Chavez is getting stronger as an unintended consequence of war and globalization, said Harvard Professor of Latin American history Kenneth Maxwell. In the last five weeks candidates leaning more to President Chavez and Fidel Castro than President Bush were elected to head the governments of Brazil, Ecuador, and Nicaragua; and before that Chavez favorite Nestor Kirchner, twice jailed by the military dictatorship, was elected in Argentina. The political thinking of Chavez thanks to NAFTA, the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan is gaining adherents. Earlier this year Juan Evo Morales Ayma was elected Bolivia's first indigenous president, so the role of people of color also is rising in the Americas.

The role of people of color is rising in the Americas.

Many who approve Chavez's policies and even applaud his confrontational approach to President Bush wince at his rash rhetoric and find as ominous his description of Cuba's one-party system as a revolutionary democracy. In his September address to United Nations General Assembly, the day after Bush spoke, Chavez famously said ?the Devil came here yesterday and it smells of sulfur today.Harping on his provocative metaphor the U.S. media were able to bury his illuminating talk under acerbic headlines and dismissive comments. The mildest media criticism was he had failed to show proper deference or common courtesy to his host country's titular head. Few media sources acknowledged that his speech won occasional applause, and some delegates even smiled or laughed at his anti-Bush jibes. When asked, Rafael Correa of Ecuador called Chavez's comment an "insult to the devil." Correa had earlier called Bush a dimwit but after he was elected President of Ecuador, Bush called to congratulate him.

The mainstream media failed to mention Chavez's public assertion that through CIA agents, secret funds, and connections to rich Venezuelans, Bush sponsored plots to have him removed from office, including by assassination. Chavez has chosen to deal with this danger with increased security and brash metaphors.

The Bush administration has long reacted to Chavez with sputtering fury. Yet today the President of Venezuela sits more comfortably than ever atop a fourth of the world oil supplies equal to that of Iraq. Venezuela supplies a fifth of US oil needs, and continues to be Chavez's leading customer.

The State Department has cast Chavez as a tyrant in the class of Saddam Hussein, or a Marxist, or a ferociously anti-American clone of Castro. Lately, the characterization has been downgraded to populist intended as a sharp criticism. Actually, his Bolivarian revolution springs from multicultural grass roots that pre-date the foreign invasion of the Americas that began in 1492, centuries before Karl Marx, Castro, Hussein or populism.

The Chavez Bolivarian revolution springs from multicultural grass roots that pre-date the foreign invasion of the Americas that began in 1492.

Like four-fifths of Venezuelans today, Chavez was born of poor Black and Indian parents. Since the days of Columbus, descendants of the Spanish conquerors have claimed the privilege of governing Latin America. They have effectively barred Indigenous people from high office. Chavez stands as a direct challenge to white domination of South American governments.

Chavez is not only proud of his biracial legacy, but has been using oil revenues to help the poor of all colors improve their education and economic standing. He also has flatly rejected Bush administration efforts to isolate Cuba, counts Castro a friend, and has repeatedly accused the U.S. of meddling in his country, in Cuba and around the world. He has pointed to the history of interventions by the United State that began with the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. Latin Americans, particularly those of his economic and racial background, are increasingly walking to polling booths to register their view throughout Latin America.

Chavez rules a country where three percent of the population, mostly of white European descent, own 77% of the land. In recent decades millions of hungry peasants have drifted into Caracas and other cities, to live in barrios of cardboard shacks and open sewers. Chavez wants to reverse poverty, provide jobs, provide education and health care, and redistribute vacant lands. He has begun to transfer fields from giant unused or abandoned haciendas to peasant hands, and though landlords have responded with alarm, he has promised further distributions.

Chavez wants to reverse poverty, provide jobs, provide education and health care, and redistribute vacant lands.

Chavez's ?21st century socialism has repeatedly held out an olive branch to its capitalist foes, and keeps an open-market system. Though foreign oil companies continue to pull in large profits, he does insist corporations pay back taxes and higher royalties. Once they walked away with about 84% of Venezuela's oil profits, but he has demanded 30% of those profits. Banks and credit card companies report large increases in deposits and loans.

At this moment with oil prices booming and accounting for 47% of government revenues and 80% of exports everyone in the country is doing well, including his wealthy adversaries. The stock market has risen 130% this year, and the economy is soaring over 10%, the highest growth rate in the Americas. Chavez has stated, "All this stuff about Chavez and his hordes coming to sweep away the rich, it's a lie. We have no plan to hurt you. All your rights are guaranteed, you who have large properties or luxury farms or cars."

But the most dramatic beneficiaries of ?21st century socialism are the poor. Three million people have enrolled in one of the government's four free educational missions that offer [1] basic literacy, [2] primary school education, [3] high school equivalency and [4] university education. The number of households in poverty dropped from 42.8% in 1999 when Chavez came to office, to 33.9% in 2006. During the same period households that suffered extreme poverty dropped from 17.1% to 10.6%. The official unemployment figure had been more than cut in half, and the poorest 25% of people has seen their consumption rate more than double.

The poorest 25% of people have seen their consumption rate more than double.

Chavez has brought education to almost a million children who never sat in a classroom. And with 10,000 Cuban doctors, sent by Fidel Castro, he has opened 11,000 medical clinics primarily in barrios. To Venezuelans, President Chavez believes in payback.

In 1998 and 2000 Chavez won the Presidency by majorities Republicans and Democrats here dream about. In 2002 he defeated a two-day coup attempt engineered by the local elite in alliance with the US, and in the recent recall vote, 90% of voters turned out to keep him in office. Chavez's strength rests with his poorest citizens. It is also evident that many of his constituents have mobilized behind a broader agenda than his, one stressing participatory democracy and elevating the status of women. At this point, President Chavez does not see this popular movement he unleashed as a threat, and may try to lead it.

Chavez also announced a program called Petrocaribe to provide inexpensive oil to small Caribbean and Caricom countries, and the larger Antillas such as Cuba, Jamaica, and Dominican Republic. He also expanded this plan to bring affordable heating oil to the poor in U.S. cities such as Chicago, New York and Boston. When he tried to provide humanitarian relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina the White House flatly rejected his offer and called it a publicity stunt that insulted the government's ability to help its citizens.

?Simon Bolivar, Founding Father of South America's Revolution and the first elected President of Venezuela was also of African and Indian lineage.

Over the centuries South Americans have endured a crop of caudillos, or military dictators. Many began sounding a radical note only to be overthrown by the CIA or other foreign forces. Some remained in power by shifting their policies after visiting the American ambassador's residence in Caracas.

This former paratrooper seems to spring from a time when Africans and Indians armed and united to fight the first European invasion. For inspiration Chavez can reach back to the misty dawn of the foreign landings when heroic Black and African men and women rose to battle invading armies and their Christian missionaries. In 1819 Simon Bolivar, also of African and Indian lineage and the Founding Father of South America's Revolution, became the first elected President of Venezuela. Vicente Guerrero, an illiterate Black Indian guerilla General during the Mexican Revolution, took his army into the Sierra Madre mountains where he trained them to wrest their country from Spain's colonialism and also taught himself to read and write. Mexico's ruling white elite mocked his lack of education and called him a ?triple-blooded outsider.? But in 1829 after Guerrero came down from his mountain refuge, he became President of Mexico, the first Black Indian head of state. Guerrero wrote Mexico's constitution, emancipated its slaves, ended racial discrimination and abolished the death penalty.

His foes in Venezuela also consider Chavez a racial outsider, but the faces of millions of his supporters refute the charge, and his message continues to triumph at the polls. He seems to relish his role as Latin America's chief antagonist to the Bush administration. Many believe his audacity instills courage and provides cover for Latin American leaders who have the audacity to challenge the giant to the north.

Chavez's foes in Venezuela consider Chavez a racial outsider.

Time will tell if Chavez's programs and supporters can protect him from the machinations of his wealthy Venezuelan foes and their powerful U.S. allies. Ordinary Venezuelans have initiated their own revolution, and though at this point it undergirds Chavez's political and economic strength, it may take new directions.

Hugo Chavez and his people, historically poor and oppressed, are attempting to write an exciting chapter in the heroic record crafted originally by millions of unknown African and Indian people in the Americas, and continued by Simon Bolivar and Vicente Guerrero.

William Loren Katz is the author of forty books, including Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage [Atheneum, New York] now in a new edition celebrating its 20th year. His Black Indian website is: WILLIAMLKATZ.COM.

Speaking at the ordinary period of sessions of that legislative body, Alarcon honored 90 deputies that have been interruptedly chosen by their territories during 30 years of People s Power.

He noted that the island has a young and fully Cuban government that strives for building, defending and perfecting a new and fair society.

The official added that Cuba keeps fighting against a huge campaign of lies, subversion, armed attacks and terrorists amid the longest systematic and cruelest economic war ever known.

After his speech, the parliament plenary session approved todays agenda that includes the report on 2007 economic guidelines and the approval of the budget for the next year.

For the president-elect, aerial glyphosate fumigations is an aggressive act against his people.

Such attitude was buttressed by incumbent Ecuadorian President Alfredo Palacio, who also refused to meet with his Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe in Quito while sprayings continued.

According to Palacio, there are studies confirming the harmful effects of that herbicide on humans, plants and animals.

Proposals are underway for an encounter among scientists from Colombia, Ecuador and other nations to analyze the effects of glyphosate, provided that aerial irrigations along the common border stop.

Aside from Blankfein, 11 other Goldman Sachs executives will be given a total of more than $150 million in bonuses this year. Co-presidents Gary Cohn and Jon Winkelried were awarded $25.7 million in bonuses each. The firm's chief financial officer, David Viniar, received a $19.1 million bonus; Suzanne Nora Johnson, a vice chairman, $15.4 million; John Weinberg, also a vice chairman, $15.1 million; Chief Administrative Officer Edward Forst, $16.5 million; co-general counsels Gregory Palm and Esta Stecher, $8.96 million and $8.29 million, respectively. Three other company officials received smaller amounts.

Blankfein's compensation tops the $40 million bonus that Morgan Stanley announced last week it was paying to CEO John Mack, the previous record for a Wall Street chief executive. Lehman Brothers recently disclosed that it would pay its chairman and chief executive, Richard Fuld, $189 million over ten years; he was also awarded $11 million in options this week.

Blankfein was eligible to make $87 million, under a new compensation plan for Goldman Sachs' top 25 executives. According to the agreed-upon formula, the management committee may pay as much as 0.6 percent of pretax earnings to each of the top company officials.

Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post commented, "Add it all up, and for 25 souls that works out to 15 percent of the profits of a firm with 26,400 other employees and millions of shareholders."

Shareholders approved the plan in March 2006, which also eliminated a $35 million maximum on bonuses in cash and restricted stock.

Goldman Sachs, as previously reported, is paying out $16.5 billion in bonuses this year, another record. Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns have indicated they will each pay out some $12 billion in compensation. The five largest US securities firms-Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch-are distributing $36 billion in bonuses this year. In New York City alone, the state comptroller, Alan Hevesi, forecast that the securities industry would hand out $23.9 billion in bonuses, an increase of 17 percent over last year.

That figure is greater than the 2005 Gross Domestic Product of 104 individual countries, according to International Monetary Fund figures, including Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Costa Rica, Kenya, Uruguay, Latvia, Yemen, Tanzania, Ghana, Bolivia and Senegal.

Business Day noted December 21, "As high as Blankfein's pay is, it does not come close to the compensation levels at the pinnacle of the hedge fund industry. Each of the 10 highest-paid hedge fund managers made more than $200 million last year, according to a report in May by Alpha magazine."

Numerous commentators in the business press, financial analysts and pro-"free market" web sites hailed the massive handouts.

"That is the right amount," Jeanne Branthover of Boyden Executive Search in New York told Business Day. "Clearly, these numbers are big, but they could be bigger. This is something that's record-breaking, but any more than this might be questionable."

"Because investment banking is so strong right now we're seeing very large paydays across Wall Street, and of course very large paychecks for those at the top of the firms," James Ellman, president of Seacliff Capital in San Francisco, told the press. "If the heads of the companies are generating very strong share performance, then investors really shouldn't have much to complain about."

"We work very hard here," said Peter Rose, a Goldman spokesman cited in the Boston Globe. "The reason for our success comes from our people, and we want to reward them." Rose told the newspaper an employee's earnings are "determined by the overall performance of the firm; the performance of the department an employee works for; and individual performance."

The top traders at Goldman Sachs, wrote Henry Blodgett in a New York Times op-ed piece published December 20, "reportedly made $17,000 to $33,000 an hour." (Emphasis added.)

Public outrage over the figures has prompted a number of newspaper columnists and even television broadcasters to issue words of caution. The headline of Pearlstein's article in the Post reads, "Wall Street's Season of Excess."

David Weidner at MarketWatch entitled his piece, "Make No Mistake, Pay is Out of Control: This year's bonuses cast harsh light on an inequitable system." Weidner wrote, "There is a growing sense that things have gone too far. Pay is out of control. The 'shame' factor of new disclosure rules was supposed to help curtail unseemly rewards. Now it seems to refer to the shame of having another CEO beat your bonus by a million or two . . .

"Compare the average [Wall Street] bonus to the real median US household income of $46,326. Keep in mind that's a full year's income. Between 2004 and 2005 the median income grew 1.1 percent. Even in the Northeast where wages are generally higher, the median income for a family of four was $50,992, according to the Census Bureau. To put it into more relative terms, Lloyd Blankfein could comfortably support 1,059 families of four, or 4,236 people, for a year with his bonus. The $16.5 billion Goldman Sachs investment pool could support 323,580 families, or 1.29 million people."

On the December 16 "Nightly News," NBC anchor John Seigenthaler noted: "Most US businesses-66 percent-give no bonuses at all. Those employees lucky enough to receive a cash gift will get an average of $837. Compare that to the bonuses Goldman Sachs gives out, a jackpot so big they could give every employee more than $600,000."

On the same program, correspondent Mike Taibbi, after interviewing a worker who was living "paycheck by paycheck just to pay for mortgages, gas, electric, everything," commented, "Working Americans now pay more of their pension and health care costs, and food, fuel and service costs have risen faster than most salaries. That means even those who do get small bonuses still struggle."

The handful of skeptics was more than drowned out by the sheer number of jubilant voices thick with greed and self-satisfaction. In the words of one Internet commentator, "Main Street should always be merry when Wall Street is doing well."

As for the idea that the bonuses will help "grow" the economy, an approving comment by Peter Cohan at bloggingstocks.com gives some indication of the productive uses to which the billions in bonus money are put to use. Cohan writes, "Here are some more specific examples of how those bonuses are being spent:

"A $50,000-plus ring will soon adorn a Wall Street wife's hand featuring two canary diamonds, yellow stones that are among the rarest available;

"A New York real estate magnate wants a charter for June or July off Italy's Amalfi Coast for as many as a dozen of his family and friends, at a cost of about $175,000 per week for the boat and crew;

"Marquis Jet Partners has sold more than 100 jet gift cards in the past month-at $185,000 a pop. One Wall Street executive bought six, one each for his wife and five kids. [Marquis sells 25-hour chunks of flying time on NetJets, the operator of private planes owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.];

"A New York beauty salon gets three calls daily for makeovers, at $10,000 to $20,000 each;

"A Fifth Avenue plastic surgeon says he gets about 20 requests a year for plastic surgery or Botox anti-wrinkle treatments as gifts; and

"One woman specifically asked for a $20,000 face lift as a gift from her husband this year, instead of clothing or jewelry."

The former spy's wife, Marina, and seven members of staff at the Millennium Hotel's bar had tested positive. However, one of the hotel workers was later found to have normal radiation levels.

On his deathbed, Litvinenko blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for involvement in his poisoning - an allegation that the Kremlin denied.
On Tuesday, British investigators completed more than two weeks of work in Russia investigating the death. Scotland Yard investigators "were shown complete and all-around assistance," the Russian Prosecutor General's office said.

The British investigators were not allowed to question witnesses themselves but observed as Russian investigators conducted questioning.

It was not immediately clear when the investigators, who arrived in Moscow on Dec. 4, would return to Britain. The British Embassy had no immediate comment.

A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, brushed aside reports that Scotland Yard investigators were unhappy with how the Russians handled the investigation and said Russian prosecutors were not aware if the British were dissatisfied.

"British investigators were provided all opportunities to meet and to interrogate those witnesses whom they wanted to interrogate connected with this," he said.

Britain is also seeking French help in questioning a Russian living in the French Alps who has been linked to the case, judicial officials said Tuesday.

Yevgeny Limarev is expected to be questioned by a French magistrate, with British officials in attendance, officials said. It was not immediately clear when the questioning would take place.

British media have described Limarev as a KGB defector, although he has disputed that, saying he works as a consultant specializing in Russian politics and security issues. Limarev has also disputed reports that he told Italian security expert Mario Scaramella that Russian security veterans were plotting to kill Litvinenko and other Kremlin critics.

Scaramella met with Litvinenko at a London sushi bar on Nov. 1, the day the former spy fell ill. Reports said Scaramella showed Litvinenko a supposed "hit list" from Limarev at that meeting.

The Russians and British have not given details on who was questioned in Moscow. But Russian news reports said the questioning focused on two Russian businessmen who had also met with Litvinenko in a London hotel on Nov. 1.

One of them was Dmitry Kovtun, who is undergoing treatment for radiation poisoning at a Moscow clinic. The Prosecutor General's office has opened a case of attempted murder in connection with his poisoning. Another who was reportedly questioned repeatedly was businessman Andrei Lugovoi.

German prosecutors are investigating whether Kovtun may have illegally handled radioactive material after authorities found traces of polonium-210 in several locations in Hamburg visited by Kovtun just before he flew to London for the Nov. 1 meeting.

Prosecutors say he may have been a victim or could have been involved in procuring the polonium.

Lugovoi, Kovtun and Vyacheslav Sokolenko, a third Russian businessman who was in London the weekend of Nov. 1, have denied involvement in Litvinenko's death.

Litvinenko once worked for the Federal Security Service, one of the main successor agencies to the KGB. He broke with the FSB in 1998 after he accused his superiors of ordering him to kill Boris Berezovsky, a tycoon who was then a significant behind-the-scenes player in Russian politics.

Litvinenko later fled to Britain, where he was granted citizenship. In 2004, he wrote a book accusing the FSB of orchestrating the bombing of Russian apartment buildings in 1999, allegedly to stir up support for Russia's second war against Chechen separatists.

Before he died, Litvinenko said he suspected he had been poisoned by Kremlin agents who were concerned about his efforts to investigate this year's murder in Moscow of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was a prominent critic of the Kremlin.

"We categorically oppose the deployment of any weapons in space, but this does not mean that space cannot be used in military purposes," Ivanov said at the opening of a radar station in Russia Friday.

Both the United States and Russia use space for military purposes, but it is inadmissible to deploy weapons in space, Ivanov thinks. Deploying weapons there would be fraught with the most negative and unpredictable consequences, he warned.

Russia has implemented aerospace defense strategy in recent years, Ivanov added.

In exchange, Russia will equip the air base in the ex-Soviet nation with modern navigation systems and air defense weapons, Bizhev said.

While falling short of a permanent military presence, the deal offers Russia an opportunity to quickly deploy its forces to the region.

Bizhev also said in the future, Uzbekistan will host the regional headquarters of a unified air defense system for Russia and several other ex-Soviet nations.

Uzbekistan evicted U.S. troops last year and signed a far-reaching alliance treaty with Moscow that opened the way for possible Russian military deployment.

In the past, Uzbekistan's authoritarian President Islam Karimov had reacted coldly to Russia's military cooperation initiatives and sought to cultivate closer ties with the United States and other Western nations, hosting U.S. troops for operations in Afghanistan in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

But Karimov abruptly changed course following Western criticism of the Uzbek authorities' brutal suppression of the May 2005 uprising in the city of Andijan, and forged closer ties with Russia and China.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security grouping dominated by Moscow and Beijing that includes Uzbekistan and three other former Soviet Central Asian nations, urged the United States in 2005 to set a timetable for withdrawing from their bases in the region.

Both the United States and Russia maintain air bases in another ex-Soviet nation, Kyrgzystan. Russia also has a military base in neighboring Tajikistan.

Bizhev said Thursday that Russia was modernizing Tajikistan's air defense headquarters with state-of-the art equipment.