Caracas  - Venezuelan opposition leader Manuel Rosales has gone into hiding and will not turn himself in to the authorities on embezzlement charges, because he thinks he is being prosecuted for political reasons, his party said Tuesday.

Rosales planned to hold on to his position as mayor of the city of Maracaibo and would not leave the country, as he awaits guarantees of a fair trial, said Omar Barboza, a spokesman for Rosales' party Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT).

Caracas  - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Monday congratulated fellow-leftist Mauricio Funes for his historic win a day earlier in El Salvador's presidential election.

In a statement issued by the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, Chavez described the electoral victory as "unobjectionable and resounding," and offered Funes his assistance.

The result "consolidates the historic current that has risen across Latin America and the Caribbean in this first decade of the 21st century," Chavez said, noting the region's swing to the left.

Caracas  - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday called upon US President Barack Obama to follow the path to socialism, which he termed as the "only" way out of the global recession.

"Come with us, align yourself, come with us on the road to socialism. This is the only path. Imagine a socialist revolution in the United States," Chavez told a group of workers in the southern Venezuelan state of Bolivar.

Caracas  - Unk

Caracas - The newspaper column that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been writing three times a week will now appear just once a week, the government said Tuesday.

On Sunday, a Chavez-sponsored proposal to remove term limits on the mandates of the president and other elected officials was passed in a referendum.

Caracas  - Venezuela's opposition leaders on Monday warned President Hugo Chavez that the referendum victory that removed term limits on his re-election "was no landslide," and he would need to seek greater consensus to remain in power.

Opposition leaders noted that 6 million Venezuelans, or 54 per cent of voters, favoured a proposal that allows the president unlimited re-election bids, while 5 million (46 per cent) voted against it and 32 per cent of those registered to cast their ballot, abstained.