The Putin of Latin America

According to The International Herald Tribune, Venezuelan loud mouth Hugo Chavez will nationalize fuel distribution:

“Distributors, including subsidiaries of British Petroleum, Exxon Mobil and Chevron, had hoped to persuade the government not to seize total control of their businesses.” But they failed to persuade the Vladmir Putin of Latin America, who earlier had nationalized other privately owned companies. “Under Chávez,” the Tribune reports, “the government has nationalized Venezuela's largest telephone, electricity, steel and cement companies and has assumed majority control over four major oil projects.”

Exon Mobile and Chevron are American companies.

It is unknown at this point whether Mayor of New Haven Connecticut John DeStefano will protest the seizure by refusing to accept winter shipments of oil from Chavez distributed through a company run by Joseph Kennedy.

Chris Dodd, Connecticut’s expert on Lain America, has offered no diplomatic suggestions that might temper Chavez’s Cuban inspired ideas.

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