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Seasoned observers of the dictatorial assault that Hugo Chavez has conducted in Venezuela will remember the encounter, brokered by Jimmy Carter, that Gustavo Cisneros had once upon a time with Chavez.

Caracas Chronicles is one of the four longest-running blogs that have been covering the collapse of our country's democracy, for a predominantly English audience. It's author, Francisco Toro, is, without a doubt, perhaps the most eloquent writer we have on our side. Toro has for ages claimed that professional journalism simply does not exist in Venezuela, with which I agree to an extent.

Professor Lee Salter is probably going to call this another example of BBC propaganda, but as every piece of news coming out of Chavez's Venezuela these days, what the world's media report is, generally, a closer approximation to reality than what Chavez or his dwindling list of sycophants care to admit.

Something must be happening in the brotherhood of Castro dictators. El País reports this morning that Luis Yáñez, a socialist Spanish MEP, was refused entry in  Cuba, and had to board the next plane out of the prison island. Surely a sign of democratic improvement, eh?

As a new year begins, it is perhaps fitting to revise the issue that affects most the majority of Venezuelans: crime. Some context is needed for illustration purposes, so figures from Colombia (a nation at war with internal narco-terrorist guerrilla groups), and Mexico (another country who has declared war on drug cartels) are provided.

The MSM strikes as ever so utterly incompetent nowadays. In its reporting of Eligio Cedeño's case, the Venezuelan banker who gossip has it was jailed for having dumped Hugo Chavez's daughter, journalists have failed miserably at quoting perhaps the most important piece of information about this issue: the law. The known facts are:

My communication with Dr. Lee Salter, a journalism professor and researcher from the University of the West of England, who has recently argued that the BBC's coverage of Venezuela amounts to propaganda, started thus:

Dear Dr. Salter,

I have just read in Gregory Wilpert's website about your research, and I only have a couple of questions:

1) Who is funding your research?