Chicago Sun Times Kids, if you're going to pursue a career in diplomacy, don't follow this man's example:
Our ambassador to Venezuela, Charles Shapiro, had to apologize to the government the other day for hosting a news conference that featured a female impersonator and a puppet of President Hugo Chavez.
Maybe Shapiro wants to host "Saturday Night Live" as his next gig.
<a href=www.zwire.com>The Tullahoma News May 07, 2003
Foreign high school students are scheduled to arrive soon for academic semester program homestays, and the sponsoring organization needs a few more local host families.
According to Pacific Intercultural Exchange (P.I.E.) Executive Director, John Doty, the students are all between the ages of 15 and 18 years, are English-speaking, have their own spending money, carry accident and health insurance, and are anxious to share their cultural experiences with their new American families.
P.I.E. currently has programs to match almost every family's needs, ranging in length from a semester to a full academic year, where the students attend local high schools.
P.I.E. area representatives match students with host families by finding common interests and lifestyles through an informal in-home meeting.
Prospective host families are able to review student applications and select the perfect match. As there are no "typical" host families, P.I.E. can fit a student into just about any situation, whether it be a single parent, a childless couple, a retired couple or a large family.
Families who host for P.I.E. are also eligible to claim a $50 per month charitable contribution deduction on their itemized tax returns for each month they host a sponsored student.
For the upcoming programs, P.I.E. has students from Germany, Russia, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Finland, Hungary, Korea, Switzerland, Mexico, Italy, Paraguay, Australia, Yugoslavia, China, Belgium, Vietnam and many other countries.
P.I.E. is a non-profit educational organization that has sponsored more than 20,000 students from 40 countries since its founding in 1975.
The organization is designated by the United States Department of State and is listed by the Council on Standards for International Educational Travel (CSIET), certifying that the organization complies with the standards set forth in CSIET's Standards for International Educational Travel Programs.
Doty encourages families to contact the program immediately, as it will allow the proper time for the students and hosts to get to know one another before they actually meet for the first time.
Coffee County area families interested in learning more about student exchange or arranging for a meeting with a community representative may call P.I.E., toll-free, at 1-800-631-1818.
The agency also has travel/study program opportunities available for American high school students as well as possibilities for community volunteers to assist and work with area host families, students and schools.
By SHAWN McCARTHY From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Ottawa — Canadian citizens are expected to gain a long-sought exemption from new U.S. entry and exit controls that threaten to disrupt border traffic, U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci said yesterday.
In an interview at the embassy on Sussex Drive, Mr. Cellucci sought to allay fear that recent tensions over Iraq will have an adverse impact on economic or business relations between Canada and the U.S.
The outspoken ambassador, who raised Canadian hackles recently when he talked about the U.S. being "upset" at Ottawa's refusal to join the war, said the two governments continue to work normally on a number of fronts, from energy to trade to border security.
Mr. Cellucci said the Bush administration is planning to exempt U.S. and Canadian citizens from a law that will require a system to track all entries to and exits from the United States by 2005.
The Chrétien government has lobbied hard for such an exemption, saying it is needed to keep people and commerce flowing freely across the border.
"We still have some more legal work to do, but it looks like U.S. and Canadian citizens would not be subject to the entry-exit," Mr. Cellucci said, adding that non-citizens who are permanent residents of the two countries would be affected.
He said the administration is taking the view that the law requires registration only of people who require secure documents to cross the border — and that does not include American or Canadian citizens.
Applied across the board, the new system could cause huge backlogs at busy U.S-Canada border points, hampering trade and tourism. Under the system, ordered by Congress after the terrorist attacks of Sept, 11, 2001, the aim was to have the United States register every person entering and leaving the country.
The Chrétien government is considering a plan that would have Canada Customs officials collect exit information on non-citizens and pass it to U.S. authorities.
Mr. Cellucci said the work on the border is just one area where Canada-U.S. relations are proceeding normally, despite the recent strain over this country's decision not to support the war in Iraq.
In fact, he said he was forwarding an invitation to Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal to meet with U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham later this spring.
In his complaints about Canada's stand on Iraq two weeks ago, Mr. Cellucci singled out Mr. Dhaliwal after the minister criticized George W. Bush as lacking statesmanship.
He said the Canadian decision has kept Ottawa on the sidelines in the initial planning for reconstruction in that country.
The U.S. President cancelled a state visit to Ottawa on May 5; his officials said he needed to concentrate on reconstruction in Iraq. A day after announcing the cancellation, the White House said that Australian Prime Minister John Howard would visit Mr. Bush's Texas ranch May 2 and 3 to discuss reconstruction and global security.
"Australia was an ally," Mr. Cellucci said. "That doesn't mean we don't want to bring Canada and other countries in because we do, but in the first instance, the coalition partners have the responsibility to get this [reconstruction] off the ground."
He said Mr. Bush still intends to visit Canada later this year, but added that no date has been set. He confirmed that the Prime Minister's Office had offered "a couple of dates" but that they were not acceptable.
The ambassador said such a meeting would be useful even though Mr. Chrétien will be only a few months from retirement.
One scenario being discussed — Mr. Cellucci would not comment on it — is to schedule the meeting after the November Liberal leadership convention, to give Mr. Bush an opportunity to meet with both Mr. Chrétien and his successor.
Despite his earlier warnings about "short-term consequences," the ambassador rejected suggestions by some businesspeople, provincial premiers and opposition MPs that tension over Iraq would cause an economic backlash.
"I think on a lot of the issues we're working on — defence, energy, secure borders, even softwood lumber — I don't think it has had any impact," he said.
He said he didn't expect any backlash from American consumers or business people over the decision or over anti-Bush comments by Liberal politicians.
"There's some awareness, but it's not like how people are feeling about France and Germany. I don't think it's going to have much effect at all on trade or tourism or anything like that."
Mr. Cellucci said the U.S. is particularly eager to work with Canada — and with Mexico — on securing a North American market for electricity, natural gas and oil.
"We require the reliable transmission of energy in North America so we're not dependent on Venezuela — that switched off the spigot a couple months ago — and the Middle East."
Odessa American By Bob Campbell
When it comes to buying oil, Kermit Republican John Bell says the federal government won’t win any “smart shopper” awards.
“The U.S. government has been the dumbest buyer of oil of anybody,” he said. “It’s a panic buyer. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is full of $30 and $40 a barrel oil.”
Bell, 50, is one of 17 candidates in the May 3 open ballot congressional election.
He’s an independent oil producer who led marches on the Capitol in Austin four years ago to protest his industry’s depressed condition.
Bell said the government has rarely taken advantage of low prices to stock its billion-barrel reserves on the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana.
“The SPR needs to be absolutely full,” he said, noting that each reserve currently has only about 700,000 barrels. “When Venezuela shut off, we should have backed out of the market.”
Nicknamed “Give ’em Hell Bell” by Austin media, the candidate’s higher education was “a semester or two” at New Mexico State University in Alamogordo after graduating from Weed High School near Cloudcroft.
But he points to his success in the oil business, lifelong voracious reading and his tenure as president of the Kermit School Board to argue he is more qualified than other candidates.
Bell owns nine oil wells, has investments in others and often works as a drilling workover and completions consultant. He has been involved in farming and ranching since his youth. His father, Dalton, now retired in Artesia, owned two farms and a ranch near Hobbs, Artesia and Cloudcroft that Bell worked on.
After high school, he spent eight summers as a “helitack” foreman, flying by helicopter to fight fires for the U.S. Forest Service. He and his wife, Sylvia, a schoolteacher, have six children. He wears a heart pacemaker.
“My experience and the things I have done more than compensated,” Bell said, addressing his lack of a college education. “I know more about energy and education than any candidate running, and I know agriculture as well as any candidate.”
Referring to one of his rivals, Republican state Rep. Carl Isett of Lubbock, he said. “Carl doesn’t understand public school education because all six of his kids were homeschooled.
“These issues of my campaign — energy, education, water and agriculture — are my life. I’m totally committed and involved in these things.”
Bell took umbrage at candidate Dr. Richard Bartlett’s advocacy of tapping the Capitan Reef Aquifer under Ward and Winkler counties to help solve area water shortages at a Monday night candidates’ forum at UTPB.
“I know where Dr. Bartlett got that,” Bell said, meaning he was first with the idea.
He said Capitan Reef water, already being used at Fort Stockton through reverse osmosis to remove dissolved solids, would have to be processed, but that it’s plentiful enough to justify the expense. “There was a natural lake west of Wink until the Railroad Commission forced them to put the water back in the ground in the 1960s,” Bell said.
Jane's defence Weekly Issue 2631 - 08 March 2001
HUGO CHAVEZ, Venezuela's charismatic and controversial president, has made two powerful enemies: the top brass of the armed forces and the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Chavez still enjoys the support of the poor majority, although his popularity rating in opinion polls has fallen from 70% to about 50%. His links with Cuba and revolutionary movements in South America have earned him the distrust of his own army and the United States.