Caracas Connect

Venezuela brings free heating oil to poor in NY

2007-12-17T17:50:00.001-05:00

Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez may be a pariah in Washington, but on Friday the U.S. arm of the country's state oil company loaded up a truck of heating oil for poor Americans in New York City.

The shipment to New York's South Bronx section follows a similar giveaway in Boston earlier this week, in the third year of U.S. heating oil assistance by Venezuela's Citgo Petroleum. The program has grown even as tensions have mounted between Caracas and U.S. oil companies and their allies in Washington.

Former U.S. Congressman Joe Kennedy and Alejandro Granado, president of Venezuela's Citgo Petroleum, climbed atop a fuel truck to fill it up at a fuel terminal in the South Bronx Hunts Point neighborhood.

Granado and Kennedy, head of a nonprofit group called Citizens Energy, gave a thumbs up to a small crowd of residents and Citgo employees wearing red jackets.

"This is a gift coming from the heart of the Venezuelan people to the heart of the American people," Granado told the crowd, some of whom held bright yellow, blue, and red Venezuelan flags handed out by Citgo staff.

The heating oil program, which provides a one-time heating oil delivery of 100 gallons to low-income Americans, will donate 45 million gallons, or more than $100 million worth, of heating oil to more than 200,000 families in 23 states this winter, according to Citgo.

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Venezuela brings free heating oil to poor in NY

2007-12-17T17:50:00.000-05:00

Venezuela repays USD 3.8 billion in foreign debt

2007-12-17T17:49:00.000-05:00

The head of the Venezuelan Office of Public Credit, Luis Dávila, said that closing this fiscal year the Venezuelan foreign debt will be cut by USD 1 billion compared to 2006.

The offcial told the official news agency ABN that "this year USD 3.8 billion were repaid in foreign debt, and the government contracted less obligations than the debt repaid, which translates in a debt reduction, with debt amounting to some USD 26 billion."

This article is courtesy of ElUniversal.com.

U.S. Links Smuggled Cash to Venezuela

2007-12-17T17:47:00.001-05:00

A Miami man who brought $800,000 in a suitcase into Argentina was trying to deliver a campaign contribution from the Venezuelan government to the Argentine presidential candidate Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, American prosecutors said Wednesday.

Assistant United States Attorney Thomas J. Mulvihill said in court Wednesday that conversations recorded by the F.B.I. indicate that Mrs. Kirchner, who won the election and was sworn in on Monday here as Argentina’s president, was the intended recipient of the money, said Alicia Valle, special counsel to the U.S. Attorney in Miami.

The United States attorney’s office in Miami charged five men with acting and conspiring to act as agents of the Venezuelan government within the United States, without having notified the attorney general, in a scheme it said involved the highest levels of President Hugo Chávez’s government. According to prosecutors, Venezuelan agents tried to cover up the purpose of the cash and intimidated a witness in the case.

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Venezuela Hands Narrow Defeat to Chávez Plan

2007-12-17T17:44:00.000-05:00

Voters in this country narrowly defeated a proposed overhaul to the constitution in a contentious referendum over granting President Hugo Chávez sweeping new powers, the Election Commission announced early Monday.

It was the first major electoral defeat in the nine years of his presidency. Voters rejected the 69 proposed amendments 51 to 49 percent.

The political opposition erupted into celebration, shooting fireworks into the air and honking car horns, when electoral officials announced the results at 1:20 a.m. The nation had remained on edge since polls closed Sunday afternoon and the wait for results began.

The outcome is a stunning development in a country where Mr. Chávez and his supporters control nearly all of the levers of power. Almost immediately after the results were broadcast on state television, Mr. Chávez conceded defeat, describing the results as a “photo finish.”

“I congratulate my adversaries for this victory,” he said. “For now, we could not do it.”
Opposition leaders were ecstatic.

“Tonight, Venezuela has won,” said Manuel Rosales, governor of Zulia State and the opposition’s candidate in presidential elections last year.

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Venezuela Threatens to Expel US Official

2007-11-29T09:45:00.000-05:00

Venezuela threatened Wednesday to expel a U.S. Embassy official for allegedly conspiring to defeat a referendum championed by President Hugo Chavez, accusing the diplomat of plotting to sway public opinion.

The allegation comes ahead of a fiercely contested referendum on reforms that would allow Chavez indefinite re-election and help him establish a socialist state in Venezuela. Sunday's vote has generated large pro- and anti-Chavez rallies and Chavez kept the rhetoric high on Wednesday by repeating his charge that Washington is plotting to kill him.

In Caracas, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro showed state television a document that he claimed was written by the unnamed embassy official and was to have been sent to the CIA as part of a plan to help ensure that Venezuelans vote against the proposed constitutional overhaul.

"It's a script from the CIA to try to generate a block of opinion among Venezuelans that would give a sure victory to the 'No' vote," said Maduro. "We will investigate and if it's that way, we'll remove this person from here as a persona non grata."

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Venezuela knows what it's doing

2007-11-28T09:57:00.002-05:00

In recent weeks, U.S. policymakers and pundits have warned that a set of constitutional reforms being considered in Venezuela are but a step toward dictatorship.

A little calm, and context, is in order. Since President Hugo Chavez's first election in 1998 and his most recent reelection in 2006, Venezuela has undergone a dramatic revolution in peace and democracy. The Venezuelan government aggressively works to expand political participation, create an equitable and sustainable economy and address long-standing social deficits.

The numbers indicate that the changes are working. The economy has entered its fourth year of consecutive growth, poverty has fallen from 55.1% of the country in 2003 to 30.4% in 2006, and Venezuelans are the second-most-likely population in the region to call their government "very democratic." Venezuela is slowly establishing the basis for a new model of democracy and development -- "socialism of the 21st century," as it has been termed -- one founded on grass-roots democratic participation, a social economy and equality in access to vital services such as healthcare and education.

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Venezuela recalls ambassador amid row with Colombia

2007-11-28T09:57:00.001-05:00

Venezuela said Tuesday it was recalling its ambassador to Colombia for consultations following a diplomatic row between the two countries' leaders.

And firebrand Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez lashed out again at his conservative Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe, calling him "a sad pawn of the (US) empire."

The Venezuelan foreign ministry said in a brief statement it was calling Ambassador Pavel Rondon back to Caracas "because of recent developments and in order to proceed with an exhaustive evaluation of bilateral relations."

The move came after Chavez and Uribe traded bitter verbal blows on Sunday.

Furious that Uribe dropped him as a mediator to secure the release of hostages held by the leftist rebels, Chavez said on Sunday he was putting bilateral relations Colombia in "a freezer."

"I don't trust anybody in Uribe's government," the leftist Venezuelan leader added.

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Venezuela Chavez: CNN may be instigating my murder

2007-11-28T09:55:00.000-05:00

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Wednesday CNN may have been instigating his murder when the U.S. TV network showed a photograph of him with a label underneath that read "Who killed him?"

The caption appeared to be a production mistake -- confusing a Chavez news item with one on the death of a football star. The anchor said "take the image down" when he realized.

But Chavez called for a probe in an interview on state television, where he repeatedly reviewed a tape of the broadcast, questioning why the unconnected photograph and wording were left on screen for several seconds.

"I want the state prosecutor to look into bringing a suit against CNN for instigating murder in Venezuela," he said. "... undoubtedly it is part of the psychological warfare."

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Chávez's 'Socialist City' Rises

2007-11-28T09:53:00.000-05:00

Like most ambitious state projects in oil-rich Venezuela, the new city being built in the thickly wooded mountains here began as a whim of President Hugo Chávez's.

Flying in his helicopter north of Caracas over forests filled with monkeys and tropical birds, the president suddenly had a eureka moment -- he would carve a self-sustaining, self-contained city from the wilderness. Chávez envisioned this as the first of several utopian cities, a bold plan reflecting both Venezuela's capacity for undertaking ambitious projects and the president's growing propensity for making all major decisions.

"He told me, 'I want to see if it's possible,' " recalled Ramón Carrizales, minister of housing. "So we began to explore it, and we found vast tracts that could be utilized."

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Venezuelan ambassador downplays Chavez's comments on freezing relations with Madrid

2007-11-27T09:51:00.001-05:00

Venezuela and Spain have a common future, the Venezuelan ambassador in Madrid said Monday, downplaying an announcement by President Hugo Chavez that he was "freezing" bilateral relations until King Juan Carlos apologizes for telling him to shut up.

"The two countries have a common future beyond ups and downs," Ambassador to Spain Alfredo Toro said after holding a half-hour meeting with the top Foreign Ministry official for Latin America, Trinidad Jimenez.

Jimenez said that, "after hearing what President Chavez had said," she contacted the ambassador to "ask him if this would affect our bilateral relations."

She said Toro assured there was no change in the countries' bilateral relations.

On Nov. 10, Juan Carlos told Chavez to "shut up" during an Ibero-American summit in Chile after the Venezuelan leader called Spain's former premier, Jose Maria Aznar, a fascist.

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Polarized Politics Again in Venezuela

2007-11-15T13:59:00.000-05:00

By: Daniel Hellinger

President Hugo Chávez has called Venezuelans to the polls in support of his quest to construct “21st century socialism.” On December 2 they will vote on two packages of amendments to the 1999 Constitution, which already lays out an innovative blueprint for government, mixing principles of representative government with participatory democracy.

Most of the media has focused on revisions that would expand presidential powers to limit speech and detain individuals during states of emergency and would extend the presidential term from six to seven years, permitting indefinite re-election as well. Mayors and governors would still be subjected to term limits, and critics ask why the national executive should operate under different rules. Although the bar would be raised modestly, Venezuelans would still have the right to petition and force a recall election after the midpoint of a presidential term is reached.

The emergency provisions are not radically different from those found in many other constitutions and were added by the chavista-controlled National Assembly because of the complicity of the media in the short-lived coup of April 2002. Some chavistas worry that the broader emergency powers might be turned against them someday.

Political violence is rising, with the international media too quickly believing accounts laying blame on government supporters and failing to report attacks on pro-Chávez demonstrators. In this polarized climate the contest once again becomes revolves around Chávez and less on the issues. A large block of voters (roughly 40 percent) identify with neither side, but their votes have usually broken favorably for the president. More likely enough Venezuelans will feel compelled once again to support Chávez, but his margin of victory may be narrower than in recent years. Rejection of one or both sets of reforms cannot be ruled out, however, especially since retired General Raul Baduel, a hero to chavistas for his actions to defeat the coup of April 2002, has spoken out strongly against the reforms, equating them to a coup.

The referendum comes at a time when neo-cons and anti-Castro figures entrusted with Washington’s Latin America policy are seizing on Venezuela’s economic and diplomatic accords with Iran as pretexts for intervention. These militarists darkly warn of Iranian “terrorists” using Venezuelan territory for safe haven. Increasingly, they feed a compliant media “analyses” painting Chávez as “crazy” or, worse, a bloody tyrant. As the end of Bush’s term nears, we can expect them to ratchet up the propaganda machine against Venezuela.

Provisions ensuring equal representation of women on party ballots, outlawing discrimination, and giving the vote to young people have attracted scant attention in the media compared to coverage of changes to the presidential term, emergency powers, and new articles dealing with forms of property.

Echoing opposition voices, the international media wrongly presume that the amended constitution threatens private property. Private property in fact is given equal status to forms of state or collective ownership of the national oil company, cooperatives, micro-enterprises, co-managed or worker managed firms, etc.

The most ambitious parts of the reform are those attempting to redesign the “geometry of the state.” These articles create a new branch of “popular power” consisting of councils composed of representatives (voceros, or spokespersons, is the preferred chavista term) of local, grassroots community organizations that will directly allocate funds for projects. These councils will be organized on the level of “communes” within municipalities; their funds will come directly from the executive, bypassing mayors, governors, and state and municipal legislatures.

Why this change? President Chávez hopes through this mechanism, and through the re-organization of his supporters in the new Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) to strengthen direct, “protagonistic” democracy, which in his view and that of many of his supporters has been repeatedly co-opted by opportunists and professional politicians. The communal councils and grassroots alternative economic structures will have to co-exist with capitalism and the political institutions of representative democracy, but over time they are to expand their presence and influence, flowering eventually into “twenty-first century socialism.”

Observers of Venezuela can easily find reason to be optimistic or pessimistic about this project. Several of the government “missions” in areas of health care, urban land reform, cooperatives, sanitation and water have produced inspiring examples of participatory democracy at the grassroots. However, corruption and cronyism continues to plague the cooperative movement, the subsidized "Mercal" markets, and the administration of community grants. Politicians with personal connections to the government can displace genuine grassroots councils merely by obtaining certification of themselves as “authentic” representatives. Venezuelan socialism will for the foreseeable future be less about democratizing control over the means of production than about democratically distributing a bounty that springs from the subsoil -- oil.

Parmalat sells milk processing plant to Venezuela

2007-11-15T09:21:00.000-05:00

Italian dairy group Parmalat has sold a milk processing plant to the Venezuelan government, Parmalat said on Wednesday, amid nagging shortages of milk in the South American nation.

Venezuela this year has suffered periodic shortages of basic food products such as milk and eggs, and recently confiscated 125 tonnes of powdered milk from a Venezuelan plant run by Switzerland's Nestle.

Parmalat on Tuesday signed an accord to sell its 1 million liter per day facility in western Venezuela to a state-owned corporation for an undisclosed sum, the company said, adding it had been in talks over the deal for two years.

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Spain Seeks to End Venezuela Tension

2007-11-15T09:19:00.000-05:00

Spain on Thursday sought to end an escalating dispute with Venezuela that started when Spanish King Juan Carlos told Venezuela's president to "shut up" during bad-tempered exchanges at a summit meeting.

Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said "fewer gestures and more action" were needed to ease tensions, a day after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned he was carefully watching the actions of Spanish companies in his country.

"Spain will remain serene, firm and will defend its interests without adding any more unnecessary gestures," Moratinos told a meeting with politicians, diplomats and journalists.

The dispute began at a summit meeting in Chile on Saturday when Chavez accused former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of backing a coup that briefly removed him from power in 2002 and repeatedly called Aznar "fascist."

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Venezuela calls business group 'subversive' for opposing reforms

2007-11-15T09:18:00.000-05:00

President Hugo Chavez's government condemned a leading Venezuelan business group on Wednesday for urging voters to oppose the president's constitutional reforms "by all legal means."

Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas said the Fedecamaras business chamber appeared to be calling for resistance beyond opposing the reforms at the ballot box in a Dec. 2 referendum.

Fedecamaras, made up of hundreds of thousands of business members, has traditionally been anti-Chavez and is strongly against reforms that would let him run for re-election indefinitely. The chamber called the proposed changes "illicit, invalid" in a statement Tuesday, urging Venezuelans to prevent their passage "by all legal means possible."

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Brazil's Petrobras pulls out of plans to develop Venezuelan natural gas field

2007-11-14T09:23:00.001-05:00

Brazil's state-run oil company has dropped plans to participate in the Mariscal Sucre natural gas project in Venezuela, the company said Tuesday.

Petrobras Chief Executive Sergio Gabrielli decided the project was not advantageous to the company, said a press officer for Petroleo Brasileiro SA who declined to be identified, in accordance with company policy.

"Petrobras withdrew for technical and economic reasons," the press officer said.

Petrobras and Venezuela's state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PdVSA, had planned to jointly develop Mariscal Sucre project, which Petrobras said was slated to cost between $2.5 billion (€1.7 billion) and $3 billion (€2 billion). But the two companies never signed a binding agreement.

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Chavez proposes OPEC sell oil cheaper to poor countries

2007-11-14T09:20:00.001-05:00

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez proposed OPEC should come up with a plan to sell oil to poor countries at dramatically lower prices than those paid by wealthy nations.

Chavez said late Tuesday that he will ask members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries at a summit in Saudi Arabia this weekend to consider a plan to aid poor countries struggling with rising oil prices.

"I would sell oil to a rich country at US$100 (€68.50), and to a poor country perhaps at US$20 (€14)" a barrel, Chavez said. "That breaks with the schemes of capitalism. ... OPEC could do it, although there are hard positions on it, but I'm taking the issue to discuss it."

He said Venezuela is setting an example by selling oil under preferential credit terms to various Latin American and Caribbean countries. But he suggested that with world crude prices near record levels, oil producers all have a moral obligation to help the neediest countries with below-market prices.

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Amid flap, Venezuela's Chavez warns on Spanish banks

2007-11-14T09:19:00.001-05:00

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday things "will not go well" for Spanish banks if Madrid heightens tensions in a diplomatic flap over the country's king telling him to shut up.

King Juan Carlos asked Chavez "why don't you shut up" at a summit in Chile over the weekend after Chavez interrupted a speech by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

The leftist who had used the meeting to rail against conservative ex-Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, has said the rebuke is reminiscent of Spanish colonial rule in Latin America.

"Spanish investment in Venezuela is not indispensable for us, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya, Banco Santander ... we don't need them," Chavez said at a news conference.

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Spain's king to Chavez: 'Just shut up'

2007-11-12T10:34:00.000-05:00

Spain's King Juan Carlos won praise back home on Sunday after telling Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to "just shut up" before storming out of an Ibero-American summit.

Spain's monarch was applauded by Spanish media for his angry reprimand Saturday of Chavez, after the Venezuelan leader described a former Spanish prime minister as a "fascist" and launched into a wide-ranging tirade.

"The king has put Chavez in his place in the name of all Spaniards," the centrist El Mundo newspaper said, noting that it was "an act without precedence."

It said the monarch's rebuke was "something that should have been said to him (Chavez) a long time ago."

The Venezuelan president responded Sunday by challenging the king, asking if he had advance knowledge of a failed coup against Chavez in 2002.

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Venezuela president kicks off reform vote campaign

2007-11-06T09:26:00.000-05:00

Huge crowds cheered President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela's capital Sunday as he kicked off a referendum campaign to further his power-consolidating socialist reforms -- a drive that has sparked deadly protests.

Thousands of people dressed in red filled the city streets as Chavez passed on the back of a truck to officially launch his push for a yes vote in the December 2 referendum on the controversial constitutional reforms that would expand his powers.

"On December 2, when night falls, we will present to the world another great victory ... the victory of the 'yes'" vote, Chavez told the crowd.

"Of all the referendums, I have no doubt this coming one is the most important," he said. The "great objective is to approve the constitutional reform. Approve it so resoundingly that there is no doubt the great majority of Venezuelans say yes."

Supporters of all ages and from all corners of the country, many wearing caps and t-shirts with the slogans, "Yes, with Chavez," watched as he paraded with his vice-president, several ministers and lawmakers, before speaking from a platform.

Venezuela's National Assembly on Friday approved by a large majority the series of controversial constitutional reforms. The assembly is packed with Chavez supporters after opposition parties boicotted the 2005 parliamentary election.

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The Perils of Petrocracy

2007-11-05T10:54:00.000-05:00

Who holds the world’s oil? You might assume it’s in the hands of big private oil companies like ExxonMobil. But in fact, 77 percent of the world’s oil reserves are held by national oil companies with no private equity, and there are 13 state-owned oil companies with more reserves than ExxonMobil, the largest multinational oil company. The popular perception in the United States is that if leaders of oil countries nationalize their oil, they are bucking a global trend toward privatization. In reality, nationalized oil is the trend. And the percentage of oil controlled by state-owned companies is likely to continue rising, mainly because of the demographics of oil. Deposits are being exhausted in wealthy countries — the ones that exploited their oil first and generally have the most private oil — and are being found largely in developing countries, where oil tends to belong to the state.

Nationalization is also a political trend in some regions, mainly Latin America, where the populist presidents of Bolivia and Ecuador have made it part of their discourse. They are led, of course, by Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. He has made private producers accept state control of their operations. When they wouldn’t, as in the case of ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, he simply nationalized their holdings. Chávez has also asserted his control over Venezuela’s state oil company, which before him operated very much like a private, profit-driven enterprise.

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Venezuela's Chavez warns opposition could be denied protest permits

2007-11-05T10:01:00.000-05:00

President Hugo Chavez said his government could deny permits for opposition-led protests because of violence during demonstrations against proposed constitutional amendments that would let him run for re-election indefinitely.

"The next time they announce one of these marches, we'll have to evaluate whether to grant permission," Chavez told thousands of supporters during a rally Sunday in favor of the reforms.

He accused his opponents of planning to spur widespread political upheaval ahead of the Dec. 2 referendum on the 69 proposed constitutional changes.

"We're not going to allow them to fill Venezuela's streets with blood," Chavez said.

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Chavez Backs Off Up-or-Down Vote on New Constitution

2007-11-01T14:42:00.000-05:00

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will seek to break up 69 proposed changes to the constitution into separate blocks for voter approval, abandoning an earlier plan to put them all into a single up-or-down ballot.

While he still supports a single vote on his initial ideas -- such as eliminating term limits for the president and cutting the work day to six hours -- changes added by the National Assembly, such as guaranteeing gay rights, cutting the voting age to 16 and eliminating due process in states of emergency, may be best voted on separately, he said today in a speech.

``These proposals could well be voted on in blocks, as the constitution requires,'' Chavez said at an event celebrating the anniversary of his state-sponsored women's organization.

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Chávez’s Plan for Development Bank Moves Ahead

2007-10-22T11:12:00.000-05:00

The idea by Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president, to create a Bank of the South to finance regional development projects is moving forward, aided by the tacit approval of Brazil, which has South America’s largest economy.

But doubts persist about the need for such a bank, which many economists and analysts continue to see as a political move by Mr. Chávez to try to spread his influence and carry out his crusade against Washington-based multilateral institutions like the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.

Seven South American countries are expected to inaugurate the new bank at a ceremony on Nov. 3 in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, where it will be based. At a meeting here earlier this month the countries — Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela — signed off on the idea of creating an institution with up to $7 billion in initial capital, paving the way for the bank to begin operating as early as 2008.

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Conoco CEO: Venezuela talks to take several months

2007-10-16T09:00:00.001-05:00

ConocoPhillips (COP.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Chief Executive James Mulva said on Monday talks with Venezuela on reaching a compensation deal over the seizure of the oil company's assets in the Orinoco Belt could take several months.

In June, both Conoco and an fellow energy giant Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) decided to walk away from multibillion dollar energy investments in Orinoco rather than agree to state oil company PDVSA taking over the assets.

Mulva told reporters at the American Petroleum Institute that negotiations with Venezuelan officials and PDVSA were continuing, "We continue to discuss our situation in Venezuela with PDVSA and (Energy) Minister (Rafael) Ramirez and expect that to continue over the next several months," Mulva said.

Conoco's stake has been estimated between a book value of $4.5 billion and a market value of $7 billion while Exxon's stake was seen between $750 million and $2 billion.

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Exxon CEO: Settlement with Venezuela could be reached before arbitration concludes

2007-10-16T08:59:00.003-05:00

Although Exxon Mobil Corp. filed an arbitration claim against Venezuela, the U.S. oil giant continues to pursue settlement talks that could yield a quicker resolution, Chief Executive Rex Tillerson said Monday.

Tillerson described talks with Venezuela as ongoing and said he still hopes an amicable resolution is possible.

"In the meantime, we thought it was necessary to move on with the arbitration proceeding to protect our shareholders," Tillerson said. "It doesn't preclude us to come to some settlement before we get to the end of the arbitration proceeding that obviously we think will take several years."

Tillerson, speaking with reporters on the sidelines of the American Petroleum Institute's annual meeting, said the company has had contact with Venezuelan officials, both in Washington and Caracas. "We know how to reach one another," Tillerson said.

Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil, along with fellow U.S. oil giant ConocoPhillips, announced plans to exit Venezuela's Orinoco basin in June after refusing to agree to a new fiscal regime that steered more of the profits to Venezuela's national oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA.

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Cuba, Venezuela strengthen economic ties

2007-10-16T08:57:00.000-05:00

Revolutionary allies Cuba and Venezuela signed a raft of economic accords on Monday aimed at furthering cooperation, including plans for nickel and oil development and a billion-dollar petrochemical complex in Cuba.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and acting Cuban President Raul Castro presided over the signings, the latest in a series of such events as the two countries cement their political and economic ties in fierce opposition to the U.S. presence in the region.

Ailing President Fidel Castro and Chavez in 2004 founded the Bolivian Alternative for the Americas, under which Monday's accords were signed, as an alternative to U.S.-led free trade initiatives.

So far just Bolivia and Nicaragua have joined the pact.

The two countries have already formed 19 joint ventures in many different sectors, especially energy where they are upgrading a Cuban super-tanker port, operating oil tankers and putting into operation a long dormant oil refinery in central Cienfuegos province abandoned when the Soviet Union collapsed.

The new plans signed on Monday call for building a plant to turn liquefied natural gas back into gas and study the potential to build a fertilizer plant and other petrochemical plants around the refinery.

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Venezuela May Lower Voting Age, Add Gay Rights in Constitution

2007-10-12T09:51:00.000-05:00

A Venezuelan legislative committee voted to lower the voting age and protect gay rights in a expansion of President Hugo Chavez's plan to rewrite the country's constitution.

Venezuelans would gain the right to vote at age 16 under the proposed changes, down from the current age of 18, and discrimination based on sexual orientation would be formally outlawed in the constitution, according to a statement on the National Assembly's Web site.

The Chavez-controlled National Assembly is likely trying to expand the voter base and tap increased support for the president's socialist ``Bolivarian revolution'' among younger Venezuelans, said Riordan Roett, head of Latin American Studies at Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.

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Chavez boosts image in messy Colombian mediation

2007-10-11T14:34:00.000-05:00

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has improved his international image by mediating with Colombian rebels to release high-profile U.S. and French hostages despite a sputtering start to talks.

His diatribes typically distance him from Western governments. Outside Latin America, he focuses much of his foreign policy on cozying up to other U.S. antagonists such as Iran, Belarus and Russia.

But the chance in recent weeks to aid his neighbor, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, has brought immediate diplomatic gains even though he has failed to arrange a first meeting with the FARC guerrillas.

Chavez won praise in telephone calls with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, while the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America met his foreign minister for the first time and 41 European nations issued a statement supporting his efforts.

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Bank of the South sets launch date on Nov. 3 in Venezuela

2007-10-09T08:28:00.001-05:00

The Bank of the South — once just a gleam in the eye of South American leaders — now has a due date.

Finance Ministers from seven nations announced Monday that the multinational funding institute, which will operate similarly to the Inter-American Development Bank, will be founded Nov. 3 in Caracas, Venezuela.

The bank is the brainchild of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has been promoting it as an alternative to the International Monetary Fund, which he blames for perpetuating poverty and contributing to inflation in Latin America.

"We can now say that the Bank of the South is about to become reality," Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega told reporters in Rio de Janeiro. "It will finance integration and will be open to all of South America's 12 countries."

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Venezuela's Chavez on Moral Crusade

2007-10-09T08:26:00.000-05:00

President Hugo Chavez is on a moral crusade in Venezuela, preaching against vices from alcohol to cholesterol, vowing to curb whisky imports and ordering beer trucks off the street.

His government announced increased taxes on alcohol and tobacco on Monday, and Chavez also plans steep new taxes on luxury items such as fancy cars and artwork.

It's all part of Chavez's efforts to encourage Venezuelans to adopt the psyche of the "New Man," a socialist revolutionary with a monk-like purity of purpose. Chavez often cites the life of Cuba's iconic hero Ernesto "Che" Guevara as an ideal example — and complains that many Venezuelans' values are not up to par.

"We're one of the countries that consumes the most whisky per capita in the world. We should be ashamed," Chavez said recently on national television. "I'm not willing to continue offering dollars to import whisky in these quantities. What kind of revolution is this? The Whisky Revolution? The Hummer Revolution? No, this is a real revolution!"

Sales of both premium whisky and Hummers are booming, however, and a good number of Venezuelans are unapologetic about it. It won't be easy for Chavez to persuade his people to shed their shopping-mall materialism and hard-drinking ways.

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US defense chief heads to Latin America under Chavez shadow

2007-10-02T10:32:00.000-05:00

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates left Tuesday on his first trip to Latin America to meet top allies, under the shadow of Venezuela's rearmament efforts and growing ties with Iran, Russia and China.

Gates will visit El Salvador, the only Latin American country to still have troops in Iraq, on the trip. Other stops were not revealed.

Gates, who succeeded Donald Rumsfeld in December, had been scheduled to visit the region in July, with stops in Colombia, where Washington has spent billions to fight drug trafficking, and Chile and Peru. But he postponed the trip to stay in Washington for a showdown between the White House and Congress over the Iraq war.

The US defense chief will likely discuss the war with Salvadoran President Antonio Saca, whose government reduced its contingent in Iraq from 380 to 280 troops in August. Five Salvadoran soldiers have died in Iraq since 2003.

Besides meeting US allies, the US defense chief's trip is also aimed at countering the growing influence of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in the region, analysts say.

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Iran Strengthens South America Ties

2007-09-28T10:47:00.000-05:00

The leaders of Iran and Venezuela cemented an alliance aimed at countering the United States while the Iranian president reached out to a new ally in Bolivia and declared that together, "no one can defeat us."

After being vilified during his U.N. visit this week, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad traveled on to friendlier territory Thursday, first stopping in Bolivia — where he pledged $1 billion in investment — and then visiting Venezuela to meet President Hugo Chavez.

"Together we are surely growing stronger, and in truth no one can defeat us," the Iranian leader said through an interpreter. Apparently referring to the U.S., he said, "Imperialism has no other option: Respect the peoples (of the world) or accept defeat."

Chavez greeted the Iranian leader warmly on a red carpet in front of the presidential palace, where they both stood before microphones and let loose with rhetoric challenging Washington.

"We will continue resisting to the end in the face of imperialism," Ahmadinejad said. "And the age of imperialism has ended."

Go to the full article here.

Venezuela's Chavez urges Brazil to counter US

2007-09-21T10:07:00.000-05:00

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged Brazil on Thursday to accelerate trade and energy integration with his country to help counterbalance U.S. interests in the region.

The leader of the oil-rich Caribbean nation criticized Brazil for dragging its feet on his proposal to build a $20 billion pipeline from Venezuela to Argentina that would supply much of South America with gas.

"We are very surprised there are people here that oppose (the pipeline)," Chavez said in the northern Brazil city of Manaus before a meeting with his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

"Venezuela has 80 percent of South America's proven gas reserves -- let the Brazilians know that," he said.

The two left-wing leaders favor South American integration as a counterbalance to the trade interests of rich countries but Lula has repeatedly distanced himself from Chavez's anti-market and nationalist policies.

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Petroleos de Venezuela to Convert Accounts Away From Dollars

2007-09-17T08:28:00.001-05:00

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez instructed Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the state oil company, to convert its investment accounts from dollars to euros and Asian currencies to reduce risk.

The decision may help weaken the dollar as the Federal Reserve prepares to lower interest rates this week, said Philip Wee, an economist at DBS Bank Ltd. in Singapore. The currency has fallen against 14 of the 16 most-active over the past year, partly as governments signaled they may diversify their holdings away from the U.S., the world's primary destination for reserves.

Venezuela moved some of its reserves into euros last year, along with other oil producers including the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar. The $50 billion Qatar Investment Authority said Sept. 4 it was looking for options in Asia to counter a weak dollar. China is starting a fund to look for higher returns on some of its almost $1.4 trillion holdings.

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Exxon is first to go legal route in Venezuela dispute

2007-09-14T12:57:00.000-05:00

nternational authorities could take three to four years before giving Exxon Mobil Corp. an answer to its dispute with the Venezuelan government over compensation for seized oil-production assets, analysts say.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, Exxon said it last week filed a request for arbitration with the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, a forum closely linked with the World Bank. The move comes after several months of talks between the company and the Venezuelan government.

Venezuelan officials have made it clear they are prepared to pay only book value for the assets, which Exxon says comes to $750 million. Exxon argues it should be paid market value, which would be considerably more.

The filing marks the first legal move following the nationalization of the assets in June. Before Exxon's filing, there was little information about where negotiations over the assets stood between Exxon and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

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Venezuela's Chavez says he could govern until 2027 if voters approve reform

2007-09-04T08:51:00.000-05:00

President Hugo Chavez said he could continue governing until 2027 if voters do away with re-election limits because he needs more time in office to establish a socialist economic model in Venezuela.

He has previously said he could stay on as president until 2021 if his proposed constitutional reforms — which among other changes would eliminate presidential term limits, letting him run as many more times as he wants — are approved.

Government opponents have attacked the reforms, accusing Chavez of seeking to stay in power for decades like his close friend Fidel Castro of Cuba. Chavez denies the charges and says a new constitution is necessary to move Venezuela toward socialism and help the country's poor.

"I need more time in the presidency to finish this. We are only beginning," he said Sunday on his weekly radio and television program, "Maybe until 2020 or 2027. I'd be old if I'm still alive."
His proposals would also extend presidential terms from six to seven years, and empower neighborhood-based assemblies called "communal councils."

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Venezuelans Chase Dollars Amid Worries Over Economy

2007-08-27T08:28:00.000-05:00

Like many people they know in Caracas these days, Alfred and Norma Muñoz are bracing for what they believe is inevitable: a currency crash brought about by President Hugo Chávez's policies.

The middle-class couple plan to borrow as much as they can from a local bank and buy an apartment outside the country. If Venezuela's bolívar plunges against the dollar, they figure, the loan will be cheap to pay off in dollar terms, and the overseas apartment will hold its dollar value. "Plus, it gives you somewhere to flee if things really get bad," says Mr. Muñoz, who runs a small business.

At the moment, with oil at near record prices, Venezuela's economy is booming. The fourth-largest oil exporter to the U.S. has averaged 12.6% annual growth since 2004 -- the fastest in Latin America. Three-month waits to buy new cars are standard at Caracas dealerships amid a boom in consumer financing. Unemployment has fallen to single-digit rates for the first time in more than a decade.

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Venezuela's Chavez accuses Washington of trying to turn military against him

2007-08-20T08:38:00.000-05:00

President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that the United States is trying to turn Venezuela's military against him to undermine a constitutional reform that could let him govern for decades. U.S. officials have denied similar accusations in the past.

Chavez, a former army lieutenant colonel who survived a short-lived 2002 coup, said his domestic opponents are collaborating with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to spur another putsch.

"The conspiracy has already begun. The messages are circulating in the barracks. The hand of the CIA, the empire, is behind this," Chavez said on his weekly radio and television program. "They are trying for a coup."

The Venezuelan leader did not elaborate or give evidence of the purported plot. He has made similar accusations before, which both opposition leaders and U.S. officials denied.

Last week, Chavez proposed a constitutional reform that would abolish limits on re-election and extend presidential terms from six to seven years. But he denies opponents' allegations that he wants to become a lifelong leader like his ally Fidel Castro of Cuba.

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Venezuela's Chavez calls for end to term limits

2007-08-16T08:59:00.000-05:00

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called for an end to presidential term limits on Wednesday to extend his rule and consolidate a self-styled socialist revolution in the OPEC nation.

The leftist former soldier also proposed eliminating central bank autonomy, strengthening state expropriation powers and giving himself control over international reserves as part of an overhaul of Venezuela's constitution.

Chavez's left-wing policies have sparked the ire of critics and U.S. officials who brand him an authoritarian menace and accuse him of using Venezuela's oil wealth to undermine democracy, but his majority poor supporters have handed him repeated electoral victories.

Unveiling his constitutional reform plans, which need to be approved in a referendum vote, Chavez said presidential terms should be extended by one year to seven years without restrictions on re-election.

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Venezuela to Offer Bonds Again After Sale Flops Today

2007-08-09T08:31:00.000-05:00

Venezuela plans to sell 200 billion bolivars ($93 million) of six-year bonds to local investors tomorrow after canceling a sale of the same securities today.

The bonds, which mature in November 2013, will pay an annual interest rate of 9.625 percent, the central bank said. Bond traders said the government refused today to pay the yields investors demanded on the securities. Public Credit Director Luis Davila, who manages the government's debt sales, wasn't immediately available for comment.

The sale flop comes just a week after Venezuela re-initiated local debt auctions to help raise cash to pay back maturing debt. The government sold bonds due in December 2012 last week to yield 9.16 percent. Accelerating inflation in the South American country is making investors balk at yields below 10 percent.

``The banks are telling the government: `We need something better than 9 percent,''' said Alejandro Gonzalez, a bond trader with brokerage Solfin Sociedad de Corretaje de Valores in Caracas. ``With inflation at 17 percent, 9 percent doesn't cut it.''

President Hugo Chavez has used a surge in oil income to boost government spending, fueling a surge in consumption that drove the annual inflation rate to 17.2 percent last month from 13.5 percent a year earlier.

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Chavez keeps up South American energy diplomacy

2007-08-09T08:29:00.000-05:00

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday carried pledges of energy investment to Uruguay, the latest stop on his South American tour aimed at bolstering his regional influence.

Chavez, on the second stop of a four-nation swing, said his country may invest in an Uruguayan plant to regasify liquid natural gas from Venezuela. He made a similar proposal this week in Argentina.

The Venezuelan leader has been offering oil or natural gas to energy-hungry South American neighbors, in an effort to counter Washington's influence in the region.

"We're talking about a regasification plant here too, another in Argentina, where the three countries could converge," Chavez told reporters in Montevideo.

Uruguay, a largely agricultural-exporting country of 3.3 million people wedged between Argentina and Brazil, imports all of its gas and oil supplies, some of which Venezuela provides at cut-rate prices.

Go to the full article here.

Venezuela's four-legged mobile libraries

2007-08-06T10:50:00.000-05:00

A university in Venezuela is using a novel method to take books into remote communities and encourage people to read. As James Ingham reports, the scheme is proving a great success.

Chiquito and Cenizo greet me with a bit of a snort and a flick of the tail.
Mules are too tough to bother being sweet. They do a hard job which no other animal or human invention can do as well.

But these mules are rather special.

They are known as bibliomulas (book mules) and they are helping to spread the benefits of reading to people who are isolated from much of the world around them.

My trek started from the Valley of Momboy in Trujillo, one of Venezuela's three Andean states.
These are the foothills of the Andes but they are high enough, especially when you are walking.

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Venezuela Tries To Create Its Own Kind of Socialism

2007-08-06T09:49:00.000-05:00

At a sleek, airy factory built by Venezuela's populist government, 80 workers churn out shoes -- basic and black and all of them to be shipped to Fidel Castro's Cuba, a leading economic partner.

With no manager or owner, the workers have an equal stake in a business celebrated as a shining alternative to the "savage capitalism" President Hugo Chávez constantly disparages.

"Here there are no chiefs, no managers," said Gustavo Zuñiga, one of the workers, explaining that a workers' assembly makes the big decisions.

There's also no need to compete -- production is wholly sustained by government orders.
Like the Venezuelan economy itself, the assembly line here is designed to put workers ahead of the bottom line and, in the process, serve as a building block in Chávez's dream of constructing what he calls 21st-century socialism. According to a 59-page economic blueprint for the next six years, free-market capitalism's influence will wane with the proliferation of state enterprises and mixed public-private firms called social production companies, the objective being to generate funding for community programs.

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Chavez Faces Setbacks in Pipeline Plans

2007-08-03T08:34:00.000-05:00

President Hugo Chavez has long been angling to join the South American trade bloc Mercosur and win support for his proposal to build a natural gas pipeline across the continent. But Venezuela's cornerstone projects are running into resistance even among his allies, and analysts say the setbacks have come in part because countries such as Brazil want to maintain strong economic ties with Washington.

On Wednesday, Chavez accused the United States of undermining Venezuela's bid to enter Mercosur and of causing delays in plans for a vast gas pipeline stretching from Venezuela to Argentina.

"I'm sure these difficulties are the product of the empire's actions," he said during a televised speech.

Go to the full article here.

Venezuela, Cuba to begin oil exploration off the Caribbean island

2007-08-03T08:33:00.001-05:00

Venezuela and Cuba will begin jointly exploring for oil in Cuban waters in the first such venture between the two nations, Venezuela's state-run oil company said Tuesday.

Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, said in a statement that the project with Cuba's CUPET energy company covers 10,000 square kilometers (3,860 square miles) and is scheduled to begin Wednesday.

The companies expect to discover light crude after conducting a seismic study, PDVSA said.

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Venezuela's Chacon Pledges New Broadcast Rules to Regulate RCTV

2007-08-03T08:31:00.000-05:00

Venezuela will develop new rules to force RCTV International, a TV channel that moved to cable after losing its broadcast license, to submit to government regulation, Telecommunications Minister Jesse Chacon said.

Reacting to a Supreme Court ruling last night that suspended an order fining cable and satellite companies for transmitting RCTV, Chacon said the government will consult carriers on rules clarifying what makes a network domestic rather than international. RCTV claims international status, freeing it from regulation. The court held the law is unclear.

`` We respect the court decision but don't agree with it,'' Chacon said in remarks broadcast today in Caracas. ``No law in the world establishes a complete regulatory mechanism.''

Chavez's decision earlier this year not to renew the broadcast license for Radio Caracas Television triggered weeks of protests at home and condemnation abroad over what critics viewed as an attack on free speech. The television network, the country's oldest and most widely viewed, has been a staunch government critic.

Go to the full article here.

Venezuela's Chavez backs oil chief despite criticism

2007-07-31T09:14:00.000-05:00

President Hugo Chavez endorsed his oil chief on Sunday despite repeated criticism from the opposition and some government supporters over his management of the industry, particularly over a lack of rigs.

"In the face of so many attacks against (state oil company PDVSA chief) Rafael Ramirez, I will make clear here that Rafael will be around a good while yet in PDVSA," Venezuela's president said on his weekly TV program that he hosted from the Orinoco oil belt.

"We have a tremendous colleague at the head of PDVSA and I call for support for him," Chavez added. "Carry on Rafael, you are a revolutionary."

Ramirez has been one of Chavez's closest aides in recent years, leading the president's drive to nationalize the OPEC nation's oil industry, which provides the bulk of the income that the leftist leader lavishes on the majority poor.

In recent weeks, Ramirez, who is also Venezuela's energy minister, has come under increasing pressure and there had been some local media speculation Chavez could replace him.

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Obama says Clinton has foreign policy like Bush's

2007-07-27T09:58:00.000-05:00

By Steve Holland, Reuters
Democrat Barack Obama accused Hillary Clinton on Thursday of backing a foreign policy toward hostile nations no different than U.S. President George W. Bush's in an escalation of their war of words this week.
Obama, an Illinois senator, fired back at New York Sen. Clinton for calling him "irresponsible and naive" for saying during a CNN/YouTube debate on Monday that he would be willing to meet without preconditions the leaders of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela during his first year in office.
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Conoco feels the Chávez effect

2007-07-27T09:54:00.000-05:00

Hugo Chávez's moves to take control of foreign oil investments in Venezuela caused a 94 per cent drop in ConocoPhillips' earnings in the second quarter, as the company warned that future production would be hit because of the loss of assets in the country.
Conoco, the third largest US oil producer, said its net income had been hit by a $4.51bn charge after it decided to walk away from its projects in the oil-rich Orinoco belt, rather than accept the terms being forced on it by Mr Chávez.
The Venezuelan president announced a month ago that the national oil company PDVSA was taking control of the reserves, worth at least $25bn, in the Orinoco region, in eastern Venezuela.
ExxonMobil, the world's biggest oil company, also failed to agree to terms with Venezuela. BP, Statoil, Chevron and Total had previously accepted the new terms.
Conoco was particularly badly hit by the move, as its operations in Orinoco were valued at about $6bn and account for about 10 per cent of its reserves.
Go to full article here.

Venezuela's Chavez vows to continue Castro's 'struggle' after Cuban leader's death

2007-07-27T09:46:00.000-05:00

President Hugo Chavez promised his close friend and ally Fidel Castro on Thursday that he would continue the Cuban leader's decades-long fight against U.S. imperialism once the aging revolutionary icon has passed away.
"Fidel, I assume the commitment of continuing your struggle, your endless battle. I assume it. We, your children, assume it," said Chavez, a former paratroop commander who is steering Venezuela toward socialism.
Since taking office in 1999, Chavez has forged strong ties with communist-led Cuba while emerging as one of Latin America's most outspoken critics of Washington's foreign policy in the region.
Castro, who turns 81 next month, has not been seen in public since emergency intestinal surgery almost a year ago forced him to temporarily cede power to a provisional government headed by his younger brother.
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Political Clashes Shake Venezuela's Strained Oil Industry

2007-07-23T15:15:00.000-05:00

Venezuela's national oil company is being shaken by claims of corruption and by internal dissent, indicating fissures within the institution largely responsible for financing President Hugo Chávez's widening array of social welfare programs and foreign aid projects.

The problems at the company, Petróleos de Venezuela, have been compounded by a rare acknowledgment by Rafael Ramírez, the energy minister and president of the company, that it cannot hire enough drilling rigs, raising concern over its ability to halt declines in oil production.

"Our sovereignty is at risk if we allow Petróleos de Venezuela to remain in this situation," Luís Tascón, a pro-Chávez lawmaker, said in a telephone interview. "We cannot allow this company to remain an indecipherable black box." Mr. Tascón has summoned Mr. Ramírez to the National Assembly to respond to accusations of corruption against senior executives.

Mr. Ramírez has emerged as a focus of criticism amid claims of illegal deals with oil-services companies on his watch. The attacks on him are viewed as part of a power struggle among Mr. Chávez's supporters, with ideological loyalists clashing with the relatively less radical technocrats in charge of the strained oil industry.

The tension within Petróleos de Venezuela follows other feuds within political institutions under Mr. Chávez's control that began earlier this year when several political parties in his coalition resisted his move to gather supporters into a single Socialist party.

The armed forces also experienced an internal uproar after Gen. Raúl Isaías Baduel delivered a speech as he prepared to step down as defense minister this month saying that Mr. Chávez's Socialist-inspired transformation of Venezuelan society should not be contaminated by Marxist orthodoxy.

But the depth of problems within Petróleos de Venezuela, which is responsible for about half of total government revenues and three-quarters of Venezuelan export revenues, illustrates how the feuds within Mr. Chávez's coalition may weaken his ability to carry out his plans.

In comments that jolted global energy markets last week, Mr. Ramírez, the energy minister, acknowledged that Petróleos de Venezuela had hired 40 percent fewer drilling rigs than its target for this year, in part because of new rules requiring contractors to donate 10 percent of the value of their contracts to social welfare projects.

Go to full article here.

Chavez: Critical foreigners to get boot

2007-07-23T15:12:00.000-05:00

President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that foreigners who publicly criticize him or his government while visiting Venezuela will be expelled from the country.

their visits to Venezuela — and deport any outspoken critics.

"How long are we going to allow a person — from any country in the world — to come to our own house to say there's a dictatorship here, that the president is a tyrant, and nobody does anything about it?" Chavez asked during his weekly television and radio program.

The Venezuelan leader's statements came after Manuel Espino, the president of Mexico's conservative ruling party, criticized Chavez during a recent pro-democracy forum in Caracas.

Government opponents argue Chavez — a close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro — is becoming increasingly authoritarian and cracking down on dissent as he steers oil-rich Venezuela toward what he calls "21st-century socialism."

Go to full article here.

Chávez popularity cools amid push for socialism

2007-07-17T10:47:00.000-05:00

Proposals for the unlimited reelection of President Hugo Chávez, the possibility of establishing a Cuba-like political system and the ''violent'' clash with Washington are rejected by most Venezuelans, according to a new poll unveiled Friday.

The poll by Hinterlaces, a Caracas think tank that carries out surveys and analysis for private clients, also showed that Chávez's popularity has dropped 13 points since November, from 52 percent to 39 percent.

Hinterlaces' figures indicated that the average Venezuelan is increasingly rejecting Chavismo's ideological agenda in key areas such as the rights of private property and the country's shift toward Cuban-style socialism.

''More than a revolution, what Venezuela is living is a process of democratic maturation and the remodeling of its political culture,'' said Oscar Schemel, president of Hinterlaces, which correctly predicted Chávez's landslide reelection in December.

The political interests of today's Venezuelans are ''the opposite of extremist speeches'' not only by Chávez, but also by his radical opposition, Schemel added.

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`Bush has picked right priority for U.S. action'

2007-07-17T10:43:00.000-05:00

President Bush wants to make the United States relevant again in Latin America. Last week, he hosted a White House Conference on ''Advancing Social Justice in the Americas'' to highlight a shift in U.S. policy priorities in Latin America.

For the past six years, Washington's limited attention to Latin America has concentrated on free trade, narcotics trafficking and security threats. The president now wants the United States to help its hemispheric neighbors tackle their long-neglected social agendas -- the pervasive poverty, inequality and race discrimination that deprives so many Latin Americans of economic opportunity and basic rights.

Bush has picked the right priority for U.S. action. Some 40 percent of Latin Americans live in poverty, a figure that has not changed much in a quarter century. No other region of world has a more unequal distribution of income. But the president has not begun to match the thought, energy or resources that President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela is investing in the social agenda. The administration's proposals so far -- visits by a U.S. hospital ship, increased scholarships, new lending to small enterprises -- are woefully short of well-considered strategy. And the White House's social-justice conclave was designed to showcase the generosity of private groups -- not to set a new U.S. policy course. No wonder most Latin Americans remain skeptical.

Bush should start with a hard look at existing U.S. policies. In one way or another, many of them are already relevant to Latin America's social problems.

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Venezuelan TV Station Heads to Cable

2007-07-12T09:16:00.000-05:00

An opposition-aligned TV station forced off the air by President Hugo Chavez will take its programming to cable television while it continues waging a legal battle to regain its broadcast license, the channel's top executive announced Wednesday.

Radio Caracas Television, or RCTV, which went off the air on May 27 after Chavez refused to renew its license, will reach viewers via cable beginning on July 16, station executive Marcel Granier said.

"Venezuelans want RCTV, and they will have it," Granier told a news conference. "Until we achieve the goal of regaining our signal we must try to return to the air as soon as possible through alternative means."

Cable reaches fewer than 30 percent of Venezuelan households.

Granier said the priority for RCTV, which was one of the few major privately-owned TV channel that was critical of Chavez's administration, is still trying to return to viewers as a regular network on the open airwaves.

Go to full article here.

ConocoPhillips Holds Talks in Venezuela

2007-06-26T10:56:00.000-05:00

ConocoPhillips held last-minute negotiations with President Hugo Chavez's government before Tuesday's deadline to decide whether to accept tougher terms or give up on Venezuelan oil.

Most of the five other major energy companies involved appeared likely to accept the government's terms and sign deals Tuesday formally reducing their ownership positions to minority stakes in state-run joint ventures to keep pumping heavy crude in the lucrative Orinoco River basin.

Venezuela is taking at least 60 percent of each Orinoco venture, and gave the companies until Tuesday to negotiate the terms of their remaining stakes. Chavez's government already took over operational control of Venezuela's last privately run oil fields on May 1 as part of its nationalization drive.

ConocoPhillips (nyse: COP - news - people ) spokesman Bill Tanner in Houston said Monday afternoon that negotiations were continuing. "As you can imagine, it's pretty fluid," Tanner said.

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Zoellick Belittles impact of Venezuela's withdrawal from the World Bank

2007-06-19T09:27:00.000-05:00

Robert Zoellick, a candidate to become the next head of the World Bank, on June 16 said the financial body's influence would not be undermined by Venezuela's likely withdrawal, and claimed that the bank's major challenge is finding new financial products for middle-income countries, AP reported.

During a news conference in Mexico City, Zoellick said: "If a country feels it does not need or want the services of the international financial institutions, then that is their choice. Venezuelans have a great amount of oil money. "I have found no shortage of countries interested in trying to work with the World Bank."

Go to full article here.

Guest Writer on RCTV

2007-06-14T09:33:00.000-05:00

President Hugo Chavez’ decision not to extend RCTV’s license, thus removing the station from the public airwaves, has sparked a controversy – in Venezuela and globally —with a diversity of opinions.

People across the political spectrum have voiced protest over Mr. Chavez’ actions. They start from the position that shutting down a TV station goes against the freedom of speech that is the right of publics in a democracy. RCTV had an audience, and a high one, and the decision by the government to shut it down means that now pro-government TV will dominate. Despite the role its role in the 2002 coup, it is not Hugo Chavez’ institutional responsibility as president to decide if RCTV broke the terms of its license. It is truly the role of the courts to decide that.

Supporters take an opposite tact. Democratic societies are constantly making judgments about when to balance freedom of speech versus the need for security. This happened quite famously in Europe when were asked to stop the publication of cartoons that denigrated the Prophet Muhammad and Islam in late 2005 and early 2006. They also ask whether RCTV did, in fact, cross a line with its participation in the coup of 2002, and wonder whether a broadcaster in the United States would keep its license if it tried to help oust President Bush from office. Finally, they say, closing down RCTV does not mean that freedom of expression has died in Venezuela. Opposition still exists, and this needs to be recognized.

With all of this in mind however, to shut down any outlet of information is dangerous, because voices in a democracy deserve to be heard, especially when it is a voice that the government considers to be against the will of the people. Moreover, the way RCTV was shut down only gave ammunition to those who criticize President Chavez.

If Chavez would have allowed the courts to make that decision, he would have shown that in Venezuela the rule of law still exists and that there are institutions, other than the executive, that can keep checks and balances in the country. This would have mitigated criticism, and been an example to critics that Chavez is still working within a democratic framework.

This has become a self-inflicted wound with the international press escalating a conflict in a region that needs a broader focus than the ups and downs of the Chavez government.

Pedro, Mexico City

Venezuela seizes 2.5 tons of cocaine

2007-06-12T08:43:00.000-05:00

CARACAS --

(AP) -- Venezuelan authorities seized 2.5 tons of cocaine bound for Africa and arrested nine suspects, including four federal police officers and a U.S. citizen, the military said Sunday.

Following an undercover operation, military intelligence agents seized the drugs Saturday at the airport on the tourist destination of Margarita Island, National Guard Cmdr. Marcos Rojas Figueroa said.

The alleged smugglers were preparing to load it onto a private plane bound for Sierra Leone, Rojas Figueroa told the state-run Bolivarian News Agency. He did not say how authorities knew the drugs were destined for the West African nation, a common way station for Colombian cocaine bound for Europe.

Four police officers who helped transport the cocaine to the airport tarmac were detained along with an airport security guard and four foreigners, including one U.S. citizen, two Mexicans and a Sierra Leone national, Rojas Figueroa said.

Venezuela is a major conduit for Colombian cocaine, and Washington has accused President Hugo Chávez of not doing enough to crack down on authorities who collaborate with traffickers.

Chávez, who says Venezuela is doing everything it can, vowed Sunday to send additional soldiers to the porous 1,400-mile border to crack down on Colombia's leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and other groups involved in drug smuggling.

Go to full article here.

Worrisome economic signals in Venezuela

2007-06-12T08:42:00.000-05:00

The Central Bank of Venezuela is preparing a new set of economic measures intended to curb inflation

VÍCTOR SALMERÓN
EL UNIVERSAL

Awash in cash from booming oil prices and thriving consumption, seasoned by low interest rates, the Venezuelan economy is partying good time, but a number of structural gaps and poor expectations suggest that the effervescent period is coming to an end.

Undoubtedly, in Venezuela the middle class is getting heavy financing to purchase vehicles, apartments and home appliances. Meanwhile, unemployment is dropping and Hugo Chávez' administration is expanding expenses by granting scholarships, subsidies, and has increased wages to encourage consumption. However, in parallel, inflation is skyrocketing; the country risk is soaring; the unofficial exchange rate is mounting unstoppably; the public finances show a deficit and imports have climbed to alarmingly high levels.

Yet another recipe
Besieged by growing prices, Gastón Parra Luzardo, President of the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV), last June 8 announced that -once again- he is designing, together with the government, a new plan allowing Chávez administration to meet this year's annual inflation goal of 12 percent.

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Growing Crisis for Journalists in Venezuela

2007-06-12T08:39:00.000-05:00

A group of Venezuelan journalists who have been critical of Hugo Chávez's government have been accused of receiving money from the CIA in order to destabilise the state. The accused journalists deny the claim. Two have explained that they took part in cultural exchange programmes at the invitation of the US government. A group of Venezuelan journalists who have been critical of Hugo Chávez's government have been accused of receiving money from the CIA in order to destabilise the state. The accused journalists deny the claim. Two have explained that they took part in cultural exchange programmes at the invitation of the US government.

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Colombia, Venezuela inch toward Cold War

2007-06-12T08:37:00.000-05:00

Despite warm relations between their leaders, Colombia and Venezuela seem to be entering a Cold War.

BY STEVEN DUDLEY

BOGOTA --

Relations between Colombia and Venezuela are starting to resemble a Latin American version of the Cold War, as the two countries try to sort out the murders of two Bogotá intelligence agents in Venezuela and Colombia's recent deportation of a Venezuelan politician.

The new tensions come atop Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro's recent decision to cancel a trip to Bogotá, saying Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos had falsely accused Caracas of being a major transit point for drug and weapons smugglers.

''We aren't going to accept any more conduct of this sort,'' Maduro told reporters. ``It's not a game to us.''

Maduro more recently met with Colombian Foreign Minister Fernando Araújo in Bogotá and called for a ''positive agenda.'' But relations remain chilly.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe come from different ideological corners, with Chávez pushing for what he calls ''Bolivarian socialism'' while Uribe is a free-market conservative who has launched an unprecedented offensive against leftist guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known as FARC.

Relations briefly came apart in early 2005, after Uribe sent secret agents to capture and bring back a top FARC member in Caracas. Venezuela threatened to sever all diplomatic ties, until Uribe made a special trip to patch up relations.

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Petroleos Venezuela May Explore in Vietnam, Argentina (Update1)

2007-06-12T08:33:00.000-05:00

June 12 (Bloomberg) -- Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the country's state oil company, plans to explore for oil and gas in Vietnam, Bolivia and Argentina.

The company is considering exploration in Vietnam's offshore areas, Luis Vierma, vice president for exploration and production of Petroleos Venezuela, told reporters after attending the Asia Oil and Gas Conference in Kuala Lumpur today.

``We are analyzing the data packages for the opportunities they are offering us,'' said Veirma. ``They offered us two blocks but we refused and now they are offering us more.''

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Chavez says US oil company abandons Venezuela wells

2007-06-08T10:40:00.000-05:00

CARACAS, June 7 (Reuters) - President Hugo Chavez said on Thursday a U.S. oil company has abandoned oil wells in Venezuela during his nationalization drive this year in the sector.

The state oil company took over the multibillion-dollar operations of Venezuela's last privately run oil fields on May 1. But Chavez has given the companies involved until June 26 to agree with the government over whether they remain as partners in the projects.

On Thursday, Chavez trumpeted the nationalization of the sector.
"Due to this policy ... some companies even left. There is one Yankee company that left and left the wells abandoned," Chavez said at a political event with university students, without naming any company.

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A Bid to Ease Chávez's Power Grip

2007-06-08T10:22:00.000-05:00

CARACAS, Venezuela -- A student movement that has swept across Venezuela is posing a strong challenge to President Hugo Chávez's drive to extinguish independent power centers in the universities and media.

Although Mr. Chávez continues to have a firm grip on the government, the student protests have demonstrated a broad uneasiness with his efforts to dominate Venezuelan society.

Mr. Chávez's approval ratings have fallen and suspicion of his intentions has grown among Venezuelans. He also hasn't responded to the protests in a way that resonates with the public, many of whom view the students with sympathy. Instead, he has threatened to use violence to put down the demonstrations. In Venezuela, as in most Latin American countries, students have played an outsized political role, including in the country's transition to democracy in 1958.

Since he was first elected president in 1998, Mr. Chávez has brought to heel a number of once-independent power centers in Venezuela -- notably the oil industry, judiciary, military and legislature. The university system and a quickly diminishing sector of the Venezuelan media are among the few important institutions outside the ambit of his control.

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Venezuela's Chavez calls protesting students 'pawns of Washington'

2007-06-08T09:54:00.000-05:00

CARACAS, Venezuela: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez derided students who have protested his decision to force an opposition TV station off the air as U.S. "pawns," ridiculing them for walking out of a congressional debate on freedom of expression.

University students — who have led more than a week of street protests condemning his decision not to renew the broadcast license of Radio Caracas Television, or RCTV — walked out of a National Assembly debate Thursday saying they did not want to become part of a political spectacle.

"I had information that those youths were going to put on a show in the National Assembly," Chavez said. "They're nothing but pawns of the empire."

Chavez's comments came during a speech to pro-government students that all Venezuelan television channels broadcast by government order — a frequent practice by Chavez known as a "cadena" or national network.

As the cadena interrupted regular programming, residents in some parts of the capital banged on pots and pans from their windows in protest. Such protests have occurred several times since RCTV was taken off the air on May 27.

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Chavez says US suffered 'great defeat' in move to condemn Venezuela over TV case

2007-06-07T13:50:00.000-05:00

President Hugo Chavez said the United States suffered a humiliating defeat in its move to condemn Venezuela internationally for forcing an opposition-aligned TV station off the air.

Chavez warned Wednesday that U.S.-backed interests, including the Boston-based Albert Einstein Institution, were trying to stage a «soft coup» against his government, claiming they were behind student protests over his refusal to renew the channel's license. The institution, however, said it had no presence in Venezuela.

Chavez began his news conference by playing a video of a heated debate between his foreign minister and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at an Organization of American States meeting in Panama on Monday. The OAS declined to adopt a U.S. request to investigate his government's removal of Radio Caracas Television from the air.

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At OAS gathering, debate over Venezuela

2007-06-04T08:39:00.000-05:00

PANAMA CITY --

A 34-nation hemispheric gathering that was supposed to celebrate an agreement to cooperate on energy issues instead veered into the politics of Venezuela's provocative President Hugo Chávez.

The annual General Assembly of the Organization of American States that began with the opening ceremonies in Panama Sunday comes just a week after Chávez refused to renew the broadcast license of an opposition TV station, making almost certain that freedom of expression issues would loom large in the Panamanian capital.

Watchdog groups say taking RCTV off the air constituted the most forceful attack on independent media in Latin America by the executive branch in recent times, testing the ability of OAS member-states to enforce the democratic principles they espouse.

The leftwing Chávez accuses RCTV of coup-mongering and representing the interests of ''oligarchs'' but his decision has brought him a flood of condemnation, from the legislative branches of the United States and Brazil to the European Union.

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Protests subside, calm returns to Venezuela

2007-06-01T08:41:00.000-05:00

CARACAS, Venezuela — Calm returned to the streets Thursday after three days of demonstrations touched off by President Hugo Chávez's refusal to renew the broadcast license of a Caracas television station.

The government halted broadcasts by Radio Caracas Television on Sunday. Since then, police have repeatedly clashed with angry crowds.

In parts of Caracas on Thursday, Venezuelans walked to work along sidewalks littered with debris from the protests.

The Carter Center called for dialogue between Chávez and the protesters. The Atlanta-based organization, founded by former president Jimmy Carter, expressed concern about the potential for escalating violence.

"Healthy democracies require spaces for political dialogue and debate to allow divisions about the future direction of the country to be addressed in peaceful ways," the Carter Center said in a statement.

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Venezuelan opposition leader demands release of jailed protesters

2007-05-31T10:49:00.000-05:00

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A top opponent of President Hugo Chavez demanded the release of jailed protesters Wednesday as university students poured into the streets for a third day to protest the removal of a leading opposition TV station from the air.

Former presidential candidate Manuel Rosales said protests over the government's move to halt the broadcasts of Radio Caracas Television show that "freedom cannot be negotiated nor bargained."

Protesters have filled the capital's plazas and streets since the opposition-aligned channel went off the air at midnight Sunday. Chavez refused to renew its broadcast license, and police have clashed with angry crowds hurling rocks and bottles.

A total of 182 people — mostly university students and minors — have been detained in nearly 100 protests since Sunday, Justice Minister Pedro Carreno said late Tuesday. At least 30 were charged with violent acts, prosecutors said, but it was unclear how many remained behind bars.
"Freedom for those young men and women, immediately. They should not be treated like criminals," said Rosales, the governor of western Zulia state who was handily defeated by Chavez in December elections.

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Venezuela's Chavez widens attack on opposition media

2007-05-30T08:49:00.000-05:00

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday called opposition news channel Globovision an enemy of the state and said he would do what was needed to stop it from inciting violence, only days after he shut another opposition broadcaster.

Tens of thousands of Venezuelans marched in Caracas in a fourth consecutive day of protests over Chavez's closure of the RCTV network - a move which has sparked international criticism that the leftist leader's reforms are undermining democracy.

State television showed hundreds of government supporters marching in downtown Caracas celebrating Chavez's decision.

"Enemies of the homeland, particularly those behind the scenes, I will give you a name: Globovision. Greetings gentlemen of Globovision, you should watch where you are going," Chavez said in a broadcast all channels had to show.

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Venezuela's leftists in turmoil as Chavez tightens grip

2007-05-29T09:59:00.000-05:00

When he stresses the need for solidarity, Hugo Chavez often points to Salvador Allende, Chile's Marxist president who died in a military coup in 1973.

The bickering among the leftist parties that made up Allende's base crippled his government, the Venezuelan president tells audiences, and paved the way for Gen. Augusto Pinochet to seize power, ushering in a 17-year military dictatorship in which 3,000 people were killed or disappeared.

Partly to avoid a similar fate, Chavez is demanding that the 24 parties in his governing coalition — everyone from lukewarm liberals to die-hard communists — disband and join his new United Socialist Party of Venezuela. The powerful new party, he says, would accelerate his drive to implant socialism in the country.

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Venezuelans Clash with Police

2007-05-29T09:48:00.000-05:00

Venezuelan police fired tear gas and plastic bullets Monday into a crowd of thousands protesting a decision by President Hugo Chavez that forced a television station critical of his leftist government off the air.
Police fired toward the crowd of up to 5,000 protesters from a raised highway, and protesters fled amid clouds of tear gas. They later regrouped in Caracas' Plaza Brion chanting "freedom!" Some tossed rocks and bottles at police, prompting authorities to scatter demonstrators by firing more gas.
It was the largest of several protests that broke out across Caracas hours after Radio Caracas Television ceased broadcasting at midnight Sunday and was replaced with a new state-funded channel. Chavez had refused to renew RCTV's broadcast license, accusing it of "subversive" activities and of backing a 2002 coup against him.

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Venezuela TV Station Off Air by Monday

2007-05-24T08:57:00.000-05:00

Venezuela's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that an opposition-aligned television station must stop broadcasting starting Monday while the high court reviews its appeal of the government's decision not to renew its license.

The Supreme Court announced on its Web site that it had accepted the appeal presented by Radio Caracas Television, but rejected its request for "protective measures."

That means the commercial station will be replaced next week by a public-service station, as announced by President Hugo Chavez, though the court is still reviewing RCTV's challenge to the government shutdown.

Telecommunications Minister Jesse Chacon told a news conference that the Supreme Court decision means that "the channel must go off the air at 11:59 p.m. on May 27. If it doesn't, it will be operating illegally."

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Venezuela completes nationalization of telecommunications company CANTV

2007-05-22T08:18:00.001-05:00

President Hugo Chavez's government assumed operational control of the Venezuela's largest telecommunications company on Monday, completing its nationalization by appointing a new board of directors.

Telecommunications Minister Jesse Chacon said the takeover of CA Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela is part of a march toward a "new socialist state." Electric companies and oil fields also have been affected by the nationalization drive.

The government said earlier this month that it had raised its ownership stake in CANTV to 86.2 percent, in part by paying US$572 million (€422.6 million) to New York-based Verizon Communications Inc. for its 28.5 percent stake.

CANTV said the government appointed Socorro Hernandez, who has worked in Venezuela's oil industry, as president of CANTV's new board on Monday. Other board members include representatives of workers as well as various government ministries.

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Venezuelans rally for TV station

2007-05-21T14:01:00.001-05:00

Tens of thousands of Venezuelans have rallied in the streets of Caracas to protest against President Hugo Chavez's plans to close a private TV station.

The head of the RCTV station addressed the marchers, urging them to defend freedom and "free independent media".

President Chavez has said he will not renew a licence for the RCTV network which is due to expire on 27 May.

He accuses the opposition-allied TV station of supporting a failed coup against him in 2002.
He has referred to opposition television stations in general as "horsemen of the apocalypse" and has blamed RCTV in particular for spreading immorality with its steamy soap operas.
Mr Chavez plans to replace RCTV with a government-funded TV station.

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Venezuela's U.N. for Drug Traffickers

2007-05-16T09:27:00.001-05:00

Shouting Venezuelan girls play kickball in a courtyard. A fair-skinned British girl nearby answers a ringing pay phone in Spanish, jumps to answer a second phone in English, then jokes to a French girl at the adjacent food stand: "I don't know which language to answer in."

Recess at a school for the children of the diplomatic corps? Nope, it's the female penitentiary outside Caracas, where Venezuela sends foreigners caught smuggling cocaine.

The inmates are a far cry from the stereotype of the impoverished local-girl-turned-mule by unscrupulous traffickers. Clearly, many middle-class Americans and Europeans are ready to do dirty work for drug rings too, and many of the unsuccessful end up here with eight-year sentences. Their life in lock-up can hold unusual luxuries — and unusual dangers.

As inmates tell it, Venezuela's prisons are run not by the guards, but by the prisoners — and guns and drugs have become common currency inside prison walls. At the nearby male prison, which holds three times its capacity of prisoners, shoot-outs are a regular occurrence. Frightened foreign inmates say the understaffed, underarmed guards cannot stem the violence and do not even clean off the blood marks splattered across the walls.

"Nothing here makes sense," one inmate at the men's penitentiary told TIME, speaking — as all interviewed prisoners did — on condition of anonymity. "You can't apply logic. There's the law, and then there's what actually happens."

Venezuelan prisons are notoriously violent, and news of riots is common in the local press. Last January, 16 inmates at the Uribana prison were hanged, killed and stabbed to death as rival gangs battled for control. Inmates often rebel or go on hunger strikes to protest long procedural delays that leave them locked up for years before they're given a sentence. The Venezuelan Prison Observatory, a Caracas-based NGO, says that the country's jail system has the worst homicide rate in Latin America, calculating that 22 of every 1,000 inmates died violently in 2006.

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Venezuela Posts 8.8 Percent 1Q Growth

2007-05-16T09:25:00.001-05:00

Venezuela's economy grew 8.8 percent between January and March of 2007 compared to the same three-month period a year earlier, but oil industry activity shrank sharply, the Central Bank said Tuesday.

A 10.6 percent increase in non-oil related business provided much of the impetus for the first-quarter growth, according to gross domestic product data issued by the bank. GDP measures the value of all goods and services produced in an economy.

The growth in non-oil activity was led by construction, telecommunications and retail.
But output from the country's oil sector - Venezuela's most important industry providing about half of government revenues - fell 5.6 percent. The bank attributed the decline to cuts in oil production that Venezuela agreed to as a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

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Venezuelan oil losing share of key U.S. market

2007-05-14T09:04:00.000-05:00

When the state oil company recently took over the last privately run oil fields in Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez declared it a victory against Washington and a giant leap toward a new energy policy that would diversify the market for Venezuelan crude to include rising powers like China.

"Down with the American Empire!" shouted Chávez, who often warns that he'll shut off the oil spigot to the United States if the Bush administration invades Venezuela or hatches an assassination plot against him.

But new study of trade and oil consumption data shows that Venezuela appears ever more dependent on selling its oil to the country Chávez calls "the cruelest, most terrible, most cynical, most murderous empire that has existed." And U.S. government energy trade data show the United States is slightly less dependent on Venezuela, which at one time challenged Canada, Mexico and Saudi Arabia as the No. 1 provider of foreign oil but now tussles with up-and-coming Nigeria for the fourth spot.

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U.S. Raises Heat on Venezuela Over Drug Trafficking

2007-05-09T09:02:00.001-05:00

Latin American drug cartels are using commercial airports and ports in Venezuela as a "safe base" to ship increasing quantities of cocaine to Europe, according to U.S. antidrug czar John Walters.

The comments by Mr. Walters, director of the White House's office of National Drug Control Policy, added to an escalating war of words between Venezuela and the U.S. over global narcotics trafficking.

Mr. Walters urged European nations that have better relations with Venezuela than the U.S. has to persuade President Hugo Chávez to cooperate more in combating the narcotics trade. Mr. Walters's visit to Brussels also included talks with European Union officials on drug eradication in Afghanistan.

Mr. Walters said he wasn't accusing Mr. Chávez or other senior Venezuelan officials of involvement in the trade.

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Chavez: Venezuela to pull out of IMF, World Bank

2007-05-01T11:00:00.000-05:00

President Hugo Chavez announced Monday he would formally pull Venezuela out of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, a largely symbolic move because the nation has already paid off its debts to the lending institutions.

"We will no longer have to go to Washington nor to the IMF nor to the World Bank, not to anyone," said the leftist leader, who has long railed against the Washington-based lending institutions.

Chavez said he wanted to formalize Venezuela's exit from the two bodies "tonight and ask them to return what they owe us."

Venezuela recently repaid its debts to the World Bank five years ahead of schedule, saving $8 million. It paid off all its debts to the IMF shortly after Chavez first took office in 1999. The IMF closed its offices in Venezuela late last year.

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Venezuela pulls control from Big Oil

2007-05-01T09:20:00.000-05:00

President Hugo Chavez's government took over Venezuela's last remaining privately run oil fields Tuesday, intensifying a decisive struggle with Big Oil over one of the world's most lucrative deposits.

Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez declared that the oil fields had reverted to state control just after midnight. Television footage showed workers in hard hats raising the flags of Venezuela and the national oil company at a refinery and four drilling fields in the oil-rich Orinoco River basin. Chavez planned a more elaborate celebration Tuesday afternoon with red-clad oil workers, soldiers and a fly over by Russian-made fighter jets.

The companies ceding control include BP Plc (Charts), ConocoPhillips (Charts, Fortune 500), Exxon Mobil (Charts, Fortune 500)., Chevron (Charts, Fortune 500), France's Total SA (Charts) and Norway's Statoil ASA (Charts). All but ConocoPhillips have agreed in principle to state control, and Venezuela has warned it may expropriate that company's assets if it doesn't follow suit.

Despite the fanfare, these companies remain locked in a behind-the-scenes struggle with the Chavez government, and appear to be taking a decisive stand, demanding conditions - and presumably compensation - to convince them that Venezuela will continue to be good business.

Chevron's future in Venezuela "will very much be dependent on how we're treated in the current negotiation," said David O'Reilly, chief executive of the San Ramon, Calif.-based company. "That process is going to have a direct impact on our appetite going forward."

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Chavez RCTV Closure Rejected by 70% of Venezuelans, Poll Finds

2007-04-27T08:14:00.000-05:00

President Hugo Chavez's refusal to renew Radio Caracas Television's broadcast license next month is opposed by almost 70 percent of Venezuelans, making it the least-popular move of his eight-year presidency, Caracas pollster Luis Vicente Leon said.

Some 69.4 percent of respondents surveyed by Leon's Datanalisis firm said they disapprove of Chavez's pledge to let the television network's license expire, while 16.4 percent said they support it. The survey of 2,000 Venezuelans, conducted between April 9 and April 16, has a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points.

Only Chavez's proposals to use Cuba as an economic and political model for Venezuela have received similarly high levels of opposition, Leon said today in a telephone interview.

Resistance to closing the 54-year-old RCTV network, which draws the largest audience in Venezuela, is due more to a desire for free choice among channels than for free speech, Leon said.

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Venezuela protests militant's release

2007-04-24T08:07:00.000-05:00

President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that Venezuela will lodge a protest with the United Nations after the U.S. released a Cuban militant on bond, accusing Washington of letting a terrorist go free.

Venezuela had asked the U.S. to extradite 79-year-old former CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles on charges that he plotted the 1976 bombing of a Cuban passenger plane, in which 73 people died.

Chavez also said Posada has been plotting to assassinate him for years, and accused President Bush of complicity in failing to bring Posada to justice.

"President Bush, you are a protector of terrorists. As such, you are a terrorist," Chavez said during his weekly TV and radio program "Hello, President."

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Opinion piece by Venezuelan Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez

2007-04-23T14:37:00.000-05:00

A Terrorist Goes Free

By BERNARDO ÁLVAREZ HERRERA

The New York Times
April 21, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor

AFTER the attacks of Sept. 11, President Bush forcefully argued that it was every country’s duty to fight international terrorism. He made the case that sponsoring terrorism or simply looking the other way when it happened were equivalent acts, and the United States would stand for neither. But holes have started appearing in that principle, courtesy of a single Venezuelan terrorist, released this week from a New Mexico prison on bail.

In early 2005, Luis Posada Carriles, a Venezuelan with a long history of violent attacks in Latin America, sneaked into the United States and was soon arrested. Mr. Posada had escaped from a Venezuelan prison while awaiting trial in the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976 that killed 73 people, including all 24 members of Cuba’s youth fencing team and several Guyanese medical students. This was the deadliest attack on a civilian airliner in the Western Hemisphere in history — until 9/11.

Upon Mr. Posada’s capture, the government of President Hugo Chávez demanded his extradition. But the Bush administration has refused to extradite Mr. Posada to Venezuela or Cuba, claiming that it fears he will be tortured in those countries. In fact, Washington’s reluctance is more likely linked to Mr. Posada’s history as a Central Intelligence Agency operative and a darling of extremist sectors of the powerful Cuban-American community in Florida (he tried to assassinate Fidel Castro with C-4 explosives placed in an auditorium packed with students in Panama in 2000). Twenty-two months have passed since Venezuela formally asked for his extradition, offering 2,000 pages of documentary evidence to substantiate its claim, yet the State Department has not even acknowledged receiving the request.

Nor has Mr. Posada been charged with the 1976 attack, even though declassified Central Intelligence Agency documents indicate that his role has long been accepted as fact. Instead, he faces charges of immigration fraud, a travesty that could be equaled only by charging Osama bin Laden with entering and leaving Pakistan without a visa. Finally, Mr. Posada was released on bail on Thursday, even though he is an obvious flight risk and a violent terrorist.

Of course, Mr. Posada’s case isn’t the first instance related to Venezuela in which the Bush administration has set aside its principles for political expediency. Five years ago last week, the Bush administration gleefully welcomed a coup that overthrew President Chávez, replacing him with a junta that suspended the Constitution, dismissed the National Assembly and dissolved the Supreme Court. Thankfully, the Venezuelan people ensured that their democratically elected president was returned to power two days later.

Just as the Bush administration’s support for the Venezuelan junta undermined its pledge to uphold and promote democracy around the world, allowing Mr. Posada to avoid prosecution for a vicious attack he can credibly be accused of masterminding throws into doubt the sincerity of President Bush’s war on terrorism. Mr. Posada is a terrorist, regardless of the cause he fought for or the allies he might have. The Bush administration’s foot-dragging on his extradition and its failure to even classify him as a terrorist is unconscionable.

Last week, Venezuelans celebrated the return of democracy after the coup against President Chávez. But they continue to mourn the 73 people killed aboard that civilian airliner. If President Bush is serious about the principles he set out after 9/11, he need only look to Venezuela and correct the mistakes he can. The coup has passed, but the chance to extradite or prosecute Mr. Posada hasn’t.

Bernardo Álvarez Herrera is Venezuela’s ambassador to the United States.

Chávez to create state power corporation

2007-04-23T13:14:00.000-05:00

President Hugo Chávez Sunday announced the creation of the Electric Corporation of Venezuela, which is intended as an umbrella for power companies such as Electrificación del Caroní (Edelca), La Electricidad de Caracas (EDC), Cadafe and Elecentro, among others.

He also said a waterworks corporation was also needed, adding that this is the only way to overcome contradictions and rivalries among several agencies in these areas.

Chávez praised the importance of centralized planning and stressed that "regional and local plans have to be attached to the major project."

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Venezuela says cement takeovers could be next

2007-04-13T08:30:00.000-05:00

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday said his nationalization drive could be expanded to cement-makers if they were found to be worsening a housing shortfall by favoring exports over domestic sales.

Buoyed by a landslide reelection in December, Chavez has forged ahead with the construction a socialist republic, taking over sectors of the economy he calls strategic, such as power utilities, oil projects and the country's No. 1 media company.

"We need to investigate the cement factories. I want reports ... because what is going on is that they still prefer to export at a higher price than issue supplies in the interest of the Venezuelan people," the anti-U.S. leftist said in a speech.

"If the cement-makers do not want to, then very well, we will take them over," he said in a speech recalling a 2002 coup attempt against him, adding that Venezuelan cement-makers had been privatized too cheaply "at the price of a scrawny hen."

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Venezuela seeks full control of its largest phone company

2007-04-12T08:30:00.001-05:00

Venezuela will take full control of its largest phone company, Cantv, by June 4, and delist it from the New York Stock Exchange, the country's top telecommunications official said.

The government has offered to purchase outstanding shares in Nacional Teléfonos de Venezuela until May 8, hoping to obtain at least a 70 percent stake in the company, Telecommunications Minister Jesse Chacón told a news conference Tuesday.

It will have full, operational control of the company - following payments and share transfers - by June 4, when it will install a new management, including a new president, Chacón said.

During the process, the government also plans to buy up all of Cantv's remaining American Depository Receipts - certificates issued by U.S. banks that represent shares in companies abroad.

"The intention is to delist Cantv from the New York Stock Exchange," he said.

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Venezuela may request extradition of alleged coup plotter

2007-04-12T08:27:00.000-05:00

Venezuela's highest court ruled that prosecutors may request the extradition from Colombia of the alleged mastermind of a short-lived coup against President Hugo Chavez five years ago.

The Supreme Court of Justice approved a petition late Monday allowing prosecutors to request the arrest and extradition of exiled business leader Pedro Carmona on charges of civil rebellion.

Rebel officers ousted Chavez on April 12, 2002, but the interim government that Carmona headed angered many Venezuelans by tossing out the constitution and dissolving congress.

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Heating help came from Citgo

2007-03-27T08:42:00.000-05:00

Some of the people on American Indian reservations in Montana got help with home heating this winter as Citgo, a subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned petroleum company, expanded a U.S. assistance program active on the East Coast.The company provided about $1.5 million for heating in Montana.

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes coordinated the assistance, which tribal policy analyst Teresa Wall-McDonald described as apolitical even though President Bush and Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez have been harshly critical of each other.

The assistance "concentrated on the needs of the communities," Wall-McDonald said. "There were no political discussions." Judi Houle, energy assistance director at the Rocky Boy's Reservation, said Chavez "relates to us as an indigenous people."

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Venezuela, China Create $6B Energy Fund

2007-03-27T08:40:00.000-05:00

Venezuela and China created a US$6 billion (euro4.5 billion) fund on Monday to boost energy cooperation and finance joint development projects between the two countries.
During a televised speech, President Hugo Chavez said the fund "will provide the fuel for the acceleration of new bilateral development projects," including two joint ventures for the exploration and production of heavy crude in Venezuela's Orinoco Basin and three oil refineries in China.

The fund _ aimed at increasing Venezuelan oil exports to China from 150,000 to 800,000 barrels a day _ was part of a series of agreements signed following a meeting between Chavez and Li Changchun, a top-ranking member of China's ruling Communist Party, at the presidential palace.

"We have brought bilateral relations to a strategic point," Chavez said. "I don't think China has make a decision like this with any other country in half a century. We must thank them for their trust."

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Venezuela Seizes Private Farmland to Raise Cattle

2007-03-27T08:39:00.000-05:00

Venezuela President Hugo Chavez said the government seized 16 private farms and ranches it considers unused, and plans to use most of the land to raise cattle for meat and milk production.
Venezuela took over about 330,000 hectares (800,000 acres) in at least four states, and will convert the land into ``social property, which everyone owns,'' Chavez said.

``This is an attack by the state and the people on large land holdings,'' Chavez said today in Barinas state during his weekly television show. ``How can the country develop if we don't put this land to work?''

The land seizures are part of Chavez's plan to install a socialist economic and political model in Venezuela. Last month, the government nationalized the country's biggest private telephone and electricity companies, and plans to take over four heavy-oil fields run by foreign companies by May 1.

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Is Hugo Chávez Mr. Misunderstood?

2007-03-26T09:54:00.000-05:00

He roams Latin America, hurling insults at President Bush, sneering at the United States as the enemy "empire" and spending billions in oil money to undermine Washington wherever he can.

To many Americans, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez seems a Latin wild man. But to the millions of Venezuelans who adore him, he is the first leader who genuinely cares for the nation's poor majority, a welcome departure from politicians who traditionally catered to the elite.

"I think God sent him. I think he's the reincarnation of Simón Bolívar. He's with the poor," says Omaira Perez, 60, referring to the 19th century general who liberated Venezuela from Spanish rule.

This larger-than-life figure may, however, be more vulnerable than he appears. There are early signs that Chávez, even as he dominates regional politics, is losing ground at home and elsewhere in Latin America.

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Venezuela to offer CANTV stock buy-out

2007-03-22T08:31:00.000-05:00

Venezuela will offer to buy out stock in CANTV next week, expecting to take a share of 60 to 70 percent in the country's biggest telephone company, Telecommunications Minister Jesse Chacon said on Wednesday.

He told the Reuters Latin American Investment Summit in Caracas that Venezuela expects it would move to delist CANTV's American Depository Shares after taking the majority interest.

The move would be part of President Hugo Chavez's wide-ranging nationalization program. The leftist leader is taking over swathes of the economy which he defines as strategic, such as oil projects and power utilities.

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Venezuela consumerism grows amid socialist rhetoric

2007-03-20T08:37:00.000-05:00

Plastic surgeons are performing nips, tucks and breast implants at a record pace. BMWs are being snapped up from the sales lots. And sleek new shopping malls are springing up among the high-rises in Venezuela's capital.

Although President Hugo Chavez is urging Venezuelans to adopt more ascetic socialist values, a culture of consumerism is flourishing as an oil boom surges through the nation's economy.

Shoppers are buying up everything from cellphones to Scotch whisky at a rapid clip as the economy benefits from high world oil prices and banks compete for clients by cutting consumer loan rates in half.

Venezuelans bought 343,000 automobiles last year, a 50 percent increase over 2005."Everything is selling - sport utility vehicles, pickups, buses, everything," said Jorge Garcia Tunon, who runs one of the leading auto showrooms in Caracas. "The demand is impressive. The market has grown like crazy."

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What We See in Hugo Chávez

2007-03-19T08:48:00.000-05:00

THE fervent welcome that greeted President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela during his visit to Argentina a week ago was inexplicable to some Argentines and left others indignant. Many here tend to mistrust populism and demagoguery, finding them redolent of Peronism. But even among the wary, a window of hope has opened, with Mr. Chávez as its symbol.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since Juan Perón’s time. And it was the expansive waters of our own broad river that defined the vectors of force last weekend. For once, the tensions in the American hemisphere flowed on an east-west axis along the Río de la Plata — which means “River of Silver” and by extension, very appropriately in this case, “River of Money.”

The struggle was about energy, both concrete and metaphorical, and equally combustible in both forms. Across the river in Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo, the presence of President George W. Bush caused red-hot passions to flare, along with sizable protests like those he faced in Brazil. In Buenos Aires, my city, on the opposite bank of that river of money, red abounded as well, though in our case it had a very different connotation. Red was the color of President Chávez’s jacket and of many of the flags brought by the masses who flooded into a stadium to hear the president of Venezuela speak.

Go to the full op/ed here.

Venezuela to Give Currency New Name and Numbers

2007-03-19T08:46:00.000-05:00

Of all the startling measures announced by President Hugo Chávez this year, from the nationalization of major utilities to threats of imprisonment for violators of price controls, none have baffled economists quite like his venture into monetary reform.

First, Mr. Chávez said the authorities would remove three zeroes from the denomination of the currency, the bolívar. Then he said the new bolívar, worth 1,000 old bolívars, would be renamed the “bolívar fuerte,” or strong bolívar.

Finally, at the behest of Mr. Chávez, the central bank said this week that it would reintroduce a 12.5-cent coin, a symbol of Venezuela’s prosperity in the 1960s and 1970s before freewheeling oil booms ended in abrupt devaluations, after three decades out of circulation.

Mr. Chávez champions these ideas, which will take effect in January, as ways to combat inflation, which in recent weeks crept up to 20 percent, the highest in Latin America. Officials blame “hoarders” for shortages of basic goods and price increases for food on the black market. Mr. Chávez says the renaming and redenominating the currency will instill confidence in it.

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Hugo Chávez Is Tied to Giuliani Firm

2007-03-15T08:37:00.000-05:00

Rudolph W. Giuliani’s law firm has lobbied for years on behalf of an oil company controlled by the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, a strident critic of President Bush and American-style capitalism.

Bracewell & Giuliani, the firm based in Houston that Mr. Giuliani joined as a name partner two years ago, handles lobbying in the Texas capital for the Citgo Petroleum Corporation of Houston. Citgo is the American subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, the state-owned oil company that Mr. Chávez controls.

Mr. Giuliani’s duties at his law firm do not include lobbying. But the financial relationship with a company affiliated with one of the most outspoken critics of the United States potentially exposes Mr. Giuliani to new scrutiny as he campaigns to become the Republican nominee for president in 2008.

Mr. Chávez has used his country’s oil wealth to lure fellow Latin American leaders away from alliances with the United States. In recent years, he has called Mr. Bush a “donkey,” a “drunkard” and a “coward,” blamed him for a failed 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela and allied himself with Fidel Castro.

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Giuliani Law Firm Lobbies in Texas for Chavez-Controlled Citgo

2007-03-14T08:51:00.000-05:00

Rudolph Giuliani's law firm lobbies for Citgo Petroleum Corp., a unit of the state-owned oil company controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the U.S.'s chief antagonist in the Western Hemisphere.

Bracewell & Giuliani LLP registered to lobby for Citgo in Texas on April 26, 2005, less than a month after the former New York mayor joined the firm and became a name partner, state records show. Citgo renewed the contract in 2006 and 2007 and pays the firm $5,000 a month to track legislation. Giuliani doesn't lobby, the firm says.

The law firm's representation of Citgo comes as Chavez's relations with the U.S. have grown increasingly hostile. He has called President George W. Bush a ``devil'' and a ``madman'' and staged a mass, anti-American rally in Buenos Aires during Bush's trip to Latin America, which ends today.

Patrick Oxford, a managing partner at Bracewell & Giuliani, said Giuliani, a Republican presidential hopeful, has no dealings with the Venezuelan-owned oil company. ``He has not seen hide nor hair of Citgo,'' Oxford said.

Go to the full article here.