www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk By Chris Thornton

NEW reports claimed today Colombian authorities believe that two IRA members were directly involved in a social club bombing that killed 36 people earlier this month.

Reports citing Colombian security sources said the authorities believe two IRA and four members of the Basque group ETA aided FARC rebels in the attack on February 7 in the South American country's capital, Bogota.

The Colombian government has already said that it believes the car bomb, which also injured 160 people and wrecked the exclusive El Nogal club, used IRA or ETA technology.

They have increasingly emphasised links between the IRA, Eta and FARC during the current trial of three IRA suspects.

The claims of direct IRA involvement in the bombing came just after the arrest of a Farc suspect described as one of the terror group's leading bomb-makers.

Edgar Morea, (36), also known as Javier Tanga, was arrested as he and others were allegedly preparing to blow up bridges linking Bogota to the south of the country.

Morea was linked to the El Nogal blast and a series of other bombings which took place in Bogota.

It was after his arrest that the claims emerged of direct IRA involvement in the car bomb attack.

The security sources claimed that IRA and ETA members slipped into Colombia over the border with Venezuela.

Colombian security sources have emphasised links between the three terror groups as they press the American authorities for more aid in their fight against terrorism.

www.vanguardngr.com By Hector Igbikiowubo Tuesday, February 25, 2003

LAGOS — DESPITE the calling off of the five-day strike by oil industry worker last week, motorists around the country were yesterday still suffering to buy fuel from under-supplied petrol stations yesterday. Last week , members of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) embarked on a strike action and were later joined by their junior counterparts, the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG).

The Group General Manager in charge of Public Affairs at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC, Ndu Ughamadu said fuel shortages which had been widely blamed on last week’s industrial action had in fact been caused by equipment failure.

"The two refineries in Port Harcourt broke down last week and there was a shortfall in supply. But the refineries have resumed production since Friday and everything will be all right in a couple of days," he said. He explained that "the strike did not cause the fuel scarcity, although people engaged in panic-buying because of the strike which worsened the situation."

And reacting to reports of an impending hike in fuel prices, a statement released by the Chairman of the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Committee (PPPRC), Rasheed Gbadamosi, explained that there was no plan to increase fuel prices.

"Of greater significance to the PPPRC is that the committee is not contemplating any upward adjustment of price ceilings of products," he said.

He admitted that the under-supply of products to service stations was caused by unanticipated hitches in the supply chain. He said the PPPRC had been advised by the NNPC that the situation is under control and that normalcy would soon return, adding that the general public should eschew panic buying. In Lagos, motorists formed long queues at the few filling stations which had fuel, while hundreds of workers were stranded at bus stops because of the scarcity of public transport.

"I had to trek about five kilometres this morning before I could catch a bus to my office," Lagos resident, Tayo Adisa said.

Last week, government inspectors in the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) went on strike to demand that overdue allowances be paid and their department be given more autonomy.

The strike was called off on Friday after the government agreed to discuss the unions’ demands, but not before it had caused jitters on the world oil market at a time when looming war in the Middle East and a strike in Venezuela have sent prices soaring.

cbs.marketwatch.com By Thom Calandra, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 1:22 PM ET Feb. 25, 2003

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) - Energy investors will face a jolt of reality if Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein sidesteps a looming physical assault on his nation, says a financial author and money manager.

CBS MARKETWATCH COMMENTARY

THOM CALANDRA (WEEKDAYS) Ignoring political news, energy markets set to tumble TOMI KILGORE (MONDAYS) A lack of volume is negating some positive signals BAMBI FRANCISCO (TUESDAYS) Why Ma Bell should buy Covad MIKE TARSALA (WEDNESDAYS) The tech guidebooks are all wrong DAVID CALLAWAY (THURSDAYS) Osama and the great duct tape conspiracy JON FRIEDMAN (FRIDAYS) What am I offered for CNN?

"If indeed Saddam does capitulate, this is the major story that most of the Western media are missing," says Joseph A. Duarte, author of "Successful Energy Investing" and president of River Willow Capital Management in Dallas.

Duarte was watching energy futures and other market bellwethers from his snowed-in Dallas office Tuesday. Natural gas futures alone were rising 10 percent in early trading, then losing that gain and falling another 10 percent, all this after a 38 percent gain Monday. The Dow Jones Transportation Index (26099605: news, chart, profile) Tuesday morning was falling 1.5 percent, taking the key industrial barometer below 2,000 for the first time since September 1996.

Duarte also uses shares of energy companies Lone Star Technologies (LSS: news, chart, profile) and Apache Corp. (APA: news, chart, profile) as ciphers on the geopolitical landscape. Both, like energy futures, are up sharply since the start of the year, with Lone Star logging a 35 percent gain. "Both have predictive abilities in terms of the energy futures," says Duarte, who is also a practicing medical doctor and anesthesiologist.

Duarte says many investors, especially those looking for continued gains in the stratospheric crude-oil market, will require anesthesia in coming hours or days because they are deducing simplistic probabilities from the Iraq situation. He relies on several little-known news outlets to form a thesis that soaring energy markets may soon crash.

One of those news outlets, subscription service Strategic Forecasting, is run out of Austin, Texas, and goes by the name Stratfor.com. George Friedman, a former Director of the Center for Geopolitical Studies at Louisiana State University, started the service in 1996.

"Iraq exports 1.7 million barrels of oil a day," Friedman explained to me Tuesday morning. "In the event of a total catastrophic war, the world markets will lose just 1.7 million gallons at a time when Venezuela oil is coming back online and many producers, like Saudi Arabia, want to fill that capacity. The rising oil market is acting how it always does in the short term, irrationally."

Strategic Forecasting's reports on the evolving influence of France, Germany and Russia in the Iraq conflict are getting almost no attention from U.S. newspapers and broadcasters. One article, published late last week, describes a nearly three-decade personal relationship between French President Jacques Chirac and Saddam Hussein.

In late 1974, then-French Premier Chirac traveled to Baghdad and met then-Vice President Saddam Hussein. "In September 1975, Hussein traveled to Paris, where Chirac personally gave him a tour of a French nuclear plant," said the article. France later sold two reactors to Iraq - "in other words, enough weapons-grade uranium to produce three to four nuclear devices."

Duarte also monitors The Moscow Times for reports about Germany and Russia. He says, "There has been documented evidence of correspondence between Saddam and Chirac over the years and the French government has not denied there have been personal letters."

Duarte, who gets credit for being among the first, along with Friedman's Stratfor.com, to recognize the political problems that shut down Venezuela's oil industry late last year, says several political figures face their greatest challenges in the next several weeks.

The money manager points to reports, ignored in the American press, that the German government admitted holding back evidence of smallpox-virus arsenals in Iraq. The news organization Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung says German authorities may have been worried that news of the arsenals would ruin Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder's re-election effort.

Schroeder on Wednesday will visit Moscow at the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader this past weekend sent a former prime minister, Yevgeny Primakov, to meet with Saddam in Baghdad. Stratfor describes Primakov as a friend of Saddam.

Duarte in the past 18 months has forecast accurately the growing volatility of energy markets. He also has laid out the growing importance of Russia and the diminishing influence of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries on supply and demand in the oil marketplace.

"Look, Saddam does have smallpox, the virus, and it is a biological weapon, and Germany knows about it," he says. "As these things start coming out in the open, and Putin gets involved, a lot of personal things that can be politically damaging will shape events. Over the last two or three days a lot of reports have come out that are damning to a lot of people."

France, Germany and Russia have submitted a proposal to the United Nations calling for a step-by-step disarmament of Iraq. At the same time, intelligence reports, according to Duarte, suggest Russia's Putin may be preparing an Iraq message to U.S. and British oil companies, inviting the multinationals back into the oil-producing country.

Duarte says it is in the interests of several world leaders to promote a peaceful resolution to the Iraq crisis. "If we don't see a solution, then a lot of things are going to unravel for a lot of people. Political futures are being shaped here for Putin, Chirac, Schroeder and President Bush. This is like the Winston Churchill stage of World War II. It is no longer just about war, it is about the people, and this is when things start to happen."

Duarte sees some signs that energy markets may be "topping out." He says the futures prices of heating oil, crude oil, gasoline and natural gas have been "parabolic, and they can't keep going straight up, regardless of a war or a cold winter." One anecdotal sign a plateau is near for energy futures come from the bold statements of Devon Energy 's (DVN: news, chart, profile) chairman and chief executive, J. Larry Nichols. He said in a conference call that natural gas prices will be "permanently" higher.

"We've permanently moved into a new era of gas prices," Nichols said Monday. Natural gas futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange Tuesday were selling for as much as high as $8.63 per one million British thermal units. Devon, seizing the day, says it will buy Ocean Energy for about $3.5 billion worth of common stock.

For those who don't follow energy markets, such bold statements and actions are something like Internet giant Yahoo buying Geocities, a multi-billion purchase that happened during the hysteria that surrounded the growing use of online services and the World Wide Web in the late 1990s. On the energy scene, the Devon purchase would make the Oklahoma company the largest independent producer of oil and natural gas on American shores.

"Whenever anyone says something is headed permanently higher, smart investors should be looking over their shoulder," says Duarte. "Everyone is talking about yesterday's news, but I think it may pay to start thinking about what happens when the futures prices crumble."

In that event, shares of energy beneficiary Apache, a Houston company that is near an all-time price high, easily could lose 15 percent to 25 percent of their value in a short span.

Coming Wednesday: An interview with Stratfor.com's George Friedman.

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www.zwire.com

By:CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER, Associated Press Writer February 25, 2003

CARACAS, Venezuela - Two powerful explosions damaged the Spanish embassy and the Colombian consulate minutes apart in the Venezuelan capital early Tuesday, injuring four people and raising tensions in a city still recovering from an anti-government strike.

Broken glass covered the street outside both buildings and their steel gates were twisted by the force of the blasts. Windows in residences almost a block away were blown out.

Leaflets supporting President Hugo Chavez's so-called "Bolivarian Revolution," a political movement loosely based on the writings of 19th century independence hero Simon Bolivar, were found outside the Spanish Embassy.

"We believe these were very potent bombs judging by the damage done," said the mayor of Caracas' Chacao district, Leopoldo Lopez.

The first blast was outside the Spanish embassy in eastern Caracas at about 2 a.m. The second explosion, 15 minutes later, rocked the Colombian consulate. The blasts lightly injured four people, including a night watchman, Lopez said.

The explosions came a two days after Chavez warned Colombia and Spain, among other countries, not to meddle in Venezuela's domestic affairs.

Both nations had expressed concern over the arrest of opposition leader Carlos Fernandez, who was arrested last week for his role in leading a two-month general strike against Chavez.

The strike brought Venezuela's economy to a virtual standstill and crippled production in the country's all-important oil industry. Opposition leaders staged the protests in hopes of getting Chavez to step down or hold early elections.

Federal agents are trying to hunt down another opposition leader, labor boss Carlos Ortega, who is also wanted for alleged crimes linked to the work stoppage.

Authorities said no arrests had been made in the two explosions.

Chavez responded angrily Sunday to foreign critics of the charges against the two strike leaders. He directed warnings at some members of a "Group of Friends" initiative created to bolster the negotiating process.

"Don't mess with our affairs!" Chavez said, singling out Cesar Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States, the United States, Spain and Colombia.

On Monday, opposition representatives sent a letter to Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, coordinator of the "Friends" group, calling for an urgent meeting to discuss "the worsening of the Venezuelan situation."

The opposition says Chavez has ruined the economy and is amassing power in his own hands. Chavez accuses his critics of trying to spark a coup.

Negotiations between the government and the opposition were suspended last week because Gaviria had commitments abroad, but are to resume Wednesday.

Hola a todos,

El periódico El País en España conduce una encuesta que pregunta : ¿Cree que Venezuela puede recuperar la estabilidad con Chávez en el Gobierno?.

Los invito a conectarse y votar en el siguiente enlace:

www.elpais.es

Por favor voten y corran la voz. Esto es una oportunidad de crear imagen sobre lo que ocurre en Venezuela con números reales.

Saludos,