Monthly Archives: October 2010

Oct
25
2010
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Nuclear inter-governmental agency warns that verification is mandatory

nuclear Nuclear inter governmental agency warns that verification is mandatoryThis article was originally posted by El Universal.

Hugo Chávez said Saturday that Venezuela would not accept any external monitoring of its nuclear development plan, the Secretary General of the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (Opanal), Gioconda Ubeda Rivera, said that verification is mandatory.

The Costa Rican diplomat, who resides in Mexico, the host country of Opanal responded to questions from the Venezuelan leading newspaper El Universal. Opanal is an inter-governmental agency created by the Treaty of Tlatelolco (1967) to ensure that the nuclear non-proliferation obligations of the Treaty be met in Latin America and the Caribbean.“Countries that use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes are required to comply with a series of international agreements such as the Safeguards System of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which provides for the verification,” Ubeda said.

 

The senior officer added that the “verifications are one of the natural procedures established worldwide for the states that develop nuclear energy to allow the implementation of the IAEA safeguards.”

“The Treaty of Tlatelolco has 33 Member States from Latin America and the Caribbean. All of them signed the safeguards agreements with the IAEA, and all of them most comply with the control and verification rules adopted by the agency,” the Opanal secretary general said.

Ubeda said that “it is absolutely normal” that Venezuela intends to start developing the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in cooperation with Russia. She said that every country has the right to do so, provided that it fulfills international obligations.

 
Oct
25
2010
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Some thrive, others sink on land “rescued” by Chavez

This article was originally posted by Reuters

With red harvesters shearing rice and tall corn across the vast farm it should be a happy day in this young community, but Idelmaro Ceteno looks decidedly grumpy as the machines circle his land.

Ceteno, 61, is one of nearly a thousand farmers given land five years ago by the government of President Hugo Chavez on the El Charcote farm, a vast cattle ranch that until then belonged to one of Britain’s wealthiest families, the Vesteys.

He has about 60 acres (24 hectares) of prime land and access to cheap government loans to plant two harvests a year. State enterprises rent him farm machinery and sell him seeds, fertilizer and insecticide, all at low prices.

But he says yields could be 50 percent higher if El Charcote — which means “big puddle” in Spanish — were drained and if loans arrived soon enough to plant at the right time.

“I have a harvest, sure, but ideally we’d be producing more, looking for higher yields for sustainable agriculture,” Ceteno said, wearing a red shirt and cap in support of Chavez’s socialist party. “We recovered this land to grow on it.”

El Charcote became a symbol of Chavez’s socialist revolution when he sent soldiers to seize it in a 2005 push to break up major ranches and repopulate rural areas largely abandoned since Venezuela’s oil industry took off in the 1920s.

The government recently bought the last 500,000 acres (200,000 hectares) of Vestey land and 130,000 cattle, part of a new drive by Chavez to increase state control of food in South America’s top oil producer.

In the last five years, the state has expropriated and redistributed millions of acres of land deemed unproductive or without proper titles.

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Oct
22
2010
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US to keep close eye on Venezuela-Iran energy deals

This article was originally posted by the AFP

The United States will be vigilant of the energy cooperation deals made between Iran and Venezuela to make sure they do not violate sanctions against Tehran, the US State Department said Thursday.

“Venezuela like all countries has clear responsibilities,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters.

“We will watch to see if any of these deals amount to anything and if they do, whether they constitute a violation of the (UN) Security Council resolutions and sanctions against Iran.”

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday signed 11 deals with Tehran focused on energy cooperation between the two major oil producers and US foes. Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad both denounced American “imperialism” and called for a “new world order” during the visit, part of the South American leader’s international tour aimed at strengthening Venezuela’s economic ties with eastern Europe and the Middle East.

“It is hard for me to see how President Chavez’s current travel can be seen as constructive,” Crowley said.

“Venezuela has a right to pursue civilian nuclear energy,” Crowley added, though “it also has a responsibility to make sure that any nuclear program does not represent a proliferation risk.”

Earlier this week US President Barack Obama backed Venezuela’s efforts to develop nuclear power for civilian energy purposes after Caracas and Moscow signed a landmark deal.

Chavez clinched a deal in Moscow on Friday that will see Russia build and operate the first nuclear power plant in his country.