Venezuelan "bicycle factory"

From The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, January 17, 2008, by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein President:

.... Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez....frequently uses his position and the state-sponsored media to viciously attack Israel and the Jewish people. In a 2005 speech he accused Jews of monopolizing the world's wealth, saying "the descendants of those who crucified Christ … took the world's riches for themselves." A pro-Chavez newspaper later published an inflammatory editorial stating "The genocide [Israel] executed in Palestine and Lebanon is similar to the Holocaust which the Nazis executed against [the Jews], and they will undergo another Holocaust because of the global hatred they are accumulating." During the Second Lebanon War in 2006, Chavez repeatedly accused Israel of genocide and terrorism. With blatantly anti-Semitic lies like this coming from the highest levels of government, it's no wonder Venezuelan Jews live in a climate of fear.

... Chavez' threat extends beyond Venezuela's borders - primarily due to the growing alliance and partnership between Venezuela and Iran. Chavez and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad see themselves as fellow fighters in a struggle against Western "imperialism" and "Zionism," and routinely issue harsh threats against Israel and the U.S. When Chavez says, "The United States empire is on its way down and it will be finished in the near future," and Ahamdinejad says, "the United States and the Zionist regime of Israel will soon come to the end of their lives," it is almost impossible to tell them apart.

Even more ominously, Eppel [a veteran Venezuelan journalist] calls attention to joint "business" projects that have been launched by Iran and Venezuela, among them a "bicycle factory" in a remote area of the South American country. Why, Eppel asks, would the Venezuelan government set aside a huge tract of land for such an unlikely project? The answer is that this "bicycle factory" is believed by many to be a front for a uranium mine. Chavez and Ahmadinejad, it seems, share more than just a hatred of Israel and the West - both their countries have nuclear ambitions, and are willing to work together to further each other's aims...