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Based on the latest figures disclosed by the US Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS), Venezuela has surpassed Cuba in the number of nationals who have been granted asylum in the United States in 2005, with 153 Venezuelan refugees versus 21 Cubans. In 1996, OIS reported that US asylum was granted to 255 Cubans, while no Venezuelan citizen appeared in the records for that year. As of 2002, the number of Venezuelans granted US asylum jumped to 24. In 2003, the figure increased to 35 and in 2004 to 59. In 2005, the number skyrocketed to 153 Venezuelans granted US asylum....

Tom Shannon, US Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, is convinced that President Hugo Chávez' "clear victory" in the recent election "is good for Venezuela and the region." At the same time, the official welcomed the results for single opposition candidate Manuel Rosales. "There was a clear winner and the opposition accepted it," Shannon conceded during a press conference in reference to the election for president held last Sunday, December 3rd. There, Chávez was re-elected for an additional term of six years with 62.8 percent of votes, versus 36.8 percent for challenger Rosales, AFP reported.

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia - South American leaders agreed Saturday to create a high-level commission to study the idea of forming a continent-wide community similar to the European Union. The presidents and envoys of 12 nations wrapped up a two-day summit of the South American Community of Nations, hosted by Bolivian President Evo Morales in Cochabamba, a city tucked between the Andes and the Amazon in the heart of the continent. "We seek that South America be forever a region of peace that works to solve the economic problems of its historically abandoned majority," Morales said. The leaders agreed to form a...

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a former UN ambassador, was named as the Organization of American States' special envoy on migration in an effort to improve US-Latin American dialogue. The appointment came amid heated debate in the United States over illegal immigration, as US lawmakers consider proposals to deal with the 11.5 million undocumented workers, mostly Latin Americans, living in America. "The migration issue is key to improving relations (between Latin America and the United States," Richardson, 59, said at a news conference alongside OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza. "Dialogue and democracy are very important and I hope to...

Latin America: Amazing how well totalitarians tend to fare in elections. Venezuela's was a big win for Hugo Chavez that, in the absence of fraud, the world is likely to approve. But that doesn't make it all free or fair. Chavez won Sunday's election against challenger Manuel Rosales in a 61%-38% landslide, according to Venezuela's CNE election board. The victory margin was unusually high, but Rosales, to his credit, conceded gracefully, sparing Venezuela a Mexico-style electoral debacle. Uniting all the opposition for the first time, Rosales did well and lost honorably. It is likely that observers from the Carter Center,...

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez, an outspoken opponent of the United States who has used Venezuela's oil wealth to give handouts to the poor, won re-election to another six-year term by a wide margin on Sunday, official results showed. With 78 percent of voting stations reporting, Chavez had 61 percent to 38 percent for challenger Manuel Rosales, said Tibisay Lucena, head of the country's elections council. Chavez had nearly 6 million votes versus 3.7 million for Rosales, according to the partial tally. Turnout was 62 percent, according to an official bulletin of results, making Chavez's lead insurmountable.

Latin America: Venezuela has a presidential election Sunday. Polls show Hugo Chavez all set for re-election, but over in Caracas, photos show vast "avalancha" rallies for his rival. What gives? But Venezuela's opposition calls those polls skewed, not just by the small samples, and their Chavez sponsorship, but the failure of U.S.-based pollsters to control for Venezuela's "fear factor," which keeps Venezuelans from revealing their true opinions out of fear of reprisals. After all, oil workers have been directly threatened with firing by Venezuela's energy minister and Chavez has warned them to go into exile if they fail to vote...

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez on Sunday promised hundreds of thousands of supporters he would win a resounding victory in his December 3 reelection bid he describes as a challenge to Washington. The former soldier and self-styled revolutionary is favored in the polls to beat rival Manuel Rosales after building a solid political base through a social development campaign financed by oil revenues. Chavez supporters flooded Caracas thoroughfares waving flags and banners, congregating in different parts of the downtown a day after Rosales sympathizers held a similar march to close his campaign in the capital city....

CARACAS, Venezuela — Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans packed a major highway Saturday in a rally for opposition presidential candidate Manuel Rosales, one of the largest demonstrations against President Hugo Chavez in years. Shouts of "Dare to change!" rose up from the dense crowd filling the highway for several miles and spilling into nearby overpasses and streets in Venezuela's capital, Caracas. The rally came eight days before the country's presidential election on Dec. 3. Rosales, speaking from a stage, promised democracy for a country he said was sinking into Cuba-style authoritarianism under Chavez.

The man who has called Bush a "devil" and Blair "Hitler's ally" was between six and 20 points ahead in different opinion polls last week, but he is having a tougher campaign than expected. A surprisingly vigorous performance by his only serious challenger -- Manuel Rosales, an unheralded regional governor from Maracaibo -- has exposed damning domestic flaws in the so-called Chavez revolution... As more and more oil money pours into the barrios, tales of violence and corruption have become frighteningly commonplace. Elena Uzcategui, a veteran community activist, described how her husband was murdered in front of her by a...

Caracas, November 9, 2006 (Venezuelanalysis.com)— In an extensive press conference of over four hours with representatives from the international media, Venezuelan President Chavez welcomed the U.S. Democratic Party’s success in Tuesdays elections and touched on many other issues. He also discussed his government’s achievements, Daniel Ortega’s victory in Nicaragua, Latin American integration, relations with the Bush administration, and plans for a second full term.

The economic and commercial affairs office under the Chinese embassy in Venezuela was robbed of over 14,000 U.S. dollars on Saturday, a spokesperson with the Chinese Foreign Ministry has confirmed. At 10 a.m. local time, eight armed men, without masks, broke into the office and threatened the Chinese diplomatic staff with guns. They ordered the staff to hand over the key to the office safe before binding their arms and legs with ties and telephone wires. Twenty minutes after they had broken in, the men made off with 10,000 U.S. dollars in cash and 4,000 U.S. dollars of local currency....

CARACAS, Venezuela: Peruvian President Alan Garcia railed against Venezuela's foreign policy and the country's president, Hugo Chavez, saying the leftist leader has used a mix of petrodollars, blackmail and insults to divide rather than unite Latin America. Garcia told the Venezuelan daily El Universal in an interview published Sunday that Chavez "exercises power with a club or bag of money, blackmail and seduction." Chavez ? a sharp critic of U.S. President George W. Bush and Latin American leaders close to Washington ? says his government's foreign policy is based on solidarity and denies Venezuela is using its immense oil wealth...

How do you fail to see one elephant walking downtown? When there are dozens of elephants walking with him. When do you fail to see a coup? When many are openly conducting it.A coup d'état is in progress in Venezuela at this very moment. Hugo Chávez leads it in his double role as president and presidential candidate in the upcoming elections. This open rebellion against the constitution and the laws of the republic started several days ago, when Rafael Ramírez, the Oil Minister cum president of the State oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), addressed employees of the company to...

CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez welcomed Colombian pop singer Shakira to his country on Saturday and said he may go undercover to watch the hip-shaking superstar perform. "Shakira's arrived. ... Welcome, Shakira," Chavez said during a televised speech. Chavez said that the other day he'd put on a wig and not even his bodyguards had been able to recognize him. "Maybe I'll put on a wig and go see Shakira," he quipped.

Caracas, Venezuela (AHN)-After calling the U.S. leader "the devil" at a U.N. speech back in September, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez certainly had plenty to say about President Bush after Tuesday's U.S. election results indicated major changes in Washington. In typical fiery fashion, Chavez, who is three weeks away from Venezuela's December 3 elections and 20 points ahead of his main rival, has been more outspoken than ever, confidently awaiting another term in office. During a speech on Tuesday, Chávez lambasted the Iraqi court's decision to sentence former dictator Saddam Hussein to the death penalty, saying ''If sentencing is to be...

Latin America: Rejection at the U.N. for a Security Council seat. Half a million marching across Caracas against him. Hugo Chavez is in bad shape. That's why he's acting like a cornered rat. Not since 2002 has Caracas seen the likes of Saturday's 15-mile presidential campaign rally for Chavez's rival, Manuel Rosales, ahead of the Dec. 3 election. Dragging through the capital, the march crossed through the eastern and western slums that are supposedly Chavez's political stronghold. As many as half a million people showed up, one out of 12 residents of Caracas, making Chavez's claims of continuing popularity farcical....

CARACAS, Venezuela: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Wednesday that Democrats made strong gains in U.S. congressional elections thanks to a "reprisal vote" against U.S. President George W. Bush. "Of course, the citizens of the United States are humans with a conscience. It's a reprisal vote against the war in Iraq, against the corruption" within the Bush administration, Chavez told a news conference. "All this fills us with optimism." In midterm elections on Tuesday, U.S. voters returned the Democratic Party to control of the House of Representatives after 12 years in the minority, and the balance in the Senate was hanging...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez threatened Saturday to halt oil exports to the United States and said foes of his leftist government are not welcome within the military or the state-run oil company. Also on Saturday, tens of thousands of supporters of Manuel Rosales, Chávez's main challenger in Dec. 3 presidential elections, staged a 16-mile march through the capital Caracas. More than 1,000 police were deployed along the route to prevent clashes between Rosales supporters and "Chávistas" who gathered on street corners as the marchers passed. The opposition has accused Chávez's administration of coercion after Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez was caught...

Venezuelans are over a barrel. It's hard to watch. They march. They come together to fight Hugo Chavez and his government. They march in the streets but it doesn't help them. Hugo has taken control of the elected government. Hugo has taken control of the newspapers. Hugo has taken control of the military. Hugo has taken control of the oil companies. Hugo has called the church evil while smiling and crossing himself. I used to post stories to a thread about Hugo Chavez and Venezuela but I stopped because it seemed too few cared or thought it worth bothering about....