Pakistanis angry over detentions in Times Sq. case Monday, May 24, 2010
ISLAMABAD – Relatives of three men detained by Pakistan for alleged links to the suspect in the attempted Times Square bombing say the men are innocent.
They
AFP - Thursday, August 6TAIPEI (AFP) - - Taiwan's Beijing-friendly government on Wednesday denied boycotting an Australian film festival amid a row over the e
BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered a double blow on Thursday as a senior party ally in east German
Minister seeks closure of anti-Berlusconi websites Wednesday, December 16, 2009
ROME (AFP) - – The Italian government moved Tuesday to close down Internet sites encouraging further violence against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who
By ELAINE KURTENBACH,AP Business Writer AP - Wednesday, March 18SHANGHAI - Asia's stock market rally seemed to be running out of steam Wednesday, despite an
Edition:
U.S.
Arabic
Argentina
Brazil
Canada
China
France
Germany
India
Italy
Japan
Latin America
Mexico
Russia
Spain
United Kingdom
Home
Business
Business Home
Economy
Technology
Media
Small Business
Legal
Deals
Earnings
Social Pulse
Business Video
The Freeland File
Aerospace & Defense
Investing Simplified
Markets
Markets Home
U.S. Markets
European Markets
Asian Markets
Global Market Data
Indices
M&A
Stocks
Bonds
Currencies
Commodities
Futures
Funds
peHUB
Dividends
World
World Home
U.S.
Brazil
China
Euro Zone
Japan
Africa
Mexico
Russia
India Insight
World Video
Reuters Investigates
Decoder
Politics
Politics Home
Supreme Court
Politics Video
Tech
Technology Home
MediaFile
Science
Tech Video
Tech Tonic
Social Pulse
Opinion
Opinion Home
Chrystia Freeland
John Lloyd
Felix Salmon
Jack Shafer
David Rohde
Nader Mousavizadeh
Lucy P. Marcus
Nicholas Wapshott
Bethany McLean
Anatole Kaletsky
Zachary Karabell
Edward Hadas
Hugo Dixon
Ian Bremmer
Lawrence Summers
Susan Glasser
The Great Debate
Reihan Salam
Frederick Kempe
Mark Leonard
Steven Brill
Breakingviews
Equities
Credit
Private Equity
M&A
Macro & Markets
Politics
Breakingviews Video
Money
Money Home
Tax Break
Lipper Awards 2012
Global Investing
MuniLand
Unstructured Finance
Linda Stern
Mark Miller
John Wasik
James Saft
Analyst Research
Alerts
Watchlist
Portfolio
Stock Screener
Fund Screener
Personal Finance Video
Money Clip
Investing 201
Life
Health
Sports
Arts
Faithworld
Business Traveler
Entertainment
Oddly Enough
Lifestyle Video
Pictures
Pictures Home
Reuters Photographers
Full Focus
Video
Reuters TV
Reuters News
Article
Comments (0)
Full Focus
Editor's Choice
Our best photos from the last 24 hours. Slideshow
Best photos of the year 2012
Download our Wider Image iPad app
Follow Reuters
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
YouTube
Read
Analysis: Boehner has few options in fiscal cliff mess
20 Dec 2012
First major storm of winter pelts Midwest
20 Dec 2012
Boehner abandons fiscal cliff plan as Republicans balk
|
20 Dec 2012
Stock futures drop after Boehner "cliff" vote falls short
|
12:23am EST
NASA posts YouTube video debunking Maya 'Armageddon'
20 Dec 2012
Discussed
123
Republicans put squeeze on Obama in ”fiscal cliff” talks
111
Connecticut gun rampage: 28 dead, including 20 schoolchildren
84
U.S. ”fiscal cliff” talks turn sour, Obama threatens veto
Pictures
Reuters Photojournalism
Our day's top images, in-depth photo essays and offbeat slices of life. See the best of Reuters photography. See more | Photo caption
Prepping for the apocalypse
"Preppers" work to be self-sufficient for threats like nuclear war, natural disaster, famine and economic collapse. Slideshow
Miss Universe pageant
Highlights from the Miss Universe pageant in Las Vegas. Slideshow
Sponsored Links
Analysis: Allies to lose socialist patron if Venezuela's Chavez goes
Tweet
Share this
Email
Print
Related News
Venezuelan official suggests Chavez's inauguration could be delayed
Wed, Dec 19 2012
Chavez "stable" after respiratory infection
Tue, Dec 18 2012
UPDATE 3-Venezuela's Chavez 'stable' after respiratory infection
Tue, Dec 18 2012
"Chavez is life!" - adulation in overdrive on Venezuelan media
Tue, Dec 18 2012
UPDATE 2-Venezuela vote triumph a "present" for sick Chavez
Mon, Dec 17 2012
Analysis & Opinion
Why Chavez keeps his cancer under wraps
What to watch in 2013 world news
Related Topics
World »
A supporter of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez holds a picture of him, as she attends a ceremony to pray for his health in Caracas December 20, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
By Andrew Cawthorne
CARACAS |
Fri Dec 21, 2012 1:05am EST
CARACAS (Reuters) - Murals adorning a Caracas slum that has given militant backing to President Hugo Chavez over the years are a virtual pantheon of international radicals.
From Colombia's FARC guerrillas to the Palestine Liberation Organization and Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the images and slogans on teeming slopes above Chavez's presidential palace hail socialist revolutionaries the world over.
Beside them are tributes to Chavez himself - testimony to the Venezuelan leader's bid to place himself at the front of global "anti-imperialism" in his ever-controversial 14-year rule.
Now, though, as Chavez battles cancer in a Cuban hospital, his role as garrulous international activist and rich godfather to fellow leftists around Latin America is under threat.
"All Venezuelan revolutionaries, and all people of good faith around the world, are praying for his recovery," said Greivis Garcia, a 26-year-old mechanic at a vigil for Chavez in the January 23 slum full of revolutionary images.
"We need him so much. And so does the world. But whatever happens, Chavez will live forever, damn it!"
GLOBAL 'PROVOCATEUR'
Should he die or be forced to stand down, faraway friends from Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Belarus's President Alexander Lukashenko and Syria's President Bashar al-Assad would lose a loud and highly visible supporter.
Chavez has provided some concrete help to such allies - skirting Western sanctions to send a few controversial fuel shipments to Tehran and Damascus, and doling out home-building contracts to Chinese and Belarussian companies.
Yet his international role has been mainly symbolic.
From visiting Iraq's Saddam Hussein in 2000 to cheering Libya's Muammar Gaddafi during his final days in 2011; from calling former U.S. leader George W. Bush "the devil" to hailing the veteran Marxist militant known as Carlos the Jackal, Chavez has never lost an opportunity to goad and shock the West, and the United States in particular.
"Venezuela used to be known only for two things: oil and beautiful women. Now, it is famous the world over for just one: Chavez," said a senior Western diplomat in Caracas.
"He has deliberately courted controversy from day one. It is hard to imagine that booming voice falling silent."
Chavez has influenced some election campaigns around Latin America in recent years by showing support for leftist candidates and making clear that their victory could bring economic support from his government
Unlike former Cuban leader Fidel Castro during the Cold War, however, Chavez has not committed troops to foreign wars or helped train Marxist guerrillas to fight right-wing governments in their home countries.
He does not have a nuclear weapons program and he has continued to sell oil to the United States even when fiercely criticizing its policies.
In geopolitical terms, he is much more a man of rhetoric than of action.
The quietening of Chavez's voice might be a relief to Washington and local foes who see him as an embarrassing friend of dictators. But to many, especially round the Third World, he is admired - a bit like Castro - for standing up to U.S. power and daring to say what plenty of others thought.
Chavez is due to start a new, six-year term on January 10, but he is still fighting to recover from his fourth cancer operation in just 18 months. He has named a preferred successor, Vice President and Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, to be the ruling party's candidate in an election should Chavez be forced out.
There is little sign that Maduro - a former bus driver, union activist and committed socialist who has faithfully echoed his boss's views around the globe for the last six years - would change Venezuela's foreign policies.
Yet without the flamboyant personality of Chavez promoting these policies, the impact would be diminished.
Under the many speculative scenarios - from death to a full recovery - one would be that Chavez takes a Castro-like role, leaving day-to-day affairs to Maduro but opining from behind the scenes as an elder statesman.
AID FOR ALLIES
In his Latin American backyard, where Chavez has led a resurgence of the left since his own rise to power in 1999, there is far more at stake from a possible end to his rule.
Around the region, smaller nations whose governments are politically allied with Chavez - from Cuba and the Dominican Republic to Nicaragua, Bolivia and Ecuador - have come to rely on Venezuela's subsidized oil supplies and other economic aid.
Communist-run Cuba, whose economy was tied to the Soviet Union for decades and then, when that nation collapsed, was perilously adrift in the 1990s before Chavez came to power, is particularly dependant.
It receives more than 100,000 barrels per day of crude from Venezuela on preferential terms, covering 60 percent of its energy needs. Last year, Venezuela accounted for $8.3 billion of its $20 billion foreign trade - most of that as payment for more than 40,000 medical staff and other Cuban workers in Venezuela.
While a post-Chavez government led by an acolyte such as Maduro would be unlikely to end such generosity, it might be tempted to roll it back at the edges given that many Venezuelans are not over-enthusiastic at the international solidarity.
Opposition politicians play on that, saying Chavez has scandalously neglected local needs with politically motivated foreign patronage. During the recent presidential election, they showed pictures of a gleaming Venezuelan-sponsored hospital in the Dominican Republic next to a rundown medical ward at home.
So there is little doubt that should the opposition win a new vote triggered by Chavez's departure, the aid would dry up. "We cannot afford these giveaways while Venezuelans still have so many problems," opposition leader Henrique Capriles has said.
Though Chavez is the undisputed head of the ALBA bloc of leftist-led nations in the Caribbean and Latin America, his leadership role has arguably waned given the general preference for Brazil's "soft left" model over his more radical brand.
"His regional and international influence shrank as the Venezuelan economy deteriorated and his seemingly endless energy and vitriol began to fade with his illness," said Peter Hakim, president emeritus of U.S.-based Inter-American Dialogue.
"Chavez's death will not change the broad dynamics of regional affairs, but some things will change. Brazil's predominant role in South America will be reinforced. It will have less reason to compromise with Venezuela or its allies on the continent — and it may even feel freer to criticize Venezuela, whoever ends up in charge."
Speculation is rife over who would inherit Chavez's mantle as the new firebrand on the block. Ecuador's President Rafael Correa seems to be the favorite - but insisted it would be teamwork.
"There are lots of extraordinary leaders in the region," he said. "But careful, let's not kid ourselves. The historic changes in our nations are not because of Rafael Correa, (Argentina's) Cristina Fernandez, (Bolivia's) Evo Morales or Chavez. It's because our people said 'That's enough!'"
To follow us on Twitter: @ReutersVzla
(Additional reporting by Marc Frank in Havana, Alexandra Valencia in Quito, Deborah Charles in Washingon; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Kieran Murray)
World
Tweet this
Link this
Share this
Digg this
Email
Reprints
We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/
Comments (0)
Be the first to comment on reuters.com.
Add yours using the box above.
Edition:
U.S.
Arabic
Argentina
Brazil
Canada
China
France
Germany
India
Italy
Japan
Latin America
Mexico
Russia
Spain
United Kingdom
Back to top
Reuters.com
Business
Markets
World
Politics
Technology
Opinion
Money
Pictures
Videos
Site Index
Legal
Bankruptcy Law
California Legal
New York Legal
Securities Law
Support & Contact
Support
Corrections
Connect with Reuters
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
RSS
Podcast
Newsletters
Mobile
About
Privacy Policy
Terms of Use
AdChoices
Copyright
Our Flagship financial information platform incorporating Reuters Insider
An ultra-low latency infrastructure for electronic trading and data distribution
A connected approach to governance, risk and compliance
Our next generation legal research platform
Our global tax workstation
Thomsonreuters.com
About Thomson Reuters
Investor Relations
Careers
Contact Us
Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.
NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.