Latin America: Week in Review, Venezuela
Venezuela’s Chávez Plans For 2012 Re-election Bid
July 25, 2011 By Staff
Top Story — In a newspaper interview published on Sunday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said that he will seek another six year term as president of the Andean nation despite his recent battle with cancer. Chávez returned Saturday from Cuba where he received chemotherapy for an unspecified cancerous tumor with the Venezuelan leader saying that no malignant cells were found and that he was arriving home in better health than when he left. In last September’s parliamentary elections, Chávez’s opponents gained crucial victories and have recently used his illness to cast doubt on his ability to rule the OPEC nation of 29 million people. However, Chávez pushed aside those rumors during the interview, claiming that he is fully capable of running the government. “I have medical reasons, scientific reasons, human reasons, reasons of love and political reasons to keep myself at the front of the government and the candidacy with more force than before,” Chávez said.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- Gunmen in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey killed two state police officers who had worked for several years as guards escorting diplomats around the city.
- Over 1000 people were arrested over the weekend in a sting targeting human trafficking operations in northern Mexico.
Caribbean
- The U.S. aid contractor sentenced to 15 years in a Cuban prison after he was caught distributing communications gear on the Communist island testified on Friday at an appeal hearing before Cuba’s supreme court, which is expected to issue its ruling in the coming days.
- Rep. David Rivera (R-FL) became the second congressman to submit an amendment that would reverse President Obama’s loosening of travel restrictions to Cuba.
- Haitian healthcare officials say they’re getting more than 1,000 new cases of cholera daily with the return of the rainy season.
Central America
- Canadian immigration officials arrested a 44-year-old Honduran man for alleged war crimes in the Central American nation.
- A mudslide caused by a mudslide in an indigenous village in western Guatemala killed one person over the weekend.
- El Salvador’s congress approved a ban on smoking in the country, overriding a veto by President Mauricio Funes.
Andes
- Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa threatened Saturday to expel Inter American Press Association chief Gonzalo Marroquín for calling him a “dictator” on his visit to the country.
- Peruvian President-elect, Ollanta Humala, aims to keep economic growth rates above 6 percent and reduce poverty by reforming social programs, the incoming finance minister said on Saturday.
- Three miners died from lack of oxygen early this weekend at a coal mine in the same remote area in northeastern Colombia where two other miners died two days earlier, the Ingeominas national mining industry regulatory agency said.
Southern Cone
- Uruguay’s national soccer team defeated Paraguay 3-0 on Sunday to win its record fifteenth Copa America title, the team’s first since 1995.
- A strike at Chile’s Escondida copper mine, the world’s largest, entered its third day on Sunday as other state and private-owned mines threatened to follow suit.
- Heavy rains and flooding have displaced some 20,000 people in southern Brazil, following heavy flooding in the country’s north earlier this week.
- Ash from the Cordon Caulle volcano complex in Chile, which continues to erupt, has hurt Argentina’s tourism, agricultural, and transportation sectors.
Image: Chavezcandanga @ Flickr.
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