Fri June 13, 2003 07:24 AM ET LONDON (<a href=asia.reuters.com>Reuters) - World oil prices fell on Friday after the West's energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency (IEA) made an unprecedented upwards revision to its oil inventory data, although it said stock levels were still low.

Benchmark Brent crude LCOc1 fell 38 cents to $27.45 a barrel, while U.S. light crude CLc1 fell 46 cents to $31.05.

Analysts said that fundamentally the situation was still bullish, with crude stocks in the United States more than 12 percent lower than a year ago and the peak demand U.S. driving season well under way.

"Obviously the IEA news is fairly bearish," said Paul Bednarczyk, analyst at 4CAST. "But I should imagine it's not going to make a huge difference in the longer term. The concentration is on U.S. stocks."

On Friday, the IEA said it had made an unprecedented 79 million-barrel upwards revision to its oil inventory data for the industry stocks in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) at the end of March.

The agency said the timing of the revision was unfortunate, given that the world oil market was seeking direction after the U.S.-led war on Iraq, but that it did not change its view that global markets were tight, especially for gasoline.

"The magnitude of the stock revisions does little to ease the tight U.S. gasoline situation heading into the peak summer driving season," the IEA said in its monthly oil market report.

"The increase in crude stocks may, however, signal some relief for an otherwise tighter heating oil situation later this year."

The IEA also said that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries produced 26.43 million barrels per day (bpd) in May, 220,000 bpd more than in April.

The increase was due to the continuing recovery of production in Venezuela and Nigeria where production was crippled earlier this year by strikes and ethnic clashes, and also due to higher Iraqi output.

Iraq on Thursday awarded its first crude sell tender after the war to sell 10 million barrels of oil from storage. Senior oil executives said they were still targeting one million bpd exports in July.

The IEA said Iraq's latest crude export targets looked overly ambitious, given the state of production facilities and the security situation in the country.

OPEC ministers at a meeting in Qatar this week decided to leave their official output ceiling unchanged at 25.4 million bpd, but would meet again on July 31 to reconsider production levels in case the return of Iraqi shipments undermined prices.

June 13 (<a href=quote.bloomberg.com>Bloomberg) -- Venezuela sold $900 million of bonds to China and Qatar this week, the Financial Times reported, citing unidentified people in London and Caracas.

The debt sale was a private placement, the FT said, a transaction in which securities are sold directly to the buyers rather than through a public offering.

Finance Minister Tobias Nobrega also is considering offering investors an exchange of existing foreign-currency bonds for new longer-term debt, the report said. Nobrega met with investors in London last week, the FT said.

Venezuela is trying to stretch out debt payments after losing about $4 billion in revenue during a strike in December and January aimed at ousting President Hugo Chavez. The economy shrank 29 percent in the first quarter, the worst recession in the South American country's history.

The government swapped about $2.7 billion in domestic debt last year and another $445 million this year.

Chinese companies are competing to participate in a $675 million paper pulp project with Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana, Venezuela's state heavy-industries holding company. The company plans to pick a partner this year.

(Financial Times 6-13, 45)

For the Financial Times' Web site, see {FITM } Last Updated: June 13, 2003 05:12 EDT

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Friday, June 13, 2003 By: David Coleman

VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel's often controversial editorials are getting an airing on a United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Canada website where one of his recent thought-provoking editorials has been brought to the attention of some 230,000 trade union members participating actively in the Canadian Labor Congress and Provincial Labor Federations.

The UFCW website says that while Coronel's More Leaders and less Power Addicts, published May 30, pertains to Venezuela and is not directly aimed at unions, the topics of power and leadership are always relevant to union reformers.

Many union reformers are tired of existing leaders whose main objective is a desire to achieve and hold onto to power.

Coronel states in his article that power addicts and leadership are old foes. The names and faces of the holders of power have changed over the course of time, but most have only had a lust for power and many were promoters of misery and ignorance.

True leaders on the other hand are rarely officially elected to positions of power says Coronel, but play a part in influencing change.

Robert C. Tucker's book Politics as Leadership brings forth the concept of leaders in the platonic sense, one that has to do with inspiring followers to better themselves and work together rather than reducing followers to the condition of members of a herd.

James MacGregor Burns in his book Leadership states that leadership has to do with the persuasion of followers "to act for certain goals which represent the values, the motivations, the needs, the aspirations and expectations of both leaders and followers." Burns also distinguishes between leaders and power-wielders.

Leaders, in Burns view, are there to satisfy the motives of their followers whereas power-wielders are intent only on realizing their own purposes.

If we were to use Burns' analysis, where would those who run our unions fit? Leaders or power wielders?

Are your union's leaders power-wielders as defined by Burns? Do they use a transactional or transforming leadership style?

In the union reform arena, will there still be room for leaders as we know them today or will the word "leader" have a different context? Is there a need for power wielding leaders within unions at all or are workers capable of deciding their own values and motives? Are union reformers really union transformers?

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Friday, June 13, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel

VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: When I am in Caracas, my morning walk takes me along streets lined with "samanes" and "jabillos" which are pretty old now, but keep their majestic appearance. The lush foliage retards the morning light and one walks as in a forest, although in the middle of La Florida residential section. This is one of the remnants of the old, colonial Caracas. One of the avenues, Los Jabillos, is home to one of the oldest funeral homes in Caracas. As is often the case, there is a drugstore nearby ... there should be a clinic as well, since these three things always go hand in hand in most Venezuelan cities but, somehow, there is not. In place of the clinic there's a bakery.

My walk also goes by the street where the headquarters of Petroleos de Venezuela are located. I could choose to cut this street out of my route but I'm fascinated ... somewhat masochistically ... by the new aspect of the place, with small tents from which food and soft drinks are for sale and with groups of "vikingos" looking for empty bottles and cans to collect and sell.

• "Vikingos," vikings, don't ask me why, is a term applied in Venezuela to the usually harmless homeless and chronic drunkards, possibly because of their long hair and unkempt appearance.

Well, today, I had a very pleasant encounter with someone I had not seen for over 30 years ... yes, that long ... as I was walking south, I saw this man walking towards me. He looked familiar ... he looked at me in perplexity, and we both recognized each other almost simultaneously. "Tabaquito," I said, as he called me "Dr. Gustavo" ... the way I have been called most of my life by those who do not dare to be over-familiar, but feel that I am not formal enough to be treated with protocol. At any rate, we embraced each other with some difficulty, as I am slightly over 6 feet and he is, perhaps, around 4½ and I already have some problems bending.

"Tabaquito" (small cigar) is ebony black and now has light gray, "chicharron," hair. He has gained a few pounds since I saw him last. "Tabaquito" is the closest I have seen to a pigmy ... those fellows who played in the Tarzan movies ... I could easily picture him with a long blowpipe, hunting in the forests surrounding the Kilimanjaro.

When I became a Shell executive ... way back in 1971 ... one of the first persons I met was "Tabaquito."  He was in charge of delivering our newspapers every morning. No matter how early I arrived at the office, my newspapers were already on my desk. "Tabaquito" always had a nice word for everyone. As he sold the newspapers all over the place, his trousers were always bulging with bills. Sometimes, when giving change, bills would fall to the floor and he had to be alerted to it, since otherwise he would leave the money behind. He constantly told secretaries how beautiful they were, and gave us systematic encouragement. He said: "I sleep soundly every night because I know that you are running the business well. We all trust you..."

And, of course, this trust from "Tabaquito" had to be honored. If I ever had a desire to take a bribe or take home a piece of office furniture,  Tabaquito's face would instantly come into focus.

Although we tended to underestimate him, and consider him just a picturesque addition to the office, we soon found out that "Tabaquito" had much more depth than we gave him credit for. He started his day at 3 a.m. and by 9 a.m. had delivered all of his newspapers. Then, he went to a school in Petare ... a poor section of east Caracas ... and dedicated three-four hours to serve as a baseball coach to the children. We found out through time that he also helped several poor children to buy books and pencils. He was an altruist. His civic vocation went beyond the call of duty. He would never talk about his work but always marveled at the work done by us.

My secretary had a special bond with "Tabaquito." Mariela was, and is, a tall, blonde woman, full of life and good humor ... her dialogues with "Tabaquito," which I sometimes overheard at the expense of my work, were masterpieces of happy talk. They dealt with love, politics and harmless social gossip.

Today, "Tabaquito" said to me: "You know, I often talk to Mariela ... she has a nice shop in Las Mercedes and I take the newspapers to her." He added: "We talk about you and about Dr. Quiros and ... " he gave a good number of names of the old guys ... he remembered details I had forgotten long ago ... he had almost total recall of those years, now distant.

He said: "You know, Dr. Gustavo, I still get up at 3 a.m. to deliver the newspapers. I now bring the newspapers to PDVSA.  Of course, now things are different, but we have to keep working."  He said he was now 81 years old ... but he did not look older than the last time I had seen him.  "I have never been sick."  Some 10 years ago, he had been run over by a car and suffered a fractured leg ... "I couldn't deliver the papers for a while, but I used to sit in front of my house (which is at a very dangerous street intersection) and started to conduct traffic from my wheelchair ... I had a good time, and I guess I prevented a few accidents."

As "Tabaquito" and I made small talk, and I did all I could to delay my departure, I could not help thinking how this man had touched so many lives and helped so many people from his apparently unimportant social position. And, as I said goodbye ... who knows until when ... I said to him: "See you around, Dr. Tabaquito." He looked surprised and then he gave me the widest of smiles.

Gustavo Coronel is the founder and president of Agrupacion Pro Calidad de Vida (The Pro-Quality of Life Alliance), a Caracas-based organization devoted to fighting corruption and the promotion of civic education in Latin America, primarily Venezuela. A member of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), following nationalization of Venezuela's oil industry, Coronel has worked in the oil industry for 28 years in the United States, Holland, Indonesia, Algiers and in Venezuela. He is a Distinguished alumnus of the University of Tulsa (USA) where he was a Trustee from 1987 to 1999. Coronel led the Hydrocarbons Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in Washington DC for 5 years. The author of three books and many articles on Venezuela ("Curbing Corruption in Venezuela." Journal of Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 3, July, 1996, pp. 157-163), he is a fellow of Harvard University and a member of the Harvard faculty from 1981 to 1983.   You may contact Gustavo Coronel at email gustavo@vheadline.com

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Friday, June 13, 2003 By: David Cabrera

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 14:47:43 -0700 (PDT) From: David Cabrera davidckr@yahoo.com To: Editor@VHeadline.com Subject: Al Capone was a decent businessman

Dear Editor: Just like the top mafia don of the depression era would do away with meddlesome journalists and detectives accusing him of thug, delinquent and other epithets, the Bush administration has not hesitated to borrow the logic of a gangster at the peak of power and who dreams on justifying the unjustifiable, even beyond tolerable levels of absurdity, so it explains why we often hear and read ridiculous claims such as the White House telling the world that its troops could never be subjected to an international prosecution, because a move like that could be influenced by "frivolous" and politically-oriented machinations aimed at the discrediting of US generosity abroad.

• We, more than ever, are aware that the newly-approved UN ruling for another exemption of the US from the International Tribunal jurisdiction, is once again a renovated slap in the face to those who still care about what's left of international law.

This recent treacherous show of diplomatic nonsense would have us believe that International Law is a good thing only when it applies to judge the crimes of Saddam Hussein, Slovodan Milosevic, Manuel Noriega, Robert Mugabe and the like ... but suddenly becomes an aberration if anyone dares to denounce the Bush administration for crimes that are often condemned with big fanfare and arrogance when the guilty are instead designated enemies of the so-called civilized West.

That's why we will never see any World Court trial convicting war criminals like Henry Kissinger for the atrocities he supported in Indochina, East Timor and most of South America; or take George Bush Sr., Oliver North and the rest of the Reagan-ites who coordinated the terrorist campaigns against Central American peasants and Catholic priests through the training and financing of death squads and military thugs; also Bill Clinton and the US army commanders responsible for the illegal bombings in Sudan in 1998, which wiped out a pharmaceutics facility that supplied more than half of the medicines of that devastated country, along with other US soldiers that may be implicated in recent cases of torture and massacres in Afghanistan and Iraq.

This is just a minuscule example of dirty deeds that are not convenient to be left to justice because it would look bad within the agenda of "liberation" benevolence from which the US government disguise its crimes abroad but conceal from public scrutiny, all with a little dose of cynicism and hypocrisy of course. Thus, there is no doubt about the highness of those values that Cheney, Rumsfeld and Co uphold and parrot-talk around incessantly, and which they desire to impose worldwide through their doctrine of humanitarian militarism, which message is: "We make a mess, and piss on the rest," apart from the already old-fashioned" Mess with the best die like the rest"

David Cabrera davidckr@yahoo.com