www.forbes.com Reuters, 01.31.03, 1:44 AM ET By Tanya Pang

SINGAPORE, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Oil prices held steady on Friday, treading water after gains of 1.5 percent this week, as traders waited to see whether talks later in the day between U.S. and British leaders would bring war with Iraq one step closer.

U.S. light crude dipped one cent to $33.84 a barrel, less than $1.50 below a 26-month peak of $35.20 struck on January 21, and bringing gains this week to more than 50 cents.

Low global oil stocks and limited spare production capacity to counter the severe reduction in strike-bound Venezuelan oil exports, and the potential disruption to Iraqi oil sales, have taken crude prices up more than 30 percent since late November.

Analysts see little relief for the time being to high oil costs, which are beginning to percolate into the broader global economy.

"The current environment suggests to us that a potential war with Iraq carries significant upward price risks, even from current levels, in the event of any supply hiccup that develops outside the likely interruption to Iraq's exports," said Merrill Lynch in a weekly outlook.

Iraq is eighth in world crude exporter rankings, selling up to two million barrels per day to the international market.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived in Washington late on Thursday for talks at Camp David with U.S. President George W. Bush on the next step in the showdown with Iraq, which Bush says has broken U.N. resolutions by stockpiling banned weapons.

Bush said on Thursday that he would give diplomacy "weeks not months". U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is due to present evidence on Wednesday to the U.N. Security Council to show that Baghdad is pursuing programmes to build biological, chemical or even nuclear weapons.

Washington and its staunchest ally, London, are massing a huge military force in the Gulf, and Bush has vowed to disarm President Saddam Hussein, with or without United Nations backing.

VENEZUELA TALKS CONTINUE Talks were set to continue in Venezuela on Friday to try to find a resolution to the eight-week strike, which has slashed oil sales from the world's fifth-biggest exporter and strangled a vital supply line into the United States, where fuel inventories are hovering close to historic lows.

Envoys from the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Spain and Portugal gathered in Caracas on Thursday to bolster talks between President Hugo Chavez and his opponents.

Ali Rodriguez, president of state oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela, said on Thursday crude production should be back to about 2.8 million barrels per day (bpd) by the end of February, but a strike official at the company said it was doubtful.

Ciro Izarra, PDVSA's former head of trading, who was fired for going on strike, said the company was unlikely to be able to meet contractual deliveries for the rest of 2003 due to problems with output, refining and management.

Authorities have fired more than 5,000 PDVSA managers and technicians to try and break the strike, which began on December 2 and is aimed at forcing the resignation of Chavez.

Izarra said he expected Venezuela to export an average 1.7 million bpd this year, one million bpd below pre-strike levels, if Chavez continued to operate the industry without the majority of its skilled workers and managers.

OPEC chief Abdullah al-Attiyah said on Thursday that the producers' group had done all it could to control world oil.

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is due to lift its official output ceiling by 1.5 million bpd on February 1 to counter the fall in Venezuela's exports.

"OPEC has no magic wand to solve the political problems and stop the rise in price," Attiyah, who is also Qatari oil minister, told Reuters.

www.orlandosentinel.com By Jorge Rueda | The Associated Press Posted January 31, 2003

CARACAS, Venezuela -- With many opponents of President Hugo Chavez's preparing to return to work, Venezuelans leading a 60-day-old strike shifted tactics Thursday, attempting to shorten his six-year term with international help.

After two grueling months, strike organizers have agreed to let shopping malls, banks and schools reopen next week.

As diplomats from six nations headed to Caracas on Thursday to push for early elections, opposition leaders were planning a petition drive to support several measures, including a proposed constitutional amendment that would:

• Cut presidential terms from six years to four.

• Hold new presidential and congressional elections this year.

• Create a new elections council to organize any vote.

• Get the Supreme Court to determine when, exactly, a recall vote on Chavez's presidency can be held.

• Allow Chavez and legislators to seek re-election.

Similar ideas were floated by former President Jimmy Carter during a recent visit to Caracas. The government said it was studying the opposition's proposal but won't allow it to shorten Chavez's term.

Diplomats from the United States, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Portugal and Spain -- dubbed the "Group of Friends" of Venezuela -- planned a private dinner meeting late Thursday with Cesar Gaviria, secretary-general of the Organization of American States. Gaviria has mediated talks here since November.

The envoys, including Curt Struble, acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, planned meetings with Chavez and the opposition today.

Gaviria said the diplomats can monitor compliance with any electoral pact and reduce tensions that have led to six deaths since the strike began Dec. 2.

Strike leader Manuel Cova of the Venezuelan Workers Confederation said Thursday that a new presidential election could be held as early as March.

"To do this we need the guarantees of the international community," Cova said. "If we don't do it this year, we'll be in prison, or in exile, there won't be press freedom. We must do it this year."

Chavez had welcomed Carter's ideas about early elections. But he also has threatened to abandon the OAS-mediated talks, saying he won't negotiate with "terrorists."

athena.tbwt.com By Roger  Burbach IPPN Article Dated 1/30/2003

Bush’s aggression against Iraqi represents a rupture with the framework of globalization that the United States has been pursuing ever since the end of the Vietnam War. This rupture is going to have appalling consequences for the United States as well as the rest of the world.

Beginning in the 1970s as the United States withdrew from Vietnam, it sought to expand its interests in concert with the other dominant power by laying the foundations for what is now called globalization. This has meant an extensive reliance on a framework of global, multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations. This convergence among the great powers was necessary because capital itself had become internationalized. International investments required stability and an array of supportive international institutions to facilitate their continued expansion.

Within this new global framework, the New World Order as it was dubbed by Bush the father, the United States operated as the primus inter pares in terms of the role that its business class and its government leaders played on the world scene. Antoni Negri and Michael Hardt in their book “Empire” captured the role of the United States in this New World Order. The U.S. project was that of a “network power.” The United States in effect networked globally with the other dominant financial and state interests, and basically forged a consensus before undertaking military actions abroad.

This is the case with all the conflicts and interventions that have occurred since the end of the Cold War. In the first Gulf War the United States enjoyed broad international support because Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, thereby threatening the oil supplies of the dominant powers as well as the existence of other nations in the Gulf. This explains why Bush Senior had the backing of a highly diverse international coalition ranging from Japan to Saudi Arabia to the nations of Western Europe. In the first Gulf War, U.S. allies paid for two-thirds of the total cost of the conflict.

The subsequent U.S. interventions in Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti and Yugoslavia/ Kosovo can all be seen as efforts to restore stability in parts of the world that were threatened by domestic or regional conflicts. These interventions did not respond to the specific, narrow unilateralist interests in the United States; they were supported by a spectrum of the international community of nations.

Now the current Bush administration has shattered the global consensus that previous U.S. administrations, including his father’s, had fostered. The reasons for this new unilateralist and imperialist thrust are internal as well as external. Internally, as is well known, George W. Bush basically stole the U.S. election in 2000. He did not represent the majority of voters either in Florida or in the United States at large. A narrow clique came to power with him representing what can be called the “military-petroleum complex.” It is based on petroleum and military interests, and it believes that it needs to act unilaterally to secure its hold over most of the world’s remaining supply of “black gold.” This military-petroleum complex does not express a broad consensus of U.S. capital, let alone that of global, international capital.

Many of the international accords and agreements that previous administrations had endorsed were seen as standing in the way of the advance of this narrow clique.This is why the Bush administration immediately jettisoned the Kyoto Treaty to control global warming, as well as the International Criminal Court, the latter because it represented a challenge to the Pentagon’s ability to wage war in any way the administration thought appropriate.

However, before September 11 the efforts of this elite to secure its control were floundering. Bush himself was viewed as inept and incompetent, even by much of the U.S. corporate media. In this context, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon provided a golden opportunity for the Bush administration to push forward its unilateralist agenda. Even before the Afghan war had ended, Bush proclaimed the “axis of evil,” a propaganda ploy aimed at securing control of the Gulf oil supplies via a war against Iraq, with the potential of even going after Iran’s oil supplies. North Korea was thrown in as a fig leaf, as we now see in the Bush administrations decision to use the United Nations to “disarm” the only one of the axis countries that may actually possess “weapons of mass destruction.”

Domestically it is also necessary for the Bush administration to launch a war of repression because it realizes that it is necessary to eliminate civil liberties and to cower even the corporate media in order to secure its grip on power. The Patriot Act, the detention of U.S. citizens with absolutely no civil rights, the virtually unrestricted surveillance of the internet and phone conversations--these are the opening salvos in the domestic war against all potential adversaries.

It is difficult to predict exactly where the international and domestic wars of the Bush administration will take the world. A war in Iraq will open a Pandora’s box. In the short term it appears the world is headed for a dreadful period of death and destruction. But given the fact that the Bush administration represents such a narrow unilateralist clique, there is every reason to believe that it will be consumed by its own war. Virtually the entire world is against the war in the Gulf, and there is no internal U.S. consensus supporting it as the demonstrations on January 18th in the United States verified. Opinion polls now indicate that 70 per cent of the U.S. people favor giving the United Nations team sufficient time to complete its inspections in Iraq that will extend into March or April.

As I said earlier, global capital needs stability and international institutions to flourish. These are the requisites for the expansion of markets and capital as well as the development of network technologies, the keys to globalization. International business will suffer a major shock with a new Gulf War. We already see the effects of the military buildup in the drop in stock market values around the world and the fall in the value of the dollar. Jeffery Sachs, one of the ideologues of neo-liberalism the 1990s, recently declared that a war in the Gulf would be a disaster for international business.

Given these realities, in the next two years it is likely that the United States itself will experience a major internal political crisis because the global and national consensus will be fractured by a new Gulf War. We are headed for a period akin to the domestic and international upheaval that occurred with the Vietnam War. That conflict lead to a political and cultural transformation of the United States and much of the world, not only due to the antiwar movement but also because of the growth of the civil rights and student movements and the upsurge of a new feminism.

Even before the launching of the new Gulf War we are already seeing the politicization of a new generation in the United States after a period of alienation and depoliticization in the 1990s. The new protest movement will spawn a broad rethinking of social, cultural and political norms that we do not yet fully understand or envision. Minimally it will compel us to realize that we can no longer depend on fossil fuels, that new energy technologies will have to be developed.

The aggression against Iraq also presents some important opportunities in Latin America, particularly South America. It is here that the major challenge to the paradigm of neo-liberalism is occurring in countries like Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Ecuador. If it were not for its obsession with Iraq, the Bush administration would undoubtedly be playing a more interventionist role in Venezuela, and may have even moved against Lula and the Workers Party in Brazil.

This is the moment for Latin Americans to build a continental alliance among their peoples, and to collaborate with the social forces in the United States that have been mobilizing against globalization since the Battle of Seattle in 1999. We in the United States now more than ever need international solidarity, and Latin America can play a critical role in assisting the unfolding of the politics of confrontation within the United States. For more discussion on this article and to see what others have to say click on the link below to go to discussion forums.

Send your comments and suggestions about this article to: editors@tbwt.net

www.sun-sentinel.com By Sandra Hernandez Staff Writer Posted January 31 2003

More than a month after many Venezuelans arrived in South Florida hoping to escape the growing crisis in their country, many are nervously making plans to go home.

Their return signals a shift in daily life in the South American nation that was virtually paralyzed by a 59-day-old strike called by the country's labor and business leaders. Schools closed and many of the country's more affluent residents fled with their families, taking temporary refuge in South Florida.

But with this week's decision by private banks to reopen, many think the strike is losing steam. Private schools, shopping malls and larger companies have announced they would reopen in the coming days.

In addition, the government announced oil production surpassed 1 million barrels a day this week, signaling that President Hugo Chávez has regained control of the oil company.

Those changes have pushed many Venezuelans here to book flights as they move to resume life back home.

"If you want to fly to Caracas tomorrow, there is no space. Our flights are full," said Camilo Herrera, a reservations agent with Avianca, a Colombian carrier that flies between Miami and Caracas. "They've been full for the past few days. People may have been postponing their return and are now going back."

Finishing school

Among those making the return trip is Deborah, 43, a Caracas resident who has been living with her husband and two children in North Miami since Dec. 20.

"My main reason for going back is because I want my son to be able to finish the school year," she said. "But I'm really nervous and afraid because I'm going back to a country at war. I'm going back to a country where you have to stand in line for food, for gas, for everything. That is a country at war."

Deborah, like many Venezuelans who spoke to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, did not want her identity disclosed because of immigration concerns including denial of future tourism visas.

She said her family spends most days in the condo that until now served as a vacation address. They meet friends at a local cafe to talk about the situation back home. "This isn't a vacation because we don't have money to spend. We are just getting by."

The strike, which began Dec. 2, was called by labor and business groups that oppose Chávez's government. They are demanding early elections and Chávez's resignation. Chávez has refused. He insists opponents must wait until August for a referendum, as permitted in the constitution.

The strike gained momentum after workers at the state-run oil company known as PDVSA joined the work stoppage. Much of the country's oil production was shut down, and for the first time in recent history Venezuela was forced to import petroleum.

Legal status

The crisis spilled over into South Florida, where thousands of Venezuelans arrived for an indefinite stay.

Many, like Deborah, are living in a state of limbo, fearful of the violence that is a near-daily occurrence in Venezuela but refusing to live as undocumented immigrants in this country.

"I'm very afraid but I have no alternative but to go back. I can't stay here because I don't have the necessary immigration papers and I don't want to be living here without them. That is a hard life. And I have my son's future to think about. He attends a very good private school in Caracas. I can't afford to pay for a private school here," she said.

Others, like Juan, aren't ready to make the decision yet. He admits that he is in the minority of his friends, many of whom are choosing to return. "I would say about 70 percent of the people I know who are in my same situation are going home now.

"It is really tough to know what to do but I think I'm going to try and stay, at least for awhile," said the businessman. "I'm giving myself six months to see what I can do here, if I can try and move my business up here because right now I can't work in Venezuela."

The challenges of remaining here aren't just economic. There are also emotional borders to cross. "It isn't easy. We still have a house there, our clothes are still in the closet, my company is there," Juan said.

Harsh penalties

One concern for those who might stay is their immigration status. Many Venezuelans who are temporarily in South Florida are here on tourist visas that allow them to remain in the country for up to six months but carry stiff penalties if they overstay those permits. Under immigration law, anyone who overstays a visa for more than six months is barred from re-entering the United States for 10 years.

"I'm getting a lot of cases of people who are calling me because they are thinking of remaining here as tourists and want to stay but don't want to violate the immigration law," said Ileana Arias Tovar, an attorney in Weston.

Tovar, who is Venezuelan, said many others are choosing to go back, at least for now. "The majority are going back because they want their children to finish out their school year," she said.

Carolina, who also asked her name not be used, said she came because of her children. She has been living with her sister since January but plans to return to Caracas next month. Like Deborah, her decision to leave and now to return is driven by concern for her children.

"They [children] couldn't really learn anything there even though the school was trying to send their homework via e-mail so I decided to bring them here," she said. "But making the decision to remain is really about closing a chapter in my life and my family's life that I'm not ready to make, at least not like this."

Sandra Hernandez can be reached at shernandez @sun-sentinel.com or 954-385-7923.

www.chron.com Jan. 30, 2003, 11:22PM By BILL HENSEL JR.

With Continental Airlines' Gordon Bethune on the front line, airline executives are lobbying for government help in the event of war with Iraq.

As the threat of war looms, the industry is seeking tax relief, the relaxing of some antitrust laws and relief on fuel taxes. They also want the federal government to reduce oil prices by releasing crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Bethune, chairman and chief executive officer of Houston-based Continental, told a gathering in New York on Thursday that the nation needs a national transportation plan in place if war erupts.

Collectively, U.S. airlines have lost well more than $10 billion in the past two years and have reduced service and laid off employees. They are not expected to become profitable before 2004, and a war could magnify their troubles.

The major airlines find themselves in such a predicament because of changing business travel trends that have cut airlines' revenues, combined with the fallout from the terrorist attacks in 2001.

One feature the major airlines would like to see would be a waiver of a portion of the antitrust law, which forbids them to discuss flight schedules with each other, in the event of war. That could enable them to coordinate routes and flight frequencies and reduce service where demand is low.

Such discussions are prohibited now because it could restrict competition.

J.P. Morgan Securities airlines analyst Jamie Baker said some of the ideas being discussed by airline executives have merit, while others are questionable.

"War should not be an excuse for anti-competitive, anti-consumer behavior, though it is an appropriate backdrop to highlight the overtaxation of the airline industry," Baker said.

"In the event of a prolonged military conflict, some level of government assistance should be expected, although we would assume it would stop well short of re-regulation or the accommodation of collusion."

The airlines also want the government to temporarily suspend a $2.50 security tax implemented by the federal government after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to pay for increased security measures.

Bethune has long called for the elimination of that tax, saying it unfairly burdens the airlines and airline passengers.

"We are asking passengers to underwrite the national security," the Continental CEO said in an interview recently. "It is just unprecedented."

Others have called for releases from the petroleum reserves because supplies have been tight since the sharp drop in exports from Venezuela since political strife erupted there.

But President Bush appears unwilling to do that.

Companies that service the major airlines already are preparing for war. Texas Pneumatic Systems of Arlington recently developed a contingency plan, company President Bernie Rookey said.

The businessman worked for a similar company during the Gulf War in 1991 and said the airlines saw about a 20 percent decrease in business.

"It was pretty poor that year," he said. "I think generally you are going to see the American public is going to be reluctant to fly on airlines. Basic travel is going to cease or be reduced for a period of time."