<a href=www.zenit.org>ZENIT - The World Seen From Rome Code: ZE03061308 Date: 2003-06-13

CARACAS, Venezuela, JUNE 13, 2003 (Zenit.org).- The head of the Catholic bishops' conference expressed his concern over Parliament's loss of authority, and lamented that the law is being applied only at the whim of the government.

In a statement published Wednesday, Archbishop Baltazar Enrique Porras Cardozo, president of the episcopal conference, said: "This is a mortal blow to the legislative power, in which any kind of opinion that is not in line with that of the government, must simply be eliminated."

"It is a blow that destroys the real meaning of the independence of powers," he said.

According to the archbishop, the political situation in Venezuela does not guarantee full respect of democracy and undermines the existence of institutions, Vatican Radio reported.

The archbishop's concern is directed particularly at a new law that regulates the media.

The "law of social responsibility in radio and television" has been severely criticized by the political opposition and the publishing world as a governmental attempt at censoring all voices that disagree with the official line.

Albany Democrat-Herald, Tuesday, June 24, 2003 Last modified Friday, June 13, 2003 1:41 PM PDT By Jennifer Rouse

When Roger Hawthorne of Albany went to the post office to mail a letter to Iraq last week, he was hoping to make a connection.

"We always just hear about what the government is doing in Iraq," he said. "I'd like to know how I can help specific local people over there. I'd like to be able to close my eyes and see a person, not a mass of people."

He thought he had a good chance of making a personal connection, because through his church he had obtained the address of the National Protestant Evangelical Church in Mosul. So he was dismayed when he went to mail the letter and learned that the U.S. Postal Service has discontinued all mail service to Iraq.

"It's important to me that the people of Iraq know that the people of America care about them," Hawthorne said. "I don't understand why we can't get the mail through."

According to the U.S. Postal Service Web site, mail in Iraq has been suspended since April 7. That doesn't affect mail to military personnel staying at military bases and camps, just Iraqi citizens. According to the site, the post was suspended due to the war and there "being no viable option for postal deliveries to that country."

Any mail for Iraq that gets to the post office will be returned to the sender with a note explaining the suspension of the mail service.

Private companies like UPS and Fed-Ex have not delivered to Iraq in years because of the United Nations' trade embargo. Roger House, a window technician at the Albany Post Office, said until the ban is lifted, it's better for everyone if people just wait to send their mail.

"When there is an uprising in a certain country, if someone here sends a letter, it might just get destroyed, not delivered," House said.

Iraq is not the only country with postal restrictions. Mail to Afghanistan is restricted to "airmail letter post-items, including post cards, postal cards, and aerogrammes, weighing a maximum of four pounds," the Web site says.

Other countries that currently have postal restrictions include Cuba, Guinea Bissau, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, North Korea, Somalia and Venezuela. More information about the restrictions is available online at www.usps.com.

Hawthorne has written to Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., and he's hoping that things will change soon.

He doesn't see why the government can't at least truck a load of mail in to be distributed on a will-call basis once a month. A retired pastor in Hawthorne's church, Dick Cochran of Albany, was a missionary in Mosul in the 1950s. Two young men Cochran worked with back then are now elders at the Mosul Presbyterian church, and Hawthorne was hoping to get in touch with them and find out how people here could help people there.

"I think something neat could come out of it," he said. "I'd like the people of Iraq of all faiths to know that we care. It just doesn't seem like it should be that complicated to get some mail through."

13 Jun 2003 19:52:58 GMT By Patrick Markey

CARACAS, Venezuela, June 13 (Reuters) - At least three people were wounded on Friday, two by gunfire, after Venezuelan police clashed with militant supporters of President Hugo Chavez.

Police fired volleys of gas canisters, sending white stinging clouds wafting through the streets of the eastern Petare neighborhood after a few hundred Chavez sympathizers pelted them with bottles, stones and fireworks.

One police officer and one civilian were wounded by gunfire and another officer was injured by a thrown object, Caracas Fire Services Chief Col. Rodolfo Briceno told Reuters.

Ambulances evacuated patients from a nearby hospital to escape the tear gas as protesters and local residents scurried for cover into side streets.

A block away, a few thousand opposition party supporters rallied to demand a referendum on the mandate of Chavez, whom they blame for driving Venezuela into political and economic ruin.

"Chavez has to go. He's done nothing but trick us. He talks but never delivers," said Nelida Sanoja, an unemployed secretary carrying a huge green flag of the Copei Christian Democratic party.

Political tensions over the government of populist Chavez have troubled Venezuela for more than 18 months. At least 50 people have been killed in street clashes and violence since April last year when Chavez survived a short-lived coup.

Last month, one man was shot to death and around 20 wounded by gunfire in an opposition rally in another impoverished pro-Chavez district in the west of the capital.

"It's either bullets or votes and we want the solution to be through votes," Eduardo Fernandez, president of Copei told local television at the rally.

His opponents accuse the president of dragging Venezuela toward Cuban-style communism. But the fiery leader brands his foes rich elites bent on scuttling the reforms he says are aimed at tackling poverty in the world's No. 5 oil exporter.

Chavez, who weathered a two-month opposition strike ended in February, has vowed to press on with his self-styled revolution. Opposition leaders hope to cut short his mandate with a referendum after Aug. 19 -- halfway through his current term, which is due to end in early 2007.

BBC News Oil prices have fallen sharply after new figures suggested that world stockpiles are bigger than originally thought.

The International Energy Agency, a body which monitors global oil supplies, on Friday said it was upgrading by 79 million barrels its previous estimate of stockpiles held by major consuming countries.

The upgrade, which raised the IEA's global supply estimate to 2.4 billion barrels, helped push US light crude prices down by $1.18, or nearly 4%, to $30.33 on Friday.

The decline partly reversed a price rally earlier this week triggered by fears that producers' cartel OPEC was planning to cut production levels.

A fall in oil prices is usually welcomed by major consuming countries, as cheaper energy costs help curb inflation.

Tight market

However, the IEA said the overall supply situation remains uncertain.

"The market is obviously better supplied than we thought as little as two weeks ago, but stocks are still low and fundamentals are still tight," said Klaus Rehaag, editor of the IEA monthly oil market report.

Oil prices have been boosted this year by disruption to Iraqi supplies during the US-led campaign to topple Sadam Hussein's regime.

A strike by oil workers in Venezuela, and social unrest in Nigeria, have also pushed the market higher.

Iraq, which accounted for about 4% of world exports before the war, clinched its first major sale of oil since the conflict ended on Thursday, and is expected to get back to full capacity later this year.

The OPEC countries, which aim to keep oil prices within a range of $22 - $28, will meet again on 31 July to assess how the resumption of Iraqi supplies has affected prices.

They may cut their output levels if they decide that prices have fallen too low.

ALEXANDRA OLSON, Associated Press Writer Friday, June 13, 2003
(06-13) 16:56 PDT CARACAS, Venezuela (<a href=www.sfgate.com>AP) --

Venezuela troops fought pitched street battles Friday with supporters of President Hugo Chavez who tried to disrupt an opposition rally in an impoverished area of Caracas considered a government stronghold. At least 14 people were injured.

Troops in armored vehicles arrived at the scene while "Chavistas," as the president's supporters are known, fought back, throwing bottles, rocks and firecrackers at security forces. They also looted a nearby police station after tearing down the walls with sledge hammers and metal rods.

Hundreds of national guard troops and police in riot gear launched tear gas grenades to disperse more than 100 rowdy government backers. Columns of black smoke rose from tires burning in the street and mingled with thick clouds of white tear gas.

Gunfire from unknown sources wounded one police officer and three civilians, said Caracas fire chief Rodolfo Briceno. At least 10 people were slightly hurt by flying objects, he added. The tear gas forced the evacuation of 25 children from a nearby hospital.

Ignoring government warnings that violence could erupt, opposition parties called the rally as part of a series of events in Caracas slums to prove Chavez's traditional support among the poor has evaporated.

Interior Minister Lucas Rincon pleaded with march organizers to take the protest to an area where there would be less potential for violence.

"We alert the population to the security risks that this act carries," Rincon said in an address to the nation late Thursday. "This isn't about impeding a political act. It's about taking it to a less risky one."

Hours before the planned protest, dozens of Chavez sympathizers burned tires in a plaza on the only route to the opposition's chosen site -- an eastern Caracas street beneath hills covered by red-brick shanties.

The protest comes three weeks after unidentified gunmen killed one person and wounded 10 at an opposition march in a poor neighborhood on the city's west side. No one was arrested.

"A truly dark story has repeated itself. We had said this was the least appropriate place to stage this demonstration," said Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel.

The opposition center-right COPEI party refused to cancel the protest, insisting it wouldn't be intimidated by what it called government-sponsored violence to silence dissent.

Chavez denies those allegations. He counters opponents constantly provoke chaos to justify the ouster of a democratically elected president. The president was briefly ousted in an April 2002 coup and defied demands he step down during a ruinous two-month general strike that collapsed in February.

Early Friday, federal police sharpshooters stationed themselves on rooftops overlooking the protest site. The city government dispatched another 3,000 officers to patrol the streets. At the protest three weeks ago, police snipers fired at public housing buildings where the shooting apparently originated.

Political violence has killed more than 50 people in Venezuela over the past year, mostly during clashes between pro- and anti-Chavez forces. The country is deeply divided between those who adore Chavez as a champion of the poor and those who revile him as a power-monger trying to remodel Venezuela after Cuba's communist regime.

Chavez foes are demanding an internationally backed referendum on his rule later this year, insisting it's the only way to restore stability to Venezuela, a key oil exporter to the United States.

First elected in 1998, Chavez pushed through a new constitution in 1999 that paved the way for his 2000 re-election to a new six-year term.