INSIDE GRENADA MONDAY December 17,2007 by Wallace J.A President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has decided to create a new time zone for Venezuela, permanently shifting the Venezuelan clock thirty minutes (half-an-hour) back. The new time puts Venezuela four-and-a- half hours behind Greenwich Mean Time and puts the country out of synchronization with its neighbors. Chavez said that he believes that an earlier dawn in his country could translate into greater productivity because more people will be waking up during daylight. He also thinks that school children will be arriving at their schools with more energy as a consequence of the change. Many critics of Chavez, however, think that the Venezuelan president changed his time because he does not want to be in the same time zone as his arch-nemesis, the United States. Since he became president of Venezuela in 1998, Chavez has made many sweeping changes in the country, gaining massive support from a section of the population but arousing deep resentment and hostility from others. He blamed the United States for supporting a botched coup in April 2002 which briefly ousted him from power. Since then, his anti-American rhetoric has intensified. In a speech to the United Nations in September 2006, Mr. Chavez, speaking the day after President Bush had addressed the General Assembly, declared that the room stank of sulphur because "the devil'' had been there. Chavez recently proposed a referendum on constitutional changes that would centralize power in the presidency and remove term limits for the post. That referendum was rejected by voters in December 2007. It was Mr. Chavez's first major electoral defeat in the nine years of his presidency.