There’s a difference between what amounts to short-term social reform in a country that has natural resources like oil (spreading that wealth around to everyone) vs. creating a sustainable infrastructure for lasting social reform, in creating jobs and allowing people to begin businesses that will employ people for decades to come. When oil goes down in price, runs out, or doesn’t attract infrastructure investment due to fears of nationalization, Chavez’s reforms have no means of sustaining themselves. They’re simply handouts based on current riches, rather than a format for creating future prosperity in the country.

Of course Venezuela should pursue friendships with countries worldwide; it shouldn’t have to give out handouts to do so, though. I think the same about the United States.

The shooting was very unfortunate and badly handled all around. It is a symptom of Britain’s loss of civil liberties and government accountability overall, in my opinion.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4′s Today Programme, Livingstone said that Chavez had been responsible for significant social reforms and called him ‘the best news out of Latin America in many years.’

Dismissing human rights groups’ concerns about Venezuela’s treatment of political opponents, Livingstone said: ‘He’s won 10 elections for his party in the last decade and he’s pushed through a whole programme of social reform.

‘Venezuela was like a lot of those old Latin American countries – a small elite of super-rich families who basically stole the national resources. He’s now driven a new economic order through, you’ve got for the first time healthcare for poor people, illiteracy has been eradicated.’

and….

“‘The reason he [Chavez] wants to come to London is because clearly, as the Latin American economies really begin to emerge from the American shadow and grow, they don’t want all their eggs in the Washington basket,’ Livingstone contended. ‘They’re looking for allies in Europe and Asia and it’s very much in London’s interests that as Venezuela’s companies go, they should see London as a natural home every bit as much as Madrid.’”

the oil deal was as much about ending america’s hegnomy (which is why so much bile is directed at chavez in the “rightist” newspapers you quote) as it is helping londoners.