Chávez reveals his master plan

THE PRESIDENT OF Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, never misses an opportunity to quote Simón Bolívar, the early 19th-century liberator of Spanish-ruled South America. Indeed, Chávez considers himself a modern-day Bolívar, destined to carry on the task of unifying the Latin American republics, countering the “imperialist” weight of the US to lead a “new socialist revolution”. But Chávez is not given to military action, and emboldened by record oil prices has devised an unusual strategy: the creation of a region-wide television station, Telesur, which aims to rival Cable News Network, and plans to set up regional energy companies, Petroandina and Petrosur, as well as a regional development bank.