[NYTr] The 62nd UN Gen Assmbly & Latin Amer - Roundup Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2007 17:12:04 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit AP via Wash. Post - Sep 25, 2007 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/25/AR2007092500613.html Venezuela's Chavez Skips UN Gathering CARACAS, Venezuela -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he will not attend the U.N. General Assembly this week, one year after he captured the world's attention when he called President Bush "the devil" during the gathering of world leaders. Chavez told state television late Monday that he is unable to attend this year due to a packed agenda at home in Venezuela, and has sent Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro in his place, the state-run Bolivarian News Agency reported Tuesday. The Venezuelan leader, who is expecting a visit from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad later this week, said he spoke by phone with the Iranian leader on Monday after his tense showdown at Columbia University in New York. "I congratulate him, in the name of the Venezuelan people, before a new aggression of the U.S. empire," Chavez said, adding that it seemed Ahmadinejad was the subject of "an ambush." *** Reuters - September 25, 2007 http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2536129920070925 Chavez says to skip U.N. meet after 2006 sulfur ire CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he will skip this week's U.N. General Assembly, one year after he told the annual meeting of heads of state in a speech that U.S. President George W. Bush was the devil. Chavez, who hosts Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad later this week, had been due to deliver a speech on Wednesday at the gathering at the United Nations' headquarters in New York. But the self-styled socialist revolutionary, whose foreign policy focuses on using oil ties to build alliances against U.S. "imperialism," said he was too busy to make the meeting, according to a presidency statement issued late on Monday. Last year, Chavez angered many Americans and drew charges from Republicans and Democrats alike that he was uncouth after he told the U.N. chamber he could still smell sulfur at the podium following Bush's speech there a day earlier. Chavez says he did not plan the remark but that he became emotional and spoke from the heart as he thought about Bush's foreign policy in places like Iraq. Diplomats say the speech cost Venezuela a two-year seat on the U.N. Security Council because it swayed many countries to vote against the OPEC nation's bid in what was a major foreign policy goal for Chavez last year. Chavez clashes with Washington over everything from free trade to crude oil prices to arms deals, even though Venezuela is major oil supplier to the United States. U.S. officials say the man who calls Cuban leader Fidel Castro his mentor undermines Venezuela's democracy and is a destabilizing influence in the region. *** The Los Angeles Times - September 26, 2007 http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-ed-speech26sep26,1,2960949.story Liberty vs. equality at the U.N. President Bush's freedom agenda butted up against Third World complaints about inequality The clash between North and South America is as enduring as ever, but its rhetoric is evolving. Gone are the crude tirades about imperialist oppression and the exploitation of the world's poor by greedy corporations. Now it's all about the competition between liberty, the preeminent value championed by President Bush, and equality, the primary concern of his leading ideological adversaries, presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Bush laid out his liberty agenda before the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. He ably anchored his argument in the U.N.'s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1 of which states, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." He said the U.N. must promote freedom "from tyranny and violence, hunger and disease, illiteracy and ignorance, and poverty and despair." He went on to scold unnamed "extremists" and name the names of tyrannical or violent regimes worldwide: Belarus, North Korea, Syria, Iran, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Sudan and Cuba. (The Cubans, as is their habit, walked out and released a statement calling Bush a "criminal" who has "no moral authority to judge any other country.") Bush is to be applauded for having the courage, in the face of criticism of his own human rights record, to speak the truth to the assembled tyrants. Yet he failed to mount a compelling response to a compelling moral challenge facing the United States: How to lessen the global inequality that, more than freedom, tops the political agenda in the developing world? The inequality agenda was clear in speeches this week about climate change, the theme of this year's General Assembly. While leaders from the industrialized world droned on about the need for action, the developing world's heads of state delivered a stark message: You're creating the warming, but we're the ones who are going to suffer most from it. "It is unacceptable that the cost of the irresponsibility of a privileged few be shouldered by the dispossessed of the Earth," Lula said. He also lambasted "farm subsidies that make the rich richer and the poor poorer" and attacked as "anachronistic, predatory and senseless" the notion "that profits and wealth can grow forever, at any cost." *** AP via The New York Times - Sep 25, 2007 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-UN-Ortega.html Nicaraguan Leader Rails at U.S. Hegemony The Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega accused the U.S. of imposing a worldwide dictatorship and defended the right of Iran and North Korea to pursue nuclear technology in a speech Tuesday before the U.N. General Assembly meeting. Ortega also angrily denounced President Bush for criticizing Cuban leader Fidel Castro during his speech earlier in the day. Ortega, who took office in January, said little had changed since he last addressed the world body as the Marxist leader of Nicaragua's Sandinista-run government two decades ago. ''The presidents of the U.S. change. And they may come to office with the greatest of intentions and they may feel that they are doing good for humanity, but they fail to understand that they are no more than instruments of one more empire in a long list of empires that have been imposed on our planet,'' Ortega said, waving his arms. Ortega had started off addressing the central theme of this year's General Assembly meeting -- climate change -- but he quickly launched into a tirade against global capitalism, meandering from his notes and speaking well beyond his allotted 15 minutes. The world is under ''the most impressive, huge dictatorship that has existed -- the empire of North America,'' he said. An ''imperialist minority is imposing global capitalism to impoverish us all and impose apartheid against Latin American immigrants and against African immigrants.'' He said the United States, as the only country to have used nuclear bombs in a war, was in no position to question the right of Iran and North Korea to pursue nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. ''And even if they want nuclear power for purposes that are not peaceful, with what right does (the U.S.) question it?'' Ortega added. During his election campaign, Ortega pledged to maintain ties with Washington but he also has reached out to Iran and Venezuela, which are courting allies in their fight against U.S. influence. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Nicaragua in January, and Ortega went to Iran in June. Earlier Tuesday, leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales defended his own nation's ties with Iran, saying he is eager for Iranian help in developing the natural gas industry. Ahmadinejad plans to travel to Bolivia on Wednesday to sign cooperation accords with Morales, then travel to Venezuela to meet with leftist President Hugo Chavez. Ortega's speech recalled last year's U.N. speech by Chavez, who caused a storm by calling Bush the ''devil.'' Chavez is not attending this year. Ortega did not directly insult Bush. But he came to the ailing Castro's defense moments after Bush declared that ''in Cuba, the long rule of a cruel dictatorship is nearing its end.'' Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque walked out of the assembly in protest. ''And we heard from the president of the United States this morning a total lack of respect when he spoke of Cuba,'' Ortega said. ''Fidel Castro has shown great solidarity with humanity.'' * ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us Our main website: http://www.blythe.org List Archives: http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ Subscribe: http://blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr =================================================================