reuters.com Sun February 2, 2003 11:35 AM ET By Pascal Fletcher

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Foes of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez turned out in large numbers on Sunday to cast a symbolic vote against him, signing a petition for early elections after opposition leaders said they were scaling back a two-month strike.

The opposition was hoping well over a million people would take part in the campaign organized as a national poll. It was the latest challenge against left-winger Chavez nine weeks after the start of a grueling strike that has jolted the economy but failed to force the populist president to resign.

Oil workers whose walkout has slashed output by the world's No. 5 oil exporter were maintaining their protest. But other non-oil sectors were rolling back their support for the strike because of the damage to business and jobs.

Squeezed by the cutback in its oil income, the government has announced budget cuts and foreign exchange controls.

At hundreds of stations set up in schools, plazas and streets across the nation, long lines formed as citizens turned out to sign petitions seeking early elections, opposing Chavez and his government and supporting the oil strikers.

"I'm here because of the bad state the country is in. The government and the president are no good. Let's see if we can finally get out of this situation in a democratic way," 46-year-old waiter Bernardo Uribe told Reuters as he signed.

The main petition requested a constitutional amendment to shorten Chavez's rule and trigger immediate elections. Chavez, who survived a coup last year and still commands support among the nation's poor majority, was elected in 1998 and is due to end his term in early 2007.

To trigger the constitutional mechanism for an early poll this year, the opposition needs to collect the signatures of at least 15 percent of the nation's nearly 12 million voters -- around 1.8 million signatures. Chavez has rejected the early poll, saying the opposition must wait until August when the constitution would allow a binding referendum.

Chavez, who says he has beaten the strike and is gradually restoring oil production, has made clear he will not support the constitutional amendment. But he accepts it as legal and government negotiators are considering their response.

At one opposition signing station in central Caracas, Chavez supporters threw stones and traded insults with foes of the president but police kept the two sides apart.

INTERNATIONAL APPEAL

The opposition campaign followed an appeal on Friday by a six-nation "group of friends" for a democratic, electoral solution to end the crisis, which has rocked world oil markets already nervous over a possible U.S. war on Iraq.

Envoys from the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Spain and Portugal had held talks in Caracas with Chavez and his opponents, urging them to settle their differences peacefully in negotiations brokered by the Organization of American States.

Seven people have been killed and dozens wounded in shootings and clashes since the strike began Dec. 2.

Outside the oil sector, support for the strike has slipped. Many shops, businesses and restaurants, facing bankruptcy after staying closed over Christmas, have reopened, and private banks are due to resume normal operations on Monday.

Chavez, who staged a botched coup bid six years before winning elections, is accused by his opponents of trying to install Cuba-style communism.

He condemns his striking foes as a rich, resentful elite trying to topple him because their privileges are threatened.

The opposition organized Sunday's signing after the Supreme Court suspended a planned Feb. 2 nonbinding referendum.

One potential sticking point in the electoral solution being negotiated is the fate of striking employees of the state oil giant PDVSA, more than 5,000 of whom have been fired.

Opposition leaders are demanding they be reinstated as part of any deal, but Chavez, who has replaced them with troops and loyal personnel, has refused an amnesty.

www.forbes.com Reuters, 02.02.03, 10:59 AM ET Repeating column that initially ran late Friday By Elizabeth Lazarowitz

NEW YORK, Feb 2 (Reuters) - The winds of war have been buffeting Wall Street, sending skittish investors to the sidelines, and the storm is only likely to intensify this week as the White House makes its last diplomatic push for Iraqi disarmament.

With U.S. forces massing in the Middle East and the rhetoric from Washington heating up, the United States appears increasingly on the brink of war. The suspense has plunged key market gauges to their lowest levels in more than three months.

President George W. Bush has said Baghdad has just weeks left to avert war, and Wall Street will be tuned in for anything that might give clues to a timeline for a possible U.S. attack on Iraq.

"Iraq will be the most important issue (this) week -- period," said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer at First Albany Asset Management. Ordinarily, investors' focus would be fixed on the outlook for the economy and corporate profits, but "(this) week is just not going to be an ordinary week."

While brewing geopolitical events will likely shove nearly everything else to the back burner, a flood of economic reports -- particularly data on the manufacturing sector and the labor market -- could help determine Wall Street's mood. The Institute of Supply Management's closely watched gauge of the factory sector, set for release on Monday, and the U.S. payrolls report on Friday will give investors some early glimpses of the state of the economy in January.

Evidence that the U.S. economy is pulling out of its soggy patch has been spotty, at best, and the increasing possibility of war has whipped up fears growth could stumble as corporate America puts off investment decisions and stubbornly high oil prices bite into corporate profits.

The steady parade of corporate earnings will probably also fade into the background somewhat, but Wall Street will be tuned in for results and, more importantly, forecasts from technology bellwether Cisco Systems Inc. (nasdaq: CSCO - news - people) and No. 4 U.S. long-distance telephone company Sprint Corp. (nyse: CSCO - news - people)

INDEXES DOWN War worries have helped drive the broad Standard & Poor's 500 index <.SPX> down about 8 percent from its high for the year hit on Jan. 14 and into negative ground for the year.

Year-to-date, the S&P 500 and the blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> are both down around 3 percent, and the tech-packed Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> is down about 1 percent. All three finished the week lower after the S&P 500 and Dow posted their lowest closes since mid-October and the Nasdaq ended at its worst level since mid-November on Thursday.

Wall Street will be watching on Wednesday when U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell goes before the United Nations Security Council to try to persuade doubters Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Iraq denies it possesses banned arms.

"That stuff is in the way of the market right now. Nobody's going to want to go long in a big way until this Iraq thing gets cleared up," said Michael Vogelzang, president of Boston Advisors Inc. "It's just going dominate headlines. It's going to dominate investor sentiment."

Bush said on Friday at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair that the United States would resist any attempt to drag out the issue for months, but that he would welcome a second U.N. Security Council resolution if it offers a strong signal to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Bush believes that a U.N. resolution in November gives authority for military force, but he faces opposition from major powers such as France, Russia and Germany.

Worries that a war could disrupt oil supplies, as well as a 2-month-old strike that has crippled oil production in Venezuela, a major U.S. supplier, have helped push the price of crude oil above $33 a barrel.

Those high prices have sparked fears that corporate profits, already tepid, could take another blow as companies and consumers are forced to shell out more for energy costs.

EARNINGS, ECONOMY STILL UNSTEADY The fourth-quarter results pouring in from corporate America have been, for the most part, encouraging. About 67 percent of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported earnings so far, and, of those, 62 percent have beaten Wall Street analysts' expectations and 22 percent have matched them, according to Thomson First Call.

What is troubling, however, is that the outlook for corporate profits in the year ahead remains decidedly murky.

"So far, the guidance continues along the lines of no visibility," said Charles White, president of investment firm Avatar Associates. "Companies don't even want to say anymore that they see things getting better in the second half, because that's what they told us last year."

Results are expected this week from technology bellwether Cisco, Sprint, medical device maker Boston Scientific Corp. (nyse: BSX - news - people), consumer products company Colgate-Palmolive Co. (nyse: BSX - news - people), No. 2 U.S. drugstore chain CVS Corp. (nyse: BSX - news - people), and No. 1 U.S. home appliance maker Whirlpool Corp. (nyse: BSX - news - people).

Beverage and food company PepsiCo Inc. (nyse: PEP - news - people) and Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. (nyse: PEP - news - people), the maker of Budweiser beer, also have results on tap.

But with the peak of earnings season now past, the economic picture is becoming increasingly important, analysts said.

The ISM report for January is expected to slip to 53.7 from 55.2 in December, according to economists in a Reuters survey. It would be the third month in a row above the 50 level that separates expansion from contraction, potentially cementing hopes the manufacturing sector is recovering from its slump.

The report on non-farm payrolls will be the economic highlight of the week. Payrolls are seen rising by 70,000 in January after a 101,000 drop in December, while the jobless rate is expect to remain steady at 6.0 percent.

(Wall St Week Ahead appears weekly. Comments or questions on this one can be e-mailed to Elizabeth Lazarowitz, elizabeth.lazarowitz(at)reuters.com) (For the London stock market outlook please click on [.L/O]

Pan-European stock market outlook [.EU/O] Tokyo stock market outlook [.T/O])) Copyright 2003, Reuters News Service

www.nzherald.co.nz 03.02.2003 By PAUL G. BUCHANAN

Ye shall reap what ye have sown" goes the saying. In the case of United States foreign policy, there is a significant possibility that what is harvested will be bitter fruit.

The desire of the Bush Administration to recast the global political landscape in an image more favourable to the US, using the 9/11 terrorist attacks as the justification for unilateral military intervention against hostile states, has blinded it to some of the complexities of the current world scene.

Consider three areas of US foreign policy concern: Venezuela, North Korea and Iraq.

Clearly enough, the US has had its fill of Saddam Hussein and sees his removal as a priority.

Amid the bellicose bluster coming out of Washington, the justification for his forced ouster resides in the belief that the intersection of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and terrorism is a matter of when, not if, and that it is most likely to occur sooner rather than later in Iraq if Saddam is not removed from power.

Hence, whether or not the UN weapons inspectors find evidence of WMD stockpiling in Iraq (and many believe that they will not, since intelligence analysts believe these were moved to Syria well in advance of recent UN security council resolutions), the US is determined to show Saddam the door at the point of a bayonet in order to install a pro-Western secular regime that will open up its oil reserves to the US and its allies.

That will allow the US to move troops from Saudi Arabia to Iraq to buffer against Iran while simultaneously reducing tensions over the infidels' presence near Islamic holy sites such as Mecca (as well as reducing Saudi control over Opec price-fixing). Whether or not this is a pipe dream, the pre-positioning of troops and materiel suggests that the assault on Iraq will begin in mid-February at the earliest.

But complications have risen as a result of US policy towards two other countries. In April the US supported an abortive coup against the democratically elected president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, whose major crime was to employ populist rhetoric and to rail against the petroleum oligarchy that controlled political power from 1958 until 1998. Although that coup failed and left the US embarrassed and exposed, the coup-plotters were encouraged by the US support and in early December 2002 began a general strike to force Chavez from office that is now into its sixth week.

This has crippled Venezuelan oil exports, of which 13 per cent go to the US market. Without that supply, US retail prices have increased sharply, and worse yet, the US may have to dip into its strategic oil reserves if it is to prosecute the war on Iraq while the Venezuelan crisis remains unresolved.

The irony is that it is a US-backed disloyal opposition that is complicating US strategic calculations, and its nemesis Chavez who would like to resume normal oil production and exports.

For its part, the timing of the North Korean decision to resume plutonium reprocessing and withdraw from the International Atomic Energy Association was brilliant. A year ago it was named part of the Axis of Evil even though it had no provable links to al Qaeda and in fact was engaged in a delicate rapprochement with South Korea on normalising relations between the two states.

Seeing that the US was using a variety of justifications to force regime change in Iraq over UN objections, the North Koreans undoubtedly calculated that they would be next on the US hit list.

Rather than wait for such an eventuality, the regime in Pyongyang took the opportunity of recent South Korean elections that saw a US critic elected to the presidency, as well as of the fact that the US was fully occupied with its war preparations in Iraq, to announce its renewed nuclear aspirations.

Caught off-guard, the US has seen its hypocrisy on weapons of mass destruction rendered transparent, since North Korea is a far worse weapons proliferator and nuclear menace than Saddam. (Recall that about a month ago a shipment of North Korean missiles destined for Yemen was intercepted by Spanish and US forces and then let go.)

Moreover, the US bluff was called to the point that it has been forced to negotiate a nuclear weapons for economic aid swap rather than threaten the North Korean regime with war. Since North Korea and Iraq are trading partners in weapons as well as other goods, the North Koreans may well have done Saddam a favour by complicating the picture.

More importantly, it exposes the lack of thought and contingency planning in post-September 11 US foreign policy planning.

The larger issue is that most of this mess is of the US' own making.

In not working through multilateral channels, in ignoring or bypassing the UN and the requisite diplomatic niceties of protocol and sovereignty, it has produced a backlash as well as worldwide unintended results.

In the meantime Osama bin Laden remains at large and al Qaeda is undefeated.

With the future of Iraq very much an open question even if Saddam is ousted (since both Iraqi Kurds and Sunnis have expressed desires for partition and independence, much to the dismay of Iraq's neighbours), the entire thrust of the US approach to international affairs needs a major review before, rather than after, the assault on Saddam is launched.

• Paul G. Buchanan is a former US defence department analyst and consultant who lectures at the University of Auckland.

Herald feature: Iraq

Iraq links and resources

www.nzherald.co.nz 03.02.2003 By PAUL G. BUCHANAN

Ye shall reap what ye have sown" goes the saying. In the case of United States foreign policy, there is a significant possibility that what is harvested will be bitter fruit.

The desire of the Bush Administration to recast the global political landscape in an image more favourable to the US, using the 9/11 terrorist attacks as the justification for unilateral military intervention against hostile states, has blinded it to some of the complexities of the current world scene.

Consider three areas of US foreign policy concern: Venezuela, North Korea and Iraq.

Clearly enough, the US has had its fill of Saddam Hussein and sees his removal as a priority.

Amid the bellicose bluster coming out of Washington, the justification for his forced ouster resides in the belief that the intersection of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and terrorism is a matter of when, not if, and that it is most likely to occur sooner rather than later in Iraq if Saddam is not removed from power.

Hence, whether or not the UN weapons inspectors find evidence of WMD stockpiling in Iraq (and many believe that they will not, since intelligence analysts believe these were moved to Syria well in advance of recent UN security council resolutions), the US is determined to show Saddam the door at the point of a bayonet in order to install a pro-Western secular regime that will open up its oil reserves to the US and its allies.

That will allow the US to move troops from Saudi Arabia to Iraq to buffer against Iran while simultaneously reducing tensions over the infidels' presence near Islamic holy sites such as Mecca (as well as reducing Saudi control over Opec price-fixing). Whether or not this is a pipe dream, the pre-positioning of troops and materiel suggests that the assault on Iraq will begin in mid-February at the earliest.

But complications have risen as a result of US policy towards two other countries. In April the US supported an abortive coup against the democratically elected president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, whose major crime was to employ populist rhetoric and to rail against the petroleum oligarchy that controlled political power from 1958 until 1998. Although that coup failed and left the US embarrassed and exposed, the coup-plotters were encouraged by the US support and in early December 2002 began a general strike to force Chavez from office that is now into its sixth week.

This has crippled Venezuelan oil exports, of which 13 per cent go to the US market. Without that supply, US retail prices have increased sharply, and worse yet, the US may have to dip into its strategic oil reserves if it is to prosecute the war on Iraq while the Venezuelan crisis remains unresolved.

The irony is that it is a US-backed disloyal opposition that is complicating US strategic calculations, and its nemesis Chavez who would like to resume normal oil production and exports.

For its part, the timing of the North Korean decision to resume plutonium reprocessing and withdraw from the International Atomic Energy Association was brilliant. A year ago it was named part of the Axis of Evil even though it had no provable links to al Qaeda and in fact was engaged in a delicate rapprochement with South Korea on normalising relations between the two states.

Seeing that the US was using a variety of justifications to force regime change in Iraq over UN objections, the North Koreans undoubtedly calculated that they would be next on the US hit list.

Rather than wait for such an eventuality, the regime in Pyongyang took the opportunity of recent South Korean elections that saw a US critic elected to the presidency, as well as of the fact that the US was fully occupied with its war preparations in Iraq, to announce its renewed nuclear aspirations.

Caught off-guard, the US has seen its hypocrisy on weapons of mass destruction rendered transparent, since North Korea is a far worse weapons proliferator and nuclear menace than Saddam. (Recall that about a month ago a shipment of North Korean missiles destined for Yemen was intercepted by Spanish and US forces and then let go.)

Moreover, the US bluff was called to the point that it has been forced to negotiate a nuclear weapons for economic aid swap rather than threaten the North Korean regime with war. Since North Korea and Iraq are trading partners in weapons as well as other goods, the North Koreans may well have done Saddam a favour by complicating the picture.

More importantly, it exposes the lack of thought and contingency planning in post-September 11 US foreign policy planning.

The larger issue is that most of this mess is of the US' own making.

In not working through multilateral channels, in ignoring or bypassing the UN and the requisite diplomatic niceties of protocol and sovereignty, it has produced a backlash as well as worldwide unintended results.

In the meantime Osama bin Laden remains at large and al Qaeda is undefeated.

With the future of Iraq very much an open question even if Saddam is ousted (since both Iraqi Kurds and Sunnis have expressed desires for partition and independence, much to the dismay of Iraq's neighbours), the entire thrust of the US approach to international affairs needs a major review before, rather than after, the assault on Saddam is launched.

• Paul G. Buchanan is a former US defence department analyst and consultant who lectures at the University of Auckland.

Herald feature: Iraq

Iraq links and resources

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, February 02, 2003 - 10:42:59 AM By: Roy S. Carson

Violently anti-government Globovision Channel 33 TV News, caught napping Saturday in a report that (thanks to an obvious typo) extended the opposition sabotage until Monday, December 3, has hastily removed the troublesome web page at: www.globovision.com and replaced it with an admonishment that a supposed story headlined "Venevision dealing with Chavez" was not edited or published on their site:

Queremos aclarar a toda nuestra audiencia televisiva y de internet, que la información que lleva por titulo "Venevision negocia con Chavez" no fue publicada en nuestra pagina ni ha sido redactada por el personal que labora en www.globovision.com.

But, Globovision is painfully aware that the original story on that page had nothing to do with Venevision or any supposed deal with President Chavez Frias.  The headline (and we have secured a copy) dealt exclusively with the opposition stoppage and claimed that operations, depending on the necessities of each sector, would continue with restricted hours until the next Monday, December 3:

El paro pasa a la fase de "horario restringido"

La Coordinadora Democratica sugiere a los sectores privados que se mantienen en el paro civico nacional desde el pasado dos de diciembre la aplicacion de un horario restringido de operaciones, dependiendo de las necesidades de cada sector, a partir del proximo lunes 3 de diciembre.

Alejandro Armas, representante de la CD en la Mesa de Negociacion senalo que esta nueva fase de la paralizacion tiene que estar "articulada" a la consigna de protesta publica y a "la actitud de rebelde ciudadana".

Armas, aunque prefiere no hablar de la "flexibilizacion el paro", dice que la medida obedece a un "gesto de buena voluntad" y tambien un reconocimiento a la presencia del Grupo de Amigos en Venezuela, a fin de crear un espacio de "distension" para acercar la posibilidad de un acuerdo.

Globovision/EFR 31/01/2003

The original webpage -- observe the directory hierarchy! -- www.globovision.com has now been replaced with the rather lame excuse of a supposedly emailed story relating to Venevision and President Chavez.

The obvious question remains ... can/will Globovision TV face up to the truth and admit they made a silly little faux-pas typo

... or will they continue to insist on broadcasting convenient lies?

Editor's note: shortly after we originally uploaded this story to VHeadline.com, Globovision suddenly reversed their cover-up and restored the original page, complete with faux-pas.  For how long guys? Isn't it about time you made your mind up if the stoppage continues until next December 3 or already tomorrow: February 3?