Venezuela

• Monday, April 1st 2013 - 09:55 UTC

  Venezuela auctions dollars; value is estimated at double the official rate

  

  Venezuelan government foreign currency auction for local importers has triggered de-facto currency devaluation, the second in less than 50 days, analysts said. Venezuela has had strict currency exchange controls since 2003 in an attempt to halt capital flight, under which the government sold limited amounts of foreign currency at an official rate.

• Thursday, March 21st 2013 - 06:36 UTC

  Capriles says that with the devaluations Maduro is destroying the 14 years of Chavez achievement

  

  Venezuelan opposition candidate Henrique Capriles claimed that acting president Nicolas Maduro with his latest decision approving a new devaluation of the local currency Bolivar is destroying the country, and he is achieving it in the hundred days he has been running the government.

• Thursday, March 21st 2013 - 06:30 UTC

  Venezuela plays the ‘US interference card’ suspends dialogue with Washington

  

  The Venezuelan government said on Wednesday it has suspended a “channel of communications” with Washington as it escalates tension and polarizes public opinion ahead of elections to replace the late president Hugo Chavez.

• Wednesday, March 20th 2013 - 07:46 UTC

  Venezuelan presidential candidate Capriles pledges “not another drop of oil to Cuba”

  

  Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate on Monday vowed to end the OPEC nation's shipments of subsidized oil to the Castro brothers regime in Cuba, slamming acting President as a puppet of Havana.

• Saturday, March 16th 2013 - 07:41 UTC

  Millions turned out in Caracas for the final farewell to Hugo Chavez

  

  Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets of Caracas on Friday to bid a final farewell to late president Hugo Chavez a month before elections to pick his successor.

• Tuesday, March 12th 2013 - 07:46 UTC

  “I’m not Chavez, but I’m his son” Maduro tells his followers

  

  “I’m not (Hugo) Chavez, but I’m his son”, Venezuelan acting president Nicolas Maduro said on Monday on making official his candidacy before the Electoral Tribunal for the April 14 snap election to choose a successor to the deceased charismatic leader.

• Tuesday, March 12th 2013 - 00:12 UTC

  ”Absolute confidence” of the Cuban regime in Nicolas Maduro

  

  President Raul Castro expressed “absolute confidence” in Hugo Chavez's successors, after returning from the populist leader's funeral in Caracas, the Cuban press reported Sunday.

• Tuesday, March 12th 2013 - 00:04 UTC

  Chavez, the best friend of the Cuban people in their history, says Fidel Castro

  

  Cuba's Fidel Castro praised the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as a champion of the poor and said Cubans had lost their best friend ever, in his first comments on the death last week of his socialist ally. Castro said the news, although not unexpected, had been a hard blow.

• Monday, March 11th 2013 - 22:59 UTC

  “Chavism” (like Argentina’s Peronism) for a long time to come, forecasts Mujica

  

  Uruguayan president Jose Mujica compared the future of Chavism in Venezuela with that of the Argentine Justicialista Party, which had in Juan Domingo Peron and his wife Evita Peron their maximum leaders (and caudillos), and even today in the almost hegemonic political movement in Argentina.

• Monday, March 11th 2013 - 05:37 UTC

  Brazil pledges support for Venezuelan transition but takes distance from Chavez populism

  

  By leaving Venezuela before Friday’s funeral ceremony for leader Hugo Chávez, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was once again trying to chart out a more moderate signal to investors and diplomats, plus probably avoiding Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whom contrary to her predecessor Lula da Silva, she has strongly criticized.