www.dailytimes.com.pk

BEIJING: Cuban President Fidel Castro Thursday began his second day of meeting and greeting incoming and outgoing Chinese leaders, holding talks with Communist Party stalwart and parliamentary head Li Peng. Li at the Great Hall of the People greeted Castro only a week before Li’s parliament formally ushers in the nation’s next government to be headed by younger leaders promoted last November during a congress of the ruling party. “I’m very happy to have this opportunity to again meet with comrade Castro and our Cuban friends,” Li told the Cuban leader. “Your visit to China comes at a crucial time.” Li, who stepped down as party number two during the November party meeting, is expected to retire as head of the National People’s Congress during its annual session that begins next week. On Wednesday Castro met with outgoing President Jiang Zemin and was scheduled to meet Thursday with outgoing Premier Zhu Rongji and soon-to-be president Hu Jintao. During talks with Li, Castro praised the “great changes” China has undergone during its 20-year opening and reform drive. “I can’t really be sure just now what kind of China I am visiting, because the first time I visited your country appeared one way and now when I visit it appears another way,” he said. “You can say that every so often your country undergoes great changes.” The visit is Castro’s first to China since late 1995. As the last remaining leaders of the communist world, Castro has developed close personal ties with Jiang, who visited Cuba in November 1993 and April 2001. On Wednesday, the two leaders also signed an economic cooperation agreement. China is Cuba’s third most important trading partner after Venezuela, which provides the island with cheap oil, and Spain, which has hotel chains deeply invested in the tourism industry. China took over as Cuba’s main political and financial partner in the early 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union. The trade balance, however, clearly favours China. According to official figures here, in 2001 Cuba exported 70 million dollars worth of goods to China, while it imported 547 million dollars’ worth. —AFP

news.pacificnews.org Commentary, Alicia Torres, Pacific News Service, Feb 27, 2003

Beyond gaining support from the military and portions of the underclass, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has channeled the historical, mythical, and to some, mystical figure of 19th century General Simon Bolivar. PNS contributor Alicia Torres examines a popular religion with indigenous roots to find one secret to Chavez's continuing rule.

As Venezuela's fate seems locked between President Hugo Chavez's militant, underclass supporters and the middle class, media and business communities arrayed against him, a third force lurks behind the scenes.

Pacing the labyrinth of Venezuela's popular imagination, the unnamed actor is the magical, long-dead General Simon Bolívar, the nation's founding father. The Bolivar myth, skillfully channeled by Chavez, is key to the former paratrooper's grip on power.

After leading a failed and bloody coup attempt in 1992, Chavez famously spent many months in jail and emerged from his "captivity" with a powerful rhetorical and symbolic ace card. Reaching into the confusing current of Venezuela's political history, he found one untainted image, a myth untouched by decades of rampant political corruption and squandering of the country's vast oil wealth, a messy recent history that started long before Chavez.

Hugo Chavez's deft ability to incorporate into his campaign persona the historical legacy of the brilliant general who liberated half of South America from the control of the 19th century Spanish empire helped propel Chavez to the Venezuelan presidency in 1998 with over 80 percent of the vote. Today, Chavez's cult of personality is centered on his image as Bolívar's heir, the modern-day liberator of Venezuela's poorest.

In the United States, no figure commands the same kind of reverence as Bolívar does in Venezuela. The country's currency, plazas and universities carry his name. His maxims are taught in schools, broadcast on radio and emblazoned on government buildings. Bolívar is a liberator idealized in oral culture by small-town storytellers, and in the lyrics of traditional music such as contrapunto.

Chavistas, as the president's supporters are known, call the areas they control the "liberated zones of the Bolivarian Republic" and adorn offices and homes with giant portraits of Bolívar. Chavez trumpets Bolívar's dream of a politically unified South America, calls his political movement the Bolivarian Revolution and he has organized poor neighborhoods into political cells called Bolivarian Circles.

And, as Chavez well knows, besides the historical Bolivar there is a supernatural one, a figure of popular religious devotion who takes his place alongside other cult figures on home altars.

Alongside the Catholic religion, another spiritual tradition thrives in Venezuela, a popular religion with indigenous, African and Catholic roots called the religion of María Lionza. Based on the worship by Indians of a fertility goddess known as María Lionza, the syncretic faith predates any other touchstone of Venezuela's national identity. Many Venezuelans would not inhabit a home lacking an altar to the religion's principal divinities, each of which represents Venezuela's vibrant ethnic mixture of white, Indian, and black.

These religious altars usually feature a portrait of Simón Bolívar, and the religion's priests hold ceremonies in which the spirit of Bolívar is channeled through a medium who coughs when the general is present, since Bolívar had tuberculosis.

The official Bolívar celebrated in textbooks, statues and hymns still elicits the respect and devotion of Venezuelans, even if they inhabit luxury apartments. But in the figure of Chavez, some in Venezuela, including some of the nation's poorest, also see the spirit of Bolívar incarnate. The tradition of María Lionza has fed Chavez's grip on the country's imagination.

Chavez encourages this by echoing Bolívar's words and making his nationally televised speeches with a portrait of Bolívar placed next to his head. Venezuelans joke that Chavez always sets an extra place at his dinner table for Bolívar, and say that he parades the long hallways of his presidential mansion wearing the famed general's cape. Whether the stories are true or not, Chavez is definitely obsessed with Bolívar's legacy and exploits it to maintain power.

The president's posturing as a 21st century manifestation of Bolívar has helped radicalize the conflict in Venezuela. On one side, he is still revered by a significant part of the population as Venezuela's last hope -- a second liberator. The enraged opposition, on the other hand, thinks Chavez has betrayed Bolívar's legacy and 50 years of Venezuelan democracy with his authoritarian style and incendiary class rhetoric. It's one reason the new Bolivarian Revolution is in danger of ending in a civil war.

Torres has published several books of poetry in Venezuela and was a columnist for Caracas daily El Universal. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

27 February 2003

State Department Official Reviews U.S. Priorities in the Americas (Curtis Struble says problems in region are not "intractable") (7560)

.........all times respecting the caps.

To the east, the situation in Venezuela continues to deteriorate, undermining Venezuela's democracy and economy while threatening regional economic and political stability. We must help Venezuela find a solution to the current impasse to avoid further harm. The only politically viable solution to the crisis in Venezuela is a peaceful, constitutional, democratic, and electoral solution agreed upon by both the government and the opposition. The dialogue led by the OAS Secretary General remains the best hope for Venezuelans to reach such a solution. The electoral proposals tabled January 21 by former President Carter - either a constitutional amendment to enable earlier elections or an August recall referendum, as provided for in Venezuela's Constitution - present viable options to break the impasse.

Four OAS member states (Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and the U.S.) and two leading OAS observer states (Portugal and Spain) have joined to address the current situation in Venezuela through the Friends of the OAS Secretary General's Mission for Venezuela. The Group of Friends plans to monitor and verify the implementation of any agreement brokered by the OAS. I was in Caracas four weeks ago with senior officials from the Group of Friends governments and had useful meetings with the government and the opposition.

President Chávez told us that the Carter proposals are constitutional and acknowledged that his government was obligated to provide funding and protection for constitutional elections and political activities. We are pleased that both sides to the dispute in Venezuela endorsed a non-violence pledge.

Still, President Chavez's incendiary rhetoric and the violence that has followed the signing of the pact, including the bombings outside the Spanish Embassy and Colombian Consulate in Caracas, cast doubt as to the government's commitment to honoring this pledge. It is imperative that this commitment, which is key to creating a climate conducive to dialogue, be respected. We hope to meet again soon with our partners in the Friends Group to discuss concrete initiatives to advance the dialogue.

In Bolivia, President Sanchez.............

www.forbes.com Reuters, 02.27.03, 6:04 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - NYMEX crude oil futures moved sharply lower in early overnight electronic trade on Thursday, extending a profit-taking spree on dayside trade after an attempt to crack the $40-a-barrel mark failed. At 5:45 p.m. (2245 GMT), NYMEX crude for April delivery delivery traded 56 cents lower at $36.64 a barrel. The ACCESS trading range stood at $36.52 to $37.22. On Thursday evening, a United Nations official in New York said that Iraq had agreed in principle to destroy its al-Samoud 2 missiles, but that U.N. arms inspectors must clarify the offer with officials in Baghdad. "They accept in principle the destruction of the missiles and the facilities but this has to be clarified," a U.N. official told Reuters. In regular dayside trade, the NYMEX April crude contract settled 50 cents lower. That followed volatile morning trading when April crude soared $2.29 to $39.99, the highest level since October 1990 when NYMEX crude hit an all-time high of $41.15, just prior to the U.S.-led Gulf War to liberate Kuwait after an Iraqi invasion. Speculative funds led the sell-off, traders said, with the day's highs spurred by rising Iraq war fears and thin U.S. petroleum inventories. A suspected squeeze on the April contract intensified volatility, traders said. Before the day's sharp decline, NYMEX prompt crude oil had advanced nearly 60 percent from mid-November levels, a premium built on growing fears of a war in Iraq. A strike in major U.S. supplier Venezuela and a very cold winter have also propped up prices. A U.S. move to lower its terror threat level helped pare oil's move higher, traders said. The market remained nervous amid tough talk on Iraq by President Bush, who on Thursday said any Iraqi plan to destroy banned missiles was part of "a campaign of deception." He called for Baghdad to disarm completely. U.N. arms inspectors said the al-Samoud 2 rockets violate the 93-mile (150-km) range limit imposed after the 1991 Gulf War and called for Iraq to start destroying them by March 1. Bush's comments to White House reporters followed a speech on Wednesday in which he reiterated his intention to disarm Iraq, which the U.S. accuses of having weapons of mass destruction, with or without approval of the U.N. Security Council. A delay until the weekend of the Turkish parliament's vote to allow the use of Turkish territory as a possible launchpad for military action against Baghdad was also bearish, they added. Earlier on Thursday, an Iraqi official said Iraq would respond to U.N. chief arms inspector Hans Blix's order that Baghdad destroy its al-Samoud missiles. News that Iraqi Republican Guard troops and equipment were moving from their base in northern Iraq toward Baghdad raised concerns that Iraq was preparing for a U.S.-led attack. A divided U.N. Security Council on Thursday discussed a U.S.-British-Spanish draft resolution that lays the groundwork for war. France, Germany and Russia are pushing for more time for U.N. inspectors to search for Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. No vote is expected for about two weeks. Saudi Ambassador to Britain Turki al-Faisal told BBC radio his country would not back a U.S.-led war in Iraq if there is no new U.N. resolution explicitly permitting the use of force. Meanwhile, OPEC Secretary-General Alvaro Silva said the cartel could cover any stoppage of Iraqi oil if war erupts and consumer countries need not release emergency reserves. On Wednesday U.S. officials said Saudi Arabia had agreed to increase output by 1.5 million barrels per day if Iraqi oil flow is interrupted by war. Temperatures across much of the United States and Canada are forecast to stay below normal through early March, Salomon Smith Barney meteorologists Jon Davis and Mark Russo said on Thursday. In the early ACCESS trade and ahead of Friday's expiration for March refined products contracts, NYMEX March heating oil traded 0.78 cent lower at $1.1465 a gallon. In regular hours trading, it settled 0.06 cent lower at $1.1543. The April contract was down 0.82 cent at $1.0519, after ending dayside trade 0.58 cent off at $1.0601. NYMEX March gasoline traded 1.05 cents down at $1.0075 a gallon. It ended dayside trade 0.03 cent lower at $1.018. April gasoline was down 1.13 cents at $1.0825 a gallon, after finished up 0.27 cent at $1.0938 in regular hours trading.

www.msnbc.com

Many Venezuelans have a lot of time on their hands anyway -- massive oil shortages have caused long lines at the gas station.

    CARACAS, Venezuela, Feb. 27 —  If you thought Venezuela’s political crisis seemed to be dragging for an impossibly long time — you were right. In a bizarre mass-malfunction, Venezuela’s clocks are ticking too slowly due to a power shortage weakening the electric current nationwide. By the end of each day, the sluggish time pieces still have another 150 seconds to tick before they catch up to midnight.          “EVERYTHING THAT HAS to do with time-keeping has slowed down. If it’s an electric clock, it’s running slow,” said Miguel Lara, general manager of the national power grid.        “Your computer isn’t affected. Your television isn’t affected. No other devices ... just clocks,” he added.        The meltdown has taken a total 14 hours and 36 minutes from Venezuela’s clocks over 12 of the past 13 months, he said.        In a country fiercely divided between friends and foes of its leader, President Hugo Chavez, it isn’t surprising some opponents have jokingly blamed the clock chaos on the president.        But instead it appears to be Mother Nature that lashed out against Father Time. The river powering a major hydroelectric plant in southeast Venezuela lost force due to a severe drought in February 2001. To prevent blackouts, the country slightly lowered the frequency of the current.        At least one time expert was caught off guard.        “It’s the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard of,” said Dan Nied, head of the U.S.-based School of Horology, or the science of time measurement. “But yes, clocks would slow down.”        For common quartz clocks, the slight drop in frequency slows the vibration of the crystal that regulates time keeping, he said, adding, “People must be going nuts.”        But in a nation that rarely starts on schedule, Venezuelans have taken their time troubles in their stride. An air traffic controller casually told Reuters that his office corrected its clocks every few days or months, without incident so far.        “Yes, it’s been happening here. But we correct the clocks every three months and there’s no problem,” he said.        Many people on the streets of Caracas were only vaguely aware that their clocks had been slowing down.        “I wake with the sun,” said Rene Osurna, who works at a shipping company. “And if you’re two minutes late to the office, and everybody else is too, there’s no problem.”