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Rebirth of a television station
JUST seven weeks after disappearing from Venezuelans' television screens when the government refused to renew its broadcasting licence, RCTV is back. But the station, whose opposition politics and "capitalist" programmes aroused the ire of Hugo Chavez, the country's leftist president, is now available only to the roughly two-fifths of households that have access to cable or satellite television.
The station's reappearance, says the government, proves that international criticism of the curtailing of freedom of expression in Venezuela was a storm in a teacup. Officials say RCTV could have switched immediately to become a subscription channel, and that it went off the air only to make a political...