Milena Santana-Ramirez, the Venezuelan Ambassador to India, remembers the revolutionary Hugo Chavez in a recently held memorial meeting.

Senior Journalist Achin Vanaik in a memorial meeting for Hugo Chavez Speaks of Latin America's success in building a path that leads to regional unity.

I had the privilege of traveling to Venezuela and witnessing the country's October 7 presidential election and watching the South American country's extraordinarily active and engaged citizenry in action. An impressive 81 percent of the electorate participated in a transparent and secure electoral process that former president Jimmy Carter reportedly referred to as the best in the world.

Prof Aijaz Ahmad speaks on the transformations sweeping across the continent of hope. He discusses Emir Sader's important book, The New Mole; the results of Venezuela's recent elections; he takes issue with Slavoj Zizek's assessment of the revolutionary process in Venezuela; and he discusses the idea of 'twenty-first century socialism', and how it differs from the socialism of the previous century. His interlocutor in this conversation is Sudhanva Deshpande of LeftWord Books, and the venue is May Day Cafe in New Delhi.

Reputed International Affairs expert Prof.Aijaz Ahmad discusses the significance of President Hugo Chavez' historic fourth election victory in Venezuela. Prof.Aijaz opines that the polity and public opinion in Venezuela has shifted markedly to the Left due to the consistent delivery of important social and economic benefits to the underprivileged, and the related grassroots movement and civil structures. This explains the substantial 11% margin of victory, belying the determined campaign by imperialist forces led by the US that the elections were a cliff-hanger, that they would be rigged by Chavez and that violence would ensue after results were declared. Chavez' victory leads and further cements the momentous shift to the Left in Latin America as a whole.

Hugo Chavez has won the Venezuelan presidential election with 54.42% of the vote against 44.97% for opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski.

In an extraordinary paper released last week, former US Ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick Duddy, outlined a range of military, financial and diplomatic measures that the US should be prepared to take against the Chavez government after the coming elections on October 7th.

Here’s an odd question: Is it possible that the U.S. military is present in more countries and more places now than at the height of the Cold War?  It’s true that the U.S.

(IPS) - A rise in drug trafficking in Honduras has resulted in a sharp increase in violence, leading some to question the United States’ influence in the country.

Honduras, along with several other Central American countries, has become a transshipment point for U.S.-bound illegal drugs, predominantly cocaine. This has led to wide-scale drug intervention efforts, which has subsequently led to an increasingly bloody effort to stymie the trafficking.