Facts about Hugo Chavez

Marisabel Rodriguez stands next to her husband, Hugo Chavez, as he is sworn in as president in 2000.Marisabel Rodriguez, an attractive blonde former television anchor, is one of the president's fiercest critics

coca use
reuters: Jan 26, 2008 :Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez switched from coffee to another stimulant during a speech on Saturday -- he popped a coca leaf into his mouth and chewed it while defending the use of the plant.
"Capitalism and international mafias have converted (it) into cocaine, but coca is not cocaine," he said.

teetotaler
The New York Times: Chávez, a teetotaler, appears to have touched a nerve with the ban on alcohol sales, which initially confused many people and caught them off guard.

Shut up, Spain's king tells Chavez



bbc news:Spain's King Juan Carlos told Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez to "shut up" as the Ibero-American summit drew to a close in Santiago, Chile.



Hugo Chavez has condemned doctors who 'convince some women that if they don't have some big bosoms, they should feel bad'.The Daily Telegraph

Nepotism

The Guardian Chávez's father ruled as governor for a decade until handing over to the president's brother, Adán, in an election marred by fraud allegations. Other brothers are also thriving: Aníbal is mayor of nearby Sabaneta; Adelis is a top banker at Banco Sofitasa, which enjoys government contracts; Argenis wields enormous clout as a political fixer; Narciso is reportedly planning his own election run.

Members of what is dubbed the "royal family" travel in convoys of 4x4s. The president's once-matronly mother, Elena, has had a makeover with plastic surgery, designer clothes, bling jewellery and a poodle named Coqui.


Michael Moore

The New York Times:Michael Moore, the filmmaker who is a bête noire of conservatives in the United States, now appears to have made some enemies among the leftist supporters of President Hugo Chávez.
During a recent appearance on ABC’s late-night program “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Mr. Moore gave an account — apparently tongue in cheek — of how he drank a bottle-and-a-half of tequila with Mr. Chávez at the Venice Film Festival in September, and how he mistook Venezuela’s burly foreign minister, Nicolás Maduro, for a bodyguard.
Those comments have created an uproar here among some of Mr. Chávez’s loyal supporters, known as Chavistas.

Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad
reuters:In 2004, Libya awarded its annual Gaddafi International Human Rights Prize to Chavez for resisting "imperialism" and being a champion of the poor.

* In 2006, Libya named a new 11,000-seater soccer stadium after Chavez near the Mediterranean city of Benghazi.

After the meeting on Venezuela's Caribbean resort island of Margarita, Chavez presented Gaddafi with a replica of a sword of South American independence hero Simon Bolivar.

bbc news 26 April 2011:On Monday, President Chavez expressed his support for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, blaming "terrorists" for the protests in the town of Deraa.

The protests have been met with deadly force by the Syrian security forces.

Syrian human rights organisation Sawasiah says more than 400 civilians have been shot dead in the government's campaign to crush the month-long pro-democracy protests

Venezuela's Chavez funding Glover film

variety: The president's year-old state-sponsored studio complex Villa del Cine will funnel $18 million into "Toussaint," the pet project of thesp-activist Danny Glover, who plans to co-produce as well as make it his feature directing debut.

"Eighteen million could fund five years of local cinema in Venezuela," said helmer Jose Novoa ("Sicario"). "And the film's not even about Venezuela."

"With so much poverty in our country, I can't deny that it infuriates and hurts me deeply," said "Secuestro Express" writer-helmer Jonathan Jakubowicz of Chavez's film foray.

Hugo Chávez claims videogames are 'poison

The GuardianHugo Chávez:"Those games they call 'PlayStation' are poison. Some games teach you to kill. They once put my face on a game; 'you've got to find Chávez to kill him.'"

Chavez calls for ban on Halloween
BBC NEWS :Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has urged families not to mark Halloween, calling it a US custom alien to the South American nation.

Hugo Chavez bans singing in the bath

The Daily Telegraph :It’s official: baths and jacuzzis are anti-socialist. Not for nothing do their opponents describe the proletariat as the great unwashed. That worthy heir to Kadar and Ulbricht, successor to the great Fidel as liberator of Latin America, Hugo Chavez the President of Venezuela has written a new chapter in the Marxist canon. Henceforth, nobody is to sing in the bath or the shower, since it is a distraction from the basic business of washing, and no more than three minutes is to be spent in the shower.

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez defends 'Carlos the Jackal'

bbc news:Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has defended jailed killer "Carlos the Jackal" and several world leaders he says are wrongly considered "bad guys"