Latin America
has in Caracas, Venezuela one of the largest active social groups
of expats (expatriates) in South America. Called the Rincon
Gang or Rinconeers, they publish a regular newsletter, the Rincon
Reminder, which updates their Caracas community web site, www.Expat-Village.com
The Rincon Reminder updates are also issued to ex-Caracas Rinconeers
now living and working in over 25 countries..
The Expat-Village web-site has all the latest Venezuelan news in English.
We publish news stories of interest to expatriates, including world news, sport,
entertainment and business. We have features on travel in Venezuela, Latin
America and the Caribbean, quick food recipes, and Venezuela security alerts.
Caracas social activities are listed in ‘What’s on in Caracas’, and we’ll keep
you amused with the 'Joke of the Day' page.
News Section
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Venezuela News
Venezuela To Erase Middlemen In Gasoline Business -Chavez
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A Dow Jones wire story
CARACAS -(Dow Jones)- Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez confirmed plans Wednesday to do away with
intermediaries in the local gasoline business while expanding the role
of Petroleos de Venezuela SA in fuel distribution.
Foreign and domestic gasoline intermediaries "will simply disappear,
and PdVSA" will directly handle business with service stations around
the country, Chavez said during a live televised address from the
Miraflores presidential palace.
"We have decided to move ahead with this," Chavez said.
Service stations, he said, will remain in private hands, but PdVSA will
assume the role filled until now by companies such as BP PLC (BP),
Chevron Corp.'s ( CVX) Texaco and a number of....................
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Expat Village is edited and published by Iain Williams in Caracas
and Porlamar, Margarita Island, Venezuela.
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Venezuela News
London ex-mayor Livingstone meets Venezuela's Chavez
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 |
| Ex London Mayor , Ken Livingstone meets with Hugo Chavez |
CARACAS (AFP) — The leftwing former
mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, on Wednesday met with Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez in Caracas and agreed to continue to act as an
advisor on municipal matters.
Chavez, Livingstone told reporters after the meeting, had asked him to
keep advising candidates from Chavez's ruling socialist party running
for mayors in November local elections.
Livingstone was mayor of London for eight years, until he lost re-election this year to.................
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Expat Village is edited and published by Iain Williams in Caracas
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Venezuela oil company PDVSA to open sports office
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A Reuters story at www.reuters.com
CARACAS - Venezuelan state oil company
PDVSA will open a sports office to train athletes after a lackluster
Olympic performance, President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday, expanding
PDVSA social efforts that already range from food sales to road repairs.
PDVSA has become the financial engine of Chavez's self-styled socialist revolution, financing and carrying out a broad array of..................
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Chavez boosts Venezuela's petrochemical sector
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CARACAS (AFP) — President Hugo Chavez
said Saturday he has injected close to one billion dollars in
Venezuela's petrochemical industry to turn it into the second-largest
producer of polyethylene behind Brazil by 2011.
"A few days ago, I approved 950 million dollars to continue boosting
petrochemical development," Chavez said at the opening of a refurbished
polyethylene plant in Zulia state.
The investment and the new production facility are part of the
"Socialist Petrochemical Revolution" program Chavez launched 11 months
ago aimed at making Venezuela self-reliant in plastic products.
A byproduct of petroleum widely used in plastic products including
plastic shopping bags, polyethylene production in Venezuela stood at
60,000 tons a year when Chavez took office 10 years ago. His plan is to
raise it to 500,000 tons per year by 2011.
Chavez said his aim was to....................
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Expat Village is edited and published by Iain Williams in Caracas
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Venezuela News
US drug czar: Cocaine flow through Venezuela grows
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An
Associated Press story Ian James in Venezuela
CARACAS — The U.S. drug czar appealed
to Venezuela's government on Friday to take action against the
flourishing flow of cocaine being smuggled through the country.
 |
| Bales of seized cocaine are displayed on the deck of a merchant vessel inside which they were hidden by smugglers |
White House drug czar John Walters told The Associated Press that
Venezuela has shown no willingness to cooperate with U.S. officials
against drugs.
The flow of Colombian cocaine through Venezuela has quadrupled since
2004, reaching an estimated 282 tons (256 metric tons) last year, he
said.
"The flow is increasing as dramatically as it is because it is
operating in a condition of impunity," Walters told the AP in a phone
interview from Washington. "The failure of the Venezuelan government to
go after this is a failure to be serious."
Venezuelan officials argue they are taking drug trafficking seriously
and point to large seizures in recent years. President Hugo Chavez and
his foreign minister, Nicolas Maduro, have suggested they would be
willing to work with the U.S. against drugs on terms of mutual respect.
But Walters said his attempt to restart cooperation has been stymied as
Venezuelan officials have yet to agree to his request for a meeting,
and as a visa request for him and other American officials has been
held up for more than a week.
"Frankly, this has gotten to the point where they're playing games,"
Walters said. "Usually drugs is beyond a lot of other political
differences. We have a cooperative relationship with Cuba."
But in Venezuela's case, he said, "there just has been no willingness to establish that.........................
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Chavez Says Cemex `Polluted' Venezuela, Didn't Invest
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A Bloomberg story by Daniel Cancel and Steven
Bodzin at www.bloomberg.com
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
escalated a dispute with Monterrey, Mexico-based Cemex SAB, saying the
company's local unit polluted the environment and failed to invest by
focusing solely on profit.
Venezuela seized the local operations of Cemex, the largest cement
maker in the Americas, as part of a nationalization drive after the
government and the company failed to reach an accord on a forced sale.
Cemex said it would seek arbitration and called the expropriation a
``flagrant violation'' of the law.
``Go see the pollution not only along the coasts and in the trees, but
in the lungs of the children,'' Chavez said on state television.
``Everything is full of powder. Cemex never invested in technology to
eliminate the powder because they took all the money abroad.''
Chavez also said company executives acted in a ``disrespectful'' manner
to Venezuelans and have a ``superiority complex.'' Cemex spokesman
Jorge Perez declined to comment.
Chavez said in April he would nationalize cement companies as part of a plan to..........
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Venezuelan first-half oil exports bring in 48.5 bln dollars
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Expat Village is edited and published by
Iain Williams in Caracas, Venezuela.
CARACAS Venezuela's oil exports
totalled 48.47 billion dollars in the first half of this year, a figure
78 percent higher than for the same period in 2007, central bank
figures released Wednesday showed.
The high number for the country's main source of income reflected record prices for oil over those six months.
Prices have declined sharply in recent weeks, and were currently around 114 dollars on world markets.
Venezuela's oil, which is of lower grade than the light crude fetching
premium prices, was selling for an average 85 dollars a barrel in the
first half of this year, 30 dollars more than..........
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Venezuela’s televised revolution
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An FT story by Benedict Mander at http://news.ft.com
At 11am on Sundays, Venezuelans turn
on their television sets to watch the most loved and hated programme in
the country. Its charismatic but controversial host holds forth about
politics for hours – his record exceeds eight – preaching and
philosophising, telling personal anecdotes and giving history lessons.
He cracks jokes at one moment and flies into a rage at another, and
rails aggressively at his enemies as often as he tenderly caresses
small children and old women.
The host is none other than Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president and his
weekly chat show Aló Presidente (Hello President) on the main state
channel, Venezolana de Television (VTV), is often the most important
political event of the week.
Not only is it Chávez’s tool for educating and informing the populace
about the progress and aims of his so-called Bolivarian revolution
(named after the 19th-century independence hero Simón Bolívar), and
lecturing on the evils of capitalism and imperialism (read: the US).
It is also an innovative form of government, where significant
announcements are made and public policy explained, as cabinet
ministers diligently take notes in the audience. Ministers are fired
and scolded, companies nationalised, farms exprop- riated, hospitals
and factories inaugurated.
On TV Chávez even ordered tank battalions to the border with Colombia, leaving some fearing war.
Aló Presidente is Chávez’s direct line to the people, and the show
rarely takes place in a television studio. No, Chávez and his team
travel the length and breadth of the country, setting up a dais and
presidential desk anywhere they will fit – on a beach, at the top of a
mountain, in the shadow of a giant oil refinery or in the middle of a......................
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Expat Village is edited and published by Iain Williams in Caracas
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Red Cross Demands Colombia Explain Emblem Use to Free Hostages
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A Bloomberg story by Ed Johnson at www.bloomberg.com
The Red Cross demanded Colombia
clarify the army's use of its emblem in an operation to release Ingrid
Betancourt and other hostages, after a video showed a soldier wearing
the insignia earlier than previously explained.
Footage shown on Colombian television this week showed a member of the
army team wearing a bib with the insignia before the rescue helicopter
took off, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a
statement yesterday. President Alvaro Uribe last month said the soldier
attached it on arriving at the rebel camp because he feared for his
life.
``If authenticated, these images would clearly establish an improper
use of the red cross emblem, which we deplore,'' Dominik Stillhart, the
ICRC's deputy director of operations, said in the statement. ``We are
in contact with the Colombian authorities to ask for further
clarifications as to exactly what happened.''
Government troops on July 2 rescued former presidential candidate
Betancourt, three U.S. Defense Department contractors and 11 military
personnel by tricking two commanders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia into believing an.............................
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Expat Village is edited and published by Iain Williams in Caracas
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Venezuela pushes Trinidad out of Caribbean oil market
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PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez's sale of subsidized oil to the Caribbean through
the Petrocaribe initiative is pushing traditional supplier Trinidad and
Tobago out of the region in search of new markets.
Trinidad state oil company Petrotrin's usual Caribbean market sales of
around 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) have fallen by half since the 2005
creation of Petrocaribe, which sells oil and fuel on advantageous terms
to Caribbean and Central America nations.
"We lost market in the (Caribbean) region but the displaced products
are now going into other markets" including the United States, said
Kenneth Allum, Petrotrin Vice President for Refinery and Marketing.
Venezuela is selling around 190,000 bpd of oil and products to
Caribbean and Central American nations through the Petrocaribe
initiative. The Caribbean imports around 450,000 bpd of oil, according
to US Department of Energy data.
Fourteen nations in the Caribbean and Central America signed the
original Petrocaribe agreement, which allows governments to buy
Venezuelan oil and fuel through in-kind payments and to finance..................
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Venezuela's Chavez imposes new controls on economy
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A Reuters story by Brian Ellsworth
at www.reuters.com
CARACAS - Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez has tightened his grip on the economy with a package of decrees
bolstering government power to take over businesses and control prices
in the run-up to tight regional elections.
The measures, decreed through special powers allowing him to
bypass Congress, resume his aggressive 2007 drive to forge a socialist
state and closely resemble proposals included in a constitutional
reform voters rejected in December referendum.
The laws give the leftist leader new short-term inflation-fighting
mechanisms at a time when supporters are increasingly complaining about
South America's fastest-rising consumer prices, which jumped 22.5
percent in 2007.
Opposition leaders accused Chavez of trying to push force through his
failed constitutional reform and slammed him for not publicly
discussing the package of laws.
"The government on a whim put out these 26 laws, smuggling in the night
a group of measures that the Venezuelan people clearly said no to,"
said opposition leader Julio Borges.
The new legislation lets Chavez name regional political authorities and
provide them funding from government coffers, possibly allowing him to
retain control of key states if his supporters lose the upcoming
regional elections.
The decrees fit Chavez's vision of a centralized economy, giving the
government broad powers to intervene at any step in the supply chain
and even creating committees to decide how much food should be consumed
in.......................
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Venezuela's top court bars election candidates
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A Reuters story by
at www.reuters.com
CARACAS - Venezuela's top court ruled
on Tuesday that dozens of politicians, among them leading opponents of
President Hugo Chavez, will not be allowed to run in regional elections
later this year.
The measure also blocks some government allies but is guaranteed to
anger figures such as Leopoldo Lopez, the mayor of a wealthy Caracas
neighborhood who had planned to stand for city mayor in November
elections.
He had called for street protests if he was barred.
Other opposition politicians affected by the ruling include candidates
for governor in three states. The elections will measure the popularity
of Chavez's socialist government.
Venezuela's top anti-corruption official was behind the plan to ban close to 300 candidates accused of corruption from....................
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