A majority of Venezuelans has voted for change and now has no choice but to resist a regime that can hold on to power only with violence. Is the election in Venezuela over? Apparently not. The self-declared winner, Nicolás Maduro, is behaving very much like a man who knows he lost on April 14. In resorting to violence and brute force to silence the opposition's demand for an honest recount, Maduro has signed the death warrant for chavismo's legitimacy. Numerous videos of soldiers...

Nicolas Maduro was sworn in as president of Venezuela on April 19 in the presence of a number of Latin American presidents including, Rouseff of Brazil, Kirchner of Argentina, Ortega of Nicaragua, Morales of Bolivia, and even Santos of Colombia. A place of honor was given to the Cuban dictator, Raul Castro along with the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who as a regular visitor to Venezuela was also present for the ceremony. The irony is that even as Maduro was sworn in as president,...

According to results reported by the national Elections Committee of Venezuela (CNE), Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s chosen successor and protégé, won the Venezuelan presidential election by a skimpy margin of less than 2%. Once again the Chavistas won because they took advantage of huge state resources that include mass media, intimidation of public employees and the use of the oil giant, PDVSA, to fund their political campaign. Irregularities include claims that on...

VALENCIA, Venezuela - It's just after nightfall and the power is out again in untold hundreds of thousands - probably millions - of Venezuelan homes. If the government knows how many, it's not saying. It hasn't issued reports on problems in the public power grid since 2010. In Venezuela's third-largest city, Pedro Martinez dons a shirt for visitors drawn by the flicker of candles inside his one-story, cement-block house in a middle-class district. The Caribbean heat is sticky thick inside....

Following the spirit of the constitution, the next elections in Venezuela are scheduled for April 14th. Nicolas Maduro will be the candidate of the PSUV while Henrique Capriles Radonski will be the candidate of the united opposition (MDU). Chavez’s death has left a legacy in Venezuela similar to that of Peron: a mythical figure that will be remembered by those who have materially benefitted from Chavez’s years as president and by those who see him as a symbol of redemption and...

The human rights map of Mexico shows that although companies face significant risks of association with violations of civil and political rights throughout the country, these risks are particularly high on the country’s borders where conflict between the state and criminal networks is most intense. Former president Felipe Calderon (2006-2012), whose security agenda was mainly focused on combating drug trafficking organisations, failed to improve the protection of civil liberties or...

TESTIMONY OF AMB. ROGER F. NORIEGA BEFORE THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NON-PROLIFERATION AND TRADE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS March 20, 2013, Washington, DC Mr. Chairman, I applaud you and other members of the Subcommittee for focusing attention on the global threat posed by Hezbollah, and I thank you for inviting me to share insights on that terrorist organization's growing network in the Americas that carries this threat to our doorstep. This past...

Mexico must build an effective police and justice system, as well as implement comprehensive social programs, if it is to escape the extraordinary violence triggered by the country’s destructive cartels in extortion, kidnapping and control of transnational crime. Peña Nieto’s Challenge: Criminal Cartels and Rule of Law in Mexico is the International Crisis Group's first report on the country with the world’s fourteenth largest economy but also one of its worst cases...

BACK in the 1990s Latin America seemed to have turned the page on military rule and embraced democracy and free-market economics, with the sole, beleaguered exception of communist Cuba. And then along came Hugo Chávez, a bumptious Venezuelan former lieutenant-colonel who, having staged a failed military coup against a democratic government, got himself elected as president in 1998. Mr Chávez proceeded to dominate his country for more than 14 years until his death this week...

The death of President Hugo Chávez casts a shadow over a polarised Venezuela whose immediate political stability cannot be taken for granted. In extending its condolences to the government and people, Crisis Group calls on all sides to respect the constitutional framework and act prudently in order to avoid violence in what may prove a tense and difficult transition to the post-Chávez era. Re-elected in October, Chávez was too ill to take the oath of office in January....