Posted on Tue, May. 20, 2003 Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela - Ruling party lawmakers passed a resolution Tuesday criticizing Ambassador Charles S. Shapiro for what they said was interference in Venezuelan affairs.

In a vote boycotted by opposition lawmakers, Congress passed a motion rejecting Shapiro's remarks on press freedom as "defamatory."

Members of President Hugo Chavez's Fifth Republic Movement also slammed a skit by a Venezuelan comic that made fun of Chavez. The skit was performed during a May 14 reception at Shapiro's residence. Tuesday's resolution claimed the "lack of respect" shown Chavez occurred with Shapiro's consent.

U.S. Embassy officials couldn't immediately be reached by telephone for comment. But in May 15 statement on the issue, the embassy distanced intself from the comic's presentation.

The statement said that although the skit "seemed to us in bad taste ... the embassy does not know in advance nor does it censure what its guests are going to say, whether it's an invited speaker or humorist."

At the reception, Shapiro expressed concern about "deteriorating press freedoms" in Venezuela, citing unpunished attacks on dozens of journalists.

The controversy is the latest in a string of differences that created often tense relations between the United States and Venezuela during Chavez's four-year government.

Chavez has irked Washington by strengthening ties with Cuba and Libya. And ties also suffered after the United States initially blamed Chavez for his own downfall during an April 2002 coup that briefly ousted the Venezuelan president from office. The two nations have also differed over U.S. anti-drug efforts, and the Chavez has been critical of U.S.-led efforts to establish a hemispheric free trade zone.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Tuesday, May 20, 2003 By: David Coleman

Las Cristinas goldmine operator Crystallex International (KRY) has filed year end 2002 results which show gold production of 94,623 ounces at a cash cost of US$269 per ounce and a net loss for the year of Can$39.8 million, including non-cash items (i) mineral property writedowns of C$2.1 million, (ii) non-hedge derivative loss of C$17.8 million and (iii) amortization and depletion C$12.3 million.

The year's highlights are detailed as the Las Cristinas mining operation contract signed with independent proven and probable estimate of reserves at 9.5 million troy ounces of gold ... Crystallex’s gold reserves now place it as the 5th largest North American gold companies.

With the Las Cristinas feasibility study and metallurgical test work underway the 2001 and 2000 results restated resulting primarily from mineral property writedowns and management team expanded and head office relocated to Toronto (Canada).

ELIDES J. ROJAS L. EL UNIVERSAL

At the last minute, Venezolana de Televisión (VTV), a TV channel belonging to the State, the government and the ruling party, announced its participation in the broadcasting of this week-end Telethon, together with the rest of the Venezuelan TV channels.

To participate in such a event was almost an duty. It allowed private businesses, civilian society and mass media to invade a sensitive area for Chávez: poverty, in this case, homeless children.

La Colmena project -a residence complex to be built with the funds raised in order to provide accommodation for 600 poor children- seemed to be a good opportunity for government partisans to get in by force. According to what we could see, they were welcomed. On Saturday, Guárico State governor appeared with a considerable contribution and even a plot of land located in his state. A Vargas State representative did the same. Everything seemed to go smoothly. State and civilian society together, finally together, for a good cause where, besides, the revolution has shown a awful failure.

However, the presence on the stage of the heads of the TV channels was enough for the audience gathered in the major Venezuelan university campus to begin to clap and chant the well-known “Not a single step back.” This meant the end of the VTV broadcasting. It jumped to a joropo tuyero (typical Venezuelan music in the countryside) and a group of people shouting “Chávez won’t leave.”

This rapid pass through this national togetherness allowed a sight into something outrageous. The commercials of fascist, the coup-plotter companies were broadcasted by VTV as they were a Cuban aid package. Some believed we had turned back to the pre-Chavez era.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Tuesday, May 20, 2003 By: David Coleman

Venezuela is taking the high ground after a senior diplomat rushed from Washington D.C. to defuse a potentially explosive impasse as the result of US Caracas ambassador Charles Shapiro's last-week faux-pas by giving prior approval to a silly comedy sketch which was been used by political opposition propagandists to insult the Venezuelan Head of State.

While privately, President Hugo Chavez Frias has been treating the brouhaha with due levity, diplomatic clown prince Shapiro's subsequent cover-up has only served to accentuate growing dissent between Washington and Caracas with the US State Department itself stepping in to declare that the comedy sketch was ''inappropriate'' and hastening to add that it did "not represent the official US view."

Nevertheless, following abject apologies from within the Beltway, Venezuela's ambassador to Washington, Bernardo Alvarez Herrera flew home to Caracas to pour oil on troubled waters, telling reporters in Caracas that Venezuela wants to preserve and extend its economic relations with the United States despite the ill-willed US lack of diplomacy.  Following a meeting with Executive Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel, Alvarez Herrera says ''we're not looking for any kind of confrontation!''

Late last week the Vice President had called for lackluster Shapiro to be declared 'persona non grata' and sent home to Washington for "an act of 'irresponsible provocation.''  Rangel had questioned what would happen if Alvarez Herrera had thrown a party at the Venezuelan legation in Washington to poke ridicule at George W. Bush with whom the Venezuelan government has maintained a decided difference of opinion over the unilateral US-British invasion of Iraq outside the legal framework of the United Nations.

In actual fact, the comedy sketch was innocent enough and scarcely warranted attention against the background of opposition abuse to which President Chavez Frias is subjected on a day-to-day basis by the rabid anti-government private media.  However, film footage of the "event" was broadcast on opposition TV channels with the inevitable surfacing of the US ambassador's complicity allowing the heavily partisan political sketch to go ahead at what was clearly a heavily-politicized opposition get-together at the USA La Florida residence.

Alvarez says "there may be political differences ... but what you see is an historic relationship and there is no reason for it to be affected.''  Venezuela remains the world's 5th-largest oil exporter and supplies 14% of USA oil imports as well as being the USA's 3rd-largest trading partner in Latin America after Brazil and Mexico.

Taking the high ground above what US diplomats are attempting to contain as a purely Venezuelan "domestic" mele, Alvarez Herrera says he will lobby the US Export-Import Bank to reconsider a last-month decision to suspend US exports guarantees to Venezuela.  The bank had claimed that "the absence of  reasonable guarantees of payment" and the introduction of foreign exchange controls had been decisive factors in its decision.

nzoom.com

Concerned that Iraq's oil might fall under the control of US-led coalition forces, financier and philanthropist Georges Soros has launched an "Iraq Revenue Watch" to ensure that the Iraqi people will benefit from their own resources.

Watch will monitor the defeated country's oil industry, which should be managed "with the highest standards of transparency and that the benefits of national oil wealth flow to the people of Iraq".

Soros, who made a fortune from foreign currency trading, is well known in Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia for his humanitarian programs, which are managed by his New York-based Open Society Institute.

The institute has criticised oil-rich countries like Nigeria and Venezuela for squandering their natural resources and for the lack of proper stewardship, which has often led to political abuses, corruption and a failure to raise living standards.

The institute has called on the United States to set up rules to ensure completetransparency in using Iraq's oil to benefit the Iraqi people.

Soros called on the UN Security Council to modify the latest draft of a resolution written by the US and Britain to give an explicit and important role to the UN and to define the responsibilities of those two countries as the occupying powers in Iraq.

He said at a press conference at UN headquarters that the revised draft was still too vague on the UN role.

"If approved (by the council), the resolution ... would establish an indefinite American protectorate of Iraq sanctioned by the United Nations and paid for by Iraq's oil revenues," the Open Society Institute said in a press statement.

"It would also undermine international law," the statement said.

"The UN and the secretary-general should be given a more substantial role in Iraq."

Source: AAP