www.vheadline.com Posted: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

A plenary session of the National Assembly (AN) on Thursday will discuss the draft Women's Equality Law ... officially known as the Right of Women to Gender Parity & Equality Law.

• House Family, Women & Youth committee president Ivan Mastrangelo says last Thursday's session to discuss the bill was postponed because of lack of quorum.

Owing to the national stoppage, the draft law has received little publicity and many of the NGOs supporting or criticizing it, preferred to devote energies to marches and political campaigns for or against the government.

Mastrangelo admits the bill carries a lot of tricky topics ... such as abortion in rape cases, babies in-vitro, equal pay, just to mention a few.

The committee is recommending that the law be declared 'ordinary' and not organic, given the delicate nature of some subjects ... which Mastrangelo insists, will need legal interpretation.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Attorney General Isaias Rodriguez, Ombudsman German Mundarain, Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) president, Ivan Rincon and Interior & Justice (MIJ) Minister General (ret.) Lucas Rincon Romero have met to seek solutions to drastic prison conditions.

Speaking after the meeting, Ombudsman Mundarain says the State will ask international bodies for funding to implement a definite solution to the problem.

As for prisoners' main complaint over delayed legal processes, Mundarain says meetings have taken place in several States between leading judges, state attorneys, public defense lawyers and ombudsmen to create mechanisms aimed at speeding up the legal process ... 9,000 prisoners are said to be still waiting for a sentence to be passed.

Special courts will be set up inside jails as one solution.

The government denies charges that prisoners have resorted to eating cats and dogs declaring that the meals situation is already taken care of and that the media has blown the food situation out of all proportion.

Countries like the USA and the UK have funded legal system and prison reforms since the last Caldera administration but not much has been published about the results.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

A joint Police Detective Branch (CICPC) and National Guard (GN) anti-kidnap operation has ended with the death of 4 persons, accused of kidnapping agricultural producer Tomas Ramirez Vivas (54).

GN Lt. Colonel Luis Viloria Garcia says the incident took place in La Azulito (Merida) .. "it took intelligence gathering to find the tent where the kidnappers had hung out in the jungle area near southern Lake Maracaibo ... 4 men wearing military uniforms shot at the unit ... one detective was wounded."

However, an unconfirmed story suggests that an agreement had been struck between the family and the kidnappers to return the hostage on the condition that they did not notify the police.

The rancher had been held hostage for 63 days and his family said they did not have the money to pay the ransom.

www.forbes.com Reuters, 03.11.03, 1:56 PM ET (Recasts; updates prices, paragraphs 2-3) NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices fell Tuesday as OPEC producers sought to reassure markets they could avert a supply shortage in the event of war in Iraq while the U.S. called for a U.N. vote this week that could authorize war. U.S. light crude was down 82 cents, or 2 percent, at $36.45 a barrel by 1330 EST (1830 GMT), below its recent peak of $39.99. Oil prices set a record high of $41.15 a barrel during the 1990-91 Gulf crisis. London benchmark Brent for April fell 44 cents to $33.25 a barrel. Prices fell as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which control's around 60 percent of world crude exports, pledged during a ministerial meeting in Vienna that it was ready to fill any disruption in supply. While the group's official communique was expected to avoid any reference to Iraq, traders took OPEC's stance to mean that it would make up for a likely halt to Iraq's oil exports if the United States launches an attack. "There will be no shortage of oil," said Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told reporters. "The test is, when the need is there, whether we will use the capacity or not and I can assure you we will." Oil prices are up 20 percent this year on concerns that a war in Iraq could upset oil supplies from the Middle East. Efforts by Britain and the United States to give Iraq a March 17 ultimatum on scrapping weapons of mass destruction or face attack failed to draw widespread backing, forcing them to put off a vote in the Security Council until later this week. Both France and Russia have said they would block the March 17 deadline. Other members of the 15-nation Security Council have suggested giving Iraq a further 45 days to comply.

DASHED HOPES OPEC dashed hopes among consumer nations for a formal suspension of its output limits if war broke out. Instead, the cartel decided to maintain existing quotas of 24.5 million barrels per day (bpd), said Algerian Oil Minister Chakib Khelil. "It doesn't really matter what OPEC decides officially," said Gary Ross of New York consultancy PIRA Energy. "Saudi Arabia has made its policy clear. They've told customers they won't allow a shortage." Saudi Arabia has lifted output sharply in recent weeks and analysts say it is now pumping more than 9 million bpd of its 10.5 million bpd capacity. Delegates said the group's official communique would stress that OPEC already has done a lot to ensure adequate supplies by filling shortages from strike-bound Venezuela. Severe disruption to Venezuelan supplies since early December 2002 has helped push oil stocks to the lowest level since 1975, and pushed heating oil and natural gas prices during a severe northern winter to record highs. Forecasts for milder temperatures next week in the U.S. Northeast, the world's largest regional heating oil market, also helped pressure prices Tuesday. With most in OPEC already pumping to the limit, the cartel would be stretched to cover the loss of Baghdad's 1.7 million barrels daily to the 77 million bpd world market. Kuwait in addition may close up to 700,000 bpd capacity near its northern border with Iraq, where U.S. troops are poised for war.

abcnews.go.com The Associated Press VIENNA, Austria March 11 —

OPEC members agreed Tuesday to stick with their current crude oil production quotas but pledged to boost output in the future to keep supplies flowing in case of any serious disruption.

Representatives of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries ruled out formally raising output now as a way of reassuring nervous markets before any U.S.-led attack on Iraq.

However, they took extreme care not to mention such a conflict as a likely source of disruption, apparently afraid of seeming to support such a war simply by preparing to respond to its possible impact on markets.

Despite sharply higher oil prices, OPEC members argued that the world has enough crude to meet demand and blamed Middle East tensions for causing fears of a possible shortage.

"We are studying the market and keeping abreast of it," Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali Naimi told reporters. "There is no shortage of supply, the market is in balance, there is plenty of oil and there is a commitment to do our best within our capabilities, which we think are enough to satisfy any possible 3/8shortage in the market for whatever reason."

OPEC's president, Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, confirmed that it was not changing its output target of 24.5 million barrels a day. Delegates planned to meet on June 11 in Doha, Qatar, to review market conditions, he said.

OPEC officials announced their decision after meeting for two and a half hours at the group's headquarters in Vienna, Austria. OPEC pumps about a third of the world's crude.

Markets worry that a conflict with Iraq would halt that country's 2 million barrels in daily exports. The impact on supplies and prices of crude could be more severe if fighting spread beyond Iraq's borders.

"The international political tensions have, without any doubt, reduced OPEC's influence on prices," Al-Attiyah said in a speech to delegates at the start of their meeting.

He added that OPEC must make a plan to cope with "any radical change in market conditions which may result from developments in the Middle East." This was as close as OPEC's official proclamations went to mentioning a war against Iraq, one of its founding members.

Algeria's oil minister Chakib Khelil said the group could produce an additional 2-4 million barrels a day in an emergency. An expected drop in seasonal demand in the spring should also help ease pressures on supply, he said.

However, many OPEC members are already pumping all they can to profit from prices that are near 12-year highs, and it is unclear how much more oil OPEC could produce even if it wanted to.

The U.S. Energy Administration reported last week that OPEC's spare production capacity, excluding Iraq, was no more than 2 million barrels a day. That would give the group just enough extra barrels to cover a disruption in Iraqi supplies but no more.

Bill Edwards, an independent energy consultant from Houston, argued that OPEC has "zero" ability to raise output from current levels.

"I think they're producing all they can of the crude that refiners want," he said.

At least one OPEC oil minister Obaid bin Saif Al-Nasseri of the United Arab Emirates acknowledged that it would be difficult for the cartel to cover a bigger supply disruption that included any of Iraq's neighbors such as Kuwait, where thousands of U.S. troops are poised to attack Iraq.

Al-Nasseri's comments on Monday suggested that the United States and other major oil-importing countries might need to rely on their own strategic petroleum reserves. The U.S. alone has a strategic petroleum reserve, or SPR, of 600 million barrels.

"OPEC is working flat out to make sure the market is supplied," said Raad Alkadiri, an analyst at The Petroleum Finance Co., a Washington consultancy.

Alkadiri agreed that the group would be hard-pressed to cover a dual shortfall from Iraq and Kuwait.

"If there are any signs of supply disruptions beyond Iraq's borders, then I think we'll see use of the SPR fairly quickly," he said.

U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, in Vienna for an International Atomic Energy Agency meeting, appeared to confirm that view.

Asked at a news conference whether the U.S. government would release oil from its strategic reserves, Abraham told reporters: "We are prepared to act very quickly, but only if we believe a severe disruption of supply exists."

The United States and other major importing countries want OPEC to maximize its production if a war threatens supplies. Abraham planned to meet later Tuesday with Saudi Arabia's Ali Naimi.

April contracts of U.S. light, sweet crude were trading at $36.55 a barrel by midafternoon in New York, down 72 cents from Monday's close. Brent crude futures for April delivery were down 34 cents at $33.35 in London.