Word: vez
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...near record economic growth, and they are driving up domestic oil demand: almost 500,000 new cars are expected to be sold this year. (Why not, with gas at 12˘ a gal.?) But the bolívar is sharply overvalued, inflation is the highest in Latin America, and even Chávez fears that his "21st century socialists" are living like capitalist nouveaux riches, the so-called boli-bourgeoisie...
Venezuela is counting on the state-run oil companies of allies like China to replace Western oil outfits--a prospect that pains Washington, especially since Chávez is ratcheting up oil exports to China to reduce dependence on the U.S. market. Chavistas argue that if the U.S. is so concerned about global oil supply, it should lean on its own petro-allies--like Mexico and Saudi Arabia--which ban the foreign participation in oil ventures that Venezuela at least still allows. (Oil production in Mexico is also in serious decline...
...Chávez can keep raking in tons of cash without expanding production--even with production declining," says David Mares, an oil-politics expert at the University of California at San Diego. "He's taking advantage of the situation we consumers dropped in his lap." Mares says Chávez has to invest more in his oil industry in the future. Although it also wouldn't hurt if Americans learned to consume less...
...spite of the demonstrations in the streets of Caracas, Hugo Chávez is quite likely to squeak through with a win in this weekend's referendum - legitimately. Nonetheless, critics say he may be morphing into a "democratator" - a democratically elected dictator...
Elections and plebiscites are a sort of a moral Teflon for Chávez against charges from enemies like the U.S. that he's another Latin despot. (And he has developed some expertise at them: he has been elected three times and beat back a recall referendum in 2004.) But despite Chávez's claims that he's forging "a more genuine democracy" that finally enfranchises the nation's majority poor, Venezuela hardly looks poised to become a showcase for the separation of powers. The National Assembly and Supreme Court are Chávez's virtual rubber stamps; and, while free speech...