<a href=www.canada.com>Canadian Press Wednesday, April 23, 2003

CARACAS (AP) - Venezuela's state-run oil monopoly said Tuesday it has recovered sufficiently from the crippling effects of a two-month oil strike to resume fulfilling its supply contracts with foreign buyers.

The strike called by government opponents to demand President Hugo Chavez's resignation or early elections throttled exports from the world's fifth-largest supplier and cost Venezuela $6 billion US in sales. "The recuperation phase has concluded," PDVSA president Ali Rodriguez said in a release. "This show the success in re-establishing the international reputation of PDVSA as a safe and trustworthy energy supplier."

Chavez said Tuesday that Venezuelan oil production is over three million barrels a day. Output dropped to a low of less than 200,000 barrels a day at the height of the strike, which started in December and withered in early February.

Rodriguez said Venezuela is exporting 1.8 million barrels of crude and 90,000 barrels of gasoline per day.

PDVSA declared itself unable to fulfil contracts in December, leaving its international clients free to buy crude oil and gasoline from other sources.

De: "Jessica Rosenberg" jessica@obraweb.com Fecha: Vie, 25 de Abril de 2003, 5:54 pm Para: jessica@obraweb.com

Carla Puma : cpuma@sumate.org Federico Winckelmann: federicow@sumate.org

Necesitamos urgente que contactes la mayor cantidad de voluntarios en el exterior para la labor de validación. Estos voluntarios lo que tienen que hacer es conectarse por internet durante 1, 2, 3 ... horas (lo que puedan) y validar las firmas de diputados y del revocatorio que no pudieron ser leídas por el scanner. La explicación exacta de cómo hacer este proceso se las daremos vía web o internet una vez que tengamos sus datos (Nombre, Apellido, Teléfonos, Cédula o ID, Mail). Estas personas necesitan tener conexión con ABA o banda ancha.

La validación se venía haciendo con 50 personas en un call center y por 200 personas más en Caracas vía internet, pero necesitamos más voluntarios de lo contrario la validación de firmas se extenderá por varios meses más. Queremos contar con gente de todo el país y del exterior para terminar con el Firmazo lo antes posible.

Exactamente lo que tienes que hacer es enviarme los voluntarios lo antes posible. Yo le envío esta información al equipo técnico y ellos hacen el resto.

Necesitamos de la ayuda de todos los venezolanos.

Saludos

Juan Carlos Guinand

Coordinador Red de Voluntarios

<a href=www.voanews.com>VOA News 23 Apr 2003, 00:05 UTC

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe are set to hold a bilateral summit Wednesday amid rising tensions over allegations that Venezuela shelters Colombian leftist rebels.

The talks in Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela come two days after Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel angrily denied that his country gives refuge to what he called delinquents of any nationality.

Mr. Rangel made his remarks in response to comments from Colombian Attorney-General Luis Camilo Osorio, who said that Venezuela has become a haven for Colombian criminals.

Mr. Rangel also accused Mr. Camilo and other Colombian officials of trying to tarnish the reputation of the Venezuelan government and ruin the relationship between the two neighbors.

President Chavez denies his government ever aided Colombian guerrillas or knowingly allowed them to slip into Venezuelan territory.

Officials in both countries say the border has become the scene of numerous skirmishes between various military and paramilitary groups.

<a href=www.sfgate.com>SFGate.com\Tuesday, April 22, 2003
(04-22) 15:11 PDT MEXICO CITY (AP) --

A rebound in U.S. equities markets gave Mexican stocks a lift Tuesday, although volume remained modest as first-quarter earnings season gets into full swing.

The market's key IPC index closed up 47.26 points, or 0.7 percent, to 6,373.91. At the end of 2002, the IPC stood at 6127.09.

Volume was 62.5 million shares worth 789.7 million pesos.

The local market tracked the U.S. throughout the session, shaking off early losses and moving higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq composite index both rose 1.9 percent.

Leading the local rally were L shares of wireless telephony concern America Movil, which rose 2 percent to 8.33 pesos on solid volume. America Movil is scheduled to release its first-quarter earnings report Wednesday.

The L shares of fixed line phone giant Telmex, which plans to report later Tuesday, rose 0.4 percent to 16.47.

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Brazil's stocks ended higher Tuesday to set a new 10-month high as the country's currency recovered from early weakness and stocks on New York exchanges rose.

Local gains were restricted by worries President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva may encounter difficulty getting his pension reform proposal through Congress.

The main Sao Paulo index finished 0.5 percent up at 12,452 points, compared with 12,395 points at Thursday's close, its best close since June 10, 2002.

The exchange was shut Friday and Monday for holidays.

Stocks are also likely to rise Wednesday, when the central bank is expected to keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 26.5 percent and refrain from tightening the money supply. Many traders expect a rate cut in May.

On the stocks front, bellwether Telemar rose 0.8 percent to 31.02 reals and oil giant Petrobras gained 1.5 percent to 48.20.

Banco Bradesco rose 1.3 percent to 12.10 and steelmaker Usiminas gained 2.5 percent to 11.29.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Argentine stocks rose once again Tuesday, as investors kept plowing new funds into the market on the back of growing optimism about the outcome of the upcoming elections.

The large-cap Merval Index ended up 8.48 points, or 1.4 percent, at 649.75 points, while the broader General Index was up 294.30 points, or 1.0 percent, to 29,896.91 points. Volume was a strong 86.7 million pesos.

After the publication of opinion polls showing that two market-friendly candidates and one moderate candidate were the frontrunners for Sunday's presidential election, the markets saw one of their largest gains in years Monday, with the Merval rising more than 6 percent.

Bank stocks were among the sectors that benefited from positive election momentum. Grupo Financiero Galicia, which posted a 10.6 percent gain Monday, rose 2.9 percent Tuesday to 93 centavos, while Banco Frances climbed 1.7 percent to 5.33.

Companies that have recently announced debt restructuring proposals also performed well Monday. Steel company Acindar rose 3.8 percent to 1.62. Natural gas distributor Transportadora Gas del Sur, which ended 13 percent higher Monday, climbed 1.8 percent to 1.74.

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- Share prices on the Santiago Stock Exchange closed lower Tuesday, taken down by profit-taking, above all in shares that have U.S. ADRs.

Chile's blue-chip Ipsa index fell 0.6 percent to 1,083.28 points. The narrower Inter-10 index of more liquid internationally traded Chilean shares lost 0.8 percent, ending at 105.84.

Volume declined slightly to 13.68 billion pesos.

The list of decliners was led by U.S.-listed wine maker Concha y Toro, which fell 5.5 percent to 520 pesos.

Among other U.S.-listed stocks, retailer D&S lost 2.7 percent to 447.50, and airline LanChile lost 2.3 percent to 860.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuelan shares ended a bit lower Tuesday following the market's biggest stock, CA Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela, or CANTV, which lost 2.3 percent.

The IBC General Stock Index, of which CANTV accounts for 40 percent, closed at 8,417 points, down about 0.5 percent. Trades totaled an equivalent of about $108,000.

CANTV closed 2.3 percent, lower at 2,285 bolivars.

<a href=www.nytimes.com>Associated Press By LARRY ROHTER

BUENOS AIRES, April 22 — Every time this country is plunged into a period of great trauma and misfortune, it instinctively looks to Juan Perón and his heirs for solace and salvation. To this day, something about Peronism stirs the souls of Argentines and fascinates even other Latin Americans.

Almost 50 years after he was first overthrown and nearly 30 years after he died in office, it still seems fair to ask whether Argentina will, someday, move past Perón. With a presidential election scheduled for Sunday, that question remains all too relevant — unfortunately so, for Argentina's 37 million people.

The Peronist party today is badly divided and unable to define what it stands for. But it has allowed itself the luxury of fielding three candidates, convinced that at least one of them will advance to a second round next month and then emerge triumphant by mobilizing the loyal Peronist masses.

Whether Gen. Juan Domingo Perón would recognize the movement that bears his name were he still alive is another matter, though. While the fascist thuggery that was an essential part of his political style may have been toned down for appearances' sake, so have most of the ideals that he espoused.

"I define Perón as an opportunist with principles, principles that were rudimentary but clear, and guided him throughout his life," said José Nun, author of "Inquiries Into Some Meanings of Peronism" and director of the Institute of Advanced Social Studies at San Martín National University here. Today, he said, "those who describe the Peronist movement as a collection of provincial mafias struggling for supremacy are telling the truth."

The origins of Peronism can be traced to Social Christian doctrine, most notably the emphasis on social justice, equality and harmony implicit in the movement's official name in Spanish, "Justicialismo." First articulated in the 1940's, Peronism sought to steer a middle course between capitalism and Communism, taking what Perón liked to call "the third position."

But over the decades, especially after his death in 1974, the main focus has shifted to obtaining and wielding power. That tendency became even more pronounced after the collapse of the Soviet bloc, which coincided with the rise of Carlos Menem, Argentina's president for most of the 1990's, front-runner by the narrowest of margins in Sunday's vote and an advocate of free markets.

Argentines often argue that no foreigner can truly understand Peronism, but most efforts to define the doctrine end up sounding like pure gobbledygook. "Peronism is like a river in movement, it is the river itself and at the same time it is not the same because it is always in movement," Carlos Corach, a former minister of the interior and close associate of Mr. Menem, said recently.

Rather than classify Peronism as a party, Argentines prefer to talk of it as a movement, capable of sheltering both left and right, or even a "mystique" that goes beyond rational understanding. A whole body of myths and legends, rather than a consistent body of ideas, have become the glue that holds everything together.

Even now, Peronist candidates refer constantly to Oct. 17, 1945, when a mass march by workers angry at the arrest of Perón forced his release, and of course to the entire saga of the rise, death and posthumous sanctification of Eva Perón. "That is a story I could never write," Argentina's greatest writer, the fabulist Jorge Luis Borges, once said.

After Perón was overthrown in 1955, Borges, who had been stripped of his job at the National Library during the dictatorship and forced to become a poultry inspector, wrote a famous essay dismissing Peronism as "the comic illusion." But he and other critics have always underestimated the appeal of Peronism precisely because they scorn it for its contradictions and incoherencies.

The party faithful who tend the shrines to "Saint Evita" in working-class suburbs like Ciudad Evita, tell a very different story. They condemn current party leaders for betraying Peronist ideals, proudly recount their own years spent in prison and dream of returning to a time of social justice, economic independence and national sovereignty.

But nothing associated with Peronism seems fixed or immutable. As Óscar Steimberg, an Argentine intellectual who specializes in semiotics, said, "Peronism has no book and no center of discourse, and that allows many to reaccommodate themselves."

That ideological malleability helps explain Peronism's continuing appeal to generations of on-the-make politicians in other parts of Latin America. It is not just the swaggering figure of Perón himself — the caudillo, the strongman and charismatic leader par excellence — that has captivated dictators ranging from Augusto Pinochet to Omar Torrijos and Fidel Castro, but his insistence on personal loyalty and also his oft-repeated statement that "political parties are an anachronism."

Venezuela's populist president, Hugo Chávez, for example, can hardly be considered a man of the right. But with the help of an Argentine Peronist guru, he rode to power by latching on to Perón's concept of a postdemocratic mystical bond between the leader and the people in which progressive military and "nationalist" business elements would also have a place.

Encouraged by an economic crisis that has sharpened internal divisions, die-hard anti-Peronists have begun suggesting that Peronism may finally be imploding. But Peronists dismiss that notion as wishful thinking, and, to the detriment of an Argentina that sorely needs modern political parties and new ideas and leaders, they are probably right.