Chavez assails U.S.

Caracas

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez this week threatened to stop shipping fuel to the U.S., a prospect that pushed world oil prices to a post–Iraq war high. Chavez accused the Bush administration of backing rivals trying to push him from office, and said that if the U.S. tried to send in troops, as it did in Haiti, “not a drop of petroleum will come to them.” Massive protests against Chavez have turned violent recently, as opposition groups have demanded a referendum on whether Chavez should finish his term, which ends in 2007. Critics accuse Chavez of trying to impose Cuban-style communism in Venezuela, the fourth-biggest supplier of fuel to the U.S.