Riot police used tear gas to block hundreds of Venezuelans protesting the latest moves by President Hugo Chavez to concentrate his power. The demonstrators said a blacklist of opposition candidates and a series of socialist decrees are destroying what's left of their democracy.
Chavez opponents also are outraged by 26 laws the president just decreed, some of them mirroring the socialist measures voters rejected in a December referendum.
"We said in the referendum that we didn't want that, and now he's put it in the decrees," said protester Josefina Bravo, a 59-year-old who wore a sticker reading "No means no" on her baseball cap. "That's the problem we have: All the powers are concentrated in the president." Chavez issued the decrees just before the expiration of special legislative powers that allowed him to make laws without National Assember approval for the past 18 months.
In other recent news, Chavez moved to nationalize its cement industry this week by seizing operational control of plants owned by Mexican company Cemex. The Venezuelan National Guard took control of the local operations of Cemex after negotiations between the government and the company failed to produce an agreement on the nationalization terms, according to media reports. Just weeks ago, Chavez announced further plans to take over the country's third largest bank, Banco de Venezuela, a subsidiary of Spanish banking giant Santander.
Chavez ordered the nationalization of the cement industry saying he cannot allow businesses to continue exporting raw materials needed to tackle a domestic housing shortage. Cemex, however, reported that its cement sales within Venezuela rose by 17 percent last year over 2006, with concrete volumes up by 10 percent because of construction boosted by public spending. Exports from Venezuela fell by half, it said, because the company focused on supplying the domestic market.
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