Colombia sends tanks to Venezuelan border

Venezuela condemned Colombia on Sunday night for sending tanks to the border in a “provocation” amid surging unrest in both countries.

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry released a statement slamming the deployment of armoured vehicles “scant metres from the frontier” in Paraguachon, Guajira department, on the Caribbean coast.

The statement pointed out that in recent days Colombian authorities had “broadcast to the world that it they were preparing for waves of migrants from Venezuela to Colombia” fleeing violence in Venezuela.

Caracas said: "The provocation aims to divert attention from the political and social crisis” in Colombia’s in the Cauca valley, Buenaventura, where a mass civic strike entered its seventh day yesterday, despite troops being deployed on the streets.

Residents are demanding improvements to infrastructure and drinking water supply for the sake of their health.

The Cauca Valley Patriotic Union yesterday sent a message of solidarity to Venezuela “In its valourous resistance against the economic and terrorist war unleashed by that country’s extreme right opposition.”

And Colombia faces more unrest in the coming week.

The CUT [United Workers’ Central or Central Union of Workers] union federation has called general public employees strike and protests today [TUES] along with political, social and peasants’ organisations.

That follows last Tuesday’s 500,000-strong strike in demand of wage rises to compensate for inflation and “regressive tax reforms.”

Tomorrow [WED] groups affiliated under the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia (Onic) will march from the Popayan to Cali in the Cauca Valley.

And national marches in support of the peace process with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are planned for June 1.

A leaflet from the “Venezuela Resistance and Student Movement” circulated on social media (see below) called for an indefinite national general strike starting yesterday.

The authors blamed the government for the economic crisis — and warned businesses, bus and taxi drivers they would not be responsible for looting and arson if they continued doing business.

Nearly two months of opposition regime change riots across Venezuela have now left 53 people dead, according to news channel Telesur — ten more than 2014’s year of “Guarimba” bloodshed to the same end.

Only six of those are confirmed to have been killed by the security forces — while two officers have been killed.

On Sunday the Public Ministry ordered a probe into the latest deadly shooting of Edy Alejandro Teran a a protest in Tachira state on saturday night, that also left an 18-year-old boy and a woman injured.

The mystery of the Guanches

The origins and language of the indigenous people of the Canary Islands remain a mystery, writes Dr Sabina Goralski Filonov Translation by James Tweedie The guanches, the aboriginals of the Canary Islands whose origin, lost in the mists of time, still arouses intense and passionate debate and great controversy about their origins and the how the seven Canary Islands were populated – which according to some studies occurred between 10,000 and 8,000 years BC. Literally, the word ‘Guan’ means man or person and ‘Chenech’ or ‘Chinet’ is applied to the island of Tenerife, thus meaning a man or inhabitant of Tenerife – although according to Núñez de la Peña, the Spanish named them the Guanchos during the conquest of the islands. But with the passage of time, experts in the subject are questioning whether the word Guanche was used to designate the primitive inhabitants of all the islands in the pre-Hispanic period. The term ‘Guanche’ has also ceased to be applied to the di...

Homeless dogs’ home fights for compensation

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Sun-crossed haters endanger 220,000 lives

My stepmother Shanthie Naidoo and her sister Ramnie were on an overnight flight from Johannesburg to Heathrow for a speaking tour when Extinction Rebellion offshoot Heathrow Pause began wilfully endangering aircraft by flying drones over the airport this morning. Shanthie is an ANC struggle veteran who lived in exile in London from 1973 to 1993, apart from some time in the exile community in Mazimbu, Tanzania. She and all her immediate family were jailed by the Apartheid government for political reasons. Shanthie's late brother Indres did 10 years on Robben Island and later wrote the book 'Island in Chains'. Their grandfather Thembi Naidoo worked alongside Mohandas K Gandhi during the civil disobedience campaigns against the early form of Apartheid. Extinction Rebellion has chosen for its logo a variation on the 'sonnenkreuz', a symbol used by both proto-fascist neo-pagan organisations and modern neo-Nazis. Around 220,000 passengers fly in and out of Heathr...

Ecuador: Correa defends VP over graft charges

Former Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa backed Vice-President Jorge Glas on Monday — even as he was detained on corruption charges. "An honest man has lost his freedom," Mr Correa tweeted after the Supreme Court ordered Mr Glas remanded in custody pending an investigation into allegations he took bribes from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht. President Lenin Moreno stripped Glas of his duties as vice president in August but allowed him to keep his title. Mr Glas claimed his detention was "a clear retaliation" for criticising Mr Moreno's policies, with additional pressure from "major businessmen and opposition leaders." Mr Glas’ barrister Eduardo Franco said he would appeal the "bad, unjust and arbitrary decision" which he described as a "judicial coup" — like that against Brazilian Workers’ Party president Dilma Rousseff last year. "He is being victimised by the media, and by the political perversity of opposi...

Thomas Cook CEO predicts “return to growth” in 2010

Thomas Cook UK Chief Executive Officer Manny Fontenla (third from left). Playa de Las Americas, Tuesday December 15 2009 THOMAS Cook Chief Executive Manny Fontenla predicted on Tuesday that Tenerife's crisis-hit tourist economy would begin to recover next year. by James Tweedie Speaking at the travel giant's annual convention at the Magma Arte y Congresos centre in the resort town of Playa de Las Americas, Mr Fontenla said that the tourism slump had “bottomed out” and the island was “on the way back to growth.” He said: “Things have been tough in Spain because of the crisis,” pointing out that the weakness of the pound against the Euro had made non-Eurozone destinations like Turkey more attractive. But he stressed that Spain remained the favourite holiday destination for Britons, Germans and Scandinavians and that it took “barriers” to discourage them. Mr Fontenla said that British tourists were leaving it much later to book their summer holidays, a trend ...

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