Miami Herald Posted on Mon, Jun. 09, 2003 BY NANCY SAN MARTIN nsanmartin@herald.com

Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday praised the European Union's recent decision to review its bilateral relationship with Cuba and said repressive action against dissidents on the island would be highlighted in his speech today before the Organization of American States.

Powell, who spoke to reporters in Puerto Rico while traveling to Chile for the OAS meeting, did not outline specific U.S. action in response to the crackdown.

But he said he would tell the OAS assembly today that Cuba remains out of step with the rest of the Western Hemisphere.

''I will point out once again that [Fidel] Castro's Cuba remains an anachronism in our hemisphere and it is not getting better,'' Powell told reporters, according to the news agency Agence France-Presse.

The European Union announced last week that it was reexamining its relationship with Havana in response to the recent arrests and harsh prison terms against government opponents and the execution of three men who had tried to hijack a passenger ferry across the Florida Straits.

The 15-nation bloc also unanimously approved limiting high-level bilateral government visits, reducing the profile of member states' participation in cultural events, and inviting Cuban dissidents abroad.

''The rest of the world is now starting to take note of Castro's increasingly poor human rights behavior,'' Powell told reporters.

Some analysts said Powell's speech at the OAS would result in little, if any, concrete measures.

''The OAS meeting will be full of declarations that aren't going to mean much,'' Eduardo Gamarra, director of the Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University, told The Herald in a telephone interview. ''The United States is probably trying to secure a more universal policy'' against Cuba, Gamarra said, but Latin American nations would not be swayed to take such action.

Latin America has only limited bilateral relations with Cuba, compared to the European Union, which is Cuba's largest trading partner and foreign investor. Canada leads the hemisphere in foreign investment in Cuba, but in Latin America, Venezuela has the most significant partnership.

The main theme of the OAS meeting will be the strengthening of democracy in Latin America.

<a href=www.falkland-malvinas.com>MercoSurPress Almost two thirds of Venezuelans would vote for President Hugo Chavez to abandon office if a referendum on his mandate takes place, according to a public opinion poll released last week in Caracas. Datanálisis, a respected private consulting Caracas company revealed that 64% of those interviewed in the whole of Venezuela during the first week of May would have voted against Mr. Chávez if the referendum had been organized for the last Sunday of May. Even with a technical error of plus/minus 3% the poll also indicated that former paratrooper and coup instigator Mr. Chávez has a 28,8% hardcore support which contrasts with 70% strong critics and miles away from the 80% popularity he mustered when the president was first elected four years ago. According to the Venezuela constitution which was reformed following Mr. Chávez initiative, a referendum can be called at the mid term of any elected official, including the President, and for Mr. Chávez this will happen as of August 19. A fortnight ago the Chávez administration and its fierce opponents who accuse him of wanting to install a Communist regime similar to the Cuban dictatorship, signed a peace understanding to pave the way for the referendum in an attempt to reduce the intensity of the political conflict that has virtually melted the oil rich Venezuelan economy. However the government has since accused opponents of “conspiring” and anticipated that the understanding does not guarantee the referendum, and anyhow the “timetable and convening process” must abide to law. These include a signatures petition of 20% of the electoral roll which must be presented to an Electoral Committee, that still has to be nominated by a Chavez dominated Congress. According to the poll 62,8% of those interviewed would sign the petition to terminate Mr. Chávez rule, but 29,8% also indicate that the government will impede the voting to proceed. Another 23% believes the government will do its utmost to delay the voting process and 10,5 that it will appeal to any form of fraud. In the opposite position 28,6% consider that Mr. Chávez will honour the voting process.

<a href=www.voanews.com>VOANews David Gollust Santiago 09 Jun 2003, 05:16 UTC  

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is in the Chilean capital, Santiago, with other hemisphere foreign ministers for the annual Organization of American States General Assembly. Mr. Powell says he sees no lasting harm to U.S. relations with key Latin American states, stemming from disagreements over U.S. military action in Iraq.

Mr. Powell says the Bush administration was disappointed that Chile and Argentina did not support its effort to get a resolution in the U.N. Security Council, in March, authorizing U.S. military action in Iraq. However, he says he does not see any "lasting scars" or consequences from the episode and says the parties are anxious to talk about the future and not the past, as evidenced by Friday's conclusion of the long-awaited U.S.-Chile free-trade agreement.

In a talk with reporters on the flight to Santiago, Mr. Powell said the brief Latin America visit will allow for some overdue diplomatic "garden tending" with hemispheric countries, after weeks of U.S. policy focus on Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In additional to joining in the OAS plenaries, the secretary has bilateral meetings planned Monday with Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, OAS Secretary-General Cesar Gaviria, and his foreign minister counterparts from Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Peru.

The theme of the annual assembly is how good governance, including combating corruption, can help boost the economies of Latin America, where key countries including, Argentina and Venezuela, are struggling with severe economic crises and overall economic growth is nil.

But there will be also discussion of the political conflicts in Haiti and in Venezuela, where an OAS/brokered agreement for an August 19 referendum on the Hugo Chavez presidency appears to offer a way to defuse a long running confrontation with his political opponents

The OAS ministers are expected to renew the organization's call on the government of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to restore security and human rights, to facilitate free and fair elections, later this year. There is reluctance among Caribbean and other ministers to discuss Cuba in the OAS, given that the Fidel Castro government has long been suspended from the organization. But Mr. Powell says he "will not shrink" from raising Cuba and what he calls its "increasingly poor" human rights situation, in his policy address to the assembly Monday.

In his airborne talk with reporters, the secretary said the Castro government, which sentenced 75 leading dissident to long prison terms in April, remains "the anachronism of the hemisphere." He welcomed a decision by the European Union to restrict travel by EU officials to Cuba, as evidence the rest of the world is beginning to take note of events in Cuba. Mr. Powell says he will discuss further action when he meets EU foreign ministers, later this month.

Mr. Powell will make a brief stop in Buenos Aires, Tuesday, to meet Argentina's newly-installed President Nestor Kirchner. Mr. Kirchner, a populist, has said he opposes a policy of "automatic alignment" with the United States and invited Cuban President Castro to his May 25 inauguration. But Mr. Powell says the Bush administration wants good relations with Argentina and stands ready to help that country overcome its economic difficulties. He says he wants to hear Mr. Kirchner's plans for his administration and expects the envoys will set a date for a Washington visit by the Argentine leader "in the not-too-distant future."

June 9 (<a href=quote.bloomberg.com>Bloomberg) -- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, supplier of a third of the world's oil, will probably defer output cuts until later this year because prices are rising and Iraqi exports are delayed, officials and analysts said.

The group meets Wednesday in Doha, Qatar, to consider a response to the impending return of sales from Iraq, which pumped 3 percent of world supply before the war. Exports stopped when U.S. and British forces invaded on March 20, and looting since then has hampered efforts to restore production.

OPEC doesn't see any need to change the quota'' for now, said Leo Drollas, deputy executive director at the London-based Centre for Global Energy Studies, a consulting company founded by former Saudi oil minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani. Prices are too high. They will need a cut sometime in the summer.''

Crude oil has risen by more than a fifth in New York since April to around $31 a barrel, because of a drop in inventories and an April 24 accord by OPEC to lower output as of this month. A cut in quotas in Doha is unlikely, Qatari Oil Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah and Indonesian Oil Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro said last week.

Crude oil for July delivery slid 36 cents to $30.92 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, as of 11:40 a.m. in London.

Oil prices are at an acceptable level, said OPEC Secretary- General Alvaro Silva in an interview last week at OPEC's headquarters in Vienna, signaling he also favors no change in output. The 10 OPEC members outside of Iraq restrain production to keep their price index between $22 and $28 a barrel. The index was at $26.77 on Thursday and has averaged $25.41 a barrel for the last three years.

Waiting

This is a meeting to monitor the market,'' Silva told reporters in Doha today. After our decision in April to cut from the first of June, we have to know the result'' before taking further steps.

The meeting in Qatar, current holder of the OPEC presidency, is OPEC's fourth in 2003. Ministers later this year will have to decide when to reduce output to make room for Iraq, which pumped 2.5 million barrels a day before the war, analysts said.

``The main issue is going to be how we're going to insert Iraq,'' Venezuelan Deputy Oil Minister Luis Vierma said in an interview in Vienna last week. Eventually, OPEC will have to cut production, he said.

In a prelude to Wednesday's meeting, the oil ministers from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and non-OPEC Mexico met in Madrid on Friday to discuss the market. They took no action to limit oil output, saying supply and demand are in balance.

The three nations, which are usually among the top four suppliers to the U.S., have consulted on oil policy since 1998.

The market is receiving all the supply it needs,'' Juan Antonio Barges, Mexico's deputy oil minister, said in a telephone interview in Doha. The market is not calling for cuts.''

Four other independent oil-producing countries -- Russia, Angola, Syria and Oman -- accepted OPEC's invitation to send representatives to the Doha meeting. Iraq, under control of the U.S.-led coalition, wasn't asked to attend.

Officials from Algeria and Kuwait have left open the chance of a cut in quotas on Wednesday. OPEC should consider such a move because a slowing world economy may prevent demand from keeping pace with supply as Iraqi output recovers, analysts said.

`Fine Tuning'

Forecasters have cut estimates for oil demand as severe acute respiratory syndrome reduces travel and slows growth in Asia. The International Monetary Fund expects the world economy to expand by 3.2 percent this year, hindered by concern over war and terrorism. It predicted 3.7 percent growth in September.

OPEC needs to cut, but they might not do that just now,'' said Tor Kartevold, an analyst at Statoil ASA, Norway's biggest oil company. It's a question of fine tuning for OPEC, which is always very difficult'' given the situation in Iraq.

Iraqi shipments through a pipeline to the port of Ceyhan, Turkey, may not start for two more months because equipment for operating the route was stolen, Adel Kazaz, director-general of Iraq's North Oil Co., said last week in Kirkuk, Iraq.

The oil fields around Kirkuk accounted for half the country's exports. The pipeline closure to Ceyhan will leave Iraq dependent on shipments from the Rumaila fields in the south, where erratic power supplies and the loss of a pumping station have hampered operations.

Iraq

OPEC needs to know what Iraq is producing and exporting,'' said Adam Sieminski, an oil strategist at Deutsche Bank AG. Unfortunately, even the Iraqis don't seem to know that.''

Iraq is pumping 700,000 barrels a day, according to the nation's oil ministry. U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney has said output should reach prewar levels, or even 3 million barrels a day, this year.

While rising supply from Iraq may threaten OPEC's control of prices in coming years, industry executives expect the group to accommodate Iraq without a collapse in prices for now.

``We will see reasonable strength through the end of the year,'' said Paul Skinner, head of Royal Dutch/Shell Group's oil- refining unit, at a conference in London last week.

``OPEC has done a good job in the last three to four years in flexible management of the supply side of the market. I would expect that they would continue to demonstrate that flexibility.''

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, June 08, 2003 By: Elio Cequea

Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2003 12:44:24 EDT From: Elio Cequea  Feico57@aol.com To: Editor@VHeadline.com Subject: Luis Zuleta comment

Dear Editor: In regard to Luis Zuleta comment about me claiming "in typical chavista fashion" that whoever that does not support Chavez is misinformed, that is not what I wrote about in my letter. However, now that he brought it up, I have some questions for him. Can he named 10 of the 47 laws people signed against in El Firmazo? How many people he thinks can named at least 5? Do they understand how these laws particularly affect them and the rest of the country? There are definitely a lot of misinformed people in the opposition…

I would never say that everybody who is against Chavez is ignorant and misinformed. But, there is one thing of which I am convinced 100%. Only a hand full of people in the opposition fully understand the effects and repercussions of these laws. That handful of people are the only one affected negatively by them and they are the ones pulling the strings of the opposition. These are powerful, rich, intelligent and, of course, informed people.

These people are absolutely NOT idiots!

Elio Cequea feico57@aol.com