Speaking at a meeting of the Council of Ministers in Miraflores Palace, Chavez Frias says he hopes the new law regulating media conduct will be implemented to the letter.

The National Communications Council (Conatel) has been entrusted with ensuring full compliance and the law will be published in the Gaceta Oficial today.

• The law itself was passed in the National Assembly after a vote that reflects the current divide of majority government-minority opposition vote.

The opposition calls it the "muzzle" law and not one opposition parliamentarian voted in favor of the bill.

Samuel Moncada has been appointed Higher Education Minister replacing Hector Navarro, while Nelson Merentes replaces Tobias Nobrega as Finance Minister.

For President Chavez Frias the new media law is of utmost importance in his attempts to consolidate the Bolivarian Revolution and to neutralize the overtly politicized private print & broadcast media.

"Venezuela will be free of the hegemony of private media bosses and media dictatorship to which the Venezuelan people has been subject for a long time ...  the process of democratizing the media has begun."