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	<title>WorldCategory: Venezuela &#124; World &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>WorldCategory: Venezuela &#124; World &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>Venezuela&#8217;s Brawl Is the Latest Edition of Parliament Fight Club</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/05/01/parliament-fight-club/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/05/01/parliament-fight-club/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2013 20:34:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew Katz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Latin America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[World]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Italy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[parliament]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[parliament fight club]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[south korea]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ukraine]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=84728</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The first rule of Parliament Fight Club is try not to be among the opposition. On the evening of April 30, members of Venezuela&#8217;s political opposition, including a former presidential candidate, were apparently roughed up by representatives backing President Nicolas Maduro, heir to the legacy of late socialist supremo Hugo Chávez. The disputed fallout of recent elections led to a heated showdown in the nation&#8217;s legislature; the event was not broadcast on state television. Cell phone footage of the clash emerged, showing windbreaker-clad security guards wading into the aisles and throwing punches at seemingly defenseless politicians. The incident, though, is hardly unique to Venezuela. Here&#8217;s only a recent sampling of incidents when democracy truly gets messy. Ukraine, March 2013 Members of Ukraine&#8217;s Parliament are known to throw down, and this particular fistfight from March 2013 is a fine example. After reportedly calling each other &#8220;neo-fascists&#8221; and booing a party leader for speaking in Russian, things got a bit, well, take a look. Ukraine, May 2011 From a scrum to one-on-one combat: the Ukrainian Parliament&#8217;s vice speaker Adam Martynyuk began choking Oleg Lyashko, a deputy, after Martynyuk refused to let Lyashko make a speech. Israel, January 2012 OK, time to cool off. During a televised debate in January 2012, Israeli-Arab MP Raleb Majadele told his counterpart, Anastassia Michaeli, to shut up. After a brief shouting match, she walked over to him, poured a glass of water and tossed it his way before storming off. Argentina, November 2010 Here&#8217;s another parting shot. Lawmaker Graciela Camaño slaps Carlos Kunkel, a colleague of hers, in the face after his comments about her husband&#8217;s political career. Afghanistan, July 2011 Following a discussion of rocket attacks from Pakistan, General Nazifa Zaki, an ex-Army general, threw one of her shoes at another member of Parliament, Hamida Ahmadzai. Somalia, December 2011 Three lawmakers needed medical assistance after a brawl between Somali lawmakers in January 2012. Judging from this battle a few weeks earlier, when Parliament members were voting on a new speaker, it&#8217;s clear why. South Korea, November 2011 During a vote on<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=84728&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Venezuela</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/venezuela/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/167820039.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Opposition deputy Julio Borges after a fight with the ruling party deputies inside the Venezuelan parliament in Caracas, on April 30, 2013.</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor8</media:title>
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		<title>US Man Detained in Venezuelan Post-vote Crackdown</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/04/25/us-man-detained-in-venezuelan-post-vote-crackdown/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/04/25/us-man-detained-in-venezuelan-post-vote-crackdown/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Apr 2013 02:35:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>AP / FRANK BAJAK and MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=83912</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(CARACAS, Venezuela)  — A 35-year-old filmmaker from California has been arrested by Venezuelan authorities who are accusing him of fomenting postelection violence on behalf of the U.S. government. President Nicolas Maduro said Thursday that he personally ordered Timothy Tracy&#8217;s arrest on suspicion of &#8220;creating violence in the cities of this country.&#8221; Venezuela&#8217;s interior minister said Tracy was working for U.S. intelligence, paying right-wing youth groups to hold violent demonstrations in order to destabilize the country after Maduro&#8217;s narrow election win last week. (More: After Venezuela’s Election, Chavistas and the Opposition Ready for Long Fight) Friends and family of Tracy told The Associated Press that he had been in Venezuela since last year making a documentary about the country, which is bitterly divided politically as the socialist heirs of the late President Hugo Chavez struggle to maintain control of a country beset by economic and political turmoil The Georgetown University English graduate was a story consultant on the 2009 documentary &#8220;American Harmony,&#8221; about competitive barbershop quartet singing, and produced the recent Discovery Channel program &#8220;Under Siege,&#8221; about terrorism and smuggling across the U.S.-Canada border as well the History Channel series &#8220;Madhouse,&#8221; on modified race-car drivers in North Carolina. &#8220;They don&#8217;t have CIA in custody. They don&#8217;t have a journalist in custody. They have a kid with a camera,&#8221; said Aengus James, a friend and associate of Tracy&#8217;s in Hollywood, California, and director of &#8220;American Harmony.&#8221; James described Tracy as &#8220;fearless&#8221; but also somewhat quixotic. &#8220;This whole thing came about with him at a party in South Florida,&#8221; he said. &#8220;He met this cute girl who says, &#8216;If you really are a documentary filmmaker you&#8217;ll come tell the story of what is happening in Venezuela,&#8217; and if you say something like that to Tim he goes, whether or not he knows a single person there or knows anything about the political situation or the consequences.&#8221; Tracy had been detained at least twice before by Venezuela&#8217;s SEBIN intelligence police. The last time was five days before the April 14 presidential election when he was<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=83912&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Venezuela</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/venezuela/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/ap_vdetainus_apr26.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Venezuela American Detained</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">timeassociatedpress</media:title>
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		<title>After Venezuela&#8217;s Election, Chavistas and the Opposition Ready for Long Fight</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/04/19/after-venezuelas-election-chavistas-and-the-opposition-ready-for-long-fight/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/04/19/after-venezuelas-election-chavistas-and-the-opposition-ready-for-long-fight/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Apr 2013 09:45:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Girish Gupta</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[23 de enero]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Capriles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chavismo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Kerry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Maduro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[recount]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=82846</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[On a hill in west of Caracas, the 23 de Enero slum stands as the flagship of Hugo Chávez’s socialist dream. His body currently lies in a military museum here which overlooks el comandante&#8216;s former presidential home, Miraflores, that lies in a neighborhood below. The slum’s walls are covered with artistic murals of leftist revolutionaries. One is a play on Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. In this incarnation Jesus’s disciples include Karl Marx, Ché Guevara, Fidel Castro and Chávez himself. Up a steep, rickety staircase between houses lives Lisandro Pérez, known to everyone here as Mao after Mao Zedong, the Chinese Communist revolutionary. The 54-year-old leftist militant was one of the founders—long before Chávez came to power—of the Tupamaros, one of around 40 colectivos, pro-Chávez gangs which run social programs and provide security in the slum, often through strength of arms. “Power comes from the barrel of a gun,” says Pérez, quoting his namesake, as he sits in front of hundreds of academic tomes on his bookshelf.  “This applies now as we ensure a heavy hand against the fascists.” The “fascists” Pérez cites are Venezuela’s opposition, specifically Henrique Capriles Radonski who lost the country’s snap presidential election on Sunday against Chávez’s chosen heir Nicolás Maduro by less than 300,000 votes. It is the closest the opposition has come to power in Venezuela since Chávez took the reins in 1998 and a demonstration that the political ideology of Chavismo is severely dented without its namesake. (Capriles is hardly a fascist; his campaign had to borrow from the socialist Chávez’s populist rhetoric.) (PHOTOS: In Caracas, Tensions Simmer over Venezuelan Election) Capriles has refused to accept the result, accused the government of fraud and demanded a recount. The opposition has sent a list of thousands of discrepancies it says it has found in the voting process to the electoral council. It includes allegations that monitors were forced—some at gunpoint, says Capriles—to leave before counting began. He also cited a polling station where nearly 200 more people voted than were registered. The opposition awaits<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=82846&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Venezuela</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/venezuela/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/rtxymzj.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Protests Over Venezuela Election</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">timeadmin</media:title>
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	</item>
		<item>
		<title>In Caracas, Tensions Simmer over Venezuelan Election</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/04/18/protests-over-venezuela-election/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/04/18/protests-over-venezuela-election/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Apr 2013 21:29:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mikko Takkunen</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=82645</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In the immediate aftermath of Venezuela&#8217;s tightly contested presidential election this past Sunday, supporters of Venezuela opposition leader Henrique Capriles demanded a recount after a slim electoral defeat to Nicolas Maduro, the anointed heir of the late Hugo Chavez. Protests raged in Caracas and elsewhere. Though they subsided in subsequent days amid calls from both camps for peace, tensions remain high. Related Content: After Venezuela’s Election, Chavistas and the Opposition Ready for Long Fight Election Council to Audit Vote in Venezuela Venezuela Crackdown Deemed Worst in Years Each Side Blames the Other for Venezuela Violence Venezuela’s Election: Even if Nicolás Maduro Won, He Lost PHOTOS: The Chavistas Hang On to Venezuela&#8217;s Presidency<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=82645&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Venezuela</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/venezuela/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/h_14333402.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/h_14333402.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/h_14333402.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Protests Over Venezuela Election</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">Mikko</media:title>
		</media:content>
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		<title>Venezuela&#8217;s Election: Even if Nicolás Maduro Won, He Lost</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/04/15/venezuelas-election-even-if-nicolas-maduro-won-he-lost/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/04/15/venezuelas-election-even-if-nicolas-maduro-won-he-lost/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:38:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tim Padgett</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Latin America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chavismo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chavista]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diosdado Cabello]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Henrique Capriles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nicolas Maduro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[presidential election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PSUV]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=81988</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Here is the one unmistakable reality of Sunday’s special presidential election in Venezuela: even if Nicolás Maduro won, he lost. This race had a rarefied gauge, and it wasn’t simply the vote tally. It was whether the authoritarian-socialist model left by the firebrand Hugo Chávez, who died in office because of cancer last month after a 14-year reign, can survive without his demigod presence. That is, his actual presence and not his reincarnation as a bird, as Maduro goofily claims the late Chávez appeared to him recently. By defeating his centrist rival Henrique Capriles by an embarrassingly tight margin of 50.7% to 49.1% — after Chávez routed Capriles just six months ago by 11 points — Maduro, whom Chávez had handpicked as his successor, laid bare two things about Chavismo without Chávez. The first is that el comandante, who always ran a one-caudillo show, failed to groom anyone who could fill his red beret politically. The second is that Venezuelans, with Chávez’s blustering figure gone, now recognize the raft of economic and social messes he left behind. (PHOTOS: The Chavistas Hang On to Venezuela&#8217;s Presidency) And that makes the political landscape ahead in Venezuela, which holds the world’s largest oil reserves, volatile if not potentially violent. Maduro, who to his credit said he’d accept the full vote recount Capriles is demanding, called his win “a fair, legal and constitutional triumph,” and it probably was, despite opposition concerns about the Chavista-packed National Election Council, known as CNE. But Capriles argued he’d scored an equally important victory by exposing how vulnerable Chávez’s United Socialist Party (PSUV) is in the absence of the late President’s charismatic bond with its base. “This system,” Capriles declared, “is a sand castle.” Yet however flimsy it may be — and the Venezuelan opposition, despite Sunday’s impressive performance, is no reassuring rock, either — Maduro and the Chavista leadership, including military honchos who have strongly hinted they won’t accept an opposition President, have insisted since Chávez’s cancer was diagnosed two years ago that only their leftist, anti-U.S. Bolivarian<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=81988&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Venezuela</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/venezuela/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/6956d000363647f5835b22efecf22d24-02.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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		<media:content url="http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/6956d000363647f5835b22efecf22d24-02.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Venezuela Election</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">timtime11</media:title>
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		<title>The Chavistas Hang On to Venezuela&#8217;s Presidency</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/04/15/venezuelas-presidential-elections/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/04/15/venezuelas-presidential-elections/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:44:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mikko Takkunen</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=81768</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The final count was closer than most people expected but Chavez&#8217;s anointed successor takes the election. (MORE: Venezuela’s Election: Even If Nicolás Maduro Won, He Lost)<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=81768&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Venezuela</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/venezuela/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/20130415_zaf_e26_045-copy.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Venezuela&#039;s Presidential Elections</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">Mikko</media:title>
		</media:content>
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		<title>In Hugo Chávez&#8217;s Heartland, the Dead President Rules Supreme</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/04/12/in-hugo-chavezs-heartland/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/04/12/in-hugo-chavezs-heartland/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:45:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Girish Gupta / Barinas, Venezuela</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Latin America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Adan Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[barinas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[diosadado cabello]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Henrique Capriles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nicolas Maduro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[venezuela elections]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=81182</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Under the sweltering sun of Venezuela’s Los Llanos, a vast savannah famous for its cowboys and revolutionaries, 60-year-old Adán Chávez speaks passionately to a crowd of red-clad supporters. In his voice and rhetoric trembles a hint of his recently deceased younger brother, Hugo Chávez, the country’s former president. Indeed, a poster above the 60-year-old proclaims that he “is Chávez.” Adán, a bespectacled former physics professor, is the governor of Barinas, the state in which he and his five brothers, including Hugo, were raised. The siblings famously grew up in poverty, raised by their grandmother in a mud hut shaded by palm fronds. Now the family’s grip on Barinas is just a microcosm of Chávez’s larger, profound hold over the nation as a whole. Adán — the “Marxist in the family,” Hugo once quipped — took over the governorship from his father, Hugo de los Reyes Chávez, in 2008 after time as Education Minister and Ambassador to Cuba. Another brother, Argenis Chávez, 54 was secretary of state for Barinas under his father and is now President of the National Electricity Corporation. Adelis Chávez is the Vice President of Banco Sofitasa which handles the state government&#8217;s finances. Aníbal Chávez was mayor of Sabaneta, the town in Barinas in which the Chávez family were born. Narciso Chávez, 57, oversees government programs between Cuba and Venezuela. On top of that, Hugo’s cousin Asdrúbal Chávez is Vice President of state oil company PDVSA and his son-in-law Jorge Arreaza, 39 is the country’s Vice President. (MORE: Venezuela President Hugo Chávez Dies at Age of 58) “They’re not in power because they’re competent leaders!” said 66-year-old José López, a retired oil worker in Barinas’ main plaza Tuesday, watching friends play dominoes. “Chávez’s family was once — once! — poor. Now they have enormous riches. No one knows how they earned all this money.” Jose Luis Machin Manchin has the unenviable task of leading the opposition campaign in Barinas in time for Sunday’s election which pitches Nicolás Maduro, 50, Chávez’s chosen heir, against Henrique Capriles Radonski, the 40-year-old<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=81182&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Venezuela</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/venezuela/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/int-venezuela-130412.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Chavez heartland</media:title>
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		<title>After Chávez&#8217;s Death, Venezuelans Mourn and Look to an Uncertain Future</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/03/06/after-chavezs-death-venezuelans-mourn-and-look-to-an-uncertain-future/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/03/06/after-chavezs-death-venezuelans-mourn-and-look-to-an-uncertain-future/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:07:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Girish Gupta / Caracas</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Latin America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=73326</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The mood outside the Dr. Carlos Arvelo military hospital was somber. Women crowded the entrance, sobbing. Grim-faced men looked on. Many stood in stunned silence while motorbikes streamed by, their horns honking. When approached, some of Hugo Chávez’s supporters burst into tears. Normally boisterous and impassioned, they were now at a loss. “Our president is dead,” cried Sirleny Sosa, 50, a housewife. “He’s done so much for this country.” (MORE: Death comes for El Comandante—TIME&#8217;s Chávez obituary.) Just hours earlier, Vice President Nicolás Maduro, clad in white, had revealed the inevitable. “We have just received the most tragic and awful information,” he said. “At 4.25 PM today March the fifth, President Hugo Chávez Frías died.” He continued, visibly distraught: “Comandante, thank you so much on behalf of these people whom you protected.” What awaits Chávez supporters? At a recent government rally, Maduro’s attempts to emulate his boss’s charisma panned. Supporters milled around at the back of the small crowd, wearing their Chávez memorabilia and buying a range of new merchandise produced since the socialist leader’s cancer came to light nearly two years ago. With Venezuela’s constitution calling for elections within 30 days, Maduro likely will stand against Henrique Capriles, the opposition leader who lost to Chávez in October’s presidential vote. (MORE: Nicolás Maduro—Chávez&#8217;s loyal lieutenant.) Despite tough crowds at recent rallies, though, there is little doubt that Maduro will win, according to polls. Maduro can, for now, count on the legions of crimson-clad Chávez supporters in mourning as el Comandante’s body lies in state this week. “The order from Chávez was to rally behind Maduro,” said Sosa. “That’s what we’ll do.” That adulation for Chávez was echoed by certain world leaders. Bolivia’s President Evo Morales said tearfully that Chávez now was “more alive than ever,” referring to the leftist ideals that Morales and other Latin American presidents share. Brazil’s government called for a minute of silence. An economic giant in the region, Brazil under former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva became one the world’s economic heavyweights while continuing social<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=73326&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Venezuela</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/venezuela/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/242299e3b18f4348be27bd9e9185cdc4-02.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Venezuelans Mourn the Death of Hugo Chavez</media:title>
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		<title>Remembering Hugo Chávez: A Demagogue&#8217;s Career in Quotes</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/03/05/remembering-hugo-chavez-a-demagogues-career-in-quotes/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/03/05/remembering-hugo-chavez-a-demagogues-career-in-quotes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Mar 2013 01:13:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Andrew Katz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Latin America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=73028</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez died Tuesday from complications related to a near two-year battle with cancer. He was 58. Chávez, a populist firebrand who has defined a whole era of Latin American politics, was not known for holding his tongue. Here are some choice examples of the socialist&#8217;s oratory: “Christopher Columbus was the spearhead of the biggest invasion and genocide ever seen in the history of humanity.&#8221; &#8212; Chávez, in 2003, on the discovery of the New World. &#8220;I give you a replica of liberator Simon Bolivar&#8217;s sword. For you who, like Bolivar, took up arms to liberate your people. For you who, like Bolivar, are and will always be a true freedom fighter. [Mugabe] continues, alongside his people, to confront the pretensions of new imperialists.&#8221; &#8212; Chávez, speaking about Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, in 2004. “Don’t mess with me, sir, or you will get stung.” – Chávez, in 2005, when addressing former Mexican President Vicente Fox. &#8220;Terrorism, putting fear into other nations, putting fear into their own people. Families go and begin to disguise their children as witches. This is contrary to our way.&#8221; &#8212; Chávez, in a weekly broadcast in 2005, inveighing against the American tradition of Halloween. “Remember, little girl, I&#8217;m like the thorn tree that flowers on the plain. I waft my scent to passers-by and prick he who shakes me. Don’t mess with me, Condoleezza. Don’t mess with me, girl.&#8221; — Chávez, to then U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in 2006. &#8220;Don&#8217;t be shameless, Mr Blair. Don&#8217;t be immoral, Mr. Blair. You are one of those who have no morals. You are not one who has the right to criticize anyone about the rules of the international community. You are an imperialist pawn who attempts to curry favor with Danger Bush-Hitler, the number one mass murderer and assassin there is on the planet. Go straight to hell, Mr. Blair.&#8221; &#8212; Chávez, in 2006, to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. &#8220;You are a coward, a killer, a [perpetrator of] genocide, an alcoholic, a drunk, a liar, an immoral person, Mr Danger.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=73028&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Venezuela</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/venezuela/</primary_category_link>
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		<title>Venezuelans Mourn the Death of Hugo Chavez</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/03/05/venezuela-mourns-the-death-of-hugo-chavez/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/03/05/venezuela-mourns-the-death-of-hugo-chavez/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Mar 2013 00:10:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>TIME Staff</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=73018</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Following the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, scores of mourners took to the streets of Caracas to mourn his death. Chavez died at 58 following after a battle with cancer. Seven days of mourning were declared, all schools were suspended for the week and friendly heads of state were expected for an elaborate funeral Friday. Holding office for over 14 years, Chavez was a divisive figure. His supporters — so called &#8220;Chavistas&#8221; — often branded him a modern socialist hero, while detractors compared him to &#8220;personality cult&#8221; leaders such as China&#8217;s Mao Zedong. Chavez&#8217;s death may spark a constitutional upheaval in the country, where he and his party controlled the world&#8217;s largest oil reserves. PHOTOS: Rise of Chavez: The Late Venezuelan President&#8217;s Path to Power MORE: Death Comes for El Comandante: Hugo Chávez (1954- 2013)<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=73018&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Venezuela</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/venezuela/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/517977556-copy.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Venezuelans Mourn the Death of Hugo Chavez</media:title>
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		<title>Death Comes for el Comandante: Hugo Chávez (1954–2013)</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/03/05/death-comes-for-el-comandante-hugo-chavez-1954-2013/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/03/05/death-comes-for-el-comandante-hugo-chavez-1954-2013/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 05 Mar 2013 22:16:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tim Padgett</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Latin America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=72987</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Like his idol, Fidel Castro, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez was one of the most garrulous and pugnacious leaders Latin America has ever known. That makes his death in Caracas today, March 5, at age 58, after a long and secrecy-shrouded fight with a cancer whose type he refused to disclose, feel all the more incongruous: Chávez, who for all of his 14-year rule was as loud and ubiquitous a fixture in Venezuela and Latin America as salsa music on the sidewalks, departed the stage in uncharacteristic silence after not having been seen or heard from publicly for three months. But Chávez’s demise is likely to spark a constitutional upheaval inside Venezuela, where he and his socialist, anti-U.S. revolution controlled the world’s largest oil reserves, and where an electorate bitterly polarized over his heavy-handed governance must now hold a new presidential election within the next month. (Chávez&#8217;s Vice President, Nicolás Maduro, is considered the front-runner.) The most hotly debated issue is sure to be Chávez himself and his legacy — whether his firebrand reign in the end represented an advance or a setback for the Latin American left. (MORE: Remembering Hugo Chávez: A Demagogue’s Career in Quotes) Chávez called himself a “21st century socialist.” In reality he was a throwback to the dogmatic and authoritarian 20th century socialism of Castro, Cuba’s former dictator, and to the 19th century caudillo tradition of Chávez’s demigod, South American independence hero Simón Bolívar. Chávez hoped that being democratically elected would obscure the fact that he didn’t govern all that democratically. It didn’t. So it’s tempting to dismiss him as an anachronism, a vulgar populist famous for gratuitous yanqui bashing — for calling then U.S. President George W. Bush a malodorous “devil” at the U.N. in 2006 — an erratic and messianic retro-revolutionary whose country’s vast petrowealth let him indulge his Marxist nostalgia. Chávez was all of those things. But if he was a leader behind his times, he still managed to influence them. Voters don’t make a radical like Chávez their head of state unless they’re mad as<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=72987&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Venezuela</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/venezuela/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/96294777.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Caracas on Nov. 27, 2009.</media:title>
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		<title>Venezuela&#8217;s Future: Whose Health Is Worse—Hugo Chávez&#8217;s or the Opposition&#8217;s?</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/02/28/venezuelas-future-whose-health-is-worse-hugo-chavezs-or-the-oppositions/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/02/28/venezuelas-future-whose-health-is-worse-hugo-chavezs-or-the-oppositions/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:24:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Girish Gupta / Caracas</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Latin America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=71786</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[President Hugo Chávez is reportedly holed up on the ninth floor of Caracas’ Dr Carlos Arvelo military hospital, where a giant poster of his face beams down from its manila-colored walls.  But the portrait belies the deep uncertainties surrounding Chávez’s future. His homecoming last Monday, after a two-month convalescence in Cuba, was not filled with the histrionics and grand oratory Venezuelans are used to from El Comandante. Instead, he has not been seen nor heard from since his arrival and only one set of photos of him has been released from his Havana, hospital bed since a fourth cancer operation on Dec. 11. This is in stark contrast to the garrulous leader’s previous returns. In July 2011, after three weeks away following the first of his cancer surgeries, Chávez  stood on the balcony of his Miraflores presidential palace, sporting his cherry red beret and olive green military uniform. He trumpeted: “It’s a miracle I am here, considering how I was” and lapped up screams and applause from supporters below for a full five minutes. He went on to talk of his “long march” to 2021 (the 200th anniversary of Venezuela’s final defeat of the Spanish). At an Easter mass last year, the 58-year-old president called on Christ. “Jesus, give me your crown. Give me your cross and your thorns so that I may bleed. But give me life because I have more to do for this country and these people. Do not take me yet.” That call may be even more profound now as 2021 seems a long way off for the perhaps terminally ill Chávez. (MORE: Hugo Chávez&#8217;s absence deepens Venezuela&#8217;s sense of crisis.) Meanwhile, Venezuela’s opposition has failed to capitalize on rumors of Chávez’s dire state and appears, instead, to be falling apart. A plaza in Caracas’ shopping district of Chacao has played host to opposition protests in recent weeks. Embittered activists here say the country lacks governance and are angered by the recent drastic devaluation of the local currency, despite economists on both sides having called for<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=71786&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Venezuela</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/venezuela/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/rtr3e5bm-1.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">People hold candles during a praying ceremony for the health of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Caracas Feb. 22, 2013.</media:title>
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		<title>Hugo Chávez&#8217;s Absence Deepens Venezuela&#8217;s Sense of Crisis</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/02/14/hugo-chavezs-absence-deepens-venezuelas-sense-of-crisis/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/02/14/hugo-chavezs-absence-deepens-venezuelas-sense-of-crisis/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:00:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Girish Gupta / Caracas</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Latin America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cabello]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cancer surgery]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fidel castro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Havana]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Henrique Capriles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nicolas Maduro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prison riot]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=68931</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When Venezuelan authorities announced a long-overdue devaluation of their currency last week, ministers insisted that the command had come directly from President Hugo Chávez. “We have taken this as a presidential order,” insisted Finance Minister Jorge Giordani. “The President is commanding and taking decisions,” added Elías Jaua, the newly appointed Foreign Minister. According to Science Minister Jorge Arreaza, Chávez is even examining images beamed back from the country’s flagship Miranda satellite. It seems difficult to believe Chávez continues to govern, having not been seen nor heard from since early December when he went through a six-hour operation in Havana. It was the fourth such treatment in a year and a half. Since the operation, no photos, audio or video recordings have been made public of the usually garrulous leader. But, despite his absence, Chávez has still cast a long shadow. His party won regional elections in a landslide in December; the sheer power of his celebrity led to tens of thousands of red-clad supporters flooding the streets for a Jan. 10 inauguration where he was nowhere in sight. The ailing 58-year-old is becoming a living martyr. But the glow of his aura can’t obscure the country’s real problems, which include one of the highest murder rates in the world. More than 21,000 were killed in Venezuela in 2012; a further 500 were killed just in the country&#8217;s prisons. Venezuela suffered its worst prison riot in nearly two decades last month. “We want Chávez to come here to give us news,” says Josefina Ramírez, 36, waiting outside the gates of a prison in Uribana, near the city of Barquisimeto, for news of her husband who was inside. Around 60 inmates were killed in a standoff with authorities. “We&#8217;re suffering here, and the government is saying nothing.” (MORE: With Hugo Chávez Hospitalized, Venezuela Frets About the Future) The Venezuelan government is good at saying nothing. Communications Minister Ernesto Villegas’ pronouncements on El Comandante’s health have been vague and cryptic, sometimes even contradicting those of other ministers privileged enough to have traveled to<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=68931&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Venezuela</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/venezuela/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/1500_chavez.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">World News - Feb. 5, 2013</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">TIME.com</media:title>
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		<title>The Loyal Lieutenant: In Hugo Chávez&#8217;s Absence, Nicolás Maduro&#8217;s Stature Grows</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/01/22/its-el-momento-maduro-as-venezuelas-presidential-crisis-drags-on/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/01/22/its-el-momento-maduro-as-venezuelas-presidential-crisis-drags-on/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 22 Jan 2013 13:00:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Girish Gupta / Caracas</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Latin America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=64640</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[On Jan. 10, as he led the presidential inauguration that wasn’t, Venezuelan Vice President Nicolás Maduro—the heir apparent of cancer-stricken socialist President Hugo Chávez—addressed the crowd in his boss’ grandiose style. “Chávez is all of us!” Maduro shouted to tens of thousands of red-clad supporters. “Chávez is Venezuela!” Days earlier, the tall, moustachioed Maduro had even publicly cried as he spoke of his love for el comandante. “Beyond our own lives, we will be loyal to Hugo Chávez,” he yelled as Chávez lay—and continues to lie—in a Cuban hospital bed after undergoing his fourth cancer surgery In Havana on Dec. 11. Maduro’s own life has certainly been a showcase of loyalty to the President ever since Chávez, then an army paratrooper officer, burst on the scene in 1992 leading a failed coup against Venezuela’s corrupt government. Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader, and his wife Cilia Flores, who is today Venezuela’s attorney general, helped win Chávez’s release from prison two years later and were at his side when Chávez was elected President in 1998. After Chávez was re-elected for a third time in October, he made Maduro Vice President. And then, before leaving for Cuba last month, he named Maduro his successor in the event, should Chávez die, that a new presidential election has to be held under Venezuela’s constitution. (PHOTOS: Six More Years: Hugo Chávez Wins a Third Term in Venezuela) Chávez has not been heard from since. He could not attend his own inauguration, which the constitution designated for Jan. 10 but which Venezuela’s Supreme Court, packed with Chávez loyallists, said could be delayed until the President is healthy again. Now Maduro, who this month delivered a state-of-the-union address in Chávez’s stead, has been forced to fill the boots of the populist, anti-U.S. firebrand who is a demigod to his supporters and a demon to his opponents. Whether or not Chávez ever returns, the central question in Venezuela and much of Latin America now is whether Maduro is up to the task of keeping Chávez’s left-wing<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=64640&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Venezuela</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/venezuela/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/int-chavez-0121.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">image: A man walks past a mural of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Caracas, Jan. 11, 2013.</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">TIME.com</media:title>
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		<title>If Chávez Can&#8217;t Be Sworn In, Is He Still President of Venezuela?</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/01/09/if-chavez-cant-be-sworn-in-is-he-still-president-of-venezuela/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/01/09/if-chavez-cant-be-sworn-in-is-he-still-president-of-venezuela/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 Jan 2013 17:13:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tim Padgett</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=62889</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Updated on Jan. 9, 2013 Venezuelan Vice President Nicolás Maduro is an ardent defender of democracy’s institutional processes — at least in other countries. Last summer Maduro, who is also Venezuela’s Foreign Minister, flew into Asunción as part of a delegation of the Union of South American Nations and declared — correctly — that the Paraguayan Congress’ summary ouster of leftist President Fernando Lugo had been “a violation of all due process.” Maduro was also a justifiably outspoken critic of the 2009 coup that overthrew Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. But Maduro seems to have more trouble recognizing constitutionally cavalier conduct, including his own, inside the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. On Tuesday, he announced that his boss, recently re-elected President Hugo Chávez, who is lying in a Havana hospital bed struggling to recover from his latest round of cancer surgery, would miss his swearing-in tomorrow, Jan. 10. That’s the inauguration date set by Venezuela’s constitution, and the charter suggests that if a President can’t be sworn in, a new election needs to be held within 30 days. Maduro rejected that notion, insisting that Chávez can be sworn in at a later date and that an inauguration is just a “formality” anyway. Nothing to get all that worked up about. (MORE: Latin King: How did a Weakened Chávez Retain Venezuela&#8217;s Presidency?) For all we knew, Maduro may have been right: perhaps the constitution’s inauguration deadline applied only to Presidents-elect and not sitting Presidents like Chávez. But then again, Venezuela’s political opposition could have been right: sitting President or not, it insisted, each six-year term ends on Jan. 10, meaning that if Chávez couldn&#8217;t be sworn in tomorrow, he wouldn&#8217;t be President on Jan. 11. The bottom line is that the 1999 constitution, written shortly after Chávez came to power, is a maddeningly vague guide on the matter — and in any modern democracy it’s the judicial branch, namely Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ), and not Vice Presidents or opposition politicians, that is supposed to determine what the document really means to say.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=62889&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Venezuela</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/venezuela/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/chavez.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">A man walks past a mural depicting Venezuelan President Chavez in Caracas</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timtime11</media:title>
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		<title>Hugo Chávez&#8217;s Constitution Is a Muddled Map Out of Venezuela&#8217;s Crisis</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/01/03/hugo-chavezs-constitution-is-a-muddled-map-out-of-venezuelas-crisis/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/01/03/hugo-chavezs-constitution-is-a-muddled-map-out-of-venezuelas-crisis/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2013 21:54:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tim Padgett</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Latin America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=62057</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Venezuela’s 1999 constitution is one of President Hugo Chávez’s proudest political props. The socialist leader likes to wave a pocket-size version of the charter, written shortly after he first took office 14 years ago, as often as Chinese communists used to brandish Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book. But now that the 58-year-old Chávez may be fighting for his life in a Cuban hospital after difficult cancer surgery, Venezuelans are turning to his so-called Bolivarian constitution for guidance — and what they’re finding instead is a murky map that could send the western hemisphere’s most oil-rich nation into precarious governmental limbo this year. At the core of the confusion is one word: permanently. The constitution says Chávez, who in October won re-election to a new six-year term, is supposed to be sworn in a week from today, on Jan. 10. But his condition would appear to preclude that happening. So here’s what Article 233 says: “When an elected President becomes permanently unavailable to serve prior to his inauguration, a new election &#8230; shall be held within 30 consecutive days.” The article defines “permanently unavailable” (falta absoluta in Spanish) as death, resignation, removal from office, certified permanent physical or mental disability or a recall. None of those — at least according to information from Vice President Nicolás Maduro, who visited Chávez in Havana this week — apply to Chávez’s current situation. What to do then? First consider the demi-divinity conferred on Chávez by his followers — who, thanks largely to his antipoverty programs, gave their firebrand comandante an 11-point re-election victory margin even though Venezuela suffers South America’s worst murder rate and one of the world’s highest inflation rates. As Chávez went under the knife last month, Maduro gushed, “You have to return, and we your children will be waiting for you. We’ve sworn to be loyal to you beyond this life &#8230; your soldiers forever.” Hence the reluctance of Maduro and other top Chavistas, including National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, to declare Chávez “permanently unavailable” to take office, despite the Jan. 10 deadline,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=62057&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Venezuela</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/venezuela/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/int-chavez-0103.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">image: A woman walks next to a graffit painting of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in Caracas, Venezuela, on Jan. 2, 2013.</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timtime11</media:title>
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		<title>Chávez&#8217;s Cancer Relapse: Can Venezuela&#8217;s Socialists Survive It?</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2012/12/10/chavezs-cancer-relapse-can-venezuelas-socialists-survive-it/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2012/12/10/chavezs-cancer-relapse-can-venezuelas-socialists-survive-it/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 11 Dec 2012 04:12:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tim Padgett</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=58936</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[During his re-election campaign this year, critics often accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez of using his cancer to drum up votes. It seemed, they said, that the socialist, anti-U.S. firebrand spent more time comparing himself to Jesus Christ than he did stumping for his social and economic policies — and they certainly couldn’t resist a jaded expression when Chávez, like a resurrected messiah, declared himself cancer-free just as the campaign got into full swing in July. Whether or not Chávez purposely promoted the aura of a leader who could defeat death, his illness certainly wasn’t a political liability: he won the Oct. 7 election by an 11-point landslide. But now, just a month before Chávez, 58, is to be sworn in yet again on Jan. 10 — he has ruled Venezuela, which has the world’s largest oil reserves, for almost 14 years — the return of his cancer creates far more uncertainty. On Saturday night, Chávez announced that doctors have found new malignant cells and that he&#8217;ll have to undergo further treatment in Cuba in the coming days. He still won’t identify what kind of cancer he has, a secretive posture more befitting the ruler of North Korea than that of a modern democracy. But he did make it clear that he believes there’s a chance he might not be able to finish his next six-year term — and for the first time since he revealed that he had a large tumor near his pelvis removed in Havana a year and a half ago, he dared speak of a successor. “With all my heart,” he asked Venezuelans to “elect Nicolás Maduro as President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.” (PHOTOS: Six More Years: Hugo Chávez Wins a Third Term in Venezuela) Maduro is Chávez’s Vice President — but technically he doesn’t become President if Chávez should die or otherwise leave office before his upcoming inauguration or for quite a while after. Under Venezuela’s 1999 constitution, if a President departs before the swearing in or before finishing four years of his<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=58936&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Venezuela</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/venezuela/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ap1837244125031.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Chávez’s Cancer Relapse: Can Venezuela’s Socialists Survive It?</media:title>
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		<title>Six More Years: Hugo Chávez Wins a Third Term in Venezuela</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2012/10/08/six-more-years-hugo-chavez-wins-a-third-term-in-venezuela/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2012/10/08/six-more-years-hugo-chavez-wins-a-third-term-in-venezuela/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 08 Oct 2012 16:18:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>TIME Staff</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Henrique Capriles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Latin America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[South America]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=48673</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It was not as huge a rout as his previous victories, but the Venezuelan president knew how to turn on the electoral charm&#8211;and clout&#8211;despite a serious bout with cancer.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=48673&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Venezuela</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/venezuela/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/001068.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Venezuela Election</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timephoto2</media:title>
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		<title>Hugo Chávez Wins Big, Gives Rivals Six More Years to Climb out of the Hole</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2012/10/08/hugo-chavez-wins-big-gives-rivals-six-more-years-to-climb-out-of-their-hole/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2012/10/08/hugo-chavez-wins-big-gives-rivals-six-more-years-to-climb-out-of-their-hole/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 08 Oct 2012 15:12:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tim Padgett</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=48648</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[UPDATED Although socialist President Hugo Chávez routed his centrist challenger, Henrique Capriles Radonski, 55% to 45% in Sunday’s presidential election in Venezuela, the opposition can take some consolation in the fact that Capriles did a lot of things right. That includes reaching out in a more credible way to poorer Venezuelans, who make up Chávez&#8217;s base. The problem is that it wasn&#8217;t nearly enough to make up for all the things the opposition has done wrong during the almost 14 years that Chávez and his populist, anti-U.S. revolution have ruled Venezuela and the world&#8217;s largest oil reserves. Chávez&#8217;s foes, whose unified front should have made Capriles a contender, now have another six years to ponder why the Miraflores presidential palace is still so far out of their reach when so many factors indicate it should be well within their grasp. They will point to an uneven playing field: Chávez, 58, though his battle with cancer made him a less dynamic campaigner this time around, had access to an enormous trough of oil-fueled resources and, perhaps more important, to a ubiquitous state-run media machine. They’ll claim that Chávez’s socialist crusade has made so many jobs dependent on el comandante that most Venezuelans were fearful of employer retribution if they didn’t vote for him. But Venezuelans had more reasons than ever to vote against Chávez in this election — rampant violent crime has saddled the country with South America’s highest murder rate, economic mismanagement has produced one of the world’s highest inflation rates, and official corruption has begun to remind Venezuelans of the sleaze that Chávez once condemned as he rode to power — and the fact that a majority didn’t reject him says less about Chávez’s heavy-handed advantages than about his opposition’s nagging failure to offer a convincing alternative. (PHOTOS: Six More Years: Hugo Chávez Wins a Third Term in Venezuela) Capriles, 40, did trim almost 10 points off Chávez&#8217;s 2006 victory percentage. Perhaps recognizing that fact, Chávez hinted Sunday night at a more conciliatory, less polarizing government style for his next six-year term. That<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=48648&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Venezuela</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/venezuela/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/514472200.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Venezuela Election</media:title>
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		<title>Hugo Chávez&#8217;s Re-election Bid: Is the Latin American Left Stumbling?</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2012/10/05/hugo-chavezs-re-election-bid-is-the-latin-american-left-losing/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2012/10/05/hugo-chavezs-re-election-bid-is-the-latin-american-left-losing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Oct 2012 12:00:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tim Padgett</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Ecuador]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Latin America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venezuela]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Argentina]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christine Lagarde]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[corruption]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cristina Fernandez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Henrique Capriles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[IMF]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[inflation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[presidential election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rafael Correa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[violent crime]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=48156</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As I write in the international edition of TIME, and as Girish Gupta wrote last week on TIME.com, Venezuela’s burgeoning violent crime will be a key factor in the Oct. 7 presidential election. The baffling inability of socialist President Hugo Chávez, who controls the world’s largest oil reserves, to rein in a murder rate that by some estimates is four times higher than when he took office 13 years ago, including some 50 homicides a week in Caracas, has rankled Venezuelan voters. Chávez wasn’t helped last Sunday when two supporters of his centrist challenger, Miranda state Governor Henrique Capriles Radonski, were shot and killed in Chávez’s home state of Barinas, allegedly by Chávez backers who were blocking a Capriles campaign caravan. A third victim, also a Capriles supporter, is in critical condition. Chávez urged Venezuelans to “confront each other with votes, not violence,” but he just as quickly took the polarizing low road and blamed his “bourgeois” opponents for the deadly confrontation. The Capriles camp was angered again on Wednesday when a judge in Barinas, where Chávez’s elder brother Adán is Governor, inexplicably released two of the shooting suspects. Chávez, who is battling cancer, is certainly favored to win re-election this Sunday. But the Barinas episode is a reminder of why he’s no longer considered an overwhelming shoo-in – and why a Capriles victory is no longer unthinkable. More and more, Chávez’s left-wing revolution is marked by the kind of dogmatic denial and bullying bluster that has left Venezuelans like Luz Marina Morón, a nurse I recently interviewed in the poor Caracas barrio of Catia—a cradle of el presidente’s political support—feeling &#8220;harta,&#8221; as she told me, or fed up. Doctors at the hospital in Catia say 80% of trauma cases are gunshot wounds; Morón’s son was gunned down a few years ago in Catia by a street tough who wanted his tennis shoes. To her, the homicide plague spotlights the paradox of Chávez’s long rule: How his welcome anti-poverty mission has been undermined by his mismanaged socialist mission—how crises like crime,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=48156&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Latin America</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/latin-america/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/600_2012-10-02t191534z_52901345.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Losing It on the Latin Left</media:title>
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