The Venezuelan government and food producers have outlined a plan to guarantee the distribution of food if the South American nation’s energy crisis worsens, an industry official said on Friday.
Venezuelan Pork Federation president Alberto Cudemus said government and private-sector representatives met the previous evening for talks on how to insulate the food sector from power outages. He said the plan involves reducing water use and investing to make food producers self-sufficient in energy within 90 to 360 days.
How long it takes will hinge on both the private sector’s willingness to make the investments, and the government that is managing permits to import electrical generators and giving access to foreign currency to purchase the equipment, Cudemus said.
“We are sort of racing against the clock in the food sector and do not want to let the country down,” he added.
Venezuela has implemented power rationing and rolling blackouts in some states to prevent a collapse of the electrical grid as water levels behind the Guri Dam — which supplies roughly 70 percent of the nation’s electricity — fall precipitously amid a severe drought.
Opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accuse the government of failing to invest in electricity production over the last decade amid rising demand; Chavez denies that.
State news agency ABN reported that the government committed to exempt food producers and plants from power cuts as part of its energy rationing plan.
Energy and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said on Friday that the government was bringing in gas and diesel generators with an output of 1,200 megawatts to cover demand from state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA.
“Before the end of the year is the time frame we estimate for electrical self-sufficiency,” Ramirez told ABN.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
RSS