NEW YORK, CMC – Secretary of the United States’ Homeland Security Department, Janet Napolitano, has warned passengers at John F. Kennedy International Airport to schedule extra hours for travel as the department faces a 5 percent cut in the US federal budget battle.
Napolitano told reporters that while passengers at New York’s airports are yet feel the impact of spending cuts that went into effect on Friday, security lines at airports in other cities, including Los Angeles and Chicago, were already twice as long .
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CARACAS -- Hundreds of thousands of President Hugo Chávez’s followers waited hours in a three-mile-long line Thursday to file past the late leader’s coffin as Cuban leader Raúl Castro and other presidents arrived to attend Friday’s state funeral.
Castro’s unexpected arrival in the early afternoon at the Simon Bolivar International Airport was broadcast live by the official Venezuelan television network VTV. He was greeted by Foreign Minister ElĂas Jaua and a small military honor guard, but did not make public comments.
WASHINGTON, CMC – The United States on Wednesday joined the global community in expressing sadness over the passing of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
Chávez, the firebrand socialist and avowed enemy of the United States who transformed politics in his native country, died Tuesday at 58. He had struggled with cancer for almost two years.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - Readers of these columns are well aware that we have always been critical of the undemocratic actions of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. For we hold firmly to the view that democracy demands the co-existence of opposing views, and people should not be punished for dissent.
No one can deny that President Chavez is loved by Venezuela's poor and working class because his wealth redistribution policies have helped many of them.
If you wanted to get large numbers of people actively engaged in helping to solve global warming, how might you go about it? For years, the main approach in the environmental movement has been to sound the alarm bell and implore people to consume less, switch to green products, recycle, and speak up to companies and politicians. It hasn’t always been an easy sell. However, if the approach of a promising Oakland-based start-up takes hold, there may be another line of action that could become available to ordinary people_ directly financing renewable energy.
CARACAS -- President Hugo Chávez won an additional six-year term in October but was never sworn in. When he died Tuesday, after an 18-month battle with cancer, it revived questions about exactly who should be in charge of this oil-rich nation until new elections can be held. The constitution says that if a president dies before taking office, then the head of the National Assembly, in this case, Diosdado Cabello, should take charge and oversee elections within 30 days.
St. John’s Antigua- The country is to observe three days of mourning for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who died after a two-year battle with cancer on Tuesday. Flags across the nation will also be flown at half-mast in tribute to the flamboyant leftist leader, described by the Prime Minister as a “positive symbol of hope” for the region. PM Baldwin Spencer, in making the announcement last night, said the Caribbean owed Venezuela a “debt of gratitude” in return for Chavez’s generous fiscal policies which pumped money into several struggling nations.
Hugo Chávez was a perpetual thorn in the side of the United States, sounding a constant drumbeat of anti-U.S. rhetoric and urging his Latin American compatriots to forge an independent, Washington-less path. And he drove home his points by force of personality and generosity with Venezuela’s oil wealth.
He formed and was the driving force behind regional alliances, was an ideological wellspring for the Latin American left, and exchanged regional influence for oil subsidies, favorable financing and outright donations.
HAVANA, Cuba, CMC – The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) says no Caribbean student had been killed in a vehicular accident here over the last weekend.
“The CARICOM Heads of Mission in Havana seeks to clarify that news reports which claim that five students had been killed in a vehicular accident in Cuba are misleading,” according to a statement issued by the grouping here on Tuesday.
“The Caucus further wishes to assure the parents of students on scholarship in Cuba that no Caribbean student died in the accident,” the release said.
WASHINGTON, CMC - The United States Department of State says it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Belize to protect the country’s cultural heritage. It said the MOU for five years “demonstrates a commitment by both governments to staunch the pillage and illicit trafficking of Belize’s archaeological heritage of African, indigenous Maya, Spanish, and British influences”.