english.pravda.ru 16:53 2003-03-21

America hasn’t yet destroyed Iraq by bombing, but the US Administration already begins a post-war reconstruction of the country. The situation resembles selling of lots on the Moon very much: purchase of such lots is possible, but at the same time it is very much fantastic.

The US Administration, as a manager of the Iraqi territory can give contracts to the sum total of 900 million dollars exclusively to US companies with a view of “initial reconstruction”.

And the situation is spoken about from a humanitarian point of view: as if the matter concerns a new “Marshall plan”, more investments in a young Iraqi democracy (but in fact it is not born yet). It is astonishing that objects of “initial reconstruction” are thoroughly studied already and “Iraqi money” is being distributed among friendly corporations.

In what democratic processes exactly are Americans going to invest? To begin with, they will invest in reconstruction of oil objects that Saddam, as supposed, is surely to damage. And quite natural that other objects will be damaged during bombings as well.

Then goes development of the military infrastructure. At that, it has been openly declared already that American army is to come to Iraq to stay there.

There are five American companies that will participate in the Iraqi reconstruction; two of them are the construction firms Bechtel and Fluor, plus the Halliburton oil group. Incumbent vice-president of America Richard Cheney used to be at head of the oil group, which by the way attaches some particular cynical tinge to the situation.

Halliburton representatives admitted that a subsidiary of the company, Kellogg, Brown and Foot “is working on prevention of arsons on Iraqi oil wells.” And this statement actually means that American special services are currently working on Mr. Cheney’s firm, and special forces will also have to fight under the flag of the oil concern.

The US International Development Agency announced its scheme of post-war activities; they pledged to reconstruct roads, bridges, mosques, schools and hospitals within half a year after the war. Together with this plan, there are also skeptical opinions saying that if Americans get oil, but other states don’t get anything at all, they will all the same suffer from consequences of the war.

The war will inevitably entail oil deficit and a sudden bounce of the oil price. France’s Liberation reports: “The next day after beginning of US’s war in Iraq, two million of barrels of Iraqi oil will vanish from the world market, consequently, OPEC’s total oil production level will drop to 22.5 million of barrels per day.” Besides, as the war begins, it’s highly likely that oil supplies from Kuwait that is close to the front will be also stopped; this means another reduction by 2 million of barrels on the world market. It is forecasted that oil prices will go up to 70 dollars per barrel. The pre-war oil price at the London Exchange made up 35 dollars.

OPEC representatives are trying to dispel such gloomy apprehensions: they say they have an opportunity to increased oil production every day (today’s total quota makes up 24.5 million of barrels per day) and to fix a price corridor within the limits of 22 to 28 dollars per barrel. It was decided that as soon as the war begins in Iraq, the oil cartel will increase its daily oil production by 4 million barrels. Saudi Arabia, the key oil producer, suggested that quotas on oil export deliveries must be cancelled in case of war in Iraq. The oil monarchy can increase its daily production of oil by 4 million of barrels, at that it will cover the deficit independently.

However, OPEC’s promises don’t sound convincing for those who deal with the fuel market professionally. Specialists say, majority of oil producing countries are at the breaking point of their production capacities. Even Venezuela’s recent return to the market of oil exporters cannot change the present-day situation radically as it hasn’t yet got back to its previous level of oil supplies. Venezuela Oil Minister Rafal Rodriguez declared at an extraordinary OPEC session in Vienna that at that moment oil production in the country made up 2.65 million of barrels of oil per day (and the quota makes up 2.81 million).

In accordance with available calculations, the West can hold out without importing oil within 110 days at the expense of its reserves. It is not clear what may happen then. It is probable that the West will be stricken with a fuel crisis, similar to that experienced in the early 1970s.

Sergey Dunayev Nezavisimoye obozrenie newspaper

Translated by Maria Gousseva

Read the original in Russian: accidents.pravda.ru

www.wbbm780.com Friday, March 21, 2003, 7:28 a.m. By HERBERT G. McCANN Associated Press Writer CHICAGO (AP) -- Gasoline prices in Illinois have leveled off after rising sharply over the winter on fears of a U.S. attack on Iraq, according to AAA Chicago Motor Club. War has come, and despite the high prices, motorists continued to fill up Thursday, with some saying they will not stop using their cars no matter how high gasoline prices rise. "Like food, you have to pay for it," said CPA Russ Cook as he pumped gasoline at a Loop service station where regular unleaded gasoline cost $1.94 a gallon. "No matter how high gasoline prices go, it won't stop (my) driving." Statewide, the price of regular unleaded gasoline averaged $1.74 a gallon, about 48 cents higher than last March, said Steve Nolan, spokesman for the AAA-Chicago Motor Club. The average nationwide is $1.71 a gallon. Gasoline prices across Illinois varied widely, with regular unleaded averaging $1.78 a gallon in Chicago, $1.59 a gallon in East St. Louis, and $1.62 a gallon in Springfield, according to a survey by AAA-Chicago. Prices in Illinois have been high all winter due to fears of war and because of the cutoff of crude oil production in Venezuela. On Wednesday, U.S. and British forces began bombing Iraqi positions ahead of the movement of ground forces into Iraq. "There is no sign of panic buying by consumers or panic selling by dealers," Nolan said. The AAA and the petroleum industry issued a joint statement Thursday saying the nation's oil and natural gas industry is working hard to ensure supplies of fuel will continue uninterrupted. The statement said gasoline and diesel fuel inventories are adequate to meet normal demand and refinery production remains strong. "Hopefully, the statement would put people at ease," said Nolan. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries sought to calm oil markets by announcing its members will maximize output to make up for any disruption in crude exports from Iraq. Eugene Frimpong, a pharmacy student from Ghana, and a taxi driver for five years, says current gasoline prices are hurting his bottom line. Frimpong also said due to the economic slowdown, he has to work real hard to find customers in the Loop, and a decline in travel has slowed business at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

www.forbes.com Dan Ackman, 03.21.03, 9:06 AM ET

NEW YORK - There have been oil supply disruptions in the past week, but not in the Persian Gulf. The relatively small-scale disruptions came in Nigeria, where Shell Transport and Trading announced further closures of oil flow stations owing to recent violence near the company's facilities.

Shell (nyse: SC - news - people ) plans to withdraw all staff from north of the Niger Delta, which likely would cut oil output by about 126,000 barrels per day. This and other disruptions in the West African nation have been overshadowed and prices have dropped as the U.S.-led war against Iraq has gone largely according to plan.

Since the end of diplomatic efforts made the Iraq war certain, world oil prices have fallen by more than 25% and continued their decline overnight. Fears that drove prices higher in the last three months have not been realized as world oil markets shrugged off the minor supply disruptions caused by the war, which total less than 1% of OPEC's output.

Benchmark Brent crude oil fell 42 cents, to $25.08 per barrel, in London morning trading and touched a three-month low of $24.80. U.S. crude futures also plumbed fresh three-month lows, down 43 cents to $27.69. The world price of oil has dropped between 26% and 27% in a week.

There have been reports issued by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Kuwaiti television that there may be oil fires in Kuwait, but the Iraqi oil minister has denied the reports and a British military spokesman said U.S. forces should seize much of Iraq's Rumaila oilfields intact. In the short term, legal oil exports from Iraq have ceased, but that stoppage has not actually cut into supplies. There have been no reported disruptions of tanker movements in the Persian Gulf.

In any event, Iraq's fellow OPEC members have stepped in.

Speaking for the group, Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, minister of energy and industry of the state of Qatar and president of the OPEC conference, said in a statement: "In light of the events unfolding in Iraq and the interruption of supplies from an OPEC founder member, in my capacity as president of the conference, I have consulted with their excellencies, the heads of delegation to the OPEC conference, with whom I have discussed the implementation of the above-mentioned conference decision." That decision was "to respond to any supply crisis," but so far there is none.

Venezuela, OPEC's only democracy, has revived production. Its government claims production of 3 million barrels per day--about what the country was producing before labor unrest began there in early December 2002. This quantity is slightly more than Iraq produced before the war, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

While oil price drops are generally good for the U.S. and other oil importers, Reuters reports that in the Middle East, the news is being seen as not so good and the Saudi-led response to the war has caused divisions within the cartel.

While OPEC Secretary General Alvaro Silva Of Venezuela said that members have been authorized to use their spare capacity to make up for the shortage of Iraq supply, Iranian Oil Ministry Adviser Hossein Kazempour Ardebili disagreed. He said on Friday any increase in output would be a "violation" since no decision had been taken to raise OPEC quota limits.

"The OPEC general secretary is not authorized to say this and it is OPEC that could decide about it and none of the OPEC ministers approved it," Reuters quoted Kazempour as saying.

"It is giving a green light to America to launch an attack and none of the OPEC members wants to give a green light to attack another OPEC member," he said. OPEC President Abdullah al-Attiyah said on Thursday the exporter group saw no need to pump more oil into a saturated market.

www.forbes.com Reuters, 03.21.03, 8:30 AM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. consumer prices posted their biggest gain more than two years in February as food costs rose and energy surged on the march to war with Iraq, the government said on Friday. The Consumer Price Index, the main U.S. inflation gauge, advanced 0.6 percent last month, the Labor Department said, outstripping the 0.5 percent increase expected by Wall Street economists. But outside those categories, prices were mostly well-contained, the report showed. Energy prices shot up 5.9 percent, the largest increase since June 2000 while food costs staged their biggest rise since June 1996, gaining 0.7 percent. The core CPI, which strips out volatile food and energy costs, increased just 0.1 percent, a bit less than the 0.2 percent economists had expected. While consumer prices have risen a strong 3.0 percent over the last 12 months, much of that reflects higher energy costs. The core CPI is up just 1.7 percent over that period, its smallest 12-month gain in nearly 37 years. Oil prices rose sharply through February after a now-ended workers' strike in Venezuela cut into supplies and as the United States prepared for war with Iraq. But in recent days, as war came to appear inevitable and as bombs ultimately began to drop, prices have reversed course, shedding a quarter of their value from recent highs. Crude oil futures were near a three-month low in European trade on Friday. The Labor Department's report showed a 9.9 percent increase in the price of gasoline, the largest monthly gain since June 2000, while the cost of fuel oil spiked up 15.8 percent, the sharpest increase since February of 2000. As for food, prices for beef and veal shot up 3.3 percent, the steepest increase since January 1984. Pork prices rose 1.1 percent, poultry gained 1.2 percent and vegetable prices rose 1.5 percent. Labor said there were no special factors to account for the jump in food costs. Federal Reserve policymakers believe inflation may be set to drift lower this year given a high degree of slack in the economy, minutes from a January rate-setting meeting released on Thursday showed. However, officials spoke about a number of "crosscurrents" in the inflation picture.

Posted: Friday, March 21, 2003 By: Kira Marquez Perez

Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2003 13:45:07 +0100 From: Kira Marquez Perez marquez@uni-duesseldorf.de To: editor@vheadline.com Subject: Gobbels Media

Dear Editor: In the last months the subject: “Democracy and freedom in Venezuela” has completely invaded our lives. The Venezuelan “opposition” cries for help to the international community, claiming that “our human rights and our freedom are being violated by a terrible dictator named Chavez.”

This “dictator” has alleged relations to terrorist groups all over the world (Al Qaeda, ETA, IRA, etc) and he even supposedly finances them all … well … at least that’s what they say on Venevision, RCTV, Televen and Globovision (which are all supposed to be serious channels in spite of all the falsifications and montages they’ve shown us).

However, I believe we've probably been too severe in judging the owners of these channels. Why should we? They haven’t done anything new!  These methods have been used (and are even being currently used) in several other countries in the world. During World War II Joseph Gobbels (Hitler's propaganda minister) adopted this style. The information was distorted, edited, censored and twisted in order to adapt it to the Nazi's needs. Even history books were changed to favor the Nazi!  Lies were repeated thousands times. During the Stalin era, the Russians lived similar experiences because the press was completely under the leader’s control. Even Saddam Hussein (Iraq), Slobodan Milosevic (Yugoslavia), Kim Jong Il (North Korea) and many other dictators have used similar methods throughout history..

In Venezuela, the situation is quite different.  In our case, it is certainly not the President who is using dictator-styled methods ... but the opposition itself, which also owns the press.

Now, even the North American media makes assertions concerning the Venezuelan “dictator” and “terrorist” Hugo Chavez. I wonder what’s behind all this?  Bin Laden is a terrorist and they attacked Afghanistan ... Saddam Hussein is a dictator and they attacked Iraq (without UN support).

Now, they accuse Chavez of being a “terrorist” and a “dictator”…

Additionally, the press in the USA has minimized a number of events that I consider to be quite important in the context of democracy and freedom:

1. Why have so many people been arrested in the USA for protesting peacefully against the war in Iraq? This is something that should not happen in any democratic government. You could expect that from a country like North Korea but never from the USA.

2. How is it possible that lawyers are now being followed in the USA and accused of being terrorists themselves just because their defendants are suspected terrorists? The lawyers are only doing their jobs and that doesn’t make them terrorists. Besides, in a democratic country everybody should have the right to defense.

3. How is it possible that a nun, who has been leading anti-war activities, was not allowed to fly within the USA because she now appears in a secret list of “terrorists”? She has done nothing. She isn’t a terrorist. She just doesn’t support (as many Americans don’t do it) the martial intentions of her president and she has the right to say it, since she lives in a democratic country, or not?

At this point, I would like to reaffirm my esteem and admiration to the American nation. The Americans are actually very nice and friendly people. Most of them don’t like war and don’t agree with it at all. However, I do believe that many Americans are being misled by the US media (CNN, Fox, etc), because ... believe it or not ... this Gobbels-type propaganda is even present in the USA (the country that should actually serve as an example of freedom and democracy to the rest of the world). Already before beginning of the war, the US-government threatened independent journalists and anti-war advertisements were censored.

It is no wonder that the Venezuelan press has tried to use its power to withdraw President Chavez from office. They certainly know how important press and propaganda can be and they have done their best to “invent, repeat and exaggerate all news that affect Chavez and hide all other news that might support him.”

For instance, why did Venevision never mention the 11 people that died in Valencia during the show: “La V de Oro”?  These deaths were completely silenced by the “opposition” and they weren’t even mentioned in the news. However, in spite of their efforts, Mr Chavez' “opponents” have still not been able to succeed. Not with their coups ... or with their strikes.

Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and Mr. Aznar were also not able to convince the international community of the need of a war, and that although they also used all types of methods, including even a pile of fake documents presented by Mr. Blair ... in which alleged connections between Al-Qaeda and Saddam were mentioned. Later, the BBC published evidence of the fakery of these documents ... but the subject was never mentioned again.

Now I ask myself: Why have they all failed with their propaganda?

Can it be that we are finally learning to be a little more critical about what we hear and see?

Can it be that we are tired of the way in which our politicians have driven us like puppets?

Can it be that we’ve become too intelligent for them? I certainly hope so.

Many of our leaders have created hatred between countries . French fries (which, by the way are not French but Belgian) are now called “freedom fries” as a protest against France; French wines and other products are being thrown away, attacks against French people (normal citizens) living in the USA have been reported and a congressman has even suggested that the bodies of those American that died in the Normandy and are still buried in France be transported immediately to the USA.

Isn’t this unbelievable?

As if we had returned to the beginnings of civilization, where no laws or rights existed?

Please … let’s not play this game ... we're all part of this wonderful world and we do love each other.

Kira Marquez Perez marquez@uni-duesseldorf.de