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Venezuela seizes elite's golf courses for houses

By TIMES WIRES
Published August 30, 2006

CARACAS, Venezuela - Three major Caracas golf courses, long favored by the city's wealthy, are being expropriated to build housing for thousands of poor and middle class Venezuelans, officials said Tuesday.

The city expropriations, which will likely generate new friction between supporters and opponents of President Hugo Chavez, are part of an ambitious government effort to provide more homes amid an acute housing shortage that has driven up real estate prices.

Mayor Juan Barreto's office has ordered the "forced acquisition" of two golf courses and will soon issue another decree expropriating a third course in the ritzy hills of southern Caracas, city attorney Juan Manuel Vadell said.

Barreto has said that new courses could be located in the suburbs. He also said the courses are unjustifiably lavish expenses in a country where an estimated 1.6-million families lack decent housing.

Critics, including residents living in the few upscale homes within the golf course lands, say that property rights are being eroded under Chavez.

Elsewhere...

Britain: Antiterrorist police charged three more people late Tuesday with conspiring to commit murder in the alleged plot to blow up U.S.-bound airliners. Mohammed Yasar Gulzar, Mohammed Shamin Uddin and Nabeel Hussain were also charged with preparing to commit terrorism by helping in an alleged plan to smuggle explosives aboard the planes, police said. Eleven people have now been charged on those two counts and four others were charged with lesser offenses.

Mexico: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, convinced he won't be awarded the presidency, has vowed to create a parallel leftist government and is urging Mexicans not to recognize the apparent victory of the ruling party's Felipe Calderon.

Russia: About 50 former militants surrendered and handed over their weapons Tuesday in a ceremony led by Chechnya's powerful Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, who said rebel numbers were dwindling in the war-ravaged region, officials said.

Guatemala: The government announced Tuesday that it had suspended some constitutional rights in five cities along Mexico's border as it cracks down on drug growers and traffickers in the remote region.

[Last modified August 30, 2006, 00:36:25]