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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,...

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...

Earlier this week we wrote in a research note: "The market flutter caused by the unilateral debt moratorium by Dubai suggests to us is that the illusion of stability created by the Federal Reserve Board over the past year is starting to dissipate. Specifically, there are many Dubai type situations in the global markets, both sovereigns and corporates, that are over-extended and are unable to service their debts at par. The corporates will end up in restructuring but the sovereigns are an open question." "We would not be surprised to see more sovereign debtors make unilateral announcement of debt moratoriums...

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...

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...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed while standing next to President Hugo Chavez that Iran and Venezuela would "stand together until the end" in the face of US "imperialism." The Iranian leader's three-day regional tour has been seen as a clear affront to Washington, a fact illustrated by an unusual letter sent by US President Barack Obama. After Ahmadinejad's first stop in Brazil, it emerged that Obama had sent a letter to the regional power urging it to be more critical of the Islamic republic and its suspect nuclear activities. The letter, written to Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva...

As Mahmoud Ahmadinejad entered the Caracas airport in Venezuela, they received him by playing the Pahlavi-era "Sorood e Shahanshahi" instead of the Islamic Republic's anthem! (See video at link above)

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Wednesday beside firebrand President Hugo Chavez that Iran and Venezuela would "stand together until the end" in the face of US "imperialism." Ending a tour of Latin American allies, Ahmadinejad praised his "brave brother" Chavez, saying: "Today the people of Venezuela and Iran, friends and brothers in the trench warfare against imperialism, are resisting. "We'll stand together until the end," he yelled, raising Chavez's hand in front of the television cameras and shouting in Spanish: "Viva Venezuela! Viva Chavez!" Before arriving in Caracas late Tuesday Ahmadinejad was in Bolivia, where he and President Evo Morales,...

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 Boeing plane that used to transport cocaine from Venezuela to West Africa crashed in northern Mali earlier this month after a failed take-off, the representative of the UN's regional office on drugs and crime said Monday.

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....

The threat of a war between Venezuela and Colombia increased over the weekend after both countries deployed more troops along their border and President Hugo Chavez branded his Colombian counterpart a "mafioso". Tensions between the countries reached a new high after the Colombian military arrested four Venezuelan soldiers, just days after Mr Chavez told his army to "prepare for war" with Colombia. The Venezuelan ambassador to Bogota, Gustavo Marquez, said that the seriousness of the situation could not be overstated and that "there is a pre-war situation in the entire region". Diplomatic relations between the South American neighbours are frozen...

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...

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...

[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...

Nicaragua's President on Monday urged Latin American peoples to unite in order to force the removal of airbases in Colombia that the U.S. military intend to use. President Daniel Orgeta, a main ally to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, announced that the greatest struggle for Latin American countries was to "make dissappear once and for all ... the military bases that threaten the sovereignty, integrity and peace of our people." Ortega denounced the recent Colombia - U.S. military agreement (which he believes to have been initiated by the George W Bush administration) as the greatest threat to Colombia and Latin American...

BOGOTA (AFP) – Colombia has said it will seek UN help after Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez instructed his military to ready "for war." "Faced with these threats of war by the government of Venezuela, the government of Colombia is weighing heading to the Organization of American States and UN Security Council," said a statement from President Alvaro Uribe, read out by his spokesman Cesar Velasquez. "Colombia has not made nor will it make any bellicose move toward the international community, (and) even less so toward fellow Latin American nations," the statement said. "The only thing we are interested in is...

Swine flu has hit an isolated tribe of Indians in the Amazon jungle, with seven dying in the last two weeks, Survival International said on Wednesday. A further 1,000 members of the Yanomami tribe in Venezuela are believed to have caught the flu, the indigenous peoples rights group said. It is feared the flu could sweep through the area and kill many more Yanomami as the Indians have little resistance to introduced diseases. About 32,000 Yanomami live in the Venezuela-Brazil border region and form the largest relatively isolated tribe in the Amazon. Survival director Stephen Corry said the situation was...

When Islamists made their roots south of the border... Venezuela's dictator: H. Chavez that "sees" only money, oil and Anti-Americanism-Power, does "serve" the Islamic Iranian Republic well, giving out passports to anyone. From that "port" it is quite easy for an Islamic Iranian AGENT to arrive into any other Latin American country as a... "Venezuelan". A "random" different case (of a Muslim trying to "blend" into Latin America), a year ago, a Jordanian Arab that "met" a Costa Rican (Tica) girl in Spain (she vouched for him in CR, asw this man came from the area in Jordan where a...

SNIPPET: "Lula and Chavez have established a "strategic relationship," and recently agreed upon a joint Brazilian-Venezuelan oil venture worth billions of dollars. Lula and Chavez have joined with Daniel Ortega, the returned Nicaraguan Marxist dictator, to form an anti-U.S. Latin American military alliance - all with Russian assistance - funded by the region's abundant oil reserves. Brazil is engaged in its own arms build-up and Lula is determined that Brazil will become at least a first-rate regional power. Unfortunately, Lula is establishing Brazil as an anti-American military power by aligning with nations hostile or potentially hostile to the U.S. Lula...

CARACAS, Venezuela – Two soldiers in Venezuela's National Guard have been shot to death near the border with Colombia. State television says unidentified assailants gunned down the soldiers at a roadside checkpoint in the western state of Tachira. It says Monday's slayings were confirmed by the National Guard and police.

Residents of the Venezuelan capital face cuts in water service for as much as 48 hours per week, after the government imposed rationing to stem a 25 percent shortfall in the city's supply, officials said Monday.

The Obama administration's un-American attempt to vilify Fox News only increased the network's popularity. But this White House debacle can't be judged in isolation: There's a global leftwing assault on the freedom of information. Intense leftist sentiment in most of the international media isn't enough. Extremists seek total control. The one thing leftists just can't bear is criticism. (Mass murder's fine, but don't stray from the party line.) As early as the French Revolution, the left grasped that a free press is inherently subversive to its doctrines. The Obama administration's aborted Fox hunt simply aligned our government with the hounds...

BOGOTA – In a private, low-key ceremony, the U.S. ambassador and three Colombian ministers on Friday signed a pact giving American personnel expanded access to military bases in this drug-producing country, a deal that Venezuela's Hugo Chavez has called a threat to the region's security. Foreign Minister Jaime Bermudez said the 10-year deal takes effect immediately and restricts U.S. military operations to Colombian territory — alluding to fears expressed by leftist leaders in the region that it would make Colombia a base for asserting U.S. power in South America. Details of the pact, which aims to boost drug and counterinsurgency...

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Deposed President Manuel Zelaya and his opponents have agreed to a U.S.-brokered deal that he said will return him to power four months after a coup shook faith in Latin America's young democracies. The power-sharing agreement reached late Thursday calls for Congress to decide whether to reinstate the leftist Zelaya. While the legislature backed his June 28 ouster, congressional leaders have since said they won't stand in the way of an agreement that ends Honduras' diplomatic isolation and legitimizes presidential elections planned for Nov. 29. Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Thomas Shannon said Friday that the two...

Hugo Chavez's support has declined in the polls as many Venezuelans say they are fed up with 27 percent inflation, a stagnant economy, faulty public services — and a government they see as incapable of doing much about it. The president's popularity has slid in monthly tracking polls from a high of 61 percent after winning a vote in February to 52.8 percent last month, pollster Luis Vicente Leon of the Caracas-based firm Datanalisis said Wednesday, adding that the downward trend in the percentage who view his presidency positively has continued since. After more than a decade in power, Chavez...

CARACAS, Venezuela – President Hugo Chavez said he met privately with actor Sean Penn on Wednesday, and that the Oscar-winning celebrity may film a movie in Venezuela. Penn may shoot a film based on a novel by Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier, which is set largely in the jungle along Venezuela's southern Orinoco river, Chavez said. He appeared to be referring to Carpentier's 1953 novel, "The Lost Steps," about an American anthropologist and composer's journey into the jungle region. Penn's publicist could not immediately be reached for comment. Chavez added that he discussed politics with Penn, who said he would soon...

Tyranny: In his latest absurdity, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is dictating three-minute showers and no singing. Claiming it's to save water, his act is nothing but a "green" fig leaf to cover his socialist mismanagement. 'Some people sing in the shower, in the shower half an hour," Chavez ranted on his Sunday TV show "Alo Presidente." "No, kids. Three minutes is more than enough. I've counted, three minutes and I don't stink." His words echo those of environmental extremists, blaming shopping malls, El Nino, tourists and sabotage. But the water and electricity shortages are his own doing, and the scope of...

Filmmaker Michael Moore will probably want to steer clear of one of his favorite leftist countries -- Hugo Chavez's Venezuela -- after he inadvertently insulted El Presidente and enraged the strongman's rabid supporters. Chavez's devoted followers (no doubt at Chavez's behest) are deriding Moore as a liar, racist, and coward -- all for the filmmakers outrageous statements about their leader during an appearance on a late-night talk show, ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live." (A film clip of the Oct. 9th show may be seen here.) Moore described a strange encounter with Chavez during last September's Venice Film Festival. Chavez was there...

The calendar has been produced by the Madrid Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual collective COGAM Controversy in Madrid with the launch of a 2010 lay calendar which shows images of ‘transsexual virgins’ recreating religious scenes decorated with crowns, condoms and phallic symbols. The lay calendar takes the religion out of the dates of the year, so Christmas Day becomes the day you eat the traditional Spanish turron to mark International Democracy Day, for example. The images are all based on famous Catholic images and iconography. The Venezuelan photographer who assembled the calendar, Juan Antinoo, had been commissioned by COGAM, the...

Soccer team slayings fuel Venezuela-Colombia rift Enrique Andres Pretel REUTERS NEWS AGENCY CARACAS, Venezuela | Venezuela said Sunday that at least 10 members of an amateur Colombian soccer team had been found dead after being kidnapped on its side of the border. The slayings added another complication to fractious ties between the two South American neighbors. Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chavez, further stirred things up by calling the Colombian defense minister a "mental retard." Venezuela broke off relations and minimized trade with Colombia earlier this year because of the country's acceptance of U.S. military bases on its soil. Colombia is...

Venezuela said on Sunday at least 10 members of an amateur Colombian soccer team had been found dead after being kidnapped on its side of the border. - The incident adds another complication to fractious ties between the two countries. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez broke off relations and minimized trade earlier this year due to Colombia's acceptance of U.S. military bases on its soil.

Colombian Football Team 'Killed' By Will Grant BBC News, Caracas At least 10 bodies - believed to be those of a kidnapped Colombian football team - have been found across the border in Venezuela. The bodies, with multiple gunshot wounds, were found in Tachira. One of the team is reported to have survived. State authorities say they suspect a left-wing Colombian guerrilla group, the ELN, is to blame for the deaths. The team, kidnapped two weeks ago, was known as Los Maniceros or Peanut Men, as they sold nuts along the border. The Venezuelan authorities say they are still investigating...

Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has called on his countrymen to stop singing in the shower to help save water and electricity. The left-wing leader said they should attempt to wash in less than three minutes and breaking into song distract them. "Some people sing in the shower, in the shower half an hour. No kids, three minutes is more than enough. I've counted, three minutes, and I don't stink," he said during a televised Cabinet meeting. Getting into his stride, he went on to label baths and jacuzzis anti-communist.

CARACAS, Venezuela – Hugo Chavez's support has declined in the polls as many Venezuelans say they are fed up with 27 percent inflation, a stagnant economy, faulty public services — and a government they see as incapable of doing much about it. .. "Whatever he offers, everything gets half-done," said Maria Martinez, a 32-year-old who once voted for Chavez but now is disenchanted. She says the government's health programs are insufficient, and the $500 or so she earns each month selling books in the street is no longer enough to support her five children. She said water reaches her Caracas...

Venezuela's military advisers would "Mel" Danilo Orellana, commissioner of the honduran police, who also coordinates the operations "Peace and Democracy", said that this version has not yet been confirmed Tegucigalpa, Honduras . Honduras National Police investigating the alleged presence of Venezuelan military in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa. Danilo Orellana, commissioner of the agency, reported Tuesday to have information "subtle" of stay of two members of the Armed Forces of Venezuela, who would be giving "advice" to the former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. Orellana, who also coordinates the operations "Peace and Democracy, said that this version" has not yet been...

Meet Marina Kalashnikova: a Moscow-based historian, researcher and journalist. Last August she criticized foreign “experts� for suggesting that a conflict with Moscow will not happen because Russia’s elite is too closely associated with the West. According to Kalashnikova, “The West does not care to wake from the dream of its wishful thinking, even when Moscow turns to … reanimating Stalin’s cult of personality together with the ideology of the Cheka [i.e., the secret police].� I’m afraid that Marina Kalashnikova is right. The West has been dreaming, and the West will suffer the consequences. If the Kremlin likes Stalin, then there...

CARACAS, Venezuela – President Hugo Chavez's government began taking over management of a Hilton-run hotel on Venezuela's Margarita Island on Wednesday. Tourism Minister Pedro Morejon said a 20-year concession granted to the company has expired and the government "has taken legitimate control of an asset that belongs to all the people of Venezuela." Chavez issued a decree last week ordering the "forced acquisition" of the Margarita Hilton & Suites and its marina, though news of the edict did not surface until Tuesday. Morejon said the government has held majority ownership of the hotel since 1995, when a banking crisis forced...

To: US State Department & United Nations IN SUPPORT OF THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF HONDURAS. We the citizens of the world, lovers of liberty and democracy, concerned about the isolation and impoverishment which is being imposed upon the Republic of Honduras by; the United Nations, the OAS, the UNASUR, the EU, and the U.S, hereby set forth our intend, individually and organizationally, to demonstrate our support of the government of the Republic of Honduras, presided by Roberto Micheletti together with all the legitimate and constitutional bodies of said government. We strongly support the current government’s efforts to safeguard the constitution...

The US-based Hilton hotel chain is "evaluating" the Venezuelan government's seizure of one of its hotels on the Caribbean resort island of Margarita, a spokeswoman told AFP on Wednesday. President Hugo Chavez ordered the "acquisition by force" of the landmark hotel Tuesday, according to Venezuelan officials. "At this time, Hilton Worldwide is evaluating how the Venezuelan government's action affects its interest in this hotel," said Karla Visconti, a Hilton Worldwide spokeswoman for the Caribbean, Mexico, and Latin America. In a brief statement Visconti said the hotel "remains a member of the Hilton system of hotels, and welcomes guests with the...

President Hugo Chavez has ordered the "acquisition by force" of a landmark Hilton Hotel on Venezuela's Margarita island, the government's Official Gazette announced Tuesday. The facility, on the Caribbean resort island of Margarita in Nueva Esparta state, was targeted for state takeover less than a month after it was used to host the Africa-South America Summit. It is not the first time Chavez's government has checked into a Hilton and stayed for good. Caracas has already seized the Hotel Hilton in Caracas, rechristening it the Hotel Alba, a reference to the Venezuelan-led leftist regional alliance Alianza Bolivariana para las Americas...

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says President Barack Obama does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. Chavez believes Obama didn't make any notable accomplishments to merit winning the prize, saying that rather than promote peace the U.S. president is continuing the warlike policies of predecessor George W. Bush. Chavez and Obama had a cordial first encounter at a summit in April, but the Venezuelan leader has become increasingly critical of Obama.