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On Monday March 27, the British Channel 4 screened a documentary on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that can only be described as scandalous. Unfortunately this is not just an isolated incident, but part of a more general and concerted effort to spread half-truths and open lies about Chavez with the aim of preparing world public opinion for “regime change” in Venezuela.

The US Navy will be sending four ships, one of them carrying 60 fighter planes, and a total of 6,500 soldiers on a major military exercise in the Caribbean starting in the next few weeks. This can only be interpreted as a threat and as a concrete preparation for future military intervention against the Venezuelan relvolution.

In February the Venezuelan province of Ciudad Bolivar was the setting for a number of remarkable struggles on the part of the youth, the working class and the organised communities. In one of them, a fight against a rise in the prices of bus tickets, masses of youth went so far as to seize the buildings of the local parliament. Ronny Pante and Carlos Rondón, leaders of the local student movement, recount what happened.

On March 8, the British Parliament held a debate on Venezuela, proposed by Labour MP Colin Burgon, who sparked off Blair’s attack on Hugo Chavez by posing a question to him on Venezuela. “Indeed, some people in Latin America found [the answer] more than disappointing, and it created a minor political tsunami.”

On Saturday, February 25th a meeting of representatives of the workers in factories that have been expropriated or are occupied took place in the premises of Inveval, in El Carrizal, not far from the Venezuelan capital Caracas. Dozens of workers took part in the meeting, the main aim of which was to set up a national Revolutionary Front of Occupied Factories.