CARACAS Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate on Monday vowed to end the OPEC nation's shipments of subsidized oil to communist-run Cuba, slamming acting President as a puppet of Havana.
Capriles has berated Maduro as a weak imitation of the late Hugo Chavez, whose death two weeks ago convulsed the country and triggered the April 14 vote. The opposition also accuses the government of failing to fight crime and control inflation.
Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic)
KINGSTON, Jamaica - Fifteen years ago, elections in Venezuela were not very democratic affairs, confined to nasty battles between two factions within the country's elite, and largely excluding any representation of the interests of the majority poor, except to temporarily garner their votes. Sound vaguely familiar?
After Chávez, all of that changed. Winning is now a genuine battle for the hearts and minds of the masses of 'chávistas' - without whom one cannot prevail, and whose interests are now front and centre.
There’s a new political boss in Venezuela. So far, he’s acting just like the old boss.
Hugo Chávez was purportedly still in his death throes last week when his designated political heir, eager to snatch the reins of power before anyone could stop him, signaled that he was just as capable of playing the anti-American card as the dying president by summarily expelling two U.S. military attachés from the U.S. Embassy in Caracas.
(New York Times) Venezuela will create a scientific panel to investigate the illness of Hugo Chávez, after an accusation by the interim president last week that the former president’s cancer was mysteriously caused by his enemies. “We have this intuition that our Commander Chávez was poisoned by dark forces that wanted to get rid of him to destroy the Bolivarian revolution and strike at Latin America and the Caribbean,” Nicolás Maduro, the interim president, said Monday night. Mr. Chávez, a charismatic leftist, died last week after 14 years in office.
GEORGETOWN, Guyana - Much comment has been made, following the recent death of President Hugo Chávez, emphasizing forebodings about the fate of the PetroCaribe initiative and other forms of assistance, including the creation of the Alba; and the effects of any disappearance of these initiatives on the economic welfare of the Caricom countries, among other countries of the hemisphere.
What does Hugo Chávez leave to the Venezuelan people? Three legacies, all of which are poisoned_ a harebrained way to govern, the mindless 21st-Century socialism, and a neopopulist model based on welfare-patronage.
CARACAS, Venezuela — The United States said Monday that it had expelled two Venezuelan diplomats in response to the ouster last week of two American military attachés by Venezuela.
“Around the world, when our people are thrown out unjustly, we’re going to take reciprocal action,” Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokeswoman, said at a news conference. “And we need to do that to protect our own people.”
CARACAS -- On a hilltop, high above the Venezuelan capital, rises a 113-year-old structure called Cuartel de la Montaña or Mountain Barracks.
On top of the old red and white building that resembles a castle stands a giant sign showing the number 4 next to the letter F.
The reference is to February 4, the date in 1992 when then Lt. Col. Hugo Chávez helped lead a failed military coup against then President Carlos Andrés Pérez.
CARACAS, Venezuela — The multitudes in red shirts, clenched fists thrusting in the air — a dominant image of the political movement that President Hugo Chávez left behind — convey a sense of followers united and loyal to the father of their revolution and his designated heir, Nicolás Maduro.
CARACAS, Venezuela -- Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles on Sunday launched what many consider a doomed candidacy to replace Hugo Chavez with a no-holds-barred attack against a government he accused of coldly betraying Venezuelans' trust.
Chavez's political heirs have toyed with Venezuelans' hopes, lying to them about his deteriorating health by suggesting he could recover and even producing decrees he supposedly signed, said Capriles, whom Chavez defeated by a 12-point margin in October.