Hugo Chavez - R.I.P Dear Comrade

President Hugo Chavez was a former paratroop commander and self-styled "subversive" who waged continual battle for his socialist ideals. He bedeviled the United States and outsmarted his rivals time and again, while using Venezuela's vast oil wealth to his political advantage.

Chavez led one coup attempt, defeated another and was re-elected three times. Almost the only adversary it seemed he couldn't beat was cancer. He died Tuesday in Caracas at age 58, two years after he was first diagnosed.

The son of schoolteachers, he rose from poverty in a dirt-floor, mud-walled house, a "humble soldier" in the battle for socialism. He fashioned himself after 19th-century independence leader Simon Bolivar and renamed his country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

During more than 14 years in office, his leftist politics and grandiose style polarized Venezuelans. The barrel-chested leader electrified crowds with his booming voice, and won admiration among the poor with government social programs and a folksy, nationalistic style.

Opponents seethed at the larger-than-life character who demonized them on television and ordered the expropriation of farms and businesses. Many in the middle class cringed at his bombast and complained about rising crime, soaring inflation and government economic controls.

Chavez used his country's oil wealth to launch social programs that included state-run food markets, new public housing, free health clinics and education programs. While poverty declined during his presidency amid a historic boom in oil earnings, critics said he failed to use the windfall of hundreds of billions of dollars to develop the country's economy.

Before his struggle with cancer, the charismatic leader appeared on television almost daily, speaking for hours and breaking into song or philosophical discourse. He often wore the bright red of his United Socialist Party of Venezuela, or the fatigues and red beret of his army days — the same uniform he donned in 1992 while leading an ill-fated coup attempt that first landed him in jail and then launched his political career.

The rest of the world watched as the country with the world's biggest proven oil reserves took a turn to the left under its unconventional leader, who considered himself above all else a revolutionary.

"I'm still a subversive," Chavez told The Associated Press in a 2007 interview, recalling his days as a rebel soldier. "I think the entire world has to be subverted."

Chavez was a master communicator and savvy political strategist, and managed to turn his struggle against cancer into a rallying cry, until the illness finally defeated him.

From the start, he billed himself as the heir of Bolivar, who led much of South America to independence, often speaking beneath the 19th-century liberator's portrait and presenting replicas of his sword to allies. He built a soaring mausoleum in Caracas to house the remains of "El Libertador."

Chavez also was inspired by his mentor Fidel Castro and took on the Cuban leader's role as Washington's chief antagonist in the Western Hemisphere after the ailing Castro turned over the presidency to his brother Raul in 2006. Like Castro, Chavez decried U.S.-style capitalism while forming alliances throughout Latin America and with distant powers such as Russia, China and Iran.

Supporters eagerly raised Chavez to the pantheon of revolutionary legends ranging from Castro to Argentine-born rebel Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Chavez nurtured that cult of personality, and even as he stayed out of sight for long stretches during his bout with cancer, his out-sized image appeared on buildings and billboard throughout Venezuela. The airwaves boomed with his baritone mantra: "I am a nation." Supporters carried posters and wore masks of his eyes, chanting, "I am Chavez." In the battles Chavez waged at home and abroad, he captivated his base by championing Venezuela's poor.

"This is the path: the hard, long path, filled with doubts, filled with errors, filled with bitterness, but this is the path," Chavez told his backers in 2011. "The path is this: socialism."

On television, he would lambast his opponents as "oligarchs," scold his aides, tell jokes, reminisce about his childhood, lecture Venezuelans on socialism and make sudden announcements, such as expelling the U.S. ambassador or ordering tanks to Venezuela's border with Colombia.

Syrian peace talk is on the way.

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syria's opposition coalition is ready to negotiate President Bashar al-Assad's exit with any member of his government who has not participated in his military crackdown on the uprising, coalition members said on Friday.

Syrian authorities have given no formal response to several offers of talks in recent weeks. But officials say they cannot accept pre-conditions about Assad's departure and have privately dismissed what they say are no more than media initiatives.

The political chasm between the sides, along with a lack of opposition influence over rebel fighters on the ground and an international diplomatic deadlock preventing effective intervention, has allowed fighting to rage on with almost 70,000 people killed in 22 months of conflict, by a U.N. estimate.

Opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib made an offer of negotiations last month without consulting the coalition's 70-member assembly, prompting criticism from a powerful bloc within the movement dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem is due to visit Moscow, one of Assad's main foreign allies, later this month. Russia also hopes Alkhatib will visit soon in search of a breakthrough to end the bloodiest of the Arab Spring uprisings.

But coalition members say no date has been set for an Alkhatib trip to Moscow and Syria's Foreign Ministry played down suggestions that Moualem and he could meet there, saying any dialogue must take place in Syria.

An overnight meeting of the coalition's 12-member politburo in Cairo endorsed Alkhatib's initiative, although it set guidelines for any peace talks which will be presented for approval by the full assembly next Thursday.

"These guidelines stipulate that Bashar al-Assad and all the security and military leaders that (have) participated in the killing of the Syrian people and whose hands are stained with blood have no place in the Syria of the future," coalition member Abdulbaset Sieda told Reuters in Cairo after the meeting.

"We agreed to reassure the Syrian brothers from the (ruling) Baath Party whose hands are not stained with the blood of the Syrian people that they are partners in the coming political process."

Another opposition member said next week's gathering of the full coalition would try to revive plans for a provisional government, undermined so far by divisions among Assad's foes.

Walid Bunni, one of a handful of liberals in the Islamist-heavy assembly, told Reuters that Assad and his military and intelligence officials could not be part of any negotiations.

"Bashar and his cohorts will not be party to any talks. We will not regard those present from the government's side as his representatives," Bunni said.

He said the meeting addressed how to deal with Iran and Russia, Assad's main supporters, after Alkhatib met the foreign ministers of Russia and Iran in Munich earlier this month.

NO SIGN OF DIALOGUE

Syria's Foreign Ministry complained to the United Nations on Friday over what it said was pressure by Turkey, which backs the rebels, on Syria's opposition to reject any negotiated solution. The ministry said Turkey was "training and arming terrorist groups including al Qaeda" to fight Assad's forces.

Turkey has repeatedly denied arming or training the Syrian insurgents.

Alkhatib has said he is willing to hold talks with Assad's representatives in rebel-held areas of Syria or outside the country to try to end the conflict. Syria's minister for national reconciliation, Ali Haidar, initially gave a positive response, saying he was willing to travel abroad to meet him.

But in an interview on state television this week Haidar reiterated the government's position that any serious dialogue must be on Syrian territory and said the opposition had not formally presented any proposals.

"There is no initiative at the table of the Syrian government," he said. "The government is not a media office to answer ideas through the media."

Haidar has also said the authorities reject any dialogue that aims "to hand power from one side to another".

Alkhatib has headed the Syrian National Coalition since it was founded last December in Qatar with Western and Gulf backing. He has quietly built up a student following and links with civic and religious figures across Syria, although he has no control over armed insurgents seeking Assad's overthrow.

Rebels captured the town of Shaddadeh in the eastern, oil-producing province of Hasakah on Thursday after three days of battles in which activists said 30 members of the al Qaeda-linked, anti-Assad, Nusra Front and 100 soldiers were killed.

The United Nations food agency WFP said on Friday that an estimated 40,000 people had fled Shaddadeh for the provincial capital Hasakah, 45 km (30 miles) to the north.