CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez maintained a 15 percentage-point lead over his opposition rival Henrique Capriles in a closely watched poll published on Monday, less than three months ahead of an October 7 presidential election.

The June survey by respected local pollster Datanalisis showed 46.1 percent of voters backing Chavez and 30.8 percent for Capriles, while the rest were undecided or did not respond.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s verbose Hugo Chavez is offering to send supporters his tweets to their mobile phones as the socialist president fights a vigorous opposition campaign across the Twitter-mad country ahead of an October 7 election.

Chavez has had three cancer operations in the last year and his delicate health means he has not been able to travel anywhere near as much as his younger rival, Henrique Capriles.

CARACAS (Reuters) – President Hugo Chavez denied on Friday that Venezuela was a threat to anyone, after U.S. presidential hopeful Mitt Romney criticized Barack Obama for playing down the risk posed by the socialist leader.

Obama told a Spanish-language television station in an interview screened this week that Chavez’s actions over recent years had not had a serious impact on the national security of the United States.

CARACAS (Reuters) – President Hugo Chavez denied on Friday that Venezuela was a threat to anyone, after U.S. presidential hopeful Mitt Romney criticized Barack Obama for playing down the risk posed by the socialist leader.

Obama told a Spanish-language television station in an interview screened this week that Chavez’s actions over recent years had not had a serious national security impact on the United States.

BARCELONA, Venezuela (Reuters) – Hailing his rebound from cancer as a “miracle” and firing up his supporters with spiritual rhetoric, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez has hit the road to campaign for re-election in October.

The socialist leader began a series of campaign rallies under a rainstorm in the eastern city of Barcelona, seeking to show his health is fine and to capitalize on the emotional connection with Venezuela’s poor that has underpinned his rule.

CARACAS, June 24 (Reuters) – Venezuelan state oil giant
PDVSA has had to buy dozens of extra fuel cargoes from countries
as far away as Estonia and Saudi Arabia to keep up its side of a
2008 oil supply deal with leftist ally Ecuador, according to
traders and sales documents.

In an examination of shipping data that highlights the
practical risks of political trade deals, Reuters found that
half the fuel Venezuela sent to Ecuador, which cannot process
its own heavy crude, came from third countries, often via
trading companies including Glencore.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA PDVSA.UL was not paid directly for almost half the crude it pumped last year due to preferential deals with foreign allies, putting more pressure on its finances amid declining prices and heavy local subsidies.

A Reuters analysis of figures published by PDVSA last month, the fiscal motor of President Hugo Chavez’s socialist policies, show it was not paid directly for 43 percent of its barrels of crude and oil products in 2011. That left it delaying payments to suppliers and putting parts of its own investment plans on hold.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA PDVSA.UL was not paid directly for almost half the crude it pumped last year due to preferential deals with foreign allies, putting more pressure on its finances amid declining prices and heavy local subsidies.

A Reuters analysis of figures published by PDVSA last month, the fiscal motor of President Hugo Chavez’s socialist policies, show it was not paid directly for 43 percent of its barrels of crude and oil products in 2011. That left it delaying payments to suppliers and putting parts of its own investment plans on hold.

CARACAS, April 17 (Reuters) – Net profit at Venezuela’s
state oil company PDVSA leaped 42 percent to $4.49 billion last
year, helping it double its funding of President Hugo Chavez’s
government programs to almost $50 billion, the company said on
Tuesday.

Chavez is seeking a new six-year term in Oct. 7 elections
and has been leaning increasingly heavily on PDVSA, which is one
of the world’s biggest energy companies and functions as the
financial motor of his socialist “revolution.”

CARACAS (Reuters) – Feisty Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez acknowledged on Friday that radiation treatment for cancer was wearing him down, but he vowed to squash his opponents in October’s presidential election.

Ramping up the political rhetoric at a huge rally to mark the 10th anniversary of his return to power after a brief coup, Chavez said three sessions of radiation therapy in Cuba had taken their toll.