Still Running Off at the Keyboard

Pat Robertson, one of the most influential Christian evangelists in the United States, has sparked controversy by calling for the assassination of the left-wing leader of Venezuela.

Mr Robertson, who heads the Christian Coalition and has close links to the White House, said the US should kill President Hugo Chavez because he wanted to turn his Catholic country into "the launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism".

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Mr Robertson said on the Monday night broadcast of his religious programme The 700 Club. "We don't need another $200bn war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

Venezuela, whose relationship with the US has become increasingly difficult in recent years, described Mr Robertson's comments as a form of terrorism and called on the White House to condemn them.

Speaking in Caracas, Vice-President Jose Vicente Rangel said: "This is a huge hypocrisy to maintain an anti-terrorist line and at the same time have such terrorist statements as these made by Christian preacher Pat Robertson coming from the same country. The ball is in the US court now, after this criminal statement by a citizen of that country."