ALBA backs Venezuela against US allies

Latin America’s anti-imperialist bloc backed Venezuela against regional opponents on Tuesday as support for the divided opposition ebbed.

Foreign ministers of the 11-nation Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) gathered in Caracas for an extraordinary meeting.

In a statement they hailed the July 30 elections to the new National Constituent Assembly — called to amend the constitution and chart a path out of the national crisis — as “an authentic act of sovereignty.”

They called retaliatory US sanctions on President Nicolas Maduro and others “arbitrary and illegal”, a “flagrant violation of international law” and an “unacceptable interventionist implementation” intended to “change the regime.”

But the same day a summit of 17 regional opponents in Peru’s capital Lima agreed sixteen measures against Venezuela, including rejecting the new assembly and labelling Mr Maduro’s elected government a “dictatorship.”

Meanwhile the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry condemned EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini’s claim on Monday the assembly’s decisions reduce the possibility of a “peaceful return to the democratic order.”

In a statement the ministry said: “the effect of these decisions has indisputably been the very opposite to those grim predictions.”

Only a few dozen people turned out for Tuesday’s latest street blockade protest called by the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) coalition.

It was the latest sign of dwindling support for the MUD’s four-month campaign of bloody riots and economic disruption to overthrow the government that have left 124 dead.

The opposition is reportedly divided over whether to stand in December’s gubernatorial elections.

Since the July 30 election there has only been one protest death, that of Progressive Advance (AP) local leader Ramon Rivas on Sunday.

He was shot during a demonstration outside the Fort Paramacay army base in Carabobo state, shortly after an attack by 20 mercenaries led by Miami-based fugitive former army captain Juan Caguaripano.

Two were killed and eight captured, but 10 who escaped were granted sanctuary on properties belonging to the Catholic church just 100 yards from the base, army commander Major General Jesus Suarez said on Tuesday.

A stolen off-road vehicle, loaded with military equipment, was reportedly discovered nearby.

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

Dingo Dogs owner Phil Nelson at his since-demolished home. DOGS’ home owner Phil Nelson has vowed to take legal action following his eviction from his Dingo Dogs animal sanctuary in August. by James Tweedie Indian-born Mr Nelson, along with former girlfriend and Dingo Dogs treasurer Leigh Crouch were left homeless by the court-ordered eviction and have been sharing a small hut in the mountains near Las Chafiras with ten dogs and three cats ever since. Mr Nelson’s dispute with his former landlord began in September 2004, after he officially registered his rented hillside finca as an animal sanctuary. It was a requirement of his registration that he keep proper financial records, including receipts for payment of rent. Mr Nelson says that despite having a rental contract and paying his rent “as regular as clockwork” for years, his landlord never gave him a receipt even after he began asking for one every month in 2004. In May 2005, after his landlord ha...

No 'day in court' for Zuma as supporters take Durban

The trial of South Africa's ex-president Jacob Zuma was postponed for two months on Friday pending his legal challenge to the resurrection of decade-old corruption charges. Outside the Durban High Court, thousands of Mr Zuma's supporters from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and other organisations brought the Indian Ocean port city to a standstill. Zuma supporters rally around a stage set up outside the Durban High Court The ANC Women's League, Youth League and Umkhonto we Sizwe Veterans' Association were present, along with the Black land First Campaign, National Interfaith Council of South Africa, the Commission for Religious Affairs. Revellers wore ANC t-shirts and other merchandise in defiance of warnings by Police Minister Bheki Cele Former minister Des van Rooyen and Eastern Cape ANC leader Andile Lungisa accompanied Mr Zuma to the doors of the court. Inside he sat smiling a few feet apart from Christine Guerrier, a representative of Fre...

The Labour-Snatchers

WHAT do you call an event that would see a country lose a third of its population? A catastrophe? An apocalypse? In Europe they call it “Union.” According to the Vienna-based International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the “free movement of labour” between European Union member states will see that fraction of some countries' populations emigrate in the next 40 years. A recent IIASA study, reported on Friday by the EU Observer website, says Romania and Croatia's populations will fall by 30 percent by 2060, and Lithuania's by 38 percent. By contrast, eight years of the West's proxy war on Syria, when much of the country was overrun by terrorists who behead followers of other religious sects, has seen between 12 and 23 percent of the population flee the country. The 1983-85 Ethiopian famine killed about 1.2 million people and drove another 400,000 out of the country, about five per cent of the population at the time. Another 41 years of EU...

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...

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