Caracas, May 1 (<a href=quote.bloomberg.com>Bloomberg) -- Venezuela will raise the country's minimum wage by 30 percent this year, not the 25 percent increase that President Hugo Chavez announced yesterday, said Labor Minister Maria Cristina Iglesias.
Minimum monthly wages will rise 10 percent on July 1 to 209,088 bolivars ($137) from their current 190,000 bolivars. The wage will go up 18 percent in October to 247,104 bolivars for a 30 percent rise this year, the minister said.
Chavez read the wrong figures yesterday when making the announcement, Iglesias said on state television.
Consumer prices may jump 35 percent this year, Finance Minister Tobias Nobrega said earlier this month. The country's inflation rate was 31 percent last year, when Chavez raised the minimum wage by 20 percent.
NEW YORK, May 1 (Reuters) - Venezuela's foreign-financed Cerro Negro extra-heavy oil project is back at full capacity after recovering from a stoppage during a national workers' strike earlier this year, project partner Exxon Mobil Corp. (nyse: XOM - news - people) said on Thursday.
"We're back at full production at Cerro Negro," Exxon Mobil spokesman Pat Mulva said in a conference call with analysts.
Exxon Mobil is partnered with state oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) in the Cerro Negro joint venture.
The project has the capacity to process 120,000 barrels per day (bpd) of extra heavy oil from the Orinoco region into 108,000 bpd of light synthetic oil. Cerro Negro and three other projects which upgrade Orinoco oil were halted by an oil strike between December and February.
The Cerro Negro disruption reduced Exxon Mobil's first quarter oil production by 35,000 bpd, Mulva added.
The four Orinoco projects, which partner PDVSA with international oil firms, had been producing over 400,000 bpd of Venezuela's total output of 3.1 million bpd in November.
Exxon Mobil, the world's biggest oil company, has announced a threefold jump in profits, crediting a sharp rise in global crude oil prices
The company said pre-tax profits for the first three months of 2003 came in at $7.04bn (£4.4bn ; EUR6.3bn), up from $2.1bn dollars during the same period last year.
The result was Exxon's best ever over three months, beating its previous record of $5.2bn in the final quarter of 2001.
Shares in Exxon - which sells fuel under the Esso brand - were up 1.3% at $35.66 in early trade on Wall Street.
Supply uncertainty
The company's strong performance reflected a recent rally in crude oil prices amid fears that the war in Iraq, an oil workers' strike in Venezuela, and civil unrest in Nigeria would disrupt global supplies.
Exxon's bottom line received a further boost from the sale of its stake in German natural gas distributor Ruhrgas AG.
Exxon's revenues for the first three months of the year also rose sharply, climbing to $63.8bn from $43.4bn one year ago.
Other oil companies have also benefited from the rally in world oil prices, with the UK's BP unveiling a record first-quarter profit of $3.7bn earlier this week.
However, world oil prices are expected to fall in the months ahead as Iraqi output returns to normal, taking some of the shine off the oil sector's financial results.
HAVANA (AP) - Fidel Castro, addressing a May Day rally of hundreds of thousands of people, accused the United States on Thursday of trying to provoke a war with Cuba.
"In Miami and Washington they are now discussing where, how and when Cuba will be attacked," the Cuban president said in a speech at the annual celebrations in Havana's Plaza of the Revolution.
"On behalf of the one million people gathered here this May Day, I want to convey a message to the world and the American people: We do not want the blood of Cubans and Americans to be shed in a war."
Cheers erupted from the crowd as Castro, wearing his typical olive green uniform and cap, arrived for the ceremony and took his place alongside other communist leaders.
"Long live May Day! Long live socialism! Long live Fidel!" declared Pedro Ross, secretary-general of the Cuban Workers Confederation, as the event began a half-hour early because of concerns that it would rain.
Castro accused the United States of hypocrisy over recent hijackings of Cuban planes and boats, saying Americans were provoking and actively encouraging the hijackings, only to later denounce them.
As an example of America's "brazenly provocative" actions, Castro said Kevin Whitaker, chief of the State Department's Cuban bureau, warned Cuban diplomats in Washington on Sunday that the American government "considered the continued hijackings from Cuba a serious threat to the national security of the United States." There was no immediate response from the State Department.
On April 11, a firing squad executed three men convicted of terrorism for trying to commandeer a Cuban ferry full of passengers to United States.
Castro has said that the executions were a harsh measure needed to halt the hijackings of boats and planes and stem a brewing migration crisis. No one was hurt in the hijacking, one of a wave of at least four attempted and successful hijackings over the last few weeks.
The U.S. government - along with other governments and international human rights groups - has condemned the speed with which the trials and executions were carried out.
Cuba also has been criticized for sentencing 75 dissidents to prison terms of up to 28 years on charges of collaborating with U.S. diplomats to destabilize the socialist regime. It was the island's harshest crackdown on opponents in decades.
Among the crowd, one group hoisted an effigy of President Bush, fashioned of cardboard and plastic bags and bearing the message, "Bush: Don't mess with Cuba."
A scattering of Cuban flags waved above the crowd, along with the flags of nations from around the region, including Brazil, Venezuela, Canada and Uruguay.
"We workers are gathered here to tell the American empire that we are not afraid, in spite of their lies," 66-year-old gardener Jose Rego said shortly before the ceremony began.
More than 900 union leaders from around the world - including 160 from the United States - reportedly were participating in the Havana rally.
Addressing the May Day crowd, the Rev. Lucius Walker Jr., an American pastor who has long backed Castro's government, said that Cuba is "loved, respected, appreciated and supported by millions of U.S. citizens."
But he also called on Cuba to abolish the death penalty.
"Cuba: you are a world leader in human rights and respect for human life," said Walker, pastor of Salvation Baptist Church in Brooklyn and executive director of New York-based Pastors for Peace. "The death penalty demeans that. You are better than that."
Walker exhorted the U.S. government to "cease its hypocritical lies and distortion about Cuba's human rights record because the United States itself is the worst violator of human rights in this hemisphere."
HAVANA - Hundreds of thousands of Cubans poured into the country's main plaza Thursday for a May Day celebration that aimed to defend the island's socialist system against criticism from abroad.
"We workers are gathered here to tell the American empire that we are not afraid, in spite of their lies," Jose Rego, a 66-year-old gardener in a straw hat, said shortly before the ceremony began at Havana's Plaza of the Revolution.
Waving a poster of a young Fidel Castro in one hand and a red, white and blue Cuban flag in the other, Rego declared: "The Cuban people know how to defend the just cause of the working class."
Cheers erupted as Castro, wearing his typical olive green uniform and cap, arrived and took his place alongside other communist leaders. The Cuban president was to speak later Thursday.
"Long live May Day! Long live socialism! Long live Fidel!" declared Pedro Ross, secretary-general of the Cuban Workers Confederation, as the event began.
Organizers said 1 million people were expected at the Havana rally, including more than 900 union leaders from around the world - 160 of them from the United States. Smaller gatherings were being held in other Cuban cities.
The demonstrations came as Cuba faces stern criticism for sending 75 dissidents to prison on charges of collaborating with U.S. diplomats to destabilize the socialist regime. It was the island's harshest crackdown on opponents in decades, drawing condemnation even from leftist intellectuals traditionally sympathetic to Cuba.
Governments and human rights groups around the world also condemned the April 11 execution of three men who hijacked a ferry and tried to commandeer it to the United States. No one was hurt in the hijacking.
Giant posters, radio appeals and newspaper articles in recent days have urged Cubans to attend the rally and defy recent criticism of the island's human rights record.
Gathered under cloudy skies, some workers carried plastic bags to protect themselves against rain. One group hoisted an effigy of President Bush, fashioned of cardboard and plastic bags and bearing the message, "Bush: Don't mess with Cuba."
A scattering of Cuban flags waved above the crowd, along with flags of nations from around the region, including Brazil, Venezuela, Canada and Uruguay.
During its annual six-week session that ended Friday, the U.N. Human Rights Commission passed a resolution urging Cuba to accept a visit from an international rights inspector, a request the country rejected.
But Cuba has claimed two recent diplomatic victories. The United Nations rights watchdog failed to pass an amendment condemning Cuba's crackdown, and the island was re-elected to the 53-member panel for another three-year term.