President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday that Russian President Dimitri Medvedev wants to send a Russian naval fleet to visit Venezuela.
“Russia has informed us they intend to visit Venezuela, that is, the intention that a Russian fleet should come to the Caribbean,” Chavez said on his weekly radio program.
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Some autocratic governments are challenging U.S. policies and silencing domestic dissent. But their increased spending raises the risk of inflation, which could erode popular support.
But some of the most obvious effects are in countries whose leaders are most hostile to the United States: Venezuela’s populist President Hugo Chavez, Iran’s stringent Islamic rulers and Russia’s growing [...]

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Venezuela’s proven oil reserves are among the top ten in the world. Oil generates about 80 percent of the country’s total export revenue, contributes about half of the central government’s income, and is responsible for about one-third of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Increases in world oil prices in recent years have allowed Venezuelan [...]

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Venezuela fired live missiles from fighter jets and ships Friday during exercises intended to demonstrate the firepower of President Hugo Chavez’s military.
Smoke rose from ships off the La Orchila island military base as Otomat MK2 missiles arced into the sky and Russian-made Sukhoi fighter jets flew in formation.
The televised war games allowed the military to [...]

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They called him “Angel.” He was the highest-ranking outside contact for the Colombian guerilla organization FARC. More and more details are now emerging that demonstrate the close relationship between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the jungle terrorists. By Jens Glüsing more…

The FARC Computer: German Left Wing May Have Ties to Colombian Extremists
No Ideology, Just Money [...]

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Chavez, 53, the country’s first dark-skinned leader, has used Venezuela’s immense oil wealth, says Jones, to improve life for millions of impoverished shantytown residents through health and education programmes such as no other leader ever attempted. For Washington, though, the “Bolivarian revolution” (named after Simon Bolivar, the leader of the independence struggle against Spain) is [...]

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The United States and Colombia have long been wary of Venezuela’s peacetime military buildup, suspecting the weapons could end up in the hands of drug-trafficking Colombian rebels.
Now they have documented reasons for their worries — certified by Interpol.
Colombian rebel computer files described Thursday as authentic by the international police agency suggest a dramatic arms buildup [...]

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Documents that Colombia says it recovered from a slain guerrilla leader give the clearest indication yet that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sought to arm and finance insurgents across the border.
The documents — more than a dozen internal rebel messages — detail several years of close cooperation between top officials in Venezuela’s government and military and [...]

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