Venezuela

NOVANEWS Chavez Banner in Cuba By Michael Shrimpton As I may have observed in a posted comment, before an IT snafu made uploading comments problematic, Hugo Chavez was already dead.  Precisely when he did snuff it is a matter for informed speculation within INTELCOM. I incline to the view that he shuffled off the mortal coil before Christmas.  There is no confirmation of his being alive at any time after early December.  When the Cubans sent him back to Venezuela they were sending back a body.  Admittedly it was a warm body, not a cold body, but it was a body nonetheless.  With artificial respiration you can go on pretending that a dead ‘polly’ is still alive months after he has become an ex-politician and fallen off his perch. Usually it’s a question of being able to hang onto a signatur...

NOVANEWS Shows of support for the Bolivarian Revolution Since the tragic passing of President Hugo Chávez, the ANSWER Coalition and a wide range of other progressive organizations and individuals have been organizing and participating in events to commemorate his life and show support for the ongoing revolutionary process. Below are several reports from cities across the country. San Francisco Filling up the busy 24th and Mission BART plaza with red shirts and Venezuelan flags, over 300 activists, revolutionaries and supporters of the Bolivarian Revolution came out to pay homage to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez on March 11. In a celebratory rally and march, everyone paid respect to Chávez by thanking him for bringing dignity to the poor, the oppressed and the workers in Vene...

NOANEWS jta.org Henrique Capriles Radonski, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, said he will run again for Venezuela’s presidency in the election to succeed the late Hugo Chavez. Capriles, who identifies as a Catholic, announced his candidacy on Sunday. He will run against Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s chosen successor and the acting president, in the April 14 elections. Last October, Capriles won 44 percent of the vote but lost to Chavez by 11 percentage points. Over the weekend, he challenged the constitutionality of Maduro’s appointment as acting president following the death of Chavez on March 5. During the 2012 presidential campaign, state-run media urged Venezuelans to reject “international Zionism” and vote against Capriles, describing him as having “a platform opposed to our national...

NOVANEWS Had Hugo Chavez followed the pattern of many Third World leaders and concentrated on siphoning off his nation’s wealth for personal gain, he would have attracted little attention or animosity in the West. Instead, he did virtually the opposite — redirecting vast sums of national wealth to the swollen ranks of Venezuela’s poor, along with free health care and education. No wonder he alienated local elites, who are used to being first in line at the national trough. Chavez’s relentless championing of the downtrodden set a standard increasingly followed in Latin America. It explains his immense popularity with the masses and the widespread grief over his death last week. Yet in the West, he was portrayed as a tyrant. He was accused of muzzling the press, although anyone who’s ...

NOVANEWS

NOVANEWS By Michael Collins Piper American Free Press Newspaper Hugo Chavez—the colorful Venezuelan strongman, a popular figure throughout Latin America—is dead. Although the controlled media contrived to mislead Americans into perceiving Chavez as “anti-American,” the truth is that the bombastic South American icon was actually a forthright nationalist critic of the internationalist and imperialist forces often referred to as the New World Order. Like many who oppose the privately-owned Federal Reserve money monopoly which operates un-Constitutionally on American soil, Chavez was a critic of rampant global super-capitalism, which Chavez called “the demon.” There is no question Chavez knew the source of his high-powered opposition. In 2000, announcing a trip to Iraq, Chavez taunted his c...

NOVANEWS by jodymcintyre The longest queue in the world.  Hundreds of thousands of people wait for hours, for days, for one last glimpse of their President. As we crawl along the motorway into Caracas, we can see buses from every corner of the country.  From Yaracuy to Bolivar, every state is represented.  The next day, over fifty heads of state will arrive from across the globe to pay their respects at the funeral of Hugo Chavez. The sun still blazes overhead when we make our way to Fuerte Tiuna that afternoon, the sprawling military base where Chavez’ body lays in it’s Venezuelan flag-wrapped coffin.  The country that remained so close to his heart, right until his last breath. Minutes after arriving, an open-topped bus comes to a halt within inches of the front of my wheelchair....

NOVANEWS Government Officials say Bolivia-Venezuela ties will not change Transcript Voiceover: The government of the Plurinational State of Bolivia has declared 7 days of national mourning following the death of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Bolivia and Venezuela have maintained strong ties since Bolivia's leftwing leader Evo Morales first assumed the presidency in 2006. A vigil was established in the national Congress in La Paz, the seat of Bolivia's government. Leonidas Zurita Vargas is the Secretary of International Relations for MAS, the Movement for Socialism, Bolivia's governing political party. Leonidas Zurita Vargas, Secretary of International Relations, MAS: Today we cry but tomorrow we will work and we will fight, this is the best message and tribu...

NOVANEWS Leaders from around the world gathered in Caracas for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's funeral Friday World Leaders Pay Their Final Respects at Chavez's Funeral