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Marching On Chavez by: Lance Nation, September 04, 2008 On December 2, 2007, Hugo Chávez’s attempt to grant complete power to his PSUV and instate himself as Venezuela’s dictator failed. An average Venezuelan student decided not watch every liberty stripped from Venezuelans and led 200,000 people on marches against Chávez’s constitutional reforms. For his efforts, Yon Goicoechea is this year’s recipient of the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty. “Chávez is not Venezuela. There is another different Venezuela that is growing in our land. Another different Venezuela, with a new perspective of life, with a new perspective of government, and...

Iran's increasingly close ties with Venezuela are causing concern to western terror analysts, given that Iran has long been a sponsor of Hezbollah. President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has met with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran in an embrace accompanied by increasingly strident anti-US rhetoric from the Latin strongman. That has increased scrutiny of Hezbollah’s activities in Latin America.

CARACAS (AFP) - The recent nationalizations of strategic sectors in Venezuela are frightening away foreign companies and turning the country into South America's worst destination for foreign investment, analysts say. President Hugo Chavez's decision to take over electricity, oil, steelmaking, cement and telephone enterprises over the past year may strengthen the "revolutionary" drive towards building a socialist nation, but it also drives off multinationals which have the funds to boost economic activity.

The presumptive Democratic candidate aspires to end U.S. foreign policy “unilateralism:” Democrat Barack Obama represents a “new type of leader” who hopes to use multilateralism, dialogue and the cooperation on the international scene, his campaign advisors said today. “The new element that Obama brings in working with the rest of the world is that… he will listen and will work with our allies, and thus move away from the unilateralism” that has been the mark of the government of Republican President George W. Bush, declared Greg Craig, one of Obama’s main foreign policy advisers, at a press conference. Craig described...

Last week, while most of the world banded together to condemn Russia's thuggish invasion of little Georgia, another oil-fueled villain was busy patting the aggressor on the back. We speak of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, all but forgotten in recent weeks as other international bad guys have hogged the headlines. Chavez urged the Russians, with whom he recently concluded a multibillion-dollar arms deal, to go all the way and topple Georgia's democratically elected government. When Chavez was still in elementary school, his hero Fidel Castro, brought the world to the nuclear brink. Now, armed with our petrodollars, he's "Castro on...

CARACAS (AFP) - President Hugo Chavez said Saturday he has injected close to one billion dollars in Venezuela's petrochemical industry to turn it into the second-largest producer of polyethylene behind Brazil by 2011. < > He blamed the slow advance of the country's petrochemical industry to multinational companies bent on "keeping Venezuela dependent ... limiting its role to producing only oil" and not its derivatives. "But now the revolution is here, and all that has stopped. Never again will we be a colony ... regardless of the cost," the leftist Chavez said.

Socialism: Venezuela's seizure of Cemex assets Monday is more than a typical nationalization of resources. Its vindictive manner has much to do with the firm's Mexican headquarters. It's a message to others in the region.Like a quasi-military conquest, Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez marched in troops to "take back" four Cemex cement plants in the dead of night as part of his nationalization of cement announced in April. "It was time," he said Tuesday, calling it one of his "steps toward socialism." Chavez then popped out fireworks as red T-shirted mobs, judges and politicians headed to the plants and cheered their...

Venezuela has seized control of plants and offices belonging to Mexican cement giant Cemex, as it proceeds with nationalising its cement industry. Government officials backed by the National Guard took over the factories after talks ended without a deal. It comes a day after France's Lafarge and Swiss group Holcim agreed to hand over local subsidiaries to Caracas. Venezuela has begun nationalising several industries as part of a drive toward "21st-Century socialism". At a political rally on Monday President Hugo Chavez said Cemex would move into state hands - after 60 days of failed negotiations - adding: "These are all...

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela will take control of cement plants and offices belonging to Mexico's Cemex as of midnight on Monday after failing to reach an agreement in nationalization talks, the government said. < > The government said it paid $552 million for an 85 percent stake in Switzerland's Holcim's local unit and $267 million for 89 percent of the shares in France's Lafarge's local unit. "Lafarge is working to protect as best as it can the interests of its shareholders and of its staff on the ground," a spokeswoman for Lafarge said earlier in the day, declining any further...

With $1 billion a month in state oil profits, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has converted cash into political clout.

President Hugo Chavez assured World Jewish Congress (WJC) leaders on Wednesday that he would work with the Jewish community against anti-Semitism. The meeting succeeded in allaying much of the fear among Jewish leaders about increasing anti-Semitism in the South American country. WJC Secretary-General Michael Schneider told the Associated Press that the meeting was a positive one, and that Chavez and the Jewish community are "on the same page" regarding anti-Semitism. Chavez told the Venezuela has not had a fully accredited ambassador in Israel since 2006. delegation that he would arrange a joint statement condemning anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination...

CARACAS, Venezuela - Riot police used tear gas Wednesday to block hundreds of Venezuelans protesting the latest moves by President Hugo Chavez to concentrate his power. The demonstrators said a blacklist of opposition candidates and a series of socialist decrees are destroying what's left of their democracy. Though the protest of about 1,000 people chanting "freedom!" was small compared to past marches, there is a growing public outcry over the sidelining of key government opponents ahead of state and local elections in November.

Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, who funds Iran-aligned terrorist group Hezbollah, has given $1.5 million to a Washington, D.C.-area charity that advocates for illegal aliens, the Washington Post reports. (See my previous Boston Herald op-ed about Chavez and terrorism here.) As part of Venezuela's "public diplomacy" (i.e. propaganda and subversion) program in the United States, the Silver Spring, Maryland-based Casa de Maryland will receive the grant from CITGO, Venezuela's government-owned oil company that is controlled by Chavez. Of course the Washington Post buried the story, placing it on page D8, as Ken Shepherd of NewsBusters noted. The Post reported that The...

CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez is aiming to set up neighborhood-based militias, move toward a socialist economy in Venezuela and increase state control over agriculture under a package of laws enacted by presidential decree. ... The decree allows the government to "restrict or prohibit the import, export, distribution, exchange or sale" of certain foods or agricultural products and "take over distribution activities when considered necessary." Other measures increase state control over commerce, services and publicity. Businesses that violate the new rules can face fines or indefinite closure. One decree aims to support efforts toward a socialist-style economy at the...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- President Hugo Chavez is aiming to set up neighborhood-based militias, move toward a socialist economy in Venezuela and increase state control over agriculture under a package of laws enacted by presidential decree. Changes in areas from the military to small business loans were pushed through by the president in 26 laws released Monday in the official gazette.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says 24 Sukhoi fighter jets have been delivered to Venezuela — and are ready to defend his country from "imperialist" aggressions.

CARACAS: Venezuela will nationalize the local unit of the Spanish bank Grupo Santander, President Hugo Chavez said Thursday. Chavez said he would pay fair compensation for the bank. The government blocked the bank's attempt to sell itself to a local investor. In an address, Chavez said that "I am interested, and we are going to nationalize it." The financial institution is Venezuela's largest bank. Under Chavez's governance, Venezuela also has nationalized its largest telephone, electricity, steel and cement companies and has assumed majority control over four major oil projects.

Not since then-Rep. Christopher Dodd helped communist Pol Pot get his Killing Fields project off the ground in Cambodia in 1974 has a member of Congress played such a prominent role in so much murder and mayhem. Sen. Dodd for decades has undermined U.S. foreign policy in the Americas. He has coddled some of history's most vile communist tyrants and downplayed their unambiguous threat to U.S. national security. He has blocked the confirmation of solid anti-communists for key hemispheric diplomatic posts. He applauded Hugo Chavez' rise to power in Venezuela, condemned the April 2002 coup that briefly ousted Chavez, and...

CARACAS (AFP) - Leftist President Hugo Chavez on Thursday said he will nationalize the Bank of Venezuela, one of the country's largest, and has asked the bank's Spanish owners, Grupo Santander, for a meeting to set a price for the deal. < > "They wanted to sell the bank to a Venezuelan banker, and as head of state I'm saying no. Sell it to the government, to the state. < > "There'll be headlines in the Spanish press, 'Is Chavez harming Spain'... to undo the (diplomatic) relations we've just mended," he said, alluding to his meetings last week in Spain...

Americans give Hugo Chávez USD 40 billion a year, money he uses not to eliminate poverty in Venezuela but to conduct an oil war against America. US sanctions against terror would terminate that subsidy. If Obama is elected, Chávez may have to revise who he thinks is the Devil MICHAEL ROWAN SPECIAL ARTICLE FOR EL UNIVERSAL Hugo Chávez is having second thoughts about Barak Obama. When Obama said during early presidential primary debates that he would negotiate without conditions with the dictators and enemies of America, Chávez was pleased. He figured Obama was a liberal Democrat like Jimmy Carter or...

What nice things oil buys.

Caracas, Jul 24, 2008 / 06:13 pm (CNA).- In statements on Union Radio, the vice president of the Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Roberto Luckert Leon, warned that the self-proclaimed “Reformed Catholic Church,” which is backed by the Hugo Chavez administration, is seeking to name military chaplains with government support. Archbishop Lückert reiterated that the small religious sect led by former Catholic, Lutheran and Anglican clergy members, is “financed by the government in an effort to put an end to the Catholic Church, which it has not and will not be able to do.” The “Reformed Catholic Church” announced this week...

On a trip to Caracas, I saw a graffiti comment written on a phone kiosk but can't get the translation. It was: "Chavez Farzanet (or maybe farzanct) Comunista" A friend from Venezuela couldn't translate the second word while the rest is obvious. Can anyone help? I get the probable contextual meaning, I'm looking for someone who can actually do the translation.

MINSK (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez vowed on Wednesday to work with Belarus, an ex-Soviet state long at odds with Washington, to defeat "hegemonistic" U.S. imperialism. Chavez, a self-styled socialist revolutionary, was making his third visit to Belarus in as many years after overseeing energy deals in Russia that consolidated his country's relations with Moscow. Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, described by Chavez as a "brother", has long railed against the influence of the United States in world affairs. Western nations accuse him of flouting freedom of speech and assembly in 14 years in power. "We are struggling against the...

Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has called for a strategic relationship with Russia to counter aggression from the United States. With a long shopping list for state-of-the-art defence equipment under his arm, Mr Chavez did his best to ingratiate himself with his hosts. He first signed off on a deal giving Russia's state-owned energy companies – often accused of doubling as private piggy banks for powerful Kremlin forces – exclusive rights to develop new deposits Venezuela's Orinoco Oil Belt. Then he switched smoothly to flattery, with a call for the Russian rouble to replace the US dollar as the world's...

The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, today arrived in Moscow on his latest arms-buying spree, saying that his country needed to buy more weapons to defend itself from the United States. Chávez met Russia's president Dmitry Medvedev this morning. He is expected to sign a billion-dollar arms deal with Russia for new missile defence systems and diesel-powered submarines. "I have great hopes we will be able to continue building our strategic alliance," Chávez said after landing in Moscow for a two-day trip. He added: "The deals will guarantee the sovereignty of Venezuela which is being threatened by the United States."

CARACAS, July 21 (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez visits a resurgent Russia this week on an arms shopping trip that raises the anti-U.S. leader's profile and will irritate his hosts' rivals in Washington. Chavez, a firebrand socialist who supports Russia's increasingly bold opposition to U.S. foreign policy, will use the trip to burnish his own credentials as a fierce critic of what he calls the U.S. empire. Moscow's friendship with Chavez, Washington's main foe in the Western Hemisphere, highlights the distance between the Kremlin and the White House, which has widened as they jockey for influence in places such...

(CNSNews.com) - A Houston-based oil company will distribute free compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) to low-income residents of 11 U.S. cities in a new program praised by a liberal activist but criticized by a conservative analyst on Friday as “shameless self-promotion” for Venezuela President Hugo Chavez. The project was announced last Tuesday in Washington, D.C., where 1,500 households will receive an estimated 30,000 CFLs throughout the summer and early fall from CITGO, a corporation owned by the Venezuelan socialist government that refines, transports and markets transportation fuels, lubricants, petrochemicals and other industrial products. “I am proud that CITGO invests over...

My advice to DUmmies upset over any position that Barack Obama takes is to wait a minute and he is almost sure to completely change that position. Most politicians do shift positions when it is convenient but none in my memory has ever shifted position so boldly and so quickly as Obama has for strictly pandering electoral reasons. Obama will say anything that he thinks will get him votes and then ditch that position when it becomes convenient to do so. Gun control, FISA, public campaign financing, Iraq (still flipping and flopping on that one), and a whole host...

CARACAS -(Dow Jones)- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez suggested Sunday that an oil price bubble created by speculators could eventually give way to lower oil prices. "We're waiting for the (oil price) speculation bubble to explode...But even with a price of $70 (a barrel) we would have a mass of money" to finance a number of projects at home and abroad, Chavez said as he addressed attendants of the V PetroCaribe summit. Venezuelan officials often attribute high world oil prices to speculators as well as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.

(English-language translation) The negotiations between Puerto Rico and Venezuela for the purchase of more economical oil remain a mystery. The respective secretaries of the Department of State and the Department of Consumer Affairs (DACO), Fernando Bonilla and Jorge Suárez, have not made public the outcome of that country's visit this past weekend. "I believe they're being very cautious about not turning this into a fiasco and, therefore, they don't want to reveal the negotiation in case this cannot be accomplished and thus avoid a possible negative damage to the effort[.] That is why there is silence," was the opinion of...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy sent a letter to his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez thanking him for the "tireless efforts that helped" release last week several hostages held by the Colombian guerrillas, including Ingrid Betancourt. "As we celebrate the release of Ingrid Betancourt and other 14 hostages, I thank you again for your tireless efforts that helped the hostages of Colombia to come back to freedom and the love of their beloved ones," said the French president, as quoted on Tuesday in a press release from the Venezuelan government. Early this year, Chávez welcome six hostages in Venezuela, who were unilaterally...

Hugo Chávez's Jewish Problem Travis Pantin July/August 2008 E-mail This Article to a Friend Subject: Hugo Chávez's Jewish Problem   Yes, I would like to receive periodic updates and information via e-mail from Commentary. Recipient Addresses: Separate each address with a comma. Your E-mail Address:   Message:   E-mail This Article to a Friend Thank You A link to "Hugo Chávez's Jewish Problem" has been emailed to your friends. Most E-mailed articles: The Mind of Seymour HershWhy Iraq Was InevitableDictatorships & Double StandardsAre We Winning the War on Terror?Hugo Chávez's Jewish Problem In December 1998, preaching a gospel of...

Do Democrats Care about Chavez and his Oppression of the Jews? Ed LaskyAmerican Thinker has long noted that many leading Democrats seem to have a special warm spot for Hugo Chavez, the increasingly dictatorial President of Venezuala. He is a supporter of the FARC terrorist group operating inside our ally Colombia's territory. He is a fomenter of radicalism throughout South America, a partner and good friend of the Iranian regime. In short, he is an anti-American tyrant who lately has been trying to impose Nazi-like police powers in Venezuala. He has had a high-level summit meeting with the Holocaust-denying, Holocuast-planning Presdient of Iran,...

The biggest loser of last week's Hollywood-styled Colombian army rescue of 15 hostages in the hands of the FARC guerrillas, in addition to the rebels themselves, was Venezuela's narcissist-Leninist President Hugo Chavez. Judging from Chavez's own public statements and the contents of thousands of e-mails found in FARC laptop computers seized March 1 when Colombia's military raided a guerrilla camp inside Ecuador, Chavez was hoping to use the hostage crisis to become the ultimate power broker in the Colombian armed conflict and become South America's most powerful political leader. Chavez, as well as Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, had been openly...

----snip---- Discontent is rising throughout the land, and Chávez’s popularity is in free fall. The president, who is more and more erratic and contradictory, has fewer resources to spend on remedying the situation and faces a unified opposition. Let’s hope that the country’s democratic forces can resolve what is a very tough situation for the government and put an end to a regime that has created nothing but unnecessary conflicts and greater poverty for almost everyone. ----snip---- After the oil stoppage of late 2002 to early 2003, Chávez decided to fire no fewer than 18,000 of PDVSA’s employees—almost a quarter...

MIAMI (Reuters) - A lawyer for a defendant in the Argentine "suitcase scandal" said a U.S. government witness has sworn that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was personally involved in the affair, according to a U.S. court filing. The government witness, Carlos Kauffmann, pled guilty in March to U.S. charges arising from the seizure of $800,000 in a suitcase in Buenos Aires and agreed to testify against former associate Franklin Duran in exchange for lighter punishment. U.S. prosecutors have indicated that they had been told the $800,000 was intended for the election campaign of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the former first...

Hugo Chavez faces political crisis as allies desert him By David Blair in Caracas Last Updated: 9:24PM BST 29/06/2008 President Hugo Chavez, the "socialist revolutionary" leading a global campaign against America's "empire", is facing a political crisis in Venezuela where crucial elections are approaching and old allies have turned against him. Mr Chavez has given Caracas's slum-dwellers free health care for the first time Mr Chavez, a devoted admirer of Fidel Castro, has forged an anti-American front with leaders ranging from President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. At home, however, Mr Chavez is in trouble....

Considering the many jubilant boasts by "flat world" devotees in recent years, you might have been tempted to regard economic globalization as a juggernaut, powered by inexorable forces of technology and history. Big mistake. There's no preordained direction for the world economy--only an undetermined future that will take the shape of whatever ideas and policies we choose to uphold. The lack of an intellectual defense of capitalism has left free markets vulnerable. "The power of the state is reasserting itself," said Daniel Yergin, co-author of The Commanding Heights and a free-market optimist , in The Wall Street Journal recently. In...

President Hugo Chavez's Venezuela has become the key trafficking route for most of the cocaine sold on Britain's streets, anti-drugs officials believe. Last year, about 250 tons of cocaine are thought to have passed through Venezuela - up to a five-fold increase on 2004. Much of this ended up in Britain. Anti-drugs officials estimate that more than 50 per cent of all the cocaine consumed in Britain has been trafficked through Venezuela - under the "revolutionary" regime of Mr Chavez. The figure could be as high as two thirds. Senior commanders in Venezuela's security forces are thought to be profiting...

That Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez’ regime is enabling Islamic terrorist organizations to take root in South America is no longer in question. What will the US do? In December 2002 freelance journalist Martin Arostegui published an article in Insight Magazine (“Chavez plans for a terrorist regime”) in which he reported the arrival in Venezuela of Hakim Mamad Ali Diab Fattah, a member of Hizballah. Venezuelan officials received him at the airport. In connection with his presence in the country Arostegui interviewed the former Venezuelan Intelligence Director, General Marcos Ferreira, who said Fattah represented only the tip of the iceberg in...

The Bush administration took action Wednesday against a Venezuelan official and others accused of providing financial support to the Hizbullah terror group. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. [file] Photo: AP , AP Slideshow: Pictures of the week The Treasury Department's action covers Ghazi Nasr al Din, whom the United States identified as a Venezuelan diplomat. The order also targets Fawzi Kan'an and two Venezuelan-based travel agencies - Biblos and Hilal - that he allegedly owns or controls. Kan'an denied the Treasury Department's accusations. "That's pure lies," he told The Associated Press. "What do I have...

June 22, 2008: A new battlefield for the war on terror has developed in Venezuela. There, leftist president Hugo Chavez has not only established close diplomatic relations with Iran (and Cuba, North Korea and radical groups throughout the region), but has allowed Iran to set up operations in South America. Regular commercial flights from Iran to Venezuela (via Syria, to accommodate Hizbollah) carry people, cash and whatever else Iran wants to move. No questions asked, no visas required. Several U.S. counter-terrorism operations have gone to work, trying to find out what Iran is up to, and how to block any...

Terrorism: A Venezuelan diplomat is found to be supporting Hezbollah, and his placement on a Treasury no-go list is laughed at in Caracas. Obviously, something's going on here. For the second time in three months, Venezuela has been implicated in foreign terrorism. The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control named two well-connected Venezuelans as facilitators of Hezbollah Wednesday. Ghazi Nasr al Din and Fawzi Kan'an, along with two Caracas travel agencies, were put on the list this past week, their assets frozen and businesses prohibited.

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday threatened to stop selling oil to European countries if they apply a new ruling on illegal immigrants that is criticized in Latin America and by human rights groups. European Union lawmakers ruled on Wednesday that illegal immigrants can be detained for up to 18 months and face a reentry ban of up to five years. "We can't just stand by with our arms crossed," Chavez said at an event to celebrate his OPEC country's oil supplies to South America attended by Paraguay's visiting president-elect, who also criticized the law. Millions of...

ARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened on Thursday to stop selling oil to European countries if they apply a new ruling on illegal immigrants that has been condemned by human rights groups.

Cuban television is showing images of Fidel Castro chatting in a garden with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the first images of the ailing revolutionary broadcast in six months. The 81-year-old Castro looks thinner, and his hair and beard are much whiter in the video images, which did not include any audio. But he nevertheless looks vigorous and animated as he talks with his younger brother, President Raul Castro, and Chavez. He is dressed in a white running jacket with red and blue trim in the images broadcast Tuesday.

HAVANA (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had an "animated and warm" meeting with former Cuban leader Fidel Castro during a visit to Havana, state-run media said on Tuesday, but no photos or videos of the left-wing allies were made public. Chavez, upon arrival on Monday for a two-day visit, told reporters he would meet with top Cuban officials including the ailing, 81-year-old Castro and Raul Castro, Fidel's younger brother, who took over as president in February. "Now we have our team, it's the same team," he said, referring to the close ties he has forged between oil-rich Venezuela and...

It turns out that Hugo Chávez is an adaptable man. The Venezuelan president, who has championed — and almost certainly helped arm — Colombia’s FARC rebels, called last week for the rebels to lay down their weapons and unconditionally surrender their hostages. We suspect this change of heart has been driven more by self-interest than conviction. Mr. Chávez is increasingly unpopular at home and increasingly isolated abroad, especially as evidence has mounted of his meddling in Colombia. The change nevertheless is welcome and well timed. The FARC, which long ago chose drug trafficking over liberation, has been under assault from...

A Venezuelan journalist is reporting that Hugo Chavez’s government is recruiting young men to train with Hezbollah for the purpose of asymmetrical warfare against the US. Fausta has the translation. Hugo Chavez pretends to cut back on his support of the FARC, when his “dangerous” associations go well beyond the Colombian guerrilla. See the original article and read the whole translation.