newfie, i almost threw up reading ven papers this morning....in the past, these protests have died out within a couple days but like you say, this is gaining steam and hugo is getting hit from every side....the scary part is, the worse it gets the more evident it is that hugo will not go quietly...his latest qoutes include that he will lead the "military" himself to surpress the "puppet" students and he will be "radical"...straight from the horses mouth....he's mentioned civil war a couple times...he's starting to blame the police and governors for not putting down the protests...this can only get uglier imo if someone in the gov/military does'nt take action against hugo quickly.

imo.....when it's said and done, hugo will be out, ven will have a completely collapsed infrastructure/economy/govt system.....there will be no choice but to work with private investment to try and build it up again....

this has happened at least twice in my lifetime in venezuela....oldfool has probably seen this number 5-6 times.....

i think this time venezuela should elect a leader from another country.. the locals just dont seem to work out..