Word: venezuela
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Since first winning the presidency in 1998, Chávez had never lost an election until December 2007, when he was stunned in a constitutional referendum that he had hoped would eliminate presidential term limits and greatly expand his socialist project. But his nemesis in that plebiscite wasn't Venezuela's feckless political opposition. It was a broad and unexpected university-student movement that took to the streets, mobilized the victorious "no" vote and flummoxed...
...national park. (The students insist the fire was started by a police tear-gas canister, and that police had planted homemade bombs in one of their trucks.) "They want to provoke us onto the road of violence," Chávez told a crowd of supporters in western Venezuela this week, suggesting the students are "desperate" to have martyrs...
...students say such incidents are evidence of a larger Chávez failing - the seemingly intractable violent crime plaguing Venezuela today. It's a large reason, they argue, that presidential term limits should remain in place. (Under the present constitution, Chávez's second and final term ends in 2013.) Chávez and his backers insist that he's the only one who can ultimately tackle such crises given how ineffective the opposition is and may yet be for a while...
...latter is true, Chávez's counterattack may have a silver lining for his foes, if not for Venezuela's democracy. Because the opposition relies too much on the students to carry its political water, their diminution could force those parties to become more viable political opponents with real alternative platforms. Like the students, Venezuela's opposition eventually has to grow...
...barrels a day out of circulation. That number is in dispute. It may be smaller. But, the fact of the matter is that some of the organization's members probably did not follow the rules and cut as fast or deep as had been planned. Nations including Iran and Venezuela may need the capital too much to drop the number of barrels that they export...