Word: var
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Chávez is a very Latin American problem. Like his hero Simón Bolívar, he thinks he is indispensable to Venezuela, an oil-rich country that has terrible internal problems, most notably a lack of durable democratic institutions and entrenched economic inequality. In fact, he was originally an army paratrooper who became famous in 1992 when he attempted to overthrow the constitutional government in a failed coup d’etat. Old habits die hard...
...challenge Chávez on a national level, the leftist revolutionary looks likely to win this new bid for indefinite re-election. Chávez "is playing a more effective role against us," concedes student leader Juan Mejia, 22, an engineering major at Simón Bolívar University in Caracas. "But he's doing it mainly by criminalizing...
...seem only to be moved by a similar sense of hypocrisy. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is a case in point. In honor of the 50th anniversary some days ago, he pledged to fly the Cuban flag forever, next to the mausoleum of Simón Bolívar, a key independence fighter of the 1810s. He said: “Cuba is part of this nation, of this union.” But in truth, Chávez’s regime is rooted in his desire to perpetuate his own unchecked power to the detriment of democratic...
Just before announcing the awards on the closing night of the 61st Cannes Film Festival, Sean Penn, the president of this year's jury, recalled that he had once served in the same post at another festival. He'd run into Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, who exclaimed, "Sean Penn, can you believe you're the president of anything?" The actor-director, a longtime critic of George W. Bush, then told the black-tie audience, "And I'm not the only president whose answer should be 'no.' " The crowd erupted into the applause of political solidarity...
...Recent star inductees have included Barbra Streisand, Clint Eastwood, and Sean Connery, joining such existing "legionnaires" as Robert De Niro, Pedro Almodóvar, Quincy Jones and Michelle Yeoh. Each may be a fine exponent of his or her craft, but none exactly rises to the Napoleonic standard of heroism. Even Wednesday's upgrade of Steven Spielberg from knight to officer grade in the Legion for "the body of his works, and his engagement for great causes like the memory of the Shoah and the conflict in Darfur" wasn't entirely in line with the institution's original objective...