Venezuela News Blast, Feb. 5, 2009

The Embassy of the Vatican in Caracas, known as the Nunciature, has been attacked today with canisters of tear gas.  It is the latest measure in a campaign of harassment which is seen as linked to the recent attacks against a prominent synagogue.  Alonso Medina, a human rights lawyer representing the student leader Nixon Moreno (who has been given asylum inside the Nunciature since last June), denounced the attacks as a specific attempt to target his client.  Inflation of the Bolivar has drifted down to 30.7% in January, while the oil services provider Helmerich & Payne have denied media reports that some of the oil rigs had been seized by the state.  Thanks to help from the Chinese, the government has reopened an $70 million iron mine in the state Bolivar.  Twenty-five Venezuelan parliamentarians of the National Assembly are appealing to the Obama administration to "open spaces for dialogue" to improve relations between the two countries and re-start cooperation with Congress.  Two Colombian pilots who were arrested in January are now being investigated for espionage by military prosecutors.  The Economist argues that Hugo Chavez is oblivious to the coming storm.  UCAB student leader David Smolansky says that youth movements have become the central voice against the enmienda for unlimited re-election, and that the outcome of this vote will have a strong impact on student movements for the future.  Other student leaders find themselves having to deny an "absurd" accusation of "mooning" the police. Relations between Syria and Venezuela continue to grow closer and closer, with effusive praise from a representative in Damascus.  Belarus's attempt to send a natural gas company to Venezuela to build pipelines isn't going so well.  Shimon Samuels has written an open letter appealing to to the president to protect the Jewish community.

Photo: Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez salutes after arriving at a military parade in Maracay February 4, 2009. Chavez and his supporters celebrated the 17th anniversary of a failed coup which forged his political reputation. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins (VENEZUELA)