The WFP’s first take-home rations were distributed for children under six years old at some 277 schools and preschools, as well as school staff, in 25 municipalities in northwestern Falcon state, WFP said in a statement.

Since Venezuela’s schools are closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, parents or teachers picked up the monthly rations — which consist of six kilograms of rice, four kg of lentils, 454 grams of salt and one litre of vegetable oil — on their behalf, according to Susana Rico, the WFP’s Venezuela representative.

“We are reaching these vulnerable children at a critical stage of their lives when their brains and bodies need nutritious food to develop to their full potential,” Rico was quoted as saying in the statement.

Activists had been clamouring for years for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to allow the WFP to distribute food in the country, which contains the world’s largest crude reserves by some measures, as a drop in crude prices and gaping fiscal deficits led to hyperinflation and recession.

Maduro and the WFP reached a deal in April, in what was seen by some analysts and western diplomats as a concession by the government aimed at getting U.S. sanctions on its oil industry lifted.

More than five million Venezuelans have emigrated, according to the United Nations, while some 60 per cent of households live in poverty, according to the Encovi survey by researchers at Andres Bello Catholic University. Some seven million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations.

WFP aims to feed some 185,000 children by the end of the year, 850,000 by July 2022 and 1.5 million by 2023.

— Reporting for Reuters by Vivian Sequera.

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President Donald Trump’s government has imposed sanctions on dozens of top Venezuelan officials as well as state oil company PDVSA in an effort to remove Maduro, whom it accuses of fixing elections last year and abusing human rights in the oil-rich nation.

Senators Marco Rubio and Robert Menendez sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin asking for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to review transactions by JBS, which has bought several U.S. meat companies in recent years, Rubio’s press office said on Twitter.

“This meat-processing conglomerate has engaged in illicit financial activities and has business ties with the Maduro regime,” the Twitter post said.

In a statement, JBS said it had always cooperated “transparently” with U.S. authorities regarding “passed events” in Brazil.

It had improved the management of the companies it acquired in the United States, delivering “solid results” that contributed to farm sector growth, JBS added, and continues to provide opportunities to farming and cattle-raising families.

Venezuela’s information ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In August, Washington froze all Venezuelan state assets in the United States and threatened sanctions on any company continuing to do business with the government.

In their letter to Mnuchin, made public on Tuesday, the senators said CFIUS should investigate the business transactions among JBS, the Venezuelan Corporation of Foreign Trade (CORPOVEX) and Diosdado Cabello, a powerful ally of Maduro who is under U.S. sanctions.

They did not provide further details about the alleged transactions.

The senators said JBS had engaged in the bribery of public officials in Brazil to obtain funds to expand abroad, acquiring in recent years U.S. meatpacker Swift Foods and chicken producer Pilgrim’s Pride.

Assets managed by JBS’s U.S. arm also include its Brooks, Alta. beef packing plant, one of Canada’s largest, with capacity to process up to 4,200 head of cattle per day.

Brothers Joesley and Wesley Batista, founders of JBS’s holding company J+F, signed plea bargain and leniency deals in May 2017, in which they confessed to running a political bribery ring in Brazil.

“We ask CFIUS conduct a review of JBS SA’s acquisition of U.S. companies to assess the implications for security and safety of America’s food supply and, in turn, our national security,” the senators said in their letter.

— Reporting for Reuters by Anthony Boadle.

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As part of an effort to effect regime change in Venezuela, U.S. President Donald Trump announced this week he wants to place sanctions on the South American country’s oil industry.

The U.S. is at odds with Nicolas Maduro, who was recently sworn in for a second term as Venezuela’s president following elections that were deemed by the international community as fraudulent. The U.S. and several other countries, including Canada, recognized Juan Guaido, the leader of Venezuela’s National Assembly, as the country’s interim president.

The U.S. has long been a major importer of oil from Venezuela as its heavy crude is preferred for producing diesel fuel.

Should those sanctions take effect and as the U.S. looks to other sources for heavy crude, Canada will be at a disadvantage, according to Tom Koza of the Oil Price Information Service in New Jersey.

“You (Canada) got a lot of heavy oil, but you don’t have the logistics… to get it to the U.S. Gulf Coast,” Koza said, adding the railways should benefit from any increased crude oil exports to U.S. refineries.

And with those refineries demanding heavy crude he was still optimistic of Western Canadian Select crude oil making its way south in larger quantities.

Until the specifics of the sanctions are known, Gary Mar, president of the Petroleum Services Association of Canada, is skeptical of what might happen because of the U.S. president.

“Trump tweets without much regard for consequences or he changes his mind,” Mar stated.

He pointed to the U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil, which came with numerous waivers that to him made those sanctions rather meaningless. At this point it’s uncertain if Trump will include waivers on Venezuelan oil.

“That’s a political issue that’s hard to predict. The U.S. president often makes decisions without detailed advice being given to him,” Mar commented.

Of the 3.3 million barrels of oil a day Canada exports, he pointed out that approximately 10 per cent is by rail. Also the Province of Alberta’s plans to add enough rail cars to move another 120,000 barrels a day will take one to two years to implement.

Although Koza is confident that U.S. sanctions on Venezuelan oil “won’t be a global inflation event” there’s something else on the horizon that will drive up world diesel prices in about a year’s time regardless of where it was produced.

“Next year (the refineries) may not want a lot of heavy crude oil because it comes with a lot of sulphur. That high-sulphur fuel, which now goes into powering (ocean-going) vessels is going to be illegal to use in January 2020,” Koza said.

Until then consumers very likely won’t see any increases in diesel prices.

— Glen Hallick writes for MarketsFarm, a Glacier FarmMedia division specializing in grain and commodity market analysis and reporting.

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At a campaign rally ahead of Sunday’s presidential election, which Maduro is expected to win, the president called Kellogg’s move illegal and told cheering supporters that Venezuelans’ favourite cereal would continue to be produced.

“We’ve begun judicial proceedings against the business leaders of Kellogg’s because their exit is unconstitutional,” Maduro said.

“I’ve taken the decision to deliver the company to the workers in order that they can continue producing for the people.”

Kellogg announced its retreat earlier on Tuesday, making it the latest multinational to exit the oil-rich country, which is heaving under hyperinflation and strict price controls.

“In December of 2016, Kellogg deconsolidated its Venezuela business from the company’s results. The current economic and social deterioration in the country has now prompted the company to discontinue operations,” Kellogg said in a statement.

Kellogg did not specify the difficulties it was facing in Venezuela, but companies have typically been struggling to find raw materials due to product shortages and currency controls that crimp imports.

Kellogg did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Maduro’s plans to hand its local unit over to workers.

The company in its statement warned against sales of its products or brands in Venezuela “without the expressed authorization of the Kellogg Company,” adding that it would like to return to Venezuela in the future.

Maduro’s government also stops companies from raising prices to keep up with hyperinflation, denting profits and sometimes rendering operations unsustainable.

The closure is not expected to significantly worsen food shortages in Venezuela, but it was a further blow to morale for many Venezuelans as Kellogg’s is the most popular and available cereal in the country.

Stunned workers were barred from entering Kellogg’s plant in the central city of Maracay and massed outside, seeking information, local business sources said.

Other multinational companies that have given up on the OPEC country, abandoning assets or selling them cheap, include Clorox, Kimberly-Clark, General Mills, General Motors and Harvest Natural Resources.

Venezuelans are struggling under quintuple-digit annual inflation and millions suffer food and medicine shortages. Even so, Maduro is expected to win re-election on Sunday in a vote the main opposition coalition says is a sham.

Maduro blames Venezuela’s crisis on an “economic war” he says is waged by Washington, greedy businessmen and coup-mongers.

— Reporting for Reuters by Corina Pons and Tibisay Romero; writing by Alexandra Ulmer and Girish Gupta.

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An opposition lawmaker from Merida, Carlos Paparoni, said four people had died and 10 were injured in the chaos over the last two days, but he did not specify the circumstances.

Four years of recession and the world’s highest inflation have plunged millions of Venezuelans into poverty, and President Nicolas Maduro’s authoritarian socialist regime faces mounting unrest.

Venezuela’s information ministry did not respond to a request for information about the latest disturbances to rock the nation of 30 million people.

Looters plundered a truck carrying corn, a food collection centre and a state-run supermarket, according to Paparoni, and a vet who witnessed the mayhem.

A video on social media also showed around a dozen men running into a lush pasture, chasing a cow, and then apparently beating it to death.

“They’re hunting. The people are hungry!” says the narrator of the video, who filmed the incident from his car. Lawmaker Paparoni said some 300 animals were believed to have been killed. Reuters could not verify the information.

Zuley Urdaneta, a 50-year-old vet in Merida, witnessed the looting of a truck along the highway around 2 p.m. on Thursday afternoon. About two hours later, he said some 800 people converged on a food collection centre and proceeded to plunder it.

“They knocked down the gates and looted flour, rice, cooking oil, cooking gas,” said Urdaneta. “The police and the National Guard tried to control the situation by giving out what was left.”

Looting has been increasing in the provinces since Christmas, with food shortages and hyperinflation leaving millions of people hungry, though the capital, Caracas, has so far been largely unaffected.

The opposition says Maduro’s failed economic policies and rampant corruption are to blame for the meltdown in the once-booming country home to the world’s largest crude reserves.

“What we’re living is barbaric,” said opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido in a tweet referencing the slaughter the cattle. “The dehumanizing regime of Nicolas Maduro is turning a blind eye to the tragedy that we Venezuelans are living.”

Maduro’s government accuses political opponents and business-friendly foreign powers of trying to foment a social uprising against him by stoking inflation and hoarding food.

In what they said was an attempt to combat “speculation,” authorities last week forced over 200 supermarkets to slash prices, creating chaos as desperate Venezuelans leapt at the chance to buy cheaper food.

Some supermarkets were sold out of fruit and vegetables, and staff were unsure if the shelves would be replenished.

— Reporting for Reuters by Anggy Polanco and Francisco Aguilar; writing by Alexandra Ulmer.

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Venezuela’s late president Hugo Chavez in 2005 sent in soldiers to seize major ranches and repopulate rural areas largely abandoned since Venezuela’s oil industry took off in the 1920s.

Chavez’s nationalization drive, which also included the energy and steel industries, has landed Venezuela in dozens of major arbitration disputes, many of which have come to fruition in recent years.

The latest decision by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) comes at a terrible time for the OPEC member, which is reeling from a tumble in oil prices.

ICSID ordered Venezuela pay US$98 million plus interest, according to a copy of the award seen by Reuters. The award was not yet available on the centre’s website.

Specialized site Investment Arbitration Reporter first announced the award.

Venezuela has sought to annul or challenge several recent arbitration disputes.

Diego Brian Gosis, a lawyer for Venezuela, said the next steps were still being analyzed, but that the most-likely option was that Venezuela would seek to annul part or all of the award.

Vestey Group, a meat products company owned by Britain’s Vestey family, began operations in Venezuela at the start of the 20th century.

Chavez handed 1,000 farmers the vast nationalized cattle land, though many who came hoping to grow arable crops found their harvest wiped out by flooding.

Critics of Chavez’s drive to break up big ranches say most of them are in swampy plains only suitable for cattle raising.

— Reporting for Reuters by Alexandra Ulmer.

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