Venezuela Food Crisis

First, please listen to the news article: Click here to listen

Questions:
1) What are the two opposing opinions for the cause of this shortage?
2) What is the 'red tape' being cut in the final paragraph?
3) Does Japan have any similar problem with domestically produced products
not being able to compete with imports?
If you couldn't catch everything from listening, then please see the article here.
You can see the full BBC article here.