Thursday, June 16, 2011

NBA and State Dept. team up on trip to Venezuela

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport

Memphis Grizzlies guard Greive Vasquez will be in Venezuela this week as part of a State Department  sports diplomacy  effort at a time when relations between the two countries in the ice.

The State Department report that Vasquez and other participants in the exchange of a town from this Thursday. The Associated Press has obtained details of the trip before its official announcement.

Vasquez, with former NBA player Darvin Ham, and former WNBA player Kayte Christensen, will lead basketball clinics for children and with local sports authorities. Vasquez is a native of Venezuela.

The Foreign Minister of Venezuela, said last week that relations between the two countries are frozen, and that his government sees no possibility of improvement. What happened after the U.S. sanctions against Venezuela state oil company to do business with Iran. Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said Venezuela had tried to establish a dialogue with U.S. officials, since Barack Obama became president, but the attempts were rejected.

However, said Fabiola Rodriguez-Ciampoli, Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, U.S. State Department Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, the AP that his government remains open to dialogue with Venezuela on a series of questions. He said that  public diplomacy  efforts as a trip this week to support the traditional diplomacy.

Ann Stock, Assistant Secretary of State, Department of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs, said in an interview that the U.S. secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton to use  smart power  discussed in diplomacy.
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Stock added that Clinton has stressed that the government's relations with the government can not do this alone.

Not much between the two countries, however, as they have been without ambassadors in their capitals since July 2010.
President Hugo Chavez has rejected candidate Obama Ambassador Larry Palmer, accusing him of making remarks disrespectful of the Venezuelan government. This prompted the U.S. to revoke the visa of the Venezuelan ambassador.

Chavez has used the sentences in the United States  imperialism  of nationalist sentiment among his followers stimulus, while in the vicinity of Cuba and Iran, who share their views.

However, the two nations are deeply involved in the trade. Venezuela is a major supplier of U.S. oil company and the United States is the main buyer of oil from Venezuela.
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The Venezuelan Embassy in Washington did not immediately return an e-mail seeks comment on the trip.

U.S. sports diplomacy has been used for decades, the famous  ping pong diplomacy  with China in the 1970s that helped thaw relations and pave the way for a historic visit by President Richard Nixon.

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