by the El Reportero’s news services
Hugo Chávéz
Moscow, Jul 22 – Upon his arrival in Russia Tuesday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez called for a multipolar world order, where countries have full rights to freedom.
Chávez told Prensa Latina being free is a hard task, but “it is our choice, an international order based on polycentrism, as Russian President Dmitri Medvedev says.”
The president recalled Simón Bolivar as saying nearly 200 years ago that only a balanced universe will allow for peace and respect for the peoples” independence.
“That is the way we are paving,” he added.
Referring to the importance of his sixth visit to Moscow since 2001, the Venezuelan leader highlighted it is the first since Medvedev was elected chief of State.
“We are going to get to know each other better,” he said.
That is one of the prospects of this new trip to the Russian Federation, Chávez remarked, and noted he is also looking forward to the meeting with now Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
The president sustained they support ever increasing strategic alliance in fields such as energy, due to the current world crisis, and added that agreements in oil, gas, petrochemistry, science, and technology will be signed.
Dmitri Medvedev
Mexican Senate ends oil debate
Mexico, Jul 22 – The inter-party difference over the future of the Mexican oil is the most evident re3sult of senatorial debates that conclude Tuesday in this country, after having focused political attention since May.
Despite the series of conferences presented in 20 forums to bury the hatchet, polarization continues among those who in the Legislature follow the Executive’s energy reform and those who reject it as privatization.
For Alejandro Frank Hoeflich, director of the Nuclear Sciences Institute at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, exchanges in the Senate flagged due to the timid hierarchy of criteria from the scientific community.
Alberto Montoya, academic of the Ibero-American University, questioned the limited treatment of the issue of national security in the parliament agenda.
The government’s initiative aims to subordinate the Mexican energy policy to the interests of global companies and the needs of US crude oil, stated Montoya.
Legislators are expected to define in coming days the dates for the decision process and voting on reform of the state oil company PEMEX presented by the Executive.
Bolivia, US in tense talks
La Paz, Jul 22 – Talks between Bolivia and the United States restart Tuesday in this capital amid tension from the former’s accusations on plotting and interference in the country’s internal affairs.
According to diplomatic sources, the northern nation’s Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America Thomas Shannon will arrive today.
Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca stated that the visitor could be welcomed at the Presidential Palace by the Head of State Evo Morales.
The meeting will take place after the Aymara statesman accused Washington and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) of plotting against this country, and in a moment of tension between both nations.
Last month coca workers from Chapare, Cochabamba, expelled representatives of USAID on charges of subversion.
Morales and other Executive members have repeatedly denounced the destabilizing campaign developed by that entity on several fronts.
(Prensa Latina contributed to this report.)
