Blackouts savage Venezuela's already tattered economy

Two vast blackouts that hit Venezuela this month have savaged its already ragged economy, paralyzing its vital oil industry and costing the country $200 million a day, experts say. No sector has been spared in the near-nationwide outages that struck from March 7-14 and again this week. "Each day of blackout... we have losses of around $200 million," Carlos Larrazabal, head of Fedecamaras federation of chambers of commerce and production, told AFP. In a country of 30 million people already struggling with five years of recession, where inflation is forecast by the IMF to soar to 10 million percent this year, the consequences of the power cuts are devastating. More…