Tag Archives: News

Feb
23
2012
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ICYMI: As Others Isolate Syria, Chávez Ships Fuel to It

As Others Isolate Syria, Chávez Ships Fuel to It
The New York Times
February 22, 2012
By William Neuman

CARACAS, Venezuela – A day before the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn President Bashar al-Assad of Syria this month for his bloody crackdown on the uprising in his country, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela was conducting a very different kind of diplomacy on his own.

A ship owned by the Venezuelan state oil company sailed into the Syrian port of Baniyas, its location captured by a satellite system that tracks ship movements. The ship, making its second trip to Baniyas since December, appeared to be carrying fuel to help prop up the embattled Mr. Assad.

The Venezuelan shipment flies in the face of international efforts to isolate Mr. Assad and pressure him to step down, but Mr. Chávez is no stranger to such controversy. Last month, he played host to another Middle Eastern ally, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, ridiculing Western claims that Iran was seeking to be able to produce nuclear weapons.

Still, Mr. Chávez is at the start of what could prove to be a difficult re-election campaign overshadowed by his battle with cancer, and the political equation here may be shifting. While provocative moves like oil shipments to Syria play well among Mr. Chávez’s staunchest backers, they may prove to be a liability among voters who resent his oil tanker diplomacy.

The Venezuelan ship, the Negra Hipólita, arrived in the Syrian port on Feb. 15, according to John H. Paskin, the chief executive of Commodity Flow, a company based in London that compiles satellite data and other information to track the movement of ships.

He said the ship left a Venezuelan refinery complex at Puerto La Cruz on Jan. 25. The Puerto La Cruz complex produces gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and fuel components, according to the Web site of the state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, known as P.D.V.S.A.

Mr. Paskin said the tracking data showed that the ship made a previous trip to Syria last fall, leaving a Venezuelan refinery complex on the Paraguana Peninsula on Oct. 15 and arriving at Baniyas on Dec. 1.

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Feb
21
2012
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ICYMI: Chavez faces an Uprising at the Ballot Box

Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez faces an uprising at the ballot box
The Washington Post
By Jackson Diehl
February 19, 2011

On Feb. 12, Henrique Capriles Radonski, a 39-year-old Venezuelan state governor, won a primary election to become the opposition’s candidate against Hugo Chavez in October’s presidential election. He won 1.8 million of an astonishing 3 million votes – double the turnout predicted by most analysts.

The next day, Capriles, a devout Catholic, was greeted by a commentary on the government-run Web site of Venezuelan National Radio titled “The Enemy Is Zionism.” Capriles, it explained, is the descendant of Jews. (In fact, his grandmother was a Holocaust survivor who emigrated from Poland to Venezuela.)

“In order to understand the interests embodied” by Capriles, the commentary declared, “it’s important to know what is Zionism, the Israeli ideology that he sneakily represents. . . . It is, without doubt, an ideology of terror, of the most putrefied sentiments of humanity; its supposedly patriotic impetus is based in greed.” And so on.

“Zionism,” it concludes, “is owner of the majority of the financial institutions of the planet, controls almost 80 percent of the world economy and virtually all of the communications industry, in addition to maintaining decision-making positions within the U.S. Department of State and European powers.”

Thus began the latest – and what will surely be the ugliest – political campaign by Chavez, a ruler who has served as a friend in need to Moammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – and who now is facing his own homegrown democratic uprising. But Venezuela’s spring differs from those of Libya, Syria or Iran: Instead of pouring into the streets, Venezuelans – fed up with the chaos and violence of Chavez’s 13 years in power – are marching to the polls and trying to restore the country’s crippled and compromised institutions.

The opposition Capriles now heads has learned lessons that might benefit some of the revolutionaries of the Middle East. It tried and failed to oust Chavez with mass demonstrations and strikes; it foolishly boycotted elections it believed would be unfair; it indulged in endless internal quarrels. The result was the entrenchment of a strongman who has thoroughly wrecked what was once Latin America’s richest country and who now presides over the highest inflation and murder rates in the Western Hemisphere, shortages of basic goods and power, and a drug-trafficking industry whose kingpins include the defense minister.

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Feb
10
2012
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In Case You Missed It… Articles Roundup Week of 2/10/12

In this week’s roundup…Multiple outlets report that President Chávez will face his sternest political test this year, as the opposition is poised to unite behind a single candidate for the first time in the President’s 13 years in power; Henrique Capriles Radonski, the governor of Miranda and member of the Primero Justicia (Justice First) party, has emerged as the clear favorite in Sunday’s primary. Meanwhile, Chávez continues to ramp up government spending; Venezuela’s state-run oil company PDVSA plans to increase its exports to China and to begin a joint oil venture with Russian energy giant Gazprom.

Venezuela’s presidential campaign: Mano a mano, The Economist

FOR the moment, Henrique Capriles has reason to be confident. The governor of Miranda state is the front-runner in the Democratic Unity (MUD) coalition’s primary, due on February 12th.

Overcoming the Chávez Derangement Syndrome, The New York Times

On Sunday, Venezuela’s opposition goes to the polls to choose, for the first time in Hugo Chávez’s 13 years in power, a single, uncontested leader to run against him in next October’s presidential election.

Venezuela faces tough political fight, The Financial Times

If Hugo Chávez’s 10-hour state of the nation address to Congress last month didn’t reassure the Venezuelan president’s supporters he was recovered from cancer, his contemptuous put-down may have done.

Venezuela Central Bank Transfers $1B To Chavez Development Fund, The Wall Street Journal

Venezuela’s central bank is continuing its bankrolling of the country’s large spending plans ahead of the October presidential elections with $1 billion already transferred this year to a controversial off-budget discretionary fund controlled by President Hugo Chavez.

Small-Town President, The New York Times

Where Venezuela’s coastal mountains give way to its vast inland plains you find Parapara, a sleepy village of colorful colonial-era houses that’s blighted by poverty.

United Opposition A Challenge To Venezuela’s Chavez, NPR

The opposition to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has tried everything to end his long rule: huge protests, a coup and an oil strike.

Hugo Chavez says Venezuelan troops would fight with Argentina over Falklands, The Telegraph

Hugo Chavez has pledged that Venezuelan armed forces would fight alongside Argentina against Britain in any future conflict over the Falkland Islands at a regional meeting this weekend.

PDVSA: big talk but can it deliver?, The Financial Times

Although the exact level of Venezuela’s oil production has been shrouded in mystery for almost a decade now, there is no doubt about the OPEC nation’s intentions to increase exports to China.

Venezuela approves oil JV with Russia’s Gazprombank, Reuters

Venezuela has approved the creation of a joint venture between state oil company PDVSA and Gazprombank, a division of Russian energy giant Gazprom, to operate two mature fields in the west of the country.