Free Republic

Race in Latin America is confusing to many Americans, who generally can’t see beyond black and white. Spanish and Portuguese conquistadores and their families from Europe have always formed a kind of local aristocracy. Their descendants were called criollos, and were considered somewhat lower in status than Iberians or other Europeans born abroad. The descendants of single European men who married native indio women formed the core of “the people,” who were subservient.The possible combinations of different grades of European, Amerindian, and African led to a dizzying proliferation of types, all of which were named and classified according to a...

Nicolas Maduro Wins Venezuela Presidential Election (50.7%): Opposition Gets 49.1% Socialist candidate Nicolas Maduro has won a narrow victory in Venezuela's presidential poll. Mr Maduro, who was chosen by the late Hugo Chavez, won 50.7% of the vote against 49.1% for opposition candidate Henrique Capriles. The electoral commission said the results were "irreversible". There has been no comment from Mr Capriles, who earlier on Sunday has suggested there was an attempt to doctor the result. Mr Maduro told a rally of supporters in the capital Caracas that he had won a "just, legal and constitutional" victory. However, the margin of...

Like one of those telenovelas that are so popular on Latin American television stations, the slow yet inexorable deterioration of Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez, was soaked in drama and cloying sentimentality. Chavez died March 5 following a two-year fight with cancer. For most of that time, he claimed – falsely – to have been cured. But less than two months after winning a fourth term in last October’s election, Chavez was spirited back to Cuba, where Fidel Castro’s doctors treated him. Now, Chavez’s death affords the opportunity for a critical reassessment of his tenure. In his fourteen years in power,...

CARACAS, Venezuela: Venezuela's state petroleum company, PDVSA, increased petroleum imports by nearly 150 percent between the first quarter of 2007 and the same period this year, bank statistics show. A report by the Venezuelan Central Bank this week demonstrated that petroleum imports reached US$1.5 billion (€964 million) during the first quarter of 2008. The imports — which include diesel oil, gasoline and chemical additives for gasoline products — are the country's highest in more than a decade. A spokesperson for PDVSA said the company had no immediate comment on the issue. Economist Gustavo Garcia, a professor at a Caracas business...

Is Obama taking a page out of Hugo's book or vice versa. The stories are astoundingly similar. May 1 -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's proposal for a windfall profits tax on oil companies could cost $15 billion a year at last year's profit levels, a campaign adviser said. The plan would target profit from the biggest oil companies by taxing each barrel of oil costing more than $80, according to a fact sheet on the proposal. The tax would help pay for a $1,000 tax cut for working families, an expansion of the earned- income tax credit and assistance...

CARACAS, April 15 (Reuters) - Venezuela expects income of $9 billion a year through a new oil law obliging companies to give "windfall earnings" to the leftist government when world prices are above $70 a barrel, a minister said on Tuesday. President Hugo Chavez, who has for years squeezed more revenue from oil companies operating in the OPEC nation and nationalized all foreign-run oil fields, wants the funds to be spent immediately on social programs in this election year. The government will take in about 92 cents for every extra dollar when world prices are above $70 a barrel and...

CARACAS -- and Wire Reports President Hugo Chávez said Friday he will try again to change Venezuela's rules to allow unlimited presidential reelection -- a proposal rejected by voters just last month. Making his annual address to the legislature, Chávez said he would call a referendum in 2010 with two questions: Should the president be recalled and should the president be allowed ``indefinite reelection?'' Chávez's proposals for 60-plus constitutional reforms to allow, among other things, indefinite reelection and officially declare Venezuela to be a ''socialist'' nation were narrowly defeated in a Dec. 2 vote. Chávez's six-year term of office is...

A poll shows most Venezuelans reject the unlimited reelection of presidents, as they do a Cuban-style government. 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...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Every American should have health care coverage within six years, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama said Thursday as he set an ambitious goal soon after jumping into the 2008 presidential race. "The time has come for universal health care in America," Obama said at a conference of Families USA, a health care advocacy group. "I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country," the Illinois senator said. Obama was previewing what is shaping up to be a theme of the 2008 Democratic...