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Venezuela has seized control of plants and offices belonging to Mexican cement giant Cemex, as it proceeds with nationalising its cement industry. Government officials backed by the National Guard took over the factories after talks ended without a deal. It comes a day after France's Lafarge and Swiss group Holcim agreed to hand over local subsidiaries to Caracas. Venezuela has begun nationalising several industries as part of a drive toward "21st-Century socialism". At a political rally on Monday President Hugo Chavez said Cemex would move into state hands - after 60 days of failed negotiations - adding: "These are all...

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela will take control of cement plants and offices belonging to Mexico's Cemex as of midnight on Monday after failing to reach an agreement in nationalization talks, the government said. < > The government said it paid $552 million for an 85 percent stake in Switzerland's Holcim's local unit and $267 million for 89 percent of the shares in France's Lafarge's local unit. "Lafarge is working to protect as best as it can the interests of its shareholders and of its staff on the ground," a spokeswoman for Lafarge said earlier in the day, declining any further...

Venezuela, Iran to loan Bolivia 225 mln dlrs for cement firm: official LA PAZ (AFP) - Venezuela and Iran are to loan Bolivia 225 million dollars to create a state cement company for the construction of roads and houses, the deputy minister for small and medium business, Eduardo Peinado, said Saturday. The deal was made between Bolivian President Evo Morales, Venezuelan ambassador Julio Montes Prado and an Iranian business official Hojjatollah Soltani, he said. Bolivia, South America's poorest nation, has formed strong ties with Venezuela under Morales. The Bolivian leader has modelled socialist reforms in his country's after those of...

In Russia, sometimes it rains cement Tue Jun 17, 11:17 AM ET Russian air force planes dropped a 25-kg (55-lb) sack of cement on a suburban Moscow home last week while seeding clouds to prevent rain from spoiling a holiday, Russian media said on Tuesday. "A pack of cement used in creating ... good weather in the capital region ... failed to pulverize completely at high altitude and fell on the roof of a house, making a hole about 80-100 cm (2.5-3 ft)," police in Naro-Fominsk told agency RIA-Novosti. Ahead of major public holidays the Russian Air Force often dispatches...

PARIS (AP) - French customs officers are inspecting a North Korean ship at an Indian Ocean island off the coast of Africa as part of U.N. sanctions prompted by the communist nation's nuclear test, but they found nothing illegal so far, officials said Thursday. It was the first time a country was known to have stopped a North Korean vessel under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718 authorizing searches as part of the sanctions imposed on Pyongyang for its nuclear test. Since the resolution was passed Oct. 14, at least four other North Korean vessels have been stopped, but the countries...

N Korean ship 'linked to Israel's strike on Syria' By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem Last Updated: 4:52pm BST 17/09/2007 A suspicious North Korean freighter that re-flagged itself as South Korean before off-loading an unknown cargo at the Syrian port of Tartous is at the centre of efforts today to investigate Israel's recent airstrike on Syria. Israel has not given any details on the operation in Syria An Israeli on-line data analyst, Ronen Solomon, found an internet trace for the 1,700-tonne cargo ship, Al Hamed, which showed the vessel started to off-load what Syrian officials categorised as "cement" on Sept 3....

<p>On Sept. 6, something important happened in northern Syria. Problem is, no one knows exactly what. Except for those few who were involved, and they're not saying.</p> <p>We do know that Israel carried out an airstrike. How then do we know it was important? Because in Israel, where leaking is an art form, even the best-informed don't have a clue. They tell me they have never seen a better-kept secret. Which suggests that whatever happened near Dayr az Zawr was no accidental intrusion into Syrian airspace, no dry run for an attack on Iran, no strike on some conventional target such as an Iranian Revolutionary Guard base or a weapons shipment on its way to Hezbollah in Lebanon.</p>

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14, 2007 – Security in Iraq has made tremendous gains, and now is the time to cement that security in place with economic gains, coalition officials said in Baghdad today. The U.S. Defense Department is spending money in Iraq to get basic services working and to prime the pump for private businesses, said Paul A. Brinkley, deputy undersecretary of defense for business transformation. Brinkley was joined at the news conference by Air Force Maj. Gen. Darryl Scott, commander of Joint Contracting Command Iraq, and Navy Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, chief of Multinational Force Iraq Communications Division. Coalition...

GOV. Arnold Schwarzenegger has staked his administration upon two signature issues: his international leadership to reduce greenhouse gases and his promise to construct new highways, dams, levees, aqueducts and other public works. In April "the green governor" toured the globe to tout his greenhouse-gas bill (AB 32) that requires a 25 percent reduction in carbon dioxide by 2020, making it the most restrictive emissions law in the country. More recently, the governor toured California to tout his public-works renaissance that requires $40 billion in taxpayer-financed bonds, making it the biggest borrowing binge in the country. Individually, these two media events,...

Coalition Forces Deliver Cement to Remote Afghan Village An irrigation canal, built with the cement, will supply water for drinking and for the crops. By Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Pete CasianoProvincial Reconstruction Team - Gardez PAKTYA PROVINCE, Afghanistan, Sept. 5, 2006 -- The 3rd Brigade Support Troops Battalion’s Civil Affairs Team in coordination with the Gardez Provincial Reconstruction Team delivered more than 1,200 pounds of concrete to a remote mountain village in Paktya Province. The Coalition forces stationed in Gardez traveled with the Paktya Director of Irrigation to the remote mountain village of Azghana. The cement will be...

Cemex, a major producer of cement, is scheduled to have a stock split (2:1) on July 21. Owners of record BEFORE July 14, 2006 will receive a 2 for 1 split of their shares. Cemex is a major worldwide supplier of cement. Here's the link to the split info (scroll down to "DR Event" link): Click here for BNY info.

On Tuesday, July 11, the United States will become more geographically stable than it has ever been. It will have been 17,126 days since the admission of Hawaii to statehood on Aug. 21, 1959. The longest previous span between expansions of the nation was the 17,125 days between the admission of Arizona on Feb. 14, 1912, and the admission of Alaska on Jan. 3, 1959. Since then the nation has become, in a sense, smaller through the annihilation of distance and, to some extent, of difference. An important part of the groundwork -- literally, it covered a lot of ground...

The red-hot real estate market shows no sign of cooling, but there could be a cloud on the horizon. The shortage of a humble but irreplaceable material could slow the growth of new housing. In parts of the Pacific Northwest, for instance, there's not nearly enough cement, 15% less than last year even as demand has climbed by 30%. "It's definitely affected our bottom line," says Dave Bertsch, president of Champion Concrete Pumping. "If it continues, we're going to have some layoffs. We are going to have to liquidate some equipment. It's a domino effect."

Document Document ISGQ-2003-00004530 dated September 15 2002 is a memo from a General in Saddam Feedayeens to the Supervisor of those Feedayeens who is not other than Uday Saddam Hussein. The memo talks about a hidden large container that contain a Chemical Material and that it was buried under the ground near Fallujah back when Hussein Kamal Hussein was in charge of the Iraqi Military Industrialization Commission. Hussein Kamal was the brother in law of Saddam who fled to Jordan in 1995 exposed to the world that Saddam still have WMD and then Saddam tricked him to come back by...

(video) cement deer attacked by horny buck...

General contractor Paul Wisecup thought everything was on schedule with the aircraft hangar he is building... The concrete foundation and floor had been poured, the metal building had been erected, and all that remained before the doors could be installed was the pouring of concrete for the ramp connecting the building to the taxiway. Then he heard he might not get all the concrete he expected on time... Cement is the powdered ingredient in concrete that causes the sand, gravel and other materials to stick together. Without cement, you don’t get concrete. Concrete contractors in Grand Junction said they are...

If the feds really want to help the economy post-Katrina, here are four words: lumber, cement, shrimp and steel. They all have prices higher than necessary because of U.S. anti-dumping trade law. Start with lumber and cement, which will soon be in great demand to rebuild the tens of thousands of damaged homes. Prices are sure to rise as reconstruction begins, but thanks to U.S. tariffs as high as 27% on Canadian lumber, American home buyers already pay an extra $1,000 on average for their shelter. The same goes for U.S. duties on Mexican cement, which have averaged 55% since...

Test shows sticky porridge used to cement ancient Chinese wall www.chinaview.cn 2005-02-27 20:56:07 XI'AN, Feb. 27 (Xinhuanet)-- The legend that ancient Chinese craftsmen used glutinous rice porridge in the mortar while building ramparts has been verified by archaeological research in northwest China's Shaanxi Province. In a recent maintenance to the ancient city wall of Xi'an, the provincial capital, workers discovered that the plaster remnants on the ancient bricks were quite hard to remove, said Qin Jianming,a researcher with the Xi'an Preservation and Restoration Center ofCultural Relics. A chemical test showed that the mortar reacted the same as glutinous rice to...

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- A brother and sister were charged Wednesday with murder for allegedly killing their mother and grandparents, burying their bodies in a basement and heading off to Las Vegas with the victims' cash. The siblings were charged with three counts each of murder and conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of robbery. Authorities removed the dismembered bodies of their mother and grandmother and the intact body of their grandfather from under concrete in the basement of the grandparents' home. All three had been killed about five weeks ago, authorities said. "It's the most horrific thing I've ever...

Palestinian businessmen have made millions of pounds supplying cement for Israel's "security barrier" in the full knowledge of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader and one of the wall's most vocal critics. A damning report by Palestinian legislators, which has been seen by the Telegraph, concludes that Mr Arafat did nothing to stop the deals although he publicly condemned the structure as a "crime against humanity". The Israeli wall cuts through the Palestinian town of Baqa el-Gharbiya The report claims that the cement was sold with the knowledge of senior officials at the Palestinian ministry of national economy, and close advisers...

Robust Construction Activity Unlikely Until 2005; Portland Cement Association Releases Construction and Cement Forecast 12/18/03 12:19:00 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: National Desk and Economic Reporter Contact: Ryan Puckett of the Portland Cement Association, 847-972-9136 or rpuckett@cement.org; http://www.cement.org/newsroom SKOKIE, Ill., Dec. 18 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The U.S. economy is set to move into high gear in 2004 according to the latest economic forecast from the Portland Cement Association (PCA). The optimistic outlook arrives courtesy of recent improvements in U.S. labor markets; however, PCA does not expect robust construction activity to arrive until 2005. Chief economist Edward Sullivan explained, "The seemingly contradictory...

Quake-proof cement mixed '1 300 years ago' November 13 2002 at 04:36PM London - The Sixth Century builders of Hagia Sophia, the Byzantine cathedral still standing in Istanbul, discovered cement with earthquake-resistant properties 1 300 years before anyone else, a research team revealed on Wednesday. Hagia Sophia, built as a church and subsequently turned into a mosque, still stands only because its creators discovered the cement. Many of the surrounding buildings have long since succumbed to the ravages of time, including earthquakes, according to a report in the New Scientist. The structure has withstood quakes of up to 7,5 on...

Chronology of the Chandra Levy Case (AP) -- A chronology of events in the disappearance of Chandra Levy of Modesto, Calif., a former U.S. Bureau of Prisons intern: 2001 -- April 30: Levy is last seen at a health club near her apartment in Washington, D.C. -- May 1: Levy spends much of the morning surfing the Internet, logging off at 1 p.m. It is the last trace of her, police say. -- May 6: Unable to reach their daughter, Dr. Robert and Susan Levy call Washington police to report her missing. They also call their congressman, Rep. Gary...