of U.S.-backed governments in the Central American country from 1980 to 1992. The United States was one of 75 nations that sent representatives to the inauguration, according to the Reuters international news service. ""It's a real testament to the strength and durability of democracy in the Americas," Clinton said Sunday as she arrived in El Salvador for a three-day visit to Latin America, Reuters said. Funes said the leftist government he would lead would work with the United States on regional issues such as migration and drug smuggling, and said he would not model himself after anti-U.S. leaders Hugo Chavez of Venezuela or Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. Chavez and Ortega did not attend the inauguration, Reuters said. Funes' cabinet will have more pro-business officials than ex-guerillas, Reuters said. Funes said in his inauguration address that he would work to restore relations with Cuba, a possible source of friction with the United States, which does not have diplomatic relations with Havana despite recent developments. Clinton also is scheduled to travel to Honduras for a meeting of the Organization of American States, at which a majority of members are expected to push to readmit Cuba over U.S. objections. Funes' election in March ended two decades of rule by the pro-U.S. ARENA party. More than 75,000 people, many of them civilians, died in the El Salvador civil war, Reuters said.

Nothing comes easy in post-Bush era foreign policy

News that socialist Rafael Correa easily won re-election as president of Ecuador on Sunday should give pause to the inner circle around U.S. President Barack Obama, since it means they will have to work harder to contain damage from the Bush administration. No doubt, the White House had hoped that Correa, a pal of anti-U.S. rhetoric spouting Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, would at least suffer a setback in this election that would slow him down. Instead, Correa got a majority of the vote in the eight-candidate field, avoiding a runoff for the first time since democracy was restored in Ecuador in 1979, according to the Reuters international news service. The leftist Correa, popular in Ecuador for socialist policies that took hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign countries drilling for offshore oil or managing banana plantations and putting the money into pensions, schools and health care, money to the poor, successfully pushed a constitutional amendment enabling him to run for a third term in 2013. "This revolution is on the march, and nobody and nothing can stop us," the 46-year-old president said in Guayaquil, his hometown. "The people ... have given us the most splendorous victory of probably the last 50 years." Correa's major rivals included former president Lucio Gutierrez and billionaire Alvaro Noboa. Correa caused a stir in the West last year by defaulting on billions of dollars in debt, closing a U.S. airbase used for anti-drug flights and expelling two U.S. diplomats he accused of spying.

Problem solved: Venezuela wants Gitmo detainees

Problem solved. Just when it looked as if there was no way out for the United States short of living up to its principles and accepting never-convicted inmates when the detention center closes at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base on Cuba, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced Thursday that his country would be willing to accept any former prisoners. "We would not have any problem with receiving a human being," said a government news release quoting an interview gave to Al-Jazeera television on Wednesday, according to Cable News Network (CNN). Chavez also said he hoped the United States would return the land on which the naval base is located to Cuba. The United States acquired the land for the Guantanamo base in 1903 after the Spanish-American War of 1898. Then-President George W. Bush opened the detention center in 2002 to hold what he characterized as "enemy combatants" captured in the so-called war on terror. The new administration of Barack Obama, which took over the White House in January, has not disclosed its plans for the prisoners when the detention center closes. Obama has pledged to close the prison.