Politics

A new president was sworn into office today in Mexico, after much uncertainty after a disputed election. On Sunday, President Hugo Chavez is running for re-election in Venezuela. Reviled in the United States, but in his own country Chavez arouses passion in supporters as well as opponents. What are the chances of the man who called President Bush "the devil" in a speech to the United Nation?

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Alberto Robles stood beneath a street lamp whose yellow glow hung over a corner of the barrio where he has lived his whole life.

Robles, 36, pointed to a steep hillside dotted with lights nearby where a block of crumbling shacks was recently replaced by sturdy houses. It's a shining example of grass-roots government at work, he said.

Women faint when they meet him. Men create stampedes to keep up with caravans he leads through impoverished cities where prior generations of leaders have not dared tread.

"When you see him in person, it's something that cannot be explained," said Susana Fonseca, craning her neck for a better view of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez as he worked his way through a mob of admirers here earlier this month.

"We've never had men like him in our history," said Fonseca, 43, a public accountant.

A central feature of changes being brought about by President Hugo Chávez is the new, civilian branch of the Venezuelan military called the "territorial guard."

About 100,000 citizens, mainly from poor communities where support for Chávez burns hottest, have joined the guard during the past three years, according to members who participate in weekly training sessions at more than a dozen camps set up around the country.

Critics say there's no better example of Hugo Chávez's suave egomania than his weekly television talk show, in which he takes calls from viewers across the country.

But they can't argue with the show's popularity.

"Alo Presidente" — "Hello President" — appears on state television every Sunday and typically runs for as long as six hours.

The show is taped from a different location each week, usually at the site of one of the government's social welfare programs, where Chávez appears with a telephone to take calls from viewers.

President Hugo Chavez is despised by many in his country for what they see as populist demagoguery and reckless policies, but that is not the case in the barrios and isolated rural hamlets of a country that remains extraordinarily poor despite its equally extraordinary wealth in oil. What poor and long marginalized Venezuelans see in Chavez are programs like free dental care, access to education and aid to the less advantaged in city and country alike.

The skycrapers of Caracas bespeak a proudly confident country reaping the rewards of one of the world's great pools of oil. The shacks within sight of the sleek glass towers, the vast new urban slums and isolated villages untouched by modern conveniences all tell another story -- of the 50 percent of Venezuelans who live below the poverty line.

They might as well live on a different planet -- or at the least, in Miami. Venezuela's well-heeled upper crust shop in American-style malls and snap up luxury boats and automobiles. They also form the hard-core base of opposition to populist President Hugo Chavez.

With the United States preoccupied by war, nuclear threats in the Middle East and an array of problems elsewhere, a quiet revolution is underway in East Asia as the region adjusts to the reemergence of a great power: China.

BANGKOK -- The maps spread across the desk of senior Thai Commerce Ministry official Pisanu Rienmahasarn show the progress on a new 1,170-mile-long road project that will run from Kunming in southwestern China through Laos and on to the ports of southern Thailand.

Reporter: Kris Kitto

Filmmaker: Gabrielle Weiss

Produced by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and Azimuth Media.