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CARACAS, Venezuela — Tens of thousands marched through Venezuela's capital on Saturday to protest what they call growing authoritarianism by President Hugo Chavez. A few thousand of the president's backers held a separate counter-rally to express support for the government's policies. Anti-Chavez protesters, many of them wearing white, filled the streets of Caracas, denouncing recent arrests of opposition members for alleged violence during protests and a new education law that critics fear could lead to indoctrination in schools. "It's very concerning because education is Venezuela's future," said 23-year-old engineering student Carlos Delgado, who also complained of soaring inflation and rampant...

MEXICO'S volatile border city of Ciudad Juarez has the world's highest murder rate, followed by Caracas, Venezuela and the US city of New Orleans. Ciudad Juarez - the scene of regular and brutal score-settling between rival drug gangs - has 130 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, the Citizen's Council for Public Security said. Caracas has 96 murders per 100,000 inhabitants and New Orleans registers 95, the Mexican non-governmental organisation said, basing its figures on media and FBI reports. Caracas was listed as the murder capital of the world in the September 2008 Foreign Policy magazine, quoting official figures of 130 murders...

August 14, 2009 Protests fail to halt passage of Chavez's 'socialist indoctrination law' Police in riot gear used tear gas yesterday against Venezuelan demonstrators angry about a law that they believe could lead to the "socialist indoctrination" of the nation's schools. Officers fired tear gas into crowds who were protesting in Caracas against President Chávez's plans to broaden state control over the education system. Scuffles broke out as clouds of caustic, white gas wafted through the air outside the predominantly pro-Chávez National Assembly. Inside, legislators began debating a Bill which would order schools to base the curriculum on "the Bolivarian...

President Hugo Chavez says he has a new book for President Barack Obama: "What is to be Done?" by communist Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Soviet state. Chavez says he'll "give it to Obama at the next meeting." "What is to be Done?" is Lenin's political treatise on the role of intellectuals and the proletariat in promoting revolution, written more than a decade before he led the Bolshevik takeover of Russia in 1917.

BLOG: Note: The following blog entry is a quote: Iran, Venezuela to Expand Defense Ties Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, heading a high-ranking defense delegation, arrived in Caracas on Monday to promote Tehran-Venezuela relations. During his three-day visit, Mohammad Najjar is slated to attend meetings with senior Venezuelan political and defense officials. The visit to Caracas by the Iranian defense minister is the first since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. Source: Fars, Iran, April 27, 2009 Posted at: 2009-04-28

And in what people still think is a democracy, the Chavez Government decided to get back by legislation what it lost in the November elections, as it approved the new Bill for the Capital District, a Bill that castrates the newly elected mayor of the Metropolitan District Antonio Ledezma. Just like that, Ledezma not only will have a boss appointed by Chávez, but the Bill also takes away his office and his budget. His office will now be occupied by the new Chief of the Capital District, who will also get most of Ledezma’s budget. Ledezma’s budget will now be...

By David Paulin Caracas now ranks as the world's No. 1 murder capital, according to Foreign Policy magazine. It's an assessment that will surprise few credible Venezuela watchers. During President Hugo Chávez's tumultuous ten-year rule, Venezuela's quality-of-life indices have been in an ongoing tailspin – thanks to epic levels of corruption and mismanagement; not to mention El Presidente's increasing concentration of power in his own hands. When I was a Caracas-based journalist in the 1990s, Colombia's Bogotá was the world's No. 1 murder capital. But in the years before Chávez's election, high-crime Venezuela was catching up, boasting South America's...

Caracas, Venezuela Population: 3.2 million Murder rate: 130 per 100,000 residents (official) . . . The numbers also don’t count those who died while “resisting arrest,” suggesting that Caracas’s cops—already known for their brutality against student protesters—might be cooking the books. Cape Town, South Africa Population: 3.5 million Murder rate: 62 per 100,000 inhabitants According to the South African Police Service, most of the Cape Town area’s violent crimes happen between people who know one another, including a horrific case last year in which four males doused a female friend in gasoline and lit her on fire. New Orleans, United...

Archbishop Roberto Luckert Caracas, Jun 30, 2008 / 12:35 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Roberto Luckert of Coro and vice president of the Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference deplored the founding of the self-proclaimed “Reformed Catholic Church,” whose leaders have aligned themselves publicly with “Bolivarian Socialism” and are receiving financial backing from the government of Hugo Chavez. Speaking on Union Radio, the archbishop said that the church’s leaders “want to give the impression that the Catholic Church in Venezuela is divided. They are going to dress like priests, baptize and confirm, with everything paid for by the government, which seeks to destroy the...

<p>CARACAS - Grimacing from contractions, expectant mother Castuca Marino had more on her mind than birth pangs.</p> <p>She was nervous about whether she and her newborn child would make it out of the hospital alive. Interviewed as she stood in the emergency room of Concepción Palacios Maternity Hospital here last week, Marino had heard news reports of six infant deaths there over the course of a 24-hour period late in March.</p>

Plane Carrying 46 Missing in Venezuela

This is one of the best short online videos I have seen in a long time.Go to the link above, or here:http://www.el-nacional.com/www/site/detalle_multimedia.php?q=med/5947Let it load (be patient if not on good broadband), turn up your speakers, and get dig this totally ballistic Hugo Chavez supporter after losing an election in Venezuela recently.You won't be disappointed. This is right after the communist Reds in Venezuela under Chavez lost a vote to anti-Chavez forces.

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, loser in the recent Venezuelan national referendum which would grant him increasing dictatorial powers, has ended his brief benevolence and contrition (if it ever was there) it would seem. But he did so with a backdrop of Venezuela's top military, sending a strong, yet somewhat shaky, staged subliminal message to his opponents.The video (short, in Spanish) is at the link above and here: http://www.el-nacional.com/www/site/detalle_multimedia.php?q=med/5475 Just hit the white "arrow" to see.

Hilton becomes socialist, but prices stay same By Jeremy McDermott, Latin America Correspondent Last Updated: 1:21am BST 03/09/2007 It has been a landmark for the last 38 years, a point of navigation for taxi drivers and tourists alike, but now the Hilton Hotel in Caracas has been taken over by the state to become a "socialist tourism business". "We want to put this hotel at the service of the people," said Eustacio Aguilera, the president of the Simon Bolivar Centre, the government cultural institution that owns the hotel. "Now everyone will have access to a great hotel and be able...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday stepped in to help his leftist ally Argentine President Nestor Kirchner by bailing out an Argentine firm to prevent its purchase by a fund involving billionaire investor George Soros. Chavez, whom Kirchner wished good luck before his landslide re-election on Sunday, said he would lend $80 million to Sancor, a struggling private cooperative dairy sought by Adecoagro, a fund in which currency speculator and philanthropist Soros has a stake. "The capitalist magnate wanted to buy it out. Now I have signed the first part of the deal. We are going to issue credit of...

A man has been arrested at Gatwick Airport under anti-terrorist laws. It follows the arrest of two men near Heathrow. Gatwick's North Terminal has been closed and its flights suspended. No further details have been released by Sussex Police. Stansted Airport has announced its security is being stepped up.

<p>WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is investigating a trip by 100 Muslim members of the U.S. armed forces for a pilgrimage to Mecca that was paid for by a Saudi charity accused of financing al Qaeda, The Post has learned.</p> <p>The so-called "Hajj Tour" in March 2001 for Muslim servicemen and chaplains was organized by the Muslim World League, a major charity group financed in part by the Saudi royal family and which is dedicated to the spread of Wahhabism, the extreme form of Islam embraced by Osama bin Laden.</p>

PAIN IN SLUMS OF CHAVEZ - CARACAS KIDS LIVE IN FEAR October 3, 2006 by Douglas Montero nypost.com I'D LIKE Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez to meet one of his countrymen, 15-year-old Manuel Gonzalez. Manuel, who's never been to school, lives in a tin-roofed shack with walls made of slabs of half-inch-thick wood, cardboard and flattened oil drums. His "house" clings precariously to La Vega, one of hundreds of hillside slums that dot Chavez's oil-rich capital. Each day, Manuel lugs buckets of water or propane tanks so his pregnant mother, 12-year-old sister and 1-year-old brother can eat, bathe and flush the...

In Caracas, there are very few green spaces, other than the Avila mountain range, which ruffles the northern side of the vast Venezuelan capital city. The rest is pure urban concrete. Of those few green spaces, even fewer are safe enough to go to without needing a bodyguard or a bullet-proof automobile. But there is one important exception - it’s in the municipality of Chacao, and it’s called the Country Club. I was there - and it’s not quite as elite as you might think. The Country Club is a private recreation club where any resident in the area can...

CARACAS, Venezuela - Three major Caracas golf courses, long favored by the city's wealthy, are being expropriated to build housing for thousands of poor and middle class Venezuelans, officials said Tuesday. The city expropriations, which will likely generate new friction between supporters and opponents of President Hugo Chavez, are part of an ambitious government effort to provide more homes amid an acute housing shortage that has driven up real estate prices. Mayor Juan Barreto's office has ordered the "forced acquisition" of two golf courses and will soon issue another decree expropriating a third course in the ritzy hills of southern...

Over 50 secretaries-general of communist parties worldwide are to participate in a seminar called "Scientific Socialism: Contributions for its Construction," that is taking place at the Bolivarian University of Venezuela next July 18th-19th, said the official news agency ABN. The event was organized by the Venezuelan BolívarMarx Institute. The seminar is to address topics such as socialism, the Bolivarian process, electoral fraud in Mexico and other issues. Delegates from Puerto Rico, Mexico, United States, Japan, Canada, Colombia, Greece, Australia, Portugal, South Africa, Bolivia, Belgium, England and Spain are to attend the event.

Recent violence in Sao Paulo may just be the tip of the iceberg: Many parts of Brazil and indeed across Latin America, governments have capitulated to gangsters, and the rise of organized crime could end the recent leftward shift across Latin America. Garbage containers block the road into slum district Vigario Geral, one of the most dangerous favelas in Rio de Janeiro. A visitor approaches the barricade, two youths appear from the shadow of a nearby building. They're carrying machine guns, and handguns are tucked into their pants. "You want to go to church, right?" the older of the two...

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez brought up Carlos the Jackal during a meeting of oil producers Thursday, calling the Venezuela-born terrorist who once took hostages at an OPEC meeting "a good friend." Carlos, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, gained notoriety during the Cold War for staging a string of bombings and assassinations. He is serving a life sentence for murder in France. Chavez recalled in his speech how Ramirez once in a letter referred to the Venezuelan leader's 1999 tour of OPEC member states. He said Carlos, "a good friend," said in the missive from his...

Caracas, while home to nearly a fifth of Venezuela’s 26 million inhabitants, is a city so poorly conceived in design that it appears to have sprung up from the ground, without warning, overnight. Nestled in a long and narrow valley, it is a tangled urban agglomeration of towering skyscrapers, cluttered streets, curving highways, world-famous shopping malls, and of course, ranchos that blanket the hills surrounding the city, covering every inch of exposed land as if they were fighting for daylight. Stacked haphazardly on top of each other, the red cinder block and tin-roof dwellings of the ranchos can be seen...

WASHINGTON Feb 27, 2006 (AP)-- Eleven cities have shown interest in playing host to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, twice the number of cities that applied to get the 2004 gathering. The DNC initially sent out letters to more than 30 cities, giving them an overview and finding out their level of interest. The 11 cities that said they were interested: Anaheim, Calif.; Dallas; Denver; Detroit; Las Vegas; Minneapolis; New Orleans; New York; Orlando, Fla.; Phoenix and San Antonio. Some of the cities are in critical swing states like Florida and Arizona, while others are in population centers like New...

Cindy Sheehan went to Caracas, Venezuela to put her thumb in the eye of the Bush administration. She was leading the World Social Forum, a far-left “alternative” to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, to cavort with fellow leftists. Less well known was that her trip was sponsored by the Venezuelan foreign ministry. The price of that was obligatory praise of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, who’s rapidly plunging in the opinion polls for his incompetence and corruption. “I admire President Chavez for his strength to resist the United States,” she said. Sheehan, who knows nothing of Venezuela, was easy to...

Hugo Chavez, Cindy Sheehan Highlight Socialist Forum: The Bush-bashing "Peace Mom" Cindy Sheehan will join leading third-world America-hater Hugo Chavez on Tuesday, when the two team up to address the 6th World Social Forum in Caracas, Venezuela. Sheehan and Chavez will headline a list of yet-to-be-announced speakers from places like Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, and Colombia, according to the web site VHeadline.com. The Forum will officially commence after a 2-day street festival, which began on Sunday, Vheadline says. "Tens of thousands" of Chavez and Sheehan's fans helped kick off the event by staging a march under the slogan "Contra la Guerra...

U.S. antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan will open the World Social Forum in Caracas on Tuesday together with other political and cultural leaders from diverse nations with a mass action, organizers for the event said Sunday. Sheehan, mother of a dead soldier in Iraq who achieved notoriety from heading various antiwar actions against the government of George W. Bush, will give a speech at a march that will kick off the World Social Forum en the Venezuelan capital, said dará Edgardo Lander, a member of the organizing committee of the event. In the action for which the activist will assist, "she...

Latin America: Oil earnings have given Hugo Chavez a colossal sense of his own power at home and abroad. He's not limiting himself to small countries like Bolivia, though. Surprise: The U.S. is also in his cross hairs. Venezuela's president has targeted America and not just by organizing political fifth columns called "Bolivarian Circles" ... He's also getting himself good press for delivering discounted oil for his handpicked "poor" ... Chavez has won plaudits from the mainstream media for his newly launched program to deliver cheap heating oil to carefully "screened" low-income constituencies. Venezuela's state oil company, PDVSA, through its...

Latin America: With all the wounded puffery of a bully, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez last week singled out the president of Mexico with the hoary epithet of U.S. "lap dog." It's proof he's losing his own war over free trade. Ahead of July's Mexican presidential election, the four-point rise in the polls of Vicente Fox's PAN party on the heels of the Chavez outburst signals it's clearly backfiring. Mexicans are rallying around their president. Chavez attacked Fox precisely because Mexico is one of the world's leading emblems of free trade. It has signed 27 trade pacts, more than any other country...

Jesse Jackson's traveling circus reportedly flew to Caracas yesterday for a grandstanding visit with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. The announced visit came in the wake of ill-considered remarks from televangelist Pat Robertson who declared that the U.S. ought to try to assassinate Chavez. Jackson went there to show Chavez he's a 'man of peace and goodwill' and probably wanted to curry favor with him, given the opportunity presented by Robertson. And what better way to look good for his U.S. domestic constituents than to be seen in an abrazo embrace with telegenic Hugo Chavez? But a funny thing happened on...

President Chávez appears in VTV presidendo Cabinet President Hugo Chávez, finished with the conjectures that were woven around to his, after not appearing in the march of Saturday and not making the dominical program when presiding over the cabinet 428 from the government palace The agent chief executive referred that he was visiting his daughter in Barquisimeto reiterating that the suspension of Aló President had to the transmission of the game of World-wide Liga of Volleyball. The agent chief executive initiated his appearance before the screens of Venezuelan of Television announcing the approval of a series of credits and...

Caracas, May 29 (EFE).- Rumors swirled Sunday about the whereabouts of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who did not deliver a scheduled address to supporters a day earlier and whose weekly show was replaced by a volleyball match. "The president's program yielded its spot to the match between Venezuela and Brazil because of prior international commitments with the World Volleyball League," Communications Minister Andres Izarra said during a brief appearance on state-owned Venezolana de Television. The minister said Chavez's weekly show would return next Sunday. Izarra's statement at 11:35 a.m. (1535 GMT) was intended to put an end to the...

Khatami's South American sponsored trip prepared subverision in America through back door as deterrent to strikes against Iran's nuclear sites.Planned next are joint bases with Colombian rebels, and an Intelligence-terrorist base in Caracas.

Castro and Chavez in business suits in Havana. Is it one of Chavez' Brioni or a Lanvin? Hard to tell he has over one hundred of them. The opening of the office of PDVSA Cuba makes perfect sense. It is clearly one of those management decisions that has been studied and analyzed and the financial models have spoken: We need to open an office in Cuba, it makes perfect sense! Let's look at the facts: -Cuba has no oil, it produces no oil, all of the exploration wells that have been drilled in the Guld of Mexico have turned out...

Ecuador's riots of the past week were triggered by the return from exile of a wacked-out Ecuadorean ex-president named Abdala 'El Loco' Bucaram. If you have any negative stereotypes about South American presidents, rest assured that this guy outdoes them. El Loco was thrown out of power several years ago for 'mental instability' and is so disgustingly rabid he makes Venezuela's Hugo Chavez look like a statesman. Not only is he leftwing, he is also corruption incarnate. He has a distinct taste for embarrassing the nation - like singing in a rock band while on presidential duty or inviting Lorena...

...Venezuelans would prefer at this time if the Carter Center stayed away from our country. The role the Center played in the recall referendum, before and after it, left a very bitter taste in all of those like me, who are certain that the outcome was fraudulent. ... Carter ... did not demand that the CNE do the “hot audits” on August 16th. ... There are lies in the reports from the Carter Center, such as that the boxes containing the ballots never left their sight. Thus, Venezuelans in the opposition think the Carter Center failed them completely by being...

Bwahahahah!!! Gasp! Bwahahahahahahah! (tears of laughter, blogger convulsing on the floor subject to one of the biggest laugh attacks recorded in blogdom). (Breathe, breathe deeply, garner composure, start writing again) Today we learn that Jennifer Mc Coy of the Carter Center will brave Venezuela to offer help in consolidating peace and democracy! The nerve! What is in store for us? Are they going to approve the new judicial system whose near uniform composition will ensure "peace" through a "uniform justice" (pun intended)? Will they offer to monitor the 2006 elections to validate yet another "fair" Chavez victory? ... I have...

Hugo Chavez shows the United States to want to assassinate it CARACAS - the president vénézuélien Hugo Chavez showed Sunday the president George W Bush to prepare an attack against him, affirming "to be condemned to died" and threatening the United States to suspend oil exports if it were assassinated. "If me am assassinated, there is a large culprit on this planet which is called the president of the United States, George (W.) Bush ", declared the president populist of left in his radio-televised program "Hello, president". "If by the hand of the devil, these perverse plans were crowned...

Sources: Chavez Calls In Foreign Aid in Preparation for Crackdown?Dec 09, 2002 Summary The risk of violence is escalating in Venezuela, where multiple sources say President Hugo Chavez is arming domestic supporters and possibly calling in help from Cuban nationals and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Analysis The threat of major violence in Venezuela within the next two or three days is increasing rapidly in cities like Caracas and Maracaibo, Stratfor sources say. The government of embattled President Hugo Chavez is arming hundreds of civilian supporters, at least three small groups of Colombian rebels have crossed the border...

Blogger Francisco writing in the Caracas Chronicles puts forth the theory that Hugo Chavez is a malicious narcissist: If you're looking for insight into Venezuela's seemingly never ending political crisis, section 301.81 of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual would be an excellent place to start. The entry reads eerily like a brief character sketch of Venezuela's embattled president, Hugo Chavez: "Has a grandiose sense of self-importance; is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance; requires excessive admiration; has unreasonable expectations of automatic compliance with his expectations; shows arrogant behaviors or attitudes, etc." Actually, it's the DSM-IV's...

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) confirmed that Rodrigo Granda Escobar, known as "the Chancellor" was kidnapped in Venezuela, while attending the Second Bolivarian Peoples Conference. In a statement published on their web page, the Central Command of this organization blamed the kidnapping of "Ricardo", as he is known within FARC, on "the Colombian intelligence services" and blamed his deportation on "gringo advisors and the complicit support of corrupt elements of the Venezuelan police". In the statement they went on to ask that the government of Venezuela make "its position clear regarding guarantees to the other bolivarian organizations that...

Going back to work to start the year was no different than working last week; most Venezuelans are certainly not working and will likely not go to work for at least another week, a phenomenon that I have always marveled at. It is in fact pretty amazing that a country with such low productivity practically shuts down for three weeks every year at Christmas. And let’s not talk about Easter week and carnival week when similar slowdowns take place. But maybe I should lighten up. The slowdown is general. The best part is that politicians also disappear from view for...

London 03.01.05 | Undoubtedly internet is the true revolution, so much so that a bunch of assassins, otherwise known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), have their own website where they post communiqués and other stuff. During last December's meeting in Caracas of guerrilla fighters, leftist talebans and revolutionaries, Ricardo Granda a.k.a FARC's 'foreign secretary' was arrested by Colombian police forces and whisked to Colombia. FARC leaders weren't amused by the operation and have released a communiqué criticising comrade Hugo for lack of protective measures towards such honourable guests. These guerrilla fighters must truly enjoy to crack bad...

While public officials, schools, and the ACLU worked overtime this year to ban every vestige of Christmas from the public square, the recently invented holiday known as Kwanzaa is gaining in popularity among black Americans. These occurrences are not unrelated. In an earlier time, blacks held a strong faith in God. But over the past 40 years, the black community has largely let God slip away. Sure the community has maintained the outer trappings of religion, but the solid morality at its core is nearly gone. Enter a God-hating black racist named Ron Karenga. Born Ron Everett on a poultry farm...

I am writing to you who are gathered in this august assembly in the Teresa Carreño. The Encounter Between Artists and Intellectuals has been receiving a mild coverage in the press, if not a sarcastic one, but this is probably due to the fact that they have not realized that you were invited by more than the Cuban government. These insensitive weirdoes should remember that poor Fidel is sick, and probably sick of having to receive you regularly in Varadero, amen of catering to you: jineteras are there for dollar paying tourists! No! Fortunately El Supremo the other night set...

23.11.04 | The Bush Administration and five other governments dropped the ball in the events leading up to Venezuela’s very flawed recall referendum, which allowed the OAS and Carter Center to validate the results. Now, and I cannot emphasize this point enough, Venezuela is in complete disarray. Far from solving the crisis, the OAS (which would probably accomplish more as a museum than as a hemispheric body) and the Carter Center have washed their hands of the crisis, as key events take place which threaten, not only Venezuela, but the hemisphere. Having gained complete and undeniable control of every branch...

CARACAS, Venezuela - A fire burned its way up one of Venezuela's tallest buildings on Sunday, injuring at least 25 firefighters and prompting the evacuation of nearby residences and businesses amid fears that the tower might collapse, officials said. Efforts to extinguish the blaze were hampered by the fact that water pumps were not working properly and the building was not equipped with fire extinguishers, fire chief Rodolfo Briceno said. "There is a problem because the building is made of steel. Because of the high temperatures, the structure could collapse," Information Minister Jesse Chacon told President Hugo Chavez during his...

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - A top Venezuelan opposition leader says he has already had figures indicating the result of a referendum on whether to recall President Hugo Chavez and, with a smile, adds that people can tell what it is from his expression."From the expression on my face, people can tell what's happening," said a smug-looking Enrique Mendoza, a leader of the opposition coalition which forced Sunday's referendum on the populist president."We already have enough information," he said on Monday.Venezuelan law prohibits anyone from announcing electoral results until the country's election authorities do so.Voting was still continuing at many polling...

Where Intolerance Reigns: Leftist Outrage In Venezuela Chavez supporters put posters in front of statues and later desecrated them. Sacrilegious attacks against statues of Our Lady by the followers of President Chávez make patent the link between the radical left and a Satanic hatred.by Valdis GrinsteinsThe acts mentioned in this article are so shocking that if they were not so well documented, one would doubt their authenticity. Normally acts of this nature are done by small groups in secret. Rarely do the perpetrators allow themselves to be filmed and, above all in Venezuela where they are still punished by law.How...