Caracas - Polls closed without major incidents in Sunday's constitutional referendum in Venezuela, in which nearly 17 million citizens voted on whether to allow the unlimited re-election of the country's president.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said the election was decisive for his own political future.

Caracas  - Polls opened on Sunday morning across Venezuela in a new referendum on the issue of unlimited terms for President Hugo Chavez, amid heavy security measures.

Around 17 million Venezuelans are eligible to vote in the referendum, which will decide on a change to the country's constitution that would see Chavez extend his period in office beyond the currently-mandated two terms, due to end in 2013.

A further term would see Chavez, who has been in power in Venezuela since 1999, in power until at least 2019.

The result of the poll is should be known by the early hours of Monday.

Buenos Aires  - Venezuelans are set to go to the polls again Sunday, but this time at least one thing is different: precedent shows that President Hugo Chavez can actually lose an election, and accept defeat too.

"If we lose, we lose," Chavez said bluntly in an interview with CNN earlier this month.

Venezuelans are set to vote on a constitutional amendment that would allow the unlimited re-election of the president. The proposal was already part of a broader constitutional reform that was rejected at the polls in December 2007.

Buenos Aires  - Controversial Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will celebrate ten years in power on Monday and has made it clear that he has no plans to leave anytime soon.

Chavez became president on February 2, 1999. On February 15, Venezuela is to hold a constitutional referendum, which would abolish term limits and enable Chavez to seek unlimited re-elections.

Under the present constitution, Chavez's second term ends in February 2013 without the chance of re-election.

Sao Paulo  - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez took a swipe Thursday at world leaders gathered for the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, describing it as a meeting of a "world that is dying."

Chavez was speaking at the anti-globalization World Social Forum (WSF) currently underway in the northeastern Brazilian city of Belem. The WSF developed as a counter balance to the economic forum in the Swiss resort of Davos.

Chavez said the event in Belem was "where a new world, a new era is born" at a time when the globe grapples with the widening economic crisis.

Caracas  - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday called for an end to the US embargo on Cuba and suggested a meeting between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and president-elect Barack Obama, who is to be inaugurated Tuesday.

Lula noted that differences between Caracas and Washington were largely because of outgoing US President George W Bush, and stressed that the "extraordinary importance that Venezuela has at this point" cannot be denied.