By Peter Wilson

Caracas, May 5 (<a href=quote.bloomberg.com>Bloomberg) -- Banesco Banco Universal, Venezuela's fourth-largest bank, is seeking to acquire Banco Exterior SA, or Corp Banca in a bid to gain new customers and cut costs, El Universal reported.

Banesco has approached both banks about a possible purchase, the newspaper said, citing unidentified banking officials. An acquisition would put Banesco within striking distance of overtaking Banco de Venezuela SA to become the country's third- biggest bank.

Exterior and Corp Banca had no immediate response to Banesco's overtures, the newspaper said. Corp Banca is the country's ninth-largest bank by assets and Exterior is 11th.

Venezuela's banking industry is going through a period of rapid consolidation, with the number of financial institutions expected to drop by half from its current number of 52, analysts have said.

(EU 5/5 1-16) To see El Universal's Web site, click on {EUDC } Last Updated: May 5, 2003 07:59 EDT

Knight Ridder - Monday, May 05, 2003 <a href=www.menafn.com>MENAFN.com-Chicago Tribune By Stephen Franklin

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia _ Faced with Iraq's return as a major oil producer, Saudi Arabian officials fear more pressure on prices _ and on their already struggling economy.

To some observers, such as Said al Sheik, chief economist in Jeddah for National Commercial Bank, Saudi Arabia cannot afford to sit back and wait to see how oil prices will play out.

"The war has been positive for the economy," said al Sheik, referring to the run-up in oil prices, and increased oil output by Saudi Arabia. "But down the road, there are huge challenges," he said.

Their worst fear is that Iraq will not only return to its pre-invasion production, but will go far beyond _ to levels even higher than those reached before the first Gulf War more than a decade ago.

Before the American-led invasion, the Iraqis were pumping out about 2.5 million barrels daily. But if cash-hungry Iraq wants to rebuild its economy in a hurry, it could press for a return to the 1990 level of 3.5 million barrels per day, oil industry experts say.

It has the capacity to do so: Iraq's oil reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia.

"If they want to prices to stay steady, (OPEC) will have to cut back on production, or on the other hand, they could pump up volume and accept lower prices," said Leonidas Drollas, chief economist for the Centre for Global Energy Studies in London.

He agrees with other experts who predict the stiff competition for petroleum dollars in the coming years could lead "to the unraveling" of the 43-year-old oil cartel, which has managed to keep prices steady for the last few years.

But that is not the official Saudi line.

Saudi officials such as Foreign Minister Prince Saud bin Feisel have calmly put down such a dire possibility, saying OPEC has endured many crises over the years and survived intact.

Still, Saudi officials do not discount the coming challenges their oil industry is likely to face.

Saying it is almost impossible to accurately predict oil prices, Hamad Saud al Sayari, governor of the Saudi Monetary Authority, the Saudi equivalent to the Federal Reserve, conceded that he was "cautiously pessimistic" about the fate of oil prices in coming years.

"Yes, the chances of some pressure on oil prices are high," added the U.S.-educated economist.

The problem is, when the Iraqis rejoin the oil market in full production in a few years, a gush of oil is also expected from the Russians as well as from the Caspian region, possibly producing a price-reducing glut on the world oil market, industry experts say.

"A lot of it depends on how the Iraqis view the market," said a Saudi oil company official. "If they want to see high oil prices, they will think twice before embarking on any actions that will bring down the house."

"They'll be rational folks, and live like the rest of us," he added.

Newly found oil money, largely because of Iraq's decreased oil output over the years, has been salvation for Saudi Arabia's troubled economy, which barely limped along in the 1990s.

Since last November the Saudis have boosted their daily production from about 7 million barrels a day to more than 9 million barrels daily to make up for Iraq's production cutbacks as well as production problems in Venezuela and Nigeria, oil experts say.

The higher oil prices and production hike have reportedly brought in million of dollars weekly.

Likewise, after the first Gulf War in the early 1990s, the Saudis stepped up their production to make up for the cutbacks in the Iraqis' oil output. In both cases, the money has helped the Saudis deal with growing deficits and government expenditures.

Saudi Arabia's economic problems, as he and other Saudi experts explain, are many.

The country has not used its wealth to diversify, especially building a stronger industrial base, they say.

Industries account for only six percent of Saudi Arabia's gross domestic product. The country has been slow to privatize businesses. And it has not updated its educational system to churn out workers needed for a competitive economy.

In the meantime, it has one of the highest rates of income dependency. For every wage earner there are six who depend on the salary, according to a National Commercial Bank study. The global average is about two persons per wage earner, bank officials said.

They also estimate the nation's unemployment rate at between 15 to 18 percent. Regularly updated figures are not available from the government.

Debt, too, is increasing. Until now, Saudi Arabia has mostly borrowed locally to pay for its debt, according to al Sheik. The government's domestic debt is about $170 billion, according to news accounts.

But al Sheik fears that Saudi Arabia will soon have to look outside for loans, forcing it to face the same kind of international pressures as Argentina and other countries that have ran into problems paying off their bills.

Without major economic reforms, the future scenario is quite troublesome to economist Nahed Taher, also with the National Commercial Bank in Jeddah. Reduced oil prices combined with Saudi Arabia's internal economic woes could eventually drive Saudi Arabia's per capita further downward, she said.

From a per capita income of $18,000 over 20 years ago, the number has dropped to about $7,500 today, she explained. And if a number of things go wrong for the Saudi economy, such as decline oil prices, the figure could plummet to about $3,000 by 2010, she predicted.

That, incidentally, was the same amount for pre-war Iraq.

"If we don't diversify our economy, this is likely. If we depend on oil revenues, and Iraq reaches 5 million barrels (per day) in five years, and the Russians and Caspians increase, then we are really in a dilemma," she said.

(c) 2003, Chicago Tribune. Visit the Chicago Tribune on the Internet at www.chicago.tribune.com Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Monday, May 05, 2003 By: David Coleman

President Hugo Chavez Frias says that May Day violence which resulted in the shooting death of 46-year-old building laborer Ricardo Herrera is the latest attempt by radical elements in the opposition to destabilize Venezuela and undermine his government ... he says that the shooting had the same hallmarks as other high-profile killings since the failed coup d'etat in April 2002 aimed at removing him permanently from democratic power.

"It's the same format ... the same script ... the same characters," Chavez said during his regular weekly 'Alo Presidente' radio/TV broadcast.  "The opposition immediately jumps on the bandwagon to blame deaths on government supporters ... there's now such a climate of impunity that it prevents those responsible from being convicted."

Herrera was shot and killed at Thursday's May 1 rally by an unknown gunman who witnesses say escaped on a motorcycle ... police have made several arrests but no one has yet been charged with the murder.

Venezuelan human rights group, Cofavic says that political violence is rising and blamed the problem on a justice system where 57 people have died and more than 300 have been injured in politically-motivated violence since April 2002 ... the vast majority of killings remain unsolved and there has been no links established to either the government or the opposition although both sides of the Venezuelan political divide immediately rush to blame the other when given the opportunity.

theregister.co.uk By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco Posted: 05/05/2003 at 08:32 GMT

The President's favorite database company, Choicepoint Inc., has acquired personal data on hundreds of millions of citizens in ten Latin American countries without their knowledge or consent. Data includes Mexico's Federal Electoral Register, details of drivers in Mexico City and Colombia.

"This is a corporation that works hand in glove with, and is politically connected to the administration, and does things that the US dare not do," Greg Palast, who uncovered Choicepoint's role in the 2000 election, told The Register last week. Choicepoint had been given a $67 million contract for data gathering on September 25, 2001. The contract lasts until 2005.

"It's doing this everywhere," said Palast, "but in Mexico it was caught out."

The scandal broke three weeks ago after an investigation by Mexican newspaper Milenio, although it received scant attention Stateside. But a report in today's Guardian should give it fresh impetus.

From the Guadalajara Times we learn that the company has been active in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. However, the Times reports that Choicepoint has discontinued its role in Argentina, "due to lack of demand and a strict new law relating to privacy".

But ChoicePoint isn't shy about boasting of its Latino assets.

"You know the value of ChoicePoint's domestic data," begins a 2001sales brochure for its 'AutoTrack XP' product uncovered by privacy group EPIC under the Freedom of Information Act. "Now you can locate and identify business assets in foreign countries with ChoicePoint's new International searches".

"ChoicePoint gives you the most comprehensive online International data available, with individual and business information from Mexico, Colombia, Argentina [oops? - ed.] Brazil and Costa Rica."

"ChoicePoint is the only vendor capable of providing online access to the following data sets and/or functionality: a) complete listings of all Mexican, Colombian and Argentine citizens b) inclusion of unlisted numbers in telephone files in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina c) inclusion of Mexican vehicle and driver license data d) complete listing of Columbian company data e) inclusion of personal identification information for Brazilian business people f) full usability in English language

(Go here [200kb PDF] and here [292kb PDF] for the documents.)

The second document records that the US Department of Justice paid $11m for "access to ChoicePoint databases."

Now, you might ask, doesn't the US have official agencies that are supposed to undertake a much more focused version of this intelligence gathering? Indeed, it does, and being conscientious government agencies, the staff (in our experience) take information integrity pretty seriously. The value that ChoicePoint's places on data integrity is quite germane, as we shall see.

Who is Choicepoint Inc.? In a letter to SEC last year, ChoicePoint described itself as "a leading information company with a long history of developing products and services for federal and state government agencies to locate individuals, businesses, and assets and to authenticate individuals' identities."

That long history goes back less than six years to August 1997, when Choicepoint was spun off from Equifax, where it was Equifax's Insurance Services Group.

An early earning statement described how "in business and government markets" it provided services including "pre-employment and drug testing, public records information, UCC search and filing."

A more recent statement is both fuzzier and warmer:

"ChoicePoint (NYSE :CPS) is the leading provider of identification and credential verification services for making smarter decisions in today's fast-paced world, serving the information needs of business, government and individuals."

"ChoicePoint is committed to protecting personal privacy and promoting the responsible use of information to help create a safer world."

But ChoicePoint's credentials as a responsible user of information were tested in its role in Florida, in the 2000 Election - a story that's probably more familiar to readers outside the United States than in.

ChoicePoint was given a contract to maintain Florida's electoral rolls and conveniently managed to scrub as many as 91,000 voters most of whom were poor or black. A complex and determined effort to disenfranchise a small number of people.

Standards body But ChoicePoint has another role to play in a quite unexpected way. It's the guardian of our commercial data integrity. The "Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism" (PATRIOT) Act 2001 blessed the company as a kind of standards setter. Banks have been instructed to issue data in a format ChoicePoint likes, which will come as a surprise to the IETF, or the W3C, or OASIS, next time a web standard has to be set. But there you go. And ChoicePoint was singled out by name.

The commercial potential of this new PATRIOT-compatible standard was illustrated here by Sybase which is suddenly falling over itself to help the Homeland. Over at Choicepoint there's a handy compliance brochure you can read advising you how to comply with the PATRIOT Act. And not to complicate the picture too much, Marv Bush, one of the aforementioned Bush family, channeled money to Sybase via his job as a VC at Winston Partners. So you can see how they gamble, these Bushes.

With an essential part of US intelligence gathering now privatized, which we didn't know before - what else does this tell us? Palast reminds us that the state can now demand and control information flows without a warrant. Which is one of those nice 'Thank You's' that we expect, and would appreciate.®

Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter Posted May 05, 2003

APPLETON — More than 18 percent of foreign-born Fox Valley area residents live in poverty, which is more than three times the 5.5 percent rate of poverty for the overall population, census figure show.

“People move up north for a better chance,” said Federico Sotillo, a native of Venezuela who lives in Green Bay. “Because too many people are coming, the job situation gets harder. The competition gets harder.”

Figures from the 2000 census released recently, and reviewed by The Post-Crescent in Appleton, indicate that 18.4 percent of the approximately 19,444 foreign-born residents in the five-county area live in poverty. Nationwide, the immigrant poverty rate is 15.4 percent.

The counties the newspaper looked at were Brown, Calumet, Outagamie, Winnebago and Waupaca.

The federal poverty threshold varies depending on the size of the family. In 1999, the threshold was $16,895 for a family of four with two kids. The median family income in Wisconsin that year was $52,911.

The census numbers also showed:

nThe area’s most recent immigrants struggle much more than those who arrived in the country before 1980. More than four times as many of the newer arrivals are poor.

nThe largest percentage of poor immigrants (25.6 percent) are among those who arrived between 1995 and 2000.