Chavez gets shit-canned. Then gets pissy.

Chavez cuts ties with Colombia

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez cut diplomatic ties with Colombia on Wednesday and said he will not restore them as long as President Alvaro Uribe is in power after Uribe fired him as a mediator in hostage talks.

“I’m telling the world — as long as President Uribe is president of Colombia, I will not have any type of relations with him or with the government of Colombia. I cannot,” Chavez told a political rally in western Venezuela.

Chavez recalled his ambassador from Bogota on Tuesday and branded the pro-U.S. Uribe a “pawn of the empire” for firing him as mediator in talks to free hostages held by Marxist guerrillas in Colombia.

Uribe, a conservative, is Washington’s closest ally in South America. He said on Wednesday that Chavez, his ideological opposite, should stop acting with “rage and vanity.”

The dispute threatens to damage the $6 billion in bilateral trade between the Andean neighbors.