news.xinhuanet.com Xinhuanet 2003-03-04 11:31:13

°°°°MEXICO CITY, March 3 (Xinhuanet) -- Visiting Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz warned on Monday that if his country falls, so could Venezuela and Mexico as they also have petroleum.

°°°°"If (US President) George W. Bush succeeds in removing the Government of Iraq, it would not be the only one to fall. Like Iraq, Mexico and Venezuela also have oil," Aziz told the Mexican daily La Jornada.

°°°°The United States imports 15 percent of its oil consumption from each of the four countries, Mexico, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Canada.

°°°°Aziz hoped Chile and Mexico, both non-permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, would remain firm on their opposition to a US-led attack on Iraq. Otherwise, he stressed, "Venezuela could be militarily threatened."

°°°°Aziz said Mexico is a friendly country to Iraq and there is no reason for it to take a negative stance on the Iraq issue.

°°°°Iraq met a Saturday deadline to begin destroying its Al-Samoud 2 missiles, banned because its range may be slightly longer than allowed under UN resolutions.

°°°°Iraq agreed to destroy the missiles because it wants to cooperate with governments such as those of France and Mexico, which are aware that it is necessary to stop the United States from launching a war, Aziz said.

°°°°Reiterating that the Iraqis do not want war, Aziz said that if Iraq and all those groups all over the world that oppose war could coordinate their positions, they might stop a possible attack on his country. Enditem

www.washingtonpost.com By Jon Jeter Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, March 3, 2003; Page A12

 	President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is considering revisions to a pension system that gives full pay to many retired workers. 

RIO DE JANEIRO -- To understand the difficulties facing Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, get to know Carlos Borges.

The 46-year-old Borges is, in his own words, "just a regular Joe" who has put in 25 years on municipal road crews in Rio de Janeiro and is looking forward to retiring 10 years from now. No one, he said, cheered more loudly when voters in October elected Lula, as Brazil's leader is commonly known, as the first working-class president of this country of 176 million people.

But few have more to lose than Borges, depending on how Lula crafts a plan to reduce the generous public pensions that bog down this country's already indebted public treasury.

"I know that there is much pressure on Lula to cut our pensions," Borges said recently over a cup of espresso on a sizzling hot afternoon. "But many people like me voted for him because we felt the previous government paid too much attention to the bankers and the business community and ignored the needs of the poor and the ordinary workers. We voted for him because we see Lula as one of us and if he cuts our pensions, many of us will be very, very disappointed in him."

Borges's concerns reflect the political balancing act that the new president encounters in an attempt to reconcile the expectations of the broad coalition that catapulted him into office -- made up of the poor, the liberal middle class and disaffected business interests -- with the concerns of prosperous Brazilians and international lenders whose disengagement can wreck both his government and the fragile economy he is trying to manage.

The Brazilian retirement system, which doles out full-pay pensions after 35 years of service for many civil servants, contributed last year to a $20 billion deficit in the social security system and represents 42 percent of all government payroll costs, according to government statistics.

Neither Lula nor any of his advisers has made public any final proposals. But economists say that revisions to Brazil's social security system would likely focus on the ample benefits provided to some civil servants, especially the military, judiciary and police, who often receive more after retirement than they did during active service because they are entitled to wage increases along with active employees.

In the best scenario for people like Borges, lower-paid employees would suffer less than Brazil's higher-level public servants and the military, who can retire after only 30 years and are charged less than the 11 percent payroll deduction for most other government employees. Whether pension reform would treat rich and poor equally is one controversial issue. Another is whether a new plan would affect current recipients as well as new pensioners. Top-ranking military officials, prominent judges, diplomats and others are demanding that they continue receiving special treatment.

"Brazilians have no basis of comparison with other pension systems in other countries," said Richard Foster, a Brazil specialist in Washington who publishes the biweekly Brazil Watch newsletter. "Pension reform in Brazil is like health care reform in the United States, indispensable to the long-term prosperity of the country, but nearly impossible to approve because of special interests."

Heloisa Guerra, for instance, has never held a full-time job. She is 53 and draws a federal pension of nearly $750 a month. Under existing law, the unmarried daughters of high-ranking military personnel receive a lifetime benefit following the death of their parents.

Still, Guerra, like many others here, says that the pensions are one of the few tools that the poor and middle class can depend on to stay afloat in a country deeply divided between rich and poor. "Reforms will make the middle class even poorer," said Guerra. "It's going to hurt society."

Brazilian society is mostly poor, with a minuscule wealthy class and a middle class principally located in southern cities. The consumer price index is running at an annual rate of about 21 percent. But a majority of working-age Brazilians are underemployed and subsist below the minimum monthly wage of less than $100.

The president's support for pension reform runs counter to the way a leader of an organization called the Workers' Party would be expected to behave. A former lathe operator, Lula became famous in the 1980s as a trade union leader in the industrial heartland of Sao Paulo state, campaigning for workers' rights in the automotive industry. Early on, he opposed periodic efforts by the government to change Brazil's pension and retirement laws. Since then, his message has been progressively moderate.

"Pension reform has been the 800-pound gorilla in the room for years," said one Western diplomat. "Everyone knows it but Lula may be the only one with the political capital to do it. This may be the first really big test of his administration."

Less than 90 days into his presidency, Lula enjoys a honeymoon with the nation's news media and draws good reviews from diverse sectors. Last month, he told a gathering of anti-globalization activists in the southern city of Porto Alegre that he is committed to their social agenda. He then shuttled off to Switzerland, where he promised a meeting of bankers, corporate leaders and international diplomats that Brazil will not follow neighboring Argentina into default and will continue payments on its $250 billion public-sector debt.

Also last month, he submitted to Congress a budget proposal with $14 billion in spending cuts but also launched a crusade against hunger, introducing a $1.6 billion federal entitlement to provide food stamp-like vouchers for the neediest Brazilians.

He has been careful, meanwhile, to distance himself from presidents Fidel Castro of Cuba and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, both of whom attended his inauguration as concerns were raised in the United States and elsewhere about his populist Workers' Party reputation. He has found room in his government for politicians such as Henrique Meirelles, a former executive of FleetBoston and a free-market disciple whose appointment as central bank president appealed to the international financial community.

"What you are seeing is a revolution but it's not a socialist revolution; it is a capitalist revolution," said Congressman Fernando Gabeira, a member of Lula's Workers' Party from Rio de Janeiro. Gabeira is a onetime guerrilla opponent of Brazil's former military dictatorship who participated in the 1969 kidnapping of U.S. Ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick.

"The government is not trying to overturn capitalism but to attract more poor people, more marginalized people to the capitalist center," he said.

One indication of Lula's calming influence has been the absence of any dramatic, sudden changes in economic policy.

"He understands that we have to fight poverty but he's practical about it. What's the use of making beautiful speeches about fighting poverty and then not being able to do anything about it," said Eliezer Batista, a former president of Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, the world's largest iron ore exporter, and an informal adviser to Brazilian presidents.

The new administration faces hurdles down the road. Despite his landslide victory, Lula's Workers' Party controls less than 20 percent of the seats in a fragmented Congress and political analysts say Lula will have to forge coalitions. He won a pledge of support on his pension and tax reforms last week from Michel Temer, leader of the opposition Brazilian Democratic Party, who hinted at joining forces with Lula to create a majority in Congress. "We will support and will approve the reforms," Temer said in a speech before the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house in Congress.

It is still early in Lula's presidency. Crime and entrenched poverty are chronic concerns. The public debt is now equal to nearly 56 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. Foreign analysts are uncertain there will be enough money for Lula to accomplish lasting changes.

"He's really done an impressive job of balancing people's needs so far," said one Western diplomat "But will he be able to maintain that very delicate balance on top of a pinpoint? That's what everyone is waiting to see."

• Disarming Central America Was al Qaeda trying to obtain surface-to-air missiles in Nicaragua? After an OAS investigation finds lax controls, Nicaragua's president seeks a regional solution but needs U.S. help.   

www.co2science.org Reference Freeland, H.J., Gatien, G., Huyer, A. and Smith, R.L.  2002.  Cold halocline in the northern California Current: An invasion of subarctic water.  Geophysical Research Letters 30: 10.1029/2002GL016663

What was done The authors analyzed water temperature and salinity measurements that were made at a number of depths over a period of several years along two lines emanating from central Oregon and Vancouver Island westward into the Pacific Ocean.

What was learned Subsurface waters in an approximate 100-meter-thick layer located between 30 and 150 meters depth off central Oregon were, in the words of the authors, "unexpectedly cool in July 2002."  Specifically, mid-depth temperatures over the outer continental shelf and upper slope were more than 0.5°C colder than the historical summer average calculated by Smith et al. (2001) for the period 1961-2000, which the authors say "might be cooler than a longer-term mean because the 1961-71 decade coincided with a cool phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (Mantua et al., 1997)."  At the most offshore station, in fact, the authors report "the upper halocline is >1°C colder than normal and about 0.5°C colder than any prior observation [our italics]."  In addition to being substantially cooler, the anomalous water was also considerably fresher; and the combined effects of these two phenomena made the water less spicy, as the authors describe it, so much so, in fact, that they refer to the intensity of the "spiciness anomaly" as "remarkable."

Along the line that runs from the mouth of Juan de Fuca Strait to Station Papa at 50°N, 145°W in the Gulf of Alaska -- which was sampled regularly between 1959 and 1981, but irregularly thereafter -- similar low spiciness was observed, and the authors say there is little doubt it is the same feature as that detected off the coast of central Oregon.  In this case, they report that "conditions in June 2002 [were] well outside the bounds of all previous experience [our italics]," and that "in summer 2001 the spiciness of this layer was already at the lower bound of previous experience."

What it means The authors say their data imply that "the waters off Vancouver Island and Oregon in July 2002 were displaced about 500 km south of their normal summer position."  Is this observation an indication the Pacific Ocean is beginning to experience a shift from what Chavez et al. (2003) call a "warm, sardine regime" to a "cool, anchovy regime"?  It is tempting to suggest that it is.  However, Freeland et al. caution against jumping to such a conclusion too quickly, saying there are no obvious signals of such a regime shift in several standard climate indices and that without evidence of a large-scale climate perturbation, the spiciness anomaly may simply be, well, anomalous.  Hence, although the pattern of Pacific Ocean regime shifts documented by Chavez et al. suggests that a change from warmer to cooler conditions is imminent, there is not yet sufficient climatic evidence to claim that it is indeed in process of occurring.

On the other hand, in reference to the 1976-77 regime shift in the Pacific, Chavez et al. note that "it took well over a decade to determine that a regime shift had occurred in the mid-1970s" and, hence, that "a regime or climate shift may even be best determined by monitoring marine organisms rather than climate," as suggested by Hare and Mantua (2000).  Enlarging on this concept, they cite several recent studies that appear to provide such evidence, including "a dramatic increase in ocean chlorophyll off California," which would appear to be a logical response to what the authors of the article we are reviewing describe as "an invasion of nutrient-rich Subarctic waters."

Other pertinent evidence cited by Chavez et al. includes "dramatic increases in baitfish (including northern anchovy) and salmon abundance off Oregon and Washington," as well as "increases in zooplankton abundance and changes in community structure from California to Oregon and British Columbia, with dramatic increases in northern or cooler species [our italics]."

Clearly, something dramatic is in the works; and it could well be a return to cooler conditions in the Pacific.  Biological and climatic studies over the next few years should enlighten us considerably on this point, as well as what such a regime shift would portend for the global warming debate.

References Chavez, F.P., Ryan, J., Lluch-Cota, S.E. and Niquen C., M.  2003.  From anchovies to sardines and back: multidecadal change in the Pacific Ocean.  Science 299: 217-221.

Hare, S.R. and Mantua, N.J.  2000.  Empirical evidence for North Pacific regime shifts in 1977 and 1989.  Progress in Oceanography 47: 103-145.

Mantua, N.J., Hare, S.R., Zhang, Y., Wallace, J.M. and Francis, R.C.  1997.  A Pacific interdecadal climate oscillation with impacts on salmon production.  Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 78: 1069-1079.

Smith, R.L., Huyer, A. and Fleischbein, J.  2001.  The coastal ocean off Oregon from 1961 to 2000: Is there evidence of climate change or only of Los Niños?  Progress in Oceanography 49: 63-93.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Opposition Alianza Bravo Pueblo (ABP) political party leader and former Libertador Mayor Antonio Ledezma has called on President Hugo Chavez Frias to cut out the mystery and publish the names of the persons or groups allegedly behind the bombs that exploded outside the Colombian consulate and Spanish Embassy last week in Caracas.

“If the President knows who placed the bombs, he should present the evidence and reveal their identities … otherwise, the matter will be shelved as other cases.”

Ledezma recalls the discovery of an alleged sniper in Ciudad Bolivar hired to assassinate the President or the group that allegedly had allegedly planned to launch a rocket attack on the Presidential airplane, as it was approaching Simon Bolivar international airport at Maiquetia.

“Those cases were not followed up and we suspect that those who planted the bombs were the same people who have attacked media HQs and that this case will be shelved as well."

www.vheadline.com Posted: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Interior & Justice (MIJ) Minister, General (ret.) Lucas Rincon Romero says the police believe that the Maracaibo car bomb has more to do with an age-old vendetta between the Melean and Semprun families than anything else. 

Zulia State Police Detective Branch (CICPC) director, Idelfonso Urdaneta suggests that the car bomb may have been aimed at Rancher kingpin, Antonio Melean. The two rancher familes are said to be a law unto themselves in Zulia ... both families have suffered death from assassinations.

However, opposition groups continue to claim that it was a government-inspired attack to eliminate Melean, who had been a leading light in the anti-government national stoppage and the new Lands Law. 

The police will interrogate Melean today on the car bomb episode.

Meanwhile in Caracas, there has been growing speculation regarding a CCTV video showing persons, who allegedly planted the bomb in front of the Colombian consulate.

 MIJ Minister Rincon Romero says Venezuelan security forces have not reported knowledge of the video and has asked the Colombians to supply the video, if indeed it exists.