Associated Press, Jan. 26, 2013

CARACAS, Venezuela The death toll has risen to 61 following fierce gunbattles between inmates and National Guard troops at a Venezuelan prison, a hospital director said Saturday. About 120 more people were wounded in one of the deadliest prison riots in the nation's recent history [....]

The riot at Uribana prison was the latest in a series of bloody clashes in the country's severely overcrowded prisons, where inmates often freely obtain weapons and drugs with the help of corrupt guards. Venezuela currently has 33 prisons built to hold about 12,000 inmates, but officials have said the prisons' population is about 47,000.

The Venezuelan Prisons Observatory, a watchdog group, said in a statement that in 2007 the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights had ordered the government to seize weapons that inmates had in their possession at Uribana prison and to take measures to avoid deaths in the facility. The group called for the government to release a list with the names of the dead and wounded in Friday's violence, as well as details about weapons seized in the search. [....]

Meanwhile, the President is not leaving Cuba anytime soon:

Chavez begins more medical treatment in Cuba, Associated Press, Jan. 26, 2013