www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, February 02, 2003 - 12:47:33 AM By: Robert Rudnicki

Hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters have marched through the streets of Caracas, massing outside the hotel where Coordinadora Democratica leaders were meeting Deputy Foreign Ministers from the Friends of Venezuela group, made up of Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and the United States.

The demonstrators called for an end to legal action against the out of four of Venezuela's privately-owned national TV stations, RCTV, Televen and Globovision, as well as to call for early elections, which they hope will see the removal of President Hugo Chavez Frias from office.

The Infrastructure Ministry has launched investigations against the three stations, after the President accused them of waging a campaign against his government after suspending normal advertising and broadcasting only pro-opposition and anti-government ads.

• However, it now seems that the stations will be returning to normal programming, with a return to soap operas and normal advertising.

Despite this apparent concession, it is still unclear if this will be enough to pacify the government and prevent legal action from being taken. Globovision, however, got its dates mixed up and in an obvious typo said the stoppage would continue until Monday, December 3.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, February 02, 2003 - 12:30:57 AM By: Robert Rudnicki

Deputy Foreign Ministers from Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and the United States have begun their push for a resolution to Venezuela's political conflict after holding lengthy talks with President Hugo Chavez Frias and opposition leaders. 

The group made it clear that they see early elections as the only way to end the deadlock, "we reaffirm the need for a solution agreed by both sides that is constitutional, democratic, peaceful and electoral ... we ask both sides to make every effort to seek a negotiated solution," the group's statement read. 

President Chavez Frias made clear to the high level delegation that he and his government are all democratically elected and that he represents a legitimate government.

However, it seems that the group will encourage the President to agree to one of the two proposals put forward by Former US President Jimmy Carter, either a constitutional amendment that would cut the President's term from six to four years, allowing for a early vote on his rule, or holding a revocatory referendum in August this year, an option that is already permitted by the current Constitution. 

www.jamaicaobserver.com Sunday, February 02, 2003

American photographer Scott Dalton waves before boarding a Red Cross plane at the Saravena airport, on the eastern border with Venezuela, after being released by rebels of the National Liberation Army, ELN, yesterday. At right, with hands on her hips is reporter Ruth Morris, a Briton raised in southern California. Dalton and Morris were kidnapped by the ELN, on January 21 while on assignment for the Los Angeles Times. (Photo: AP)

BOGOTA, (AFP) - Colombian rebels freed US photographer Scott Dalton and British reporter Ruth Morris, who were abducted January 21, the International Red Cross said yesterday.

The Los Angeles Times reporters, who were seized in the northeastern province of Arauca, were released "safe and sound" to an International Red Cross team between the towns of Fortul and Tame, in a jungle area some 300 kilometres (186 miles) northeast of Bogota, a Red Cross spokesman said. "They are doing well, and they are being taken to the airport in the town of Saravena to be brought back to Bogota," spokesman Carlos Rios said.

The two were due to be met upon arrival in Bogota by officials from the US and British embassies, the spokesman said. "They are well in general terms ... but they are undergoing necessary medical checks," Rios added. Bogota had called the kidnapping of Dalton and Morris "a serious mistake" for the ELN, which claims to be seeking peace.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said on Friday last that he wanted the pair's release as soon as possible without "drama." The ELN announced on Wednesday it had abducted the pair in Arauca province, where US soldiers are training Colombian troops to protect a key oil pipeline from rebel attacks.

But the group said it would "guarantee the life and safety" of the two and would release them "when political and military conditions warrant it." Also operating in the oil-producing Arauca province, which shares a border with Venezuela, are rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and far-right paramilitaries of the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC).

Colombia leads the world in kidnappings, with more than 3,000 people taken hostage each year by rebels and drug gangs. It also has the world's highest fatality rate for journalists, with 114 killed since 1989, according to the head of the Inter-American Press Association's press freedom committee. Last week, US diplomats in Colombia were working to ensure the safe passage back to the United States of three other Americans who were released January 23 by right-wing paramilitaries who had been holding them for almost a week.

Megan Smaker, Mark Wedeven and Robert Young Pelton were handed over at Unguia, in Uraba, some 550 kilometres (340 miles) northwest of Bogota, police said. Paramilitary leader Carlos Castano had said the three were rescued during a gun battle with leftist guerrillas. Both the 4,000-strong ELN, the 17,000-strong FARC, and Castano's AUC have been designated "foreign terrorist organisations" by Washington.

www.dailynews.com209541152366,00.html Article Last Updated: Saturday, February 01, 2003 - 10:19:32 PM MST By Juan Forero The New York Times

CARACAS, Venezuela -- With large numbers of businesses across Venezuela opening to offset huge financial losses from a 62-day-old general strike, opposition leaders said Saturday that they would scale back the walkout this week so that factories, shops, malls and schools could reopen.

The strike, which has failed in its originally stated mission to force President Hugo Chavez to resign or to call early elections, will continue only in the all-important oil industry.

But the decision, which opposition leaders said would be explained in detail in a news conference Sunday night, was seen as a clear victory for Chavez, who has played down the walkout while calling its organizers fascists and coup plotters.

The government's opponents characterized their action as a new phase in their efforts to unseat Chavez. They asserted that the strike, which began Dec. 2, had led to international participation in Venezuela's political crisis and pressed the government into negotiations that could lead to an electoral solution.

"Now that there is a concrete proposal for elections, the Venezuelan conflict is going into a new phase where the key to the protest is no longer the strike but negotiations," said Jesus Torrealba, executive secretary of the opposition group's coordinating committee.

But the fact is that for many days the strike has been one in name only, with Venezuelans having tired of a walkout that devastated their economy while bringing none of the results promised in December. The blow to the Venezuelan economy, Latin America's fourth-largest, is estimated at $4 billion in lost oil revenues alone.

"We share the opposition's opinion, but we live by working," said Maritza Rondon, owner of a wholesale hardware store in Venezuela's second-largest city, Maracaibo, that reopened weeks ago. "Our business has nothing to do with our politics."

Alfredo Chirino, owner of an auto parts factory in Caracas that reopened last week, said he could not keep his business closed any longer. "We wanted to have some income, and we had to meet some commitments dating back to November," he said. "We needed to bring in income to pay our workers."

The reopening of businesses appears to give Chavez the upper hand in negotiations with the opposition that are being mediated by the Organization of American States. The government's position could be further solidified as the state-owned oil company continues to reactivate oil production.

"The opposition has basically lost the strike," said Gregory Wilpert, an American in Venezuela who is finishing a book about the Chavez era. "They gambled that the strike would get rid of Chavez, and the strike failed. They now don't have many other options."

Opposition demands that Chavez resign, often heard in December from his foes, have dissipated. Instead, the two sides are now expected to mull over two electoral solutions to the crisis that were proposed last month by former President Jimmy Carter and have the support of the United States and five other nations whose representatives met on Friday with Chavez and his opponents.

But opposition leaders, who called their decision Saturday a goodwill gesture toward the government, said they would continue to apply pressure.

On Sunday, they plan to hold what is being called El Firmazo -- loosely translated as "the big sign-up" -- a petition drive. Organizers are hoping to collect hundreds of thousands of signatures to support a constitutional amendment to shorten the president's term and lead to new elections.

In the meantime, Torrealba and other opposition leaders said that the movement would continue to hold street demonstrations and that some businesses would open their doors but reduce their hours of operation as a sign of protest.

www.msnbc.com NEWSWEEK INTERNATIONAL  Feb. 10 issue

     —  Let’s call it the “excuse du jour.” For three years, we’ve heard serial explanations for the economy’s weakness. The latest is a looming war with Iraq. Aside from increasing oil prices, the war specter (it’s said) has created huge uncertainty that’s causing companies and consumers to postpone big spending decisions. Once the uncertainty lifts, we’ll get a decisive recovery. Don’t count on it.	  

              SINCE MID-2000, the U.S. economy has grown at an annual rate of 1.3 percent. Some quarters have been up, some down and some nearly stagnant (the growth rate for the last quarter of 2002 was a mere 0.7 percent). Every economic sputter inspires a new theory. The dot-com collapse. The “popping” of the stock “bubble.” The trauma of September 11. Corporate scandals and shattered investor confidence. And always: a strong recovery lies just ahead.

        There’s a pattern here. It involves psychology more than economics. We prefer temporary explanations to a grimmer possibility: that the U.S. economy faces prolonged slow growth—or stagnation. Better to believe that, once “temporary” problems are settled, the economy will spring back. After the dot-com funerals, things will be fine. If investor confidence is shot, then we’ll throw corporate crooks in jail and “reform” accounting.

        The war-with-Iraq theory fits the pattern and reigns in high places. Last week, the Federal Reserve endorsed it. (In a statement, the Fed said that “aspects of geopolitical risks have reportedly fostered continued restraint on spending and hiring by businesses.” An “improving economic climate” would emerge when the risks disappeared, as “most analysts expect.”) But there are two problems.

        First: temporary problems often aren’t temporary. Accounting scandals didn’t kill investor confidence. Low profits and big stock-market losses did. Maybe corporate “reforms” can cure the first. But they can’t cure low profits and the resulting portfolio losses. In the third quarter of 2002, U.S. corporate profits were 10 percent below their peak in 1997, says the Commerce Department. Likewise, the dot-com collapse was more than a temporary setback. It symbolized an ongoing absence of commercially viable—and needed—innovation.

        The thinking now is that a rapid victory over Iraq will mean lower oil prices and less uncertainty. Perhaps—or perhaps not. Consider a report from economists at Goldman Sachs. It says that a war could drive up oil prices by $10 to $15 a barrel, from today’s price of roughly $30. But even a quick U.S. triumph might not lower them to, say, $16 or $17 a barrel, says the report. Iraq can’t increase its output quickly. And hopeful analysts are said to have underestimated long-term production losses from Venezuela, now crippled by a national strike. Even if the strike ends, 15 percent of capacity may have been lost unless there’s “significant new investment.”

        Second: temporary explanations downplay the damage from the 1990s boom. It wasn’t just a stock-market bubble. Companies invested lavishly, expecting strong demand forever; now there’s surplus capacity almost everywhere. (The Fed’s industrial capacity utilization index is 75.4 compared with a 1972-2001 average of 81.5.) Consumers spent lavishly, enjoying new stock wealth. Both companies and consumers borrowed heavily.

        All this suggests a period of retrenchment. Companies cut investment and jobs. Gradually, surplus production capacity dwindles and profits revive. Consumers respond to falling stock prices and rising job insecurity by spending more cautiously. Both try to reduce debt. To some extent, this adverse logic has been muted: the Fed cut interest rates; Congress cut taxes; automakers offered cheap car loans; homeowners refinanced mortgages at lower interest rates. Still, the logic remains.      

It wouldn’t matter much if the rest of the world economy were robust. The United States would then export its way out of trouble. Unfortunately, Europe and Japan are both economically moribund. One lesson of the 1990s boom is that other countries became overdependent on America’s appetite for their exports. Global trade is now sputtering, too. The great danger is that simultaneous economic weaknesses in Europe, Japan and the United States feed on each other, intensifying pessimism and creating a new wave of financial crises.

        There’s no doubt the prospect of war with Iraq has deepened economic anxiety. Companies that say they’ve postponed projects are probably telling part of the truth. What they don’t say is that many of these projects were likely doomed anyway, given the weak underlying economy. The big picture matters most, and it’s dark, Iraq or not. It’s understandable that people favor a diagnosis that offers greater hope for a strong recovery. And a strong recovery may even come. It’s just that the odds in its favor aren’t especially good.