WASHINGTON, May 18 (UPI) -- As the relationship between Caracas and Washington continues to worsen the administration of President Hugo Chavez Frias is upping the stakes by threatening to trade his American-built warplanes for Russian ones.
On May 17 RIA Novosti news agency reported from Buenos Aires that Venezuelan General Staff official Gen. Alberto Muller Rojas said that the administration was considering replacing its 21 F-16 fighters with Russian Sukhoi-35s.
"We are considering procurement of Russia's Su-35 fighter aircraft to replace F-16s, after the United States banned weapons exports to Venezuela," Rojas said. "At the moment the Sukhoi-35 is world's best multi-role fighter."
The Sukhoi-35 was developed by the USSR in the mid-1980s as a specific counter to the U.S. F-15 and F-16. The single-seater Sukhoi-35 has a top speed of 1,520 miles per hour, a range of 2,500 miles and can carry nine tons of bombs.
On May 15 the Bush administration instituted a ban on arms sales to Venezuela, with the U.S. State Department accusing Venezuela sharing intelligence with Iran and Cuba, both condemned by the U.S. as nations sponsoring terrorism.
In turn Chavez has accused the Bush administration of violating an agreement to supply parts for Venezuela's F-16s.
Rojas is a close military adviser to Chavez. He said that while the purchase of Sukhoi-35s had previously been discussed with Moscow, the Bush administration's arms embargo had given the discussions fresh urgency.
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that under the terms of U.S. arms sales contracts, "you can't transfer these defense articles, in this case, F-16s, to a third country. And I would expect that even if such a request were made that (permission) would not be forthcoming from the U.S. Government."
The U.S.-Venezuelan agreement on the aircraft dates back to a 1982 contract, which stipulates that Venezuela cannot unilaterally re-sell its F-16s, but Rojas insisted that the Bush administration had unilaterally violated terms of the agreement, freeing Venezuela from complying with the contract's terms.
Like many nations in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, Japan is tightening its entry regulations.
Kyodo News reported on May 17 that on Wednesday Japan's House of Councilors approved a bill altering the country's Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law to include fingerprinting and photographing on entry all foreign visitors over age 16.
Proponents of the bill say that its intention is to prohibit terrorists using bogus identity documents from entering Japan.
Under the proposed legislation, visitors will have their biometric data compared with that of previous deportees.
An additional provision of the bill would allow the government to deport anyone designated as a terrorist by the justice minister.
The proposed legislation creates a number of protected categories, including ethnic Koreans, permanent residents with special status, foreign minors under 16 year of age, those visiting Japan for diplomatic or official purposes, and those invited by the Japanese government.
Foreigners visiting on working or tourist visas will also be fingerprinted and photographed at immigration upon arrival.
The insurgency in Balochistan, Pakistan's largest province, continues to worsen.
Following an assassination attempt on President Pervez Musharraf in the provincial capital Quetta last December, the Pakistani military has increased its presence there to over 40,000 troops.
Balochistan is critical in Islamabad's plans to improve the economy as an Iran-India natural gas pipeline would traverse the province; Pakistani and Chinese engineers are also constructing a $2 billion naval and commercial port at Gwadar on Balochistan's Arabian Sea coast.
Dawn newspaper reported on May 18 that the Baloch chief of the Jamhoori Watan Party, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, said that educated Baloch youths have offered to join insurgent operations to protect the Baloch coast, resources and identity from plundering by the government.
Bugti issued a statement noting, "These young volunteers are well educated and none of them is affiliated to any nationalist party or student organization. They are common Baloch youths and they have decided to play their role in the struggle."
After praising the youths Bugti said that he hoped that other young Balochis would also come forward to assist the Baloch people to use their "national, legal, constitutional and moral rights to defend the people of Balochistan against a war imposed on them by the government."
The head of the main business group in Spain's Basque region says the terrorist group ETA appears to have ended its practise of extortion to fund itself.
EFE news agency on May 18 quoted Alejandro Echevarria, head of the Business Association of the Basque Region, as saying that he was "cautiously optimistic," but also warning against considering the unilaterial ceasefire as irreversible.
Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, or ETA, announced its unilateral ceasefire two months ago.
Since beginning its separtist military operations nearly four decades ago over 800 people have died in the violence between ETA and Spanish security forces.
ETA traditionally used money from extortion to underwrite its operations. As recently as early March, ETA sent threatening letters to businessmen along with photos of their wives or children, who were threatened with death if the businessmen did not make a "donation."
Echevarria told an audience at the New Economy Forum in the capital Madrid, "The situation today is moving, with caution, toward the disappearance of terrorism, but deep differences between the Basque political forces continue there."
Echevarria told participants that Basque businessmen "will not accept peace with violence, threats and blackmail against businessmen. We all have an obligation to contribute" to the peace process, which must be led by "the government, and, in short, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who needs to have our backing. We have achieved the easiest thing and now comes the hard part: For ETA to end and to overcome the differences that bog down Basque politics and, in some respects, Spanish politics."
