Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez continues his quest to drive the population towards consumption of local goods and, like a good marketer, he’s telling his people to set down their Coca Cola and pick up a new grape juice product called Juvita. On Chavez’s weekly TV show this past weekend, the message rang like a late-night informercial: Juvita means eternal youth, Coke means evil. From Reuters TV transcripts:

“It is a soft drink that is healthy, nutritious, here it is, its called Juvita. To maintain eternal youth, Juvita. Drink Juvita. Be young eternally instead of drinking that soft drink that, I don’t know, coca, I don’t know, cola, I don’t know what. Drink Juvita. Let’s taste it to see, to stay young eternally. You fathers and the mothers, encourage all parents to drink Juvita.” CHAVEZ BEGINS TO DRINK FROM BOTTLE OF JUVITA SOFT DRINK, SAYING: “Let’s see. Ah, eternal youth. Drink Juvita. How tasty. Did you all try?”

Getting Latin Americans to put down Coca-Cola is a mission impossible. Kind of like getting people in América Latina to give up corn-based products. Not gonna happen.

While the infomercial occupied a large part of Chávez’s weekly address, more serious matters were also dealt with: most notably the situation in Iran. Chávez expressed his solidarity with the government of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

“We ask the world to respect Iran because they are trying to influence the strength of the Iranian revolution, we ask the world respect the triumph of (President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad. It was a triumph in every respect. They are trying to stain Ahmadinejad’s triumph and weakening the government and the Islamic revolution.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t really respect the Iranian government at this point when snipers are taking down peaceful protesters. Unfortunately for the government of Tehran, the world is watching on YouTube [warning: graphic content].

Via / Reuters TV