Following its closure last weekend, La Planta prison in Caracas is to be converted into a community centre using proposals from local community organisations.
After nine months campaigning for people to sign up for the electoral register, the CNE has closed the process, seeing non-registered voters reduced to 3.5% of the population. President Hugo Chavez also approved financial resources for the upcoming elections, as well as extra resources for state governments and for housing.
Venezuela’s Minister of Communication and Information, Andres Izarra, has announced that the government will create a national alternative media network in a bid to bring together the country’s numerous community media sources.
Over 53 social collectives from the Caracas neighbourhood, 23 Enero (23 January) have protested against what they describe as a corporate media attempt to generate violence in the area, after media outlets such as Ultimas Noticias and Globovision reported that there was a “war” between revolutionary groups in the working class neighbourhood.
The reduction of the working day to a maximum of 7 hours, eliminating subcontracted work and increasing maternity leave to a period of 5 months are some of the proposals which have been put forward by thousands of workers across Venezuela in an effort to write the country’s new Labour Law, said President of the Socialist Bolivarian Workers’ Central, Will Rangel on Monday.
The purpose of the recently formed Great Patriotic Pole (GPP) will be to establish a “new hegemony” within the Bolivarian revolution, said the Vice-president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Francisco Arias Cardenas this past Saturday.
Communal grain packing company Hijos de Bolivar (Bolivar’s children) in Los Guayos, Carabobo state, inaugurated six months ago, is packaging 16 tonnes of sugar per day as well as beans, and soon rice, which it then sends on to communal councils.
Venezuela’s National Commission of Telecommunications (CONATEL) has allocated funds to 31 community and alternative media outlets in order to strengthen and guarantee their operational capacity, as well as improve their internet and telephone access.
The Venezuelan vice minister for health services networks, José España, said that by May of next year, the country will be operating pharmaceutical plants in order to guarantee medicines supplies to the population.
At least 20,000 Venezuelan students took to the streets of Caracas this Monday to celebrate the country’s National Day of University Students. Traditionally held on the 21st of November, the occasion commemorates the 1957 university strike which was prominent in bringing down the Venezuelan dictator, Marcos Pérez Jiménez.
Thousands of revolutionary social movements marched in Caracas on Sunday in order to consolidate the formation of the Great Patriotic Pole (GPP) – a broad front which comprises all of the popular organisations and political parties that support the advance of the Bolivarian Revolution. GPP activists proposed an "international pole" of movements to challenge "barbarous capitalism".
This week, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on all individuals, organizations, and social movements committed to the Bolivarian Revolution to join the “Great Patriotic Pole”, a grassroots coalition tasked with achieving a sweeping victory in next year’s presidential elections.
Last Saturday, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez praised the government’s Youth Minister for instigating a democratic and inclusive consultation process, aimed at constructing the country’s newly created Youth Ministry from the bottom-up.
On Monday “Dr. Gilberto Rodríguez Ochoa”, Venezuela’s Caracas-based Children’s Cardiology Hospital, began celebrating its fifth anniversary since being inaugurated in August 2006. The pioneering cardiology hospital operates on patients from all over Latin America free of charge and has saved more than 5,500 children’s lives to date, according to government sources.
On Sunday the Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV) concluded its XIV Congress in Caracas following 3 days of discussions. Over 526 national delegates and 43 international representatives attended the conference, which was convened in conjunction with the PCV’s 74th anniversary.
