Veteran Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau is on Hugo Chavez's case.

Morgenthau warned last week at Washington's Brookings Institution that Iran is using Venezuela's financial system to avoid international sanctions so it can acquire materials to develop nuclear weapons and missiles.  He urged more scrutiny of the "emerging axis of Iran and Venezuela" in an op/ed article in the Wall Street Journal, in which he said a number of mysterious Iranian factories had sprung up in remote parts of Venezuela.

Chavez's man in Washington, Venezuelan Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez, called the allegations "outrageous ... unfounded and irresponsible" in a letter to the district attorney seen by Reuters.

True, leftist President Chavez has done little to endear himself to Americans. A fierce critic of the United States, his foreign policy rule of thumb is my enemy's enemies are my friends. His last trip abroad included visits to Libya, Algeria, Syria, Iran, Belarus and Russia. He loudly announced plans to buy Russian tanks and anti-aircraft missiles.

But Chavez maintains the weapons are needed to defend Venezuela, which he says is threatened by a growing U.S. military presence in neighboring Colombia. And he swears he has no intention of developing an atomic bomb.

Besides vast oil reserves, Venezuela has large deposits of uranium, though there are no signs of any plans to mine them.

"Venezuela would never participate, directly or indirectly, in any project to help any country produce weapons of mass destruction," Alvarez wrote to Morgenthau.

The ambassador said the DA's suspicions about Iranian factories were "particularly irresponsible" because they produce food, farming equipment, plastic goods, bicycles and dairy products.

"Sadly, your claims bring to memory the allegations of weapons of mass destruction that were said to exist in Iraq and led to that country's invasion and the consequent loss of many Arab and American lives," Alvarez wrote.

The diplomat said the district attorney was feeding "an unfounded and dirty campaign" against Venezuela.

Without hard evidence to show, is Morgenthau fear-mongering? What do you think?

Photo credit: Reuters/handout (Chavez speaks next to Iran's Ahmadinejad in Tehran), Reuters/Brendan McDermid  (Morgenthau at Reuters Financial Regulation Summit in New York, April 24, 2009)

Yet Pope Benedict XVI blessed the terminally ill Senator Edward Kennedy, according to correspondence made public at his burial in Arlington National Cemetery on Saturday.

Kennedy, whose political career was marred by scandal, asked for the Pope's prayers in a letter that was handed to the pontiff by President Barack Obama in Rome on July 10.

"I am writing with deep humility to ask that you pray for me as my own health declines. I was diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago, and, although I continue treatment, the disease is taking its toll on me. I am 77 years old and preparing for the next passage of life," Kennedy wrote.

"I know that I have been an imperfect human being, but with the help of my faith, I have tried to right my path."

In his nearly 50 years in the Senate -- Kennedy wrote -- he championed the rights of the poor, opposed the death penalty and fought to end war. His commitment to accessible healthcare for all Americans was the political cause of his life, the dying senator wrote to the pontiff.

"I have always tried to be a faithful Catholic, Your Holiness, and though I have fallen short through human failings, I have never failed to believe and respect the fundamental teachings. I continue to pray for God's blessings on you and our Church and would be most thankful for your prayers for me."

The Pope replied through a Vatican official that he was saddened to know of Kennedy's illness.

"Commending you and the members of your family to the loving intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Father cordially imparts his Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of wisdom, comfort and strength in the Lord."

Photo by Brian Snyder (President Obama and Kennedy family members stand by Sen. Edward Kennedy's casket during funeral services in Boston)

Deposed Honduran president Manuel Zelaya got his strongest endorsement yet from President Barack Obama on Tuesday as the exiled leftist leader returned to Washington to meet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 
 
The United States has joined Latin America in unanimously condemning the military coup in the banana-producing country that ran Zelaya out of town in his pajamas ten days ago.
 
But Washington has been reluctant to slap sanctions on Honduras and cut off U.S. aid. Instead it is cautiously looking for a negotiated and peaceful resolution to a crisis that looks like a win-win situation for the United States' main adversary in the hemisphere, Venezuela's leftist leader Hugo Chavez.
 
Zelaya, a wealthy rancher who turned left in office and signed on to Chavez's growing anti-U.S. coalition, is hardly the best poster boy for democracy. His moves to follow Chavez's example and extend presidential term limits in Honduras sparked the political crisis in which the Honduran Supreme Court, with the backing of Congress, ordered the army to oust the president.
 
After years of U.S. neglect of Latin America during the Bush administration, Obama is trying to improve relations with the region and cannot afford to be on the wrong side of a crisis that many Latin Americans see as a flashback to a dark era of military dictatorships supported by the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Pentagon suspended military cooperation with Honduras last week, even though it maintains a U.S. base in the Central American country that served as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" in the 1980s when the United States was supplying the Contra war against Nicaragua's Sandinistas.
 
Experts on Latin America warn that the close relationship with the Honduran military could lead the United States to do what it had done for decades during the Cold War: side with the elites.
 
"The battle between Zelaya and his opponents pits a reformist president supported by labor unions and social organizations against a mafia-like, drug-ridden, corrupt political elite who is accustomed to choosing not only the Supreme Court and the Congress, but also the president," said Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington.
 
Dan Erikson, of the Inter-American Dialogue, believes Chavez is well-positioned to benefit from any outcome.
 
"If Zelaya is restored, then another Chavez ally remains in power. If the coup is not reversed, then Chavez has a new issue with which to rally anti-American sentiments in the region. The bottom line is that Chavez is engaged in trying to exploit the Honduran coup to maximum advantage," Erikson said.
    
The hemisphere has still not figured out how to contain a new breed of power-grabbing populist leaders like Chavez who have risen through the ballot box, Erikson said.
 
But whatever their authoritarian tendencies might be, there is broad consensus today --unlike in decades past-- that military coups against democratically elected governments are totally unacceptable.

Reuters photos by Luis Galdamez (Zelaya at San Salvador airport on July 5); Daniel LeClair (soldiers stop a woman), and Henry Romero ( Zelaya supporter protesting after soldiers fire tear gas at Tegucigalpa airport, where troops blocked the runway on July 5 to prevent the ousted president from landing).

The Obamas flew to New York for dinner in Greenwich Village and a Broadway play. 

"I am taking my wife to New York City because I promised her during the campaign that I would take her to a Broadway show after it was all finished," Obama said in a statement issued by the White House.

The Obamas did not travel to New York in the Boeing 747 Jumbo jet used as Air Force One. They flew in a smaller Gulfstream 500 plane to JFK airport, before hopping into Manhattan on the Marine One helicopter.

A casual Obama wore a dark business suit with no tie, Michelle a black cocktail dress dress, her famous arms bared, and black high-heel shoes.

They dined at the Blue Hill restaurant in Washington Square and later saw the play "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" by August Wilson at the Belasco Theater.

Their motorcade's path to the theater was lined with people waving, shouting greetings and taking photographs.

Photo by REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (The Obamas board a small jet at Andrews Air Force Base)

By Ayesha Rascoe

After a tough week of haggling over an economic stimulus package and cabinet nominee dramas, President Barack Obama took some time to unwind on Friday night and stepped out for a dance show with his family.

Obama, first lady Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia attended a 50th anniversary celebration performance by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.

The audience at the sold out show greeted the Obamas with raucous applause as the first family waved from a red VIP box decorated with the presidential seal.

The Ailey company is a celebrated predominantly African-American modern dance troop founded in 1958.

The group has performed for estimated 21 million people in 71 countries.

After their date night on Friday, the Obamas will go to Camp David on Saturday for their first visit to the presidential retreat outside Washington.

Reuters photo by Kevin Lamarque.

BUENOS AIRES - After setting off an international furor last month when he denied on Swedish TV that Nazi gas chambers ever existed, Bishop Richard Williamson is holed up in the seminary he runs in Argentina and won't talk to the press. 

The traditionalist bishop was excommunicated 20 years ago, but Pope Benedict rehabilitated him on Jan. 24, causing an outcry from Jews, Catholics and nonbelievers alike who object to Williamson being brought back into the Vatican's fold.

So I headed out with a photographer to look for the bishop in the seminary in the quiet farming town of La Reja, an hour's drive from Argentina's capital. We found a stark-looking tan-colored church, located on extensive tree-lined grounds where a Mass was being held. 

It was clear we were in Williamson's territory when we saw the women and girls in attendance had their heads and shoulders covered by scarves, in line with traditionalist doctrine. 

We entered the griounds, knocked on a door and were greeted by a bespectacled young priest who politely took my press card and said he would tell Williamson we were there. 

It looked like we were to be the first to interview the man at the center of a scandal that has included condemnation by the German government.  

But the priest soon came back out looking a bit shaken, saying that Williamson "absolutely" would not talk. "And when he says no, he means it," he said. 

The local press was full of similar accounts by reporters who followed us out to La Reja only to be turned away. 

Williamson, a Briton, apologized to Pope Benedict for the "unnecessary distress and problems" the uproar had caused him, calling his statement "imprudent" in a letter sent to the Vatican last week and posted on his blog.

But he made no mention of the Holocaust and did not repudiate his comments, as many Jews had demanded.

The Pope, on Wednesday, called on Williamson to publicly recant his views on the Holocaust.

We figured this was it. Williamson was practically being ordered by the Pope himself to talk, so back I went to La Reja, this time with a TV cameraman.

The seminary gates were now locked and the young priest said Williamson still had nothing to say.

Another seminarian passed by, jogging in black robes and long pants despite the intense midday sun. He did not want to speak to us either, leaving us to wonder what goes on behind the barbed wire fence around the seminary.

Reuters photo by Jens Falk (Williamson at Frankfurt airport Feb 28, 2007)

Original Post Text:
U2 lead singer Bono dropped the mike to take up the pen.

The Irish rocker's first opinion column for The New Times appeared on Sunday, and it wasn't about debt, poverty or Aids in Africa -- causes on which he has long been outspoken.

No, his initial incursion onto the op/ed pages is an ode to the Chairman of the Board.

Frank Sinatra's defiant voice singing "My Way" is a "foghorn" at a time of world uncertainty in business, love and life, Bono writes.

Bono says he was struck by Sinatra's lack of sentimentality in the song, when listening to a deafening chorus of Irish "rabble-rousers" sing "I did it my way" midst the revelry of a crowded Dublin pub at New Year's.

"Is this knotted fist of a voice a clue to the next year?" the U2 frontman asks himself.

"In the mist of uncertainty in your business life, your love life, your life life, why is Sinatra's voice such a foghorn -- such confidence in nervous times allowing you romance but knocking your rose-tinted glasses off your nose, if you get too carried away."

Bono has joked that he was "never great with the full stops or commas." To that end, the 48-year-old rock star recorded a podcast to accompany the column.

The New York Times says its new guest columnist will occasionally write about a diverse range of topics and major issues facing the world.

Bono has campaigned to lessen the debt burden on the world's poorest countries and fight poverty and AIDS in Africa.

The Irish rocker's first opinion column for The New Times appeared on Sunday, and it wasn't about debt, poverty or Aids in Africa -- causes on which he has long been outspoken.

No, his initial incursion onto the op/ed pages is an ode to the Chairman of the Board.

Frank Sinatra's defiant voice singing "My Way" is a "foghorn" at a time of world uncertainty in business, love and life, Bono writes.

Bono says he was struck by Sinatra's lack of sentimentality in the song, when listening to a deafening chorus of Irish "rabble-rousers" sing "I did it my way" midst the revelry of a crowded Dublin pub at New Year's.

"Is this knotted fist of a voice a clue to the next year?" the U2 frontman asks himself.

"In the mist of uncertainty in your business life, your love life, your life life, why is Sinatra's voice such a foghorn -- such confidence in nervous times allowing you romance but knocking your rose-tinted glasses off your nose, if you get too carried away."

Bono has joked that he was "never great with the full stops or commas." To that end, the 48-year-old rock star recorded a podcast to accompany the column.

The New York Times says its new guest columnist will occasionally write about a diverse range of topics and major issues facing the world.

Bono has campaigned to lessen the debt burden on the world's poorest countries and fight poverty and AIDS in Africa.

Reuters photo by Chip East  (Bono speaks during the Clinton Global Initiative, in New York, September 24, 2008)

The Irish rocker's first opinion column for The New Times appeared on Sunday, and it wasn't about debt, poverty or Aids in Africa -- causes on which he has long been outspoken.

No, his initial incursion onto the op/ed pages is an ode to the Chairman of the Board.

Frank Sinatra's defiant voice singing "My Way" is a "foghorn" at a time of world uncertainty in business, love and life, Bono writes.

Bono says he was struck by Sinatra's lack of sentimentality in the song, when listening to a deafening chorus of Irish "rabble-rousers" sing "I did it my way" midst the revelry of a crowded Dublin pub at New Year's.

"Is this knotted fist of a voice a clue to the next year?" the U2 frontman asks himself.

"In the mist of uncertainty in your business life, your love life, your life life, why is Sinatra's voice such a foghorn -- such confidence in nervous times allowing you romance but knocking your rose-tinted glasses off your nose, if you get too carried away."

Bono has joked that he was "never great with the full stops or commas." To that end, the 48-year-old rock star recorded a podcast to accompany the column.

The New York Times says its new guest columnist will occasionally write about a diverse range of topics and major issues facing the world.

Bono has campaigned to lessen the debt burden on the world's poorest countries and fight poverty and AIDS in Africa.

TURBACO, Colombia - A former mayor of this coastal town is such as fan of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama that he plans to hold a mock election to allow Colombians to vote for the Democrat.

Silvio Carrasquilla plastered the front of his house with pictures of Obama, campaign slogans and U.S. flags.

"We want to show the moral support that Obama has here," said 28-year-old Carrasquilla, who was mayor from 2004 to 2008. "I got the idea when people who saw the house started asking if there was some way for them to vote."

On U.S. election day Nov 4., they will be able to cast a ballot at four voting booths set up around Turbaco, a mostly Afro-Colombian town near the Caribbean resort of Cartagena.

Win or lose in the United States, Barack Obama could really hit the jackpot in Colombia.

A provincial lottery has printed the smiling face of Obama on its tickets, hoping to boost sales while paying homage to the U.S. presidential candidate.

The average weekly top prize: just under $300,000.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo credits: Reuters/Freddy Builes and Albeiro Lopera.