Sorry, folks, only archives here. Check out the new blog at CaracasChronicles.com

We're now experiencing major technical problems due to the traffic spike last night. Apparently, CANTV is not linking to Wordpress blogs...

We're back on Blogger out of sheer desperation. Wordpress is inaccessible from Venezuelan CANTV servers. (What is this friggin' Iran...

The dormant site will remain online in case you need the archives. For updates, check out the brand new site on: CaracasChronicles.com

Why a Beginner's Guide? First, caveat lector: it's surprisingly tough to find insightful material on Venezuela online. Wild oversta...

Quico says: I'm still not over Chávez's speech in Copenhagen last week. It's been a long time since Hugo Chávez has sent my blo...

Quico and Juan Cristobal say: What do you think would happen if the head of one of the world's five largest oil companies started lect...

Quico says: ...rumors, partly fueled by Aristóbulo's keynote address to the National Assembly, are now heavy that Chávez is considering...

Quico says: Venezuela is far from the first country where an autocratic regime has used its economic muscle to systematically punish disside...

Juan Cristobal says: Chile held the first round of Presidential voting yesterday, and since I'm married to the place Quico asked me to...

Quico says: As I think about it, the truly newsworthy aspect of the jailing of the judge who freed Eligio Cedeño isn't that they jailed...

Quico says: The decision to jail judge María Lourdes Afiuni, following a bizarre series of events that saw Hugo Chávez flip out after the j...

Quico says: The Latinbarómetro Poll, published by The Economist, always has an eyebrow-raising stat or two to offer. This year's study...

Quico says: If citizens' ability to reason together on issues of common concern in the public sphere is the cornerstone of real democra...

Quico and Juan Cristóbal say: The new software platform for Caracas Chronicles is finally here! After several months of intense work, the ...

Northeasternnnnn!!! (Taken 10 a.m. I'm actually a recent-enough immigrant to Quebec to get excited by this kind of thing...)

Quico says: Judging from the reaction, rather a lot of you misinterpreted my last post as some kind of woolly call to hold a nice, reasonab...

Quico says: One thing all critics of the Chávez regime seem to agree on is that democracy in Venezuela is pretty much dead. But what exactl...

Juan Cristóbal says: Lately, this story about the 1988 Referendum that ended the Pinochet dictatorship keeps coming to mind. (Translated fr...

Juan Cristóbal says: - It's easy to forget, but before we were oligarchs, squalid ones and betrayers of the homeland, we were simply - ...

Quico says: "Opposition" has become an obsolete concept in Venezuelan politics. Opposition is what you do to governments capable ...

Quico says: Reuters is reporting that the parallel bolivar plunged as low as Bs.6.2 to the dollar today in response to Chávez's bank n...

Juan Cristóbal says: - A reader in Caracas told us yesterday that he was disappointed in Caracas Chronicles. He usually came to CC to find ...