Replies

OPEC chief seen likely to accept offer to head Venezuela's state oil company ***LONDON - OPEC's senior executive was close to accepting an offer to head Venezuela's national oil monopoly, a cartel source said - a switch that could make it easier for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to impose his will on one of Latin America's most professional companies.

Ali Rodriguez, secretary-general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, has spent the week in Caracas, Venezuela, mulling Chavez's invitation to take the top job at Petroleos de Venezuela SA. Rodriguez had served earlier as energy minister under Chavez, and an OPEC source said there was a 70 percent likelihood that he would accept the president's offer.

Venezuela is the third-largest supplier of oil to the United States and a leading member of OPEC. Petroleos de Venezuela was at the center of a dispute that sparked last week's failed coup against Chavez.

As boss at OPEC, Rodriguez has shared Chavez's interest in trying to keep oil prices high by sharply limiting crude production by the group's 11 member countries. But Jan Stuart, head of research for global energy futures at ABN AMRO in New York, said Rodriguez would be more than just a Chavez puppet if he took the job at PdVSA.***

Hugo Chavez - Venezuela

A decent article, but Buckley always seems to understate the obvious. James Madison would have been a little more to the point, I think, as to the long-term merits of "Democracy" in Venezuela.

Until we are willing to recognize that not all peoples are equally qualified to make a modern political system work, we will continue to have a very muddled view of why the world is the way that it is.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

We have an endless problem, contending with our superstitious assumption that a democratically elected leader is absolutely entitled to govern. He is presumptively entitled to govern. Allende was democratically elected in Chile, and in three years was busy subverting freedom of the press and the nation's Constitution, inaugurating years of despotism by Pinochet. The restored Hugo Chavez has said he will seek to cooperate with the policies of his opponents, and so far, he hasn't executed anybody, but democratic standards aren't automatically guaranteed by his restoration. The U.S. didn't engineer the attempted coup, but there is no reason to rejoice in its failure.

Go Chavez my ass.

"The lesson here [in Venezuela] is that charismatic demagogues can still win elections in poor countries,"

Yes... and they can win them in the USA too... ergo willie the sinkmaster... bater...

USA to venezuela.... "WE really DO FEEL your PAIN!"