YARITAGUA/CARACAS, Oct 2 (Reuters) – Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez urged his supporters to vote early at Sunday’s
election, saying the key to him winning another six-year term as
leader of South America’s biggest oil exporter was organization
and logistics.

Chavez, 58, is in a close race with 40-year-old state
governor Henrique Capriles, and both camps are now focused on
their final rallies and getting their supporters to the polls.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s bitterly-fought election will not bring major short-term changes to the oil industry but if the opposition won, it would try to depoliticize the business and end supply deals with President Hugo Chavez’s leftist allies.

Chavez, 58, is seeking a new six-year term and accuses opposition challenger Henrique Capriles, a 40-year-old state governor, of seeking to reverse his self-styled socialist revolution.

CARACAS, Sept 28 (Reuters) – Venezuela will launch its
second satellite on Friday in a move President Hugo Chavez says
highlights the achievements of his self-styled revolution ahead
of an election, but which his rival says underscores his neglect
of problems closer to home.

It is a close race with just nine days to go before the vote
in South America’s biggest oil exporter. Both sides are planning
huge rallies next week to close their campaigns, as well as
making last-ditch efforts to win over undecided voters.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Rival supporters in Venezuela’s presidential election fought and threw stones on Wednesday before a campaign stop by opposition leader Henrique Capriles less than a month before an October 7 vote.

In the worst flareup since the campaign formally began on July 1, some people were hurt and both sides blamed the other for the violence at the country’s main port, Puerto Cabello.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Fencer Ruben Limardo thanked Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez after breaking the country’s 44-year gold medal drought by winning the men’s epee fencing competition at the 2012 Olympics on Wednesday, saying the socialist leader helped him achieve his dream.

Venezuelans rejoiced in their nation’s first fencing medal, and their first of the 2012 Olympics, after Limardo beat Seth Kelsey of the United States and Norway’s Bartosz Piasecki.

CARACAS, Aug 1 (Reuters) – Fencer Ruben Limardo thanked
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez after breaking the country’s
44-year gold medal drought by winning the men’s epee fencing
competition at the 2012 Olympics on Wednesday, saying the
socialist leader helped him achieve his dream.

Venezuelans rejoiced in their nation’s first fencing medal,
and their first of the 2012 Olympics, after Limardo beat Seth
Kelsey of the United States and Norway’s Bartosz Piasecki.

CARACAS, Aug 1 (Reuters) – Venezuela’s state oil company,
PDVSA, will have to set aside between $4 billion and $7 billion
annually for the next five years to make payments on its
increasingly heavy debt burden, according to calculations by
economists.

PDVSA, the financial motor of President Hugo
Chavez’s socialist “revolution,” has funded its day-to-day
spending in recent years by issuing dollar-denominated bonds and
agreeing to bilateral loans with friendly governments such as
China.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez unveiled a 3D image of South America’s 19th century independence hero Simon Bolivar on Tuesday, based on bones the president ordered exhumed two years ago to test his theory that Bolivar was murdered.

In a ceremony to mark the 229th anniversary of Bolivar’s birth, senior government officials and military commanders clapped as Chavez and a group of school children unveiled the new image, which was based on scans of Bolivar’s skull.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez compared his election rival to “far-right” U.S. presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Saturday, saying both men wanted to subjugate the country under capitalism and crush his socialist “revolution.”

South America’s top oil exporter will hold its ballot on October 7, a month before the November 6 U.S. election. Chavez is in full campaign mode, aiming for a new six-year term and saying he is fit and well after three cancer operations in the past year.

CARACAS, July 18 (Reuters) – Russian miner Rusoro
became the latest company to file for arbitration against
Venezuela at a World Bank tribunal, saying President Hugo
Chavez’s takeover of the gold industry last year caused it a
“significant” loss.

Chavez’s government already faces about 20 cases, including
multibillion-dollar claims by U.S. oil companies Exxon Mobil
Corp and ConocoPhillips, at the World Bank’s
International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, or
ICSID.