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CARACAS: President Hugo Chávez, buffeted by falling oil prices that threaten to damage his efforts to establish a Socialist-inspired state, is quietly courting Western oil companies once again.

Until recently, Chávez had pushed foreign oil companies here into a corner by nationalizing their oil fields, raiding their offices with tax authorities and imposing a series of royalties increases.

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But Venezuela may have little choice but to form new ventures with foreign oil companies. Nationalizations in other sectors, like agriculture and steel manufacturing, are fueling capital flight, leaving Venezuela reliant on oil for about 93 percent of its export revenue in 2008, up from 69 percent in 1998 when Chávez was first elected. In the past year, with higher oil prices paving the way, Chávez also vastly expanded Petróleos de Venezuela's power, inextricably linking it to his political program. He directed the oil company to build roads, import and distribute food, build docks and shipyards and set up a light-bulb factory. He even expanded it into areas like milk production, soybean farming and the training of athletes after a weak performance at the Beijing Olympics.

One of the oil company's ventures sells subsidized food and extols Chávez's leadership at its stores across Venezuela. At one frenzied store in eastern Caracas, posters hung from the ceiling last Saturday showing Chávez arm in arm with children beneath the heading, "fortifying agrarian socialism."

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"Chávez is celebrating the demise of capitalism as this international crisis unfolds," said Pedro Mario Burelli, a former board member of Petróleos de Venezuela. "But the irony is that capitalism actually fed his system in times of plenty," he said. "That is something Chávez will discover the hard way."

(Full article here).

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ORIGINAL: kittinSol

Funny, I thought Venezuela was in the West  .

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ORIGINAL: Sanity

He had kicked out Western companies, kitten. And he was courting the Chinese, etc.

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ORIGINAL: kittinSol

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ORIGINAL: Sanity

He had kicked out Western companies, kitten. And he was courting the Chinese, etc.

The audacity of the man!!!

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ORIGINAL: Sanity

You can't write comedy that's this good!