china.scmp.com Wednesday, February 26, 2003 AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Havana

Workers at a Beijing flag factory sew Cuban flags ahead of the visit to the capital by Fidel Castro, his first trip to the mainland for eight years. Agence France-Presse photoCuban President Fidel Castro will arrive in Beijing tomorrow for his first visit to China in eight years.

Dr Castro, who has led the Americas' only communist country for more than four decades, regards China as his greatest political and economic ally.

The visit comes just days after US Secretary of State Colin Powell's trip to Beijing. Mr Powell on Monday hailed a "new dimension" in Sino-US relations, despite getting no assurance that the central government would back the Bush administration's policies in Iraq or North Korea.

Mr Castro, whose visit to Beijing follows a trip to Kuala Lumpur, where he attended the Non-Aligned Movement summit, is due to meet the new central government leaders elected in November's 16th party congress - just as he did on his sole previous trip to China in 1995.

Dr Castro developed close personal ties with outgoing President Jiang Zemin, who visited Cuba in November 1993 and April 2001.

The looming Iraq conflict is likely to be high on the agenda.

China took over as Cuba's main political and financial partner in the early 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union.

It is currently the main credit provider for businesses on the island, which is isolated from mainstream US and European financial organisations.

By 2000, bilateral trade had reached US$524 million (HK$4 billion), rising to US$618 million in 2001, according to Cuban government figures.

China is Cuba's third most important trading partner after Venezuela - which provides the island with cheap oil - and Spain, whose hotel chains are deeply invested in the tourism industry.

The trade balance, however, clearly favours China. According to official Cuban government figures, in 2001 Cuba exported US$70 million worth of goods to China, while it imported goods worth US$547 million.

During Mr Jiang's trip to Havana that year, China gave the government loans worth US$400 million to upgrade Cuba's communications infrastructure and buy Chinese-made television sets, mostly for schools.

Both countries also operate more than a dozen joint ventures, ranging from biotechnology firms to companies that build water pumps.

Chinese military delegations have visited Cuba in past years, though both countries firmly deny there are any weapons sales involved.

usinfo.state.gov

25 February 2003

...................Yes, ma'am.

QUESTION: Me? On Venezuela.

QUESTION: Oh, Venezuela. Okay.

MR. REEKER: Yes.

QUESTION: Do you have any reaction on that what happened earlier --

MR. REEKER: It's okay, Barry. You can go. It's okay.

QUESTION: No, no. (Inaudible.) (Laughter.)

MR. REEKER: Sorry. Pardon me. Please go ahead.

QUESTION: Yes. On Venezuela. Do you have any reaction on that what happened early this morning, the two explosions at the Consular Office of Spain and Colombia? And there is anything new to announce concerning the meeting of Group of Friends of Gaviria? A next meeting?

MR. REEKER: First of all, let me say that we strongly condemn today's bombings, and of course the use of any form of violence. We note that those bombs follow some sharp verbal attacks by President Chavez on the international community as well as individual Venezuelans and institutions that I talked a bit about yesterday.

Again, we call on the Government of Venezuela to proceed with an expeditious and thorough investigation into this violence, into these bombings, and to hold responsible, or to hold accountable, those parties responsible for this. The bombings are the latest in a series of recent events that highlight the need to make rapid and genuine progress in the dialogue process in Venezuela, and it underscores the need to honor the nonviolence pledge that both sides signed on February the 18th.

We have consistently underscored the importance of a dialogue to achieve a peaceful, democratic and electoral solution to Venezuela's protracted crisis. The February 18th nonviolence pledge was an important step forward in helping to create a climate conducive to such a solution, conducive to a positive dialogue. But I think it's regrettable that recent events like the unsolved killing of members of Venezuela's armed forces and police, the recent arrests and the threat of arrests of opposition activists, and now today's bombings, stand in sharp contrast to the commitments that were undertaken by both sides in that agreement.

The pledge from February 18th specifically emphasized the need to curb confrontational rhetoric and moderate the tone, style and content of language, and to reject any manifestations of violence or intolerance. And that's what both sides agreed to. And it called for the establishment of a truth commission as well, which is certainly a move the United States supports.

QUESTION: And on the next meeting of the, maybe, of the Group of Friends of Gaviria, can we announce anything that could be in the next days?

MR. REEKER: As I told you yesterday, the Group of Friends of the Secretary General of the OAS is in regular contact and touch. When they would have a formal meeting in one particular city, whether here in Washington at the OAS or in some other capacity, I don't know. You might check with the OAS on that. I'm not aware of anything particularly scheduled, but certainly their efforts in supporting the Secretary General and fostering this dialogue that we believe is so vital to reconciliation in Venezuela, those efforts continue unabated.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. REEKER: Jonathan.

QUESTION: Phil, were you suggesting that President Chavez's inflammatory rhetoric, as you put it yesterday, was a possible, possibly incited somebody to carry out these bombings?

MR. REEKER: No, I think what I said, and I'll just stand by what I said, is that we discussed already yesterday the sharp verbal attacks by President Chavez that we felt were not in keeping with what was agreed to in the nonviolence pacts that they signed, that both sides pledged and signed up to February 18th in terms of, you know, obviously not curbing the sort of confrontational rhetoric and obviously not moderating the tone and style and content of language.

Following that, we see, today, more violence. We see these bombings. And this is the latest in a series of recent events involving violence and that we believe highlight the need to follow what both sides have signed up to in terms of the agreement, the nonviolence pact, and to move forward.

QUESTION: Yeah, but do you see a cause or link between these two things? I mean, you're saying following, following, following --

MR. REEKER: I think those are just facts, and I'll stand by what I've said.

Now we have one more. Yeah. Please.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

In his weekly column Lt. Colonel Francisco Arias Cardenas says the opposition must re-think its political action and objectives after the way the national stoppage ended.

“Things aren’t the same … the answer of an apparently victorious government and an opposition that some say has been defeated cannot be linear … the situation isn’t traditional."

Unlike his opposition colleagues, the Colonel recognizes that “popular sentiment of the dispossessed see in President Chavez Frias their hope of redemption and they are ready to defend what they believe belongs to them … they little to lose and everything including death … liberation and achievement."

As for the opposition, Arias Cardenas is adamant that it must assume that "there are no military officers that will do the work of getting rid of the President for us or Americans who feel threatened in their backyard and are ready to defend their privileges … at the same time, it has been shown that when we act with cunning and a degree of coherence we obtain important results. "

Chavez Frias doesn’t want to go to the polls, if he is at a disadvantage and even though he controls public powers, the armed force and the government, the opposition is in the majority and rejects his actions and public policies.

"The challenge is to find ways of changing that reality to the advantage of everybody, including the dispossessed, the idealists and the spongers that are with the government … there is no quick fix."

The opposition leader, who is facing problems inside his party and seems to be the only opposition figure with a consistent level of common sense, insists that the opposition work hard to get a constitutional amendment for early elections or a recall referendum if that fails and to stop the "Smart Alecs" from blowing the solution.

sg.biz.yahoo.com Wednesday February 26, 12:01 AM

CARACAS (Dow Jones)--Venezuela's Oil Minister and the company president of state-owned oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela SA (E.PVZ) are due to travel to Washington Tuesday and are likely to meet U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham Wednesday, a spokesman of state-owned oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela said Tuesday.

Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez and PdVSA President Ali Rodriguez want to make clear to the U.S. government that the oil sector is returning to normal and that the country can play a role if an oil supply shortage were to occur due to a war between the U.S. and Iraq, the spokesman added.

ADVERTISEMENTA definite meeting with Abraham for Wednesday hasn't been set yet, the spokesman said. An official at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington said the Venezuelan ambassador Bernardo Alvarez is still working on the final agenda.

Venezuela's oil industry is slowly recovering from a devastating oil strike that crippled the company and resulted in a loss in revenue of around $4 billion. A nationwide strike, which started Dec. 2, was aimed at forcing the resignation of President Hugo Chavez. About 35,000 oil workers joined the strike.

Under normal circumstances, Venezuela is among the top four suppliers of crude oil and refined products to the U.S.

Although oil production and exports have been creeping up, they are about 50% of the pre-strike production level of around 3 million barrels per day.

As of Tuesday, the government has dismissed 15,636 workers since the strike began.

By Fred Pals, Dow Jones Newswires; 58212-5641339; fred.pals@dowjones.com