Opinion & Analysis

Chávez and the Dream for a Better World

By Michael Fox - NACLA, Mar 6th 2013

he news poured down like a hard Venezuelan rain—Hugo Chávez had passed. After a two-year-long battle with cancer, we should have been prepared. But we weren’t.

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On the Legacy of Hugo Chávez

By Greg Grandin - The Nation, Mar 5th 2013

Chavez last October at the closing rally before the presidential elections (archive)

I first met Hugo Chávez in New York City in September 2006, just after his infamous appearance on the floor of the UN General Assembly, where he called George W. Bush the devil.

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Venezuela's Devaluation Doom-mongers

By Mark Weisbrot - The Guardian, Mar 5th 2013

Venezuela has changed the fixed exchange rate from 4.30 bolivars to the dollar to 6.30 bolivars to the dollar (Jorge Silva/Reute

Venezuela's recent devaluation has sparked quite a bit of discussion in the international press. The Venezuelan opposition has naturally framed it as desperate move to head off inevitable economic collapse.

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Ricardo Haussmann – A Reliable Commentator for the Guardian on Venezuela?

By Dr. Francisco Dominguez -Venezuela Solidarity Campaign UK , Mar 4th 2013

Last Monday the Guardian Comment is Free website carried a piece by Ricardo Haussmann on Venezuela entitled The legacy of Hugo Chávez: Low growth, high inflation, intimidation. But is Haussmann a reliable commentator for the Guardian on Venezuela?

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Chavez: The Harassment of a Patient

By Eleazar Diaz Rangel, Mar 1st 2013

I don’t believe modern history has ever seen a medical patient so pressured, hounded, and harassed as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias has been over the course of the last month.

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Members of Venezuelan Right Feel Excluded from Opposition

By Correo del Orinoco International, Mar 1st 2013

Henrique Capriles Radonski's failed bid for presidency last year damaged opposit

Sidelined members of the Venezuelan opposition fiercely criticized their so-called Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) this week after it began backroom discussions to select a presidential candidate in case President Chavez decides he is unable to carry out his full 2013-2019 term.

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Chávez Haters Not “Limited by Truth, Reality or Common Sense”

By Dan Beeton - CEPR, Feb 28th 2013

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez during a campaign rally in Guarenas, Venezuela, Saturday, Sept. 29, 2012. (Rodrigo Abd/AP

A new op-ed in the Guardian by Ricardo Hausmann portrays a dystopian fictional Venezuela, one in which the Venezuelan government has run the economy into the ground despite abundant oil wealth, but yet its charismatic president continues to be re-elected through some sort of sinister trickery.

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Little Credibility: U.S. Coverage of Iranian-Latin American Relations

By Michael Corcoran - NACLA, Feb 27th 2013

President Hugo Chavez (left) with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (centre) (archive).

Last January, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took a weeklong tour of Latin America, visiting Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, and finally Ecuador. In the U.S. media, where there are no two greater villains than Ahmadinejad and Chávez, it was not hard to predict that the coverage of the first stop on the tour would result in an onslaught of negative headlines filled with hysterics at what such a meeting could mean for U.S. national security.

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We’re Not Going to Allow Shortages or Messing with Prices

By Ciudad CCS / Consuelo Cerrada, Feb 25th 2013

Indepabis president Consuelo Cerrada (archive)

The Venezuelan government continues its fight against price speculation, hoarding and sporadic shortages of certain products. Venezuelanalysis.com translates this interview with the president of Indepabis, the government’s consumer protection body charged with inspecting businesses and ensuring that companies abide by laws on price controls and other measures to guarantee the population’s access to goods and services.

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We Don’t Have Borders: Tamara Pearson Interviewed by Michael Albert

By By Tamara Pearson and Michael Albert - ZNet, Feb 22nd 2013

VA's Tamara Pearson discusses the Bolivarian Revolution, media coverage of Venezuela and Chavez's health with ZNet's Michael Albert.

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Private Media on Chavez’ Health: 70 Days of Speculation and Necrophilia

By Ewan Robertson - Correo del Orinoco International , Feb 22nd 2013

The front page of Thursday 24 January’s print edition of El País (El País/HoV)

It seems that while the “ominous voices” will continue to speculate on Chavez’s health and try to create the impression of a “crisis” in Venezuela where and when they can, the surprise return and apparent improvement of the Venezuelan president has demonstrated the falsity of many of their claims, highlighting 70 days of speculation and necrophilia as exactly that.

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Venezuela: Notes on the Monetary Measures

By Norberto Bacher - Rebelion, Feb 19th 2013

No devaluation is socially neutral, because of the dragging effect, where what Marx said is verified: all traders are potential speculators.

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Letter from Fidel Castro to Hugo Chavez upon Chavez’s Departure from Cuba

By Fidel Castro, Feb 18th 2013

Venezuelanalysis.com translates the letter written to Hugo Chavez by Fidel Castro just before Chavez’s return to Venezuela in the early hours of Monday 18 February.

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What if The New York Times Covered the United States Like Venezuela?

By Keane Bhatt – NACLA / Manufacturing Contempt, Feb 18th 2013

The newspaper's reporting reinforces attitudes that Latin American politics can be little more than a primitive charade, starring authoritarian leaders and a hoodwinked public, punctuated by risible distractions. Thankfully—at least within the world of New York Times coverage—the “political theater of the absurd” isn’t “commonplace” here at home.

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