Earlier this year Columbian President Alvaro Uribe asked Hugo Chavez to act as mediator between the Columbian government and leftist guerrillas. Uribe asked Chavez to mediate, because the rebels have expressed admiration for the dictator of Venezuela.

The hope was that Chavez could broker the release of hostages held by the guerrillas, or at the very least work out some kind of prisoner swap with the Columbian government.

When Chavez asked Uribe for permission to talk with Colombian generals about the hostages, the Uribe responded with the humor he often uses to diffuse tension with the Venezuelan leader: “No, you might turn them into Chavez-followers.”

But on Wednesday Chavez got on the telephone with the head of Colombia’s armed forces and asked about the kidnap victims whom Uribe wants to swap for guerrillas held in jail.

Upon hearing that Chavez had defied his orders not to speak with the Columbian armed forces, President Uribe abruptly canceled the talks and fired Chavez.

President Uribe is very popular with Columbians, because he refuses to be intimidated by rebel groups such as the FARC which routinely kidnap columbian citizens and foreigners.

Columbia has the highest rate of kidnappings in the world, and President Uribe is the first President in many years who appears to be making some headway against the criminal elements that have run wild in Columbia for decades.

-Samantha Giles

Palestinian leaders asked the U.S. to support a demand that the Palestinian Authority be allowed to open official representative institutions in eastern sections of Jerusalem, including a sanctioned headquarters in Israel’s capital.

WorldNetDaily is reporting that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is studying the request, which comes ahead of a U.S.-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian summit scheduled next week in Annapolis.

The opening of PA offices in Jerusalem would serve as a major statement that the city would become the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Until now, the Palestinian Authority has been barred from conducting any kind of political activity inside Jerusalem. Until 2001 the PA did have an office in east Jerusalem called Orient House. Following a series of suicide bombings, Israeli security forces discovered that the PA was using Orient House to plan and carry out terrorist attacks.

Israeli Prime Minister Ahud Olmert is expected to announce Israel’s vision for a Palestinian state that will encompass most of the West Bank.

Hamas leaders, including the group’s chief in Gaza, repeatedly have vowed to take over the West Bank if Israel withdraws from the strategic territory. Hamas in June seized the Gaza Strip, overrunning all U.S.-backed compounds of Abbas’ Fatah organization.

If Iran waits long enough they won’t have to wipe Israel off the map, because Israel may just give the entire country away to the terrorists. I really can’t believe that Olmert is gonna cave to any demands made by the thugs in the Palestinian Authority.

The second that Israel pulls out of the West Bank, Hamas is going to take it over and use it to launch attacks. This is all a big sham, because both Fatah and Hamas are terrorist killers who will never be interested in peace.

It’s outrageous that Israel just keeps giving away their land once piece at a time. The Holy Land and the birth place of Jesus is pretty much a giant terrorist training camp, and once again the Jews are being oppressed.

-Chris Jones

It looks like China is taking a hard line against further sanctions:

China has dealt a blow to Western efforts to increase diplomatic pressure on Iran over its nuclear program by dropping out of a meeting to discuss tougher sanctions against Tehran.

Russia, which like China opposes further U.N. sanctions against Iran, added fuel to the fire by announcing on Friday that the U.N. nuclear watchdog would soon start inspecting and sealing atomic fuel bound for an Iranian reactor.

The West fears Iran wants to develop atomic weapons but Iran denies this. Tehran says it wants only to generate electricity.

Political directors from Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Russia and China were due to meet on November 19 to assess reports about Tehran’s nuclear program from the United Nations and from EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

“I think it’s partly related to genuine travel difficulties, but also linked to resistance on the broader question of sanctions from that quarter,” a European diplomatic source said of China’s decision.

It doesn’t make any sense that China and Russia keep urging the Bush Administration to use diplomacy rather than war, but then block our diplomatic efforts at every opportunity.

-Chris Jones

U.S. experts on Monday launched an unprecedented process to disable North Korea’s nuclear arsenal at the key Yongbyon atomic complex under a multilateral agreement.

A State Department spokesman acknowledged that the process has in fact started, but did not give details on what had been undertaken so far in the disablement of the plutonium-producing reactor at Yongbyon.

Disablement aims to make the reactor and other plants unusable for at least a year while talks on total denuclearization continue.

North Korea agreed to end its nuclear weapons drive in return for aid, security and diplomatic guarantees under the agreement among the United States, the two Koreas, China, Russia amd Japan.

The Bush administration announced sweeping new sanctions against Iran Thursday – the harshest since the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in 1979 – charging anew that Tehran supports terrorism in the Middle East, exports missiles and is engaging in a nuclear build up.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, joined at a State Department news conference by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, said the steps the Bush administration is taking against the Revolutionary Guard Corps and a number of banks are designed, among other things, to punish Tehran for its support of terrorist organizations in Iraq and the Middle East.

Rice said the moves were in response to “a comprehensive policy to confront the threatening behavior of the Iranians” although she also said that Washington remains open to “a diplomatic solution.”

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates held talks here Sunday with his Turkish counterpart as tension mounted between the two nations over Ankara’s plans for possible attacks on Kurdish rebels in Iraq. Gates urged Turkey to obtain precise information on the location of the separatist rebels before launching any military incursion into northern Iraq.

“The key is to develop intelligence to enable us to find these people… that has to precede any action by anybody,” he told reporters after meeting here with Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul.

“Lacking specific targets is likely to lead to a lot of collateral damage… restraint should not be confused with weakness,” he said, adding that military action “would be contrary to Turkey’s interests but also to US interests and Iraq.”

For his part, Gonul said that Turkey has plans to make a cross-border incursion to attack Kurdish rebel bases in northern Iraq but “not urgently.”

President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday there is no proof Iran is seeking to build nuclear weapons, but emphasized that Tehran must be encouraged to make its nuclear program fully transparent.

Russia has opposed the U.S.-push for tougher sanctions against Iran and called for more checks and inspections of Iranian facilities by International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

”We have worked cooperatively with our partners at the United Nations Security Council, and we intend to continue such cooperative work in the future,” Putin said.

But he said that with no ”objective data” showing Iran is developing nuclear weapons, ”we proceed from an assumption that Iran has no such plans.”

There is an interesting article in the New York Times this morning that discusses an internal debate within the Bush Administration about how to deal with North Korea.

As of right now our agreement with the North to provide various kinds of economic aide in return for dismantlement of their nuclear program still stands.

However, Israel is arguing that in light of the recent discovery of a possible clandestine nuclear program in Syria thanks to the help provided by North Korea, we should reconsider that deal.

Israel recently launched air strikes against a facility in Syria that is alleged to be home to some type of clandestine nuclear program. The Israelis allegedly sent special forces soldiers in to Syria prior to the bombings to retrieve some type of proof that the facility was indeed a nuclear facility.

They showed the proof to President Bush and he gave the go ahead for the air strikes. Now some in his Administration are advising him that the North cannot be trusted in light of these recent events.

According to the article Bush, Rice, and Defense Secretary Gates remain committed to the deal with the North at least for the time being.

By Chris Jones
The Hot Joints

According to the NY Times Senator Barack Obama proposed on Tuesday setting a goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world, saying the United States should greatly reduce its stockpiles to lower the threat of nuclear terrorism, aides say.

In a speech at DePaul University in Chicago, Mr. Obama will add his voice to a plan endorsed earlier this year by a bipartisan group of former government officials from the cold war era who say the United States must begin building a global consensus to reverse a reliance on nuclear weapons that have become “increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.”

“In 2009, we will have a window of opportunity to renew our global leadership and bring our nation together,” Mr. Obama is planning to say, according to an excerpt of remarks provided by his aides. “If we don’t seize that moment, we may not get another.”

In his speech, according to a campaign briefing paper, Mr. Obama also will call for using a combination of diplomacy and pressure to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs. Aides did not say what Mr. Obama intended to do if diplomacy and sanctions failed.

As long as we have countries like Iran pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons program it doesn’t seem practical for us to give up nukes. I agree that we could all cut down on stockpiles, but to think the world will ever be free of nuclear weapons is a bit naive.

-Chris Jones

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Il welcomed South Korea’s president to Pyongyang displaying scant enthusiasm Tuesday while orchestrated crowds cheered the start of the second-ever summit between the divided Koreas since World War II.

The greeting was a stark contrast to the first North-South summit in 2000, when Kim greeted then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung with smiles and clasped both his hands tightly in an emotional moment that softened the North Korean strongman’s image to South Koreans and the world.

This time, Kim appeared reserved and unemotional, walking slowly and occasionally clapping lightly to encourage the crowd of thousands at the outdoor welcome ceremony, who waved red and pink paper flowers. South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun appeared to revel in the moment, waving and smiling broadly before reviewing a goose-stepping North Korean military honor guard wielding rifles with bayonets…FULL STORY