Xinhua News

Alvaro Silva, the secretary general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) , said on Monday that members of the bloc may adjust production quotas, even though there is certain "flexibility."

In a statement issued in Vienna, Austria, Silva said production quotas established by OPEC were not to be strictly complied with and member countries could keep some tolerances.

In a telephone interview, Silva, Venezuela's former energy and mining minister, told Venpres, the Venezuelan State-run news agency, that these quotas were the consequence of the Iraqi conflict and political problem faced by Caracas.

He said Venezuela remains within the range of forecasts established by OPEC and the excess on quotas is coming to an end.

The official considered the war had not produced a rise, but a drop in price, caused by an estimated two-million-barrels over- production a day.

He announced that OPEC will hold a meeting on April 24 to discuss the possibility of "shrinking" production volumes in the market through a cut or a strict compliance with quota levels.

The measures to be taken at the meeting next week would be positioned to maintain a balance between supply and demand in order to keep oil prices within 22 to US$28 per barrel, Silva added. Xinhua news

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 By: David Coleman

45th Control Court judge Alejandro Rebollo has sentenced 39-year-old Portuguese citizen Joao de Gouveia to 29 years and 11 months in prison for the qualified homicide of  innocent bystanders Jaime Giraud, Keila Guerra and Josefina Inciarte and the wounding of more than 28 others as hundreds of people attended an opposition rally in Plaza Altamira on December 6 last year after de Gouveia opened fire, killing three people and wounding 28 others.

The live-televised and blood-curdling shootings heightened tensions on the 5th day of an opposition led national stoppage aimed at forcing President Hugo Chavez Frias to resign or call an early referendum on his controversial rule.  Nine were killed during the two-month stoppage, which ended in failure early February with routed opposition saboteurs in disarray, in hiding from justice or already afforded asylum abroad.

The accused had been brought under heavy escort to the Palace of Justice in downtown Caracas from the La Planta prison at 4:00 a.m. to attend the hearing which began 2:30 p.m. Monday and continued through 6:00 p.m. when the verdict was made known.

Defense lawyer Carlos Bastidas says that de Gouveia opened proceedings by admitting that he had fired the shots but claimed that he was out of his mind at the time and asked forgiveness of the victims' families ... the sentence is to be published within 5 working days and defense attorneys have a further 5 days in which to appeal the length of sentence.

Forums

Referendum 2003 discuss the pros and cons of a revocatory referendum

President Hugo Chavez Frias express your opinions on the Presidency of Hugo Chavez Frias and his Bolivarian Revolution

Bolivarian Circles Are Bolivarian Circles a Venezuelan form of Neighborhood Watch Committees or violent hordes of pro-Chavez thugs?

Venezuela's Opposition What is it? Is a force to be reckoned with or in complete disarray?

Our editorial statement reads: VHeadline.com Venezuela is a wholly independent e-publication promoting democracy in its fullest expression and the inalienable  right of all Venezuelans to self-determination and the pursuit of sovereign independence without interference. We seek to shed light on nefarious practices and the corruption which for decades has strangled this South American nation's development and progress. Our declared editorial bias is pro-democracy and pro-Venezuela ... which some may wrongly interpret as anti-American. --  Roy S. Carson, Editor/Publisher  Editor@VHeadline.com    © 2003 VHeadline.com All Rights Reserved.  Privacy Policy Website Design, hosting and administration by: Integradesign.ca 

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 By: David Coleman

Police detectives are claiming that the explosive used in the Caracas Teleport building bombing is the same Semtex used in the bombings at the Colombian consulate and the Spanish embassy last month ... and in a fresh twist, the lone detainee, Rolando Duin, is described as having both Venezuelan and Colombian ID cards.

Attorney General Isaias Rodriguez says that there are certain coincidences which are currently under investigation.  Duin is under police custody but authorities say he is not a suspect, a witness not is he a victim to the incident.

PoliChacao commissioner Leonardo Diaz Paruta says that on March 29, Duin requested police protection claiming political persecution ... he told police officers he had been brought to Venezuela by as yet unnamed elements to place explosive devices at specific points in the Caracas Metropolitan area but had changed his mind and sought police protection for his own safety.

Duin had been transferred to the Victims Protection Unit of the Official Ombudsman's Office on April 1, and was to have been transferred to the custody of the Baruta municipal police, but was finally transferred to PoliSucre police custody after Baruta authorities claimed they did not have sufficient resources to guarantee his security.

VHeadline.com sources insist that government intelligence agencies have traced the intellectual authors to the Teleport bombing to a radical opposition grouping linked to rebel military officers who took part in the April 11 coup d'etat against President Hugo Chavez Frias ... "Military Intelligence (DIM) and State Security (DISIP) police have already linked the bombing to the incidents last month at the Colombian consulate and the Spanish embassy."

Forums

Referendum 2003 discuss the pros and cons of a revocatory referendum

President Hugo Chavez Frias express your opinions on the Presidency of Hugo Chavez Frias and his Bolivarian Revolution

Bolivarian Circles Are Bolivarian Circles a Venezuelan form of Neighborhood Watch Committees or violent hordes of pro-Chavez thugs?

Venezuela's Opposition What is it? Is a force to be reckoned with or in complete disarray?

Our editorial statement reads: VHeadline.com Venezuela is a wholly independent e-publication promoting democracy in its fullest expression and the inalienable  right of all Venezuelans to self-determination and the pursuit of sovereign independence without interference. We seek to shed light on nefarious practices and the corruption which for decades has strangled this South American nation's development and progress. Our declared editorial bias is pro-democracy and pro-Venezuela ... which some may wrongly interpret as anti-American. --  Roy S. Carson, Editor/Publisher  Editor@VHeadline.com    © 2003 VHeadline.com All Rights Reserved.  Privacy Policy Website Design, hosting and administration by: Integradesign.ca 

Pravda 04/15/2003 10:25

One year after the frustrated coup that briefly took him away from power, Chavez agreed to a plan for a referendum on his presidency

The OAS - Organization of American States - sponsored negotiations table between the government of Venezuela and its foes had its first positive results, one year after established. Both sides in dispute agreed last week to hold a referendum on Chavez presidency after August 19, the halfway point of his 6-year term. The background: the celebrations of the first anniversary of his return to power after the ridiculous coup of 2002 and the destruction of the negotiations table that brought to light the so-called referendum, due to a bomb attack to OAS headquarters in Caracas.

Despite OAS Secretary General, Cesar Gaviria, satisfaction on the outcomes of the talks, the political situation in Venezuela is far from being under control. Firstly, it is not clear when the referendum would take place, as both side are only committed to avoid delays in organizing it. For instance, there is now a first dispute over the validity of the collected signatures needed to call on the referendum. The opposition gathered 2.5 million, but the government says that signatures were invalid as were collected before August 19, so "they will have to get them again", said Chavez.

However, the President of Venezuela and self-denominated leader of the "Bolivarian Revolution" that rules the country does not look worried about the results of the voting. "We will win", said Chavez recently, to further add defiant: "If I lose I will go". The agreement to work toward a referendum signaled that the opposition abandoned other initiatives to force Chavez's ouster before his term ends in 2007.

In turn, the United States, that one year ago had welcomed the coup against the Venezuelan constitutional authorities, congratulated both sides for the referendum proposal. "We applaud the government's and opposition's dialogue teams for their extraordinary efforts to plot the path forward for Venezuelans to peacefully and democratically build a better tomorrow for themselves," the U.S. State Department said. It looks like Powell & Co. Do not want to get involved again in any new unspeakable operation to drive the "marxist threat" out of Latin America.

By the time those discussion were taking place, President Chavez was busy celebrating his victory over the frustrated coup of April 2002 and, indirectly, over the failed two-months strike (lock out, to be more accurate) organized by the opposition. On Sunday, Chavez presided over the closing ceremony of an international forum in support of his "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", said the pompous leader to an audience that had very interesting guests. Among them, the Nicaraguan former President and Sandinist leader Daniel Ortega, who talked about the end of the United Nations after the US invasion of Iraq. Ortega said, concerning the international relation system's crisis after this invasion, the need of trusting in the strength of the Venezuelan people, Hugo Chavez Frias, the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, the natives, and leaders such as Evo Morales from Bolivia and the Brazilian people of Lula Da Silva.

All in all, Chavez does not look worried about the referendum. The opposition says that a  February poll by U.S. firms Greenberg Quinlan and Rosner Research and Public Opinion Strategies suggested Chavez could lose a recall referendum. Almost 60 percent of Venezuelans would vote against him, while 38 percent would support Venezuela's President, the survey suggested.

Therefore, either the poll is a fake or Chavez has other recourses to stay in power. No matter the case, it is clear that the opposition will not topple him easily. Chavez enjoys the support of the Venezuelan working class that led him to two victories in one year against his foes. And, as the refrain says, if something happens twice, it will surely happen again.

The Miami Herald.com Posted on Tue, Apr. 15, 2003 BY JORDAN LEVIN jlevin@herald.com

Back in the mid-'90s, the West Dade club La Covacha was one of the centers of the Cuban and tropical night-life scene. But these days it's more like a center for the whole Latin world.

On a recent Saturday night, Venezuelan DJ Toto Gonzalez is spinning across the Latin American continent, hopping from Mexican rock to Colombian cumbia-pop, Argentine reggae-rock to Dominican merengue-house. Crowded in front of him are a group of friends -- Honduran, Cuban-Mexican, Venezuelan, Colombian, Puerto Rican and Mexican-American -- laughing, dancing and posing for pictures in a happily squealing group. It's the OAS on champagne, jumping to a multilateral beat.

''I try to make this like you're at a party in South America,'' says Gonzalez, who produces these Saturday night events.

The crowd is a mix of Colombians, Venezuelans, Argentines, Chileans, as well as Dominicans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans, and he tries to appeal to all of them. ''Radio in Latin America plays a little of everything, and that's what I try to do,'' he says. ``The filter is much wider now. A pure Cuban club? I don't know where that is anymore.''

''Miami is more and more a melting pot,'' says Puerto Rican-raised Jemilly Castro, at La Covacha with fellow boricua Nelly Lopez, and her Venezuelan boyfriend. ``Before it was just Cubans. Now there are more South and Central Americans. The Latin sound is a mix of everything now -- rock, salsa, cumbia. Whatever has a Latin rhythm and comes out of the Latin community, if I can move to it, I will.''

RHYTHMIC IMPORTS

In the past two years, a new Latin sound has been surging up in Miami-Dade. The influx of recent immigrants fleeing political and economic turmoil in Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela and elsewhere in South America is making itself felt -- and heard -- in the music and night-life scene. Where Caribbean Latin genres such as salsa, son, merengue and bachata used to dominate, the groove now is international Latin pop and rock flavored with Latin and ''tropical'' dance rhythms, especially cumbia, ska and reggae.

Salsa's complex poly-rhythms are being left behind for a more generic Latin beat that anyone can dance to, sprinkled with national favorites like classic Argentine rockers Soda Stereo or Colombian vallenato-fusion singer Carlos Vives who appeal to individual nationalities.

Immigration is one factor in this musical and cultural paradigm shift. But so is the changing nature of pop music and culture. The younger ''generation ñ,'' Cuban-Americans who rediscovered their roots and drove the mid-90s Cuban nostalgia trend that spawned son revivals and designer guayaberas, has moved on to the pop-rock explosion -- or into adulthood and out of night life.

Many of those who flocked to learn the intricacies of casino-rueda style salsa have also moved on, as salsa music has stopped developing, stultified by conservative radio formats that favor a handful of longtime stars and formulaic, sound-alike songs. Even in Puerto Rico, one of salsa's native homes, reggaeton (a style which blends hip-hop and dancehall), rap and rock are replacing the island's traditional music.

Colombian Kike Posada, a pioneering Latin rock promoter who hosts a show on Salsa 98 (WRTO 98.3 FM), says radio is largely to blame for choking off new salsa. But he says the change is also natural as people look for something new.

Salsa 98, despite its name, now plays a lot of the new Latin dance and pop-rock music. Posada notes that it's now common practice for record labels to remix a song in multiple versions: ballad, salsa, cumbia, bachata, ranchera, pop, merengue, house, trying to appeal to as many Latin groups as possible.

''It's all about making [music] look like it's representative of all cultures now,'' Posada says. ``The big flag here is international night -- wherever you're from, there's something for you.''

Cuban-American and former model Aurelio Rodriguez has kept La Covacha popular since he opened it in 1989. ''It's hard to cater to the Latin market with just salsa now,'' he says.

His Fridays now feature tropical and dance music, Saturdays have Latin rock in one area, tropical in the other -- although at the moment, with Carlos Ponce's pop-rock song Mujer con pantalones (A Woman With Pants) booming on the tropical side, it's hard to tell which is which. A Colombian couple moving over from the rock side is dancing in exactly the same way.

Things have changed a lot since the early '90s, Rodriguez says, when all things Cuban were in style. ''People got tired of cigars and bored of salsa,'' Rodriguez says. ``These days you gotta figure out how to cater to Argentines or Colombians.''

THE BIG SHIFT

Numbers for the new South American immigrants are difficult or impossible to come by, say demographers and planning officials. The 2000 Census showed that Hispanics who were not Cuban, Mexican or Puerto Rican increased by 78 percent in Miami-Dade, and nearly tripled in Broward. But the recent crises in Argentina and Venezuela that have driven people to emigrate have been largely in the past two years.

Most come on tourist visas and then drop out of official sight. For example, the Argentine consulate has estimated that as many as 100,000 Argentines may be residing in South Florida though the U.S. Census only counts 19,000 in Miami-Dade and 5,000 each in Broward and Palm Beach counties. And the violence in Colombia has also spurred a recent but still uncounted surge of newcomers, say some experts; a 2001 study by Florida International University estimated that there are 350,000 Colombians in South Florida, half undocumented.

But the change is apparent at events like a recent Argentine bailanta party at Bayside Hut, a funky marina bar and club in Key Biscayne. At midnight, the place was empty except for a few grizzly American boat-lovers. But at 1 a.m. -- the time when Buenos Aires night life kicks off -- several hundred young Argentines seem to materialize out of nowhere into a line that stretches into the parking lot.

It feels like a college party, right down to the identical peer-pressure fashion, the girls in tight hip-hugger jeans or white pants, with long, straight hair, the boys in rocker T-shirts or untucked button-down shirts.

Bailanta is the generic name for the cheerful, cumbia-and-merenguelike working-class dance music of Argentina, and DJ Abel Ramos has over 20 CDs of cumbia remixes. Instead of couples moving in the smooth syncopations and complex steps of salsa, people dance in bouncing clumps and circles, screaming and leaping with enthusiasm for Soda Stereo or a bailanta hit like Alza Las Manos, by Damas Gratis.

''I feel at home here,'' says blond-haired Alumine Belone, 19, leaning at the bar with girlfriend Alessandra Garcia, 17, both of whom moved from Buenos Aires to Westchester with their families a year ago. ``You find what you have in Argentina -- people wear the same clothes, they move the same, they cut their hair the same.''

Fellow Argentine Dario Puebla, 26, who's been living in Little Havana for two years, shrugs at the idea that he's in the traditional home of Cuban immigrants. ''There's not that many Cubans [in Little Havana] now,'' he says. ``It's mostly Argentines.''

That influx is influencing those who are already here. ''There are new people in Miami, so people are more open to other [Latin] cultures now,'' says Argentine-born Ramiro Yustini, 22, who works with Posada.

Yustini is standing in the DJ booth at South Miami's Club Steel, which recently launched a Saturday Latin rock night, waiting to introduce Brazilian rock band Prato Principal to a crowd of Argentines, Central Americans (promoter/DJ Abel Ortega is from Nicaragua), and Brazilians. Salsa 98 has just started doing live broadcasts there on Saturday nights.

Like the twentysomething Cuban-Americans who rediscovered Cuban style in the '90s, Yustini, who has been in South Florida since childhood but has ''Argentina'' and ''Buenos Aires'' tattooed on his arms, is newly enamored of his roots. ''I'm supposed to be an American,'' he says. ``But instead I feel more Argentine than ever.''