Laht.com: Venezuela's Globovision TV network said that the government of leftist President Hugo Chavez has begun the process of revoking its broadcasting license. "The situation is fairly confused ... they're notifying us of the opening of the fourth sanctioning procedure" in six months, "which is different from the three previous ones in that it's trying to establish criminal responsibility... which would open the way to revoking the license," Ana Nunez, one of the attorneys of the opposition broadcaster, said.

Nunez was speaking on the air with a Globovision reporter when she received some documents from officials at the CONATEL regulatory agency that the attorney said were about the new "sanctioning procedure."

The matter arises 11 days after the public works minister and the head of CONATEL, Diosdado Cabello, announced that he was asking the Attorney General's Office to bring criminal charges against Globovision. Without specifying the alleged offenses, Cabello said on June 5 that the administrative sanctions "were not enough." Globovision directors, he said, "drink a bottle of poison in the morning, the give it to their journalists and expect that it will be the people who die, that it will be Chavez who dies."

"It appears that there are some who think the best (way to avoid punishment) if you're a criminal is to get your hands on a media outlet, that that will guarantee that no one will touch you and that (you can commit) environmental crimes" and hoard vehicles with impunity, Cabello said, referring to Globovision CEO Guillermo Zuloaga. A joint owner of two car dealerships, Zuloaga was accused Thursday of usury by prosecutors for hoarding 24 cars at one of his properties, allegedly to keep them off the market while waiting for their price to rise.

Prosecutors later raided the same property Friday to remove stuffed wild animals that he had hunted and mounted as trophies, part of an investigation into the possible killing of protected species. Globovision also received notice of the fines imposed by the tax office. One of them requires payment equivalent to $2.35 million "for unpaid taxes" for the 2002-2003 period, and another for $270,697 for operating frequencies without authorization, as previously ruled by the Supreme Court.

Chavez demanded on May 28 that Cabello and government prosecutors take action against media that in his judgment are "poisoning" the country. Two years ago, the Chavez administration declined to renew the broadcasting license of another anti-government t