I believe so. I believe he wrote down a list of all countries that hate america or at least are at odds with america and decided on a campaign to visit them and to portray himself as the leader and second Messiah of all of South America although Castro is the pusher from behind. The only country he hasn't visited yet is North Korea. Castro put it in his ear he could become the next Bolivar leader Of all of SA. I can just see Chavez with sparkling eyes when he imagined that.

Except Hondurus, stopped him in his tracks that made him so mad he grew horns on his head and green smoke came out of his ears and nostrils. And he smelled sulphur. Columbia, chile, peru are also big obstacles to his 21st Centuary revolution as is his own people. He went crazy with rage in his Milforus castle when he did not win a surplus of votes to his want to be president for life the first time he held a plebisite, it was reported. It was illegal by constitution to try again but within the year or so tried again anyway and won by a small margin. Voting was rigged the papers claimed. I strongly believe that unscrupulous rulers anywhere will control the outcome of electronic ballot boxes so they win 51%-49%.

I recall 3years ago when his people started to grumble and protest about his running of the country that he made trips to Cuba to ask for advice ; some were calandestine or tried to be in the sense that he flew in at night and back the next morning. He made at least 10 such trips some with fanfare and some quietly. We are now witnesses of his present situation in Venezuela in a defensive and attack mode to squash his opponents with Cuba giving him instructions on how to do it.

How does this impact on us? Well he obviously promised LC to Russia or China and come hell or high water it will be done. Like someone on this board said "He sold the same horse twice". Fraud. So where does this leave us now? We are likely negotiating with only two parties; China or Russia. I don't mind China because they can offer cash. I don't like Russia because they only offer paper. The paper they offer is worthless. Agapov gets cash we get paper - not for me. can we wait it out? I said this before. I think something must happen close to the elections so Chavz can use the announcement as a trumph card. he made a big deal about the oil sale to Russia and another to Itay recently hoping his people will see him as a great leader.

Canada as a member of OAS was expected to criticize Chavez's suppression of his freedom of speech but chavez chose to fire back at Canada and the US only as printed in local newapapers and did not mention any of the other members of the OAS who are SA countries.

If oil was $30.00 which I hope will never happen for my friends in oil stocks then chavez might be in a bigger hurry to mine gold.

So Mr. Fung find us a good deal and get us all out of this mess.