In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez is accusing the CIA of involvement in an alleged attempt on his life. Chavez canceled a planned trip to El Salvador this week to attend Monday’s inauguration of the new president Mauricio Funes. On Tuesday, Chavez said he had abandoned the trip after learning of an assassination attempt planned by the CIA and the Cuban militant and former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez: “Yes, I am accusing Luis Posada Carriles. President Obama, I demand justice, that the full extent of the law be applied. Send us, President Obama, that terrorist, because here, we are preparing to send him to where he belongs: in prison. He is a murderer, a war criminal, and it was him that put the bomb on another plane of Cubana Air.”

Posada is wanted in Cuba and Venezuela for a 1976 airliner bombing that killed seventy-three people, but the US has refused calls for his extradition.