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HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — The opposition said Friday that its rallies had been banned indefinitely three weeks before the presidential runoff, while the U.S. ambassador accused President Robert Mugabe's regime of using food as a weapon to stay in power. U.S. Ambassador James McGee said the regime is distributing food mostly to its supporters and that those backing the opposition are offered food only if they hand in identification that would allow them to vote. If the situation continues, "massive, massive starvation" will result, McGee told reporters in Washington by video conference from Harare. Aid groups in Zimbabwe were ordered...

CARACAS [EL COMERCIO/AGENCIAS]. Last week it was the cement industry and now it is the Andean and Caribbean steel giant’s turn. The Venezuelan government ordered the nationalization of the steel company Siderúrgica del Orinoco (owned by Ternium-Sidor, which has majority Argentine ownership) after the collapse of contract talks with the workers, announced the Venezuelan vice-president Ramon Carrizales. "After a long process of negotiations were fruitless in solving the conflict between Sidor and its workers, president Hugo Chavez decided to assume control of Siderúrgica del Orinoco which has been privatized for some 10 years", said Carrizales. The company "took a radical...

Cuba Democracia y Vida, a Sweden-based exile site, claims that Fidel Castro is dead, attributing the information to, as Google's rough translation puts it, "a source near the Cuban regime of total credibility." Havana has been holding back the announcement, the story says, while awaiting the results of the election in Venezuela, where Hugo Chavez, a younger, less dead version of Castro, is leading his challenger by 62% to 37%. The Associated Press, however, reports that "Cuba's Communist newspaper on Tuesday published a message reportedly from ailing leader Fidel Castro congratulating Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on his weekend re-election victory":...

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.

Officials identifying themselves as members of a state regulatory agency forced the U.S.-based Spanish-language TV network Telemundo to halt transmission Sunday of its presidential election coverage. "We're surprised by this," said Pablo Iacub, a member of Telemundo's eight-person team, which arrived last week. "We only want to do our work," he said by telephone. At least six people who identified themselves as members of the National Commission of Telecommunications (CONATEL), which regulates electronic media in Venezuela, arrived Sunday afternoon at the hotel from which Telemundo had been transmitting since Friday, said Iacub. The officials said the network needed permission to...

.............7:46 Teodoro Petkoff called upon CNE, CFUAN- military manning the elections - and other officials related to the electoral process to remind them about current legislation, stressing upon the fact that closed centres can not be reopened under any circumstances. Petokoff did so on behalf of Manuel Rosales affirming that whomever thinks it can force the reopening of centres is out of his bloody mind (Petkoff actually said "estan pelando bola," lost in translation..) Petokff also said that the audit process will take hours and Manuel Rosales will address the nation once conclusive results are known.......

Six years after declaring the Venezuelan election process "flawed," former President Jimmy Carter's Carter Center will monitor only one aspect of the country's Dec. 3 elections, despite claims of abuses during the campaign designed to favor the incumbent, left-wing populist President Hugo Chavez. The center announced Nov. 20 that it would organize a "specialized, limited technical mission" to "observe the use of the automated voting technology." The effort is in collaboration with Carter's group and the Venezuelan National Electoral Council, a body which Chavez critics say is controlled by the president. The group will also not monitor the election broadly...

Caracas 02.12.06 (4:54 pm all times are local) This post will be updated regularly in the next 48 hours. Unfortunately the campaign ended. In the last three months Manuel Rosales did what the analysts thought impossible, which is to have united the opposition mounting a phenomenal platform against the incumbent. At this time tomorrow we will have a pretty clear idea of who won. Just then I sat in a meeting with advisors that are considering the different likely outcomes and the stance that Rosales should take in each of them. Very interesting times ahead. During installation of voting centres,...

CARACAS, Venezuela, Dec. 1 — Walk into an emergency room in many poor parts of this booming, oil-rich nation on a weekend night and you will be overwhelmed — victims of gunshot wounds and drunken clashes line the corridors. Homicides are up 67 percent since 1999, and violent crime is the top concern of Venezuela’s voters as they head to the polls on Sunday. Yet the man in charge since then, President Hugo Chávez, rarely addresses the problem publicly and is sailing toward an easy election for a third time. Analysts say Mr. Chávez is able to ignore the issue...

CARACAS, Venezuela Nov 30, 2006 (AP)— President Hugo Chavez said Thursday during a marathon news conference that authorities had foiled a planned sniper attack against his main opponent in this weekend's elections. As campaigning ended ahead of Sunday's vote, Chavez said "fascist" militants had planned to use a rifle with a telescopic sight to shoot Manuel Rosales during a speech and then blame it on Chavez's government in hopes of derailing the balloting. "It was to say that Chavez sent them to kill him, and generate chaos," Chavez told reporters at the presidential palace. The Venezuelan leader used the 3...

CARACAS (AFP) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said that when he called US President George W. Bush a "devil" before the UN General Assembly, he was talking straight from the heart."The way I called him a devil was not something I had planned, it came from the heart, because for me, it's the truth," Chavez said at a news conference. When he addressed the General Assembly in New York in September, Chavez said he could still smell the odor of sulfur left by the devil, a reference to Bush who had spoken the previous day. "Somebody had to tell the...

Win would push Chávez closer to socialist dream The Dec. 3 vote in Venezuela is a choice between two systems, and a test of the popularity of Hugo Chávez's `socialism for the 21st century.' BY STEVEN DUDLEY In President Hugo Chávez's Venezuela, there are signs of a maturing revolution: At a recent rally, young supporters who have spent a good part of their youth with Chávez in power sang with the elder Chavistas revolutionary favorites like Uh Ah, Chávez no se va -- the ''Chávez will not go'' jingle popularized during his defeat of a recall referendum in 2004. The...

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....

Chavez vows to beat the 'devil' Brian Ellsworth (Reuters) Caracas, November 27, 2006 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 sympathisers held a similar...

Chavez to dedicate re-election victory to Castro Associated Press Caracas, November 27, 2006 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told a "red tide" of hundreds of thousands of supporters on Sunday that he will dedicate his expected re-election victory to the ailing leader of communist Cuba, Fidel Castro. Chavez, a close ally of Castro, noted that the December 3 vote would be held the same weekend as Cuba's 50th anniversary celebration of the landing of the yacht that carried Castro and his armed band to Cuba to launch their guerrilla war. "This victory on December 3 ... we're going to dedicate it...

CARACAS, Venezuela - Emboldened by a resounding re-election, President Hugo Chavez pledged to shake up Venezuela with a more radical version of socialism and forge a wider front against the United States in Latin America. Opposition contender Manuel Rosales accepted defeat Sunday night, but promised to continue countering a leader whom he accuses of becoming increasingly authoritarian.Touting his victory in a speech to thousands, Chavez said Venezuelans should expect an "expansion of the revolution" aimed at redistributing the country's oil wealth among the poor."Long live the revolution!" Chavez shouted from the balcony of the presidential palace. "Venezuela is demonstrating that...

Iran hailed on Monday the presidential election victory of fellow US foe Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, saying it reflected Latin America's opposition to Washington's "arrogant attitudes". Chavez was re-elected by a landslide on Sunday, handing him an ample mandate to broaden his promised socialist revolution and challenge US influence in Latin America. He is the fourth leftist to win an election in the region in the past five weeks. "The victory of freedom seekers and independent characters in Venezuela and Latin America indicates the growing tendency of the people in that region to be really independent and keep their distance...