Fourteen years and one month after taking power, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez died of cancer at the age of 58 in a military hospital in Caracas. On state television, interim president Nicolas Maduro stated that Chávez’s cancer was the work of “the historical enemies of our homeland,” adding that Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, who died in a coma in 2004, was likewise “inoculated with an illness.” In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared a national day of mourning and said he had “no doubt that [Chávez] will return alongside Jesus Christ.” The mortician who embalmed Filipino president Ferdinand Marcos volunteered his services to Venezuelan authorities after they announced that Chávez’s corpse would be displayed in a glass case in the country’s Museo de la Revolución. “I was told they preserved Lenin using resin,” he said. “I would do it differently.” Outside Caracas’s military academy, mourners waited six hours to see Chávez’s body for five seconds. “This is a big joke,” said a resident of the city’s wealthy La Floresta district. “I feel ridiculous as a Venezuelan.”
Weekly Review
Weekly Review
Weekly Review
Fourteen years and one month after taking power, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez died of cancer at the age of 58 in a military hospital in Caracas. On state television, interim president Nicolas Maduro stated that Chávez’s cancer was the work of “the historical enemies of our homeland,” adding that Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, who died in a coma in 2004, was likewise “inoculated with an illness.” In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared a national day of mourning and said he had “no doubt that [Chávez] will return alongside Jesus Christ.” The mortician who embalmed Filipino president Ferdinand Marcos volunteered his services to Venezuelan authorities after they announced that Chávez’s corpse would be displayed in a glass case in the country’s Museo de la Revolución. “I was told they preserved Lenin using resin,” he said. “I would do it differently.” Outside Caracas’s military academy, mourners waited six hours to see Chávez’s body for five seconds. “This is a big joke,” said a resident of the city’s wealthy La Floresta district. “I feel ridiculous as a Venezuelan.”