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Chavez pushes Venezuela into food war
The Telegraph ^ | 6/23/2010 | Damien McElroy

Posted on 06/25/2010 11:18:51 PM PDT by bruinbirdman

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has pushed his country into a perilous food war that has seen prices rocket amid shortages and scandal over shipments left rotting at the docks.


Several thousands tons of rotting meat was among 80,000 tons left to go bad at the Puerto Cabello seaport.

Venezuelan bishops gave warning yesterday that the consequences of President Chavez's drive to control the distribution of food would be to jeopardise supplies to ordinary citizens.

Church leaders said the failure of the state-owned PDVAL, a subsidiary of the national oil company, to distribute food imports that rotted at the shores was "a sin that Heaven is crying over."

Several thousands tons of rotting meat was among 80,000 tons left to go bad at the Puerto Cabello seaport.

One local worker said that the stench at the docks indicated the meat had been festering for weeks. He said: "It stank like 100 dead dogs."

The scandal emerged just weeks after Mr Chavez launched an "economic war on the bourgeoisie owners" of supermarkets, mills, rice plants and food distribution companies.

The "battle for food" coincided with a botched devaluation in January that pushed up the cost of imports.

The result has been an economic catastrophe in the only Latin American economy in recession. Inflation leapt to 21 per cent in May as food prices rose 41 per cent over the level of a year ago. Soldiers have been deployed to raid private homes for food stores. Long lines regularly form on streets for basic commodities.

Mr Chavez is undeterred by failure. Last week he relaunched a chain of supermarkets his government had expropriated from a French-Colombian joint venture. He boasted that the 40-strong chain, Bicentennial Supplies, was already operating at a higher profit margin that under Western management

(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events
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To: RJL

More likely a flat out lie by Chavez. Sort of like the ones we heard about obamacare.


21 posted on 06/26/2010 2:31:35 AM PDT by wiggen (Government owned slave.)
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To: XenaLee
Stop it all of you nervous Nellies...Oliver Stone tells me of the greatness of this man. Hey, if a few thousand of his fellow countrymen have to die to prove how great he is then so be it. After all, it is America's fault anyway.
22 posted on 06/26/2010 4:23:11 AM PDT by never4get (We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid)
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To: bruinbirdman
That TV opiate of the masses, Bill O'Reilly, was really looking out for us folks when he stated on 9/8/09 that "communism is not a threat to us any more".

Here's a man who was a history major and, I believe, a history teacher. His show reaches millions every night.

Did he not learn and digest the historical and relentless march of communism that overtook so many Asian countries.....China, Laos, Cambodia, Korea, etc? And what about the influence and money of Castro's Cuba and the Soviet Union in infiltrating and sowing communist seeds in Central and South American countries?

Chavez is one of the results of idiots like O'Reilly turning a blind eye to the ever-present threat of communism, externally and internally in every country of the world.

After all, as O'Reilly stated on his show of 10/20/09, Chavez' buddy, Barack Obama, is "not a Marxist". Well, I guess, neither is Chavez who is is evidently just another "hope and changer" who's lovingly looking out for the Venezuelan folks in O'Reilly's world view.

Leni

23 posted on 06/26/2010 4:52:54 AM PDT by MinuteGal
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To: bruinbirdman
Soldiers have been deployed to raid private homes for food stores.

Coming soon to an American city near you as Michelle Obama seeks to eliminate "food deserts" in major "urban" areas.

(Google Michelle Obama, food deserts for the rest..)

24 posted on 06/26/2010 4:57:31 AM PDT by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: bruinbirdman

When will some patriotic Venezuelan push a button on this mutt?


25 posted on 06/26/2010 5:11:19 AM PDT by Jimmy Valentine (DemocRATS - when they speak, they lie; when they are silent, they are stealing the American Dream)
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