Venezuela

This vast ranch used to be filled with grazing herds of cattle, but the green pastures are now overgrown with weeds and dotted with patches where poor farmers grow corn and beans. The cows have vanished. The 32,000-acre El Charcote Ranch in central Venezuela was meant as a showcase for President Hugo Chavez's agrarian revolution, turning a country with food shortages and runaway inflation into one that could feed itself. But since troops and peasants seized the land from a British agribusiness company four years ago, beef production has dropped from 2.6 million pounds annually to zero.

Venezuelan authorities began opening tombs to identify the remains of dozens of people killed during riots more than two decades ago and look for evidence against police and soldiers responsible for slayings. The 1989 riots were triggered by an increase in gasoline prices and public transportation fares. Venezuela's army was deployed as looting spread through the capital. At least 300 people died, according to the government of then-President Carlos Andres Perez. But human rights activists say hundreds more were killed -- many shot indiscriminately by security forces.

The music program known as El Sistema -- which for 32 years has brought free classical music education to disadvantaged youth in Venezuela -- is no longer that country's secret. It seems as if now the whole world wants to copy or at least learn from the program, whose most famous alumnus is conductor Gustavo Dudamel. On Tuesday, the New England Conservatory launched its Abreu Fellows training program, one of the first major initiatives of El Sistema USA. The program is named after Jose Antonio Abreu, the founder of El Sistema in Venezuela.

Whether it's called an "arms race" or a "coincidental modernization of existing stocks," a wave of weapons purchases by Latin American nations is causing neighbors to watch one another with growing mistrust and fear. Brazil says it must protect its newfound oil and gas riches. Venezuela says the U.S. military might attack it. Colombia is worried about Venezuela, Ecuador is watching Colombia, and Paraguay is keeping an eye on Bolivia. There's no question that weapons sales around the region are soaring.

Two women held hostage for more than five years by leftist rebels were released deep in Colombia's eastern jungle Thursday and handed over to Red Cross officials in helicopters provided by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

It might sound like mere semantics. But when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez proposed this month that Colombia's largest rebel group be recognized as "belligerents," not terrorists, the reverberations reached to Washington and Europe, and relations between the two Latin American nations plunged to what one observer called perhaps the lowest point in their history.

White House drug czar John P. Walters charged Sunday that the government of President Hugo Chavez was facilitating the rising flow of drugs from his nation to Europe and North America through a lack of enforcement. The public criticism by Walters, who heads the Office of National Drug Control Policy, was unusually harsh for the Bush administration, which has tried to steer clear of provoking the fiery Venezuelan leader.

TRONCONERO, Venezuela -- Dressed for work in shorts and a T-shirt, Jesus "Chalao" Mendez hardly looked imposing. But for young Venezuelan baseball players with major league ambitions, Mendez has more juice than Hugo Chavez and George Bush put together. Mendez, whose nickname means "crazy," is chief Venezuela scout for the Philadelphia Phillies.

Gunmen who had held more than 30 hostages inside a Venezuelan bank for more than 24 hours fled in an ambulance Tuesday and were caught along a roadside, where they surrendered and freed their last five captives. "This nightmare is over," Guarico state Gov. Eduardo Manuitt told state television.

Authorities in Venezuela said Friday that Wilber Varela, the leader of Colombia's Norte del Valle drug cartel, had been found shot to death in the Venezuelan resort town of Merida. The location of the killing underscores the evolution of drug trafficking in the region. Increasing amounts of Colombian cocaine destined for U.S. and European markets flow through Venezuela, and as much as one-third of all the narcotic powder is now thought to transit there.