<a href=www.newsday.com>NewsDay.com Henry Gilgoff April 13, 2003

The major automakers don't have a lock on zero-percent financing. Petro, the nation's biggest home heating oil dealer, has sent an interest-free payment plan offer to many customers.

Petro says it seeks to accommodate any customers who found it difficult to cope with this winter's surge in oil prices. For customers not on a "budget" plan, to spread out payments through a heating season based on estimates of purchases, Petro offered "an interest-free payment plan." It could cover the current balance plus future deliveries this heating season.

Under the plan, explained in a letter last month, there were to be up to five equal monthly payments, from March through July. A modified version is still available, according to John Ryan, Petro's regional manager. Ryan said Petro has about 100,000 customers in New York City and Long Island. Of approximately 70,000 not on a budget plan, nearly 2,000 have signed up for the extended plan. The offer was included in a letter offering Petro's explanation of the heights prices reached during the heating season, citing "the coldest winter since 1994," an oil workers strike in Venezuela and uncertainty surrounding energy prices as war approached.

Kevin Rooney, chief executive of the Oil Heat Institute of Long Island, said dealers try to work with customers who report a hardship. "We're aware of the fact that people incurred greater expense than they might have normally," Rooney said.

<a href=www.business2.com>Business 2.0 By Cybele Weisser, March 2003 Issue

The U.S. economy runs on oil. No other commodity exerts as much leverage over the nation's financial health. Petroleum pervades everything from the obvious--gasoline, heating oil, jet fuel--to crayons, toothpaste and DVDs, not to mention working its way into the cost of transporting all the food and goods we produce and consume. No surprise then that spikes in the price of oil have preceded the past four recessions.

In normal times, the current slowdown in world economies would mean less demand for oil and thus lower prices. But these are far from normal times. As worries about a war with Iraq have mounted over the past year, the price of oil has jumped 65%, from $20 to $33 a barrel. Then in December a massive strike crippled the oil industry in Venezuela, the third-largest U.S. supplier. Throw in an unusually cold winter in the Northeast, and U.S. inventories of crude oil are now 44% below where they stood a year ago.

The situation could change quickly with a U.S. victory over Iraq. But don't start celebrating yet. It's true that oil prices plunged quickly after the Gulf War, but world oil markets and the supply equation are very different today. To help you make sense of the volatile energy markets, here's a look at how rising oil prices are affecting our economy and where prices may be headed in the months to come. Plus, in the box below, we discuss four energy stocks that are well positioned to thrive in the coming year.

The economic punch

Despite the fact that the U.S. economy is more energy-efficient than it was 20 years ago, we consume 26% of the world's oil--about 20 million barrels a day, up from 15 million two decades ago. Just 43% of that oil is produced domestically, down from 77% in the early '70s, according to the American Petroleum Institute.

The most visible evidence of higher oil prices is at the gas pump. Over the past year the price of gasoline has risen more than 37%, from $1.12 to $1.53 a gallon. Factor in the 33% spike in home heating oil prices over the past year, and Americans are collectively spending $50 billion more on gasoline and heating oil than they were a year ago, says Economy.com's Mark Zandi.

This acts like a major tax increase, cutting into consumer spending. And "if people see high oil prices as a symbol of bad times, they stop spending," says Lehman Brothers' chief economist Ethan Harris. Our struggling economy, which has been buoyed by continued consumer spending, can ill afford such a hit. "If we get to $40 a barrel and stay there for a couple of months, we'll be back in recession," predicts Zandi.

Higher oil prices also take a bite out of profits in energy-intensive industries. Airlines, which have little ability to pass on higher jet fuel prices, are hardest hit. But trucking, shipping and manufacturing industries such as chemicals, paper and steel take blows too. For example, chemical giant DuPont said recently that every 10% increase in the price of oil and gas decreases its net income by $165 million. And finally, there's the impact of oil prices outside the U.S. Countries such as Japan, Germany and France import all of their oil, so they are highly vulnerable to price increases. This hits the U.S. economy indirectly via lower revenue from exports. Overall, economists calculate that every $10-a-barrel oil price increase that sticks for a year reduces economic growth by 0.5%.

Best-and worst-case scenarios

What's the best-case scenario for oil prices today? Ideally, the conflict in Iraq will be short and successful, as it was in 1991, and prices will again fall dramatically. If a friendly regime is installed, there could be an even more significant effect in the long run, since Iraq is sitting on the second-largest reserve of oil after Saudi Arabia. Worst-case scenario? A war drags on and the conflict spreads across the Middle East, pushing the price of oil as high as $50 a barrel or more. "An ugly playing out of events in Iraq--a long, drawn-out war--could put the entire global economy in recession," warns Lehman Brothers' Harris.

But even if a war is resolved quickly, oil prices might not react as they did after the Gulf War. Then, "the market was swimming in oil," and the price of oil fell back to $20 within days, says Sarah Emerson, an economist with the Energy Security Analysis Institute (ESAI). But now, whatever excess supply other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) bring to the market is only compensating for the loss of supply from Venezuela. Furthermore, when Venezuela's crisis is over, its operations could take up to six months to completely restart, says Charles Ober, manager of T. Rowe Price's New Era fund. Increased production in Iraq isn't likely to flood the market either, he adds, since Iraq doesn't have the infrastructure to ramp up production to levels that would add a huge amount of oil quickly.

Taking all of this into account, ESAI predicts that oil will average $29 a barrel in the year's first half, 34% above the normal range of $18 to $20, and that it will stay above $25 for the rest of '03. What does that mean for companies in the sector? For giants like ExxonMobil, probably not much: Higher prices help some divisions while hurting others, so the impact is mildly positive overall. But higher prices almost always encourage the Big Oil companies to spend more on exploration and production, which is a boon to pure-play oil and gas drillers and oil service companies. And while oil is in the spotlight now, investors shouldn't forget about the opportunity in natural gas. With North American gas reserves depleting at the rate of 30% a year, domestic gas drillers should receive "extensive capital investment," says Standard & Poor's analyst Tina Vital.   In the Spotlight The Middle East The world's richest source of oil is also a hotbed of political instability. Will a victory for coalition troops bring peace to the Middle East and some measure of calm to the global economy? That's no easy question to answer, but knowing more about the region will help you decide for yourself. The Web Guide contains essential research on 19 Middle Eastern countries -- from Bahrain to Iraq to Israel to Yemen. Plus, we've gathered business information on the area, including the latest tech news and the top Web markets and incubators.

<a href=www.heraldo.es>Heraldo.es

"Venimos desde hace mucho tiempo estudiando cada guerra, cada tecnología y cada cosa de lo que hay que hacer", dijo Castro, en referencia a la caída del régimen iraquí. "Nosotros estamos preparados".

COLPISA. La Habana | Fidel Castro aseguró que Cuba se enfrenta a "provocaciones que pretenden conducir a un conflicto y a una agresión militar de Estados Unidos, pero no bajamos la guardia un minuto, ni un día, ni un segundo". El presidente cubano aseguró que si el país es ocupado "sería la guerra de los 100 años". Mientras, la Iglesia Católica, organizaciones defensoras de los derechos humanos y familiares de los tres ejecutados el viernes protestaron por la aplicación de la pena capital.

En los últimos 40 años, las relaciones entre La Habana y Washington nunca fueron fáciles, pero se resintieron considerablemente tras la llegada a la isla, el pasado mes de septiembre, de James Cason, el nuevo jefe de la Sección de Intereses, quien criticó abiertamente al régimen y apoyó a los disidentes.

Ante la escalada de la tensión, Castro aprovechó una intervención durante un acto conmemorativo del golpe de estado de Venezuela para advertir que ante una posible ocupación militar , "la resistencia durará 100 años". "Venimos desde hace mucho tiempo estudiando cada guerra, cada tecnología y cada cosa de lo que hay que hacer", dijo en referencia a la caída del régimen iraquí. "Nosotros estamos preparados", enfatizó.

El presidente cubano, añadió que conocen el precio de una guerra "y no la desea", pero insistió en que "este es un país que lo pueden ocupar todo lo que quieran", pero "sería la guerra de los 100 años". Castro , de 76 años, recordó que Estados Unidos ha intentado, sin éxito, durante 44 años liquidar la Revolución pero dijo que no hay que "bajar la guardia". Según Castro , los estadounidenses pueden hacer "todas las guerras y crímenes que quieran", pero "no saben nada, no tienen talento político, no pueden ganar una sola batalla política, lo que tienen es poder, fuerza, tecnología".

By Jim Krane ASSOCIATED PRESS 12:44 p.m., April 13, 2003

Over the past 18 months, the U.S. government has bought access to data on hundreds of millions of residents of 10 Latin American countries – apparently without their consent or knowledge – allowing myriad federal agencies to track foreigners entering and living in the United States.

A suburban Atlanta company, ChoicePoint Inc., collects the information abroad and sells it to U.S. government officials in three dozen agencies, including immigration investigators who've used it to arrest illegal immigrants.

The practice broadens a trend that has an information-hungry U.S. government increasingly buying personal data on Americans and foreigners alike from commercial vendors including ChoicePoint and LexisNexis.

U.S. officials consider the foreign data a thread in a security blanket that lets law enforcers and the travel industry peer into the backgrounds of people flowing into the United States. The information can also be used with other data-mining tools to identify potential terrorists, or simply unmask fake identity documents, company and government officials say.

"Our whole purpose in life is to sell data to make the world a safer place," said ChoicePoint's chief marketing officer, James Lee. "There is physical danger in not knowing who someone is. What risks do people coming into our country represent? You may accept that risk, but you want to know about it."

Privacy experts in Latin America question whether the sales of national citizen registries have been legal. They say government data are often sold clandestinely by individual government employees.

ChoicePoint appears to be the largest – perhaps the only – vendor of foreigners' personal details, selling entire national identity databases from Latin America since 2001.

The data encompass the personal details of people living in countries from Mexico to Argentina, people who probably never imagined officials in Washington could, with a few keystrokes, read identity files meant for functionaries in Mexico City, San Salvador or Bogota.

"It's the globalization of a very unfortunate American consumer problem," said Robert Ellis Smith, a lawyer who monitors credit agencies as publisher of Privacy Journal.

Smith says Latin governments ought to protect their citizens by passing privacy laws similar to European statutes that prohibit wholesale purchases of personal information.

In Mexico, where there is already keen mistrust of the U.S. government, most citizens would be outraged to learn their addresses, passport numbers and even unlisted phone numbers are being sold to Washington, says Julio Tellez Valdes, a law professor and data protection expert at the Monterrey Technical Institute.

"We let the Mexican government control our situation, but not the U.S. government," Tellez said. "We don't live in America."

ChoicePoint says it buys the files from subcontractors in Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. But it refuses to name the sellers or say where those parties obtained the data.

From Brazil, Choicepoint sells telephone numbers and details on business leaders. The company recently stopped updating its citizen registry from Argentina, because of a lack of demand and restrictions of a new privacy law, said Lee, the marketing director.

The files appear to originate in agencies that register voters or issue national IDs and drivers licenses. ChoicePoint provided partial copies of contracts, which required contractors to certify they've bought the information legally.

If ChoicePoint can sell foreigners' details to Washington, it is also in the position to sell data on U.S. citizens to foreign governments. It won't, for policy reasons.

"We don't think it's the right thing to do, so we're not doing it," Lee said.

In Mexico, ChoicePoint says it buys driving records of 6 million Mexico City residents and the country's entire voter registry and provides them to the U.S. government.

If the voter records originated with Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute, the sales are illegal, said Victor Aviles, the institute's spokesman.

"If someone sold it, he is committing a crime," Aviles said.

Tellez said low-level government workers routinely sell electronic data to marketers and pocket the profits.

A proposed privacy law under debate could hand prison terms to those who sell information on Mexicans without their permission. The bill, which also criminalizes sending Mexican data to the United States, is being opposed by the U.S. Direct Marketing Association and marketing companies like Reader's Digest and American Express.

Tellez predicted that lobbying pressure would weaken the bill.

In Colombia, ChoicePoint buys the entire country's citizen ID database, including each resident's date and place of birth, passport and national ID number, parentage and physical description.

"I don't believe 31 million Colombians authorized that," said Nelson Remolina, a Colombian lawyer and privacy expert, referring to the number of records ChoicePoint obtained. The Colombian government is only supposed to divulge records requested by name, or when permission is granted by the subject, he said.

ChoicePoint isn't just interested in Latin Americans. But Lee said the company's attempts to collect personal data elsewhere haven't fared well.

The company is prohibited from buying data troves in Europe and other regions with strict privacy laws, or where governments refuse to sell citizen data. ChoicePoint also operated in Hong Kong, South Korea and other East Asian countries until demand dried up a few years ago, he said.

Another obstacle is primitive record-keeping by governments, like those in the Middle East that still use paper, or where records are kept in non-Roman script like Arabic or Japanese, Lee said.

At U.S. agencies with access to ChoicePoint's Latin American data, officials often said they didn't know how it was used. The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, for example, declined to respond to repeated Associated Press requests for information on the Border Patrol's use of the data.

The Justice Department's $67 million four-year contract with ChoicePoint's is the largest among federal agencies. But most of that is spent by agencies looking up U.S. records – like credit and crime histories – not data from foreign governments.

Last year, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, now part of the Department of Homeland Security, paid $1 million for unlimited access to ChoicePoint's foreign databases, according to a contract provided by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

An agency official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the files were used by its investigators and Quick Response Teams to round up undocumented immigrants in non-border areas of the United States.

Although officials at the agency – now reorganized into the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement – won't say what effect the ChoicePoint data had on those investigations, figures show officers arrested 80,000 immigrants in that period.

"It's a force multiplier," the official said of the data.

Broad government contracts for ChoicePoint's Latin American data would also make the information available to federal drug agents working in Colombia, Mexico and elsewhere, along with U.S. personnel in overseas embassies and consulates.

U.S. intelligence agencies also have access, under ChoicePoint deals with the departments of Justice, Treasury, State and Energy.

Increased use of the foreign data, coupled with new rules giving immigration inspectors wide leeway to decide whether or not to allow a traveler to enter the country, could mean more Latin Americans will be blocked from the United States.

Immigrant advocates say this could eventually hurt economies dependent on money sent home by Latins working in the United States.

"These will be people who have visas to come here, but based on some information that's in the possession of the U.S. government, they're simply turned back without a hearing," said Joan Friedland, an attorney with the National Immigration Law Center in Washington D.C.

"It's the worst of all possible worlds. It weeds out the people who should be allowed to come here and doesn't do anything to weed out those who shouldn't."

AP investigative researcher Randy Herschaft and AP correspondents Traci Carl in Mexico City and Vanessa Arrington in Bogota contributed to this report

On the Net: www.choicepoint.com www.epic.org www.privacyjournal.net

Sunday, April 13, 2003 · Last updated 4:55 p.m. PT By STEPHEN IXER ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez looked beyond Venezuela's simmering political crisis Sunday to celebrate the first anniversary of his return to power following a brief military coup.

The festivities came one day after a bomb ripped through the building where Venezuela's government and opposition have been negotiating a proposed referendum on Chavez's presidency.

No one was injured in the pre-dawn blast but it renewed tensions in Venezuela just as rival groups appeared to be close to resolving some political differences.

Chavez presided over the closing ceremony of an international forum in support of his so-called "Bolivarian Revolution," while thousands of his supporters gathered on a central Caracas avenue.

"God bless April 13," Chavez said at the forum. "A miraculous day, the miracle of the start of the century. The first great victory of the people this century in the whole world."

Ricardo Perez, a 62-year old carpenter waiting to hear Chavez at the rally, said he was glad Chavez's left-wing movement was not toppled for good.

"Those days (of the coup) were terrible for the country. Thank God the loyal armed forces managed to restore democracy," Perez said, as Venezuelan folk music blared out from huge loudspeakers and barbecue smoke drifted over the crowd.

Chavez was ousted by dissident military generals after 19 people were killed during an opposition demonstration on April 11, 2002. Pedro Carmona, a businessman who swore himself in as president the next day, immediately dissolved the National Assembly, the Supreme Court and the constitution.

A popular backlash against the coup began and thousands converged on the presidential palace to demand Chavez's return to office. Carmona resigned on April 13 and loyalist troops restored Chavez to power in the early hours of the 14th.

Chavez promised to reconcile the deeply divided population but never succeeded. The opposition began a two-month strike in December demanding early elections or Chavez's resignation. The strike briefly crippled Venezuela's crucial oil industry and cost the country $6 billion.

The Organization of American States announced Friday that the two sides agreed to pave the way for a midterm referendum on Chavez's presidency. The OAS has been sponsoring the peace talks since November.

OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria said Friday the agreement would be signed after Easter, but Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said the deal still awaits Chavez's approval.

In the document, both sides agree to play by the rules as the opposition works toward a midterm referendum on Chavez's presidency while the chief of state has pledged to leave office if he loses.

But tensions have heated up again since Saturday's bombing, with each side blaming the other of being behind the attack that destroyed three floors of the Caracas building.

An opposition negotiator said the blast was intended to intimidate his delegation at the talks, while the government blamed "coup-plotting" sectors of the opposition.

Chavez, elected to a six-year term in 2000, accuses Venezuela's traditional elite of seeking his ouster and foiling his efforts to distribute Venezuela's oil riches to the poor.

His opposition accuses the former army paratrooper of imposing an authoritarian regime and ruining the economy.