If Cuba's Fidel Castro is America's favorite Latin American bête noire, then Venezuela's Hugo Chavez qualifies as Washington's reigning Prince of Darkness.
In 1960, Fidel Castro nationalized US business interests without compensation, bringing down on impoverished benighted country 51 years of sanctions that continue to the present day.
Similarly, four years ago Chavez completed the nationalization of foreign oil interests, transferring their shares to the state-owned petroleum company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., more commonly referred to by its acronym PDVSA.
The screaming was heard echoing through the boardrooms and canyons of Wall Street. Now the picture appears to be shifting, as Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez told reporters this week, “We’ve never said we wouldn’t pay” the two U.S. multinational corporations Exxon-Mobil and Conoco-Phillips, “the only two that didn’t accept our laws and didn’t accept (the terms of a compensation deal for confiscated assets) and took the dispute to the World Bank’s International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, or ICSID.” Full article at: Venezuela to Compensate American Oil Companies for Nationalization?
