Venezuela tightens security ahead of OPEC meeting

CARACAS, May 30 (Xinhua) -- The Venezuelan government will mount a special security plan for the 141st Special Meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) that begins on Thursday in Caracas.

Venezuela's Interior Minister Jesse Chacon said in a statement on Tuesday that the plan would prevent any violent incident at the OPEC meeting.

"We are certain there will be no security problems at the meeting," he said. He added that there might be some student demonstrations, but that they were unlikely to disrupt the proceedings.

Last week, students clashed with police in the city of Merida in southeast Venezuela, leaving 30 injured.

He said that some people wanted to make vicious use of the meetings to give Venezuela a bad image by disrupting public order.

"It is... an opportunity for a group of subversives to demonstrate, so that internationally people will think there is a climate of violence in Venezuela; something I want everyone to know does not exist," Chacon said.

The OPEC meeting will be held in the Euro building Hotel, where a heavy security presence had been observed inspecting people and vehicles seeking to enter. Enditem

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75 Gitmo detainees hold hunger strike

WASHINGTON, May 30 (Xinhua) -- About 75 detainees have been staging a new wave of hunger strike since last weekend in the prison of the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, U.S. media reported Tuesday.

Robert Durand, the U.S. commander at Guantanamo, was quoted as saying that the hunger strike is a "short term, sympathy" protest to gain attention from the outside world in advance of the June 12resumption of war-crimes trial proceedings there.

He said the protest "reflects detainee attempts to elicit mediaattention to bring international pressure on the United States to release them back to the battlefield."

According to U.S. definition, a hunger strike refers to a detainee refuses nine meals in a row, which means the 75 detaineesbegan fasting overnight last Thursday.

The U.S. military did not disclose the names of hunger strikers,nor their nationalities, but said the 10 men facing war-crimes trials are not among them.

Food has frequently been the subject of a struggle for international legitimacy of the Guantanamo prison, where the United States holds about 460 detainees on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda or the Taliban.

The U.S. military has emphasized from the opening of the prisoncamps in January 2002 that captives are well fed, and given Islamic-approved halal meals in keeping with a cultural sensitivity.

Still, detainees have staged on-again, off-again fasts since the earliest days of the detention center.

Human rights groups said the hunger strikes reflect the growingfrustrations of the detainees, many of whom are being held indefinitely without a trial.

Many in the international community, including the United Nations and U.S. allies, have been urging the United States to close the prison for the concerns of the conditions of the detainees. Enditem

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Brad and Angelina fork out $2m for charity

One of the world's hottest couples have donated $2 million (£1.13 million) to a humanitarian cause that is to be named after their daughter.

Angelina Jolie and partner Brad Pitt donated the money for a centre called, Zahara, that will help Ethiopian children affected by Aids and tuberculosis.

The Global Health Committee said the donation from the Jolie-Pitt Foundation would establish a centre in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to treat Aids orphans and develop a program to treat drug-resistant tuberculosis.

The Oscar-winning Jolie adopted a baby girl she called Zahara, now three years old, from Ethiopia in July 2005 and the new clinic will be named after her.

"It is our hope that when Zahara is older, she will take responsibility for the clinic and continue its mission," Pitt said in a statement.

Pitt and Jolie now have six children -- twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline born in July, Shiloh, two, and adopted children Zahara, Pax from Vietnam and Maddox from Cambodia.

The Jolie-Pitt Foundation helped set up a similar clinic in 2006 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia that is named after Maddox.

"Our goal is to transfer the success we have had in Cambodia to Ethiopia where people are needlessly dying of tuberculosis, a curable disease, and HIV/Aids, a treatable disease," Jolie said.

Ethiopia has the seventh-highest rate of tuberculosis disease in the world and an estimated 1.7 million people in the country are infected with HIV, according to the World Health Organization.

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US pledges US$1.8 million for Cambodian tribunal

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: The United States will give US$1.8 million to Cambodia's genocide tribunal to aid its work in trying former Khmer Rouge leaders for their alleged crimes against humanity, a top U.S. official said Tuesday.

The pledge will be the first direct U.S. contribution to the U.N.-assisted tribunal, which inches toward convening a trial for its first suspect later this year.

Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said the U.S. government believes "the conditions are both appropriate and opportune to make this contribution."

The tribunal has detained five former Khmer Rouge leaders on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

"We want to help this tribunal succeed, and we think it definitely has a chance to succeed," Negroponte said at a press conference at the end of a three-day visit to Cambodia.

The money will be given to the tribunal's U.N. side, which is staffed by international personnel. The tribunal, which is seeking justice for atrocities committed in the 1970s under the Khmer Rouge's rule, is jointly run by Cambodian and U.N. officials under a pact both sides signed in 2003.

The radical policies of the ultra-communist Cambodian group, which ruled from 1975 to 1979, caused the death of some 1.9 million people from starvation, diseases, overwork and execution.

Negroponte also toured the S-21 prison, the largest Khmer Rouge torture center in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, to see what he called "a reminder of the holocaust."

It is now known as Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, and holds exhibits of prisoner's mug shots, skulls, and other traces of the crimes committed during the Khmer Rouge's brutal rule.

"It's a very moving experience to see this museum, to see the reminiscence of the holocaust," Negroponte told The Associated Press after touring the museum early Tuesday morning.

He said the site is "a reminder of the holocaust that took place, and I think it's important to document it."

Up to 16,000 men, women and children were held at the prison before being taken out for execution before the Khmer Rouge's regime was ousted from power by a Vietnam-led invasion in 1979.

Washington has spent more than US$7 million over the past decade to support the work of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent group that collects evidence of Khmer Rouge crimes.

The group has given many documents to the tribunal to assist it in investigating cases against the Khmer Rouge suspects.

More U.S. funds would also be available for the tribunal in future fiscal years, Negroponte said.

But he added that the U.S. "will certainly spare no effort" to ensure that all donor contributions "are put to good use," following recent mismanagement and corruption scandals faced by the tribunal.

The pledge came at a useful time as the existing funds for the U.N. side of the tribunal's operations are expected to be completely exhausted in December, said Peter Foster, a tribunal spokesman.

He said Cambodia and the international community have invested a great deal of time and money in making the tribunal happen and it would be "a real tragedy for it to fail now.

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