Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and some still find “perplexing” the failures of socialism:

This country may be an energy colossus, with the largest conventional oil reserves outside the Middle East and one of the world’s mightiest hydroelectric systems, but that has not prevented it from enduring serious electricity and water shortages that seem only to be getting worse.

President Hugo Chávez has been facing a public outcry in recent weeks over power failures that, after six nationwide blackouts in the last two years, are cutting electricity for hours each day in rural areas and in industrial cities like Valencia and Ciudad Guayana. Now, water rationing has been introduced here in the capital.

The deterioration of services is perplexing to many here, especially because the country had grown used to cheap, plentiful electricity and water in recent decades. But even as the oil boom was enriching his government and Mr. Chávez asserted greater control over utilities and other industries in this decade, public services seemed only to decay, adding to residents’ frustrations.

In other South American news:

Populist leaders in Latin America are increasingly making legal and political moves to silence their critics in the media, the president of the Inter American Press Association said Friday.

The leaders’ tactics include revoking broadcast licenses, fostering hostility toward journalists and giving a free hand to government supporters who have attacked broadcast stations, newsrooms and printing plants, said the association’s president, Enrique Santos Calderón.

The headline reads, “Latin American Leaders Seek to Rein in Media, Press Group Says,” but thanks to the President’s war on Fox News, the ‘Latin’ qualifier for such stories has been rendered superfluous.