Three things you must know this week…

1) On Sunday night, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez secured his fourth term in office after a closely watched presidential race. Socialist Chavez won the election against his conservative rival, state governor Henrique Capriles, 54% to 45%, the narrowest margin of victory since Chavez entered office. Many opponents believed Capriles had a chance of winning this election. Chavez, in power since 1998, has become increasingly unpopular in recent years due to the country’s high crime rates, inflation rates and growing poverty. Chavez did not campaign as vigorously as in previous elections, which many believe is a result of his mysterious cancer treatments; he has also been accused of fixing elections and scaring citizens into voting for him. For his fourth term, Chavez has pledged to fully convert Venezuela into a socialist state.

2) Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, was greeted by approximately 40,000 protestors during her visit to Athens on Tuesday. Many of the signs protesters carried read ‘Don’t cry for us, Mrs. Merkel’ and ‘Merkel, you are not welcome here.’ Several demonstrators even burned a Nazi flag and dressed in Nazi paraphernalia. Merkel’s reception was hostile because many Greeks hold her responsible for the austerity budget that has lead to cuts in government salaries and pensions. On the visit, Merkel intended to show her support for the coalition government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. She is the first major European leader to visit the country since the debt crisis began in 2009. Merkel said she came to Athens as a friend and a partner, not a taskmaster. She wanted to be better informed about the economic decline ravaging Greece, and encouraged Greece to remain on its path of structural reform, and to stick with the austerity budget.

3) In an appellate court in Moscow on Wednesday, Yekaterina Samutsevich, a member of the punk-rock band Pussy Riot, was released from jail. The court upheld the two-year prison terms for the other two members of the group who were convicted of hooliganism for performing a song that defamed Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral. The City Court did not acquit Samutsevich, but freed her on the basis that she did not perform in the music video. The prosecution of Pussy Riot has garnered a lot of international attention as one of Russia’s most sensational (lack of) free speech cases. The band argues they have committed no crime, and were not motivated by religious hatred. They claimed to be voicing political opposition to Mr. Putin during the election. Many celebrities, including Madonna and Sting, have donned Pussy Riot t-shirts to show support for the band members’ rights to free speech.

Headline image: The Huffington Post