(Reuters) Walker Simon - "We have decided to designate an ambassador and open an embassy in Palestine...[where] we now have a charge d'affaires," Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said after talks with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in Caracas on Friday. Among aid agreements signed were scholarships for 20 Palestinians to study medicine in Venezuela. "We...are on the side of the Palestinian people's memorable struggle...against the genocidal state of Israel," said Chavez. "Venezuela is Palestine; Palestine is Venezuela, we have a common struggle." Chavez charged that the U.S., using a recent agreement to expand U.S. troops' access to Colombian military bases, aimed to turn Colombia into "the Israel of South America."
2009-12-01 08:42:16Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive