World Travel News

Bush’s vision for Latin America He calls for strong democracies in response to leftists

Brasilia, Brazil – President Bush, in tough remarks aimed at Venezuela’s leftist president, Hugo Chavez, called Sunday for Latin America to choose between competing futures – an U.S.-supported “vision of hope” and another that “seeks to roll back the democratic progress of the past two decades.”

Such a democratic retrenchment, the president said, would be “playing to fear, pitting neighbor against neighbor, and blaming others for their own failures to provide for their people.”

Bush spoke before Brazilian business leaders, diplomats and students at the luxury Blue Tree Park Hotel here in the capital, and did not mention Chavez by name.

But his barbs at Chavez, the fiery, populist president of Venezuela, were clear and, in effect, were Bush’s response to Chavez, who led an anti-American rally of more than 25,000 people on Friday in Mar del Plata, Argentina, while Bush was attending a summit there.

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“If the [US] power has a naval base on our Coco Kyun Island, it can launch a blitzkrieg against the eastern or the western hemisphere,” the military regime’s official New Light of Myanmar newspaper said. Burma, mainland Southeast Asia’s biggest country, is also known as Myanmar and has been ruled by its military since 1962.

“If the big nation [America] can deploy troops and missiles in the north of Myanmar, it can target and attack any specified country in and around the region,” it added. The Coco Islands are two dots just north of India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands, off southern Burma where the Bay of Bengal mingles with the Andaman Sea, at about the same latitude as Thailand’s capital, Bangkok.

China has constructed a “signals intelligence” unit on the Coco Islands, according to the
Washington-based Federation of American Scientists, which monitors intelligence facilities worldwide.

Jane’s Defense Weekly, a British magazine, earlier reported Burma, with Chinese assistance, was expanding its “signal” facility on the bigger of the two Coco Islands.

A Pakistani woman who won international fame but irked the government for speaking out about her gang rape left for the United States yesterday to receive an award for her courage.

Mukhtar Mai, 36, has been declared Woman of the Year 2005 by Glamour, an American women’s magazine. She’s due to receive the award with a $20,000 cash prize Nov. 2 in New York.

Past winners include U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton and former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Mai braved social stigma by going public over her June 2002 assault, which was ordered by a village council in retaliation for her brother’s alleged affair with a woman from a higher-caste family.

Her case attracted international attention, and using donations from well-wishers, she has since set up a school for girls in her rural community.

India is showing its world-class diplomacy in strategic talks on nuclear technologies with major powers. After striking a land breaking historic deal with America on nukes, India has convinced Russia for a full resumption of nuclear supplies to India.

According to media reports, Stepping up diplomatic efforts to solicit support of key members of the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group [NSG] to clear the way for resumption of nuclear supplies to it, India has apprised Russia of its nonproliferation regime and the steps taken to pursue this objective.

New Delhi’s stand was outlined by Additional Secretary in the External Affairs Ministry Meera Shankar during her meeting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Kislyak as part of talks of the Joint Working Group on Strategic Stability here Friday [21 October].

Russia is one of the key members of the NSG and its stand is crucial for the passage of amendments facilitating free flow of civilian nuclear technologies to India to meet its growing energy requirements.

After clinching the number one seed in the America East Tournament with a victory over UMBC on Thursday, the Terrier women’s soccer team had the opportunity to claim the undisputed league title with a win over Hartford on Sunday. Although they started a bit slow, the Terriers did just that, bouncing the Hawks 3-1 at Nickerson Field on Senior Appreciation Day. BU finished the regular season with an 11-4-4 record, 7-0-1 in conference play, and registered its third unbeaten conference season in the history of the program. The Terriers beat out second place Maine (6-1-1) by one game for the America East title. BU will host next weekend’s America East Tournament and will receive a first round bye. Hartford finished its season at 4-13-1, 2-5-1.

“This is a team that might be the best we have ever had here,” said Terrier coach Nancy Feldman, who is 133-68-19 in her career at BU, and is the only coach in the program’s 11-year history. “Not only defensively but in terms of overall talent. This is a very special team.” BU has won four America East regular-season titles in the last six years.

Hartford, which had a chance to qualify for the six-team league tournament with a win, jumped on the scoreboard first, with an unusual goal. BU attempted to clear the ball out of its own end, but the Terrier kick was blocked by Hawk forward Melissa Pelletier and deflected past BU’s startled keeper, Christina Reuter (Madison, Wisc.) and into the goal for a 1-0 Hartford lead less than nine minutes into the game.

BU responded late in the half when Lauren Erwin (Orange, Conn.) fired a shot that was stopped by the Hawks’ sprawling keeper Liz Cook. The rebound popped up on the left side of the goal box and Melissa Shulman (Huntington, N.Y.) was Johnny-on-the-spot, as she hit a diving header into the vacated goal for the equalizing score. The goal was the 31st of Shulman’s career and gave her 75 points in a BU uniform.