news.bbc.co.uk Last Updated:  Friday, 14 March, 2003, 22:20 GMT

Costa Rica has granted political asylum to a leader of the recent failed strike to oust Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Carlos Ortega, who faces rebellion and incitement charges, walked into the Costa Rican embassy in Caracas on Friday, saying he feared for his personal safety.

The trade union leader, who had been in hiding, played a key part in the two-month strike which paralysed Venezuela's vital oil industry.

Venezuelan Interior and Justice Minister Lucas Rincon said Mr Ortega would be given safe passage out of the country.

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"For humanitarian reasons... [Costa Rica] decided to grant asylum and it has communicated as much to the Venezuelan Government," a Costa Rican foreign ministry statement said.

Hundreds of flag-waving supporters of Mr Ortega surrounded the embassy to cheer him, chanting "Ortega, friend, the people are with you!"

Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel issued a statement in which he did not criticise Costa Rica's decision to grant Mr Ortega asylum but condemned the two-month strike he had helped organise.

"Dangerous events occurred which endangered the life and physical safety of the population," he said.

Crackdown

Mr Ortega had been in hiding since 20 February when a judge issued a warrant for his arrest.

The president of the one-million-strong Venezuelan Workers Confederation was initially accused of treason, rebellion and incitement though the charge of treason was later withdrawn.

Chavez regards strike leaders as traitors

Another leader of the strike, Carlos Fernandez of the Venezuelan business confederation Fedecameras, is currently under house arrest awaiting trial on the same charges.

Arrest warrants have also been issued for seven fugitive executives of the state oil monopoly, Petroleos de Venezuela SA.

President Chavez has allowed two other major political foes to leave the country over the past year:

• Pedro Carmona, who briefly replaced him as president during April's coup, was allowed to leave for Colombia

• Naval officer Carlos Molina, who faced an investigation for his part in the coup, was granted refuge in El Salvador

Venezuela's strike, which petered out in February, was the culmination of unrest against President Chavez, a populist leader with leftist tendencies who narrowly survived a coup in 2002.

His critics accuse him of amassing power and damaging the economy with his policies.

Venezuela, once the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, is still recovering from the strike.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Friday, March 14, 2003 By: Thais J. Gangoo

VHeadline.com lifestyle correspondent Thais J. Gangoo writes: A short word that brings the spice to our lives!  

There's no night life in Caracas without a cold beer ... no one of ever knew how important it was for us until last December when it practically disappeared from our kitchens, discos, supermarkets and even liquor stores, giving the chance to our traditional “Guarapita” to show up again more than ever before. Of course, no one could find our queen, so people started inventing all kinds of cocktails so they could enjoy at least a nice “Dominoes game” during the strike.

 A couple of months ago, people would pay up to Bs 3,000 for only one beer. Right now we can find a beer for even Bs 350each!  No wonder now the streets of Caracas are full of people from all ages after 12 in the morning hanging out with their buddies, drinking beer, dancing and having all the fun they missed during the strike. Although, asking for a beer has become not an easy task for some. There are so many options to order a beer. And it has been the idea of the owners of many places located in Caracas so people can keep their pockets from being empty. We can see them served in big jars, buckets, bottles and all kinds of containers. We can enjoy a beer in so many ways!

What about those Venezuelans who life overseas?  Can they find a “Birra” wherever they are?

In many places around the world people can ask for one and experience the taste our cherished beer ... I'm pretty sure our VHeadline.com readers in the US can find it easily because I did, when I lived there ... you guys are going to love it!

Beer is one of the most famous beverages in the world and it has become one way of helping people to celebrate any occasion  and relax. Now, here comes a question: What is it in beer that makes it so special? Beer is just a mixture of some barley, hops, water and yeast besides those special other ingredients each company has. Going through several steps until we get the final product delivered anywhere we are ... the “Birra” ... that’s how we call it in Venezuela, our faithful friend anytime. Moreover, there are many facts about beer that we don’t know about.

For instance…  Did you know that...

Just like cereals, beer is a rich source of B vitamins ?

Drinking a bottle of beer a day can reduce the risk of kidney stones about 40%?

The first to brew beer where the Egyptians?

It takes 1500 gallons of water to make 1 barrel of beer?

Beer is less fattening than milk?

In the Andes, a corn based beer called Chicha is produced by allowing Amyltylic Enzymes in human saliva to break down starches into sugars?

The world Guinness World Beer record in 1979 was reached when Steven Petrocino drank a liter of beer in 1.3 seconds?

Isn’t that interesting?  We all drink it if not every weekend once in a while, but maybe some of us didn’t know these facts about beer. I'm pretty sure there is still a lot more information about it.

After midnight… 

Last week, I was invited to go out to a well known place located in Las Mercedes. For all our VHeadline.com readers who don’t know ... Las Mercedes is like South Beach for all the “Caraquenos” ... it's the neighborhood where all the streets are decorated with lights and all kinds of designs specially made for the discos, pubs, and restaurants there. Places for all tastes ... from the most elegant places to the informal cafeteria ... and, if you're lucky enough, you get to see the stars from the TV shows and even famous characters we have seen on the news lately...

Sometimes our eyes are not fast enough to see the newest bikes and cars that some like to show off when they go out ... people go to Las Mercedes to have fun, and show off what they've got!

It’s the place to be … if you want to be seen!

Get the party started…

After-hours making calls and deciding what time to meet in that place, we finally got there. We had agreed that we would meet there at 10 o’clock, however, just like most Venezuelans, some of our friends got there after 11 or so. It is funny, but some things we’ll never change, and one of them is the quality of being late sometimes when we go out to party.

When we got there, the place was empty ... for a moment I thought people were not going out as much as before for any reason, and I truly couldn’t believe it. Venezuelans like to party no matter what! Anyway, we ordered a bucket-full of beers and waited for the others. Of course we couldn’t forget the popcorn and the chicken wings!

Amazingly, the place was packed after almost 1 o’clock in the morning ... people do go out and they do enjoy it!

Later and later each day, and I keep wondering why ... why do we go out that late, when we could go out earlier and have more time to have a blast?

That’s a good question that some of our VHeadline.com readers might like to wonder about ... try to answer and even help me understand.

After a few hours, we left the place and drove around the city. Oh, what else can we ask for? At that time you can see it all you have never seen before; from some silly fights to the newest romance being born. You can even seen others helping their buddies get back on their feet or get them into a taxi, making sure they get home safe.

Of course there is a sad side to the story too … a little girl, or a little boy, selling flowers and all kind of things to bring home some money, and even a homeless person looking inside a trashcan to get something to eat. Sadly, there is always the other side of the story.

Before going home…

At the end of the night (or should I say the beginning of the day?), it's impossible to miss an “Arepa,”  a “Cachapa,” or even a hot dog on the street ... that’s the best part for some Caraquenos … there nothing like having a great time with your buddies drinking beer and dancing ... and then before going home, to have “Breakfast” around 5 o'clock.

Hopefully, we all remember what we did the night before, after we wake up. And believe me ... if we don’t. that means we probably had such a great time. Don’t think too much about the hangover you probably got thanks to the “Birra.” We all wish to have a delicious soup waiting for us to start the day again and wait for our welcome Monday!

There is no doubt about it….

“Venezuelans bring the spirit to the party, and the beer is the Queen of our weekends!”

www.ohio.com Posted on Fri, Mar. 14, 2003 BRUCE STANLEY Associated Press

LONDON - If U.S.-led forces invade Iraq, world oil prices will probably plunge from current levels and stay there - so long as the conflict ends quickly and causes little damage to production capacity in the Persian Gulf, several energy analysts said Friday.

However, a war that spills into neighboring countries or one in which Saddam Hussein sabotages his own oil fields could panic markets and trigger a spike in prices to $50 or even $60 a barrel, some said.

The wide range of forecasts is a sign of the difficulty analysts face in trying to envision how markets will react to a war of unpredictable severity.

Fighting might be over in a few days, or it might erupt into a regional conflagration that affects crude exports from Kuwait and even Saudi Arabia. How OPEC and oil-importing countries respond to a war will also have a great influence on prices.

Perhaps the only certainty is that markets will welcome any move that keeps supplies flowing.

Crude prices fell Friday on reports that Saudi Arabia's state-run oil company Saudi Aramco had chartered supertankers to carry an exceptionally large shipment of crude - 28 million barrels - to the United States for delivery in May. April contracts of U.S. light, sweet crude tumbled by more than $2 a barrel in New York before rebounding somewhat to $34.90, down $1.11 from Thursday's close. In London, North Sea Brent crude futures were trading 98 cents lower at $31.45.

Analysts say that fears of a wartime disruption in supply have swollen crude prices by at least $5 a barrel. This so-called war premium has increased along with tensions in the Persian Gulf because markets worry that hostilities with Iraq will paralyze that country's 2 million barrels in daily oil shipments.

Although prices might rise in the last hours before any actual outbreak of hostilities, several analysts predicted that an attack on Iraq would knock the floor out from beneath the market - just as it did when coalition forces launched Operation Desert Storm on Jan. 16, 1991.

Futures contracts of U.S. light, sweet crude plummeted by $10.90 a barrel on Jan. 17, 1991 to close in New York at $21.30.

"History would suggest that oil prices would go down fairly rapidly, maybe $5-7 a barrel, probably within one day," said Angus McPhail, an analyst at ING Financial Markets in Edinburgh, Scotland.

He believes that markets will be awash in crude after a swift war, particularly if Venezuela continues to recover from an oil industry strike and other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries keep busting their output quotas. For the second half of the year, ING Financial Markets foresees an average Brent crude price of $18.50 a barrel.

"We are adamant that oil prices will fall," McPhail said.

Matthew Cordaro, an energy specialist at Long Island University, in Brookville, N.Y., argued that U.S. crude prices would fall to $25-28 a barrel "within a couple of days" of the start of a war.

Prices might fall by an additional $2 a barrel beyond that, Cordaro said, if President Bush authorizes a release of crude from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or SPR.

U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has repeatedly emphasized that the United States will tap into its 600 million barrels of strategic reserves only if it sees a serious disruption in crude supplies. A short war that didn't impair Iraq's ability to soon resume exporting oil would probably not warrant a release of SPR oil, Cordaro said.

The first line of defense for importing countries in the event of a war would be an increase in OPEC oil production. OPEC this week estimated its spare production capacity at 2-4 million barrels a day, but the International Energy Agency said that OPEC might not be able to raise output quickly by more than 1 million barrels. The agency is the energy watchdog for major consuming countries.

Adam Sieminski, an oil price strategist at Deutsche Bank in London, argued that the Bush administration would most likely tap into U.S. strategic reserves in a war. If not, he said, "Bush will win the war but lose the 2004 election."

With no SPR oil, Sieminski said it was impossible to predict how high prices could go.

"Who knows? It's going to be much higher than it is now, with consequent damage to the world economy," he said.

In a worst-case scenario, a wider war could inflame regional hostility to the United States and lead to another Arab oil embargo. Prices might then spike to as much as $60 a barrel, said Rob Laughlin, managing director of London brokerage GNI Man Financial.

Former Saudi Arabian oil minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani agreed, telling an industry conference Friday that prices could exceed $50 a barrel if supplies from neighboring countries such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were interrupted.

However, Yamani said that a short and successful war against Iraq could push prices to under $25 a barrel.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Friday, March 14, 2003 By: Kay Onefeather

Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2003 22:16:21 EST From: Kay Onefeather Kaonefeather@aol.com To: Editor@VHeadline.com Subject: What Am I Missing?

Dear Editor: What am I missing?  I fail to understand how street rioting and open rebellion against the duly elected President of Venezuela is "democracy in action."

What am I missing?

It wasn't the sabotage of oil refineries by employees of the opposition to halt production  of the prized "Black Gold."

It wasn't the televised demand for assassination of President Chavez Frias by one of the oppositions leaders.

I didn't and haven't missed the overwhelming poverty suffered by the majority of the population for decades, while the opposition was in control.

I didn't miss the blatant attempts to paralyze the economy, with NO regard for the sufferings of the people.

I didn't miss all the attempts to force illegal early elections.

I do not miss the almost daily shenanigans of the conniving opposition malcontents, bent on destroying the democratically-elected President, at the expense of the country -- Venezuela -- and its people.

What General of one democracy would dare say such things are "democracy in action," when these things  are happening in another democracy? Certainly not one from my country! The very first attempt at such malfeasance would be swiftly dealt with, no exception.

So...what am I missing?

Where is this double standard evaluation originating?

Perhaps, it is a misquote; perhaps a typo ... or, perhaps it is just another malicious lie.

One more lie amidst a deluge of lies about Venezuela.

Kay Onefeather kaonefeather@aol.com

www.alertnet.org 14 Mar 2003 19:27

CARACAS, Venezuela, March 14 (Reuters) - A Venezuelan union boss sought by authorities for leading a crippling strike against President Hugo Chavez has asked for political asylum at the Costa Rican embassy, a government official said on Friday.

Carlos Ortega, a fierce critic of Chavez who spearheaded the two-month opposition strike that tried to oust the leftist leader, went into hiding last month ago after the government arrested another strike leader.

"The information I have is that he has asked for asylum from the government of Costa Rica," Interior Minister Lucas Rincon said.

Opposition demonstrators quickly surrounded the Costa Rican embassy building in support of Ortega, who faces civil rebellion and other charges for leading the strike that disrupted oil output in the world's No. 5 petroleum exporter.

Chavez, a former paratrooper who survived a brief coup in April last year, brands his political enemies "terrorists and coup mongers". He has threatened to arrest strike leaders who he accuses of trying to sabotage the oil industry.

Ortega is the third major foe of Chavez to seek political sanctuary overseas in the last year.

Pedro Carmona, the opposition business chief who briefly replaced Chavez as president during April's coup last year, was allowed to leave for Colombia last year. Retired naval officer Carlos Molina, who faced an investigation for his part in the coup, was later granted refuge in El Salvador.