Arcadia Foundation

Venezuela is a nation in corporate disarray and as such, it makes those who choose to invest look alarmingly arrogant. Despite the intentions of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his socialist ‘nationalization’ regime to all those who oppose, BusinessWeek has reported that Venezuela’s biggest private company says it will boost investment next year and is committed to promoting growth for its food businesses and the country as a whole. To repeat, this is despite direct expropriation threats.

Pablo Baraybar, director of the Alimentos Polar division of Empresas Polar, told The Associated Press that the company plans to spend 580 million bolivars, or $134.8 million, in 2011 to set up a yogurt factory and to buy new equipment for other plants to increase production of canned fish, mayonnaise, pet food and other products.

“The main objective of this company is the growth and development of Venezuela,” Baraybar said in an interview this week.

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Venezuela President Hugo Chavez is renewing his threats against fugitive television station owner Guillermo Zuloaga, telling him that if he doesn’t return to Venezuela to face justice the state will take legal action against the station and his other properties.

Zuloaga is the controlling shareholder in Globovision, the last remaining major television station in Venezuela thanks to the would be Bolivarian nationalization plan, a station that has been highly critical of Chavez. Chavez is an elected, socialist leader who has been in control of this oil-rich nation for nearly 12 years, during which his government has managed to remove from the airwaves most programming that is critical of him and now wildly claims Zuloaga has been collecting money to have him assassinated.

Alejandro Aguirre, the President of the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) rebutted on Monday that the attacks launched by Hugo Chávez’s government on Venezuelan media and reporters and made special reference to the criminal cases against the owners of the private TV news channel Globovisión.
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What do a steel company, urban development projects and golf courses all have in common? They are three of the latest targets of Hugo Chávez’s nationalization drive – and part of his plan for renewed popularity.

The background is a severe shortage of decent housing: over 2m homes are needed, by some counts, in a country of 28m people. Half of the population live in chaotic shanty towns, and they need change.

Faced with such problems, Hugo Chávez’s first instinct is often to declare, “Expropriate it!”. That’s now the fate of Sidetur, the steel company which controls 87 per cent of the domestic market for steel rods essential for building houses. It has been overcharging, or worse still hoarding or even exporting the rods at still higher prices, Chávez said in his Aló Presidente television show on Sunday, ordering its expropriation. Under state control, the rods will cost less and be more available, thus boosting construction, goes his argument.

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Irene Khan was the Secretary General of Amnesty International from 2001-2009, and is now a Board member of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. Below, as excerpted from the Daily Star and referencing Arcadia Foundation President Betty Bigombe, she discusses the invaluable role of women in peacekeeping and the pertinent issue of increasing their presence.

Five months ago, Nepal’s fragile peace was on the brink of disintegrating. After ten years of civil war, a newly elected assembly was tasked with writing a constitution that would keep the peace, but was about to dissolve because the country’s politicians could not agree on the terms of an extension. Women learned bitter lessons from their exclusion from the peace talks and mobilised. Read Full Paper

EL UNVIERSAL reports that Venezuela’s Vice President Elías Jaua said during a visit to the premises of Agropatria (formerly known as Agroisleña) that the government will no longer depend on the private food industry.

The statements from the Acting President serve as an epilogue to the ongoing travesty disguised as patriotic nationalization. Venezuelan President Chávez  has already decided to strengthen his expropriation policy and announced the nationalization of Venezuelan motor lubricants company Venoco, and Fertinitro, a producer of nitrogen fertilizer. He also renamed Agroisleña as Agropatria and appointed of a new board of directors.

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Amateur filmmakers from around the globe are encouraged to participate in the “1 minute to save the world” competition which closes in two months. The winning entry will be screened at COP16 in Mexico.

The international film competition is open to all ages and is free to enter; budding filmmakers must submit a short film (roughly one minute in length) about climate change. The films will be judged by professionals in the film and environmental industries, including Ben Kott of Google Europe Environmental Operations. The deadline for entries is December 17; entries from filmmakers under 18 in the Best Youth Film category must be submitted by November 12.

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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has ordered a series of new nationalizations in the face of growing opposition to his bolivarian authoritarian regime.

The moves come after the opposition made gains in parliamentary elections last month that gave them 40 percent of National Assembly seats and nearly half the popular vote.

Chavez has argued that opposition gains pose no obstacle to his legislative agenda and has vowed to accelerate his would-be socialist “revolution.”

Reuters has provided us with some key events in his 12-year push to increase the state’s hand in the economy through takeovers, regulation and taxes:

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Hugo Chavez signed an abhorrent decree on Monday to expropriate a pillar of the Venezuelan community’s farm–supply business, promising to bring down prices of seeds and fertilizers as his government grasps further control in lieu of promising polling results for his political opposition.

Chavez said Monday night that he signed the decree for the “forced acquisition” of Agroislena CA. ”We’re going to pay them what it really costs,” he said in a telephone call to a talk show on state television. He read aloud parts of the decree, which takes effect on Tuesday, saying the company had become an “oligopoly” and was speculating with prices of goods such as fertilizer.

He called it a step toward boosting Venezuelan agriculture that would also bring down production costs.

Agroislena was founded in Venezuela more than five decades ago by Spanish immigrants from the Canary Islands and has grown into a market leader with branches across the country.

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Cuba has recently announced radical plans to lay off huge numbers of state employees in order to help revive the communist country’s struggling economy.

The Cuban labour federation said more than a million workers would lose their jobs – half of them as early as March of next year.

Those laid off will be encouraged to become self-employed or join new private enterprises, on which some of the current restrictions will be eased. Analysts believe this to be the biggest private sector shift since the 1959 revolution.

Cuba’s communist government currently controls almost all aspects of the country’s economy and employs about 85% of the official workforce, which is put at 5.1 million people. As many as one-in-five of all workers could lose their jobs.

“Our state cannot and should not continue maintaining companies, productive entities, services and budgeted sectors with bloated payrolls and losses that hurt the economy,” the labour federation said in a statement.

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Farmer Franklin Britos, 49, died last night at approximately 9 pm, at the Carlos Arvelo Military Hospital of Caracas as a result of a hunger strike which began several months ago to protest against “expropriation policy and nationalizations carried out by the Hugo Chávez government.”

According to his wife, Elena Brito, “he died around 9 pm due to a heart attack.” His weight was 35 kilos, his body mass index was below 10 percent and he showed clinical signs of hypothermia critical.

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