An Ailing Chavez Prays For Time

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8. Upping wages b4 elections shd get him martyr status if he croaks. & *love* those ASSAD reforms!1

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/08/us-venezuela-chavez-idUSBRE83701020120408?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+reuters/worldNews+(News+/+US+/+International)&utm_content=My+Yahoo

[font size=5]Chavez hikes Venezuela's minimum wage before vote [/font]

.... But the 57-year-old president has managed to maintain a strong lead over the opposition candidate in most recent opinion polls, based on his enduring emotional connection with Venezuela's poor majority - and heavy state spending. ....



Ahead of the October 7 presidential election, his government has launched many projects, or "missions," including one that aims to build hundreds of thousands of homes, and others that provide cash handouts to the elderly and to poor families with children. ....


Ahead of Saturday night's cabinet meeting, details were published of three phone calls he held with two fellow leftist leaders, Bolivian President Evo Morales and Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, and his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad.



It said Chavez and Assad discussed what was happening in Syria, "especially the successful way the Syrian government had contained armed terrorist gangs ... which were seeking in vain to impede the advance of political reforms pushed forward by the Assad government." ....

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