Chinese Restaurants, pubs, motels serve for hours and the official distributor of Sony in the country today will be dark by order of the Government of Venezuela. The National Electricity Corporation in the newspapers yesterday published a list of 80 companies that were enacted in Caracas with a 24-hour power cut which took effect this morning, not having achieved the goal of reducing consumption by 20%, ordered by the Ministry of Electricity on 9 February.

“We encourage consumers to adopt these high users’ experiences who have reached the quota reduction,” read yesterday at the foot of the notice. De no acatar la invitación, el Gobierno les suspenderá el suministro eléctrico por tres días consecutivos. Does not accept the invitation, the government will suspend the power supply for three consecutive days. If they return, will be out of service permanently or until stabilization of the national power grid, something that neither the Ministry of Electric Power knows when.

The penalties were announced by Hugo Chávez on February 8, when the electrical emergency decreed in the country. At that time the president commander warned that firms with higher energy consumption to 25 megawatts would be scheduled by the government as “high consumers” and that all were obliged to reduce their demand by 20%.

Read the rest here.

*See message below from the Glenton family. Please circulate to all sympathetic contacts.

Dear All

Clare and Sue Glenton
(Joe’s parents)

Live music was performed on board of the Rainbow Warrior, “Artists against nuclear”: Adriano Bono & Torpedo Sound Machine, 99 Posse, Leo Pari, Piotta and Punkreas will sing the single “No al nucleare” (No to Nuclear) a song dedicated by the artists to Greenpeace campaign against nuclear. You can tune in on the website www.nuclearlifestyle.it.

Greenpeace’s first ever action almost 40 years ago took place just off the coast of Alaska, in the US nuclear testing zone Amchitka. Still today there are approximately 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world, belonging to nine countries, the US, UK, Russia, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. More than a thousand of them are ready to launch any minute.

If you go to United Nations website you will find a clear message: nuclear weapons are very real and remain an apocalyptic threat in a cold war mentality as states fail to follow the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The treaty seeks to eliminate nuclear weapons but gives countries the right to nuclear energy, so, the material to make the weapons can still be produced – this is a dangerous loophole that allows the continuous race of international military supremacy. But weapons are not the only threat as many nuclear plants are close to meltdown or could be exposed to an attack at any time, causing devastation like, if not worse than, Chernobyl.

There are plenty of alternatives to nuclear energy and it should not be promoted and we believe that nuclear weapons can be abolished.

Obama’s budget proposal for 2011 would add $36 billion in new federal loan guarantees to $18.5 billion already budgeted but not spent – for a total of $54.5 billion. The new $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees will go toward the construction and operation of a pair of reactors in Burke County, Georgia. But as late as 4^th of March 2010 Reuters reported that key players are jumping off the nuclear wagon. Many problems remain in the nuclear industry such as cost overruns, production delays and the big issue of nuclear waste and containment. Southern Company, the company to develop the nuclear plants, may not accept the terms of the loans; Wall Street hasn’t backed it for years; Warren Buffet won’t invest in it; Moody’s Investment Services says it doesn’t make economic sense; and Citi calls nuclear a corporation killer. So really, why nuclear and why now?