Author
walter teh wizzend
here's a first draft
On Tuesday, Columbian President Andres Pastrana met with President Bush to discuss Plan Columbia, the $1.3 billion US aid package which is intended to facilitate the Columbian government’s war on drugs. Critics claim Plan Columbia focuses excessively on military support and not enough on the social and economic needs of rural Columbians currently dependant on the drug trade.
Meanwhile, concern builds that the United States is not holding it’s own “hard line.” Columbia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Alfonso Valdivieso, was outraged this week when he learned that former President Bill Clinton had pardoned Harvey Weinig, a US lawyer sentenced to 11 years in prison in 1996 and who is scheduled to be released this coming April. Weinig was charged with money laundering and failing to report a kidnapping; he also admitted his association with the Cali drug cartel. Valdivieso, a former prosecutor referred to Clinton’s actions as quote “sordid” on national radio. Former Foreign Minister Rodrigo Pardo told the Associated Press, “This gives us the notion that the anti-drug fight is asymmetrical. The United States demands more from Columbia than it is disposed to do itself.”
(sentences need to be shorter/tighter)