VENEZUELA: Discontent With Chavez Growing.

LAHT/A long editorial or news report...or maybe both?/Jeremy Morgan/
"Discontent is in the air as a lackluster festive season limps towards the end of a year many people would like to forget after seeing their living standards slip or stagnate as the nation's lifeline, oil export earnings, hit the doldrums amid a grinding global recession."
"Pressure is building on President Hugo Chavez to bring back the good old days -- and some of the disgruntlement is coming from people and sectors which might have been expected to be on his side."
"Not for the first time, or at least as far as these folk were concerned, the view was that the president should start paying more attention to the home front instead of spending so much time abroad. Chavez was at a climate change conference in Copenhagen and, as usual, the air at the crossroads in Chacao was choking in gasoline fumes."

Chavez Pushes Three Minute Showers...With No Singing...To Solve Water Shortage.

LAHT/
Because of a water shortage and power outages, President Hugo Chavez wants Venezuelans to shower quickly. He stressed that shampooing can be done in one minute, another minute to soap-up and a third to hose down and...no singing, please!
"Some people sing in the shower, in the shower half an hour. No, kids, three minutes is more than enough. I've counted, three minutes, and I don't stink, " he said during a televised Cabinet meeting.