Despite warnings from Secretary of State Rice, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with the head of Islamic Jihad, Ramadan Abdullah Shalah, yesterday in Damascus, to discuss efforts to achieve "national unity" in the Palestinian territories.
Islamic Jihad is a hard-line faction that has refused to join the cease-fire agreement between Hamas and Israel. Sources close to Islamic Jihad have indicated that its leaders have called for a suspension of peace talks with Israel. "The Islamic Jihad leaders made it clear that the talks with Israel are ineffective and a waste of time," the sources said.
Also yesterday, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad discussed a Russian nuclear power plant project in Iran. "Both sides underlined the need for timely construction of the atomic power station at Bushehr," said a statement issued by Putin's office. Though the U.S. has dropped objections to the decades-long project, the progress towards completion of the project comes as threat of a nuclear Iran grows by the day.
Hugo Chavez chose the fourth of July as an occasion to suggest that high oil prices were the result of U.S. threats. "They want to blame us: the Arabs and Venezuela. We are not to blame. Withdraw the troops from Iraq and you'll see how oil prices will drop," he said last week. "Stop the threats against Iran and Venezuela, oil-producing countries, and you'll see prices will tend to decline."
Finally, the Venezuelan band Mestizo, specializing in Spanish and American Indian fusion and featuring revolutionary lyrics, is performing concerts to celebrate the country's national day which was on July 5th . What's unusual about that? The concerts are being held at Tehran's Niavaran Cultural Center.
