Venezuela Builds New Housing for Its People

Venezuela’s Housing Mission Constructs Almost 100,000 Homes in First Seven Months
By Ewan Roberston

Mérida, November 17th (Venezuelanalysis.com) – 95,912 houses and apartments have been built in the first seven months of Venezuela’s massive house building program, the “Great Housing Mission” (GMV), confirmed energy and petroleum minister Rafael Ramirez yesterday.

Of these, 59,730 (62%) were built by the public sector and 36,182 (38%) by the private sector reported Ramirez, who is also Vice-president of the government’s Superior Housing Authority, which convened in the north-western state of Zulia yesterday.

“This is a number without precedent...there has never been so much done in one year” he commented with regards to the Venezuelan state’s contribution to the figures.

Launched on 30th April 2011, the government’s GMV program seeks to close Venezuela’s long-term housing deficit and ensure that everyone in the country has adequate housing. According to the government, the mission aims to build two million homes in seven years.

The program’s goal for 2011 is to build a total of 150,000 houses, followed by 200,000 in 2012 and 300,000 each year thereafter until 2017.

However, the national registration process for families needing new homes, completed toward the end of October, revealed that just under 2,711,000 families in Venezuela are in need of their own or a new home. As a result, the Venezuelan government has increased the GMV’s goal to correspond to this figure, and now aims to build a total of 2,725,648 homes, Ramirez stated.

The minister further added that 286,180 homes are currently in construction around the country for completion in the remainder of 2011 and 2012, with the 10,000 hectares of land needed to build these already available.

Public Sector and Grassroots Efforts to the Fore

The new figures also demonstrate the growing role of Venezuela’s public sector and grassroots organisations in the country’s house building industry.

With 62% of all new housing in Venezuela completed in the public sector so far this year, as compared with only 30% in 2009, the share of Venezuela’s public sector in the nation’s house building industry has more than doubled in two years.

Furthermore, of housing constructed by the public sector so far this year, 48% (28,202) was undertaken with the participation of grassroots “popular power” initiatives, particularly the Integral Participation of Habitats (TIH) and Substitution of Shanties for Houses (Suvi) programmes.

Communal councils throughout the country have also been encouraged by the government to form “construction communes” and contribute to house building programs in their local communities.

When the GMV was launched, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez stressed the importance of grassroots participation for the program’s success, stating “nobody knows how to build houses better than the people...if we want to put an end to poverty, then we must give power to the poor. This is the main principle of the socialist revolution”.

Reflecting on grassroots participation so far in the program, Ramirez commented yesterday that “the Venezuelan people, through various organisations of popular power, have turned themselves towards the resolution of these problems [of housing]...the whole people are completing the goals of the Great Housing Mission”.

Ramirez also emphasised the importance of the increase in public sector house building for stimulating the nation’s house building industry as a whole in order to achieve the GMV’s goals, arguing that “under capitalism the housing problem doesn’t have a solution, [as] it converts housing into a business”.

The increase in public sector housing construction also involves efforts to develop a national construction industry.

These include the establishment of the new National Public Works Company to manage publicly-owned construction equipment in August this year, and the announcement in October of a new national cement distribution system to increase access to the material produced by the country’s nationalised cement factories.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6639

ALBA

Dear Friends,

The Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (ALBA-TCP) nations Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela -- denounce the NATO for carrying out a military operation for regime change in Libya.
_______________________________________________

Special Declaration of the ALBA-TCP Foreign Ministers on the Situation of Libya and Syria

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/alba110911.html
The Foreign Ministers of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, meeting in Caracas, Venezuela on 9 September 2011, recalling the Special Communiqué of the Political Council on 4 March 2011 and the Special Communiqué of the Ministerial Social Council on 19 March 2011, condemns the NATO intervention in Libya and its illegal military aggression, carried out under the cover of a UN Security Council resolution, opportunistically exploiting the situation of the internal political conflict in that country.

The ALBA foreign ministers denounce the NATO for carrying out a military operation for regime change in Libya under the doctrine of preventive war, manipulating the UN to suit its geopolitical and economic interests in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1973.

The ALBA foreign ministers demand the immediate and unconditional cessation of the NATO bombings and military intervention in the Libyan territory.

The ALBA foreign ministers deplore the fact that the NATO has disregarded the persistent efforts of the African Union in search of a solution to the internal conflict in Libya based on dialogue to achieve peace.The ALBA foreign ministers also deplore the complicity of various major international media, which have colluded with those interested in aggression and lent themselves to the purpose of distorting information about the state of affairs in Libya.

The ALBA foreign ministers issue their most urgent warning on the danger that the Libyan precedent may be repeated against Syria, by means of exploiting the ongoing political troubles in that Arab nation.

The ALBA foreign ministers reiterate their firmest commitment to the right to self-determination of the peoples of Libya and Syria.

The ALBA foreign ministers most energetically reject any attempt to turn Libya into a protectorate of the NATO or the UN Security Council.

In order to contribute to and support the efforts for peace demanded by the majority of the peoples of the world, the ministers agree to take the following actions:

Promote discussion in the UN General Assembly on the dangerous precedents set by what has been done to Libya and on the protection of the sovereign rights of that Arab nation of Africa, so as to ensure that Libya shall not be turned into a protectorate of the NATO or the UN Security Council.

Promote the establishment of a Working Group at the General Assembly to investigate and monitor the use of the frozen funds of Libya's financial reserves, which will report back to the General Assembly on its results and conclusions.

Call upon the international community to promote an initiative to investigate crimes committed in Libya by the NATO to the detriment of the Libyan people, the destruction of Libya's infrastructure and the deaths caused by the NATO.

Compile a list of media's lies and manipulations promoted by the empire to justify the aggression against the Libyan people.

Request the Secretary General of the United Nations for complete transparency, rendering a strict accounting of facts to the member states regarding his conduct on the subject of Libya and vis-à-vis Syria; and emphasize that his conduct must correspond to the mandates given by the General Assembly, before taking new actions to intervene in Libya. Equally, request the Secretary General to meet with the ALBA-TCP (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-Peoples' Trade Treaty) countries to discuss the situation in Libya.

Support a central role of the African Union in efforts to promote peace in Libya.

Firmly reject giving Libya's seat at the United Nations to an illegitimate transitional faction or authority imposed by foreign intervention; and thus promote fundamental debate at the Credentials Committee of the General Assembly of the United Nations in order to prevent Libya's seat from becoming occupied until such time as a government that is the free and sovereign expression of the will of the Libyan people becomes established in a legitimate manner, without foreign intervention.

Propose to the Syrian government a mission of high representatives or foreign ministers of the ALBA-TCP; and, if accepted, report on it to the Latin American and Caribbean countries through UNASUR (Union of South American Nations), CARICOM (Caribbean Community), SICA (Central American Integration System), and the joint CALC (Latin American and Caribbean Summit)-Rio Group forum, and invite those who wish to join this initiative to participate.

Promote debate at the Coordination Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement on the threats looming over Syria.

Support, together with the Non-Aligned countries that are members of the Security Council, the resolution promoted by Russia and China with respect to Syria.

Send the UN Secretary General this Declaration and request that it be circulated among the member states of the United Nations as an official document of the General Assembly.

U.S. Tightens Grip on Sanctions Against Venezuela

Washington Reiterates its Threats against Venezuela
June 24, 2011 by lchirino

South Journal--The United States does not discard the imposition of more severe sanctions against Venezuela, if this country does not stop its gasoline shipments to Iran, and this includes accusing Caracas of sponsoring terrorism, said a high government US official on Friday.

Thomas L. Delare director of the Office of Terrorist Finance and Economic Sanctions Policy with the US Department of State said on Friday, during a joint session of the subcommittees for National Security and for the Western Hemisphere of the House, that the sanctions imposed last month were aimed at convincing Venezuela´s PDVSA Oil Company to "take the right decision."

Delare said that if PDVSA does not stop (gas shipments to Iran), which they have made clear in conversations with the Venezuelan company and authorities, the Secretary of State reserves the authority to impose additional and more severe sanctions. Delare was referring to the sanctions imposed last month against PDVSA and other foreign companies for doing business with Iran.No option has yet been discarded, while the State Department will continue to evaluate which additional actions may be justified in the future, said the US government official.

PDVSA was excluded of all US contracts, as well as of federal finance for imports and exports, while it will be denied licenses to purchase special technology, though it will be able to keep selling to the US market and send shipments to CITGO, its branch office in the United States .

These were the first sanctions adopted against Venezuela for its oil-related exports to Iran since the US Congress approved a legislation allowing the adoption of this kind of measures last year.

Those countries labeled by the US State Department as "sponsors of terrorism" are facing sanctions that include the suspension of US assistance and the prohibition of sales and exports of military equipment. The countries currently facing these sanctions are Cuba , Iran , Sudan and Syria.

http://lchirino.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/washington-reiterates-its-threats-against-venezuela/

Cuba Condemns U.S. Sanctions on Venezuela

Cuban Minister's of Foreign Affairs Statement on U.S. sanctions against on Venezuela's PDVSA
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/123963

Statement by the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the Sanctions Imposed by the United States on the Company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA)

The government and people of Cuba express strong condemnation against this aggression against the people of Venezuela, the Bolivarian Revolution and the Bolivarian PDVSA.

The government of Cuba and all our people are in solidarity with President Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelan people, and give unconditionally support for the resolution of the National Assembly of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on this issue.

We share the statement of Commander Chavez, that the large reserves of Venezuela are not just of oil, but are its people; political reserves, moral reserves, Bolivarian reserves.

The United States is violating international law and applying unilateral laws extraterritorially.

We must condemn this aggression and we must ask whether the U.S. is mounting a new escalation against the Bolivarian Revolution. The key issue is not the economics of the measures against PDVSA, but the risk that this signifies the decision of the U.S. to provoke further conflicts in the region, new attempts to divide Latin America and the Caribbean, at a high point of its unity and independence.

When Venezuela is attacked, Cuba is attacked. Commander Chávez, the Venezuelan people, can count on our complete solidarity, with our full support. We will work in the international organizations, and work together for the restoration of international law, to prevent the United States from violating international law and assaulting our people in this way.

Cuba shares fully the statement of ALBA on this issue and is ready to act in international forums and events, with a strong formal complaint and for the adoption of international action against this new and brutal aggression against Venezuela and against Our America.

Havana, May 28, 2011