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The U.S. this week thwarted a bid by Venezuela’s leftist President Hugo Chavez to gain a seat on the U.N. Security Council. The 15-member council has five permanent members—the U.S., Britain, China, France, and Russia—and 10 rotating members representing different parts of the world. The Latin American seat recently opened up, and Venezuela and Guatemala are vying for it. Each member nation in the General Assembly has a vote, and a country must poll at least 125 votes to win. Through several rounds of balloting, Guatemala won an average of 118 votes to Venezuela’s 76. “We’re fighting until the end,” said Francisco Arias Cárdenas, Venezuela’s U.N. ambassador. “We are fighting against the first power of the world, the owners of the universe.”
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