Word: regionalize
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...elimination of term limits in Venezuela could firmly establish a trend that, according to those who oppose such restrictions, will strengthen democracy by allowing voters to decide how long a popular leader can stick around. Term-limit proponents, however, say Chávez's triumph will only carry the region back to its authoritarian past. "What Venezuelan voters decide is their business," says John Walsh, a senior associate at the Washington Office on Latin America, an independent think tank. "But a threshold does seem to have been crossed...
...Last December, E.U. leaders agreed on a joint $250 billion economic stimulus plan for the region's economy. But since then, many governments have announced their own national measures aimed at supporting their own banks or economic growth. And now individual sectors are beginning to line up for handouts...
...trying again. If approved, his proposal could allow him to stay in power indefinitely and use his state power to annihilate any political dissent. In the last few years, apart from disrespecting contracts with foreign oil companies and eschewing American involvement in the region, Chávez has repeatedly attacked any media outlet that opposes his rule. Most notably, two years ago he refused to renew the broadcasting license of a TV station, RCTV, that he identified with the political opposition. With such dismal track record, the power of unlimited re-election would be tantamount to burying Venezuelan democracy forever...
...Chávez has also used Venezuela’s petroleum wealth to extend his influence in the region while the Bush administration focused elsewhere. In particular, he has invested in his ideological allies in the region, including Fidel Castro’s Cuba, Evo Morales’s Bolivia, and Rafael Correa’s Ecuador. But, for all his hatred of the United States, Chávez remains a dutiful producer of oil for American consumption, delivering over a million barrels a day to the evil superpower in the north. As a result, he has become an unfortunate...
...authorities in the far-Western region of Xinjiang culled more than 13,000 chickens in the city of Hotan after 519 died in a bird-flu outbreak. But until this week, China had reported no widespread outbreaks of the virus among bird populations, prompting concerns among some public-health experts that mainland health and veterinary authorities could be missing - or even concealing - the spread of the disease through poultry and wild birds. Hong Kong, where the first human cases of H5N1 infection were found in 1997, reported finding a dozen birds with the deadly strain of the virus earlier this...