by the El Reportero
Michelle Bachelet
Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet sent a bill to congress this week calling time on an entrenched feature inherited from the Pinochet dictatorship: the appropriation for the military of 10 percent of copper export earnings.
The timing of the move is astute. It serves a dual purpose. On the domestic front, it should boost Eduardo Frei, the presidential candidate for the ruling Concertación, who is lagging in the polls with just three months until general elections.
This is because the opposition is split. Frei’s rival Sebastián Piñera favours annulling the law but the right-wing Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI) has misgivings. On the regional front, improving the transparency of military spending is a clear gesture to the nascent defence council of the Union of South American Nations (Unasur), and a response to Peru.
Chávez ends ‘rogue states’ tour in Moscow Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez arrived in Moscow, Russia on Sept. 9 on the second last leg of a two-week foreign trip that took him to Libya, Algeria, Syria, Iran, Turkmenistan and Belarus – with a quick detour to Venice, Italy for a red carpet moment with the US fi lm director Oliver Stone – before a fi nal stop in Madrid, Spain, tomorrow (11 September).The tour has raised eyebrows; however much of it was noise.
The US, nonetheless, has watched warily as Chávez has strengthened political, economic and security ties with Iran and Russia in particular.
D’Escoto, Obama to talk Cuban Five Case General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto will hold talks with U.S. President Barack Obama on the case of the fi ve Cuban antiterrorists imprisoned in the U.S.
The Nicaraguan diplomat will carry two letters signed by the relatives of the Cuban Five whose rights the U.S. overrides.
One letter protests the visas denied to Adriana Pérez and Olga Salanueva, the wives of Gerardo Hernández and René González, while the other will not be disclosed for the moment.
Guerrero’s mother Mirta González said the English copy sent to Obama “Letters of Love and Hope” shows the most humane side of the Five and hopes the gesture will help Obama become acquainted with the case.
