Last week, the American Society of Newspaper Editors went to Venezuela on a fact-finding mission. Their travels included a meeting with President Hugo Chavez. You can read about their observations, and what the Venezuelan leader had to say, in the Orlando Sentinel (editor Charlotte Hall is pictured here) and the Boston Globe.
Cultural figures from Venezuela have also been in the news lately. For all those sports fans, you may be interested to know that the increasingly popular Milka Duno qualified on Sunday for the Indy 500. She enters the race next weekend in her Citgo-sponsored car, ranked two spots higher than last year. You can also catch her silver screen cameo in the new movie Speed Racer.
The Venezuelan music education guru and founder of the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, Jose Antonio Abreu, was made an honorary member of the Royal Philharmonic Society at their annual awards ceremony in London last week. Thanks to the unique vision and leadership of Abreu, the Society exuded in a statement, “lives are being transformed, communities empowered, and orchestras built for the future.” That is certainly worth celebrating.

