Venezuela expels US-based missionaries

Venezuela's justice minister said yesterday that US-based missionaries were being expelled from the country because they were illegally investigating uranium deposits.

Justice Minister Jesse Chacon also accused the New Tribes Mission of using evangelical work with indigenous groups as a cover for working with multinational drug companies and other foreign interests.

The Venezuelan constitution passed by President Hugo Chavez in 1999 guaranteed the collective intellectual property rights of indigenous knowledge and technologies. It prohibits the registration of patents on such resources.