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Speaking during his weekly television and radio program, Mr Chavez said the aircraft overflew a Venezuelan military base in the western state of Zulia after taking off from neighbouring Columbia. He did not elaborate, but suggested the plane was being used for espionage. "These are the Yankees. They are entering Venezuela," he said. "I've ordered them to be shot down," Mr Chavez said of the aircraft. "We cannot permit this."

Link only because its AP. Title says it all.

Colombia has announced it will build a new military base near its border with Venezuela, in a move likely to further strain its tense ties with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Defense Minister Gabriel Silva said Friday that the base, located on the Guajira peninsula near the city of Nazaret, would have up to 1,000 troops. "It is a strategic point from a defense point of view," Silva said. Army Commander General Oscar Gonzalez meanwhile announced Saturday that six air battalions were being activated, including two on the border with Venezuela. Venezuela shares a ...1,250-mile border with Colombia . In November...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he "still" smelled sulfur after President Obama made a keynote speech at the Copenhagen climate conference Friday, accusing the American president of carrying same satanic Chavez believes followed Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush. Chavez, who was not included on the original list of speakers for the final day of the summit, ended the proceedings with bitter references to the Peace Prize-winning Obama as the "Nobel Prize of War." "The Nobel Prize of War just finished saying here that he is here to act. Well, show it sir. Don't leave by the back door," he...

Here is video of Venezuelan Dictator Hugo Chavez in Copenhagen today calling President Barack Obama the "Nobel War Prize," and saying Obama left the podium smelling of "sulphur," just as he accused President George W. Bush. The phrase "it smells of sulphur here" is his euphemism for calling Obama "Satan." He also chided Obama for "leaving by the back door." Chavez - the Evil Clown - said: If Obama, Nobel War Prize, said here - by the way, it smells of sulphur here. It smells of sulphur. It keeps smelling of sulphur in this world. The Nobel War Prize has...

These maniacs in Copenhagen are voting on your future: President Chavez brought the house down. When he said the process in Copenhagen was “not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn’t that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships” he got a rousing round of applause. When he said there was a “silent and terrible ghost in the room” and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening. But then he wound up to his grand conclusion – 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended...

President Chavez brought the house down. When he said the process in Copenhagen was “not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn’t that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships” he got a rousing round of applause. When he said there was a “silent and terrible ghost in the room” and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening. But then he wound up to his grand conclusion – 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus...

Madman Hugo Chavez in Copenhagen goes after Capitalism calling it a ghost running thought the streets, and then says Obama won the Nobel Prize the same day as he sent 30k troops off to kill innocent people (Video)

If you listen to U.S. officialdom, Iran is a pariah, cast out by the world community for its sanctions-violating, nuclear-wannabe ways. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has just warned Latin American nations that in choosing to "flirt with Iran," they should "think twice." Last month, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told the press that Iran is "choosing to isolate itself." But is Iran really isolated? Fresh from a meeting in Tehran with the head of the terrorist group Hamas, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is free to rub shoulders at the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen with a UN summit...

Firebrand leaders Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and Robert Mugabe turned up the heat at the UN climate talks, dumping the blame for global warming squarely at the feet of capitalism. Mr Chavez, the President of Venezuela, was one of the first world leaders to take the podium at the venue of the Copenhagen talks. He seized the occasion to characterise newly-minted Nobel Peace laureate US President Barack Obama as a warmonger. "I don't think Obama is here yet," said Mr Chavez. "He got the Nobel Peace Prize almost the same day as he sent 30,000 soldiers to kill innocent people...

THE Copenhagen climate summit was pretty much summed up in the high-level segment yesterday when Penny Wong's speech was interrupted by whistles and chanting and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez got a standing ovation. President Chavez brought the house down. When he said the process in Copenhagen was “not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn’t that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships” he got a rousing round of applause. When he said there was a “silent and terrible ghost in the room” and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was...

Bravo to Douglas Farah for disclosing how a terrorist conference is being held in Caracas, featuring representatives from FARC, ETA, the Communist Party of El Salvador, what’s left of the Red Brigades, and other terrorist groups. With the exception of FARC, these aren’t exactly top-tier terrorist groups, but they subscribe to the radical Marxist-Leninist doctrine of Chavez and Castro. Could Venezuela be trying to resurrect the terrorist groups the reigned during the Cold War?

Cuba's former leader Fidel Castro has accused the US of plotting to overthrow left-wing governments in Latin America. The "friendly smile" of US President Barack Obama could not be trusted, Mr Castro said in remarks read out at a summit of leftist leaders in Havana. His comments were echoed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other regional leaders at the meeting. Fidel Castro's remarks suggest hopes for a thaw in US-Cuba ties may be waning, correspondents say.

The de facto government of Honduras withdrew its offer Thursday to deposed President Manuel Zelaya of safe passage out of the country, asserting he could leave only if he renounced his claim to the office. The actions by Honduras' coup-installed rulers threw cold water on efforts to free Zelaya from the Brazilian Embassy... "I could be here 10 years," Zelaya said...he saidhe was being required to sign a letter of resignation in exchange for being allowed to leave, terms he branded "blackmail." At Zelaya's request, Mexico on Wednesday requested safe passage for him and dispatched a presidential jet to fetch...

Americas: Venezuela's Hugo Chavez was all bluster last weekend, flashing his missiles, hurling insults and spoiling for a fight with Colombia. The big danger here isn't Chavez, but growing White House indifference to an ally. This fall, when U.S. officials agreed to expanded military-base access in Colombia to fight drug trafficking and terrorism, it never occurred to them how much Chavez would use the arrangement as a pretext for aggression. "They are preparing a war against us," Chavez said Monday. So from Russia, he said, "thousands of missiles are arriving," along with T-72 military tanks "to strengthen our armored divisions."...

SNIPPET: "Venezuela's Marxist leader, Hugo Chavez, is receiving "thousands" of reliable, accurate, and very portable Russian ground-to-air missiles as part of a military buildup supposedly in anticipation of an anticipated U.S. assault. Chavez knows that there is no chance that the Obama administration will launch an attack against his regime. The real reason for Chavez's missile purchase and his military buildup in general remains hidden and disturbing. Chavez states that he is enraged that neighboring Colombia is permitting the United States to use six bases on Colombian territory. The troops had been stationed in Ecuador, but were expelled that nation's...

CARACAS, Venezuela – President Hugo Chavez said Monday that Venezuela has received thousands of Russian-made missiles and rocket launchers as part of his government's military preparations for a possible armed conflict with neighboring Colombia. "They are preparing a war against us," Chavez said during a televised address, repeating a charge he has been making for months. "Preparing is one of the best ways to neutralize it." Both Colombia and Washington deny having any plans to attack Venezuela, but Chavez argues they are plotting together a military offensive against Venezuela. Chavez says his government is acquiring more weapons as a precaution....

The situation in neighboring Venezuela is going from strange to foreboding. President Hugo Chavez has been unsuccessful in getting the voters to make him president for life, but he has used his presidential powers to replace thousands of key officials with people selected mainly for their loyalty to Hugo Chavez. Since the government controls so much of the economy (mainly because of the oil industry), this has had disastrous results. There are increasing power blackouts, and an increasing number of state employees are not getting paid, or paid on time. There are increasing shortages of consumer goods. There is growing...

ONE of President Hugo Chavez's top collaborators will resign from his post following the arrest of his brother as part of a brewing banking scandal. Jesse Chacon, who currently serves as Science and Technology Minister, offered his resignation after his brother, Arne Chacon, turned himself in to the Venezuelan secret police on Saturday as part of a widening probe by prosecutors into the financial system. Chavez moved to distance himself from the scandal ... Chavez also said that he told the Venezuelan secret police to swiftly imprison Arne Chacon... "I'm very sorry that he is the brother of a minister,...

Venezuela's currency fell sharply against the dollar in black market trading Thursday, reaching a two-month low as worries over bank nationalizations prompted Venezuelans to trade in their bolivars for greenbacks. President Hugo Chavez ordered the seizure of four small banks over the past week, and on Thursday said they would be nationalized. The day before, he threatened more bank seizures, leading to a run on some banks as people started guessing which ones might be targeted. The specter of a liquidity squeeze hitting the country's smaller banks is starting to appear, fueling dollar demand. In afternoon trading in Caracas, the...

The Argentinean prosecutor who ferreted out Iranian links to Argentina's largest terror attack warned Wednesday of Teheran's growing terror network in Latin America. "The Iranians are moving fast," assessed Alberto Nisman, who has secured Interpol backing for the arrest of several Iranians, including former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, for ordering the July 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community offices in Buenos Aires. "We see a much greater penetration than we did in 1994." He said that Iran, particularly through Lebanese proxy Hizbullah, has a growing presence in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, using techniques it honed in Argentina before the...

Gunmen of the Bolivarian Revolution Photograpy by Alvaro Ybarra Zavala. The people of Venezuela are living in fear. The militias of the Bolivarian Revolution, armed by President Hugo Chavez, have taken control of the country. Fear sets the tempo of Venezuelan society. With estimates in excess of 18,000 homicides each year (approximately 50 per day), violence dictates the future of the country. International pressure and internal divisions with Venezuela have forced the Chavez adminstration to radicalize their political stance, including making use of the criminal gans of Caracas, turning them into gneuine death squardrons serving the revolution. [...] Most of...

CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chávez threatened to nationalize his country's entire private banking system, even as he reassured Venezuelans their money was safe in local banks. Addressing the nation Wednesday, two days after the government shuttered two small banks and temporarily took over two others, the populist president said his government was looking into potential problems at other private banks, rattling Venezuelans and markets."We have our radar fixed on another group of banks and yesterday I spent nearly 10 hours studying" them, Mr. Chávez told an audience of supporters in a speech carried by all the country's television networks....

The situation in neighboring Venezuela is going from strange to foreboding. President Hugo Chavez has been unsuccessful in getting the voters to make him president for life, but he has used his presidential powers to replace thousands of key officials with people selected mainly for their loyalty to Hugo Chavez. Since the government controls so much of the economy (mainly because of the oil industry), this has had disastrous results. There are increasing power blackouts, and an increasing number of state employees are not getting paid, or paid on time. There are increasing shortages of consumer goods. There is growing...

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday said his government may target more banks for state intervention, sparking investor jitters two days after his government shut four private banks. Venezuelan benchmark bonds fell by the most in three months and the cost to insure Venezuelan debt shot to its highest since July amid what one analyst called "significant distress" in the financial system. Authorities closed four small banks on Monday owned by a wealthy businessman with close ties to the government, citing internal irregularities. That brought hundreds of worried depositors onto the streets, and sparked talk among Venezuelans...

Looks like ousted Honduras President Zelaya will be holed up in the Brazilian embassy for a while longer. The Congress of Honduras voted not to reinstate the deposed dictator-wannabe. Honduras has been the object of Obama's attacks ever since they threw Zeyala out of office. The former President's disposal was ordered by the Honduras Supreme Court and was in line with the Honduras Constitution. Following the direction of his buddy Chavez, Zeyala illegally attempted to stay in power despite the constitutional ban on running for another term. The military removed him from office, and immediately returned power to the civilian...

10 in favor of Z 80 against Z.

A wealthy rancher was due to be declared Honduras's new president today after a tumultuous election dogged by the overthrow of his predecessor. Preliminary results gave Porfirio Lobo 56% of votes, prompting cavalcades of cheering, honking supporters in the streets of the capital, Tegucigalpa. His nearest rival, Elvin Santos of the ruling Liberal party, conceded defeat. Lobo, from the centre-right National party, promised to unify a country polarised by the military-led coup against Manuel Zelaya in June, a political shock which rattled Latin America and left Honduras isolated and stripped of aid and investment.... The Supreme Electoral Tribunal said 61%...

CARACAS (Reuters) - Russia is building arms plants in Venezuela to produce AK-103 automatic rifles and cartridges and is finalizing contracts to send 53 military helicopters to the Andean nation, Moscow's envoy to Venezuela saidMonday. Ambassador Vladmir Zaemskiy told a news conference that Russian engineers and Venezuelan construction firms were building the rifle and cartridge plants which, when operational, would employ more than 1,500 workers. He gave no completion date for the plants under construction in the central state of Aragua. Details about Moscow's military shipments and projects have been scarce since socialist President Hugo Chavez's government began signing military...

Google translation... "Pepe" Lobo will not allow Chavez to stick his nose in Honduras November 30, 2009 The winner of the election, Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo said Monday that it will not allow Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, no one "dares to stick their noses" in the crisis. Honduras "is a free, independent and sovereign (...) will not accept impositions from anyone or political compromises that create division," Lobo insisted. "That neither he (Chavez) and no one dares to set foot in Honduras," said Wolf, the conservative National Party, which gained electoral authorities said in yesterday's elections for 55.9 percent of the...

The results from today's elections in Honduras are beginning to roll in and it looks as if Porfirio Lobo,from Honduran opposition National Party, is leading in the election at least according to the local media. According to preliminary data, the 61-year-old opposition leader received around 56% of the vote. His main rival, 46-year-old businessman Elvin Santos representing the ruling Liberal Party, came second in the presidential race, with about 38% of the vote. Even if the trend continues the Liberal party will not be the big loser today, Hugo Chavez, whose imperialist goals were thwarted when President Zelaya was ousted...

"We feel at home here and among our brothers ... we're going to be together until the end," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez during a visit to Latin America on Wednesday. Both leaders roundly denounced US "imperialism," and Chavez also called Israel "a murderous arm of the Yankee empire."

The United States finds itself pretty much alone in supporting elections to be held this Sunday in embattled Honduras. It's enough to make you wonder whether, following the unilateral misadventures under George W. Bush, we might once again be on the wrong side of history. With the exception of Panama, almost everyone else in the world maintains that the elections are illegitimate as long as the country's last elected president, Manuel Zelaya, remains deposed... I firmly believe in multilateralism and compromise...But this is one of those times when you have to stand on principle. My bet is that the world...

Even a broken clock is correct two times a day. Ever since Honduras deposed President Zelaya in June, the United States has been on the wrong side of the issue, supporting Zelaya and his buddy Hugo Chavez, against the people of Honduras, their democracy and the country's constitution. ....The Election is next Sunday Nov.29th, former President Zelaya is still holed up in the Brazilian embassy after sneaking back into the country in September, and surprisingly the United States is indicating that it will support the results of the election.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is inviting his mentor Fidel Castro to visit Venezuela during the coming months. Chavez read aloud a letter to the 83-year-old former Cuban leader during a televised speech Saturday night, saying "Venezuela awaits you." Chavez proposed that Castro visit at some point between now and April, during a congress of his socialist party. The 83-year-old Castro has not been seen in public since undergoing a series of emergency intestinal surgeries in July 2006.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Hugo Chavez is defending alleged terrorist mastermind Carlos the Jackal, saying the Venezuelan imprisoned in France was a "revolutionary fighter" rather than a terrorist. The Venezuelan president praised Carlos—whose real name is Ilich Sanchez Ramirez—during a speech Friday night saying: "I defend him. It doesn't matter to me what they say tomorrow in Europe." Ramirez gained international notoriety during the 1970s and 80s as the alleged mastermind of deadly bombings, killings and hostage dramas. He is serving a life sentence in France for the 1975 murders of two French secret agents and an alleged informant. "They...

Venezuela on Tuesday announced a surprisingly large third-quarter economic fall, shocking analysts and leaving the South American oil exporter's economy on course for a bigger contraction then previously thought in 2009. Despite previous assurances by President Hugo Chavez's government that its version of "21st century socialism" would protect Venezuelans, the Central Bank said lower oil revenues and the international downturn brought a 4.5 percent decline in the quarter. It was the second straight quarterly drop this year, and local economists said Venezuela was now in recession even though the government has not formally said that. "This is much, much worse...

CARACAS, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Wednesday the South American oil producer's economic slide was largely due to its compliance with OPEC-mandated production cuts. GDP shrank 4.5 percent in the third quarter of 2009, a second consecutive three-month contraction that by most economists' definition puts Venezuela in recession. Though Venezuela is still heading for a smaller economic decline this year than plenty of other nations, Chavez critics have leapt on this week's data as evidence of the failure of his decade-long socialist drive.

A country's consuls are usually low-key diplomats who handle issues like visa applications. But under President Hugo Chávez, two Venezuelan consuls in the United States have been anything but low-profile. One drew the FBI's attention for his close links to Puerto Rican pro-independence militants. Another sparked concerns over his ties to a website that has published several anti-semitic rants. Chávez has long been an exuberant salesman for ``21st Century Socialism,'' regularly bashing the U.S. ``empire'' and its ``lackeys,'' like Colombia next door and Israel farther afield. And his government has spent tens of millions of dollars selling that vision abroad....

Officials: Anita Dunn may be leaving with her little red book, but her husband enters as the next White House counsel, bringing experience in suppressing dissent, assaulting the First Amendment and limiting speech. Dunn, whose favorite philosophers include mass murderer Mao Zedong, was expected to leave after a short stint. She rose to fame as chief strategist for former Senate majority leader, now national health care guru, Tom Daschle. While serving as White House communications director, she was the commanding general of the administration "war" on Fox News. Like her philosophical mentor, Mao, and her colleague, FCC diversity czar Mark...

CARACAS, Venezuela – Call it the Bolivarian battle of the bulge. President Hugo Chavez said in a televised speech Friday that "there are lots of fat people" in Venezuela and advised his supporters to exercise and eat healthy to trim their waistlines. "I'm not saying fat women, because they never get fat," he added. "Women sometimes fill out." The 55-year-old leader said he himself has lost nearly 20 pounds (9 kilograms) by exercising and eating well. But Chavez, who still appears heavier than when he first took office in 1999, acknowledged that he could lose a few more pounds (kilograms)....

Battling with one of the world's highest murder rates, Venezuela on Wednesday crushed more than 30,000 guns seized from the streets during police raids this year. Policemen used blow-torches to chop up some of shotguns and pistols. They compacted weapons including home-made pistols into a 5 ton block... "This act forms part of the disarmament policies that we have been promoting." With 13,000 murders in 2007... Venezuela's murder rate is about 8 times that of the United States. Crime has risen under President Hugo Chavez...

Hugo Chavez is stirring trouble with Colombia to disguise domestic failures and Venezuela would be "mad" to enter a conflict with its neighbor. Perez said the Venezuelan leader's recent controversial exhortation to his army to "prepare for war" was a political smoke screen. "He is obviously trying to distract attention from the immense failure of his government after 10 years in power," Perez said at his home in San Cristobal, capital of Tachira. "In Venezuela today, there is neither electricity nor water on a permanent basis. The crime figures are battering us all. The country has gone backward enormously in...

...Ousted president Manuel Zelaya, who was expelled by the military in June, said in a telephone interview that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had assured him as recently as last week that the U.S. government was seeking his return to the presidency. But he said that U.S. pressure had eased in recent days and that he no longer had faith in the agreement....The Obama administration has invested its credibility in the Oct. 30 accord, which was reached after Clinton dispatched a senior diplomatic team to bring the two sides together. ... "The State Department's abrupt change of policy towards...

The U.S. drops its support for Honduran former president Manuel Zelaya. Hugo Chávez says nothing, a development in itself. The October 30 Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord (translated here), under which the United States and other nations are to recognize the results of the November 29 Honduran elections, was hailed by the U.S. government and by the Organization of American States (OAS) as “as bringing an end to a months-long political crisis.” It seems to have fizzled because former President Manuel Zelaya insisted that he be reinstated before the unity government took office. Under the accord, the unity government took office, as...

CARACAS, Venezuela – A prominent opponent of President Hugo Chavez accused the socialist leader's government on Wednesday of turning a blind eye to leftist Colombian rebels taking refuge in border areas of Venezuela. Tachira state Gov. Cesar Perez said both leftist guerrillas and righist paramilitary groups from Colombia operate in nearly a third of his border state, but he said Venezuelan troops ignore the rebels and try to root out only the right-wing militias. "The guerrillas are there with the government's blessing and the military has orders to leave them alone," Perez told The Associated Press in an interview. "The...

WASHINGTON — Under fire from allies in Latin America and on Capitol Hill, the Obama administration moved Tuesday to try to salvage the American-brokered agreement that had been billed as paving the way for a peaceful end to the coup in Honduras. Instead, the accord seems to have provided the country’s de facto government with a way to stay in power until a presidential election scheduled for the end of this month. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Craig Kelly (traveled) to Honduras on Tuesday for meetings with Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted from power four months ago, and with the...

[Venezuela] may be an energy colossus, with the largest conventional oil reserves outside the Middle East and one of the world’s mightiest hydroelectric systems, but that has not prevented it from enduring serious electricity and water shortages that seem only to be getting worse. ... The country has huge reserves of oil and natural gas and sizable coal deposits. Its Guri dam complex, built with postwar oil riches in the 1960s, ranks as one of the world’s largest hydroelectric projects. Guri provides Venezuela with as much as three-quarters of its electricity and, just as crucial, allows Venezuela to export about...

For months Honduras has faced a political crisis. In June, its president, Manuel Zelaya, attempted to subvert the country's constitution and was removed from office. He has since pushed to return to power...On Oct. 30, it appeared the crisis might come to a close when representatives of Zelaya signed an agreement with representatives of Micheletti to create a reconciliation government to oversee the country until the next president is seated (among other provisions). But in recent days, that agreement...fell apart. It's more accurate to say Zelaya moved to destroy the accord. It called for him to propose members of the...