Mes: septiembre 2019

(AP) CARACAS, Venezuela – President Hugo Chavez announced Thursday that Venezuelan security forces have arrested a U.S. citizen and suspect he is a mercenary who could be involved in an alleged plot to destabilize the country if the opposition’s candidate loses the upcoming presidential election. Chavez said the Hispanic man was detained Aug. 4 while crossing into Venezuela from Colombia. The president said the man was carrying a U.S. passport with entrance and exit stamps from countries including Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya as well as a notebook containing geographical coordinates. The man’s identity was not released. Chavez did not say where he was being interrogated. An official from the U.S. Embassy in Caracas did not answer repeated telephone calls seeking comment on Chavez’s announcement. “He has all the appearance of a mercenary,” Chavez said, speaking during a campaign rally in the coastal state of Vargas. “We are interrogating him.” The man tore up part of the notebook in his possession when he was detained, Chavez said. Chavez suggested, 온라인카지노 without offering evidence, the American might have been recruited by government opponents to instigate violent protests if opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles loses the Oct. 7 election. Chavez has repeatedly vowed to win re-election and continue trying to steer Venezuela toward socialism. The president has repeatedly claimed the opposition plans to accuse election officials of rigging the vote and refuse...

(CBS/AP) WASHINGTON – The Obama administration set new, largely symbolic, sanctions Friday on Syria’s state-run oil company and the Hezbollah militant group, moves designed to underscore Iran’s key role in propping up the Syrian regime over the span of its civil war. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the penalties against energy firm Sytrol come after it delivered $36 million worth of gasoline to Iran in April. At the same time, Tehran was “actively advising, supplying, and assisting the Syrian security forces and regime-backed militias that are carrying out gross human rights abuses against the Syrian people.” Meanwhile, the Treasury Department targeted Hezbollah for “training, advice and extensive logistical support to the government of Syria’s increasingly ruthless efforts to fight against the opposition.” It also blamed the Lebanese Shiite militant group for coordinating Iranian assistance to the Syrian government. Neither action will change Americans’ behavior much. Americans have been banned from doing business with Hezbollah since the U.S. declared the Lebanese Shiite militant group a foreign terrorist organization in the 1990s. Decades of U.S. sanctions against Syria have prevented energy trade between the two countries. Sytrol had mostly exported to the European Union, but the bloc declared an embargo against Syrian oil last year. Syrian gov’t forces appear to gain upper hand in battle for AleppoDiplomats: Algeria’s Brahimi could replace Annan as Syria envoyClashes rage in rebel bastions of...

(CBS) Here’s something to remember when you challenge Matt Damon: He’s no dum-dum. He’s probably smarter than you are. Damon was in Washington, D.C., Saturday to give a speech at the Save Our Schools March. (Damon’s mother, who introduced him at the event, is a teacher.) Pictures: Matt Damon A reporter and a cameraman for Reason.tv suggested to him that job insecurity should motivate actors – and by apples-to-oranges comparison, teachers – to be better at what they do. Damon’s face reveals he’s not buying the reporter’s questions as she asks it. “In acting, there isn’t job security, right?” says the reporter. “There’s incentive to work hard and be a better actor because you want to have a job, so why isn’t it like that for teachers?” “You think job insecurity is what makes me work hard?” asks Damon. “Well, you have an incentive to work harder, but if there’s job security…” says the reporter. Damon cuts her off. “I want to be an actor; it’s not an incentive. That’s the thing. See, you take this MBA-style thinking, right? It’s the problem with [education] policy right now. It’s this intrinsically paternalistic view of problems that are much more complex than that. It’s like saying a teacher is going to get lazy when they have tenure. A teacher wants to teach. I mean, why else would you take a sh**ty...

For the first time in eight years, Palestinians are receiving international mail. Letters, https://www.dxasn0dvj.online packages, presents and even a wheelchair have arrived in the West Bank after Israel released 10 tons of undelivered mail to the Palestinian territory. A dusty mailroom in Jericho buzzed back to life as thousands of mail sacs from around the world were sifted through and sorted, reports CBS News’ Jonathan Vigliotti. They were then loaded onto scooters and ferried through the winding streets of Ramallah to their final destinations. Recipients like father Khaled Al-Adaman looked like they’d just received a message in a bottle. He thought the now-old back-to-school backpack for his daughter was long lost. In a way, it’s survived stormy seas. More than 10 tons of mail had been held in Jordan since 2010 because Israel — which controls the West Bank’s borders — wouldn’t allow its transfer. Postman Ramadam Ghazawy now acts as an investigator, piecing together addresses faded by time. “Some of them were damaged. Some of them have no identifiers or addresses,” he said. “It takes for me and my colleagues maybe two weeks. I hope [in] two weeks we will finish it all.” Israel calls the mail transfer a one-time gesture as it works to implement a 2016 agreement that would allow a direct delivery between the West Bank and Jordan. For now, extra mail carriers have been...