US tries to stop Chávez stealing Bush's thunder

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Today, in a break for a round of official meetings, Mr Bush will use his own Marine One helicopter to fly around Guatemala for a series of events, visiting a US military clinic offering basic healthcare and a rural farm cooperative, also taking an archaeological tour of ancient Mayan ruins at Iximche, around 50 miles from the capital, Guatemala City.

However, even the latter has brought unwelcome publicity: Mayan leaders have promised to perform a special cleansing ceremony to clear bad energy left by his visit.

"No, Mr Bush, you cannot trample and degrade the memory of our ancestors," the indigenous leader Rodolfo Pocop said. "This is not your ranch in Texas."

Mr Chávez, who has been using his nation's oil wealth to counter US influence in the region, was in Nicaragua yesterday on the latest leg of his trip.

"The battle between the US empire and the great Latin American people is taking place again," he said in a speech in the colonial city of León, a stronghold of the leftwing Sandinista revolution of the 1970s.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2032075,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12

[bdamomma]

1. how many more leaders will follow Chavez's role and tell * to shove

it?

[John Q. Citizen]

2. I like that Chavez calls the US an empire. Finally, someone in power speaks the truth.

[Richard Steele]

3. Bush's "thunder"?