USA: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offers condolences to U.S. for Virginia Tech shooting

During a news conference at the close of regional energy summit, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offers his condolences to the United States for Monday's university shooting. Chavez also addresses the issue of ethanol, trying to play down differences with Brazil over the topic. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered his condolences to the United States on Tuesday (April 17) for the shooting that killed 33 people at Virginia Tech one day earlier. Chavez has continually sparred with the United States and exchanged hot words on a variety of issues, but his statement at the close of a regional energy summit did not seem laced with the usual antagonism that often characterizes his relations with the U.S. "This news that I received last night - the information, this morning - it is not good - this massacre that occurred in the university in the United States. It has the world agitated. I have not heard any details, but they have explained to me what happened, and I send my condolences to the people of the United States, to the relatives of the victims of this horrible massacre, whose cause is unknown. But someone informed me that this filmmaker Michael Moore made some comments this morning regarding the society of violence - this is something to reflect on, in societies of violence things like this often occur, tragic," he said. During the news conference, the Venezuelan leader also addressed the issue of ethanol - an issue that took centre stage at the energy summit this week. Chavez, who has been a fierce critic of a Brazilian-U.S. plan to promote greater ethanol output from developing countries, told President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva that Venezuela welcomed imports of the biofuel from its neighbour. He even added that Venezuela was working on building its own ethanol production plants. "We are still not producing ethanol. We are installing ethanol plants in Venezuela - five - you have not yet gone to see them. And we are investigating what we see, we are building - with the support of Brazil and of Cuba because in Cuba also they have been making ethanol for awhile. But this is something that is very different - to make the ethanol necessary to diversify rationally - that is what Brazil is doing," Chavez said. Before the summit, Chavez and Lula - who have been close allies for years - sparred over ethanol. Chavez warned the plan his counterpart had agreed to with Bush could increase world hunger, while Lula retorted that there was plenty of arable land for the project. On Tuesday, the meeting's second day, Chavez tried to steer a course between maintaining his criticism of U.S. President George W. Bush's ethanol plans and showing support for his South American colleague. He drew a distinction between ethanol made from sugar of which Brazil is the top producer, and the corn-based fuel prevalent in the United States, saying the U.S. method eats up too much land that should be used instead to produce food.

ITN Source | April 18, 2007

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