Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Bolivian President Carlos Mesa and Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo will next Wednesday first inaugurate the Friendship Bridge linking the Brazilian city of Brasilia and the Bolivian city of Cobija, before laying the cornerstone for the Brazil-Peru border bridge, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

The two bridges will give an immediate boost to the economy of central America, said the ministry.

The projects will also help improve the living conditions of local people by promoting cultural and economic exchanges as well as movement of people and goods.

During the summit, the three presidents will also discuss issues of common interests, particularly those related to the common borders of the three countries.
 

Ecuadorian foundation to be observer of Venezuelan referendum
Ecuador's Guayasamin Foundation announced Saturday that it will join the Group of International Electoral Observers of the First Presidential Referendum in Venezuela scheduled for Aug. 15.

Members of the foundation Alfredo Vera and Pablo Guayasamin will travel to Caracas on Tuesday at the formal invitation of Venezuela's National Electoral Council.

Vera said they will be joined in Venezuela by Ecuadorian writers Raul Perez, Thiago de Mello and Fernando Cazon who are also members of the foundation's delegation. The representatives will stay in Caracas till Aug. 16.

Vera considered the invitation as a great honor for the foundation because "they will witness a new and transcending event for Latin American politics."

Venezuela is the only country in the continent with a constitution providing for presidential revocation as a democratic mechanism to defend sovereignty, he said.

Under the Venezuelan Constitution, in order to oust President Hugo Chavez, the opposition has to collect votes equal or higher than those obtained by the president in the 2000 election, which mean at least 3.7 million votes.

Among the 3.4 million collected by the Venezuelan opposition, 1.9 million anti-Chavez signatures had been validated to seek a recall referendum against Chavez while the others were declared invalid as some names and identifications were similar.

Chavez, who was elected in 1998 and reelected to a six-year term in 2000, has been accused by his opponents of wrecking Venezuela's economy.
 

Bomb explodes in Colombia, injuring at least 21
A bomb exploded in Medellin, the second largest city of Columbia, on Sunday, injuring at least 21 people, including seven children.

A spokesman for the Medellin government said thousands of citizens crowded the city center to watch the singing, dancing and parade marking the 47th Flowers Festival of Columbia.

When the paraders were crossing a bridge, a bomb placed on it beforehand suddenly exploded, injuring 21 people, 10 of them seriously.

Police and Red Cross aid workers rushed to the scene and took the wounded to nearby hospitals. Police also sealed off the scene and sent forces there to control the traffic.

So far, no group or individual has claimed responsibility for the explosion. But police assumed that it was done by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the largest rebel group in the country.

Colombia has been plagued by a four-decade-old civil war, in which leftist rebels, far-right paramilitaries and government troops fight one another. According to official statistics, about 3,500 people are killed every year and most of them are civilians.

At present, the two guerrilla groups FARC and the National Liberation Army of Colombia are still fighting government forces.
 

US hostage beheading video is hoax
A video aired Saturday that purportedly showed an American being decapitated in Iraq was a hoax.

The man shown in the video, reached by The Associated Press in San Francisco, said he videotaped the staged beheading at his friend's house using fake blood.

According to Sunday's CRI online, 22 year old Benjamin Vanderford said he began distributing the video on the Internet months ago in hopes of drawing attention to his one-time campaign for city supervisor. When his political aspirations waned, he thought the video would serve as social commentary.

On the tape, Vanderford sat on a chair in a dark room, his hands behind his back, trembling and rocking back and forth. The tape showed a hand with a knife cutting at the motionless man's neck, but did not show any militants.

He said he wanted to say by the video that Iraq should be left alone and the occupation should stop.

The videotape was posted on a militant Web site and aired on Arab television Saturday. Vanderford was clad in a T-shirt, not the orange jumpsuit that other hostages have been dressed in.