"Hugo Chavez is right"

Africa Union Mission to Fly to Somalia on Monday
The African Union will go ahead with a fact-finding mission to Somalia on Monday to size up security before a bigger African peace mission, officials said on Sunday.

Africa stands firm on Togo, for now
Both the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States have branded the army's appointment of Faure Gnassingbe as president after his father's death a coup and have told Togo to return to constitutional rule, or face sanctions.

British American Tobacco faces fine in S Africa
British American Tobacco SA (BAT), South Africa's dominating tobacco manufacturer, could be fined 1.4 billion rand ($230 million) for running a dirty tricks campaign against a competitor. The country's Competition Commission has found BAT using anti-competitive practices to fend off competitors and entrench its market dominance, which is 92 percent currently, Xinhua quotes South African daily Sunday Times.

Black South Africa gets the cricket bug
The point is that most South African blacks, like the golf club workers, seem to have other concerns than cricket. Black Africans (as distinct from "Coloureds" or "Asians") make up three-quarters of the population, but few of them have been spotted in the stands during the series that ends tomorrow. Black newspapers have mostly ignored the matches. Cricket still appears far from the "new South Africa".

Ukrainian Post Modern Coup Template
The U.S. government and allied forces' year-end installation of Victor Yushchenko as President of Ukraine have completed the field-testing of the "Post Modern Coup". Employing and fine-tuning the same sophisticated techniques used in Serbia in 2000 and Georgia in 2003 (and unsuccessfully in Belarus in 2001), it is widely expected that the United States will attempt to apply the same methods throughout the former Soviet Union.

Elio Cequea: Total air time 6.75 minutes ...
5 lies a minute! Not bad at all!
Steve Harrigan of Fox News must have been a racecar driver ... he had only six minutes and forty-five seconds to come up with convincing arguments about why Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is not being "constructive."

Hugo Chavez is right ...
The US will knock off those who disagree with George
The final stroke will come this year when President Chavez switches to the Petro-Euro, or creates a Latin American currency. In as much as the US is preparing Colombia to invade Venezuela, the faster Mr. Chavez acts the better.

Valentine's Day Sweatshops
Before you buy your sweetie those roses for Valentine's Day, pause for a moment to consider where they come from, and at what cost -- and what can be done to give a bit more joy not just to the flowers' recipients, but their producers. Cut flowers are a highly globalized industry. The majority of cut flowers sold in the United States are imported, especially from Colombia and Ecuador. Kenya and Tanzania are the key overseas supplier for Europe.

The Truth about Social Security
The first important fact about the Social Security "crisis" is that there is no crisis. The second important fact is that the Bush administration’s proposals for fixing the "crisis," especially its "privatization" scheme, are perversely designed to make the system’s finances much more precarious than they are now and to impose deep benefit cuts. In fact, it would be hard to conceive of a more destructive set of policy initiatives than those the president is advocating. And it’s all completely unnecessary. Here’s why.

German Prosecutor Won't Pursue Rumsfeld Case
Germany's federal prosecutor says the allegations that United States Defense Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other top Washington brass were responsible for Abu Ghraib must be investigated in the US, not under German war crimes laws. The decision deals a blow to the American group that brought the case, but it could ease German-American tensions.

The Jew Who Fled Rio
The Jewish diplomat who ran a child prostitution ring out of the Israeli Embassy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil hopes to leave safe-haven Israel for a new diplomatic post in Australia.

Israelis arrested for trying to sell Palestinian land
Police investigators arrested three suspects last week - including a member of the Likud's Central Committee - on suspicion of planning to use forged documents to sell land belonging to absentee Palestinian owners to an American millionaire.

10 million iPods, previewing the CD's end
"The new format is no format," predicted Petersen, a 24-year industry veteran who also owns a record label, a recording studio and a music-publishing company. "What the consumer would buy is a data file, and you could create whatever you need. If you want to make an MP3, you make an MP3. If you want a DVD-Audio surround disc, you make that."