Just a few years ago, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez used to taunt the opposition by vowing to stay in power until 2031. But now that the 57-year-old leader is facing another cancer scare, some analysts question his ability to hold onto the presidency through the current election cycle.

Facing a tight reelection against a unified opposition, Chávez had been stepping up his public appearances and relying on his legendary charisma to secure an additional six-year term.

Despite being in power for 13 years, he still enjoys approval ratings of about 50 percent. But the announcement Tuesday that he will be returning to Cuba to have a lesion removed, and that it’s likely cancerous, changes the equation.

While Chávez remains popular, his allies and ministers are often blamed for the nation’s problems, wrote Daniel Kerner, a Latin America analyst with New York-based Eurasia Group. And that makes Chávez’s illness — even if he is healthy enough to campaign — a serious liability.

“A large share of voters would probably be reluctant to elect a president that may not be around to fulfill his mandate, especially given how unpopular figures around Chávez are,” Kerner wrote.

Read more here.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez unloaded on the opposition Wednesday, accusing them of lacking proposals and resorting to mimicry of his administration to gin up their popularity ahead of October’s presidential race. 

His comments, transmitted by the Ministry of Communications, come as government supporters and officials are ramping up their attacks on a newly revitalized opposition. 

“What are your ideas bourgeoisie?” Chávez asked during a televised meeting of the National Assembly. “Be honest bourgeoisie! Don’t come out with stories now to camouflage your anti-nationalist, enemy-of-the-people, anti-Bolivarian message!”

The outburst comes after Henrique Capriles Radonski, the governor of Miranda state, swept an opposition primary on Sunday and became Chávez’s chief rival for the presidency.

Capriles, 39, saw his popularity surge as he vowed to bring Venezuelans back together and reduce ideological tensions. In Wednesday’s speech, Chávez said that former Dictator Juan Vicente Gómez also talked of unity.

The coalition of opposition forces said more than 3 million of Venezuela's 18 million registered voters cast a ballot in Sunday’s open primary. Officials have accused the opposition of exaggerating the figures. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court Tuesday said voter records must be handed over, but the coalition said it is going ahead with plans to destroy the documents to protect voters from government retaliation.

Chávez, 57, has been in power for 13-years and his mix of nationalism and programs for the poor have given him strong approval ratings.

Capriles has told Chávez supporters that they have nothing to fear from his presidency and that he would continue, and even expand, some government programs – as long as they are effective. 
On Wednesday, Chávez accused the opposition of trying to piggyback on his ideas.

“Do you want to look like Chávez bourgeoisie? You should take advantage of Carnival and dress up like a little Chávez,” he said. 

The comments come as state-run television has been stepping up attacks. The La Hojilla talk show, which runs on state television, claims it has police documents that show Capriles was caught int a homosexual act in 2000. The show has also led the charges that the coalition resorted to fraud to drum up voter figures.

The rumble over Venezuela's consulate in Miami continues. On Sunday, President Hugo Chavez insisted that his decision to close the office had to do with the safety of the staff there, and not any desire to hamstring the Feb. 12 opposition primaries. 

If you're unfamiliar with the spat, check out this story. 

"Now that we closed the consulate because of threats to our personnel, they accuse me of trying to sabotage the primary elections and that it's an abuse of the Venezuelans that live in Miami," he said during his Sunday television show. "Now they say we're the ones being abusive."

South Florida exiles are concerned they will have nowhere to cast their ballots as the coalition of opposition groups vote for a single candidate to face-off against Chavez in October. 

Chavez has said that Venezuelan exile groups were threatening the staff - a charge those groups deny. 

But during a US Department of State briefing last week, the spokesmen did acknowledge there had been...something.

Here's the Jan 17 exchange with Deputy Department Spokesman Mark C. Toner

MR. TONER: Well, I mean, obviously we take the security of all foreign missions very, very seriously. This is something, as you’re well aware, that we talk about in terms of other governments around the world, that we ask – urge them to uphold their obligations under the Vienna Conventions. We hold ourselves, obviously, to those same standards. If a Venezuelan official in the U.S. did receive any threats, those threats should be reported to the Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, who also works with relevant law enforcement agencies to take appropriate steps to address them.

Obviously, the --

QUESTION: Have you received any reports of threats?

MR. TONER: Well, I’m – let me finish, Kirit.

QUESTION: Go ahead.

MR. TONER: The decision on how to manage its consulates and how to provide consular services to Venezuelan citizens is ultimately that of the Venezuelan Government. Now specifically to Kirit’s questions, we did previously assist the Venezuelan Consulate in Miami to address some minor security concerns in December, but since then we’ve not received any reports of any new threats against the consulate or its employees, nor any additional requests for security support.

QUESTION: Can you describe what those threats --

MR. TONER: I can’t. I can’t get into the details.

QUESTION: But you described them as minor. I mean, what is minor?

QUESTION: (Off-mike.)

MR. TONER: Not significant.

QUESTION: Thank you.

Hmmm.

Inside South America is on vacation. But over the holidays, I'll be posting some of my favorite photos from the year.

These are some shots I took during several trips to Venezuela.

1) A pic of a Che Guevara lookalike and ardent Chavez supporter who I've spotted at several of the president's rallies.

2) Images of Chavez are everywhere, including this no-smoking sign hanging in a government office.

3) This woman was dusting off a statue of Latin American Liberator Simon Bolivar as part of a street-art festival. The broom seller stumbled across the scene and seemed pretty confused by what was going on. 

4) A kid in Maracaibo uses one of the free Canaima laptops the government is doling out. 

Update: Chavez broke his Twitter silence on Dec. 25, but he still hasn't logged any 2012 Tweets. Hmmm.

Since joining Twitter less than two years ago, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has attracted more than 2.3 million followers. That's more Twitter groupies than any other sitting president except for Barack Obama (11.6 mln), and puts the Venezuelan leader at No. 139 on the global ranking, according to Twitterholic.

He got there by being a compulsive and amusing tweeter. He has posted more than 1,380 times and often breaks news on the site.

But lately, he seems to have lost his love for the format. The last time Chavez posted on his account was Nov. 22, when he announced a price-control law. Over the weekend he visited the new mausoleum of Latin American Liberator Simon Bolivar and today he traveled to the Mercosur meeting in Uruguay. Usually such events would have generated a torrent of tweets. (Chavez followers may recall his live-tweeting of the exhumation of Bolivar's remains last year.)

The only other time Chavez has lapsed into such Twitter silence was from June 4-24, when he was undergoing cancer treatment in Cuba. His current absence in the Twitterverse led to a fresh bout of speculation a few weeks ago that he had had another health scare, but he squelched those rumors with live appearances.

As Chavez heads into a tough presidential race, we'll see if Twitter remains part of his electioneering arsenal.

The FARC's new commander, Jorge "Timochenko" Londoño, issued his first press release over the weekend. Not surprisingly, Timo said the FARC are in no mood to give up and are ready to die for their cause. He also blasted the "immoral" government for celebrating the deaths of previous FARC commanders.

In a rather rambling statement published on the Agencia Bolivariana de Prensa, Timo compared the FARC to Jesus Christ.

"Very few people remember under which Roman emperor Jesus was crucified...But everywhere, he [Jesus] receives the highest respect, because he preferred the ordeal and the cross before renouncing his ideas."

Timochenko took over the FARC after the prior No. 1, Alfono Cano, was killed Nov. 4.

Analysts suspect that Timo spends much of his time on the border of Venezuela and Colombia and often takes refuge in the neighboring country. 

Read about Cano's death here, and about Timochenko here. 

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said the Navy detected a foreign submarine in its waters last Tuesday.

"It escaped because it is much faster than ours," Chavez said in a statement. "Judged by its velocity and size it's a nuclear-propelled submarine."

If that's the case, there are only a few suspects. The United States, Russia, France, India and the UK are the only countries known to have nuclear subs, according to the World Nuclear Organization. Simon Romero, with the New York Times, recently reported that Brazil began building its first nuclear submarine to protect its offshore oil discoveries. But that craft is not expected to be ready by 2016.

Here's the Venezuelan government's full press release:

***

Autoridades venezolanas detectaron submarino que violó aguas territoriales

La Marina venezolana detectó el pasado martes un submarino que violó las aguas territoriales del país informó el Presidente Hugo Chávez. 

"Nuestra flota submarina, que anteriormente no teníamos (…) detectó un submarino en aguas venezolanas - No podemos acusar a nadie. Sospechamos-. Este aparato estaba violando las aguas territoriales venezolanas", afirmó el Mandatario a VTV.

"Se dio a la fuga, fue perseguido, se escapó porque es mucho más rápido que los nuestros. Por la velocidad que adquirió el aparato y el tamaño es un submarino de propulsión nuclear".

El Jefe de Estado aseveró: "estamos investigando. Nuestros marinos y nuestra gente no cayeron en provocaciones. Alertaron e hicieron huir a la nave incursora en aguas territoriales".

"Tenemos unas maniobras de la Marina asegurando la soberanía en nuestras aguas (...) es el papel del Estado: asegurar la soberanía en nuestro cielo y en nuestro territorio. No podemos señalar a nadie", precisó. 

Venezuela says the hunt is on for Wilson Ramos, the Washington Nationals catcher who was kidnapped from his mother's home in Valencia last night. In a press release, Police Commissioner Jose Ramirez said the rookie pitcher was taken by two men in an orange truck at about 7:15 pm.

The Associated Press says Ramos' family has already been contacted. 

Ramos was spending the off-season playing for Venezuela's Aragua Tigers.

Kidnapping is a serious issue in Venezuela and the AP says there were 618 kidnappings in 2009. When I traveled to Caracas  last year, a gentleman was grabbed right in front of my hotel and thrown into a truck. His screams of "Auxilio! Auxilio!" as they sped off still haunt me.

Here's hoping for Ramos' safe return. 

Here's the full release:

Policía venezolana procura el rescate del beisbolista Wilson Ramos

El Cuerpo de Investigaciones Científicas, Penales y Criminalísticas (Cicpc)  inició las investigaciones para hallar a Wilson Ramos, beisbolista secuestrado ayer miércoles en Valencia, capital del estado Carabobo (costa centro-norte), cuando visitaba la casa donde reside su madre.

El comisario José Ramírez, director del Cicpc, informó a Radio Nacional de Venezuela (RNV), que el plagio se produjo al sur de Valencia alrededor de las 7:15 PM, hora local (02H45 GMT), cuando Ramos compartía con familiares y allegados.

La versión preliminar que se maneja del caso es que dos hombres armados ingresaron a la residencia y se llevaron al deportista a bordo de una camioneta color naranja.

Los comisario Marcos Vivas, coordinador de Investigaciones Penales, y Heberto Alfonso, jefe de la División Nacional de Secuestros, en conjunto con comisiones de Antiextorsión y Secuestro de la división del Cicpc en ese estado y la Guardia Nacional Bolivariana se dirigieron al sitio para comenzar las investigaciones de rigor.

Ramos inició el pasado lunes 7 las prácticas con los Tigres de Aragua, equipo con el que milita en el torneo invernal venezolano, para estrenarse posiblemente a mediados de este mes.

El equipo Tigres de Aragua lamentó vía Twitter la noticia del secuestro.

Ramos finalizó la temporada 2011 de las Grandes Ligas estadounidenses con los Nacionales Washington promediando .267 de average de bateo con 22 dobles, 15 cuadrangulares y 52 remolcadas.

***

Latin America has been swamped by hacktivism lately, as groups have attacked government sites in Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Chile and Guatemala among others.

I just wrote this story about the phenomenon.

During Colombia's municipal elections this Sunday, the National Registry - which was reporting the vote tally - says its site was attacked more than 400 million times. Yes, 400,000,000.

There are several factors driving the increase, including the proliferation of computers and online access in the region. (Over the last decade online access has spiked more than 1,000 percent in the region.)

But Nicolas Severino, the director of engineering  in Latin America for Symantec, said another factor driving the surge is the availability of "hacking kits."

Hacking used to be reserved for computer-savvy programmers. Now there are "commercial quality" kits available that make hacking as easy as dragging and dropping, he said. 

"Increasingly, there is this lamentable technology that allows people with low-level technological abilities to do high-level damage," he said. 

One interview I didn't get for the story was with Anonymous Colombia. A person who runs their Twitter account, has more than 40,000 followers and has been calling many of the targets, offered to meet with me, but then disappeared again.

The government is really ratcheting up the pressure on them, so it's no surprise that they would want to stay....anonymous.

Two final things. One very cool site I found is Zone-H, where hackers report their attacks and often provide snapshots of their work. It allows you to search for attacks by website and domain extensions, which is quite helpful.

Also, Symantec provided this scary chart. It shows the going rate for stolen information. 

Colombia's international ad campaign declares that the only risk in this country is "wanting to stay."

There's no doubt that the situation here has improved dramatically. Over the last decade, as the administration of Alvaro Uribe broke the back of guerrilla and paramilitary violence, murders have dropped 50 percent to 33.4 per 100,000 citizens. According to the latest UN study on global homicide rates,  Colombia is the 16th most dangerous country in the world and the 6th most dangerous in Latin America after Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Belize and Guatemala.

But violence has always plagued this nation's municipal elections and this year is no exception. 

Forty-one candidates have been assassinated in the run-up to the race, up from 27 in the previous municipal race in 2007, according to the Electoral Observer Mission, MOE, an independent watchdog.

With just over 100,000 candidates in the running, that would mean Colombian politicians are seeing a murder rate equivalent to living in a country right between the U.S. Virgin Islands (39.2/100,000) and Guatemala (41.4/100,000).

The government disputes the MOE's figures. President Santos said political killings were down 10 percent versus 2007, and that political violence overall was down 16 percent.

Most of the political violence is thought to take place prior to th vote - when left-wing rebels and criminal gangs with right-wing roots are trying to exert their power. But the government isn't taking any chances and is guarding the polls with more than 330,000 troops this Sunday.

Here's hoping the ad campagin - which is reportedly close to being retired - is more accurate every day.  

Here's a full story on the issue of political violence.