​Apparently, Hugo Chavez is a landlord's nightmare. The controversial Venezuelan prez recently announced that he was closing his country's consulate in Miami for good. Problem is, the consulate had just agreed to a ten-year lease for its Brickell office and hasn't even bothered to pay rent for the last two months. Now Venezuela is facing a lawsuit from mega-developer Tibor Hollo.
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photo via La Piedrita's Twitter feed

​Newt Gingrich isn't the only portly revolutionary stirring up trouble while running for president. Hugo Chavez, the Fidel-worshiping steward of Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution, has his own tough re-election fight on his hands at the moment.

Instead of annoying robocalls, Hugo's supporters took a different tact to inspire the base earlier this week: One group released photos of young children brandishing assault rifles and wearing revolutionary scarves in front of a mural of Jesus toting an AK-47. Newt, you paying attention?
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​Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez may think America is an evil imperialist empire, but his teenage daughter Rosines sure seems to love our dollar, dollar bill, y'all. The 14-year-old snapped a picture of herself posing behind a fan of United States currency and shared it on Instagram.
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via Newscom

Luis Posada Carriles

​Former CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles may have beaten charges in Texas last year, but the aging anti-communist operative ain't in the clear just yet.More >>

​Next time someone tells you, "Eh, this recession hasn't sucked that much in Miami," whip out this interactive economic graphic report that the Brookings Institute just published. The think tank's conclusions are stunning: Of 200 global cities they analyzed, Miami's economy was harder hit by the recession than all but 17 others, barely topping Moscow (and losing out to St. Petersburg ... the Russian one, not the Florida Gulf coast town.)

Brookings cites a 5 percent drop in Miami's income and a 6.3 percent plunge in employment. At least Istanbul had it worse?
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​Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez says his country will close its consulate in Miami. The news comes after a Venezuelan diplomat headquartered in Miami was expelled by the state department earlier this week for her alleged role in a cyber-terrorism plot against the United States.
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When it comes to Cuba, President Obama can do little right in the eyes of exilio politicians. When he eased travel restrictions to the island, for example, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen accused him of undermining democracy on the island. Now she's slamming Obama for his decision to order U.S. inspectors to check a deep-water oil rig that is on its way to Cuba.

While Obama may have helped avoid another Deepwater Horizon spill just 70 miles from the Florida Keys, he has incurred The Lehtinator's colada-fueled wrath.

"A state sponsor of terrorism [is] poised to achieve a tremendous economic boon by entering the oil business and endangering U.S. waters to boot," she said. "It is deeply disappointing that the Obama administration appears content to just watch that happen."
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​We just usually read Parade magazine for Howard Huge cartoons and "Ask Marilyn," but the magazine actually keeps a somewhat frequently updated list of the world's worst dictators. For the first time this year, Raúl Castro and Hugo Chávez made the top ten list.
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​Hugo Chavez has struggled through cancer over the past year, losing his hair, gaining weight and traveling repeatedly to Cuba for surgeries. Chavez has never said precisely what stage of the disease he has, but on Wednesday the Venezuelan president suggested that he knew the source: A secret U.S. cancer-causing machine.

With Argentine President Cristina Fernandez announcing that she, too, has cancer, Chavez said the number of Latin leaders with the ailment was too great for coincidence. "It would not be strange if they had the technology to induce cancer," Chavez told an Army base.
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​There's a reason we don't see outspoken actor Sean Penn visiting Miami more often. Probably because the Hollywood star who keeps warm company with the likes of Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro would be accosted every time he walks down the street. Kind of like he was by former co-star and Cuban-American actress Maria Conchita Alonso at the Los Angeles Airport recently.
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