General Motors has shut down its Venezuelan operation and laid off 2,678 people after the crisis-struck Latin American country nationalized the plant and seized cars, the company says. On Wednesday, the factory was "unexpectedly seized by the Venezuelan authorities, preventing normal operations," GM's spokesperson in Brazil, Julia Bastos, said Thursday in an email. The US auto-maker's plant has capacity for building 100,000 cars a year, but had already ground to a standstill because of the collapse in oil-rich Venezuela's economy and lack of access to US dollars.



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