The Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin recently signed nuclear power plant and space industry bills with Venezuela. While in Caracas, Putin also made a down payment for Russian rights to oil exploration in the Orinoco River Belt. Evo Morales, the Bolivian president was also in attendance, seeking loans for military hardware and to discuss oil exploration in Bolivia. The visit was hugely important to the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, who stated that the plans for nuclear power were for peaceful purposes, he added “we aren’t going to make a bomb.” Venezuela has recently undergone a series of blackouts and is looking for a nuclear solution to fix the problem.
Chavez repeatedly stated that Venezuela was not building an alliance against the United States. Amongst his rhetoric about the benefits of nuclear power, Chavez spoke of his aspirations to install a satellite launcher and factory in Venezuela. One spokesman for the U.S. Department of State criticized Chavez’s astronomical aspirations by stating that Venezuelan efforts to expend resources on its people should perhaps be focused on the “terrestrial rather than the extraterrestrial.”
Read More at the BBC.
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