Look out below. Thugo Chavez is getting ready to nationalize PDVSA. Pulling PDVSA assets out of the US is designed to prevent the victimized companies from attaching these assets in the courts.
You're probably right. Hugo has been incredibly emboldened by something of late. Possibly it's the adoring support he's getting from the European left, or the fact that we have simply ignored him for so long that he feels he's getting a free pass.
He'll have to sell them first. That may take a while.