There are reports that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said he will not renew the licence for the country's second largest TV channel when it expires in March 2007.

The station, RCTV, supported a bungled coup in 2002 and a devastating general strike in 2003 both of which failed to remove Chavez who was returned for a second term last month with an even larger majority.

The press freedom campaign group, Reporters Without Borders, said the proposed move would be a grave violation of freedom of expression in Venezuela.

RCTV is one of the country's oldest channels and began broadcasting in 1953.

Bertie Ahern's complaints about the coverage of the controversy about his finances shows how skewered Irish political morals have become. Today Bertie Ahern is in the Irish Times whinging about how unfairly he was treated ( I also heard him on the radio yesterday) by the media. Why are we even tolerating such complaints?

Why is that whenever a politician does something wrong, and Bertie Ahern did wrong, that it is always the media's fault for pointing it out? Bertie Ahern took money, Bertie did not pay tax on that money, he was a TD and Minister for Finance at the time. That is wrong, very wrong, yet Bertie is on about how unfairly he was treated by the papers, tv and radios stations that exposed his wrong-doing.

What's more he was also ranting on about "those in politics who have agendas. There are those out there who are personally out to get you all of the time."

So according to Bertie Ahern it is the media and "those with agendas" who are to blame? I think rather the opposite. Bertie took money at the time which would have amounted to 5 years salary for me at the time. He took it at the time I was paying his salary from my meagre taxes.

The man has no sense of accountability or responsibility and any man who takes money from others has no sense of pride, self respect or respect for their office.

How much longer will we tolerate low standards in high office?