In international news, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez is striking back at the US following a judge’s refusal to hand-over Cuban-born militant and former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela. The judge said he would not send Posada to either Venezuela or Cuba, saying he could face torture in either country. Caracas has officially requested that Posada be extradited to face charges over the bombing of a Cuban civilian airplane in a 1976 bombing that killed 73 people. As President Chavez arrived at the airport in Brazil for a regional summit, he blasted the U.S.: “They protect him (Luis Posada Carriles) and besides allege, in a cynical way, that they’re protecting him against Venezuela because Venezuela is going to torture him. That’s to say, the government of the United States is protecting the number one torturer in the history of Latin America, the Bin Laden of Latin America. It’s a cynical and sham government, whose mask falls more everyday and it’s left in front of the world with its Dracula molars full of blood.”