CARACAS, Tuesday September 09, 2008 | Update
The US argues that has not been able to check Venezuelan airports (Photo: Jorge Santos/El Universal)
Politics
The US Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) asked the air carriers issuing tickets
for travel between the United States and Venezuela to warn
its passengers that they cannot vouch for the security of
those flights.
The highest US transportation security agency is not satisfied
with Venezuelan actions to assess security measures at international
airports, and therefore it asked air carriers to notify ticket
purchasers in writing that the Venezuelan authorities
has denied the visit of TSA officials to determine full compliance
with their standards.
TSA regrets that the Venezuelan government has refused to
allow in its international airports the checkups that are
usually applied in the airports of other 134 countries. This
is a situation that has already been made public, but that
was denounced on Monday afternoon through the website of the
TSA.
Officials at the US Embassy are sure that the measures of
the TSA will not affect the flights between the two countries.
However, air carrier associations lamented that users have
to witness the differences between the Venezuelan and US authorities.
04:17 PM. Western Hemisphere. "Damned empire; I curse you one thousand times; some day you will be finished off and wrecked. I curse you one thousand times, empire." This is the least that President Hugo Chávez has uttered to refer to the US government. In urging the Bolivarian Armed Forces to prepare for war, he said that a US raid on Venezuela through Colombia would trigger and spread over the region "the 100-year war."