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08/15/2004:

"Chavez: Despot or champion of the poor?"

Once in office Chavez used his country's membership of OPEC to push for a boost in world oil prices in order to garner revenues to pay for social programmes. In doing so, he signalled his country would no longer be beholden to the US. Then there was the America-baiting. He enraged the US by making official visits to Libya and Iraq, hobnobbing with Cuba's Fidel Castro, and floating the idea of fixing oil prices in euros instead of dollars. The US, which is heavily dependent on Venezuelan oil, was not amused.

Full Article : aljazeera.net