President Chavez lays the blame for mass disturbances on US and Canada

President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez, while on national television, blamed the US and Canada for using politically oppositional protest actions to destabilize the situation in the country. In the last few days there have been massive student protests against the president. In order for police to control the protesters they used tear gas, rubber bullets, and water cannons. As a result of clashes with police two students died. The president of Venezuela announced that from the 1st of March until the 31 st of December of this year there will be special measures to fight crime. Without revealing the details he said there were plans in the works for the seizing of 10 states and 36 municipalities where the highest numbers of murders had occurred. According to official information from the Ministry of Justice of Venezuela, in just 11 months of 2009 the number of violent deaths was higher than 12,000.