Top Republican says Palin unready

Senator Chuck Hagel could be influential with independent voters

Senior Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has voiced doubts about Sarah Palin’s qualifications for the vice-presidency.

John McCain’s running mate “doesn’t have any foreign policy credentials”, Mr Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald.

Mr Hagel was a prominent supporter of Mr McCain during his 2000 bid for the US presidency, but has declined to endorse either candidate this year.

He was opposed to the Iraq War, and recently joined Mr McCain’s rival Barack Obama on a Middle East trip.

‘Stop the nonsense’

“I think it’s a stretch to, in any way, to say that she’s got the experience to be president of the United States,” Mr Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald newspaper.

And he was dismissive of the fact that Mrs Palin, the governor of Alaska, has made few trips abroad.

“You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don’t know what you can say. You can’t say anything.”

This kind of thing will have an effect on independents

Mr Hagel also criticised the McCain campaign for its suggestion that the proximity of Alaska to Russia gave Mrs Palin foreign policy experience.

“I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, ‘I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia’,” he said.

“That kind of thing is insulting to the American people.”

Justin Webb says Mr Hagel’s opinion of Mrs Palin will have an effect on independent voters.

A senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr Hagel was a close ally of Mr McCain, but the two men parted company over the decision to go to war in Iraq.

Mr Hagel skipped this year’s Republican National Convention in favor of a visit to Latin America.

Mr Hagel’s decision to accompany Mr Obama this summer on a trip to Iraq and Israel, as part of a US Congressional delegation, led to speculation that he would throw his support behind the Democratic nominee.

However, a spokesman for the Nebraska senator insisted in August that “Senator Hagel has no intention of getting involved in any of the campaigns and is not planning to endorse either candidate”.

US sanctions Venezuela officials

The US Treasury move comes a day after Mr Chavez expelled the US envoy

The US Treasury has frozen the assets of two senior Venezuelan officials it accuses of aiding Colombian rebels, in an escalating diplomatic row.

The US said Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios and Henry de Jesus Rangel Silva were “materially assisting the [Farc rebels’] narcotics trafficking”.

The move came as the US revealed plans to throw out Venezuela’s envoy, after Caracas expelled the US ambassador.

The US and Bolivia have also engaged in tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions.

Relations between Washington and Caracas are not thought to have been helped by this week’s arrival in Venezuela of two Russian bomber planes taking part in a military exercise.

The latest row began when Bolivia threw out the US ambassador in La Paz, Philip Goldberg, accusing him of meddling in the country’s internal affairs.

President Evo Morales said the American envoy had been openly siding with an increasingly violent opposition movement in the east of the country.

US officials said the allegations were baseless, but nonetheless expelled the Bolivian ambassador to Washington in retaliation.

This prompted the Venezuelan leader, a Bolivian ally, to step into the fray.

On Thursday, President Hugo Chavez gave US ambassador Patrick Duddy 72 hours to leave Caracas, telling him: “Go to hell 100 times.”

The spat between oil-exporting Venezuela and the US is in neither side’s interest.

The US is a leading trade partner and a major aid donor to Latin America, so few in the region will be happy relations have plummeted to this new low, says our correspondent.

Paraguayan Indian named minister

Margarita Mbywangi pledged to serve all indigenous communities

An indigenous woman in Paraguay who says she was sold into forced labor as a girl has been made minister for indigenous affairs.

Margarita Mbywangi, a 46-year-old Ache tribal chief, is the first indigenous person to hold the position.

She has been an activist for many years, defending her tribe’s interests.

She was appointed by the new president, Fernando Lugo, who was sworn in on Friday, ending more than 60 years of government by the Colorado Party.

The new president, a former Catholic bishop, seems keen to demonstrate a decisive break with the past, through his ministerial appointments.

‘Forced labor’

But some Indian leaders have voiced fears Ms Mbywangi will give preferential treatment to her own tribe.

The mother-of-three promised to meet those who opposed her appointment, in order to ease their concerns.

“We are immediately going to help colleagues from different communities who are experiencing a difficult situation due to lack of potable water, food and clothing,” she told local Channel 2 television.

The new minister said that as a four-year-old girl she was captured in the jungle and was sold several times into forced labor with the families of large land owners.

She told the television station that she had also been sent to school, so she could read and write, and was now studying for a high school diploma.

The new minister also identified indigenous land rights as a priority, as well as protecting forests.

For an Indian the forest represents “his mother, his life, his present and future”, she said.

About 90,000 people say they belong to one of Paraguay’s estimated 400 Indian communities, in what is one of Latin America’s poorest countries, according to government figures.