The good news, I suppose, is...

...it could always be worse....

ONE of Hugo Chávez’s lesser-known feats since taking over as Venezuela’s leader in 1999 is to have presided over a tripling of the annual homicide rate—and that’s according to the official statistics.

Last year more than 13,000 people were killed in a country of 27m, producing a murder rate of 48 per 100,000, the second highest in the world (after El Salvador).

In neighbouring Colombia, a country plagued by guerrilla war and drug violence, the rate was 40 per 100,000.

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