NEWS
August 12, 2004
VENEZUELANS determined to recall President Hugo Chavez face a formidable challenge this weekend: They must vote in numbers greater than the 3.8 million who elected the leftist-populist to office in 2000. The challenge for Mr. Chavez is to keep his government from interfering in the referendum Sunday. In a country of 13.9 million registered voters, opposition groups managed to gather the millions of signatures needed for the recall vote. They got the signatures not once, but twice, after the national electoral counsel invalidated thousands of them in March.
NEWS
December 20, 2002
AS THE GENERAL STRIKE that has crippled Venezuela's critical oil industry and much of the nation's economy nears the end of its third week, that polarized nation faces the dangerous prospect of heightened conflict between militant foes and supporters of President Hugo Chavez. To protect Venezuela's embattled democratic institutions and help stabilize the world oil market, the United States and the international community should help resolve the impasse by bolstering the moderate voices who are seeking a solution that respects the country's 1999 constitution.
NEWS
By Franz Schneiderman | April 18, 2002
IT'S A sad day for American democracy when the leaders of countries whose human rights records and democratic practices are as deeply flawed as those of Paraguay and Peru show more respect for democratic institutions and the rule of law than the U.S. government demonstrates. But that's what happened last weekend, after elements of Venezuela's military led a coup that briefly ousted the country's elected president, Hugo Chavez. Mr. Chavez's return to office is a triumph for his country's embattled democratic institutions and for the popularly elected leaders who stood behind his government.
NEWS
December 7, 1993
The good news is that Venezuela elected a president to keep its 35 years of democracy going, escaping the rumored threat of a military coup.The bad news is that the winner, Rafael Caldera, will be 78 at the start of his five-year term next year, that his mandate is only 28.5 percent of the vote, and that he ran as a maverick backed by 17 parties ranging from crypto-Fascist to Communist that can agree on nothing else.The problem for the disgusted Venezuelan electorate was to reject the corruption of the deposed President Carlos Andres Perez, reject the Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-Dee of the two-party politics that succeeded military dictatorship in 1958, and yet not succumb to the lure of military dictatorship again.
NEWS
By STEVE CHAPMAN | November 26, 2007
Communism is dead in Russia, a shell of itself in China and just hanging on in Cuba. But Lenin's corpse has a rare reason to smile. A new workers' paradise is sprouting in Venezuela, under the direction of the sometimes clownish but always cunning President Hugo Chavez. Most of the rest of the world learned the folly of autocratic socialism back in the 20th century, but Mr. Chavez prefers to repeat mistakes rather than learn from them. He has nationalized oil holdings, created new state-run firms, confiscated privately owned land and politicized finance, while endeavoring to take over telecommunications and power companies.
SPORTS
By Boston Globe | July 5, 1992
PORTLAND, Ore. -- It was going to be so much fun. Oscar Schmidt and Marcel De Souza were going to fulfill their long-standing dream of playing against the great American professionals. There would be a vast TV audience in Brazil. It would be one of the highlights of their lives.Instead, Brazil will play Puerto Rico today, not in the Tournament of the Americas final. The Brazilians forgot to take care of the necessary business Friday night, losing a 10-point second half lead, missing 13 consecutive shots down the stretch and eventually losing to Venezuela, 100-91.