<a href=reuters.com>Reuters Wed April 2, 2003 04:34 AM ET By Tom Ashby

LONDON (Reuters) - OPEC exporters cut the cost of the Iraqi war to the West by releasing extra volumes of oil last month to prevent a spike in crude prices, according to a Reuters survey of cartel production. The United States' main allies in the Gulf -- Saudi Arabia and Kuwait -- hiked output dramatically with Riyadh pumping at its highest rate in 21 years, the survey found.

Even U.S. foe Iran lifted supplies having publicly opposed any rise in exports on the grounds that it would signal a green light to Washington for an attack.

"The economic incentive to take advantage of high prices while they lasted proved to be stronger than political motives," said Geoff Pyne, consultant to Sempra Energy Trading.

The 11-member Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries pumped an extra 440,000 barrels per day (bpd) in March to reach 27.65 million bpd on average, the survey of industry consultants and officials showed.

Excluding Iraq, where exports were cut just ahead of the war, 10 cartel members with quotas pumped an extra 1.77 million barrels a day to 26.45 million bpd. That is 1.95 million bpd above their self-imposed limits of 24.5 million.

The extra barrels were sorely needed by Western importing countries, which had drawn down commercial stockpiles over the winter due to cold weather and shortages from a strike in Venezuela.

Benchmark Brent crude oil prices slumped 17 percent in March, ending the month at $27.18 per barrel.

SAUDI LEADS GAINS

Saudi Arabia extended recent output gains to average 9.51 million bpd in March, its highest level since October 1981, but still short of its full capacity of 10.5 million bpd.

"Saudi Arabia had the chance to show that they are a reliable supplier to the United States. They did a good job," said George Beranek of Petroleum Finance Co in Washington.

Kuwait tapped surge capacity to reach 2.25 million bpd on average in March, despite the closure of some small fields on the Iraqi border ahead of the war.

OPEC's only Latin American member Venezuela recorded a sharp jump in March as its revolutionary government crushed a rebellion by managers and skilled workers in the state-owned oil company.

Iraq pumped an average of 1.20 million bpd in March, the survey found, starting the month at 2.2 million, but ending at just 300,000 bpd.

Exports stopped in the week leading up to the U.S.-led attack on March 20, and oil pumped for domestic use and smuggling also declined as the invasion gathered steam.

U.S. army engineers said they would take about three months to prepare Iraq's southern oilfields to resume exports, because of booby-traps and neglect.

Iraqi output is likely to fall sharply again in April during a full month that is expected to see only small volumes being pumped from its northern Kirkuk fields.

Nigeria, gripped by political violence ahead of mid-April elections, saw output slashed progressively from the middle of March. Losses reached 800,000 bpd by March 24.

Analysts said the extra output from Saudi and others was filling a hole in world markets left by Venezuela, Iraq and Nigeria, but it could create a surplus in the next few months. "There is plenty of oil around, and in the long run this is bearish," Pyne said.

The OPEC secretariat estimates an average call on OPEC oil this year of 24.65 million bpd, a full three million bpd below March's estimated output.

OPEC Secretary-General Alvaro Silva said earlier this week he was concerned about a glut of oil on world markets, especially in the second quarter when OPEC expects demand for its crude to fall to 23.10 million bpd.

The Reuters survey seeks a best estimate of flows from OPEC countries based on the views of officials, industry monitors and analysts inside and outside member countries.

he Daily Times of Nigeria Gabriel Osu

Another day, another problem. A new week, another new problem. That’s the up and down, on and off system, in which Nigerians have been living for the past few months. The major fear and obstacle that has been ticking along with their heartbeat is the April Polls, which is staring us in the face. It is a required constitutional duty, which must be performed, but the very mention of the polls is pumping up pressures and injecting fears into the system of the masses.

On the one hand, there are daily admonitions, calling on the parents to steer off their children from violence. The aspirants themselves condemn violence and killings in their silent moments of reflection and during their campaign stints.

The clerics have added their voices pleading that the elections should be executed without violence. The fear of the masses is that these pleas seem to have fallen on deaf ears. The country continues to roll downhill like a vehicle without an effective braking system.

The more we all pay lip service pretending we want a smooth and peaceful election, the more the papers report fresh acts of gangsterism, arson and killings. Let’s take it from the basics, opponents posters are defaced or ripped off. And surprisingly some supposedly responsible office holders take responsibility for such reckless acts by claiming that the poles on which the posters were pasted belong to the government. Where do we go from the poster war, when as a nation we cannot tolerate the posters of opponents.

More threatening news. Arms and ammunition are discovered daily along our borders. The only event which warrants the importation of arms is the impending elections. It is now clear that the politicians are determined to fight the election beyond the ballot boxes. For them it is a do or die battle and they are prepared to sacrifice all and destroy everything around in order to become political office holders. The Inspector-General of Police continues to assure the people that his Force is ready to enforce order during the election. But his words do not match his actions.

Put simply, the Police looks helpless, ineffective and ill-equipped. Here is a Force that has not been able to unravel political murders committed under their very nose. This is a Force that does not have its ears to the ground, it only jumps to alert after the act has been committed. Promises are given that the killers would be “fished out soon”. But the people now know that nothing serious follows such promises.

Time blurs the promises and the atrocities wear away until we are rudely awaken to the reality of our insecurity by the killing of another political personality. We have suggested that what the nation needs now is divine intervention, since all our utterances and actions point to an April mayhem. Apart from the self-made political imbroglios, other impediments and dangerous signs are gradually enveloping us.

Take the fuel monster which we thought had been conquered months ago. It has suddenly resurfaced in our midst and those in charge do not appear to have “medicine” to ward it off. On its first menacing reappearance, the NNPC big men calmed our nerves. They told all fuel users that Nigeria had enough of the stuff in store. They said there was no cause to worry. The scarcity and rowdiness subsided. There was a sigh of relief and the NNPC men were justified. We thought they knew their onions. Before we had time to laugh over our ugly experience, fuel scarcity was back with us and this time around, it looks as if it is here to stay.

Gradually, Nigerians have grown not to trust the many utterances of those who lead them. For instance, while NNPC was beating its chest that we have sufficient fuel in the country, the President had a different view. He admitted there was shortage of fuel in the country. He however attributed the shortage to the handiwork of his enemies. The message was echoed the campaign podiums and we went back to business as usual.

Today, it is a different tune we are hearing. The fuel problem we are now told should be attributed to the United States, Iraq and Venezuela. But some of our more discerning citizens are wondering why there is no shortage of fuel in the US, Iraq and Venezuela. So our fate is now tied to the happenings in foreign lands; the only consolation being the assurance that the fuel situation will normalize before the election. This is a clear message to the masses to adjust to more sufferings, higher cost of transportation and general difficulties imposed on them by inefficient and insensitive leadership.

Finally, the threat of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), to start another round of strike over increased pay, is scheduled for April this year. Those who know the NLC do not think the threat is an April Fool joke. The students, parents and the public are so used to the ASUU strike that no one is talking about it again. At this point in time, only divine intervention can see us through all these social and political diversions and distractions.

Rev. Fr. Osu, Director, Social Communications, Lagos Archdiocese.

By Kirby Arnold Herald Writer

OAKLAND, Calif. - No day in Giovanni Carrara's professional life seemed worse than last Wednesday.

The Los Angeles Dodgers, the team he thought finally would be his ticket to the playoffs this year, decided he wasn't even good enough to help them in the regular season.

The Dodgers waived him.

"I never thought that was going to happen," Carrara said. "I was surprised big-time."

Twenty-four hours later he was pinching himself again, in a good way, at where he wound up.

The Seattle Mariners, a team needing a veteran pitcher in middle relief, signed the 35-year-old Carrara back into playoff contention.

"I was really excited because I was going to a team that really has a shot to go to the World Series," said Carrara, a native of Venezuela who is good friends with fellow countrymen Freddy Garcia and Carlos Guillen of the Mariners. "It's the best thing to happen to me."

It could be a good thing for the Mariners, too, based on what they know about the right-hander.

He's a durable pitcher who can work in a variety of roles - middle relief, setup and even start on occasion - and adds further to a clubhouse filled with veterans. This is his 13th professional season, his fourth in the major leagues.

Carrara essentially was squeezed out of a job with the Dodgers. When Kevin Brown returned to the L.A. rotation, it pushed Andy Ashby into the bullpen in middle relief.

"Ashby is doing the job that I was doing and I was the one who paid for it," Carrara said. "But this is a business and I'm with a great team right now."

Carrara is 15-11 lifetime with a 5.15 ERA, but last year with the Dodgers he was 6-3, 3.28. He throws a fastball in the low-90 mph range and keeps hitters honest with a cutter, changeup and curve.

What the Mariners like most is his control. He pitched 176 innings the last two years, striking out 126 and walking just 56.

"He's a strike-thrower and an inning-eater," said Roger Jongewaard, the Mariners' scouting director.

"I've heard nothing but good things about him," pitching coach Bryan Price said. "The way he competes, his resiliency, his ability to throw strikes, he can get left handed and right-handed hitters out. We were pleased that a player like that was available to us."

The Mariners certainly didn't base their signing decision on Carrara's spring training numbers. He pitched 13 innings for the Dodgers with an 8.31 ERA.

"If you go by the numbers, the veteran guys here for the most part wouldn't have made this team," Price said. "Some of them were fairly atrocious."

Two men, especially, knew what the Mariners were getting.

Carrara pitched for Toronto when general manager Pat Gillick was the GM there in the mid-1990s, and Dodgers pitching coach Jim Colburn gave the M's high praise after they dropped him last week. Before he took the L.A. job, Colburn was the Mariners' Pacific Rim scouting director.

"He can pitch every day," Gillick said. "He can start in an emergency, but he's basically going to help us in the middle innings. He's a very durable guy."

And, Carrara is quick to add, he's a very happy guy.

As he suited up for the Mariners' season opener Tuesday afternoon, Carrara couldn't help but gush over his new surroundings.

"This team is like a family, everyone is together," he said. "I've been watching this team for two or three years and you could see that. Hopefully, I can help this team. This team has a chance to win it all."

The Miami Herald Posted on Wed, Apr. 02, 2003

CARACAS - (AP) -- Venezuela's foreign minister Tuesday rejected a U.S. State Department report that denounced human-rights violations by President Hugo Chávez's government.

''In this country, human rights are not violated,'' Roy Chaderton told reporters. The foreign minister criticized the United States for ``erecting itself as the judge of other country's conduct.''

In its annual human-rights report released Monday, the U.S. State Department said Venezuela's ''human-rights record remained poor'' and ''government intimidation was a serious problem'' in 2002.

''The president, officials in his administration, and members of his political party frequently spoke out against the media, the political opposition, labor unions, the courts, the Church, and human-rights groups,'' the report said. ``Many persons interpreted these remarks as tacit approval of violence, and they threatened, intimidated, or even physically harmed several individuals from groups opposed to Chávez during the year.''

Venezuela has been mired in more than a year of upheaval, including a military coup that ousted Chávez for two days in April and an unsuccessful two-month strike to remove the president. The strike ended in February.

Chávez opponents accuse the former army paratrooper of wrecking the economy with leftist policies and using neighborhood political groups to intimidate dissenters. Chávez, whose six-year term ends in 2007, denies the allegations and counters foes are intent on ousting a democratically elected president because they feel threatened by his efforts to end social inequality in Venezuela.

The report noted that ``individuals and the media freely and publicly criticized the government.''

But it added that Chávez's verbal attacks against individual media owners and editors ``resulted in a precarious situation for journalists, who were frequently attacked and harassed.''

Pravda 14:42 2003-04-01

After the fierce clashes with the government, Chavez's foes see how the President normalizes the country under his authority. Opposition leaders are under arrest or went into exile.

Once powerful and combative, the Venezuelan opposition has fallen into a deep crisis after the two months strike failed. Chavez looks plenty of power and no anticipated elections can be forecasted in view of the current scenario. Not even Washington is a factor now, as US hawks are trapped in the sands of Iraq.

Also the main government's detractors, the national media, looks more interested on what is going on in Middle East than on internal affairs. People came back to work, oil plants to pump crude at normal levels and Chavez to upset people's ears by singing popular songs on radio stations. As per reports from Caracas, the new regulated economy keeps the macroeconomic variables under control; markets did not go haywire and the forecasted shortage has been sorted out.

On Thursday, the rebel trade-unionist leader, Carlos Ortega, went into exile in Costa Rica after spending the last week inside the Embassy of that Central American Country. Ortega had been charged with treason for organizing a national strike to oust President Chavez and was allowed by Venezuela's government to leave the country.

Ortega was one of the organizers of Venezuela's two-month crippling general strike that failed to force President Chavez to resign and call early elections. In a statement sent to Venezuelan news organizations, Mr. Ortega called President Chavez a dictator in training and pledged to keep fighting to end his rule. In the new environment, Ortega's statement is not expected to generate a reaction in the anti-Chavez population.

Therefore, Ortega will join the frustrated 24 hours President, Pedro Carmona, who led the coup, that briefly overthrown Chavez in April 11th 2002. Colombia had granted asylum to Carmona, the leader of the businessmen association. The list of exiled opposition leaders is not complete yet: Carlos Molina, a retired naval officer who faced an investigation for his role in the coup enjoys a political asylum in the Central American republic of El Salvador.

But apparently, they are the lucky ones. By the end of February, Carlos Fernandez, president of Venezuela's largest business federation FEDECAMARAS, was arrested and faces the same charges than Ortega, but in jail.

By that time, the bodies of four anti-Chavez activists were found in the suburbs of Caracas showing signs of torture: hands tied and faces wrapped with tape. Darwin Arguello, Angel Salas Felix Pinto and Zaida Peraza, 25, had multiple bullet wounds and showed signs of torture. According to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, a witness saw the victims being forced into two vehicles by men wearing ski masks, not far from Plaza Altamira, the place that had become the opposition's central rallying point. "The circumstances strongly suggest that these were political killings," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch to the foreign press in Caracas, in February.

Despite Human Rights organizations' intervention, those cases were never clarified and remain unpunished.

Hernan Etchaleco PRAVDA.Ru Argentina