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

PROVEA human rights group has been reviewing the state of the right to health in Venezuela and paints a dismal picture. Medicine stocks and medicines in hospitals are at an all-time low, tenders to supply, maintain and update medical equipment are at a standstill, salaries payments have been placed on the backburner of several months ... there is a generalized suspension of surgical operations, and organ transplants.

The closure of medical consultations and critical drop in blood bank reserves, especially for HIV cases, have reduced hospital capacity to guarantee services, especially in emergency centers.

PROVEA admits that political and economic causes have had a negative influence but insists that it is up to the Health & Social Development (MSDS) Ministry to adopt appropriate measures to meet the crisis, whether by implementing extreme measures, such as declaring the sector in a state of emergency or intermediate measures to re-establish conditions for normal functioning throughout the entire health assistance system.

The group calls on the State to speed up dollar exchange red tape to purchase medicines and medical supplies, and to send decentralized State Governments money to pay off accumulated debts to health sector suppliers, as well as pending sector wages, salaries and benefits.

PROVEA calls on the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) to issue a ruling on a protection recourse introduced last year by the College of Caracas Medical Doctors asking for the removal of VAT on medical and dentist surgical and hospital services in private clinics.

The Ministry, PROVEA suggests, should convene  a table of dialogue between public sector health services representatives, social sectors and NGOs involved in health care aimed at setting up a consultation process to deal with problems facing the sector.

www.forbes.com Reuters, 03.04.03, 2:59 PM ET By Ibon Villelabeitia

BOGOTA, Colombia, March 4 (Reuters) - Colombia and Ecuador inaugurated a $45 million power line linking the two nations on Tuesday; a move that Bogota-based electricity distributor ISA <ISA.CN> said would pave the way for a common power market across the Andean region. State-controlled ISA, Colombia's largest distributor, and Ecuador's Transelectric, have completed work on a 130 mile (210 km) transmission line with a 260-megawatt capacity across the countries' shared border, ISA President Javier Gutierrez said. "We are taking one step at a time. A year ago we were not in Ecuador and now we are going after Peru. We think it is perfectly possible to become an energy provider in an integrated Andean region market," Gutierrez told a news conference in the Colombian capital Bogota. Last December, energy officials from Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela and Peru signed a regionwide regulatory structure for energy connection. With control of more than 80 percent of Colombia's high voltage network, ISA plans to build by September 2004 an $18 million power line hooking up transmission lines of Peru and Ecuador through Red Electrica Peruana, a unit of ISA. ISA, which is eyeing agreements to hook up lines with Venezuela and Bolivia, is also studying a $200 million project to connect Colombia's national grids via a cable crossing the inaccessible jungles of the Darien Gap, Gutierrez said. Speaking to Reuters, Gutierrez said the Andean common electricity market could become a springboard for ISA's future incursions into the energy market of southern South America. "We don't have any expansion plans into the south at the moment. But once we get into Peru we can get into Chile or the Mercosur trade block. We are constantly evaluating market opportunities," Gutierrez said. Mercosur includes Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. In 2002, ISA posted net profits of 23.92 billion pesos, down 76.4 percent from net profits of 101.1 billion pesos in 2001, as a depreciating peso currency greatly increased the costs of the company's debt, which is largely tied to multilateral banks. ISA sales in 2002 jumped 10.2 percent to 555.58 billion pesos, up from 504.05 billion pesos in 2001. The government has a majority 58-percent stake in ISA, which has 13,000 energy pylons and nearly 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of high-and medium-tension lines in Colombia. ISA's network in Colombia has been badly hit by a sabotage campaign by Marxist rebels fighting in a four-decade guerrilla war. In 2002, rebels blew up 458 energy pylons, of which 258 belonged to ISA, Gutierrez said. ISA, which last year issued 120 million shares on the local stock market to raise $58 million for fresh investments, is mulling a listing on an international stock exchange such as New York or Madrid. ($US 1 = 2,959 pesos) Copyright 2003, Reuters News Service

www.thedesertsun.com

Statewide average gasoline prices at the pump have jumped more than 18 percent over the last month to $2.01 from $1.70. This is the first time that average prices moved above the $2 barrier.

PALM SPRINGS -- The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in California has broken the $2 barrier for the first time.

The California Energy Commission, a Sacramento agency that monitors energy issues, said Monday that regular gasoline averaged $2.01 a gallon statewide for the week ended March 3.

Regular gas statewide on average now costs 43.5 cents a gallon more than it did the first week of January, and 68 cents more than it did at this time last year.

In the Automobile Club of Southern California’s latest gas price survey, Palm Springs averaged $1.97 per gallon of gas.

"They’re inching toward that $2 barrier, and probably will hit it in a matter of days," said Jeff Spring, a spokesman for the Santa Ana-based automobile club.

The club is expected to issue its monthly fuel report on average gas prices for cities like Palm Springs and others in the Coachella Valley on March 11.

Terry Parker, director of maintenance operations and transportation for the Desert Sands Unified School District, is getting dizzy over the rapid rise in gas prices.

He’s thinking of ways to renegotiate gas prices with two local supply vendors, and get better deals on repair parts.

Under a worst-case scenario, he might even have to consider layoffs, he said.

The district budgeted $110,000 for fuel costs in its fiscal year ending June 30.

Over the past two months, however, fuel prices have jumped 18 percent on average for diesel and regular gasoline -- and there are four months left in the fiscal year, Parker said.

That’s a projected $20,000 over annual budget, he estimates.

The fuel is needed to run a fleet of 62 buses, and transport a sizeable chunk of the La Quinta-based district’s 25,000 students.

"We have to cut back across the board, not just in fuel prices, but we’re going to have other budget shortfalls as well," said Parker of budget cuts that have been passed along by the state.

For some motorists, the stratospheric gas prices might not mean much.

David Murphy, president and co-owner of Desert European Motorcars Ltd., isn’t worried about his clientele, for instance.

"A rise of 50 cents on the gallon isn’t going to affect them to drive down the street from El Paseo to downtown Palm Springs," Murphy said.

Murphy’s high-brow dealerships in Rancho Mirage and Palm Springs sell Bentley and Rolls-Royce automobiles, Jaguars, Porsches, BMWs and Mercedes Benzs.

"They are probably spending more for heating oil for their other home in Aspen (Colorado) than on their other car," he added.

Crude oil prices have soared because of uncertainty about supplies from the Middle East given the U.S. saber rattling over Iraq, as well as oil supply problems in Venezuela and Nigeria.

In addition, continuing cold temperatures in the eastern United States have increased the demand for heating oil, increasing the competition for available oil supplies.

Additional factors are at work in California as well. Several refineries are down for planned yearly maintenance, tightening supplies and increasing prices on the spot market, explained Rob Schlichting, a spokesman with the California Energy Commission.

When gas prices are adjusted for inflation, gasoline has been more expensive in the past, Schlichting explained.

Average pump prices of $1.34 a gallon in 1981, for example, equate to $2.45 a gallon in today’s dollars.

Schlicting urged motorists to shop around for gas because retail prices varied as much as 30 cents a gallon from station to station in its price survey.

Pat Maio is the Business Editor for The Desert Sun. He can be reached at 778-4625 or via e-mail at pat.maio@thedesertsun.com

abclocal.go.com

With oil prices nearing $40 a barrel, and the economy stumbling, many are calling on President Bush to tap into the massive oil supplies known as the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The reserve is a nearly 600-million-barrel, 53-day supply of crude oil held in Texas and Louisiana, and designed to protect the country in case of a shortage big enough to threaten the national safety of the economy.

It's up to the president to determine when it should be used.

It took a national energy crisis — the Arab oil embargo of 1973 — to create the reserve in the first place. And some see a crisis in the making now.

"If ever there was a rainy day in the oil market and the economy, this is it," said economist Donald Straszheim of Straszheim Global Advisers in Santa Monica, Calif.

Release Could Drop Oil Prices Those who favor tapping into the reserve right away say it would calm fears and lower prices.

When the first President Bush authorized the use of strategic reserves on the first day of the 1991 Gulf War, for instance, the price of crude oil plunged from $31 to $21 a barrel in a single day — the largest one-day drop ever. He was later criticized for acting too late to keep the country out of recession.

When President Clinton tapped the reserve in September 2000 to relieve high prices and temporary shortages, the price of crude fell $3.50 in a week. He too was later criticized, in this case for using the reserves for political reasons.

The steep rise in crude oil prices over recent months, fueled by talk of war with Iraq, as well as the ongoing work strike in Venezuela and unusually cold winter weather, has had a real impact on the economy and consumers, driving up prices at gas pumps and for home heating oil.

But for now this President Bush is sitting tight. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham last week told ABCNEWS, and the Senate, that strategic reserves are for emergencies only. "Obviously we are prepared to act. But that situation has not yet in our judgment arrived," said Abraham.

As one analyst put it, you can't afford to act on a rainy day when there may be a full-fledged storm coming — a war with Iraq. But with oil prices approaching $40 a barrel and oil supplies at a 28-year-low, the pressure on the president is intensifying.

Source: ABCNEWS

Last Updated: Mar 4, 2003

news.ft.com By Andy Webb-Vidal in Miami Published: March 4 2003 19:10 | Last Updated: March 4 2003 19:10

The US faces a growing risk from both Middle Eastern terrorists relocating to Latin America and terror groups from the region, a top US military official has warned.

General James Hill, Commander of US Southern Command, told Latin American military officers and regional intelligence analysts in Miami on Tuesday that groups such as Hizbollah, the militant Shia Muslim group, had established bases in Latin America.

These groups were taking advantage of smuggling hotspots such as the "tri-border area" joining Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, and Venezuela's Margarita island to channel funds to terrorist groups round the world.

US officials are also worried that weak state institutions are making the region a haven for operatives affiliated to groups such as al-Qaeda who may flee the Middle East in the wake of a war in Iraq.

Security experts say no specific governments in the region can yet be considered "accomplice states" for harbouring terrorists but border and immigration controls must be tightened.

Fernando Falcón, a former Venezuelan state security police chief, said: "If I were al-Qaeda, I would be setting up in Venezuela right now."

Gen Carl Freeman, president of the Inter-American Defence Board, said parts of Latin America were potential rest-and-recuperation hideouts and stop-off points before entry to the US. "Latin American countries are vulnerable," he said. "Terrorists will find the weak link in the chain and take advantage."

Gen Hill also warned that the long-running, drug- fuelled conflict in Colombia was spilling over its borders. "There were more terrorist attacks last year in Colombia alone than in all the other nations in the world combined. This is a battle that must be fought together. If we don't, I fear we risk winning the battle in Colombia and losing the war in the rest of the region."

The warning comes as the strongest signs emerge that the Colombian conflict is becoming enmeshed with increasingly violent political tensions in Venezuela.

Two powerful bombs damaged the Colombian and Spanish diplomatic missions in Caracas last week. The attacks came shortly after Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez criticised Colombia, Spain and the US for meddling in Venezuela's "internal affairs".

Last weekend near their shared border, the Colombian and Venezuelan military defused a truck-bomb several times larger than one that killed 36 at a club in Bogotá.

Mr Chávez said this week that the suspected embassy bombers had been "identified" as linked to opposition groups bent on denigrating him and pinning the blame on his government.

However, intelligence sources in Miami said they suspect the perpetrators were linked to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) or a group on the fringes of Venezuela's state security police.

Colombia's state security police said yesterday it was investigating the passage of rebels from Farc, including its chief, Manuel Marulanda, across the border into Venezuela.

The deepening insecurity in Venezuela comes as the US steps up its training of the Colombian army in its war against Farc.

Three US citizens working under a US Defense Department contract are being held as "prisoners of war" by Farc after being captured last month.

The US is understood to have agreed to dispatch "intelligence assistance teams" to the Colombian military, although it is not permitted to maintain more than 400 US troops in Colombia, a cap designed to prevent "mission creep".

Robert Steele, a former deputy director of US Marine Intelligence and a private sector adviser, said US resources should be better used to help avert Latin American economic crises that could breed radical political groups. "We have cold war mindsets that are not adequate for today. The US thinks of Latin America as a benign backyard. They are wrong. It is a nightmare ready to go north, and the Americans don't understand that."