Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened on Sunday to seize businesses that raise prices as a result of last week’s devaluation of the nation’s currency.
Economic analysts called the warning a futile attempt to control 25 percent inflation that is already the highest in Latin America and stands to be worsened by the weakening of the bolivar.
Chavez disputed that his decision to devalue the currency for the first time in nearly five years should spur a sharp rise in consumer prices.
“There is no reason for anybody to be raising prices,” he said on his weekly radio and TV program Alo Presidente.
He urged his supporters to “publicly denounce the speculator” and warned business owners that his government would “take over any business, of any size, that plays the bourgeoisie speculation game.”
The devaluation aims to stretch oil earnings further by increasing their value in the local currency, and thus help the government counter a recession by boosting spending.
But critics said the measure would unavoidably push inflation even higher.
Oscar Meza, director of the local Cendas think tank, which tracks economic data, predicted the devaluation would propel annual inflation above 33 percent this year, with food prices rising as much as 36 percent.
“It’s impossible for prices not to be adjusted,” Meza said. “If they aren’t adjusted, they’ll disappear.”
The currency’s official exchange rate had been 2.15 bolivars to the dollar since a devaluation in March 2005. Chavez set a new two-tiered exchange rate on Friday, pegging the bolivar at 2.6 to the dollar for priority goods such as food and medicine and at 4.3 to the dollar for imports of nonessential products such as air conditioners and radios.
Chavez said he is determined to curb inflation — even if it means deploying the military to prevent price hikes.
“For all the threats and possible takeover of businesses, it’s not going to solve the problem,” Meza said. “If they take control of businesses, the problem will only get worse.”
Chavez also said on Sunday that he has asked film producers to make “socialist soap operas,” with government help if needed, because there’s too much capitalism on TV.
“A while ago, I was in Cuba and they broadcast soap operas there, not capitalist soap operas but with a social content, socialist” soap operas, Chavez said on Alo Presidente. “I’m going to ask that we make socialist soap operas, instead of capitalist ones.”
“We can also make good movies,” he said. “Not capitalist movies that are poison and incite our children to take drugs and even push them into crime.”
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
RSS