Chavez Says Cemex `Polluted' Venezuela, Didn't Invest

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez escalated a dispute with Monterrey, Mexico-based Cemex SAB, saying the company's local unit polluted the environment and failed to invest by focusing solely on profit. Venezuela seized the local operations of Cemex, the largest cement maker in the Americas, as part of a nationalization drive after the government and the company failed to reach an accord on a forced sale. Cemex said it would seek arbitration and called the expropriation a ``flagrant violation'' of the law. ``Go see the pollution not only along the coasts and in the trees, but in the lungs of the children,'' Chavez said on state television. ``Everything is full of powder. Cemex never invested in technology to eliminate the powder because they took all the money abroad.'' Chavez also said company executives acted in a ``disrespectful'' manner to Venezuelans and have a ``superiority complex.'' Cemex spokesman Jorge Perez declined to comment. Chavez said in April he would nationalize cement companies as part of a plan to ensure state control of strategic industries. Chavez is working to bring about what he calls ``21st-century socialism'' and his administration has seized the country's biggest phone company and a steel mill, as well as assets of oil joint ventures and electricity companies.