Why Chavez won't allow it - U.S pollsters: Venezuelan president could lose recall referendum *** CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela's Hugo Chavez could lose a referendum to demand he step down if it were held today, a survey by U.S. pollsters suggests. Sixty percent of those surveyed said they would vote against Chavez in such a recall referendum, while 38 percent would support him, according to the poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and Public Opinion Strategies. Two percent said they were undecided, according to the poll published Wednesday by the Caracas newspaper El Universal. The door-to-door survey of 1,000 adults was conducted Feb. 21-28 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent. Venezuela's opposition is seeking a referendum on Chavez's presidency halfway into his six-year term, or in August. ***
`The coalition of the hopeful' banking on success for Bush*** A small group of Latin American countries, which we may call the coalition of the hopeful, expects to reap major rewards for supporting the U.S.-led war on Iraq. Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama hope to emerge as President Bush's new ''best friends'' in the region. They deny any offer of paybacks, but they expect that their decision will create a climate of goodwill with the United States and produce concrete benefits. In most of Latin America, where polls show an overwhelming majority of the population opposes the war, the leaders who supported Bush are dismissed as U.S. lackeys. In America, critics call them the ``coalition of the billing.''***