<a href=www.voanews.com>VOANews Marissa Melton Washington 28 May 2003, 23:44 UTC

In its annual report on human rights, Amnesty International says the war on terrorism in the Western Hemisphere has undermined civil liberites and human rights across the region. Tightening security has led to hundreds of unlawful detentions in Colombia and torture of prisoners in a dozen other countries.

In its report on Colombia, Amnesty says security measures under the current president exacerbated the already appalling political violence. By Amnesty's count, more than 4,000 civilians were killed for political reasons in 2002, while more than 2,700 were kidnapped by guerrilla groups or paramilitary forces.

Amnesty says, torture and ill-treatment of prisoners and unlawful killings by security forces have been recorded in a score of countries, from Mexico to Patagonia. It accuses police in Jamaica of killing at least 133 people, and security forces in Argentina and Venezuela of shooting political demonstrators.

Peru, according to the report, continues to hold a number of political dissenters in jail, while Cuba has recently imprisoned dozens more. Prison conditions in those countries, and a dozen others, the report says, are very poor.

On the plus side, Amnesty said some countries, including Chile, Argentina and Uruguay, have made progress in investigating past human rights abuses and punishing violators.

Wednesday, May 28, 2003
(05-28) 16:41 PDT MEXICO CITY (<a href=www.sfgate.com>AP) --

Mexican stocks rose for the second day in a row Wednesday, helped by positive U.S. markets and record low domestic interest rates.

The local stock market's key IPC finished up 17.04 point, or 0.3 percent, at 6,667.35. Volume was a solid 115.2 million shares worth 1.63 billion pesos.

The Valmex brokerage said in a report that optimism in the United States, mostly over the medium-term economic outlook, was helping U.S. shares, and Mexico was catching it.

The drop in local domestic interest rates at Tuesday's primary auction was also a factor helping stocks.

The rate on benchmark 28-day Treasury bills or Cetes, fell 0.44 percentage point to 4.91 percent, one basis point above the record low set two weeks ago.

With fixed income returns at minimal levels, "the opportunity cost of being in the stock market is very low, which is an additional reason for investing," Valmex said.

Accounting for much of Wednesday's volume, market bellwether Telmex L shares rose 0.1 percent to 15.66 pesos, and banking group BBVA-Bancomer B shares rose 0.6 percent to 9.04 pesos.

Telecommunications heavyweight America Movil L shares slipped 0.5 percent to 9.24 pesos.

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Brazil's stocks climbed slightly Wednesday for a second consecutive session on continued signs of easing inflation and improved prospects for pension and tax reform.

The Ibovepsa index ended with 13,294 points, up 0.4 percent from Tuesday's close of 13,246 points. Volume was a moderate 742 million reals.

Investors reacted warmly to news of easing price increases over the past month, which moved the index up more than 1 percent just after the opening bell. Later, investor enthusiasm waned as markets around the world showed only modest gains.

News of a political alliance meant to push through much-needed changes to Brazil's pension and tax systems also cheered investors. Late Tuesday, the leading Democratic Movement Party, or PMDB, agreed to join President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's Workers' Party in what looks to be a difficult fight to implement reform.

Additionally, the market is anxiously anticipating Thursday's release of Brazil's first-quarter gross domestic product performance. A Dow Jones Newswires survey of 15 economists generated a consensus estimate for seasonally adjusted GDP growth of 0.6 percent, though some expect a negative result.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Argentine stocks climbed Wednesday to break the five-year high reached one month ago as the market registered growing confidence over fledgling President Nestor Kirchner's ability to lead the country's economic recovery.

The large-cap Merval Index gained 2.1 percent, or 13.72 points, to end at 678.03 points, while the broader General Index climbed 1.9 percent, or 579.73 points, to 30,551.76.

Wednesday's level surpassed the Merval's five-year high set April 23. Analysts said the market is embracing the early policy initiatives that have come from Kirchner's administration during his first week in office.

Volume traded was 52.7 million pesos.

Steel firm Acindar was the day's strongest performer, gaining 5 percent to end at 2.32 pesos. The promise of the massive public works project has buoyed the company's shares in recent weeks.

Privatized utility companies also posted gains Wednesday, with Telecom Argentina rising 4.5 percent to 3.23 pesos and Transportadora de Gas del Sur climbing 3.8 percent to 1.62 pesos. A review of public service contracts has been marked as a priority for de Vido's newly created cabinet ministry.

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- Share prices on the Santiago Stock Exchange closed higher Wednesday, helped by gains in airline LanChile and Coca Cola bottler Andina and supported by gains of Wall Street share prices.

Chile's blue-chip Ipsa index ended up 1.6 percent at 1,224.38 points. The Inter-10 index of more liquid, internationally traded Chilean shares matched the 1.6 percent gain by rising to 119.44. Volume skyrocketed to 23.22 billion pesos.

Top gainers included Andina, whose B-shares surged another 5.2 percent to 1,030 pesos on continued speculation it might buy Peruvian peer Embonor.

Airline LanChile topped blue-chip gainers, rising 6 percent to 1,150 pesos, while Banco Santander Santiago extended Tuesday's 1.8 percent gains by 2.9 percent to 14.30 pesos.

Utilities holding Enersis continued going the other way, giving up 2.8 percent to 61.50 pesos in profit-taking.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuelan shares ended higher Wednesday even though the market's biggest stock, CA Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela, or CANTV, lost 1.7 percent as investors took recent profits.

The IBC General Stock Index, of which CANTV accounts for 40 percent, closed 3.8 percent higher at 11,532 points, continuing to a new seven-year high.

A 20 percent rise in financial conglomerate Mercantil Servicios Financieros helped the IBC overcome CANTV's slight loss. Mercantil's A shares ended at 1,710 bolivars.

<a href=www.khilafah.com>khilafah.com uploaded 29 May 2003

At the insistence of the Saudis, we are in the process of ending our military presence in that country, abandoning the Prince Sultan Air Base which cost us over a billion dollars and served as our former command and control center for the Persian Gulf until we were forced to move those functions to Qatar.

The recent terrorists bombings in Riyadh, which killed 10 Americans, and the rising hostility of the civilian population towards Americans, has led to the temporary closing of all of our diplomatic outposts in that country.

The Saudi bashers in the United States and the America bashers in Saudi Arabia might be happy about all this. But the rest of us should not.

For this has given rise to a situation which is a clear and present danger to the United States, dwarfing that which, we were given to believe, was represented by Iraq prior to our overthrow of the regime of Saddam Hussein.

If the House of Saud is overthrown, chaos would result, allowing the radical fundamentalists to either gain control or, at a minimum, guarantee that anarchy would prevail. This would open the door to those who would be both willing and able to cut off the supply of crude oil from Saudi Arabia to the West. This could happen either from within or without.

It would be the ultimate act of economic self-flagellation if it comes from within, one that, however, would bring the United States to its knees like no other.

For well over a half century the United States has been fully aware of the key importance of our alliance with the rulers of Saudi Arabia. It was based on a very simple quid pro quo. We provided protection to that country's royal family in return for its guaranteeing a reliable flow of crude oil to the world market upon which we now depend for over half of our crude oil needs -- Realpolitik at its best.

Due to its huge capacity -- the ability to pump as much as 12 million barrels a day -- Saudi Arabia is the world's "swing" producer. As such, it can move the world price for this fungible commodity more or less at will, within reasonable limits. It has proven this most recently by increasing its output by amounts sufficient to prevent violent swings in the price of oil when exports from two other key OPEC producers, Iraq and Venezuela, were suddenly suspended almost simultaneously.

Given the fragile state of the world economy the issue now, however, is not just price. It is supply. Should the supply of oil from Saudi Arabia drop to zero, economic growth of the West would drop to well below zero and stay there until a "solution" is found.

There are those who think that we already have the solution, namely our control of the Iraqi oil fields. That is a total illusion. It will take years to even get Iraqi output back over 2 million barrels a day. It will take years more to bring it to a target level of 4 million barrels a day. In the meantime, Saudi oil will remain indispensable.

Then there is military intervention. Since we will be maintaining a major military presence in the Gulf, especially in neighboring Iraq, for years to come, it should be a simple matter of our moving American forces in to occupy the Eastern Provinces where the Saudi oil fields are concentrated and keep the oil flowing. This is easier said than done, however.

We could get involved in a never-ending type of asymmetric warfare in Saudi Arabia where neither Abrams tanks nor smart bombs assure victory. Equally important, however, is that even today the transport and seaport facilities key to facilitating the export of oil from Saudi Arabia are extremely vulnerable to external terrorist attack.

They will be even more vulnerable in just a few months, after the military security umbrella which the United States has maintained over Saudi Arabia has been totally removed.

Al Qaeda could plunge the world into energy chaos by blowing up a single LNG tanker in the port of Ras Tanura. Over 10 percent of the world's oil supply flows through that single seaport. Sabotage of the crude oil pipeline from the Eastern Provinces to the Red Sea, which provides the only alternate route for the export of Saudi oil, would be even easier. Then what?

All this leads me to conclude that if a geopolitical nightmare occurs in Saudi Arabia, it would represent the mother of all external shocks. Potentially, it could jolt the economies of the West more than any event since World War II.

Source:  CBS Marketwatch

Reuters, 05.28.03, 6:38 PM ET By Ana Isabel Martinez

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela's CANTV is stirring up the Caracas stock exchange and not just because the nation's largest telecommunications firm is the traditional market leader.

Shares of CANTV, whose main shareholder is U.S. firm Verizon Communications, skyrocketed this week when investors discovered a lucrative loophole allowing them to skirt the nation's currency controls by buying the firm's stock.

A senior Caracas Stock Market source told Reuters that the Bank of New York Monday restarted conversions of the firm's local bolivar currency shares into dollar-denominated American Depositary Shares.

"From Monday, they have been converting them. The Bank of New York notified trading houses which are in the market," the source told Reuters on the condition of anonymity.

Since February when the government implemented the forex controls, the bank halted conversions while it studied whether the transactions would be legal under the new currency restrictions.

CANTV shares have risen 57 percent this month to historic highs and the stock has gained 18 percent this week alone.

The shares closed Wednesday on the Caracas bourse trading at 3,785 bolivars, down 1.7 percent from the previous day's close. The bolivar is set at 1,600 to the U.S. dollar under the current fixed exchange rate.

Buying the ADS shares (American Depositary Shares) of CANTV allows investors to convert bolivars into dollars and that creates a type of parallel currency market that the government has so far sternly rejected. Under the forex controls, many in the private sector have complained that the curbs are starving the economy of hard currency.

NO AUTHORIZATION

One senior CANTV source, who asked not to be identified, said that the firm was not involved in the conversions. A Bank of New York spokesman in New York said that the bank had not issued any statement regarding such transactions.

The state currency control board, Cadivi, said that it had not authorized the conversions.

"We have absolutely not authorized this kind of transaction...This is a very rigid currency control," Adina Bastidas, one of the Cadivi directors, told Reuters.

Still, the exchange control regime as it stands does not expressly forbid this type of transaction, which offers a discreet loophole with which to circumvent the tough curbs.

The official system only demands that ADS shares issued up to the date the controls were implemented should be registered with the Venezuelan securities and exchange commission. Shareholders must also apply to Cadivi for the currency to convert the stock, earnings and interest.

But Finance Minister Tobias Nobrega Wednesday acknowledged that the CANTV conversions were not illegal because they were not regulated under the controls. He said the government would make an announcement about the issue within the next few days.

Traders estimate that the exchange rate implicit in the transactions stands at around 2,300 bolivars to the U.S. dollar, well above the official 1,600 bolivar fixed rate. The scarcity of dollars has created a thriving black market trading at about 2,500 bolivars to the greenback. (Additional reporting by Silene Ramirez)

VANESSA ARRINGTON, Associated Press Writer Wednesday, May 28, 2003
(05-28) 15:42 PDT BOGOTA, Colombia (<a href=www.sfgate.com>SFGate.com-AP) --

A Colombian rebel suspected in the murders of three Americans was flown under heavy security to the United States Wednesday -- the first guerrilla extradited by Colombia to face U.S. justice.

Nelson Vargas Rueda, a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, has been accused in the 1999 execution-style murders of Terence Freitas, 24, of Los Angeles; Ingrid Washinawatok, 41, of New York City; and Lahe'ena'e Gay, 39, of Pahoa, Hawaii.

The Americans were in Colombia to help set up a school system for the 5,000-member U'wa Indian tribe, in the vast eastern plains bordering Venezuela. Rebels kidnapped them in February 1999 and later shot them to death. Their bodies were found across the border in Venezuela.

Police helicopters transported Vargas from jail to Bogota's international airport, where FBI agents took him in custody for the flight, the police said.

The U.S. Justice Department said Vargas bound for Miami, where he would probably make a court appearance on Thursday.

Vargas is one of six members of the FARC, as the rebel group is known by its Spanish acronym, indicted in April 2002 in federal court in Washington, D.C. for the murders.

The FARC has admitted its fighters killed the Americans, and blamed a rogue lower-level commander, saying he would be punished by the insurgent group.

The United States has listed the FARC as an international terrorist organization and has provided Colombia with millions of dollars, mostly military aid, to fight the guerrillas.

The United States has also asked for the extradition of several other FARC rebels, including top leaders, in connection with drug trafficking cases.