Venezuela Suspends Heating Aid to the U.S. - NYT

By SIMON ROMERO
Published: January 5, 2009

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s national oil company is suspending a program that provides discounted heating oil to poor communities in the United States, as officials here struggle to find ways of preserving hard currency reserves amid a plunge in oil revenues.

The move, announced on Monday, halts one of President Hugo Chávez’s most ambitious foreign aid projects — and one that allowed him to poke at the Bush administration, which had proposed a cut in funds for heating assistance to the poor....