www.sunherald.com Posted on Fri, Mar. 14, 2003 Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela - A leader of a failed two-month strike to oust President Hugo Chavez was granted political asylum by Costa Rica on Friday, the Costa Rican foreign ministry said.

Labor union leader Carlos Ortega, who faces treason charges, entered the embassy earlier Friday, Costa Rican Ambassador Ricardo Lisano said.

"For humanitarian reasons ... (Costa Rica) decided to grant asylum and it has communicated as much to the Venezuelan government," the Costa Rican foreign ministry said in a statement.

The statement said Ortega cited fear for his personal security when he requested asylum. He had been in hiding since Feb. 20, after a judge issued a warrant for his arrest for treason, rebellion and incitement.

Hundreds of flag-waving supporters gathered around the Costa Rican embassy in eastern Caracas chanting, "Ortega, friend, the people are with you!"

Ortega, head of the country's largest labor union, helped orchestrate a general strike to demand early elections or Chavez's resignation. The strike, which petered out last month, paralyzed Venezuela's lifeblood oil industry and cost the country $6 billion, according to government estimates.

Last month, authorities arrested strike leader Carlos Fernandez, president of Venezuela's largest business association. He is under house arrest pending trial on charges of rebellion and instigation. A judge struck down a treason charge.

Arrests warrants also are out for seven executives of the state-oil monopoly, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. The seven are in hiding.

Secret police stormed an opposition march Saturday in an attempt to arrest oil executive Juan Fernandez, who made a surprise brief appearance. The police clashed with protesters, and Fernandez escaped.

Opposition leaders have denounced the arrest warrants as political persecution. Chavez says strike leaders must be imprisoned for at least 20 years for inflicting suffering on the population.

Ortega is third Chavez opponent to seek asylum abroad.

Last year, Colombia granted asylum to business leader Pedro Carmona, the figurehead in an April coup that ousted Chavez for two days. El Salvador granted asylum to another alleged coup leader, Vice Admiral Carlos Molina Tamayo.

Chavez opponents accuse him of steering Venezuela's economy into recession with leftist policies. They also say he has accumulated too much power under the guise of a "social revolution" to help the poor.

Chavez says his foes resent his efforts to end social inequality and his success in wresting power from two corrupt traditional parties that ruled Venezuela for 40 years until his 1998 election.

Chavez fired 15,000 workers from the oil monopoly - almost half the work force - for participating in the stoppage. He has threatened to close down four private television stations that gave supportive coverage to the strike.

Venezuela's oil industry - the source of half of government income and 80 percent of export revenue - is recovering from the strike. Oil production has reached 2.9 million barrels a day, according to the government. Fired PDVSA executives say it's only 2.1 million barrels a day, about two-thirds of what it was before the strike.

Venezuela was the world's fifth-largest oil exporter before the strike.

www.timesdaily.com The Associated Press March 14. 2003 1:43PM

OPEC members agreed Tuesday to stick with their current quotas for crude oil production but pledged to boost output in the future to keep supplies flowing in case of any serious disruption. Venezuela plans to produce above its OPEC crude oil output quota to make up for lost revenue during a two-month strike, the oil minister said Friday. Rafael Ramirez wouldn't say how much Venezuela would pump above its 2.8 million barrels a day quota. Output is 2.9 million barrels a day now, the government says. "We have to do it gradually so as not to affect the oil market too much," Ramirez told state television station Venezolana de Television. "It will reach a level that will compensate what we stopped selling in the market." Ramirez said Venezuela had an agreement with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries allowing it to overproduce. Venezuela is recovering from a political strike that petered out last month. Oil production reached a low of 200,000 barrels a day at the height of the walkout, which cost Venezuela $6 billion. It also forced Venezuela to spend $540 million on gasoline imports to make up for severe shortages. Executives fired from the state oil monopoly for participating in the strike say production is only 2.1 billion barrels a day. The government fired almost half the 35,000-strong work force at Petroleos de Venezuela SA for walking out. On Thursday, Venezuela brought its largest catalytic cracker back online, bringing the country a step closer to resuming gasoline exports to the United States. Venezuela was the world's fifth-largest exporter before the strike. Venezuela crude and refined products accounted for 14 percent of U.S. oil imports last year. Venezuela also announced Thursday that it had stopped importing gasoline. Ramirez also said there was an $8 to $10 premium on international oil prices because of U.S. threats to lead an attack on Iraq. He said there was enough world production to meet demand. OPEC agreed Tuesday to stick with its production target of 24.5 million barrels a day.

reuters.com Fri March 14, 2003 01:21 PM ET By Missy Ryan

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - Texas native Adyadet Cabret, suitcase in hand at Lima's airport, was close to clinching the $10,000 payment for smuggling 11 pounds (5 kg) of cocaine in a corset pressing tightly into her stomach.

Then the Peruvian police woman tapped her on the shoulder.

"I was shaking; my heart was beating fast. I turned around and thought, 'Oh my God,"' said Cabret, 28, clasping her bright auburn hair as she sat on a wooden bench in the crowded prison that has been her home for nearly three years.

Around her, the prison yard buzzed on visitors' day with mothers, toddlers in diapers and friends who braved hot sun to see inmates. Some inmates are foreigners like Cabret including Dutch, Spanish and German nationals and many more are Peruvians who took the gamble as human drug "mules" and failed.

A growing tide of mules, who stash, tape to their bodies and even swallow lucrative drugs cargo bound for Europe and the United States, are a problem for this poor nation that boasts the unenviable title of the world's No. 2 producer of cocaine.

In 2002, Peru snared 239 mules, double the 120 captures in 2001. A push to capture drug mules is just part of President Alejandro Toledo government's plan to quash illegal drugs, on the rise in Peru as neighbor Colombia, the world's biggest cocaine producer, puts the squeeze on its drug runners.

Most cocaine, made from the traditional Andean coca leaf, is snuck out of Peru by truck, in light aircraft, in giant boat shipments and other methods. But officials are worried about a spike in mules who take matters into their own hands.

'A SURE THING'

In April 2000, Cabret, a mother of three desperate for cash, traveled from her home in Waco, Texas, to South America to pick up a drugs shipment and carry it to Switzerland.

Her first trip outside the United States, it was a sure thing, her contacts said.

Three strangers met her in Quito, Ecuador, dressed her in a corset and tight shorts -- both of which, she was told, had cocaine sewn inside -- and sent her on a Lima-bound bus to catch a KLM flight to Europe. There, she would get $10,000.

In Lima's airport, Cabret was nervous and disoriented, sweating in a jacket buttoned up to her neck, when she was pulled aside by police. They strip-searched her, cut the cocaine out of the corset and shorts, and tossed it on a table in front of her.

"At that moment, I didn't care about drugs, about the money. I just wanted to go home," she said. She was sentenced to six years and eight months in jail, but will likely not serve the entire time.

"Drug runners round up people ... and offer them a sum of money that for them is extraordinary -- $4,000, $5,000 -- to carry a drug load," Marco Draganac, head of special operations for customs, told Reuters in a recent interview.

"That will keep them afloat for some time if they take the risk," he said. Most of Peru's mules are headed for Holland, he said, followed by Spain, the United States, and Russia.

Some 50 customs agents are specially trained to spot suspicious travelers -- people with humble clothes and expensive looking luggage, for example, or people bundled up in winter wear for a trip to Miami and passengers with suitcases or backpacks that look like they might have been tampered with.

CAT-AND-MOUSE

Besides the "mummies" who duct-tape drugs around their thighs, shins, or stomach, some mules carry cocaine in false-bottom suitcases, wine bottles, fake shampoo bottles or jars of jam.

In one complex process, cocaine is liquefied and then applied to clothes -- to be worn or packed -- as a "starch" which will later be melted off. Customs agents are also on the lookout for a new scheme that entails solidifying cocaine into flat discs identical to music CDs.

"Human ingenuity in efforts to outwit authorities is limitless," said Gen. Edy Tomasto, head of Peru's anti-drugs police, adding the drug mules often work in small groups -- of which one is caught and others slip by -- to mislead agents.

Agents use high-tech methods to find drugs like X-rays and special wands that detect even minute traces, but they also rely on eyeballing. "We play a cat-and-mouse game," Draganac said. "We're like a soccer goalie just waiting for the penalty kick to see who is better -- (the mule) or us."

Some hardy souls swallow up to 2 pounds (0.90 kg) of drug "capsules" that consist of cocaine deposited in tied-off condoms or fingers from surgical gloves. They are trained to stomach the drugs by swallowing whole grapes and ice cubes.

While the drugs are in their system, those mules take special drugs to stop regular digestive functions such as production of stomach acids that erode plastic, but it is still a dangerous game.

"If one of those bursts, they die immediately," Draganac said. He said several mules have perished, generally from convulsions as a massive amount of cocaine enters their system, in police hands in Peru or on international flights. Just drinking a soda, for example, can trigger those stomach acids.

But it is hard to tell whether Peru is getting better at capturing mules or whether there are simply more to capture.

Fighting drugs is a tough task in Peru, where more than half of people scrape by on $1.25 or less a day and officials struggle for basics like electricity, sewage, and schoolbooks.

"We don't have enough money," Draganac said.

BEHIND-BARS BEAUTY QUEEN

Twenty-one-year old Norlin Mota from Venezuela worked in Caracas promoting cell phone sales until she came to Peru on a mission to smuggle 5.5 pounds (2.5 kg) of cocaine in a suitcase.

The police "grabbed me," she says glumly. "I got cold feet but (the drug traffickers) told me it was my life or the trip."

Mota, wearing a bright blue tank top, her dark hair pulled back loosely, tells with an ironic smile of her election last year as queen of the prison's beauty contest. She won a stereo and beauty treatments like facials.

"I just want to get out ... and start over," she says.

U.S. citizen Cabret's children, meanwhile, are now in foster care and her family has sent word she needs to get herself out of the mess. Looking at the table in front of her through thick glasses, she says she feels used.

"I needed the money and I did it for my kids," she said. "It was my first time and I got caught."

www.vheadline.com Posted: Friday, March 14, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

El Nacional newspaper has officially apologized to Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) president, Ali Rodriguez Araque for a report involving his deceased son in alleged illegal business deals.

Rabid anti-Chavist columnist, Ibeyise Pacheco wrote a piece on February 14 accusing Rodriguez and his son, Ali Rodriguez Garaton of shady gasoline distribution deals.

El Nacional CEO Manuel Sucre admits that the piece was not accurate or truthful but defends the top bracket journalist, pointing to her correction of the error in her February 28 column.

The mistake is attributed to one of Pacheco’s sources but Sucre insists that El Nacional's editorial policy is not to damage reputations or the memory of the deceased.

“We ratify our apologies to the family and reiterate our disposition to publish any reply from Dr. Ali Rodriguez Araque and members of his family.”

www.vheadline.com Posted: Friday, March 14, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Venezuelan Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Milos Alcalay has supported Chile and Mexico’s position at the UN debate on Iraq.

Welcoming Guinea to the presidency of the Security Council, Alcalay highlights his government’s complete adherence to international law, especially compliance with decree 1441.

Venezuela’s position, Alcalay points out, is in line with a decision taken at the Non-Aligned Nations meeting in Kuala Lumpur.

Addressing the General Assembly, the Ambassador stated that the Venezuelan government agrees with the Chilean Foreign Minister’s call to seek a resolution that has the unanimous support of the Security Council.

“A solution through diplomatic channels would establish peace as the supreme value and bolster the UN's prime objective.”

Venezuela also supports efforts of UN Secretary General Koffi Annan to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict.