Venezuela Denounces Foreign Dailies over fake stories

Venezuela has asked foreign dailies for its right to reply misinformation printed by them. American The Washington Post, Italian La Stampa and Spanish El Mundo printed news stating Venezuela was helping Iran build nuclear plants. They also stated that force would be used against opposition during the coming constitutional amendment referendum. The Caracas reaction to the misleading news was meant to point out various attempts by international media to taint the upcoming democratic referendum on the amendment of the Constitution. If approved, incumbent Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, could summit his candidacy for another term in 2012. The current Venezuelan constitution only allows for a single consecutive term in the presidential chair. In addition, it also allows the electorate to recall any President after the first half term in office. But, President Chavez continues to enjoy massive support while the opposition in leaderless and divided. In such context, Venezuelan officials have stated that the foreign misleading news would try to boost the popularity of the local opposition but to no avail.    

[q url=""]  Caracas, Dec 22 (Prensa Latina) Venezuela Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro demanded an explanation from several foreign dailies, which recently spread lies about Venezuela.He cited specifically US The Washington Post, Italian La Stampa and Spanish El Mundo, which published fallacies and nonsense against the people and government of Venezuela. He explained that Venezuela will make representations to the papers, and if they fail to accept our conditions, we will resort to other international legal options, he warned. In different articles published last week, the said conservative dailies criticized the government of President Hugo Chavez for alleged links to Iran and also decried the draft constitutional amendment of section 230.  This international media campaign was echoed by Venezuelan opposition media, which always follow US guidelines, said Maduro.  It is a crusade of high dimension and level against our people, a foreign maneuver unleashed, including attacks from local counterrevolution, the top diplomat stressed in a press conference.[/q]
[q url=""]Venezuela's president says half of the country's voters will back his bid to run for re-election while penciling in Feb. 15 as referendum date.   Venezuela's constitution has already been changed once after Chavez came to power in 1998, to allow him to run for just one re-election. He won a new mandate in 2006.   Now Chavez, whose present term ends in 2012, wants to change the wording of the Constitution from "the president may be re-elected only once" to simply "the president may be re-elected."
"Two years ago (in the last presidential elections), 7.3 million voters voted for me. I don't expect any less than that. We are going towards 10 million (votes)," Hugo Chavez claimed in his weekly television broadcast on Sunday, according to AFP. 
Chavez said, "The referendum could be in February ... a date of February 15. It is already actually being evaluated technically (as a date)."  But Chavez narrowly lost a referendum that included the same change last year and risks weakening his presidency if he is defeated again.  The opposition calls Chavez a dictator-in-the-making, but the Cuba ally and declared Bush administration enemy says he needs the constitution changed to be able to stand for office again in 2012 and to deepen his socialist reforms. RB/MMA Original source at PressTV [/q]