Friday, December 17, 2010

Chavez given decree powers

Reuters: Venezuela assembly gives Chavez decree powers

Venezuela's parliament gave President Hugo Chavez decree powers for 18 months on Friday, outraging opposition parties that accused him of turning South America's biggest oil producer into a dictatorship.

FT: A new global balance

FT columnist Philip Stephens writes:

We are living through one of history’s swerves. A multipolar world has been long predicted, but has always seemed to be perched safely on the horizon. Now it has rushed quite suddenly into the present. Two centuries of western hegemony are coming to a close rather earlier than many had imagined.