The presidents of Venezuela and Colombia exploit the feelgood factor in the region to mend a relationship that had turned sour.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has given viewers of his weekly live TV show, Aló Presidente, a surprise
President Hugo Chávez is raising Venezuela’s minimum wage by 30% as inflation continues to soar in the oil-producing nation. The socialist leader has signed a decree that will fix the monthly minimum wage at , starting on May 1, International Workers’ Day. Chávez says the move will give Venezuela the highest minimum wage in Latin America.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez accused his Colombian counterpart of war crimes as Venezuela and Ecuador turned up the heat on Bogotá over its military strike on an insurgent camp inside Ecuador. ”A war crime occurred there,” Chávez charged late on Wednesday at a joint press conference with Ecuadorian counterpart Rafael Correa.
Venezuela deployed tanks and its air and sea forces toward the Colombian border in its first major military mobilisation in a crisis with Colombia, the country’s defence minister said on Wednesday. The move escalates tensions in a dispute over a Colombian weekend raid inside another of its neighbours, Ecuador.
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/ 27 February 2008
Two Venezuelan helicopters flew into Colombia on Wednesday to pick up four lawmakers held hostage for years in jungle camps by Marxist rebels, in a diplomatic victory for Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia last month released two politicians in a deal brokered by Chávez.
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/ 22 February 2008
A domestic passenger plane carrying 46 people was ”practically pulverised” when it crashed into Venezuela’s western Andes Mountains overnight and the chances of finding survivors was nil, officials said on Friday. ”The plane was practically pulverised and [crashed] head-on,” a fire-services officer said.
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/ 22 February 2008
A Venezuelan passenger plane with 46 people aboard went missing and likely crashed in a remote mountain region soon after taking off from an Andean city just before dusk on Thursday. Villagers reported hearing a huge noise they thought could be a crash after the twin-engine plane flew out of the high-altitude city of Merida headed for the capital Caracas.
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/ 13 February 2008
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez stopped oil exports to Exxon Mobil on Tuesday, escalating a multibillion-dollar fight with the United States company two days after threatening to cut off all supplies to America. The anti-US president’s retaliation for Exxon’s legal offensive pushed oil prices higher in late trading.
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/ 30 January 2008
Venezuelan police swooped down on an ambulance used by robbers escaping a bank siege on Tuesday, arresting all four men and freeing a group of captives to end a two-day hostage stand-off. More than 50 people were held captive before the assailants negotiated an escape plan earlier on Tuesday.
Venezuela President Hugo Chávez, in an interview with supermodel Naomi Campbell, predicted that the United States ”empire” is about to fall, called Jesus Christ history’s number one revolutionary and offered to pose topless. ”Why not? Touch my muscles!” the burly 53-year-old former paratrooper said.
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/ 30 December 2007
Venezuela President Hugo Chávez promised on Saturday to tackle poor garbage collection and high crime in a bid to win back support for his socialist ”revolution”, which was hurt in a poll defeat a few weeks ago. Chávez spent much of 2007 working on political ”reforms” that would have allowed him to run for re-election indefinitely.
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/ 22 December 2007
Venezuelan authorities are standing by to receive three hostages Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia rebels have said could be released as early as this weekend after spending years of captivity in the jungle. ”The mobilisation for the operation has begun,” one source close to the government said.
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/ 5 December 2007
President Hugo Chávez said on Wednesday his push to have Venezuela accept sweeping constitutional reforms has ”not finished” despite being rejected in a weekend referendum. ”The discussion on the transformation of the state is not finished,” he told state VTV television.
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/ 2 December 2007
Venezuelans vote in a tightly contested referendum on Sunday on whether to allow left-wing President Hugo Chávez to stay in power for as long as he keeps winning elections or hand him his first defeat at the polls. The anti-American firebrand, who has easily won one election after another against a fragmented opposition, is in the hardest campaign of his life.
Former world champion Mika Hakkinen says the competition provided by Lewis Hamilton has current world champion Fernando Alonso rattled. The pair are teammates at McLaren-Mercedes but Spaniard Alonso is said to be not speaking to Hamilton after a series of incidents between the pair in the Briton’s rookie season.
Brazil stunned bitter rivals and overwhelming favourites Argentina 3-0 to win their eighth Copa America title on Sunday. It was the second successive title for the Brazilians and was sweet justification for coach Dunga, who was without superstars Ronaldinho and Kaka, and who had been the target of vitriolic criticism.
Defending champions Brazil reached the Copa America final on Tuesday, beating a feisty Uruguay on penalties after twice surrendering the lead in a 2-2 draw. Maicon put Brazil ahead early on before a floodflight failure stopped the first half of the semifinal for 14 minutes.
Whatever glimmer came off the reputations of Brazil and Uruguay during the first round of the Copa America was certainly polished during the quarterfinals. The heavyweights redeemed themselves with one-sided victories over the weekend and face off against one another on Tuesday for a berth in the final, each emboldened by their high-scoring blowouts.
Police using water cannons on Sunday dispersed thousands of stone-throwing protesters outside Venezuela’s telecom authority, which ordered the country’s most popular television off the air at midnight. The closure of Venezuela’s oldest network is the latest bone of contention in President Hugo Chávez’s socialist revolution.
President Hugo Chávez said on Saturday that Venezuela’s largest steel maker, Sidor, will not be allowed to make any more exports until it meets domestic needs, and threatened to expropriate the Argentine-controlled company if it resists. Chávez has criticized Sidor for selling the bulk of its production overseas and forcing local producers to import from elsewhere.
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/ 15 February 2007
Holders Brazil landed a tricky draw for the Copa America on Wednesday as they were thrown into Group B along with Mexico, Ecuador and Chile. Brazil lost 1-0 in their last meeting with Mexico while Ecuador reached the last 16 at the World Cup in Germany and Chile appear set for a revival with a talented crop of young players.
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/ 10 January 2007
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez was sworn in on Wednesday for a new six-year term that he vows to use to press a radical socialist revolution, including nationalisations that have roiled financial markets. Emboldened by his landslide re-election win, the typically combative anti-United States leader has gone on the attack.
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/ 4 December 2006
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez stormed to a re-election victory in Sunday’s vote, handing him an ample mandate to broaden his promised socialist revolution and challenge Washington’s influence in Latin America. Chávez told cheering supporters at his presidential palace late Sunday his landslide was a blow to United States President George Bush’s administration.
Iran will never negotiate its nuclear programme with the United States, its oil minister said in a television interview while in Venezuela for an Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries meeting. ”We are never going to negotiate the nuclear fuel cycle,” Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said.
Venezuela is among the most violent places in Latin America, and critics of President Hugo Chávez are increasingly accusing him of failing to make crime a priority. A series of particularly heinous murders sparked protests earlier this month by crowds demanding immediate action to make the streets safer.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez flung fresh insults at his United States counterpart George Bush on Sunday, calling him a ”coward” over his handling of the Iraq war. ”Come here, Mr Danger, you are a coward, murderer, genocidal, alcoholic, drunk, immoral — you are the worst, Mr Danger, you are sick, and I know so personally,” Chávez said.
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/ 28 January 2006
As Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez on Friday stepped up his attacks on what he called the ”genocidal” United States administration, new figures showed that bilateral trade has surged, thanks largely to high oil prices. To cheers from thousands of anti-globalisation activists, Chavez called US President George Bush ”the world’s biggest terrorist” and his administration ”the most perverse, murderous, genocidal, immoral empire” in history.
Investigators converged on Wednesday on the remote Venezuelan hillside where a Colombian jetliner crashed on Tuesday, killing all 152 French tourists and eight Colombian crew on board and leaving wreckage strewn over a wide area. Experts from all three countries are taking part in the investigation.