Here are the latest headlines on Venezuela:
Venezuela feels the heat Miami Herald
With dictators toppling like dominoes across the Middle East, Venezuela’s president-for-life, Hugo Chávez, is signaling worry about his own despotic rule.
Michael Rowan / The Wrong Side of History El Universal
Here’s what’s happening in Egypt and Iran —and Venezuela as well. The people, especially the young and educated, are sick and tired of so-called revolutions that give power to autocrats while not providing the jobs, opportunities or freedom they need to progress.
Anti-Chavez parties to hold presidential primary The Washington Post
A coalition of Venezuela’s opposition parties announced Wednesday that its member have agreed to hold a primary to pick a presidential candidate to run against Hugo Chavez next year.
Spain to ask Venezuela to extradite two ETA suspects El Universal
The Spanish Judiciary is to prosecute José Lorenzo Ayestarán and José Ignacio Olaskoaga, two members of the Basque separatist group ETA, and will ask for their extradition from France and Venezuela, after several former guerrilla members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) said that they trained them in the use of explosives, in the Venezuelan forest.
Venezuela’s Great Dollar Drought Bloomberg Businessweek
Every weekday, Ricardo Matamoros wakes up before dawn, travels to a branch of Mercantil Banco Universal in Caracas, and gets in line seeking to buy dollars. It’s a futile effort, he says. “They haven’t approved a single one of my requests during 45 days,” said Matamoros, 51, the president of a film production company, as he stood outside the bank on Feb. 7. “Let’s see if it happens today since I’m second in line.”
No Bloodshed in Libya for Three Days, Venezuelan Ambassador Says Bloomberg
Not a drop of blood has been shed in Libya in the last three days and the capital is “totally calm,” according to the Venezuelan ambassador to Tripoli.
RSF: Venezuela fails to provide reliable data on murder rates EL Universal
International organization Reporters without Borders (RSF) published a report entitled “Organized Crime, Muscling in on the Media,” according to which a total of 141 journalists and media workers were killed by criminal groups during the decade of the 2000s
Chávez’s support for Gaddafi is sickening. It just serves to highlight that this is not a man concerned with revolution for the people, but a man who is intent on keeping relationships with fellow dictators, based entirely on the premise of authoritarianism and opposition to the West; regardless of human rights records.
I wrote a blog on this last week, ‘The Dictator Club’: http://military-matters.blogspot.com/2011/02/dictator-club.html
P.s. – keep up the good work, this is a great website.