www.forbes.com Reuters, 01.27.03, 12:23 PM ET By Tom Ashby

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - "No pact. No negotiation. Deepen the revolution," reads graffiti daubed in red paint opposite the Caracas headquarters of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).

The message is not wasted on leftist President Hugo Chavez. Faced with an eight-week-old strike intended drive him from office, he has responded by tightening his grip on the company and removing his opponents from its management.

As Venezuela's economic powerhouse and a natural workplace for the country's elite, PDVSA was an obvious target for Chavez, who draws much of his support from the slums that house almost a third of Venezuela's population.

The strike has cut off Venezuela's economic lifeline and seriously threatened Chavez's presidency. But the former paratrooper wasted no time in his counterattack, sacking 3,000 top managers, breaking the company into two small operating units, and boosting the government's role in the oil industry.

"The coup plan has allowed us to deepen the revolutionary process, because there is no other way of defeating it. We won't go back or negotiate principles because the revolution is not negotiable," Chavez said on Sunday, referring to the strike as a second attempted coup against him.

Having survived a coup in April staged by rebel military factions and key PDVSA managers, the populist leader has grown more cunning at dealing with opposition in the world's fifth largest oil exporter.

"The April coup allowed us to restructure the Armed Forces," Chavez told a news conference on Sunday. "Now the December coup, the (oil industry) sabotage, has allowed us for the first time to nationalize the oil company," he said, adding that PDVSA had become a "state within a state."

To fill the chairs emptied by the strikers, Chavez's trusted PDVSA chief, Ali Rodriguez, moved loyal bureaucrats from the Energy and Mines Ministry out of their dilapidated skyscraper in central Caracas last week to occupy PDVSA's plush La Campina headquarters in the east of the capital.

LONG-TERM SUPPLY LOSS It was a further sign that Chavez has no intention of negotiating with the strikers, whose conditions include early elections and a return to their jobs in PDVSA.

The government has said it can restore crude flows fully by the end of March.

But opponents think the changes have critically weakened a company which, while the rest of the country descended into economic turmoil, had remained a powerful competitor in the cut-throat global oil market.

Without a political settlement in which sacked PDVSA managers and skilled workers are returned to their jobs, Chavez will never get back to pre-strike output of 3 million barrels per day, the opponents have said.

"It is impossible for PDVSA to return to normal while Chavez remains in the presidency," said former energy minister Humberto Calderon, who backs the opposition.

He fears the government, in its rush to get output back up, is doing long-term damage to Venezuela's reservoirs, many of which have been pumping oil for more than half a century, while the government blames the strikers for damage to Venezuela's reputation abroad.

"Part of the damage of this strike is that PDVSA and Venezuela have destroyed their reputation as a secure energy provider to the rest of the world," Rodriguez said in a newspaper interview on Sunday.

"We will reestablish operations because that is our task, but can we really say we have won?" Rodriguez said.

POWER AND PERKS For decades, PDVSA used special privileges, including preferential access to oil revenues, relatively high wages and other perks, to accumulate power and international respect.

It attracted huge foreign investments to Venezuela, beat off multinational rivals to build up a huge global refining and marketing system, and achieved a credit rating superior to its sovereign parent.

Rodriguez, a former communist guerrilla, has argued that many of PDVSA's high-profile ventures, such as Citgo in the United States and Ruhr Oel in Germany, made no economic sense.

He saw them as part of a secret campaign to transfer Venezuelan capital from Caracas to the United States and Europe, bankrupt the company and force its privatization.

PDVSA commercials on the state television channel now aim to convince Venezuelans that PDVSA grew increasingly inefficient during those years, while its employees grew rich at the country's expense.

Chavez has dismissed oil strikers as a rich, resentful elite intent on toppling him by destroying the oil sector.

"The salary of 11 of the oil industry conspirators was twelve billion bolivars a year ($6.5 million), three million bolivars ($1,600) each per day, equivalent to the annual cost of 20 schools," the government commercial says. "In the 1970s, PDVSA handed over 70 percent to the national treasury. Now it gives 20 percent. PDVSA was devouring itself."

The new PDVSA, split into two operating units in eastern and western Venezuela, holds forums to explain the transformation in school halls in working class districts of western Caracas.

But the message has yet to impress Wall Street, which has reduced the company's credit rating deep into junk territory.

01/27/2003 - Source: BNamericas Fourth-quarter revenues at the Latin American operations of US telco BellSouth (NYSE: BLS) declined 29.4% to US$486mn, compared to US$568mn for the same period in 2001, according to the company's 4Q02 and year-end earnings statement. Quarterly revenues were also down 1.8% compared to 3Q02. Revenues for the full year fell 24.2% to US$1.84bn, compared to US$2.43bn in 2001. BellSouth gave the same explanation for its falling sales that it has given for each of the last four quarters: weak economic conditions and currency devaluations, principally in Argentina and Venezuela. Argentina's peso lost 70% and Venezuela's Bolivar 54.6% against the US dollar last year. Pyramid Research analyst Carlos Rodriguez agreed with BellSouth's assessment. "Argentina and Venezuela had a very difficult year. Their biggest eggs were in the wrong baskets," he told BNamericas, adding that the worst may yet come in Venezuela. "Even if the general strike ends today, they are going to lose many of their most valuable business customers. There are going to be lots of bankruptcies in the coming months," he said. BellSouth also said its Latin American Ebitda margin was 38.1%, up from 34.1% in the third quarter of 2002. For the full year, the Ebitda margin improved to 32.8% in 2002 from 30.2% a year earlier. The company's main Latin American operations at end-2001 were Argentina and Venezuela. Movicom BellSouth in Argentina lost about 17% of its subscribers last year, while Venezuela and Brazil, the first- and third-largest subsidiaries respectively, recorded zero subscriber growth.

Growth in Chile, Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama and Peru was around or below the 20-30% range. Only Ecuador and Guatemala posted substantial growth, expanding 84% and 158% respectively. Rodriguez said the Guatemalan operation is unique for BellSouth in that Guatemala is one country where the US telco was a late entrant rather than the first-mover that never learned how to respond to aggressive competitors. BellSouth operates in a joint venture with Cayman-based Multi Holding Corp in Guatemala and Panama. Regionally BellSouth needs to focus its strategy, and try to sell certain subsidiaries, Rodriguez said. The company seems to be doing just that in Brazil, he said, noting the recent news that northeastern mobile operator BSE is negotiating its sale. Also known as BCP Nordeste, BSE is linked to BellSouth's Sao Paulo-based operator BCP. BellSouth and its partners serve a total of 11.5 million customers in 11 Central and South American countries, including 298,000 fixed wireless customers.

sg.biz.yahoo.com Tuesday January 28, 12:38 AM

CARACAS -(Dow Jones)- Venezuela's main Caracas Stock Exchange resumed trading Monday for just two and a half hours a day, after shutting down in support of an ongoing 57-day-old general strike against President Hugo Chavez's leadership, bourse officials said.

The exchange, which last traded Nov. 29, is open between 9:30 a.m. local time (1330 GMT) and noon (1600 GMT) until further notice, the official said.

Local banks keep about the same hours despite various government threats and demands they open full days.

The news follows reports shopping malls, schools, and franchises including most fast food restaurant chains, also plan to reopen within the next week. Much of the country's industrial operations are still shut and the government is struggling to normalize the vital oil sector without striking workers.

Strike leaders have refused to call off the most important aspect of the strike - in the oil industry - until Chavez agrees to early elections.

Chavez has said his detractors must avail themselves of constitutionally approved measures such as an amendment shortening his term or a possible recall referendum in August, the midpoint of his term.

Chavez's critics blame him for a likely 8% economic contraction in 2002, amid 18% unemployment, and 31% inflation sparked by the bolivar's ($1=VEB1853) 46% devaluation. For 2003, the currency has lost about 25%.

Chavez blames the problems on an "economic coup" by his opponents.

Caracas Stock Exchange Website:www.caracasstock.com

-By Jehan Senaratna, Dow Jones Newswires; 58 212 564 1339; jehan.senaratna@dowjones.com

www.thestreet.com By John Roque Special to RealMoney.com 01/27/2003 11:46 AM EST Editor's note: This column was originally published Jan. 22.

You know how it is. You feel pressure to perform every single day, and you look at charts here and there in order to get some edge. But you don't really monitor longer-term charts. You can't. There's just not enough time in the day.

Earnings are being released, and you're busy trying to figure out if the number was in line, better or light. You're also contending with the inevitable daily stock disappointment, Iraq, North Korea, Venezuela and any other geopolitical worries. I figure it's safe to say that portfolio performance anxiety is already building.

Mind you, I'm not writing this to say that I've conquered the "perspective" discipline. What is that exactly? Tough question. I think it means to not be shaken out by daily moves, to have an aerial view, to see stocks in a bigger-picture scenario. However you define it, I'm still very far from it.

But I do make a habit of, as my friend Doug is fond of saying, "looking through" the charts. He contends that by using the look-through method, you can prepare for more important moves. Looking through the charts means seeing how daily price movements affect weekly price charts and how weekly price movements affect monthly price charts.

The trouble is, and I'm sure Doug will likely agree with me, there's so much volatility that even the most disciplined investors -- those with perspective -- can run into difficulty when trying to look through the charts.

Let's try this with an example. Take a look at the monthly and weekly charts to get some perspective on Newmont Mining (NEM:NYSE - news - commentary) .

Judging by my daily email and phone encounters, there are very few investors enamored with Newmont, the gold-stock complex or the physical metal. There's no affinity for anything to do with gold. It's been a long time since anyone has made any money with the sector. It's considered a relic, nobody understands it, and most people, even if they are considering it, only view it as a corollary to the geopolitical instabilities. When it comes right down to it, people only want to own "sexy" stuff. That makes gold the Phyllis Diller of investments.

Investors' inability to embrace Newmont et al. is especially interesting because virtually no other sector in the entire market displays the same technical characteristics: bullish absolute and relative strength, group strength, underlying commodity/monetary asset strength and generally uninterested investors. Maybe this is a stretch, but the lack of interest in Newmont and related stocks is the reverse image of technology in the spring of 2000. I'm sure you remember -- back then, tech had broken charts with ebullient sentiment. Now, gold and gold charts have bullish charts, and most people don't care or don't like them.

So how did I use perspective and look-through methods to read these charts and come to these conclusions? I coupled anecdotal sentiment evidence with technical analysis, and then I used longer-term charts (monthly to smooth the data and weekly to show some volatility) to get perspective on where we've come from and where we can go. Daily charts don't provide that sort of perspective.

Perspective and the look-through theme combine to produce a powerful vision for Newmont, the gold stock complex and the physical metal. And not in a Jim Jones Kool-Aid kind of way. Here's the takeaway:

1. The gold complex is bullish.
2. Gold stocks should be bought on pullbacks.
3. We're in a secular bull market for the gold complex.
4. As long as sentiment remains unconvinced, these stocks will likely be insulated from speculative forces.

John Roque is the technical analyst at Natexis Bleichroeder, a New York-based investment brokerage firm specializing in Europe and the U.S., and a frequent guest on CNBC. At time of publication, Roque had no position in any of the securities mentioned in this column, although holdings can change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. He appreciates your feedback and invites you to send it to John Roque.

www.news8austin.com 1/27/2003 9:44 AM By: Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Embattled President Hugo Chavez promised to put price controls in place, having restricted trading of foreign currencies.

The country's economy has been crippled by an opposition strike, entering its ninth week.

Hundreds of thousands of people occupied a highway over the weekend to protest a court decision suspending a referendum on Chavez's rule. It was to have been held Feb. 2.

Opposition leaders say they will collect signatures petitioning for Chavez to quit and for pro-Chavez lawmakers to be replaced. A coalition of business, labor and political groups called the strike to pressure Chavez into accepting a referendum. The strike has greatly reduced oil production in the world's fifth-largest petroleum exporter.

Chavez said that oil production has risen to 1.3 million barrels a day. Dissident oil executives said it is about three-quarters of that level.