1. SuJung, Kim 2. Chile rattled by big aftershocks
3. Chile had a strong earthquake. Many people became the homeless. When I read it, I just wondered whether it was the first time for Chile having earthquake or not. Is earthquake in Chile related to chile's geographical features? Is it impossible to prevent damage from earthquake? ------------------------------ Northern Chile has been rattled by powerful aftershocks a day after an earthquake struck the region, leaving 15,000 people homeless. Thursday's two tremors were measured at 6.2 and 6.8 magnitude by the US Geological Survey.
They came as Chilean President Michelle Bachelet visited the disaster zone following Wednesday's quake, which killed two people and injured some 150.
The major 7.7 magnitude quake wrecked 4,000 homes and other infrastructure.
Tents have been set up to help residents who were forced to sleep outdoors under cold desert skies.
'Catastrophe'
On Wednesday in Tocopilla city two women, aged 88 and 54, were crushed to death by collapsing walls.
Lasting about 50 seconds, the earthquake was felt thousands of kilometres away in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Electricity, water and phone lines were cut in some areas by the quake, which struck around midday on Wednesday 1,260km (780 miles) north of the capital, Santiago.
Thursday's aftershocks occurred nearby only 35km (21.7 miles) deep, 93km (58 miles) north-east of mining capital Antofagasta.
They came as President Bachelet and four cabinet ministers visited Antofagasta and other affected areas.
Interior minister Belisario Velasco has formally declared the region a catastrophe zone, a measure which helps speeds up the delivery of aid.
Tocopilla Mayor Luis Moncayo said that at least 4,000 people in the port city had been left homeless by Wednesday's quake and some 1,200 buildings demolished.
About 500 emergency housing units have been sent to the city of 27,000 people.
The local hospital was also damaged and patients were being treated at a portable military hospital, officials said.
Paula Saez, a worker with aid body World Vision International, told Reuters news agency from Tocopilla: "People here are pretty afraid.
"There have been so many aftershocks that start with a big noise, a humming noise, and then the ground starts moving and people start to run away."
In Maria Elena on Wednesday, a small town south-east of Tocopilla, 20 people were hurt and 70% of the town's houses were destroyed.
In Antofagasta, the airport was damaged, Chilean radio reported, while some 45 people were injured.
Chile's largest copper mines are in the quake zone, and production was temporarily halted on Wednesday. The nation is the world's largest copper producer.
In August more than 500 people died when an 8.0 magnitude quake struck neighbouring Peru just south of the capital, Lima. ---- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7096648.stm
2. Victims of Colombian Conflict Sue Chiquita Brands
3. To buy bananas or not to buy bananas, is the question in this article, which showed an interesting incicident reflecting some of the past of these Banana Republics in today's economy. It reminded me of how much of the coca plantations and growers in Bolivia started putting their hands in drug dealing for survival's sake. Whether Chiquita's claim of making mere 'protection payments' is true or not is one thing. Considering the price that was paid later on (397 lives), whether the payments are justifiable could be another.
----------------------- Victims of Colombia’s civil conflict sued the banana importer Chiquita Brands International yesterday, accusing it of making payments to a paramilitary group responsible for thousands of killings.
The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, accused Chiquita of complicity in hundreds of deaths because of its financial support of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, also known by its Spanish initials, A.U.C.
The plaintiffs include relatives of 387 people thought to have been killed by the group, which was responsible for some of the worst massacres in Colombia’s long-running conflict and was designated a terrorist group by the United States government in 2001.
The families are seeking $7.86 billion in damages from Chiquita, which they accuse of abetting atrocities including terrorism, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
A spokesman said Chiquita, which is based in Cincinnati, would fight the civil lawsuit, one of several filed recently by Colombian citizens and human rights groups.
Chiquita has acknowledged that its former subsidiary, Banadex, had paid $1.7 million to the A.U.C. from 1997 to 2004. The company has also admitted that the payments were illegal; it pleaded guilty this year to violating counterterrorism laws and agreed to pay a $25 million fine.
But Chiquita has repeatedly insisted that it had no choice but to pay protection money to groups that had threatened to turn death squads loose on its banana plantations and employees.
“We reiterate that Chiquita and its employees were victims and that the actions taken by the company were always motivated to protect the lives of our employees and their families,” a Chiquita spokesman, Michael Mitchell, said.
The New York lawyer who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the families, Jonathan Reiter, said Chiquita’s support of the A.U.C. went beyond mere “protection payments” and included the shipment of thousands of rifles.
Chiquita sold its Colombian subsidiary in 2004, but it continues to buy Colombian bananas from independent suppliers.
3. Keeping up with Venezuela's rapidly changing political climate, I'm personally left with more concerns than assurances. The increasing absolute power of Chavez in domestic sectors fueled by the oil economy can't guarantee equity and stability for all Venezuelans even under Chavez's unique socialist model. The fall-out of his former supporters also signal that perhaps things are being rushed without the inclusion of the citizens' involvement. Any decision hastily reached is likely to face dire consequences and Chavez carries a large burden in balancing both public support while implementing policies which must be done under a check and balance system with the long-term prospect in mind. ----- CARACAS: In two weeks, Venezuela could be starting an extraordinary experiment in centralized socialism fueled by oil. By law, the workday would be cut to six hours. Street vendors, housewives and maids would have state-mandated pensions. And President Hugo Chávez would have significantly enhanced powers and be eligible for re-election for the rest of his life.
A new constitution, expected to be approved by referendum Dec. 2, is both bolstering Chávez's popularity among people who will benefit and stirring contempt from economists who declare it demagoguery. Signaling new instability here, dissent is also emerging from among his former lieutenants, some of whom say the president is carrying out a populist coup.
"There is a perverse subversion of our existing Constitution under way," said General Raúl Isaías Baduela, a retired defense minister and former confidant of Chávez's who broke with him this month and defected to the political opposition. "This is not a reform," Baduel said in an interview. "I categorize it as a coup d'état."
Chávez loyalists already control the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, almost every state government, the entire federal bureaucracy and newly nationalized companies in the telephone, electricity and oil industries.
Soon they could control even more. But this is an upheaval that would be carried out with the approval of the voters. While polls in Venezuela are often tainted by partisanship, they suggest the referendum could be Chávez's closest electoral test since his presidency began in 1999, but one he is still likely to win.
"We are witnessing a seizure and redirection of power through legitimate means," said Alberto Barrera Tyszka, co-author of a best-selling biography of Chávez. "This is not a dictatorship but something more complex: the tyranny of popularity."
One of the 69 amendments to the Constitution would allow Chávez to create new administrative regions, with rulers called vice presidents chosen by him. Critics said the reforms would also shift funds from states and cities, where a handful of elected officials still oppose him, to communal councils, new local governing entities that are predominantly pro-Chávez.
Interviews this week on the streets here and in Maracaibo, Venezuela's second-largest city, offer a window into the strength of Chávez's followers and the challenges of his critics. His supporters, many of whom are public servants in a bureaucracy that has ballooned in size since he came to power, have flooded poor districts to campaign for the overhaul.
"The comandante should have more power because he is the force behind our revolution," Egda Vilchez, 51, a Chávez activist, said as she campaigned for the new charter this week at a busy intersection in Cacique Mara, an area of slums in eastern Maracaibo.
Such statements might sound dogmatic, but they are voiced with a fervor in organized campaigning that is unmatched in richer areas of the largest cities, where much of Chávez's opposition is found.
Aside from a nascent student movement that has held protests of increasing defiance in recent weeks, the middle and upper classes seem largely resigned about the outcome of a referendum that is less about specific issues and more about Chávez's resilient support among the poor.
In comments after a summit meeting of Latin American leaders this month in Chile, Chávez laid out his project in simple language: "Capitalist Venezuela is entering its grave and socialist Venezuela is being born."
Indeed, socialist imagery is pervasive throughout this country, from the red shirts worn by Chávez and his followers to the chant of "Fatherland, socialism or death!" repeated at the end of his rallies. But walking into a grocery store here offers a different view of the changes washing over Venezuela.
Combined with price controls that keep farmers from profitably producing some basic foods, climbing incomes of the poorest Venezuelans have stripped supermarket aisles bare of items like milk and eggs. Meanwhile, foreign-exchange controls create bottlenecks for importers seeking to meet rising demand for many products.
Such imbalances plague oil economies elsewhere, with oil revenues often making it cheaper to import goods than produce them at home. But the system Chávez is creating is perhaps unique: a hybrid of state-supported enterprises and no-holds-barred capitalism in which 500,000 automobiles are expected to be sold this year.
Lacking here, for instance, is the authoritarianism one might expect in a country where billboards promoting Chávez have proliferated in the last year.
Looming above the Centro San Ignacio, this city's glitziest shopping mall, is one of Chávez hugging a child while he explains the "motors" of his revolution. Others show him kissing old women, decorating graduates of the military university and embracing an ally, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran.
Beneath these images, chaos persists on the street level, reflecting a state flush with oil money but weak when facing systemic problems like violent crime. The country had 9,568 homicides in the first nine months of this year, a 9 percent increase from the same period last year.
Private companies here, meanwhile, have the dilemma of profiting from a growing economy while dreading what is to come, explaining the accelerating capital flight that has caused the currency, the bolívar, to plunge against the dollar since Chávez announced the constitutional overhaul in August.
Sparse details as to how Chávez's government would implement measures a like a six-hour workday or pay for a new social security system have done little for economic confidence, with Fedecamaras, the country's main business association, urging voters to oppose the new charter "by all legal means."
The proposals have also revealed sharp divisions among the president's own supporters, symbolized by the sharp criticism from Baduel, who helped re-install Chávez in power after a brief coup in 2002.
Marisabel Rodríguez, the president's former wife and the former first lady, came out against the new charter this week, saying it would lead to "absolute concentration of power." And previously pro-Chávez governors like Ramón Martínez of Sucre State, sensing that their power could be curtailed, have criticized the measures.
With the changes, term limits would be abolished only for the president, not for governors or mayors. Another item raises the threshold for collecting signatures to hold a vote to recall the president, effectively shielding him from one option voters have to challenge his power under the existing Constitution of 1999.
Other measures in the project are considered progressive by both critics of Chávez and those in his political base, which includes leftist military officials, academics, civil servants and a large portion of the urban and rural poor.
The voting age in this demographically young country, for instance, would be lowered to 16 from 18. Discrimination based on sexual orientation would be prohibited. Many of the items are vaguely worded, however, like one giving the president the power to create "communal cities."
"Clearly there are positive aspects to the reform, but the government has committed a political error by trying to rush it to voters without enough discussion," said Edgardo Lander, a sociologist at the Central University of Venezuela who is generally sympathetic to Chávez. "The opposition can argue this is illegitimate if it is approved by a low margin."
Chávez, who recently hinted at staying in power until 2031, might also be preparing for resistance if oil proceeds fail to prove abundant enough to finance his ambitions.
One of the reforms allows him to declare states of emergency during which he can shut down television stations and newspapers. ----- http://iht.com/articles/2007/11/16/america/venez.php
1.Kyunghee Kang 2."Banana drama for poor countries" 3.This article shows what's happening in the industry in which familiar international companies such as Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte do their business on the bases of the plantations in Latin America. It is interesing that when local legislation and international regluation are able to do nothing valid, the customers demand can add up to the power for local workers. ----------------------- Monday November 12, 2007 The Guardian
In your exposé of the activities of multinational banana companies there were claims from Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte that they were working with Latin American trade unions to address workers' rights with the implication that they all supported the principle of free collective bargaining (Bananas to UK via the Channel islands? It pays for tax reasons, November 6). The GMB has close ties with those trade unions and the reality of their members' existence is rather different. At corporate level there is indeed dialogue between unions and companies, but agreements are routinely ignored at the workplace, where trade unionists are often sacked, blacklisted, threatened with violence or even murdered, as in the case of Sitrabi union executive member Marco Tulio Ramirez, who was killed on a Guatemalan plantation on September 23. Only this week, we received reports of a family being evicted from their home and a pregnant woman being left with a tent for shelter on a Chiquita plantation, in the midst of a campaign to intimidate and dismiss trade union members in Costa Rica.
The banana companies' union-busting activities are motivated by a desire to control wages in the midst of a vicious price war between Tesco and Asda, who use their market strength to drive down the cost of the fruit at the suppliers' expense. Tesco alone makes £1.5m per week profit on bananas and, despite advocating corporate social responsibility, seemingly cares little for the wellbeing of the workers on the plantations. There is some hope for our Latin American colleagues in the shape of increased Fairtrade sales in response to demands from the British public, and it is high time that the corporate players in the banana industry lived up to their moral, as well as their legal, obligations. Bert Schouwenburg GMB London Region
Companies like Dole and Chiquita are some of the biggest players in markets providing crucial employment in developing countries. Yet these companies have become so powerful they are not answerable to local legislation, and international regulation is plainly not robust enough. Companies like Dole have repeatedly been accused of using anti-trade-union tactics. In Colombia last year, Dole even closed down the largest and one of the most profitable fresh-cut flower farms after a union had successfully organised on the farm. How many stories like this must we hear before the government and international community wake up to these abuses? We need to introduce regulations to prevent abuses like tax evasion and trade union-busting from happening, but also to lobby international institutions to do the same. Paul Moon London
Your piece on how multinational companies avoid the taxman is shocking but hardly new. The remedy is simple: trade sanctions. When a state is considered to be unacceptable, as Cuba is seen by the US, any company trading with that country is penalised if it tries to trade in the US. Sanctions do not really work against nations but if applied to these rogue companies and their directors I am sure the response would be dramatic. Martin Cooper Bromley, Kent
Richard Murphy's comment piece (Havens and have-nots, November 7) picks up on your story on the tax minimisation of banana multinationals, and highlights just how widespread the problem is. All is not lost, however - simple solutions are available.
Geographic reporting - multinationals revealing their turnover, profits and tax paid in each jurisdiction - would go a long way. Unitary taxation - assessing multinationals for tax not as many companies in many jurisdictions but as one, with a formula to apportion the tax base between countries - would ensure an effective response. The campaign for tax justice, to which Christian Aid is committed, has far to go - but there are clear policies available to reduce the iniquity of large corporations shunning their tax responsibilities in the poorest (and richest) countries of the world.
Alexander Cobham Policy research manager, Christian Aid --- http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2209397,00.html
Recent diplomatic movements of Chavez indicate basic -yet essential- elements of his regime’s strategy that are closely interwoven. From an economist’s point of view, very core element of Chavez’ interwoven strategies, would be the vast scale of oil production and trade, for it is almost the only source of funding and trade income of the country for the government to make anything work in the first place. US being the best consumer of oil, and the strongest superpower who strongly determines the oil price, Chavez has no choice but to confront US. Also at this point, Chavez’ leftist political regime achieves validity only when it holds the opposite side of neo-liberal rightist superpower, the US. This is why, as reported in the article below, Chavez places such heavy focus on international trading policies surrounding oil, while collaborating allies and keeping close ties with neighboring Latin American political leaders.
-------------------------------- CARACAS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez pursued an ambitious diplomatic mission Saturday aimed at persuading OPEC nations to maintain oil prices at their current level, defending Iran's nuclear program, and stepping up efforts to get Colombian rebels to release hostages.
Chavez wants the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries summit in Saudi Arabia this week to take on a stronger "political and geopolitical" role and return to its stance of the 1970s when it tightened the screws on consumer nations.
Chavez believes that oil should be priced between 80 and 100 dollars a barrel, and that OPEC must find a way to compensate the world's poorest countries for the high prices.
The Venezuelan leader also wants OPEC to consider distributing its windfall profits by subsidizing oil and gas products in the Caribbean and Latin America.
Chavez has proposed a "protection formula" so that soaring oil prices "do not become a destructive bomb on the Third World economies."
However he also believes wealthy consumer countries should pay high prices for oil in order to prevent hydrocarbon waste.
From the summit Chavez will head to his fourth visit to Tehran on November 19, for a meeting with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, with which Venezuela has signed eight billion dollars' worth of accords, mostly in the oil and gas sectors.
Venezuelan-Iranian ties are strengthening at a time when the West favors a third series of sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program.
Chavez has defended Iran's right to nuclear energy, and has offered his services as a mediator to talk with the United States and its allies - though nobody has asked him to act yet.
In a recent interview with French television, Chavez announced that, just like Iran, "Venezuela will also begin to develop nuclear energy with peaceful purposes, just like Brazil is doing, just like Argentina is doing."
From Tehran, Chavez flies to Paris for his first meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Chavez and Sarkozy will discuss Venezuelan efforts to secure the release of some 50 hostages held by leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas.
The hostages include Colombian-French former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, Colombian legislators and local officials, and three US State Department contractors captured when they were shot down as they sprayed coca fields with herbicide.
The guerrillas have demanded the release of 500 of their imprisoned comrades.
Chavez has tried to broker talks between Bogota and the FARC rebels, with support from Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
Chavez is also helping conclude a peace agreement between the Uribe government and Colombia's second-largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN).
Chavez is hoping to take to France proof that the hostages the FARC rebels are holding are alive.
"There are some positive points that could lead to an understanding if both sides continue showing good will gestures," Chavez said recently. This could even lead to a cease-fire or a peace agreement, he said.
Venezuela's spat with Spain over King Juan Carlos' demand that Chavez "shut up" during last weekend's Ibero-American summit in Santiago will likely serve as backdrop to Chavez visit abroad.
On Friday, Chavez demanded the king apologize for his remark, telling state-run television VTV: "the least I'm entitled to as head of state is that the King of Spain - who is not the king of Latin America - offer some type of apology for attacking me."
Upon his return to Caracas, Chavez will fully throw himself into the electoral campaign for get voters to cast a "Yes" ballot in the December 2 referendum to approve his controversial constitutional reforms.
A very down to earth* kind of guy. I'm an environmental sociologist interested in establishing material and organizational sustainability worldwide. I'm always looking for interesting materials/technologies, inspiring ideas, or institutional examples of sustainability to inspire others to recognize their choices now. To be fatalistic about an unsustainable world is a sign of a captive mind, given all our options.
*(If "earth" is defined in a planetary sense, concerning comparative historical knowledge and interest in the past 10,000 years or so anywhere...) See both blogs.
5 comments:
1. SuJung, Kim
2. Chile rattled by big aftershocks
3. Chile had a strong earthquake. Many people became the homeless. When I read it, I just wondered whether it was the first time for Chile having earthquake or not. Is earthquake in Chile related to chile's geographical features? Is it impossible to prevent damage from earthquake?
------------------------------
Northern Chile has been rattled by powerful aftershocks a day after an earthquake struck the region, leaving 15,000 people homeless.
Thursday's two tremors were measured at 6.2 and 6.8 magnitude by the US Geological Survey.
They came as Chilean President Michelle Bachelet visited the disaster zone following Wednesday's quake, which killed two people and injured some 150.
The major 7.7 magnitude quake wrecked 4,000 homes and other infrastructure.
Tents have been set up to help residents who were forced to sleep outdoors under cold desert skies.
'Catastrophe'
On Wednesday in Tocopilla city two women, aged 88 and 54, were crushed to death by collapsing walls.
Lasting about 50 seconds, the earthquake was felt thousands of kilometres away in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Electricity, water and phone lines were cut in some areas by the quake, which struck around midday on Wednesday 1,260km (780 miles) north of the capital, Santiago.
Thursday's aftershocks occurred nearby only 35km (21.7 miles) deep, 93km (58 miles) north-east of mining capital Antofagasta.
They came as President Bachelet and four cabinet ministers visited Antofagasta and other affected areas.
Interior minister Belisario Velasco has formally declared the region a catastrophe zone, a measure which helps speeds up the delivery of aid.
Tocopilla Mayor Luis Moncayo said that at least 4,000 people in the port city had been left homeless by Wednesday's quake and some 1,200 buildings demolished.
About 500 emergency housing units have been sent to the city of 27,000 people.
The local hospital was also damaged and patients were being treated at a portable military hospital, officials said.
Paula Saez, a worker with aid body World Vision International, told Reuters news agency from Tocopilla: "People here are pretty afraid.
"There have been so many aftershocks that start with a big noise, a humming noise, and then the ground starts moving and people start to run away."
In Maria Elena on Wednesday, a small town south-east of Tocopilla, 20 people were hurt and 70% of the town's houses were destroyed.
In Antofagasta, the airport was damaged, Chilean radio reported, while some 45 people were injured.
Chile's largest copper mines are in the quake zone, and production was temporarily halted on Wednesday. The nation is the world's largest copper producer.
In August more than 500 people died when an 8.0 magnitude quake struck neighbouring Peru just south of the capital, Lima.
----
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7096648.stm
1. Euna Lee
2. Victims of Colombian Conflict Sue Chiquita Brands
3. To buy bananas or not to buy bananas, is the question in this article, which showed an interesting incicident reflecting some of the past of these Banana Republics in today's economy. It reminded me of how much of the coca plantations and growers in Bolivia started putting their hands in drug dealing for survival's sake. Whether Chiquita's claim of making mere 'protection payments' is true or not is one thing. Considering the price that was paid later on (397 lives), whether the payments are justifiable could be another.
-----------------------
Victims of Colombia’s civil conflict sued the banana importer Chiquita Brands International yesterday, accusing it of making payments to a paramilitary group responsible for thousands of killings.
The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, accused Chiquita of complicity in hundreds of deaths because of its financial support of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, also known by its Spanish initials, A.U.C.
The plaintiffs include relatives of 387 people thought to have been killed by the group, which was responsible for some of the worst massacres in Colombia’s long-running conflict and was designated a terrorist group by the United States government in 2001.
The families are seeking $7.86 billion in damages from Chiquita, which they accuse of abetting atrocities including terrorism, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
A spokesman said Chiquita, which is based in Cincinnati, would fight the civil lawsuit, one of several filed recently by Colombian citizens and human rights groups.
Chiquita has acknowledged that its former subsidiary, Banadex, had paid $1.7 million to the A.U.C. from 1997 to 2004. The company has also admitted that the payments were illegal; it pleaded guilty this year to violating counterterrorism laws and agreed to pay a $25 million fine.
But Chiquita has repeatedly insisted that it had no choice but to pay protection money to groups that had threatened to turn death squads loose on its banana plantations and employees.
“We reiterate that Chiquita and its employees were victims and that the actions taken by the company were always motivated to protect the lives of our employees and their families,” a Chiquita spokesman, Michael Mitchell, said.
The New York lawyer who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the families, Jonathan Reiter, said Chiquita’s support of the A.U.C. went beyond mere “protection payments” and included the shipment of thousands of rifles.
Chiquita sold its Colombian subsidiary in 2004, but it continues to buy Colombian bananas from independent suppliers.
---
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/business/worldbusiness/15chiquita.html?ref=americas
1. Heaeum Cho
2. 'Big day looms for Venezuela'
3. Keeping up with Venezuela's rapidly changing political climate, I'm personally left with more concerns than assurances. The increasing absolute power of Chavez in domestic sectors fueled by the oil economy can't guarantee equity and stability for all Venezuelans even under Chavez's unique socialist model. The fall-out of his former supporters also signal that perhaps things are being rushed without the inclusion of the citizens' involvement. Any decision hastily reached is likely to face dire consequences and Chavez carries a large burden in balancing both public support while implementing policies which must be done under a check and balance system with the long-term prospect in mind.
-----
CARACAS: In two weeks, Venezuela could be starting an extraordinary experiment in centralized socialism fueled by oil. By law, the workday would be cut to six hours. Street vendors, housewives and maids would have state-mandated pensions. And President Hugo Chávez would have significantly enhanced powers and be eligible for re-election for the rest of his life.
A new constitution, expected to be approved by referendum Dec. 2, is both bolstering Chávez's popularity among people who will benefit and stirring contempt from economists who declare it demagoguery. Signaling new instability here, dissent is also emerging from among his former lieutenants, some of whom say the president is carrying out a populist coup.
"There is a perverse subversion of our existing Constitution under way," said General Raúl Isaías Baduela, a retired defense minister and former confidant of Chávez's who broke with him this month and defected to the political opposition. "This is not a reform," Baduel said in an interview. "I categorize it as a coup d'état."
Chávez loyalists already control the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, almost every state government, the entire federal bureaucracy and newly nationalized companies in the telephone, electricity and oil industries.
Soon they could control even more. But this is an upheaval that would be carried out with the approval of the voters. While polls in Venezuela are often tainted by partisanship, they suggest the referendum could be Chávez's closest electoral test since his presidency began in 1999, but one he is still likely to win.
"We are witnessing a seizure and redirection of power through legitimate means," said Alberto Barrera Tyszka, co-author of a best-selling biography of Chávez. "This is not a dictatorship but something more complex: the tyranny of popularity."
One of the 69 amendments to the Constitution would allow Chávez to create new administrative regions, with rulers called vice presidents chosen by him. Critics said the reforms would also shift funds from states and cities, where a handful of elected officials still oppose him, to communal councils, new local governing entities that are predominantly pro-Chávez.
Interviews this week on the streets here and in Maracaibo, Venezuela's second-largest city, offer a window into the strength of Chávez's followers and the challenges of his critics. His supporters, many of whom are public servants in a bureaucracy that has ballooned in size since he came to power, have flooded poor districts to campaign for the overhaul.
"The comandante should have more power because he is the force behind our revolution," Egda Vilchez, 51, a Chávez activist, said as she campaigned for the new charter this week at a busy intersection in Cacique Mara, an area of slums in eastern Maracaibo.
Such statements might sound dogmatic, but they are voiced with a fervor in organized campaigning that is unmatched in richer areas of the largest cities, where much of Chávez's opposition is found.
Aside from a nascent student movement that has held protests of increasing defiance in recent weeks, the middle and upper classes seem largely resigned about the outcome of a referendum that is less about specific issues and more about Chávez's resilient support among the poor.
In comments after a summit meeting of Latin American leaders this month in Chile, Chávez laid out his project in simple language: "Capitalist Venezuela is entering its grave and socialist Venezuela is being born."
Indeed, socialist imagery is pervasive throughout this country, from the red shirts worn by Chávez and his followers to the chant of "Fatherland, socialism or death!" repeated at the end of his rallies. But walking into a grocery store here offers a different view of the changes washing over Venezuela.
Combined with price controls that keep farmers from profitably producing some basic foods, climbing incomes of the poorest Venezuelans have stripped supermarket aisles bare of items like milk and eggs. Meanwhile, foreign-exchange controls create bottlenecks for importers seeking to meet rising demand for many products.
Such imbalances plague oil economies elsewhere, with oil revenues often making it cheaper to import goods than produce them at home. But the system Chávez is creating is perhaps unique: a hybrid of state-supported enterprises and no-holds-barred capitalism in which 500,000 automobiles are expected to be sold this year.
Lacking here, for instance, is the authoritarianism one might expect in a country where billboards promoting Chávez have proliferated in the last year.
Looming above the Centro San Ignacio, this city's glitziest shopping mall, is one of Chávez hugging a child while he explains the "motors" of his revolution. Others show him kissing old women, decorating graduates of the military university and embracing an ally, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran.
Beneath these images, chaos persists on the street level, reflecting a state flush with oil money but weak when facing systemic problems like violent crime. The country had 9,568 homicides in the first nine months of this year, a 9 percent increase from the same period last year.
Private companies here, meanwhile, have the dilemma of profiting from a growing economy while dreading what is to come, explaining the accelerating capital flight that has caused the currency, the bolívar, to plunge against the dollar since Chávez announced the constitutional overhaul in August.
Sparse details as to how Chávez's government would implement measures a like a six-hour workday or pay for a new social security system have done little for economic confidence, with Fedecamaras, the country's main business association, urging voters to oppose the new charter "by all legal means."
The proposals have also revealed sharp divisions among the president's own supporters, symbolized by the sharp criticism from Baduel, who helped re-install Chávez in power after a brief coup in 2002.
Marisabel Rodríguez, the president's former wife and the former first lady, came out against the new charter this week, saying it would lead to "absolute concentration of power." And previously pro-Chávez governors like Ramón Martínez of Sucre State, sensing that their power could be curtailed, have criticized the measures.
With the changes, term limits would be abolished only for the president, not for governors or mayors. Another item raises the threshold for collecting signatures to hold a vote to recall the president, effectively shielding him from one option voters have to challenge his power under the existing Constitution of 1999.
Other measures in the project are considered progressive by both critics of Chávez and those in his political base, which includes leftist military officials, academics, civil servants and a large portion of the urban and rural poor.
The voting age in this demographically young country, for instance, would be lowered to 16 from 18. Discrimination based on sexual orientation would be prohibited. Many of the items are vaguely worded, however, like one giving the president the power to create "communal cities."
"Clearly there are positive aspects to the reform, but the government has committed a political error by trying to rush it to voters without enough discussion," said Edgardo Lander, a sociologist at the Central University of Venezuela who is generally sympathetic to Chávez. "The opposition can argue this is illegitimate if it is approved by a low margin."
Chávez, who recently hinted at staying in power until 2031, might also be preparing for resistance if oil proceeds fail to prove abundant enough to finance his ambitions.
One of the reforms allows him to declare states of emergency during which he can shut down television stations and newspapers.
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http://iht.com/articles/2007/11/16/america/venez.php
1.Kyunghee Kang
2."Banana drama for poor countries"
3.This article shows what's happening in the industry in which familiar international companies such as Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte do their business on the bases of the plantations in Latin America.
It is interesing that when local legislation and international regluation are able to do nothing valid, the customers demand can add up to the power for local workers.
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Monday November 12, 2007
The Guardian
In your exposé of the activities of multinational banana companies there were claims from Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte that they were working with Latin American trade unions to address workers' rights with the implication that they all supported the principle of free collective bargaining (Bananas to UK via the Channel islands? It pays for tax reasons, November 6).
The GMB has close ties with those trade unions and the reality of their members' existence is rather different. At corporate level there is indeed dialogue between unions and companies, but agreements are routinely ignored at the workplace, where trade unionists are often sacked, blacklisted, threatened with violence or even murdered, as in the case of Sitrabi union executive member Marco Tulio Ramirez, who was killed on a Guatemalan plantation on September 23. Only this week, we received reports of a family being evicted from their home and a pregnant woman being left with a tent for shelter on a Chiquita plantation, in the midst of a campaign to intimidate and dismiss trade union members in Costa Rica.
The banana companies' union-busting activities are motivated by a desire to control wages in the midst of a vicious price war between Tesco and Asda, who use their market strength to drive down the cost of the fruit at the suppliers' expense. Tesco alone makes £1.5m per week profit on bananas and, despite advocating corporate social responsibility, seemingly cares little for the wellbeing of the workers on the plantations.
There is some hope for our Latin American colleagues in the shape of increased Fairtrade sales in response to demands from the British public, and it is high time that the corporate players in the banana industry lived up to their moral, as well as their legal, obligations.
Bert Schouwenburg
GMB London Region
Companies like Dole and Chiquita are some of the biggest players in markets providing crucial employment in developing countries. Yet these companies have become so powerful they are not answerable to local legislation, and international regulation is plainly not robust enough. Companies like Dole have repeatedly been accused of using anti-trade-union tactics. In Colombia last year, Dole even closed down the largest and one of the most profitable fresh-cut flower farms after a union had successfully organised on the farm. How many stories like this must we hear before the government and international community wake up to these abuses? We need to introduce regulations to prevent abuses like tax evasion and trade union-busting from happening, but also to lobby international institutions to do the same.
Paul Moon
London
Your piece on how multinational companies avoid the taxman is shocking but hardly new. The remedy is simple: trade sanctions. When a state is considered to be unacceptable, as Cuba is seen by the US, any company trading with that country is penalised if it tries to trade in the US. Sanctions do not really work against nations but if applied to these rogue companies and their directors I am sure the response would be dramatic.
Martin Cooper
Bromley, Kent
Richard Murphy's comment piece (Havens and have-nots, November 7) picks up on your story on the tax minimisation of banana multinationals, and highlights just how widespread the problem is. All is not lost, however - simple solutions are available.
Geographic reporting - multinationals revealing their turnover, profits and tax paid in each jurisdiction - would go a long way. Unitary taxation - assessing multinationals for tax not as many companies in many jurisdictions but as one, with a formula to apportion the tax base between countries - would ensure an effective response. The campaign for tax justice, to which Christian Aid is committed, has far to go - but there are clear policies available to reduce the iniquity of large corporations shunning their tax responsibilities in the poorest (and richest) countries of the world.
Alexander Cobham
Policy research manager, Christian Aid
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2209397,00.html
Yongmie Jo
Chavez launches initiative to back OPEC, Iran
Recent diplomatic movements of Chavez indicate basic -yet essential- elements of his regime’s strategy that are closely interwoven. From an economist’s point of view, very core element of Chavez’ interwoven strategies, would be the vast scale of oil production and trade, for it is almost the only source of funding and trade income of the country for the government to make anything work in the first place.
US being the best consumer of oil, and the strongest superpower who strongly determines the oil price, Chavez has no choice but to confront US. Also at this point, Chavez’ leftist political regime achieves validity only when it holds the opposite side of neo-liberal rightist superpower, the US.
This is why, as reported in the article below, Chavez places such heavy focus on international trading policies surrounding oil, while collaborating allies and keeping close ties with neighboring Latin American political leaders.
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CARACAS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez pursued an ambitious diplomatic mission Saturday aimed at persuading OPEC nations to maintain oil prices at their current level, defending Iran's nuclear program, and stepping up efforts to get Colombian rebels to release hostages.
Chavez wants the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries summit in Saudi Arabia this week to take on a stronger "political and geopolitical" role and return to its stance of the 1970s when it tightened the screws on consumer nations.
Chavez believes that oil should be priced between 80 and 100 dollars a barrel, and that OPEC must find a way to compensate the world's poorest countries for the high prices.
The Venezuelan leader also wants OPEC to consider distributing its windfall profits by subsidizing oil and gas products in the Caribbean and Latin America.
Chavez has proposed a "protection formula" so that soaring oil prices "do not become a destructive bomb on the Third World economies."
However he also believes wealthy consumer countries should pay high prices for oil in order to prevent hydrocarbon waste.
From the summit Chavez will head to his fourth visit to Tehran on November 19, for a meeting with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, with which Venezuela has signed eight billion dollars' worth of accords, mostly in the oil and gas sectors.
Venezuelan-Iranian ties are strengthening at a time when the West favors a third series of sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program.
Chavez has defended Iran's right to nuclear energy, and has offered his services as a mediator to talk with the United States and its allies - though nobody has asked him to act yet.
In a recent interview with French television, Chavez announced that, just like Iran, "Venezuela will also begin to develop nuclear energy with peaceful purposes, just like Brazil is doing, just like Argentina is doing."
From Tehran, Chavez flies to Paris for his first meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Chavez and Sarkozy will discuss Venezuelan efforts to secure the release of some 50 hostages held by leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas.
The hostages include Colombian-French former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, Colombian legislators and local officials, and three US State Department contractors captured when they were shot down as they sprayed coca fields with herbicide.
The guerrillas have demanded the release of 500 of their imprisoned comrades.
Chavez has tried to broker talks between Bogota and the FARC rebels, with support from Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
Chavez is also helping conclude a peace agreement between the Uribe government and Colombia's second-largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN).
Chavez is hoping to take to France proof that the hostages the FARC rebels are holding are alive.
"There are some positive points that could lead to an understanding if both sides continue showing good will gestures," Chavez said recently. This could even lead to a cease-fire or a peace agreement, he said.
Venezuela's spat with Spain over King Juan Carlos' demand that Chavez "shut up" during last weekend's Ibero-American summit in Santiago will likely serve as backdrop to Chavez visit abroad.
On Friday, Chavez demanded the king apologize for his remark, telling state-run television VTV: "the least I'm entitled to as head of state is that the King of Spain - who is not the king of Latin America - offer some type of apology for attacking me."
Upon his return to Caracas, Chavez will fully throw himself into the electoral campaign for get voters to cast a "Yes" ballot in the December 2 referendum to approve his controversial constitutional reforms.
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http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/International__Business/Chavez_launches_initiative_to_back_OPEC_Iran/rssarticleshow/2547767.cms
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