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Chavez offers cheap gas to needy Americans
Reuters News Service

HAVANA - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, popular with the poor at home, offered Tuesday to help needy Americans with cheap supplies of gasoline.


"We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States," the populist leader said at the end of a visit to Cuba.

Chavez did not say how Venezuela would go about providing gasoline to poor communities. The Venezuelan state oil company, PDVSA, owns Citgo, which has 14,000 gas stations in the United States.

The offer may sound attractive to Americans feeling pinched by soaring prices at the pump but not to the U.S. government, which sees Chavez as a left-wing troublemaker in Latin America.

Chavez said Venezuela could supply gasoline to Americans at half the price they now pay if intermediaries who "speculated ... and exploited consumers" were cut out.

Chavez and Cuban President Fidel Castro also offered to give poor Americans free health care and train doctors free of charge.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.mpl/world/3322759
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