To an outsider, it all seems a bit surreal. Others simply called it macabre. But for Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez , the exhumation of the bones of South American independence hero Simon Bolívar (after whom his “Bolivarian revolution” is named) is of the utmost significance. He actually professed, via Twitter, to have wept when he first clapped eyes on his idol’s dusty old skeleton.

Perhaps that goes some way to explaining why some other rather pressing affairs of state seem to be taking a back seat. Take, for example, the small matter of the economy – where things are not exactly going well- and more specifically Venezuela’s currency, which is, fittingly or perhaps not, called the bolívar. Continue reading »