Chavez: USA man detained in Venezuela-Insanity is spreading

 

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez said Venezuelan authorities have detained an American man and are interrogating him, suspecting he could be a “mercenary” plotting to destabilize the country if the opposition loses the upcoming presidential election.

Chavez told reporters on Friday that under questioning the man said he had been a U.S. Marine.

“The man has military training and he refuses to give information. That in itself is suspicious,” Chavez said on state television.

Chavez did not identify the man nor detail the accusations against him. But the case has the potential to ratchet up longstanding tensions between Venezuela and the U.S. less than two months ahead of Venezuela’s presidential election.

Chavez said the man was detained while crossing into Venezuela from Colombia on a bus in the middle of the night. He said the American had entered the country illegally.

Chavez announced the man’s Aug. 4 arrest on Thursday night, saying he was carrying a U.S. passport with entrance and exit stamps from countries including Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

A U.S. State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly, said the U.S. government had not been notified of the arrest by the Venezuelan government.

He said that if the detained man is in fact a U.S. citizen, American officials expect “Venezuela will uphold its obligations under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and grant U.S. consular officials access to any detained U.S. citizen without delay.”

Chavez instructed his justice minister, Tareck El Aissami, to make contact with U.S. authorities to inform them of the case. He said the detained man “has all of his human rights guaranteed.”

Chavez said that when the man was detained at a National Guard post in southwestern Tachira state, he tore up part of a notebook that he had with him.

“He has all the appearance of a mercenary,” Chavez said at a campaign rally on Thursday. “We are interrogating him.”

Chavez suggested, without offering evidence, that the American might have been recruited by government opponents to instigate violent protests if opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles loses the Oct. 7 election.

Opposition lawmaker Pedro Pablo Alcantara scoffed at the president’s allegations that government foes would attempt to stir up trouble if Chavez is re-elected to a new six-year term.

Alcantara accused the government of encouraging violence against its adversaries in the past while backing groups that have attacked opposition marches.

“It’s the president who has promoted violence,” he said.

Chavez has repeatedly accused the U.S. government of plotting against him during the past decade, though he usually has provided few specifics of such claims.

The U.S. Embassy in Caracas has been without an ambassador since July 2010. Chavez rejected the U.S. nominee for ambassador, Larry Palmer, accusing him of making disrespectful remarks about his government. That led Washington to revoke the visa of the Venezuelan ambassador.

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Hugo Chavez accuses U.S. of using weapon to cause Haiti quake

Hugo Chavez accuses U.S. of using weapon to cause Haiti quake

Several media outlets have reported Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accusing the United States of causing the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti, which killed possibly 200,000 people. Other media dispute the report. Last week, Digital Journal reported that the Venezuelan President accused the United States of using Haitis earthquake as a pretext to occupy the Caribbean country, and since then the US has deployed thousands of troops to the region to bring law and order. Media reports claim Chavez’s state “mouthpiece” ViVe TV is blaming the US for causing the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti as part of testing a tectonic weapon that can cause eco-type disasters, according to Russia Today. The information was apparently gathered by Russia’s North Fleet, FOX News says.

The Latin American leader added that the US should stop playing God. The TV report said these weapon earthquakes would eventually be used against Iran and be taken over by the US military. It goes on to say these weapons can alter the climate and set off earthquakes and volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves. Although news is gaining attention around the world, its credibility has yet to be verified. Some critics wonder how a state TV claim is being tied to Hugo Chavez. Press TV reports the Venezuelan media are reporting the earthquake may be associated with the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), which has been accused of generating violent and disastrous changes in climate. HAARP has been met with controversy since the mid-1990s when the State Duma of Russia issued a press release written by international affairs and defense communities on HAARP and signed by 90 deputies: The U.S. is creating new integral geophysical weapons that may influence the near-Earth medium with high-frequency radio waves … The significance of this qualitative leap could be compared to the transition from cold steel to firearms, or from conventional weapons to nuclear weapons. This new type of weapons differs from previous types in that the near-Earth medium becomes at once an object of direct influence and its component. In 1997, US Secretary of Defense William Cohen also expressed concern over such eco-terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves.” However, the U.S. government claims HAARPs primary objective is to analize and investigate the Earths ionosphere and the possibility of developing technology for communications and surveillance purposes.

Russian Scholar Warns Of ‘Secret’ U.S. Climate Change Weapon

As Muscovites suffer record high temperatures this summer, a Russian political scientist has claimed the United States may be using climate-change weapons to alter the temperatures and crop yields of Russia and other Central Asian countries.

In a recent article, Andrei Areshev, deputy director of the Strategic Culture Foundation, wrote, “At the moment, climate weapons may be reaching their target capacity and may be used to provoke droughts, erase crops, and induce various anomalous phenomena in certain countries.”

The article has been carried by publications throughout Russia, including “International Affairs,” a journal published by the Foreign Ministry and by the state-owned news agency RIA Novosti.

In an telephone interview with RFE/RL, Areshev appeared to back off from claims he made in the article, saying that he was merely positing a theory.

“First of all, I would like to say that what I wrote in that article, even the citations, does not in any way claim to a be final truth. It is, if you will, speculation, in other words, the definition of an hypothesis,” Areshev said.

Moscow is currently sweltering under record temperatures. On July 29 Moscow suffered its hottest day ever, with temperatures hitting 39 degrees.

But Russia isn’t the only country suffering form a heat wave this summer. Indeed, the United States is also experiencing record temperatures. On July 24, temperatures in Washington, D.C., hit 37.7 degrees, and local weather services issued heat warnings for the first time this summer.

Areshev agrees that it is also hot in the United States, but notes that the United States is significantly farther south than Russia, meaning that such high temperatures are not so surprising there.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, however, announced in July that land and ocean temperatures throughout the world were the highest ever, since they began tracking global temperatures in 1880.

Conspiracy Theories

In the article, Areshev voiced suspicions about the High-Frequency Active Aural Research Program (HAARP), funded by the U.S. Defense Department and the University of Alaska.

HAARP, which has long been the target of conspiracy theorists, analyzes the ionosphere and seeks to develop technologies to improve radio communications, surveillance, and missile detection.

Areshev writes, however, that its true aim is to create new weapons of mass destruction “in order to destabilize environmental and agricultural systems in local countries.”

Areshev’s article also references an unmanned spacecraft X-37B, an orbital test vehicle the Pentagon launched in April 2010. The Pentagon calls X-37B a prototype for a new “space plane” that could take people and equipment to and from space stations. Areshev, however, alleges that the X-378 carries “laser weaponry” and could be a key component in the Pentagon’s climate-change arsenal.

The Pentagon was not immediately reachable for comment.

Areshev also cites the U.S. government’s effort to use rain and cloud coverage to block the Vietnam Army’s supply routes during the Vietnam War. He insisted, however, that he was not a conspiracy theorist.

“My comments were not made in order to accuse the U.S., or any other country, of consciously influencing Russia,” Areshev said. “That would be quite ridiculous.”

Asked whether or not Russia was also experimenting with climate-control methods, Areshev said since he was not a member of the government, he did not have information about such projects.

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