According to an official statement released by Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday this week, the move has been taken on the grounds of defending national sovereignty and “to protect the right of the Venezuelan people to decide the strategic orientation of the social and economic life of the nation”.
On 8 January, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez first announced the intention to leave the ICSID and his government’s refusal to accept the body’s decisions. The comments followed US oil giant Exxon Mobil’s move to bring a case to the body seeking more compensation from Venezuela’s nationalisation of its operations in the Orinoco Oil Belt in 2007.
TVNL Comment: This is why Chavez is being touted as a bad guy. The world bank comes in to nations, forced loans on them that are impossible to pay back. And the money ends up with American companies, usually to build things like nuclear power plants or huge infrastructure projects. Of course American companies make the money and the people of the poor nations are left with loans so large that they can never finish paying them off...you know that interest piles up. If the nation does not accept the offer of the loans...the leader ends up dead. Look up "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" to learn how this is done.
A wave of attacks killed at least 79 people in Shiite and Sunni areas of Iraq...
The funeral of the murdered vice-president of Pakistan's PTI party, Zahra Shahid Hussain, has been held...
