Word: vez
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...more - which is good news for the sport's promoters. The trouble, however, is that they have only one Manny Pacquiao to go around. The roster of exciting talent is thin. The two matches before the main event in Vegas had interesting names in them (Julio Cesar Chávez Jr., son of the famous Mexican fighter, was one; Yuri Foreman, a Belarussian-born Israeli boxer now living in Brooklyn, N.Y., was another), but they were anemic - and not just in comparison to the electric battle between Cotto and Pacquiao. For now, the Filipino fighter says he is going...
...failing that could simply continue the kind of inequality that has fueled civil wars in Colombia for centuries. "The economic growth statistics published in the media are one thing," says Patricia Yañez, a sociologist at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas who studies Chávez's anti-poverty programs. Colombia's migratory data "suggest something different." Venezuelan state television has even been rolling out Colombian expatriates to praise Chávez's social programs and support him in his spat with Uribe over Colombia's recent decision to let U.S. troops use Colombian military bases. (Read...
Still, Venezuela's own migratory numbers suggest a different story than the one Chávez's "21st century socialism" promotes. While tens of thousands of poor Colombians might be flocking to Venezuela, just as many middle-class Venezuelans are leaving. A report by the Latin American & Caribbean Economic System, a multi-lateral organization based in Caracas, finds that from 1990 to 2007, Venezuelan emigration to developed countries rose 216%. Erick Castro, a Caracas-born engineer, left for Canada last month thanks in large part to the Venezuelan capital's out-of-control violent crime, 30% annual inflation and what...
Castro believes that Chávez's oil-fueled Bolivarian revolution (named for 19th century South American independence hero Simón Bolívar) discriminates against the middle class. When he recently applied for a mortgage to buy a new house in a safer neighborhood, he says he was offered an exorbitant interest rate, set largely by the government, because of his economic status. "I came out with the impression that they give priority to the lower strata," he says. It's admirable to boost the poor, who before Chávez were largely ignored by Venezuela...
...usual in the constant duels between Chávez and Uribe, the truth lies somewhere between their left-right bluster. Both could stand to listen more to their countrymen who have voted with their feet. "I want to die in my country," says Fredys Villanueva, but not if he first can't find a job and affordable health care under Uribe. At the same time, says Castro, Chávez's "Robin Hood-type" government and its promotion of "social resentment" threaten to keep alienating a large swath of his country. As things are, however, it's doubtful that such...