Critics of President Hugo Chavez had pummeled him since Monday for suspending a program that he had milked for its maximum publicity as a champion of the poor, even in the U.S.
In the wake of Monday’s announced halt, analysts had predicted this was only the first of Chavez’s ambitious foreign assistance programs that would disappear, given the sharp drop in oil prices and the Venezuelan government’s dependence on oil export income.
Venezuelan government officials wasted no time in reinstating the program, which saved about 180,000 U.S. households around $260 apiece in 2008. That covered about one month’s heating bill.
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