Venezuela News

Colonel Chavez "revolutionary party" lost the elections in Caracas last year, but this is not a problem to this tireless Caudillo, he created a new major position to be on top of Caracas city hall and transferred the majority of budget to his fellow appointee.

CARACAS, Venezuela From the moment the coup in Honduras unfolded over the weekend, President Hugo Chavez had his playbook ready.

Soldiers ousted the democratically elected president of Honduras on Sunday and Congress named a successor, but the leftist ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denounced what he called an illegal coup and vowed to stay in power.

The U.S. ambassador to Venezuela has returned to his post - more than nine months after he was expelled by President Hugo Chavez.

The head of Venezuela's telecommunications regulatory agency said Friday that 240 radio stations will have their licenses revoked for failing to update their registrations with the government.

Venezuela pulled the plug on Friday on a publicity campaign against the left-wing government's proposed changes to property legislation that critics dub "the Cuban law." Diosdado Cabello, a senior official who heads the OPEC-nation's broadcasting watchdog, ordered conservative think-tank Cedice to withdraw a series of advertisements that include ...

Venezuela and China Development Bank Corp. are discussing a third $4 billion infrastructure loan to be paid in oil, President Hugo Chavez said. “This bank is the one with the most money in the world,” Chavez said late yesterday on state television. “It has half the money in the world and is allied with Venezuela.” Chavez is seeking closer ties with developing nations such as China, Russia, India and Brazil to reduce dependence on the U.S., which consumes more than half of Venezuela’s oil exports. China previously made two $4 billion loans to finance infrastructure projects in Venezuela. Venezuela’s government repays the loan with as much as 230,000 barrels a day of oil provided to China National Petroleum Corp., according to the annual report of Petroleos de Venezuela SA, also known as PDVSA...

The Venezuelan government took control of the country's third-largest bank on Friday amid a wave of nationalizations led by President Hugo Chavez.

Guantnamo, July 3, . - Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez stated that it must notify the government of Barack Obama, because they still evade a responsibility or does not confront the problem.

The United States Ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, an extremely competent diplomat, tried very hard to keep Honduras's Congress from ousting President Manuel Zelaya. After his arguments and pressures were exhausted, and faced with something that seemed inevitable, he did what he could: he sheltered the president's son at his residence to save him from any violent outcome. Fortunately, Zelaya's expulsion from the presidency and from his country was bloodless. It wasn't exactly a military coup: the Army acted on orders from the Supreme Court after Zelaya's continued violations of the law. The ousted president seemed intent on getting reelected, even if it meant violating the Constitution, and on dragging the nation into Hugo Chávez's "21st century socialism" camp against the will of the Honduran people.

Venezuela will demand that oil companies pay an high premium of between $500 million and $1 billion to participate in the development of the Carabobo oil block in the OPEC nation's giant Orinoco heavy crude belt.

Chavez said he will always support the poor and needy people in what he called the 'social war' Politics Venezuela's President, Hugo Chvez, said on Tuesday night that there is a "social war" in Venezuela, adding that the conflict was unleashed by the upper classes that want to continue the exploitation of the poor and manipulate people, thus ...

Freedom Watch, a US non-governmental organization (NGO), announced on Thursday that it has formally notified the Venezuelan-run oil company Citgo about the class action filed against Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez, for alleged acts of terrorism and violation of human rights. Larry Klayman, founder and President of Freedom Watch, said that the Venezuelan government has 20 days to respond the lawsuit filed last April in a Miami court on behalf of the Venezuelan journalist Ricardo Guanipa who qualified for political asylum in the US since 2005. ...

CARACAS, Venezuela — An ally was in trouble, toppled in a military coup. And the television cameras were rolling. The ousting of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya could not have been better scripted for another Latin American leader who has taken center stage: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The populist firebrand has been Zelaya’s most forceful advocate and could win international accolades if the Honduran leader eventually succeeds in regaining power.

By Darcy Crowe, DOW JONES NEWSWIRES Caracas - A wave of optimism appears to be cascading over President Hugo Chavez's administration thanks to the recent surge in oil prices, buoying hopes that Venezuela can handle the global recession without devaluing its currency or undertaking painful economic reforms.

Speaking during a meeting of the Rio Group in Managua, Nicaragua, the Cuban leader sent a message of solidarity to the Honduran people.Raul recalled the aggression by the military against President Zelaya and Honduran Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas along with the ambassadors of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba and he added that this attack against ...

For just a moment, in the early days of his presidency, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez looked almost like a healer. "Let's ask for God's help to accept our differences and come together in dialogue," he famously implored his conflicted compatriots in 2002. Instead what Venezuelans got was an avenger. The government is seizing privately owned companies and farms. Labor unions have been crushed. Political opponents are routinely harassed or else prosecuted by chavista controlled courts. And now after a decade of the so-called Bolivarian revolution, tens of thousands of disillusioned Venezuelan professionals have had enough. Artists, lawyers, physicians, managers and engineers are leaving the country by droves, while those already abroad are scrapping plans to return. The wealthiest among them are buying condos in Miami and Panama City. Cashiered oil engineers are working rigs in the North Sea and sifting the tar sands of western Canada. Those of European descent have applied for passports from their native lands. Academic scholarships are lifeboats. An estimated million Venezuelans have moved abroad in the decade since Chávez took power.

As military “coups” go, the one this weekend in Honduras was strangely, well, democratic. The military didn’t oust President Manuel Zelaya on its own but instead followed an order of the Supreme Court. It also quickly turned power over to the president of the Honduran Congress, a man from the same party as Mr. Zelaya. The legislature and legal authorities all remain intact. We mention these not so small details because they are being overlooked as the world, including the U.S. President, denounces tiny Honduras in a way that it never has, say, Iran. President Obama is joining the U.N., Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez and other model democrats in demanding that Mr. Zelaya be allowed to return from exile and restored to power. Maybe it’s time to sort the real from the phony Latin American democrats.

Many are calling Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez “Castro’s Heir”—a man destined to be the perpetual thorn in the side of the United States just as Castro has been for the last 50 years. Like Castro, Hugo Chávez wants to expel U.S. interests from Latin America while simultaneously expanding his own brand of socialism. But unlike Castro, Hugo Chávez has the massive profits from Venezuela’s oil industry to actually make a difference. In 2007 alone Chávez gave $8.8 billion in aid to his Latin American neighbors ...

Struggling to emerge from under a mountain of corporate debt, Mexico's giant building products conglomerate Cemex SAB has begun meeting with banks in New York and Madrid this week to renegotiate some $14.5 billion in bank debt, out of a total of $18 billion the multinational must pay through 2011.