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Cuba says ready to establish "healthy" relations with US
The Cuban government said Wednesday it is ready to establish "healthy" relations with the United States, which imposed a full unilateral embargo on the Caribbean country four decades ago.
"We have created an economic and social infrastructure, but above all, human capabilities that make us fully trust our opportunities to develop healthy relations with the United States," said Vice Foreign Trade Minister Pedro Padron, in an
interactive Internet forum.
But eventual changes in relations with the United States would not change the direction, nor the "deeply human sense of our social project," he said.
On the embargo, Padron said despite the US blockade, Cuba was maintaining trade relations with more than 170 countries from all over the world.
Nevertheless, he said, the blockade had taken its toll on
Cuban exports and Cuba lost 65 million US dollars last year due to higher-than-normal costs in transportation.
The sanctions also had an negative impact on the exchange
rate, which in turn affected prices of products when they were invoiced and collected in foreign currencies, he said. Cuba's national currency, the pesos, has much less purchasing power than the dollar.
Padron said losses from hiring services at higher-than-normal prices amounted to 400 million dollars last year.
Statistics showed that total losses caused by Washington's unilateral embargo had amounted to more than 72 billion dollars over the past four decades.
Venezuela sets date for referendum petition on Chavez presidency
Venezuela's elections council Wednesday set a date for the opposition to stage a petition demanding a recall referendum on Hugo Chavez's presidency.
The council announced it had scheduled a four-day period from Nov. 28 to Dec. 1 for opponents of leftist President Hugo Chavez to collect signatures to seek a referendum on his rule.
The announcement by Francisco Carrasquero, president of the National Electoral Council, came after Venezuela's opposition accused council officials of foot-dragging in setting a petition date. The council rejected an earlier petition for technical reasons.
Venezuelans can demand a recall halfway into a six year presidential term. According to the council, the earliest a presidential recall referendum could be held would be March.
Chavez, a former army paratrooper who led a botched 1992 coup, was elected in 1998 and re-elected to a six-year term in 2000 on an anti-poverty, populist platform. He survived a brief coup last year.
Chavez's opponents, who must gather more than 2.4 million signatures to request the recall, accuse him of amassing authoritarian power, threatening the news media and driving Venezuela's oil-based economy into the ground.
The United States and the Organization of American States endorse a presidential recall vote as a peaceful way to break a political deadlock that triggered the coup and a two-month
general strike earlier this year.
But Chavez has made clear that he intends to resist the referendum bid and insists that the next presidential election should be held as scheduled in 2006.
Colombian government mediator says meeting with rebels "positive"
A leading government mediator on Wednesday described as "positive" the meeting between guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and his negotiating commission on a possible swap of hostages for imprisoned rebels.
In a statement released Wednesday by Radio Caracol, Tunja Bishop Augusto Castro, who headed the government-backed Catholic Church commission, said their meeting with FARC rebels was "positive," even though it was only a "first little step toward" their goal.
FARC guerrillas only want to establish a security zone for the humanitarian prisoner exchange with the government, he said.
Noting that he preferred to call it a "security zone" instead of "demilitarized zone" as demanded by the FARC. the bishop said such a zone "is the minimum" the rebels seek "in order to proceed with the exchange."
While refusing to say when and under what circumstances the meeting between the commission and the guerrillas was held, he said it was "direct" and "of a high level" since the rebels attending the meeting were FARC commanders, including Raul Reyes.
The church emissaries met with the FARC guerrillas Tuesday to discuss the exchange of hundreds of prisoners, including at least 20 Colombian politicians.
The meeting is the first of its kind on the prisoner-for-hostage swap between the FARC and the Catholic Church commission since similar contacts between the government and rebels
collapsed in Feb. 2002.
The FARC has been insisting the government set up a demilitarized zone similar to the one it had controlled for three years until former president Andres Pastrana, frustrated by breakdowns in peace talks, ordered government troops to retake
the area.
The rebel group has demanded, as a prerequisite for the prisoner exchange, the demilitarization of the southern states of Caqueta and Putumayo, and a direct dialogue with President Alvaro
Uribe.
The FARC, the largest guerrilla group in the Andean country, with 17,000 combatants, has repeatedly expressed its willingness to reach a humanitarian agreement to release the 100 hostages it has kidnapped, many of whom are of political and military importance.
Colombia has been ravaged by a four-decade-old civil war, in which government forces, leftist guerrillas and far-right paramilitaries fight each other. An average of about 3,500
people, mostly civilians, are killed in the conflict every year.
MSF doctors say ambulances held up in Bolivia
The international non-governmental organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Wednesday expressed
its concern over difficulties faced by ambulances attending the injured during protests in Bolivia.
During the clashes between demonstrators and law-enforcement personnel, ambulances have been stopped and attacked, said the
MSF spokesperson in Bolivia, Silvia Moriana, citing reports from La Paz, the administrative capital of the Andean country.
Moriana asked the conflicting parties to allow access of medical vehicles to the conflict zones to attend the injured.
In some cases, ambulances had been stopped by demonstrators, who checked them to prevent police agents or members of the military from receiving attention.
Bolivians have staged a series of demonstrations protesting against governmental economic policy. In the past three weeks,
the clashes have caused more than 70 deaths.
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