VENEZUELA: Anything Goes...In Chavez's Margarita Island Prison.

NYTIMES/ S.Romero
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  NYT:    "It is not uncommon for armed inmates to exercise a certain degree of autonomy in Venezuela’s penitentiaries. Prisoners with BlackBerries and laptops have arranged drug deals, abductions and murders from their cells, the police say, a legacy of decades of overcrowding, corruption and insufficient guards.
     But San Antonio prison, renowned on Margarita Island as a relatively tranquil place where even visitors can go for sinful weekend partying, is in a class of its own."
   “The state has lost control of the prisons in Venezuela,” said Carlos Nieto, director of Window to Freedom.

The Bank Of The South...For Latin American...Finally Official.

BLOOMBERG/
The Bank of the South, a finance bank of South American countries, will start with $7 billion in capital and will grow to $20 billion.
The Presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela signed the foundational document on the sidelines of the Africa-South America Summit in Margarita Island, Venezuela after almost four years of attempts to form a regional financial institution.
“It’s our bank, to bring our reserves, those that were in countries in the North, to increase lending between ourselves,” Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said yesterday.