Mary Anastasia O'Grady (Wall Street Journal) is, IMHO, the best analyst we have on Latin America. She's the only one who seems to take Chavez seriously, too.
BTW, were you aware that Zapatero had planned to visit Chavez on his tour through LatAm this week(where he is visiting Lula, Kirchner and Lagos)? ZP wanted to finalize a contract for VZ to buy a military ship and 20 patrol boats for the VZ navy. Colombia lodged a formal objection, so in theory he is not going to VZ. However, nowhere did I read that Spain has cancelled the contract, so I'd say VZ is definitely arming itself.
As mentioned..FYI..regards..