Constitutions

President Hugo Chavez presented his long-awaited plan to revise the Venezuelan Constitution on Wednesday, including a proposal to eliminate presidential term limits -- a move critics fear would allow the fiery anti-U.S. leader to further concentrate power in his hands.

The president of Venezuela was on the front pages of most newspapers here Thursday, with headlines expressing astonishment at what he had done the night before. "Hugo Chavez Forever," declared Excelsior, referring to his proposal Wednesday to rewrite the Venezuelan Constitution and liberate himself from term limits. But from the offices of Mexican President Felipe Calderon, there was only silence. He would not comment on the "matters of Venezuela's national sovereignty," a spokeswoman said.

It has been nearly 30 years since she got married, but Iraqi legislator Samira Musawi still bristles at what she considers the ultimate indignity: a law requiring witnesses to certify the rite. She and her husband-to-be grabbed a couple of strangers, gave them each about $10 and were legally wed. "I didn't even know these people; they could have been thugs," Musawi said of the men who validated the 1979 civil ceremony in a west Baghdad court.

European Union leaders meeting in Lisbon today agreed on a reform treaty to replace their failed European constitution and give the 27-nation bloc more say in world affairs, diplomats said. The agreement came after the EU leaders resolved eleventh-hour reservations about the draft text, notably from Poland and Italy, they said. The reform treaty -- to be formally signed by the EU leaders in Lisbon on Dec.

The military regime that rules Myanmar announced a commission Thursday to draft a new constitution as part of its "road map to democracy," an effort derided by critics as a sham to keep the generals in power. Myanmar's state-owned television station said Chief Justice U Aung Toe would chair the 54-member commission, which includes civil servants and military officers, but gave no time frame for completing its work.

Antiabortion activists in several states are promoting constitutional amendments that would define life as beginning at conception, which could effectively outlaw all abortions and some birth control methods. The campaigns to grant "personhood" to fertilized eggs, giving them the same legal protections as human beings, come as the nation in January marks the 35th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.

Riots convulsed the city of Sucre after allies of President Evo Morales approved the framework for a new constitution that would end presidential term limits and could radically alter Bolivian politics. At least two people, including a police officer, were killed. Demonstrators burned police stations and stormed a jail, freeing 100 inmates. The new constitution, if approved by voters, would establish a multiethnic state with 36 self-governing regions for indigenous groups.

Voters on Sunday defeated a package of constitutional reforms that could have indefinitely extended President Hugo Chavez's grip on power here. It was a shocking electoral loss for the strongman, his first in nine years at the helm. Voters defeated two ballot measures that would have changed 69 articles in Venezuela's Constitution, which was rewritten in 1999, the year Chavez took office. Margins were tight on both, with the "no" votes edging the "yes" votes by 50.7% to 49.3% and 51% to 49%.

President Hugo Chavez's revolution seemed to age overnight, its dynamic and aura of invincibility shattered by voters' narrow rejection Sunday of his constitutional reform package. A year after Chavez won a landslide reelection, millions of his supporters stayed home rather than vote for his 69 proposals, which included a provision that would have allowed him to seek reelection indefinitely.

Defying an opposition boycott, Bolivia's constitutional assembly approved a charter that would empower the nation's indigenous majority and let President Evo Morales run for reelection indefinitely. The new constitution must be approved by Bolivians in a national referendum. No date has been set, and it is not expected to be held until September 2008. Opposition leaders vowed to launch protests and legal challenges to the new document, which they say does not represent all Bolivians.