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2003-01-30 13:02 - News Release ........declined due to this continuing shift towards an increasing proportion of projects in the early stages of execution. The recent events in Venezuela are having a significant impact on the progress of the $1 billion heavy oil upgrader project. In accordance with the contract, Fluor is entitled to cost and schedule relief for the impact of the ongoing national strike, and is also continuing to pursue dispute resolution on other issues with the client.

Fluor's Industrial & Infrastructure segment reported operating profit for the year of $53 million, ...............

Havana. January 30,  2003

Fidel at closing session of the International Conference for World Balance

BY ROGER RICARDO AND ORFILIO PELAEZ —Granma daily staff writers—

"THE greatest moment in Cubans’ memory is having been able to construct and defend this trench so that nobody could descend, with even greater might, on the nations of America and the world," affirmed President Fidel Castro at the closure yesterday of the International Conference for World Balance, organized at the International Conference Center in tribute to the 150th anniversary of the birth of José Martí.

"We have learnt from Martí the infinite value and force of ideas, ethical principles, an inspired patriotism and an elevated concept of human honor and dignity, a lesson unequalled by anyone else," Fidel observed in another part of his address.

"If in some way we have been able to honor our national hero it is by having demonstrated that a little and poor country, still making many inevitable errors of learning, has been able to do a lot with very little, particularly in the field of culture," affirmed the leader of the Revolution.

Fidel attacked the aggressive policy of the U.S. government and stressed that, faced with the sophisticated and destructive weapons with which it is attempting to subject us in order to impose an irrational, unjust and unsustainable order, the alternative is to sow ideas, sow ideas, sow ideas, sow awareness, sow awareness, sow awareness."

FINAL DECLARATION

The conference’s final declaration convened a José Martí World Solidarity Project which, based on a wider representation of world peoples and civilizations and international organizations — in particular UNESCO — and the universal consensus expressed in the creation of the UN after the end of World War II, could promote the ideals of multilateralism in order to guarantee respect for the right of nations, peoples and human beings in the spheres of peace, culture, economy and politics.

The document, read out by Armando Hart, director of the José Martí Program Office, also confirms delegates’ agreement on the need to link Martí’s thinking with the mass movements developing throughout the world, particularly the Puerto Alegre World Social Forum, as well as other popular movements against the war and the arbitrariness and injustice of the dominant system.

Danielle Mitterand, the former first lady of France, spoke at the meeting to explain the meeting point between Martí’s ideals and their contemporaneity and the progressive thinking of the eminent French politician François Mitterand.

Madame Mitterand affirmed the need to defend the values of life, human dignity and solidarity, and stressed the imperative of subordinating profit and power to an equitable life for everyone on the planet.

The message from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela came from its Higher Education Minister Héctor Navarro, who confirmed the contemporary relevance of the ideals of Simón Bolívar and José Martí in confronting the challenges of Our America. At the same time, he expressed his people’s thanks for the demonstrations of solidarity with their fight against a fascist opposition.

The closing session likewise heard a message transmitted to the conference by the eminent Brazilian academic and theologist Frei Betto. His message emphasized the profound roots of Martí’s thought in the Cuban Revolution, and the significance of José Martí’s legacy in relation to the battles current social movements are waging against the imperial hegemony of our times.

www.granma.cu Havana. January 30,  2003

WASHINGTON (PL).- The White House might have announced that it was initiating a war on terrorism, but in its own backyard extremist groups Cubans and Venezuelans are plotting and receiving military training to attack their own countries of origin.

In their determination to bring down Presidents Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez, the capos of the F-4 organization, who have admitted their involvement in acts of terrorism against Cuba, plus the so-called Venezuelan Patriotic Front — led by a coup officer from the Venezuelan army — have signed a "civil-military alliance", according to The Wall Street Journal.

The F-4 Commandos are led by 56-year-old Rodolfo Frómeta and the Patriotic Front by coup member Captain Luis Eduardo García, (aged 37). During last April’s failed coup d’état, he was one of the first military dissidents to attack the Caracas Presidential Palace in order to topple the South American country’s democratically elected president.

According to the daily, the two groups are committed to uniting their "combined military experience and exchanging espionage information" in their attempts to attack the legitimate authorities in Havana and Caracas.

García himself revealed that he is offering military training to 50 F-4 Commando members at a firing range located in the Everglades swamps; 30 of the recruits are Cuban-American and the rest are Miami-based radical dissidents.

Miami has become the refuge for a growing number of anti-Chávez extremists, in the midst of an exodus in which some 10,000 Venezuelans have gravitated to the city in the last three years.

"New arrivals" discover a well-established Cuban-American community whose most radical sectors are particularly enthusiastic allies in the fight against Chávez, notes the publication.

athena.tbwt.com IPS Article Dated 1/30/2003

GEORGETOWN, Guyana - Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders meeting in Trinidad next month will devote much of their time discussing how political turmoil in oil-producing Venezuela and a possible Gulf War II would affect this economically fragile region, still reeling from the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.

The two-day biennial meeting that starts on Feb. 14 will be preceded by a day-long special encounter between heads of government and civil society that would examine whether or not political federation could work in the 15-nation Community of 15 million people.

But CARICOM officials say leaders will focus on the serious social and economic consequences of a U.S.-led war against oil-rich Iraq, which they say would affect almost every sector in the Caribbean, tourism in particular.

Since the opposition-led effort to oust controversial President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela started nearly two months ago, several CARICOM nations that depended on petroleum from that country - delivered under the concessional Caracas Energy Accord - have been forced to turn to alternative markets to keep their economies afloat.

Guyana now buys much more expensive gas and diesel and Bunker C fuel from Trinidad, while Jamaica has turned to Mexico and Ecuador because supplies from Venezuela have virtually dried up under the weight of crippling strikes.

Barbados and St Vincent have also indicated that they are watching the situation closely.

Higher fuel prices have resulted in near riots among private bus and taxi operators in Jamaica and triggered several brief strikes by owners in Guyana - where many commuters refused to pay the average 25 percent increase in bus fares - and a strike in Haiti.

Officials say that while alternative arrangements are working, a war in Iraq accompanied by sabotage of that country's oilfields would hike prices astronomically.

''We are still reeling from the effects of 9/11 and we know for sure that our high-energy sectors like the aviation industry would be seriously affected. We can see airfares and jet fuel (prices) going up and that would be tough on airlines and our tourism industry,'' said Maurice Odle, economic adviser at the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat.

Odle is scheduled to present a paper to finance ministers in the next 10 days that would paint a picture of the impact on the region if the Venezuela crisis persists and the United States attacks Iraq.

Sabotage of Iraqi oilfields would put severe pressure on the airlines and cruise ships that are expected to bring the bulk of the 18 million people scheduled to visit more than 30 Caribbean destinations this year.

That total is down significantly following the 9/11 attacks and more signs of the decline in tourism, which employs one in four Caribbean nationals, have emerged recently.

The finance-starved Trinidad and Tobago airline BWIA announced this week it is firing 617 of its 2,400 workers, many of them maintenance engineers, to help it reduce monthly losses of one million U.S. dollars.

The airline, the second largest in the English-speaking Caribbean after Air Jamaica, has been carrying heavy losses for several years, but they have grown in the last two years.

''We had no choice. We had to save the airline,'' said BWIA Chief Executive Officer Conrad Aleong.

Meanwhile, Air Jamaica, which brings about 70 percent of the nearly two million tourists who visit Jamaica each year, is carrying accumulated losses of 70 million dollars at a time when jet fuel prices are rising significantly. Executives say setting higher prices to cover climbing fuel costs would discourage North American and European tourists from flying.

The story is similar at LIAT, the island-hopping, Antigua-based commuter airline that serves the smaller islands in the east Caribbean and is a valuable feeder for the larger carriers. Several CARICOM governments came together late last year to bail out LIAT to the tune of about 12 million dollars.

Edwin Carrington, CARICOM's three-term secretary general, says that some member states are now hard pressed to pay their annual budget contributions to the Secretariat.

''One member state said that one of the factors limiting their capacity to contribute any increased resources to our budget is the rising price of oil, and so my Secretariat is feeling the squeeze of oil price increases,'' he said.

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www.quicken.com Thursday, January 30, 2003 03:38 PM ET  Printer-friendly version   The Wall Street Journal Online

The economy is slowing, Iraq fears are growing, and profits are eroding.

That bearish refrain echoed on Wall Street again Thursday, making for another lousy trading day as a weak gross domestic product report, jobless figures and news of a massive loss at AOL Time Warner threw more water on the market.

Meanwhile, a coalition of European states said they'd throw their weight behind the U.S. in its effort to force Iraq to disarm, highlighting anew the immediacy of conflict.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was off by about 114 points by late afternoon, while the Nasdaq composite lost 27 points.

Before the start of trading, the Commerce Department released its first estimate of growth in the fourth quarter, which showed a marked slowdown from the third quarter. Gross domestic product, the total value of all goods and services produced in the economy, advanced 0.7%, compared with growth at a 4% annual rate in the third quarter.

Economists had forecast an increase of 0.6%. For the full year, GDP grew 2.4%, compared with 0.3% in 2001. While the results weren't spectacular, the market showed a muted reaction, and some even found encouragement in the details despite the weak headline number.

"This is something of a relief -- a negative number, with its attendant unpleasant optics, was possible," said Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics. "The big surprise here is that ... spending on equipment and software rose at a 5% pace. This is the third straight gain ... it is very encouraging to see spending rise given the third-quarter drop in business confidence."

Meanwhile, initial jobless claims for the week ended Jan. 25 rose 14,000, compared with a rise of 18,000 in the earlier week, the Labor Department said. Economists had forecast a smaller increase, of 4,000.

After the close of trading Wednesday, AOL Time Warner posted a 2002 loss of $ 98.7 billion -- the widest annual corporate loss in history -- after taking a fourth-quarter charge of $45.5 billion, mostly to write down the value of its troubled America Online unit. The write-down was more than twice what Wall Street had anticipated.

Its shares tumbled 14%. The company also announced the resignation of Ted Turner as vice chairman, the latest in an exodus of senior executives.

Aside from AOL's news, equities traders are focusing on several major companies reporting earnings early Thursday. Among them, Exxon Mobil reported a 53% jump in net income as concerns over unrest in Venezuela and war in Iraq lifted oil and gas prices and gave a considerable boost to the company's revenue. Its shares, which have shown strength of late, lost 1.2%.

AstraZeneca said its fourth-quarter profit fell 41% as the company put aside $ 350 million to cover a likely legal settlement. But sales at the Anglo-Swiss pharmaceutical company rose 12%. Its shares were up 4%.

Dow component Walt Disney is scheduled to report its financial results after the close of trading Thursday. Its shares were down 4.2%.

After a rocky beginning Wednesday, the market turned higher to post a second straight day of gains. Traders got some help from a decision by Federal Reserve policy makers to leave target interest rates unchanged, and by the Fed's reassuring comment that, once geopolitical risks lift, the economy should improve. The Dow industrials, off almost 144 points early in the day, finished up 21.87. The Nasdaq Composite Index, dominated by tech stocks, gained 1.18%.

In major U.S. market action Thursday:

Stocks were weak. On the Big Board, where 1.20 billion shares traded, 2,093 stocks fell and 1,165 rose. On the Nasdaq, where 1.15 billion shares changed hands, 2,175 stocks declined and 1,031 advanced.

Bonds were higher. The 10-year Treasury note gained about 3/8 point, or $3.75 for each $1,000 invested. The yield, which moves inversely to price, fell to 3.98%. The 30-year bond was up more than 1/2 point to yield 4.87%.

The dollar was stronger. It traded at 119.19 yen, compared with 118.32 yen late Wednesday in New York, while the euro fell against the dollar to $1.0803 from $1.0841.