A surprisingly interesting article in this weeks NYT Magazine:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine/04oil-t.html
with by far the most sympathetic view of Chavez I think we'll ever see in that paper. It's long, but has lots of fascinating detail. (I think perhaps she got a little ravelled up in the end trying to come to a conclusion too fast -- company transparency can't solve the Dutch disease, which is the main threat -- but I think maybe that was the intrusion of a length limit and/or a deadline. Because until then it's brisk, clear, well written and critically sympathetic.)
Michael