Vol. 4: Issue 4, 29th January, 2018
Bolivarian Government of Venezuela
Ministry of People’s Power for Foreign Affairs Office of the Deputy Minister for Africa
Weekly
Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Kenya Concurrent to Rwanda,Uganda, Tanzania and Somalia
Permanent Mission of Venezuela to the United Nations Environment programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN Habitat).
Newsletter What’s inside
The UN sees possibilities of an agreement in Venezuela’s opposition and Government
The UN sees possibilities of an agreement in Venezuela’s opposition and Government Venezuela increases drug seizure without DEA Red notice against Ramirez: Venezuelan government will issue an arrest warrant and Interpol red notice against Rafael Ramirez USA blocks Venezuelan foreign purchases Democratic Action asks for election endorsement Davos: Inequality Rocks the Magic Mountain Egypt places colossus of Ramses II in atrium of new museum
Inside Africa:
AU Heads of State Summit officially kicks off in Ethiopia
► The UN will continue to support regional efforts in order to see peace in the country. ►This Sunday there will be a fourth round of negotiations, although the opposition has not confirmed. The United Nations continues to trust in the possibilities of a political agreement between the Venezuelan Government and the opposition The United Nations announced on Friday that it continues to trust on the possibilities that the Venezuelan government and the opposition will reach a political agreement. The United Nations has reiterated its support for the negotiating process promoted by the Dominican Republic, where a fourth round of negotiations will take place on Sunday. "We continue to support regional efforts, particularly those led by the Dominican Republic, and we hope that the government and the opposition will reach an essential agreement," spokesman Farhan Haq said during his daily press conference. Haq stressed that the organization believes that there are still "avenues" for the two parties to reach "commitments on key issues." Haq recalled that the Head of the United Nations, António Guterres, has repeatedly expressed his concerns over the unilateral measures that could distance Venezuela from the path towards negotiated political solutions to its problems." Source: chavez vive
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Inside Venezuela Red notice against Ramirez
Venezuelan government will issue an arrest warrant and Interpol red notice against Rafael Ramirez
Venezuela´s Public Prosecutor´s Office announced on Thursday that a red notice arrest warrant will be issued to Interpol against the former Minister of Petroleum and former President of PDVSA, Rafael Ramirez. Ramirez is allegedly involved with the case of corruption of Andorra, an operation that entailed over 1,347 million euros laundered in 2011 and 2012. The country´s Attorney General, Tareck William Saab detailed on Thursday that the former minister and former Ambassador of Venezuela to the UN is accused of corruption, criminal association and money laundering. Twenty two arrest warrants have been issued over the Andorra case, including Diego Salazar, a direct family member of Ramirez. Attorney General, Tareck William Saab said that Diego Salazar directly accused Rafael Ramirez as an accomplice of operations in the corruption network that was dismantled. Ramirez is linked with other corruption cases executed internationally against Pdvsa, under his administration.
Source: chavez vive
Dialogue continues
Venezuelan Government and opposition resume negotiations on Monday in Dominican Republic.
The Venezuelan opposition will visit Dominican Republic to resume negotiations with the government of Nicolas Maduro on Monday. In an official statement, the political representatives of the conservative sectors announced that they expect for this to be a definitive opportunity for the gover¬nment to review the latest decisions it has made. The statement was issued despite the decision of Popular Will, one of the political parties that participated in the negotiations, to withdraw unilaterally from the dialogue process. The organizations that adverse Nicolas Maduro’s government request conditions that guarantee transparency in the coming presidential election. The Venezuelan government has confirmed a series of electoral guarantees, including participation of international observers Source: chavez vive
USA blocks Venezuelan foreign purchases The President of the National Constituent Assembly, Delcy Rodriguez, denounced on Sunday that the Venezuelan government´s bank accounts were blocked by the United States. Supported and abided by other countries as well, the blockade affects trade and finances in Venezuela, said Rodriguez. The government denounced it cannot purchase basic products abroad because, by orders from Washington, the international banks cannot accept payments from the Venezuelan government. Rodriguez alerted that Venezuela is a victim of international lynching. Source: chavez vive www.telesurtv.net
Venezuela increases drug seizure without DEA Venezuela has raised drug seizure by 209%, ever since the country’s authorities decided to expel the Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA. The Director of the National Anti-Drug Office, Juan Grillo, stated that since 2005, Venezuelan authorities have seized 677 tons of narcotics, a figure superior to those registered when the DEA operated in the country. In 2005 the Venezuelan government decided to break all relations with the DEA. Source: chavez vive www.telesurtv.net
Democratic Action asks for election endorsement
The conservative political party, Democratic Action, rejected on Sunday that the international community intends to disregard the coming presidential election in Venezuela.
The Secretary General of that organization, Henry Ramos Allup, asked “If we participate and we win, won´t they recognize the new government?” Fourteen Latin American countries gathered in the Lima Group, rejected Venezuela´s early presi-dential election. The United States and Canada also expressed that they will not recognize the results of the election to be held before April 30th this year. Democratic Action is one of the conservative parties with the lar¬gest trajectory in Venezuela. Four presidents have won with their support. Source: chavez vive
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Davos: Inequality Rocks the Magic Mountain Still, in a quirky Davos way, the star attractions at the Magic Mountain this week may well be U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron. They may stand as polar opposites on climate change, but both happened to have enacted tax measures to further lighten up the already light burden carried by Oxfam’s 1 percent.
A major cause of such inequality is tax havens – which in the current casino atmosphere stand no risk of being regulated. The so-called globalized elites meet at the World Economic Forum in Davos this year under the specter of extreme turbulence. The WEF Global Risks Report is hardly reassuring. The top five most likely risks for 2018 all range from extreme weather/climate change disturbances to cyber-attacks. Yet, according to the report, in terms of impact, they are superseded by weapons of mass destruction – a direct consequence of the Korean peninsula standoff.
Hail China Davos is centered on heavy Anglo-American attendance. But “revisionist powers” (Pentagon terminology) China and Russia are also very much in the game. The verdict is open on how strategic is the Russia-China partnership, but the fact remains that being complementary in manufacturing and energy/high technology facilitates their geo-economic/geopolitical unity.
Global elites are somewhat paralyzed by political inaction facing the most pressing questions of our time, just as the global economy is inundated by liquidity. Quantitative easing was actually the only concrete response to political inaction, adhered to by every Central Bank, from the ECB to the Japanese. Stock exchanges all over tend towards irrational exuberance; in 2017 the Dow went up 25 percent, the Nikkei 19 percent, the Hang Seng 35 percent.
The partnership is fast developing multiple Eurasian ties – as the New Silk Roads, a.k.a. Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) intersect with the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and an expanded Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) progressively develops economic mechanisms.
As inequality reigns supreme, Davos 2018 preaches the necessity of striving towards a common future in a fractured world; a poor euphemism for the stark fact of a wealthy happy few getting much wealthier while untold masses of poor veer toward dirt poor.
After President Xi Jinping’s performance last year, when he all but launched globalization 2.0, China once again will get top billing at major behind closed doors meetings at Davos. It’s easy to forget that 2018 marks only the 40th anniversary of the start of Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms. Global elites still count on China to “save” Western capitalism.
Standing at the feet of Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, Davos has always positioned itself as the gilded agora of promoters of structural reform – as in market liberalization, low taxes and opposition to the public sector; policies that actually sharpened the abyss between haves and have-nots.
Predictable Cassandras got it wrong; the Chinese machine isn’t about to stutter. Debt is mostly internal and in yuan. Credit is increasingly efficient. The economy is fast becoming more productive thanks to artificial intelligence. The transition – still in effect – has been hyper-fast and extremely successful, from dependence on exports to a knowledge/innovation economy. No wonder global financial markets treat China as a developed nation. And BRI, as it advances, will be a win-win – turbo-charging Eurasia (and world) trade to and from China.
The latest Oxfam report stands out as an exceedingly grim counterpart to the WEF’s Global Risks. It states that the richest 42 individuals on the planet control as much wealth as the poorest 50% of the world’s population; “Eighty-two percent of the new wealth created has gone to the top 1 percent, while 0 percent has gone to the world’s poorest 50 percent.” Trickle down? Actually, trickle up. And a major cause of such inequality, according to Oxfam, is tax havens – which in the current casino atmosphere stand no risk of being regulated.
Meanwhile, at the Magic Mountain, nobody should expect so-called elites finally managing to elicit a sound balance between the requirements of the fragmenting nation-state and an open, global economy. For mere mortals, there’s not much left, apart from being on guard trudging along so many geoeconomic, geopolitical and environmental pitfalls. And buying gold.
Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Jeff Bezos, among themselves, hold as much wealth as half of the U.S. population (160 million people). Gates, Buffet and Bezos, as well as significant swathes of the global ruling class, seem to be quite worried; after all stark inequality is bound to breed a tsunami of electoral revolts that might quickly degenerate into dystopian nightmares.
www.telesurtv.net www.cetusnews.com
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Egypt places colossus of Ramses II in atrium of new museum
Egypt placed the ancient statue of one of its most famous pharaohs, Ramses II, in the entrance hall of a new antiquities' museum under construction near the pyramids of Giza, just outside Cairo.
The relocation of the colossus cost 13.6 million Egyptian pounds, al-Anani said, which today is about $770,000, and involved military corps of engineers and a contracting company.
This was fourth time the statue, which dates back 3,300 years, had been moved. It was first discovered in 1820 near ancient Memphis by Giovanni Battista Caviglia, an Italian explorer and Egyptologist who was also a key figure in the excavation of the Sphinx of Giza.
Al-Anani said the museum entrance hall will also host some 87 other artifacts, including 43 massive statues. He said that the first phase of the new museum, including the atrium, will be inaugurated later this year. The grand opening of the new museum is expected to take place in 2022.
Ramses II, also known as Ramses the Great, ruled Egypt for around 60 years, from 1279 B.C. to 1213 B.C. He is credited with expanding ancient Egypt's reach as far as modern Syria to the east and modern Sudan to the south.
The museum covers about 490,000 square meters (586,120 square yards) and will house some of Egypt's most unique and precious artifacts, including many belonging to the famed boy King Tutankhamun. Egypt hopes the inauguration of the new museum, along with a string of recent discoveries, will help spur a vital tourism industry that has been reeling from the political turmoil that engulfed Egypt following the 2011 popular uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
The placement of the colossus, weighing over 80 tons and towers at a height of about 12 meters (39 feet), took place amid a ceremony attended by Egyptian officials and foreign diplomats. The massive statue — which for over 50 years had graced the Ramsis Square, named after the statue, in downtown Cairo — was moved in an iron cage hung like a pendulum on a steel bridge for about 400 meters (yards) from where it stood earlier, at the museum compound.
On the 25th Jan 2018, Egypt marked the seventh anniversary of the uprising. wowway.net www.abcnews.go.com The views and opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Embassy
"We are celebrating the arrival of the first artifact to its final venue in the atrium of the Grand Egyptian Museum," Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Anani said, referring to the colossus.
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INSIDE AFRICA:
AU Heads of State Summit officially kicks off in Ethiopia
The 30th ordinary session of the assembly of heads of state and government of the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa kicked off Sunday, attended by regional leaders. The theme of this year’s 30th African Union Summit is “Winning the Fight Against Corruption: A Sustainable Path to Africa’s Transformation,” and Africa’s 55 Heads of State and their ministers have to show their records in fighting corruption and design new ways of fighting graft. The summit will revisit the AU Convention on Prevention and Combating Corruption, which came into effect in 2006. Member countries are expected to formulate a common penal policy that protects citizens against the effects of corruption. Highlights of the assembly, attended by President Uhuru Kenyatta and a host of other regional leaders, will be the election of the new Bureau of the Assembly of the African Union and the new Chairperson of the African Union for 2019. The opening ceremony will also feature among others, speeches and a keynote address by Alpha Conde, President of the Republic of Guinea and outgoing Chairperson of the African Union and the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The summit will consider the report of the 32nd Ordinary Session of the Executive Council, as well as adopt Assembly decisions and declarations in a closed session. On Saturday 25th Jan, President Kenyatta urged Africa to play its part in funding an aggressive reform agenda to grow the continent and improve the lives of its people. At a summit of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), which he has chaired for the past two years, the President said Africa was making progress in improving its governance structures and institutions, but countries needed to up their game in funding continental initiatives. President Kenyatta told fellow leaders in Ethiopia that member states should remit their annual contributions on time and pay up arrears. APRM focuses on improved governance as a vehicle for accelerated development on the continent. The President emphasized that "peer reviews" - in which countries assess each other's progress in governance -- will only maintain relevance and meaningfulness if they continue to deliver significant improvement in governance across the continent. www.theeastafrican.co.ke/ www.allafrica.com The views and opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Embassy
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