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Iran is “moving closer” to being able to build a nuclear bomb, U.S. envoy Glyn Davies said to the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog agency on Wednesday. Davies told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran, which insists its atomic program is for peaceful purposes, almost or already has enough low-enriched uranium to produce a bomb, which could be enriched to weapons-grade. “We have serious concerns that Iran is deliberately attempting, at a minimum, to preserve a nuclear weapons option,” Davies told the IAEA’s 35-nation governing board. This would be “a dangerous and destabilizing possible break-out capacity,” said Davies. Earlier this week, the IAEA reported that it was at a “stalemate” with Iran over its nuclear enrichment program. “Iran has not suspended its enrichment-related activities or its work on heavy-water related projects as required by the Security Council,” agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Monday. While the Iranian nuclear program will be a priority when the UN General Assembly meets later this month, in a recent interview with the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, ElBaradei was quoted as saying that “in many ways, I think the [Iranian nuclear] threat has been hyped.” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country is willing to cooperate on the “peaceful use” of nuclear energy, and this week handed over new proposals to the major powers working to resolve the dispute over its program. The proposals, which were given to the five permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany, include compromises on security, economic, and nuclear issues, according to Aliasghar Soltanieh, Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA. However, Iran refuses to negotiate on what it sees as its right to develop nuclear technology.

The South African Development Community (SADC) called for an end to international sanctions on Zimbabwe as it concluded this week’s summit. The regional bloc, whose leaders met for two days in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, noted progress by Zimbabwe’s government in implementing the terms of a power-sharing agreement, which was set out last September in the wake of violently disputed election results. It urged the international community to unconditionally lift all sanctions against Zimbabwe, rejecting a proposal by Zimbabwe’s prime minister and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to condition their removal upon the results of a special assessment meeting. “Considering the positive evolution of the situation, considering the progress that has been made, we believe it is now high time that the sanctions are lifted,” said incoming SADC Chairman and Congolese President Joseph Kabila. This call, explained Deputy President of South Africa Kgalema Motlanthe, “is meant to attract the necessary investment into Zimbabwe so that their economic recovery plan can take effect.” However, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has countered that it is too soon to remove the sanctions, which are intended to pressure President Robert Mugabe’s government to honor its democratic obligations. Doing so now will benefit the very people they were meant to punish, says HRW’s Georgette Gagnon: “The levers of power are still very much in the hands of the oppressors…. [Mugabe] has managed to persuade SADC to call for the end to sanctions without making any significant improvement in the human rights situation in Zimbabwe.”

Before leaving for a trip to Russia, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez suggested that Belarus should form a “union” with his country. “We need to create a new union of republics,” Chavez said. “This will not be a union of Soviet or socialist republics. It will be free republics with their own systems, but united in a union.” Both Belarus and Venezuela are wary of Western influence within their countries. Chavez was in Belarus meeting with his counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, before he was scheduled to meet with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin Thursday. Chavez and the Russian leaders are expected to discuss deals on Russian arms and military vehicles. Venezuela has become a leading buyer of Russian arms, purchasing more than $4 billion worth of Russian weapons since 2005. The talks may also focus on joint plans to develop a large oil field in Venezuela’s Orinoco River region. A number of Russian oil companies plan to work with Petroleos, a Venezuelan national oil company, to develop the site, which could potentially hold 1.2 trillion barrels of crude.

South Korean officials are accusing the North of intentionally flooding the southern side of the demilitarized zone, in a deluge that swept away six people on Sunday. “I think the North did it intentionally,” South Korea’s unification minister told the Korea Times. North Korean officials admitted that they had released the water, which amounted to millions of cubic meters from the North’s Hwanggang Dam, but said they did it only to offset rising waters on its side. South Korean officials have demanded an apology, noting there had been no recent heavy rain in the North that would explain such a surge. The current row between the two countries comes after a number of signs of easing tensions between the two countries, which included easing restrictions on cross-border traffic last month.

No doubt about it, U.S. President Barack Obama and his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chávez, stole the spotlight at this weekend’s Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.

Pictures of the two men smiling and shaking hands made front pages of newspapers throughout the hemisphere, and Chávez’s gift of “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent” by Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano to Obama propelled the book to best seller status at Amazon.com.

Both men professed to want closer relations, ending nearly a decade of mutual suspicion and distrust during which Chávez once made headlines by calling former U.S. President George W. Bush “the devil” at the United Nations and accusing Washington of plotting his overthrow and assassination. Likewise, the Bush administration repeatedly charged Chávez with destabilizing the region through his populist actions.

As late as last month, Chávez, who has built his populist presidency on opposition to U.S. policies, called Obama an “ignoramus” and said he was no different than Bush. Hours after the summit, Chávez changed tack, saying he welcomed the possibility of the two countries exchanging ambassadors again—although both countries expelled senior diplomats in September.

The honeymoon may be short-lived as the new bonhomie coincides with Chávez’s increasingly aggressive attacks against his opponents and his country’s press following his electoral victory in February that paved the way for him to serve indefinitely as the country’s president.

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Hopes that an Obama presidency could thaw ties between the United States and Venezuela are quickly receding after President Hugo Chávez called the U.S. president an “ignoramus” this past weekend.

Chávez went on the offensive Sunday, during his weekly broadcast over remarks President Barack Obama made two months ago criticizing the Venezuelan leader for supporting Colombian guerillas and being an obstacle to regional progress.

The new Chávez offensive coincides with stepped up attacks against the country’s opposition and fresh overtures to Moscow, including the offer of Venezuelan airfields for Russian long-range bombers. It also dents rumors of an impending thaw in ties between the two countries after Chávez’s meeting last week with U.S. Congressman William Delahunt.

Chávez’s blunt talk may be intended to take away some of Obama’s thunder at next month’s Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, when the two leaders will be jockeying for position and press attention.

The Venezuelan head of state, who wants to be acknowledged as a regional leader, may also be smarting after Obama met Brazilian President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva earlier this month, signaling that the new U.S. administration’s principal focus in Latin America is, for now, Brazil.

Chávez, who just won voter approval last month to abolish the country’s presidential term limits, may also be attempting a preemptive strike as differences with Washington are bound to increase in the coming weeks. (The de facto leader of the Venezuelan opposition, Manuel Rosales, is expected to be arrested for alleged corruption within days, which will inevitably raise political tensions in the country and raise charges of political repression.)

Chávez has also sought to limit the power of opposition governors, who won five states in last year’s election, taking control of the three largest, as well as Caracas and Maracaibo, the two biggest cities. Now, however, the country’s National Assembly, which is overwhelmingly controlled by the president’s followers, has talked about creating a post of vice president to oversee the country’s capital—which would in effect strip a major Chávez critic, Mayor Antonio Ledezma, of any real power.

To further bind the hands of the opposition, the assembly also rewrote the country´s Decentralization Law, stripping local states of their control over ports, airports, and highways, an important source of revenue. Chávez seems to be hoping that the cut off in revenue to opposition-led states will lead to a voter revolt and the possible recall of anti-Chávez governors.

Meanwhile, the president is stepping up efforts to dampen dissent as the economy falters in the face of falling revenue from oil sales. He earlier removed police, hospitals, and schools from control of regional authorities. Such steps, which have been widely criticized by the country’s opposition as well as international organizations, will likely be questioned by President Obama in future international forums.

Given the war of words that may ensue, Chávez may think it better to step away now from pursuing any thaw in ties, especially as the chances of success seem to be diminishing. Read the rest of this entry »

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez had much to crow about following Sunday’s decision by voters to back his proposal to abolish term limits, enabling him to run for re-election in 2012.

Chávez, who first won election in 1998, called the vote a fresh mandate for his “socialist” revolution. The victory, which is the fourteenth he or his supporters have enjoyed in 15 elections since 1998, paid tribute to his political skills.

When he first announced plans to put a proposal to repeal constitutional term limits (an earlier effort in December 2007 failed) to a fresh vote, polls showed his request likely to be rejected. But with massive state spending, heavy saturation of the country’s air waves, and the helpful indulgence of the national election agency, he coasted to a 10 percentage point victory. Chávez was also helped by the lack of a strong strategy from the opposition.

And finally Chávez, who remains personally popular—although his government is not—made the issue into a personal referendum. He repeatedly told supporters that if he lost the vote, the opposition would then seek to recall him.

“My political future is in play today,” Chávez told supporters after casting his ballot.

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As voters head to the polls in Venezuela this weekend, the larger-than-life persona of Hugo Chávez looms heavy over the proceedings—now, and potentially, for years to come. Venezuelans will vote on a referendum to abolish term limits, which would clear the way for Chávez to run for president indefinitely.

A close vote, leaning either in favor or against the referendum, would inconclusively answer the question of whether elected officials in the executive and legislative branches of government can seek reelection. Yet this is the likely outcome of the February 15 referendum, in which a simple majority of the population could further erode the tradition of single term limits in the country. Under Chávez, who was first elected president in 1998, Venezuela adopted the 1999 constitution that increased presidential term limits to two elected periods of six years.

A January poll by the Venezuelan firm Datanalysis found that 51 percent of the population supports amending the constitution to allow officials to seek reelection. The firm has compiled four polls since President Hugo Chávez announced the referendum last December. Two polls indicated a vote in favor of amending article 230 of the Venezuelan Constitution and two predicted an oppositional triumph in a “no” vote. During a panel discussion at the Council of the Americas in New York on Tuesday evening, Luis Vicente León, the director of Datanalysis, said the inconsistencies were unprecedented.

A similar referendum was narrowly voted down on December 3, 2007, and Chávez admitted defeat. But almost overnight, Caracas was covered with billboards threatening another referendum with the phrase “por ahora” (for now).  The battle had been lost, but not the war. Chávez says the re-vote is necessary now, just 14 months later, to allow him to stay in power and consolidate his socialist-inspired Bolivarian revolution, which will take at least 10 more years in his estimation.

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Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is pulling out all the stops to persuade voters next month to approve his plan to rewrite the constitution to allow for his unlimited re-election in 2012 when his current term expires.

In doing so, Chávez is almost certainly setting up a confrontation with new U.S. President Barack Obama, and souring any possibility of bettering ties between Washington and its fourth-largest oil supplier.

Chávez, who took office in 1999 after winning by a landslide, is seeking voter approval just 13 months after voters rejected a similar measure in December 2007. Chávez claims the measure is needed to guarantee the success of the country´s socialist revolution, which he is leading. Opponents portray the amendment as a naked power grab, especially as irregularities mount.

After being rebuffed in 2007, Chávez isn’t taking any chances this time, and has been saturating the airwaves with almost daily national cadenas or addresses, which must be carried live by all stations.

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