Reuters, 05.12.03, 4:53 PM ET

CARACAS, Venezuela, May 12 (Reuters) - Venezuela's giant Amuay-Cardon refinery on Friday will export its first cargo of reformulated gasoline (RFG) to the United States since a crippling oil strike earlier this year, a spokesman for Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) said on Monday.

"The ship is going to leave on Friday," the refinery spokesman said, adding the shipment was for 300,000 barrels of RFG.

U.S. traders have said they will be watching the cargo closely to determine if the cleaner burning gasoline meets specifications. Venezuela in recent weeks has sold two cargoes of RFG as conventional gasoline because it was not up to specifications.

The 940,000 barrel per day (bpd) Amuay-Cardon plant, Venezuela's largest export refinery, has not exported RFG since early December when foes of President Hugo Chavez began a two month oil strike.

Amuay-Cardon officials said last week that exports of RFG would be restarted by Wednesday. RFG, used in parts of the United States to combat smog, makes up roughly a third of the 9 million bpd of gasoline consumed in the United States.

On Tuesday, PDVSA also plans to restart a 84,000 bpd hydrodesulphurisation unit at Amuay shut late April due to a fire, the spokesman added.

Venezuela, a top supplier of RFG to the United States, fired over 18,000 employees for participating in the strike and used replacement workers and troops to restart its 1.3 million bpd domestic refining system.

Posted: Monday, May 12, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Sociology student Omar Sierra has been complaining about government exchange rate policy office (Cadivi) . Writing from New York where he attends university, Sierra highlights the amount of red tape he has faced to received Cadivi dollars from his parents.

Sierra ... who is active in the New York Bolivarian Circle ... says he agrees with exchange rate controls and his first step was to go to the Venezuelan Consulate in New York to fill in applications forms and certify his documents ... which he duly sent to his family.

In Venezuela, Cadivi asked Sierra's father for the same documents again that his son had handed in at the Consulate. An angry Sierra sent the papers home, received confirmation from Cadivi via email on March 27 and he's says he is still waiting for authorization.

The money his parents send him goes towards paying university enrollment fees and Omar reveals that he also works in a restaurant to help pay university fees.

Thanks to the seeming ineptitude of Cadivi, Sierra thinks he's going to lose his summer enrollment chance and has written letters and sent emails without receiving any reply.

His family, Sierra bitterly comments, doesn't have the money to buy dollars on the black market or to fly to neighboring Curacao to make a deposit as many well-off families do.

What really made him mad was to overhear a conversation between two anti-government overseas students in the Big Apple who were complaining about the "pittance" that Cavidi sent them. He concludes: "the money is going out, so where's the hitch?"

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela´s Electronic News Posted: Monday, May 12, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

President Hugo Chavez Frias has described the opposition as a poor baseball team. Speaking to supporters at a rally in Bolivar State, the President says the opposition, except for some honorable exceptions, is completely irrational.

"They now expect me to collect signatures for the recall referendum ... that takes the biscuit ... it's crazy ... let them sweat it out on the streets collecting signatures, if they can."

The President, he says, is obviously not the person most interested in pursuing a recall referendum ..." the same April 11 coupsters now want the government to collect signatures to throw out the government ... it's got that crazy."

Comparing the recall referendum to a ball game, Chavez Frias quips that if the opposition manage to train, draw up a team and move up one category, the government team will wait for them but if they fail to meet constitutional requirements, then there won't be any referendum ... "what are they waiting for? For me to convene a referendum for them?"

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Monday, May 12, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Primero Justicia (PJ) has presented an economic balance of Venezuela, complaining that the government's import policy to alleviate food shortages in certain sectors has left around 200,000 persons out of work.

PJ leader, Julio Borges says the policy's main defect is that it is affecting jobs and points to the case of rice imports from Thailand.

"The government aims to import finished rice through Cuban Alimpor placing 21,300 jobs in jeopardy." The same, he claims, is true in the case of wheat imported from Italy ... "Italy doesn't grow wheat, it imports from Canada and the USA."

Borges estimates losses at $800 million and suggests that if the government used the money to subsidize the basic food basket for 300,000 families for 6 months, it could easily do so ... "if it used the money for an emergency job plan, employing 800,000 persons for 6 months, it would be better than spending the money on Cuban companies."