Miraflores Palace / Reuters

Is Hugo Chávez Preparing Venezuela for His Departure?

“Get your personal affairs in order.” It’s the hardest thing doctors have to tell cancer patients who are as ill as media reports suggest Hugo Chávez is. With an election looming in less than five months, the 57-year-old Venezuelan President would also need to get his political affairs in order — and many believe the [...]

Christopher Morris / VII for TIME

Colombia’s President Talks with TIME About Castro, Capitalism and His Country’s Comeback

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will host the sixth Summit of the Americas this weekend, April 14 to 15, in the Caribbean city of Cartagena. The hemispheric gathering marks a comeback for Colombia, which is emerging from half a century of crippling guerrilla, drug and political violence and is making a serious bid to be [...]

Supporters of the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hold a flag of him as they celebrate his return from Cuba in Caracas on July 4, 2011. (Photo: Leo Ramirez - AFP - Getty Images)

Must-Reads from Around the World: March 27, 2012

Life After Chávez – The Economist examines splits emerging in Venezuela’s ruling United Socialist Party as the president undergoes more cancer treatment. “The fissures in the ruling party show only too clearly what is likely to happen once the president is no longer around—or fit enough to bang his underlings’ heads together. Most observers agree [...]

Leo Ramirez / AFP / Getty Images

Chavez’s Cancer Mystery: What if Venezuela’s President Doesn’t Run for Re-Election?

Lent, the pre-Easter season that started last week, is traditionally a time when Christians ponder their mortality – and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez had a lot of it to contemplate before he left Caracas for Havana to undergo more cancer surgery. The firebrand socialist, after months of insisting he was cancer free, disclosed that doctors [...]

Ariana Cubillos / AP

Hugo Chávez Battles Cancer Again – But His Vulgar Vitriol May Hurt His Political Health

Unless you’re one of the whackos who puts politics before people, you’ll wish Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez the best as he readies to undergo a second round of cancer surgery. On Tuesday, Feb. 21, Chávez conceded that his Cuban doctors had found a new lesion in his pelvic area, where they’d removed a tumor last [...]

Juan Barreto / AFP / Getty Images

Candidate Capriles: Could This Man Defeat Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez?

To explain why left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has stayed in power for 13 years, fans and foes alike point out that he controls the western hemisphere’s largest oil reserves. But he’s also been blessed with what is arguably the most incompetent political opposition in Latin America. As Chavez gears up for another re-election bid, [...]

Carlos Garcia Rawlins / Reuters

Ahmadinejad Goes on Tour: What’s Iran’s Agenda in Latin America?

In 2006, the same year Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez called then U.S. President George W. Bush “the devil” at the U.N., Chávez and his oil-rich, anti-U.S. revolution were looking for new ways to kick Washington in the shins. But there was one move that year that made even some diehard Chavistas uncomfortable: strengthening Venezuela’s alliance [...]

Robert Landau/  Corbis

Not So Apocalypto: What the Mayan Calendar Tells Us About Latin America in 2012

According to scholars, the fact the Mayan calendar ends by the winter solstice of 2012 is not an omen of the apocalypse, but a rather savvy political move by an ancient monarch. To that end, Global Spin offers its predictions for Latin American politics before this fateful year draws to a close.

Ariana Cubillos / AP

Latin America’s CELAC Summit: A Definitive Rejection of the U.S.?

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez brands himself the standard bearer of all things revolutionary in Latin America – including the Community of Latin American & Caribbean States (CELAC), the new hemispheric organization that pointedly excludes the U.S. and Canada, and whose inaugural summit Chávez started Dec. 2 in Caracas. But in reality there’s little revolutionary about [...]

Why a Marathon Man Got Mocked: Venezuela’s Leftist Revolution Again Faces Anti-Semitism Questions

Few stories at this month’s New York City Marathon were as inspiring as Maickel Melamed’s. The 36-year-old Venezuelan man, born with a severe muscle-depleting condition that makes it difficult to move across a room let alone a 26-mile marathon course, finished the race in 15 hours and 22 minutes to “help people realize the things [...]