Word: chavez
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...recent news has been dominated by President Hugo Chavez's proposal for constitutional reform, outlined in a booming speech at the National Assembly that lasted so late into the night that lawmakers couldn't help but tuck into a bunch of empanadas in the legislative chamber. In the speech, whose transcript runs to 61 pages, Chavez ventured into the peculiar with a proposal to build artificial islands in order to consolidate Venezuela's presence in the Caribbean. And then, of course, there was his proposal to remove presidential term limits as well as to increase the term of office from...
...legislature that heard Chavez's speech is itself an odd creature: Every member is allied with the President, although their workload was considerably reduced at the start of this year when Chavez began ruling by decree. The legislature is also given a rather bohemian tint by the fact that it has its own theater troupe. On the evening of Chavez's marathon address, an actor with garments evoking a past century pranced around the floor of the legislature sporting an anguished look. He shook his fists and waved his arms, pleading loudly with the crowd. He was portraying independence hero...
...wacky bits kept coming. Shortly after the devastating earthquake that leveled the Peruvian city of Pisco, cans of tuna bearing pictures of Chavez and former leftist Peruvian presidential candidate Ollanta Humala were handed out as relief aid. The Venezuelan government said it had no idea how the cans got there; state television even interviewed a pro-Chavez artist who bizarrely suggested that the tuna cans were, in fact, a "racist" statement inciting support for the invasion of Iraq. That was too much for the show's moderator, who replied that they were actually no more than tuna cans. Still, this...
...manipulation" by the media was behind the tuna can episode. Then, responding to a critical editorial, the communication ministry devoted an entire press release to calling the New York Times "nothing more than of one the media arms of the Bush government." Lastly, on his own Sunday talk show, Chavez criticized a correspondent from the British newspaper The Guardian for asking a question about term limits. Instead of answering his question, the President rambled on about the evils of the British monarchy and demanded the reporter's opinion on the matter. The reporter noted that he was actually Irish...
...Chavez announcement that most flabbergasted the international media in a month of strange goings-on was his proclamation that Venezuela will move its time zone back by a half hour, starting in the third week of September. The government expects the measure to give Venezuelans a more equitable distribution of sunlight and, in the words of science and technology minister Hector Navarro, help "organize the country and social life in a more rational manner." Upon hearing the proclamation, a U.S. newspaper suggested recent headlines made the Caracas press read like The Onion, and drew comparisons between Venezuela and Woody Allen...