www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, January 26, 2003 - 8:09:25 AM By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Miguel Salazar forecasts in his weekly column that the government will not accept former US President Jimmy Carter’s suggestion to pardon dismissed Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) employees and workers ... President Chavez Frias is alleged to have asked Carter what would he have done as President of the USA if the oil wells had come under sabotage … “would you have pardoned the saboteurs?”

Smoke: A warning to lawyers concerning the new Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) structure, namely dividing the company into PDVSA-West and PDVSA-East. The Constitution stipulates that the State must control totality of shares but not so in the case of subsidiaries, JVs etc. Suspicion: the Constitution does not permit the privatization of PDVSA but does allow that of other companies and subsidiaries.

Change: Surprises in Coordinadora Democratica. While Confederation of Trade Unions (CTV) president Carlos Ortega moves with oilmen towards the extreme right that espoused Carmona, a recent Christian Socialist arrival has joined them and it would seem that Primero Justicia (PJ) brown shirts will not stand down … Elias Santana has signed up … pure and unrepentant rightwing stuff.

Intesa: I have highlighted irregularities in the Intesa-PDVSA relationship on several occasions and was criticized for allegedly interested attacks. Well, we would be singing another song today, if I had been taken seriously … I also got it right that the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) would say no to the consultative referendum.

High voltage: Last Sunday a group of executives and managers of an important electricity company met with the lawyer of one of the dissident generals on the tenth floor of a Las Mercedes apartment. In the conference room seven work groups were set up to analyze scenarios for a huge electricity blackout throughout Venezuela … the strategy is to start maintenance work on the central-west and eastern plants and blame black-outs on human error.

The Spy: An official at the Venezuelan consulate in New York has been leaking information to government opponents. Each movement of President Chavez Frias visit to New York was known.

Good fellows: Two groups in the oil industry board:

The Ciavaldini group: Aires Barreto, Jorge Perez Mancebo, Luis Correa and Favio Gonzalez.

Patria Para Todos (PPT): Mario Isea, Lesli Paez, Carlos Azpurua, Julio Montes and Nestor Francia.

• The latter group has a political vocation, apart from the management.

Meanwhile, PDVSA board has opened negotiations with hidden coupsters, a kind of rearguard of dismissed oil workers. One of the motives of the reappearance of gas pump station queues has to do with the dismantling of the group that monitored and guarded filling stations, trucks ands service stations. PDVSA leaders have put distribution of domestic gas and gasoline second on the list.

Candidate: If there were elections tomorrow Chavez Frias would get 52% of the votes to 49% of a united opposition candidate. Almost a tie. However, Chavez Frias tendency is to rise in the polls, while the opposition loses ground, something unimaginable before December 2. President Chavez Frias’ ascendancy is helped by the opposition’s not having a united candidate, rejection of political parties and the reigning confusion inside the Coordinadora Democratica (CD) itself.

www.theolympian.com THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CARACAS, Venezuela -- At least a hundred thousand Venezuelans equipped with tents, inflatable mattresses and foldout chairs parked themselves on a Caracas highway Saturday in what they said would be their longest protest yet against President Hugo Chavez.

Shouting "until he goes," the protesters blanketed a stretch of nearly three miles, prepared to spend the night. On the advice of organizers, many also brought water, sun hats, portable TVs and radios to help while away the hours.

There was a wide range of crowd-size estimates.

Police at the scene estimated the crowd at between 200,000 and 300,000 people. At least a hundred thousand were present, Caracas fire chief Rodolfo Briceno said.

"Prepare yourself for the longest protest in history" screamed TV commercials and newspaper ads in the opposition-run media.

The opposition is trying to recover from a Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday that postponed indefinitely a Feb. 2 referendum that would have asked citizens whether Chavez should resign. Although the referendum wouldn't have been binding, opponents had hoped a negative outcome would persuade Chavez to quit.

"Although they stole the referendum from us, spirits are higher than ever," said Alexandra Suarez, a 19-year-old student carrying a sleeping bag on her shoulder.

www.ipsnews.net Gustavo Capdevila

The outbreak of a war against Iraq could weaken the bargaining position of developing countries in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) multilateral trade talks with a view to the ministerial meeting in September in Mexico, warned activists at the World Social Forum taking place in this southern Brazilian city.

PORTO ALEGRE, Jan 25 (IPS) - The outbreak of a war against Iraq could weaken the bargaining position of developing countries in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) multilateral trade talks with a view to the ministerial meeting in September in Mexico, warned activists at the World Social Forum taking place in this southern Brazilian city.

There is no doubt that a United States victory in what many see as an impending military strike on Iraq would have a dramatic effect on the WTO talks and other regional or bilateral negotiations, said Paul Nicholson, with the Spanish branch of Via Campesina, an international network of peasant, small farmer and indigenous organisations.

The difficulties facing developing countries in the run-up to the WTO ministerial meeting in Mexico were discussed by Nicholson and other experts in a panel Saturday, the third day of the World Social Forum (WSF) which has drawn tens of thousands of activists and left-leaning politicians and intellectuals to Porto Alegre from Jan 23-28.

Keeping a close eye on and protesting the war would consume a large part of the energy of civil society, said Martin Khor, with the Malaysia-based Third World Network.

Khor said a war on Iraq would divert the attention of developing countries from the WTO negotiations ahead of the September ministerial meeting in the southwestern Mexican resort town of Cancun.

That could enable the United States, the European Union and other industrialised nations to force the rest of the world's governments to accept the start of negotiations on new issues in the WTO, he predicted.

The WTO, which coordinates the multilateral trade system, is involved in talks aimed at the further opening up of the world's markets.

The main negotiations are focusing on trade in agricultural products and services, as well as the question of enforcement of prior agreements and the developing world's demand for special and differential treatment to compensate for the smaller size of their economies.

In Cancun, the 145 WTO member countries are to reach a decision on the industrialised world's goal of starting talks on investment, competition and government procurements -- the three ''new issues'' mentioned by Khor.

The countries of the North are also applying pressure to reach agreement on new WTO standards that would strengthen the power of transnational corporations and their attempt to absorb small and medium farms as well as industry in developing nations, said the activist.

At the last WTO ministerial conference, held in Doha, Qatar in late 2001, the United States was able to ''use the events of September 11'' (the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington that year) to press the rest of the nations to accept its proposals, argued Khor. Stanley A. Gacek, with the U.S. AFL-CIO labour federation, called for a consolidation of the coalition of ''progressive forces'' that has emerged in the United States and Canada against the threatened war against Iraq.

The warmongering of the U.S. government of George W. Bush has strengthened civil society and public opinion in the United States, according to Gacek.

The panel of experts meeting at the WSF in Porto Alegre also discussed the relationship between the WTO talks and the negotiations for the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) among 34 nations -- all of the countries in the hemisphere except Cuba.

Gacek observed that the process of creating the FTAA, in which investment and trade interests have predominated so far, could see a shift now that leftist former steelworker Luiz Inácio ''Lula'' da Silva is president of Brazil, given his emphasis on an integration process that would also put priority on political and social aspects. Khor underlined that there are similarities between the FTAA and WTO negotiations, and recommended that civil society and developing countries closely follow both processes.

As the Cancun conference approaches, civil society should alternate the strategy of lobbying with protests and demonstrations to press the demands of the developing South, said U.S. activist Lori Wallach with Public Citizen, the consumer advocacy organisation founded by Ralph Nader.

Civil society in each country must determine the methods with which it will carry out its campaign of opposition to the new WTO reforms, said Wallach. The aim is to check the WTO, and keep things from getting worse, she added.

Alejandro Ramos Hernández, with the committee set up in Cancun to welcome civil society organisations planning to take part in the ''anti-globalisation'' protests surrounding the upcoming WTO conference, said the Mexican government had already begun making arrangements to keep demonstrators from approaching the site of the meeting.

Mexican authorities are also planning on building a barracks to house special federal police contingents, he said, adding that special police agents who have been dubbed ''robotoks'' can already be seen on the streets of Cancun, even though there are still eight months to go before the conference.

Wallach called on activists who planned to travel to Cancun to use an application form available on the WTO web site (http.www.wto.org) to seek accreditation for attending the ministerial conference. (END)

www.suntimes.com January 26, 2003 BY STEPHEN IXER

CARACAS, Venezuela--At least a hundred thousand Venezuelans--many equipped with tents, inflatable mattresses and foldout chairs--parked themselves on a Caracas highway Saturday in what they said would be their longest protest yet against President Hugo Chavez.

Shouting, ''Until he goes!'' the protesters blanketed a stretch of nearly three miles, prepared to spend the night.

Police estimated the crowd at 200,000 to 300,000 people. There were at least 100,000, Caracas Fire Chief Rodolfo Briceno said.

''Prepare yourself for the longest protest in history!'' screamed TV commercials and newspaper ads in the opposition-run media.

The opposition is trying to recover from a Supreme Court ruling Wednesday that postponed indefinitely a Feb. 2 referendum that would have asked citizens if Chavez should resign. Although the referendum wouldn't have been binding, opponents had hoped a negative outcome would persuade Chavez to quit.

''Although they stole the referendum from us, spirits are higher than ever,'' said Alexandra Suarez, a 19-year-old student carrying a sleeping bag on her shoulder.

Opponents had gathered 2 million signatures to petition for the vote. They backed up their demand by launching a devastating national strike Dec. 2 and staging daily street protests. Six people have been killed during protests since the strike began.

The 55-day strike has hurt the oil industry, which provides half of the government's income and a third of Venezuela's gross domestic product. But production in the world's fifth-largest oil exporter is slowly reviving.

The government says most of the 40,000 employees at the state oil monopoly, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., have abandoned the strike and that output has reached 1 million barrels a day. Striking executives put the figure at 855,000 and deny most employees are back to work. Output was 3 million barrels a day before the strike. It reached a low of less than 200,000 last month.

Justices ruled that no national vote--a referendum or election--can be held until they decide whether elections council member Leonardo Pizani is eligible to serve on the panel. Members of Chavez's ruling party filed a suit arguing that Pizani couldn't serve because he resigned from the council in 2000, only to rejoin last November. Pizani insisted he could rejoin because Congress had failed to formally accept his resignation.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, January 26, 2003 - 1:35:54 AM By: Robert Rudnicki

Following the initial meeting of the "Friends of Venezuela" group in Washington on Friday, the Foreign Ministers of Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and the United States took the decision to send a high-level delegation to Venezuela to assist Organization of American States (OAS) secretary general, Cesar Gaviria, in finding a peaceful and democratic solution to Venezuela's ongoing political crisis.

The meeting also discussed former US President Jimmy Carter's proposals for a resolution. Following talks with President Hugo Chavez Frias and opposition leaders, Carter had proposed two alternatives for a resolution to the impasse.

The first would involve an amendment to the Constitution, which would permit early general elections, while the second would see the opposition waiting for a revocatory referendum in August, the earliest date the current Constitution permits.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who attended the early stages of the meeting, backed the former President's moves for peace ... "the Carter proposals represent the best path available for Venezuelans. They provide the badly needed basis on which both sides can bridge their differences on the immediate issues."

Meanwhile, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said "the problem of Venezuela is a problem of great urgency that requires therefore that we act immediately."