Adding to confusion, Supreme Tribunal now wants National Assembly to appoint Electoral body

Posted by click at 8:25 AM in The Limits of Democracy

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Friday, May 30, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) president, Ivan Rincon says he prefers not to make any comments on the negotiations agreement signed yesterday between government and opposition but admits that the TSJ Electoral Chamber is dealing with three appeals asking for the speeding up of the National Electoral College (CNE) appointment process.

"I hope that the National Assembly (AN) does appoint the CNE board ... we will be ready to make sure citizens' rights are respected."

Rincon maintains that rights established in the Constitution are above any other theme in the country ... "the agreement is important but I won't emit an opinion because I haven't read the full text."

Rincon insists that the TSJ exists as a guarantee of citizen legal rights.

However, the magistrate's statement has added to the confusion as regards which organ, the legislature or judiciary will settle the priority task of appointing the CNE board.

House Appointments Committee president, Ismael Garcia says he senses political will among members of the opposition bench and admits thatlast week deputies' eyes were on the negotiations agreement signed yesterday ... "that is the reason for the slowdown."

Meanwhile, CNE president, Alfredo Avella has dismissed the Electoral Registration Officer Pedro Perez Diaz for overstepping his attributions by dismissing an official ... only the CNE president has the faculty. Accion Democratica (AD) militant Marcos Gomez will take over on a temporary basis.

Alternative community media gets one over on mainstream rivals

Posted by click at 8:22 AM in shooters

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Friday, May 30, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Venezuelan mainstream media jumped for delight when they discovered 23 de Enero website www.el23.net showing four photos of masked men carrying firearms in the 23 de Enero district ... instant spin had it that 23 de Enero-based Tupamaros and Carapaicas groups were responsible for last Saturday's armed skirmishes with Accion Democratica (AD) goon squads, Bandera Roja (BR), Metropolitan Police (PM) and National Guard (GN).

In an editorial clarifying its position, the community website denies that it is the official organ of either Tupamaros, Carapaica, Coordinadora Simon Bolivar or Bolivarian Circles (CBs), all of which operate in the 23 de Enero district.

The editorial hammers home the unequal struggle between mainstream and alternative media in Venezuela, complaining that since the page was set up 70% of news items are community- based and mainstream media sources have shown absolutely no interest in community stories, such as the efforts of a local schoolteacher and police officer organizing teenagers to deal with emergencies ... a young man in Sucre Barrio engaged in an anti-drugs campaign to protect 30 local children ... two ladies struggling to get a library afloat in La Canada sector.

Tupamaros representative, Jose Pinto has said publicly on Televen that the website does not belong to the organization.

The editorial ends reporting that the mainstream media are beginning to right the wrong and wryly concludes ... "in the beginning, the temptation for the media was too big and they couldn't resist it."

U.S-Iran tensions put oil markets on alert

Posted by click at 8:20 AM in Arab world and economy

Reuters, 05.30.03, 3:04 PM ET By Andrew Mitchell

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Brewing tensions between the Iran and the United States will keep oil markets on alert in coming months, but a direct threat to Iran's crude supply is so far too remote to push prices up, analysts said on Friday.

This week U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped up charges that Iran was harboring wanted leaders of the Islamic militant network al Qaeda. Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said on Friday the charges were baseless.

Rumsfeld is pressing for a U.S. policy shift to support "regime change" in Tehran, after U.S.-led forces last month ousted Saddam Hussein from another big Middle East oil producer Iraq, officials have said.

"The slow burning issue on the political agenda at the moment that has oil market implications is the US-Iran relationship," said Paul Horsnell of J.P. Morgan bank.

"We expect it to be a background factor and a source of occasional alarms in the market for quite some time to come," said Horsnell.

A disruption to Iran's 3.7 million barrels per day production -- second only to Saudi Arabia among the OPEC cartel -- would rattle an oil market already operating on low stocks after recent supply problems in Iraq, Venezuela and Nigeria.

The United States has already branded Iran part of an "axis of evil," accused of developing nuclear weapons, aiding militant groups and violating human rights.

"What you will see is knee-jerk reactions from time to time when you have declarations out of the administration which seem to be not too diplomatic," said Roger Diwan of PFC Energy in Washington.

It will take clear signals of possible military action -- currently viewed as highly unlikely -- for there to be any rerun of the pre-Iraq war price spike that pushed crude prices to 12-year highs near $40 a barrel earlier this year.

"I think this has a longer fuse. Iran is not Iraq -- the chances are the U.S. will not invade Iran. The oil market's going to be a little bit more sanguine on this," said Sarah Emerson of Energy Security Analysis in Boston.

"You won't have a premium which will stay there and which is significant. The only real risk here is if you have an attack on a nuclear reactor. That could have quite a lot of impact on the market in terns of psychology," said Diwan.

Iran holds 9 percent of the world's oil reserves, has the world's second largest gas reserves and sits beside the Strait of Hormuz, the main shipping channel carrying Middle East crude exports to international market.

The United States has already used most of the economic measures it could wield against Iran.

Since 1995 Washington has had unilateral sanctions, which bans U.S. firms from importing Iranian oil, and it threatens sanctions against foreign firms investing in Iranian oil although these measures are widely disregarded.

Analysts also expect a muted oil price impact from any deepening tensions with Syria, another Middle East oil producer on Washington's list of "rogue states."

Syria only exports 250,000 bpd, around 10 percent of Iran's exports. although U.S. majors ConocoPhillips (nyse: COP - news - people) and ExxonMobil (nyse: COP - news - people) are both regular buyers.

Lure of diamonds ends in jail and deportation

Posted by click at 8:16 AM in In Venezuela too.

<a href=winnipeg.cbc.ca>winnipeg.cbc.ca Web Posted | May 30 2003 12:51 PM CDT

WINNIPEG - Most of the people who stole diamonds from a Thunder Bay jewellery store this year have been sentenced to time already served in jail.

That amounts to a sentence of about six weeks.

The group is made up of mostly men, from Mexico, Columbia and Venezuela.

They were arrested in Winnipeg in mid-April with $29,000 in diamonds stolen days earlier from Atkinson's Jewellers.

All of the accused, with the exception of one Canadian woman, now face deportation back to their native countries.

A ninth person remains in custody awaiting a further court hearing.

Don't Look to the UN for Resistance--Re-Colonizing Iraq

Posted by click at 8:13 AM in Post war

CounterPunch May 30, 2003 By TARIQ ALI

Unsurprisingly, the Security Council has capitulated completely, recognised the occupation of Iraq and approved its re-colonisation by the United States and its bloodshot British adjutant. The timing of the mea culpa by the 'international community' was perfect. Yesterday, senior executives from over a 1000 companies gathered in London to bask in the sunshine of the re-established consensus under the giant umbrella of Bechtel, the American Empire's most favoured construction company. A tiny proportion of the loot will be shared.

So what happened to the over-heated rhetoric of Europe versus America? Berlusconi in Italy and Aznar in Spain--the two most right-wing governments in Europe--were fitting partners for Blair while the East European states, giving a new meaning to the term 'satellite', which they had previously so long enjoyed, fell as one into line behind Bush.

France and Germany, on the other hand, protested for months that they were utterly opposed to a US attack on Iraq. Schroeder had owed his narrow re-election to a pledge not to support a war on Baghdad, even were it authorized by the UN. Chirac, armed with a veto in the Security Council, was even more voluble with declarations that any unauthorized assault on Iraq would never be accepted by France.

Together, Paris and Berlin coaxed Moscow into expressing its disagreement too with American plans. Even Beijing emitted a few cautious sounds of demurral. The Franco-German initiatives aroused tremendous excitement and consternation among diplomatic commentators. Here, surely, was an unprecedented rift in the Atlantic Alliance. What was to become of European unity, of NATO, of the 'international community' itself if such a disastrous split persisted? Could the very concept of the West survive? Such apprehensions were quickly to be allayed. No sooner were Tomahawk missiles lighting up the nocturnal skyline in Baghdad, and the first Iraqi civilians cut down by the Marines, than Chirac rushed to explain that France would assure smooth passage of US bombers across its airspace (as it had not done, under his own Premiership, when Reagan attacked Libya), and wished 'swift success' to American arms in Iraq. Germany's cadaver-green Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer announced that his government too sincerely hoped for the 'rapid collapse' of resistance to the Anglo-American attack. Putin, not to be outdone, explained to his compatriots that 'for economic and political reasons', Russia could only desire a decisive victory of the United States in Iraq.

Washington is still not satisfied. It wants to punish France further. Why not a ritual public flogging broadcast live by Murdoch TV? A humbled petty chieftain (Chirac) bending over while an imperial princess (Condeleeza Rice) adminsters the whip. Then the leaders of a re-united North could all relax and get on with the business they know best: plundering the South.

The expedition to Baghdad was planned as the first flexing of a new imperial stance. What better demonstration of the shift to a more offensive strategy than to make an example of Iraq. If no single reason explains the targeting of Iraq, there is little mystery about the range of calculations that lay behind it. Economically, Iraq possesses the second largest reserves of cheap oil in the world; Baghdad's decision in 2000 to invoice its exports in euros rather than dollars risked imitation by Chávez in Venezuela and the Iranian mullahs. Privatization of the Iraqi wells under US control would help to weaken OPEC.

Strategically, the existence of an independent Arab regime in Baghdad had always been an irritation to the Israeli military-even when Saddam was an ally of the West, the IDF supplied spare parts to Tehran during the IranúIraq war. With the installation of Republican zealots close to Likud in key positions in Washington, the elimination of a traditional adversary became an attractive immediate goal for Jerusalem. Lastly, just as the use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had once been a pointed demonstration of American might to the Soviet Union, so today a blitzkrieg rolling swiftly across Iraq would serve to show the world at large that if the chips are down, the United States has, in the last resort, the means to enforce its will. The UN has now provided retrospective sanction to a pre-emptive strike. Its ill-fated predecessor, the League of Nations, at least had the decency to collapse after its Charter was serially raped.

Analogies with Hitler's blitzkrieg of 1940 are drawn without compunction by cheerleaders for the war. Thus Max Boot in the Financial Times (2 April, 2003): 'The French fought hard in 1940-at first. But eventually the speed and ferocity of the German advance led to a total collapse. The same thing will happen in Iraq.' What took place in France after 1940 might give pause to these enthusiasts.

The lack of any spontaneous welcome from Shi'ites and the fierce early resistance of armed irregulars prompted the theory that the Iraqis are a 'sick people' who will need protracted treatment before they can be entrusted with their own fate (if ever). Such was the line taken by David Aaronovitch in the Observer. Likewise, George Mellon in the Wall Street Journal warns: 'Iraq Won't Easily Recover From Saddam's Terror': 'after three decades of rule of the Arab equivalent of Murder Inc, Iraq is a very sick society'. To develop an 'orderly society' and re-energize (privatize) the economy will take time, he insists. On the front page of the Sunday Times(30 March, 2003), its reporter Mark Franchetti quoted an American NCO: '"The Iraqis are a sick people and we are the chemotherapy", said Corporal Ryan Dupre. "I am starting to hate this country. Wait till I get hold of a friggin' Iraqi. No I won't get hold of one. I'll just kill him."' No doubt the 'sick society' theory will acquire greater sophistication, but it is clear the pretexts are to hand for a mixture of Guantanamo and Gaza in these newly Occupied Territories.

If it is futile to look to the United Nations or Euroland, let alone Russia or China, for any serious obstacle to American designs in the Middle East, where should resistance start? First of all, naturally, in the region itself. There, it is to be hoped that the invaders of Iraq will eventually be harried out of the country by a growing national reaction to the occupation regime they install, and that their collaborators may meet the fate of Nuri Said before them. Sooner or later, the ring of corrupt and brutal tyrannies around Iraq will be broken. If there is one area where the cliché that classical revolutions are a thing of the past is likely to be proved wrong, it is the Arab world. The day the Mubarak, Hashemite, Saudi and other dynasties are swept away by popular wrath, American-and Israeli-arrogance in the region will be over.

Tariq Ali is an editor of New Left Review and a frequent contributor to CounterPunch. He is the author of The Clash Of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads And Modernity, published by Verso. His new book, 'Bush in Babylon: Re-colonising Iraq' will be published by Verso in the autumn.

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Ron Jacobs Popular Uprising, Inc.

Michelle Ciaccorra Bush's Nuclear Policy: Do As I Say, Not As I Do

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Kimberly Blaker Vouchers for Jesus

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Stew Albert Cops of the World

Steve Perry Greens 04: In or Out?

New Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively to Subscribers: The Real Scandal at the Times: Why Not Give Jayson Blair a Pulitzer? After all They Gave Them to Safire and Gerth; What About the Framing of Wen Ho Lee? Falling for the Jessica Lynch Fraud? Judy Miller's Missing WMDs? Blair, the Early Years; Meet the Minister of Sleaze: Deputy Interior Secretary Steve Griles; He Still Works for Big Oil and Strip Miners; Uses 90-Year Old Women as Human Shields; The Crash of the American Economy; Smearing Rachel Corrie's Memory; The Origins of Chalabi: Is He a Creature of Israeli Intelligence? Remember, the CounterPunch website is supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide web audience is soaring, with more than 60,000 visitors a day. This is inspiring news, but the work involved also compels us to remind you more urgently than everto subscribe and/or make a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now!

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