Diplomatic Briefing
Your exclusive news aggregator handpicked daily!Archive for Venezuela
Newsline: Abkhazia opens embassy in Nicaragua
Georgia’s breakaway region Abkhazia has opened an embassy in Nicaragua. According to Apsnypress, Abkhazia’s ambassador to Venezuela, Zaur Gvajava, will also take on the function as ambassador to Nicaragua. Nicaragua will help Abkhazians in their relations with other countries and will offer support in their attempts at getting recognition for Abkhazia’s independence, Zaur Gvajava said. He notes that a so-called foreign affairs delegation will arrive from 20 to 27 May and sign an agreement about visa-freedom. “The document is already prepared and only signatures are necessary.” Also Georgia’s other breakaway region, South Ossetia, have opened an embassy in Nicaragua, thereby establishing diplomatic relations. Ambassador will be Namir Kozayev, who is also ambassador to Venezuela. Officials in Tbilisi say nothing has changed legally by this. On August 26, after a five-day war in August 2008, Russia recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In total, five countries have recognized the separatist regions. Nicaragua was first to follow Russia on September 5, 2008. The President of Venezuela followed suit in September 2009, and after him, the Pacific island states of Nauru and Vanuatu. The Republic of Vanuatu is located on 83 islands in the Pacific Ocean. Its area is 12 000 square kilometers, and the population was 243 000 in 2009. In the western part of the Pacific is Nauru with a population of 14 000.
http://dfwatch.net/abkhazia-opens-embassy-in-nicaragua-65896
Newsline: Venezuelan minister says kidnapped diplomat freed
Venezuela’s justice minister says a diplomat from the Costa Rican Embassy has been freed hours after he was seized by kidnappers. Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami said that Guillermo Cholele, the trade ambassador for the Costa Rican Embassy, has been freed and is in good health. El Aissami said on Tuesday morning that the diplomat was with police and being taken to be reunited with his family.
http://www.maximumedge.com/cgi/news/article.cgi/20120410/D9U220L80
Newsline: Costa Rican diplomat kidnapped in Venezuela
A diplomat from the Costa Rican Embassy in Venezuela has been kidnapped and his abductors are demanding a ransom, officials said. Guillermo Cholele, the embassy’s trade attache, is the latest diplomat to have been kidnapped in Venezuela recently. Cholele was grabbed Sunday night as he was arriving at his home in eastern Caracas, Ambassador Nazareth Avendano said at a news conference. His abductors took him away in his vehicle, which has diplomatic corps license plates, the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry said. “A telephone call made to the diplomat’s residence mentioned the request of a … sum as ransom and added that he’s in good health,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, calling the incident “extremely serious.” It did not say how much the abductors demanded. “It’s been a big blow,” Avendano said. Cholele has been based in Venezuela for six years and lives with his wife and two children, the ambassador said. Costa Rica’s Foreign Ministry said two diplomats would travel to Caracas to cooperate in the investigation being carried out by Venezuelan police and prosecutors. Venezuelan Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami said officials were focusing on the investigation “at the highest level.” In January, Mexican Ambassador Carlos Pujalte was abducted together with his wife. They were freed four hours later, and prosecutors said the following week that three suspects were arrested in the crime. In November, Chile’s consul in Caracas was briefly kidnapped and was released by his captors about two hours later. He was shot and wounded during the ordeal.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2012/04/09/costa_rican_diplomat_kidnapped_in_venezuela/
Newsline: Venezuela charges four with kidnap of Mexico envoy
Under pressure after a string of attacks on diplomats, Venezuela charged four people on Saturday, including a former police officer, with kidnapping the Mexican ambassador and his wife in the capital earlier this year. Carlos Pujalte and his wife were grabbed by gunmen as they left a reception in a wealthy Caracas neighbourhood at around midnight on January 29. They were held captive for several hours before being freed in a slum on the other side of the city. The case underlined Venezuela’s high crime rate – one of the biggest issues in an election year – and came less than two months before another incident involving diplomats: last week’s killing by police of a Chilean consul’s teenage daughter. In a statement, the attorney general’s office said three men and one woman in their 20s had been charged with offenses including kidnapping and robbery. It said two of the men and the woman were arrested last month in Caracas by the CICPC investigative police, and that the 21-year-old woman was found in possession of a gold chain linked to the separate kidnapping of a local politician’s relative. It said two cars were seized, including a Honda Civic thought to have been used during that abduction, the kidnapping of the Mexican ambassador and his wife, and a third abduction. The fourth suspect was identified as a 28-year-old former Caracas policeman who was detained separately by CICPC officials last month in central Miranda state. Venezuelan police have often been accused of being involved in serious crimes, contributing to the high numbers of armed robberies, kidnappings and murders that have turned Caracas into one of the most dangerous cities in the world.
http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFBRE82N0DW20120324
Newsline: Police suspected in killing of Chilean consul’s daughter
Venezuelan authorities said on Saturday that 11 members of an investigative police unit were suspected in the fatal late-night shooting of a Chilean diplomat’s teenage daughter while she was riding in a car with her brother. Karen Berendique, the 19-year-old daughter of Chilean consul Fernando Berendique, was killed late on Friday when the officers apparently opened fire on the vehicle being driven by her brother in Venezuela’s western city of Maracaibo, officials said. She was hit three times. A local newspaper quoted her father as saying the officers opened fire after his son failed to stop at a CICPC checkpoint. “He got nervous because the armed suspects had not switched on their police lights,” Panorama newspaper quoted Berendique as saying. “When he saw his sister was unconscious and wounded, he pulled over … they told him they fired because he didn’t stop.” CICPC chief Jose Ramirez told reporters the officers in Maracaibo had been looking for a gang involved in robberies and car thefts at the time of the incident. He said 12 firearms had been seized to establish who fired the fatal shots. Violent crime is a major problem in Venezuela and police have been linked to serious offenses in the past. Last November, another Chilean consul was shot and beaten during a brief kidnapping in Caracas. In January, the Mexican ambassador and wife were abducted in the capital for several hours.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46773120/ns/world_news-americas/
Newsline: Mexican Ambassador Freed After Abduction In Caracas
A Mexican diplomat in Venezuela says the country’s ambassador has been freed by captors hours after he and his wife were kidnapped. Mexican Embassy spokesman Fernando Gondinez tells the Venezuelan news website Noticias 24 that Ambassador Carlos Pujalte was kidnapped Sunday night in Caracas and was freed hours later. Gondinez says both the ambassador and his wife are in good condition. He did not offer details about how the abduction occurred or about the liberation.
http://news.officialwire.com/main.php?action=posted_news&rid=209301
Newsline: Venezuela’s top diplomat says exiles have threatened consulate in Miami
Venezuelan exiles with links to terrorism have threatened officials at the South American country’s consulate in Miami, the foreign minister said. Nicolas Maduro did not offer evidence of his claims, which came shortly after President Hugo Chavez said his government would close the consulate in response Washington’s expulsion of a Venezuelan diplomat. Maduro told the state-run AVN news agency that “a group of organizations bringing together Venezuelans who fled justice” in their homeland “have threatened not only the consul but the personnel at our consulate.” Maduro singled out a group called Venezuelan Persecution Victims in Exile, which had taken part in public demonstrations against the consul. Maduro said it sought to provoke the diplomatic spat and noted that the group’s leader, Jose Antonio Colina, is wanted in Venezuela on terrorism-related charges of attacking the Spanish Embassy and Colombian consulate in 2003. Livia Acosta Noguera, Venezuela’s consul general in Miami, was ordered out of the U.S. last weekend following an FBI investigation into allegations that she discussed a possible cyber-attack on the U.S. government while she was assigned to the Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico. The allegations were detailed in a documentary aired by the Spanish-language broadcaster Univision. Maduro called the documentary “trash” and accused U.S. congressmen including Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, David Rivera, Robert Menendez and Mario Diaz Balart of backing the anti-Chavez organizations. The diplomat did not provide details of his allegations against U.S. lawmakers.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/world/breakingnews/venezuelas-top-diplomat-says-exiles-have-threatened-officials-at-consulate-in-miami-137412243.html
Newsline: Venezuelan consulate in Miami closed after diplomatic scandal
President Hugo Chavez has ordered the closure of Venezuelan consulate in Miami following a diplomatic scandal involving Venezuelan Consul General Livia Acosta Noguera. Acosta was declared persona non grata by the US State Department last week. According to the Spanish-language TV station Univision, she was taped discussing an alleged Iranian plot to launch cyber-attacks on sensitive US national security facilities with Mexican students back in 2007, when she was serving at the Venezuelan embassy in Mexico City. “Foreign Minister [Nicolas Maduro] advised me to close the consulate,” Venezuelan newspaper El Universal quoted Chavez as telling the country’s National Assembly on Friday. “We have shut it down. There is no consulate in Miami.” Chavez described Acosta’s expulsion as “unfair and outrageous,” but said he would not expel a U.S. diplomat in response to the unfriendly move, “what we will do is closing the consulate while we assess the situation.” The U.S. authorities have not commented on the reasons for the expulsion. In December 2011, the U.S. State Department said it was looking into “very disturbing” allegations linking Acosta to the alleged Iranian plot.
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/international/14-Jan-2012/venezuelan-consulate-in-miami-closed-after-diplomatic-scandal
Newsline: Chavez slams ‘arbitrary’ US expulsion of envoy over alleged cyber-attack plot
President Hugo Chavez slammed as “unfair and arbitrary” the U.S. expulsion of Venezuela’s consul in Miami, who has been accused of involvement in a cyber-attack plot. A documentary airing last month on the by Spanish-language Univision television channel indicated that in 2007, the Venezuelan diplomat, Livia Acosta, was involved in a plot to commit cyber-attacks against U.S. nuclear facilities. “This is just one more sign of the overbearing nature of a ridiculous Imperial power,” said Chavez, a leftist former paratrooper and staunch U.S. critic, using his usual term for the United States. Chavez, after meeting with the visiting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said he was awaiting the return from Santigo of Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro to deliver the official Venezuelan response to this “unfair and arbitrary” expulsion. The attacks allegedly were proposed to her by a Mexican computer expert, Juan Carlos Munoz, while she worked at the Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico City. Acosta assured Munoz she had direct access to advisers of President Hugo Chavez, who wanted to be kept informed of the alleged plot, Univision reported. The report, based on an FBI investigation, said the Cuban and Iranian diplomatic missions also appeared to be involved.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/international/americas/2012/01/11/328700/Chavez-slams.htm
Newsline: U.S. Expels Venezuelan Diplomat From Miami
In a move sure to further strain relations between the United States and Venezuela, the State Department said that it had ordered a Venezuelan diplomat based in Miami to leave the country. Officials declined to give a reason for the expulsion of the diplomat, Livia Acosta Noguera, Venezuela’s consul general in Miami. Last month a news report had asserted that Ms. Acosta had taken part in discussions about possible cyberattacks against the United States while she was stationed in the Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico. The report, broadcast on Univision, a Spanish-language network, included fragments of what it said were taped conversations with Ms. Acosta. In response to the report, several members of Congress called for an investigation and for the expulsion of Ms. Acosta if the allegations were proved to be true. After the broadcast of the Univision report last month, the Venezuelan government dismissed it as false. William Ostick, a State Department spokesman, said the department had informed Venezuela that Ms. Acosta had been declared persona non grata. She was required to leave the country by Tuesday. The Univision report outlined a conspiracy that might seem at home in the pages of a fictional thriller. It featured members of a group identified as former Mexican university students who claimed to have taped conversations as far back as 2007 with officials at the Iranian and Venezuelan Embassies in Mexico in which they discussed possible cyberattacks on companies or nuclear power plants in the United States.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=891158&f=20
