www.commondreams.org Published on Friday, March 14, 2003 by the Globe & Mail/Canada by Timothy Appleby

The chief threat to the world today is not Iraq, but the United States, Argentine activist says

The Bush administration's drive to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is so aggressive that even before a war has started its repercussions are being felt in every corner of the world, says Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel.

Nobel Peace Prize recipient Adolfo Perez Esquivel listens to a discussion titled: "A world without wars is possible" during the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Sunday, Feb. 3, 2002.

The Argentine, who won the 1980 Peace Prize, views President George W. Bush's plans for attacking Iraq with great alarm. "Bush is setting the world on fire," he said.

Mr. Perez Esquivel, a native of Buenos Aires, is an architect, sculptor and teacher. He won the 1980 prize for his resistance to Argentina's Dirty War against leftist rebels. Imprisoned and tortured, he was freed with help from Amnesty International and the Pope.

At 71, he leads the Latin American human-rights group Servicio, Paz y Justicia, and travels widely on behalf of the antiwar movement. He has been in Toronto and Ottawa under the auspices of the church group KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives.

After visiting Iraq last year for a firsthand look at what 12 years of sanctions and U.S. bombing attacks have done to its battered infrastructure, Mr. Perez Esquivel scoffed at the notion that Iraq poses any significant threat.

A U.S. attack, on the other hand, would open "a Pandora's box, threatening to set free the demons of death and destruction," he wrote recently.

"The chief danger in the world today is not Saddam Hussein," Mr. Perez Esquivel said. "It is the United States."

Like other critics of U.S. policy, he perceives in the United States an angry, isolated country inflicting lasting damage on itself. Mr. Perez Esquivel reaches for some words by Abraham Lincoln, quoted by President John F. Kennedy at the United Nations in 1962.

"What Lincoln said more than a century ago is that if the United States doesn't defend life, then it faces the prospect of self-destruction."

Yet unstable as the planet is, Mr. Perez Esquivel fears surging anti-Americanism will make it far more so. Across Latin America, he says, the antiwar sentiment, which has prompted big demonstrations in half a dozen countries, is vigorously feeding long-term resentment over U.S. policies on trade, tariffs, militarization and debt.

"What's happening with Iraq is not isolated, it's part of a global phenomenon. When we see the installation of U.S. military bases throughout Latin America, when we look at [American interference] in countries such as Venezuela and Colombia and Panama, we have to ask ourselves what's going on.

"Lots of people think it and won't say it, but I will say it: The United States is seeking to control the world. That's why we are seeing the reaction in so many countries."

www.gulf-news.com Dubai |By C. L. Jose | 15-03-2003

Hussain SultanEnoc is synonymous with Hussain Sultan, or vice versa. Hussain Sultan is the group chief executive and board member of Enoc and Eppco, and a director of nine subsidiary or associated companies of the Enoc Group.

He is also the executive chairman and CEO of Dragon. He is the man behind the growth story of Enoc — the energy behemoth which has now expanded to more than 26 subsidiaries and a couple of other associate companies. The number doesn't stop here. Hussain Sultan has drawn out plans for the diversification of the group, though confining itself into the energy sector itself.

All look at Hussain Sultan to see what he has got up his sleeves to combat the 'Catch 22 situation', where he is forced to sell fuel at a fixed price, irrespective of the soaring crude price. His answer is diversification. No wonder Enoc is looking at newer countries and newer businesses every other day. The group has already gone into more than 23 countries with its lubricants. It plans to expand in a couple of other countries with its storage business as well.

As everyone knows, the group now holds 70 per cent stake in Dragon — which runs upstream oil business in the CIS. With expanding international activities across East Africa, Central and South Asia, the Levant and the GCC, the Enoc Group is targeting the wider region to tap potential business opportunities. Hussain Sultan is not a person who believes in making noise and doing less — rather, the other way round. Here are excerpts from an interview Gulf News had with him recently.

How was the year 2002 for the Enoc Group? It was a challenging year. However, it was not a bad year for the whole group, although certain divisions of the group had problems, especially the retail business of Eppco. In fact, Eppco is itself a group with retail as its primary arm, but it also has diverse business interests, from storage to aviation, for example.

Can you please compare the year 2002 with 2001? The year 2002 was worse than the previous year. However, I cannot reveal the figures. Since 1983, Eppco has been operating under the 'fixed price policy'. You have to view Eppco differently from the other two national oil companies. They have other resources and businesses that will help them offset problems at the retail end. We are a professional entity and we are not subsidised in any way, unlike other two companies in this field, so we are perhaps suffering more.

The issue of fixed pricing in the fuel retailing sector has always been a problem. Have you made any representation to the government on this long-pending issue? All retail fuel companies are suffering. The government has decreed that the fuel retailers follow a fixed price policy. We are a commercial organisation and, in effect, it is we who are subsidising the market on the fuel. In other GCC countries, virtually all the fuel service stations are selling fuel at fixed price but they in turn get a fixed margin on sales. Here, we sell fuel at a fixed price irrespective of the price of the crude.

At what crude price can you break-even? At a rough estimate, when the crude is at $20 a barrel, this translates into approximately $230 for a metric tonne of gasoline. Today, crude is around $35 a barrel (on the day of the interview). However, this is a very sensitive subject. Fuel is the only commodity that is price controlled in this country as of now.

Is there any indication from the government that this issue can be sorted out? From January 1, 2003, only unleaded fuel was available in the UAE. Now we have two fuel grades — 95 and 98 — sold at Dh4 and Dh5 respectively. We hoped the new pricing structure would give us some relief. But surprisingly, 91 per cent of the petrol sales are currently the cheaper fuel (95), and the '98 unleaded' is used by a very thin customer group — those who own expensive cars.

How do you propose to address this precarious situation? We propose to shore up the bottom-line by moving into other businesses, especially non-fuel businesses. We have opened up Tasjeel, the vehicle testing and registration centres in co-operation with Dubai Police. We continuously look to other areas to diversify the business away from total reliance on retail fuel sales.

Are there any diversification plans? Of course yes, but only in the oil and gas business. We are basically an energy company and whatever projects we visualise, they will be confined to the oil and gas sector.

You have previously hinted at restructuring plans for the group and trimming the size of the company. Can you shed a little more light on this? Restructuring is a continuous process at Enoc. Oil is a commodity and the market is very volatile. A lot of things affect the price of oil, such as the geopolitical situation in the region and the problems in Venezuela, for example. All have affected the price of oil in the past few months. Speculation also affects the price. Energy companies have to remain lean to ride through lean times.

How far has this been possible for you? We have cut down costs in all our group companies. We do have a nationalisation programme, but this does not mean we will go on employing people unnecessarily. We are growing with more and more retail outlets, with an Enoc brand identity.

What about Eppco? Our expansion plan is for Enoc brand service stations. Eppco is a 60:40 joint venture between Enoc and Caltex. We have big investment plans for Enoc this year.

Any plans to buy out or sell off the stake in Eppco? This has to be decided by Caltex. This has been a successful joint venture since the 1980s and I don't see any reason why it should break up. We are happy with the joint venture.

What is the paid-up capital of Enoc? The paid up capital of Enoc is Dh500 million.

How do you propose to finance future investment plans? Any plans for bonds? These are the issues that have to be worked out by our finance and treasury departments after weighing our fund positions. As for bank loans, as in the past, we will look at both Islamic as well as mainstream financial routes in the future.

How do your retail fuel sales grow, and what is your present market share? We grow at an annual rate of 8 to 9 per cent. Our market share in Dubai and the Northern Emirates currently stands at 50 per cent.

Is there any deal that prevents you from opening service stations in Abu Dhabi? There is no agreement or contract that says that we should not open service stations in Abu Dhabi.

Can you explain the current status of Dragon Oil? This is a very good asset that Enoc acquired which is 69.4 per cent share four years ago. Major investments are planned for Dragon during the current year that might help raise the output from the present 15,000 bpd upwards. In terms of performance, the year 2002 had been a much better year.

What happened to the $50 million loan from Enoc to Dragon? That is due in the next two to three months. The board will decide whether it can be re-negotiated, because Dragon is a public listed company.

Which areas will Enoc focus on in future? We have major assets within the group. One is the 120,000 tonnes a day condensate refinery in Jebel Ali.

We also have the subsidiary Dugas, which has two gas processing plants. Dugas is responsible for processing natural gas produced in Dubai's offshore oil fields as well as gas piped from Sharjah.

We have substantial storage facilities for petroleum products. Most historically profitable group companies have gone through hard times during the last year. But things are changing. We are optimistic that this year will be good for us.

We are looking at new businesses overseas. Oil storage will be a strategic business for the group in future. We are planning to substantially increase our oil trading business. Fresh investments in other local and international energy companies are also planned. We are looking at selected downstream projects, refuelling operations overseas, including India. We are marketing lubricants in 23 countries and this is constantly expanding.

www.taipeitimes.com BLOOMBERG Saturday, Mar 15, 2003,Page 12

ECONOMICS: Market forces appear to have trumped politics as shipments of Iraqi crude to the US more than tripled from September to January to 17.1 million barrels

As the George W. Bush administration masses troops in the Persian Gulf in preparation for a war to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, US refineries are the biggest customers for the crude oil Iraq produces.

Shipments to the US more than tripled from September to January, according to the Commerce Department. Iraq supplied 17.1 million barrels in January, 6.4 percent of total US oil imports and up from 5.15 million four months earlier.

The jump in imports came as an illegal surcharge that benefited the Iraqi government was dropped and as refiners sought alternatives for crude from Venezuela, where a strike crippled oil production.

"The US is by far the biggest customer of Iraqi oil," said Eric Kreil, an analyst at the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration. "Iraqi oil is a pretty good substitute for the Venezuelan grades that were cut off."

Iraq pumps about 3 percent of the world's oil and is the third-largest producer in the Middle East. The prospect of a war in Iraq has helped boost the US benchmark oil price by 39 percent since November.

Iraq is allowed to export oil under an exception to UN-imposed sanctions imposed after the country's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The UN must approve Iraq's oil sales, and proceeds are designated to pay for food, medicine and oil-industry equipment.

The surcharge, which helped the government skirt UN control of oil revenue, stopped toward the end of last year, said George Beranek, an analyst with Petroleum Finance Co in Washington. That made Iraqi crude competitive with oil from other sources.

US imports of Iraqi oil rose by 64 percent in November from October, after falling to a four-year low in September. They continued to climb in December and January, according to Commerce Department figures released yesterday.

The global oil market doesn't discriminate against a country's oil as long as it's priced competitively, said Youseff Ibrahim, editor in chief at Energy Intelligence Group Inc in New York.

"It's not a deliberate decision by the US or anyone" that made the US the largest user of Iraqi oil, he said.

The US doesn't import oil from Iran and Libya, two other states that the government has identified as supporters of terrorism.

In 1986, the Ronald Reagan administration banned US companies from doing business in Libya; UN sanctions against the country were imposed in 1992.

The US has imported little Iranian oil since 1979, according to Lowell Feld, an international oil-markets analyst at the Energy Department.

"US sanctions have waxed and waned since then," he said.

"The last time the US imported Iranian oil was in 1991," when the government allowed limited shipments, he said.

Bush said in April that he would only support lifting US sanctions against Libya and Iran if they acknowledged past acts of state-sponsored terrorism.

About two-thirds of the oil Iraq exported in February went to the Americas, and half of that went to the US, according to an analysis by Energy Intelligence Group. That suggests the pace of imports the Commerce Department reported for January continued last month.

US refiners have been buying Iraqi oil as an alternative to supplies from Venezuela, which were cut off when workers went on strike in early December. Venezuela met 10 percent of US oil needs before the strike began. Iraq's Basrah and Kirkuk grades are reasonable substitutes for the crude produced in Venezuela, which is a high-sulfur or "sour" grade.

"Iraq got an additional boost from Venezuela," Beranek said. "US refiners took any bit of crude they could get, particularly sour crudes."

"There was a certain stigma associated with taking Iraqi crude because it was assumed that you paid a surcharge" that benefited Hussein, Beranek said.

www.bonitanews.com Saturday, March 15, 2003 By JANINE A. ZEITLIN, Staff Writer

The beach. The sand. The winterless weather.

Those are some of the reasons why folks settle in Bonita Springs. Few are stopping on a mission to write books on sexuality, fleeing what they see an oppressive government and happening to get baptized as a Presbyterian along the way.

Matilde Faria, a doctor and a psychotherapist from Venezuela, poses in her home office in Bonita Springs adorned with photographs of New York City where she studied for eight years. Faria is now trying to stay in the United States because of the political turmoil in Venezuela. Cameron Gillie/Staff That's what makes 39-year-old Matilde Faria unique.

From a Pennsylvania Avenue duplex peppered with American flags, Faria — a doctor and a psychotherapist in her native Venezuela — came looking for a quiet place to work her two books. Now, amidst political upheaval in Venezuela, Faria, a critic of the country's current leftist administration, says she doesn't feel safe going home. Protests for and against President Hugo Chavez, who was briefly ousted from office in April, have been ongoing for almost two years. General strikes against Chavez have slowed the country's economy.

She is working with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to find a way to stay. The First Presbyterian Church of Bonita Springs has embraced the high-energy intellectual and is guiding her in a scramble for a solution as time runs thin.

Faria, the only child of a Venezuelan Army general, was born in Caracas in 1963. Skipping grades in school, she graduated high school at 14 and headed directly to medical school, where she met her fiancée. Upon graduation, her fiancée died in a mountain-climbing accident. Faria cared for her fiancée's parents during the following year in a small town near Caracas.

That's when she discovered a knack for therapy, says Faria, whose coffee table is stacked with books by Freud.

"I forbid myself to cry. His mother came to talk to me and she started to find in me the pyschotherapist and maybe that was an open door," she said.

To leave painful memories behind, she left Venezuela at 21 to attend a language institute in suburban New Jersey and went on to master in human sexuality at New York University in New York City. When her student visa expired, she returned to Venezuela and worked as a therapist. She published a book in 1987 to help children understand their bodies.

"We say these are the eyes, this is the stomach until you just jump into the knees," she said. "If we don't give them the power of knowledge, then people have the power to abuse them."

Soon after the book came out, she moved to Valencia, Venezuela, where she worked until 1999 as a professor teaching education, human sexuality and child development.

In spring 2002, Faria moved to Southwest Florida to translate her children's book into English and write another book about the sexuality of middle-aged women. Her original destination was New York City. She ended up in Bonita because it was only a few hours by plane from Venezuela and she didn't want to subject her dog — whose likeness she has blazoned on a T-shirt — to many hours in the plane's cargo or the drive from Florida to New York.

Staying with a friend of a friend in Naples, she struck out to find her own place. But with no U.S. credit, she landed in a trailer in Rosemary Park. In the midst of rocky times, she found herself in front of the First Presbyterian Church of Bonita Springs and decided to attend. Not raised religiously, a Presbyterian pastor had supported her in New Jersey when she asked for help organizing a memorial for her fiancée.

Her first visit, she felt out of place.

"You can't imagine how the people were looking at me. I looked like a fly in a cup of milk. All these people are Anglo-Saxons!" said Faria, whose dark hair is lobbed in a boyish cut.

The church's pastors reached out to her and she was baptized before joining in June. Hesitant at first, the congregation soon embraced her, especially when George Pattison, a church deacon, and his wife Beth, whom Faria calls her "American parents," included her in church events.

"It wasn't easy but they would take me places and say, 'Well, she's with us. So what about it?'" Faria says. "But I came without anyone and now I have 2,000 members of my family."

Pattison, a-61-year-old New York native, approached her initially because of her background in New York. The Pattisons have helped her in editing her books. He says it's hard not to get to know Faria.

"She's very personable and friendly and led people into her life," he said, noting people are attracted to her uniqueness and sophistication. "Whereas when other people would come into the country they might have bought 25 changes of underwear, she brought artwork."

Riding on a recommendation from the First Presbyterian Church, Faria moved to her current home in July.

She returned to Venezuela for five short days to renew her tourist visa and re-entered the United States and started the process to stay. Church leaders arranged a consultation for her with an immigration lawyer and she applied for a six-month tourist visa extension upon recommendation that applying for political asylum was too difficult.

Christina Leddin, an accredited immigration specialist at the Amigos Center in Bonita Springs, a Hispanic advocacy group, says immigrants run a big risk applying for political asylum. If they don't win the case, they're deported, Leddin said. Leddin says most successful political asylum cases in the area come from Haiti and Colombia, but expects that may change if political turmoil in Venezuela persists.

"Venezuelan political asylum I haven't heard of as much, but as things continue to deteriorate down there, that may happen," she said.

Pattison said church leaders tried to find a place for Faria on staff, but there are no positions in the church for someone whose main professional focus has been sexuality and therapy. Plus, in order to sponsor an immigrant on a work visa the church must prove that it can't hire a local person, he said.

Now, George Pattison is helping Faria look into the possibility of gaining sponsorship to obtain a work visa, pending her receiving a visa extension. He thinks her best option is to gain U.S. nursing certification and attempt to obtain sponsorship from a local medical facility.

Faria — who is deeding the rights of the English version of her children's book to the First Presbyterian Church of Bonita Springs — is crossing her fingers for a yes from INS.

"It's the best thing I can do. They came to me and gave me such a feeling of joy" despite her life's complications, she says.

By month's end, Faria expects an answer from the INS. She says she fears for her life if she's goes back because she was vocal in her opposition of Chavez. She, like other Chavez opponents, says he's running a dictatorship and democratic principles have fallen by the wayside.

"It's another Cuba," Faria says. "Now, I'm not going back. I prefer to be alive than have a bullet in my head. I can't go back."

(Contact Staff Writer Janine Zeitlin at 213-6036 or jazeitlin@naplesnews.com)

www.alertnet.org 15 Mar 2003 02:00

BRASILIA, Brazil, March 14 (Reuters) - Forest fires burning in Brazil's northern Amazon jungle have spread to the reserve of the Yanomami Indians, one of the world's last hunter-gatherer tribes, and the government urged farmers not to light more fires during the dry season.

Environment Minister Marina Silva said on Friday the government would offer financial compensation to farmers who don't burn their land in preparation for the sowing season after fires set so far burned out of control in some parts of Roraima state.

Silva said satellites revealed that fires had spread two miles (three km) inside the Yanomami reserve, although they were still far from Indian villages in the remote area bordering Venezuela.

The fires, fueled by unusually dry weather caused by the "El Nino" phenomenon, have prompted fears of a repeat of the devastating 1998 blaze in the same part of the Amazon -- a region which is home to up to 30 percent of the world's animal and plant life.

"While the situation is serious, if we make a comparison with 1998, it is completely different," said Silva. "Before there were no specialized firefighters."

Brazil has five helicopters, 500 men -- including specialized firefighters and soldiers -- and dozens of vehicles in the area helping to put out the fires.

Silva said another 1,000 firefighters were on standby in Brasilia.

With the worst of the dry season approaching, the government offered financial compensation to prevent more farmers from burning their land, a common practice ahead of sowing.

The Yanomami, one of the world's only true Neolithic tribes, had lived in near-total isolation for about 2,000 years until the late 1970s, when Brazil's military government conducted aerial surveys in the area. There are an estimated 26,000 of them living in the jungles.

Environmental authorities estimate about 23 square miles (60 sq km) of forest have been destroyed in the current fires while in 1998, 185 square miles (480 sq km) were destroyed.