As Venezuela Slides, the Poor Stand By Their Man
<a href=www.nytimes.com>NYTimes.com April 30, 2003 By JUAN FORERO
CARACAS, Venezuela, April 25 — Unemployed and penniless, Ermis Montilla, 31, lives for now with his family in a shack made of cardboard and corrugated tin. But he has nothing but praise for President Hugo Chávez.
With building materials from the government, and advice from army engineers, Mr. Montilla is proudly constructing his own home on a hillside of Caracas. He has even become a community leader, imbued with a sense of civic consciousness he says Mr. Chávez has awakened in him.
"The opponents of Chávez always promised and promised but never spoke to us," said Mr. Montilla, a father of three. "Now, we have rights. Before, when we talked, no one listened."
But even as President Chávez has cast himself as a champion of the downtrodden, the paradox of his popularity is that there are more and more people like Mr. Montilla: living in poverty but ardent supporters of the president.
Since Mr. Chávez was elected in 1998, poverty has grown an estimated 10 percent and now includes nearly 68 percent of Venezuelans. Economists expect the underclass to grow still more in coming months, as the economy continues a tailspin that began last year in the wake of a short-lived coup against Mr. Chávez and three national strikes led by his opposition.
"If there is more unemployment, more poverty, more crime, why are the poor still with Chávez?" asked Ana María Sanjuán, a sociologist at the Central University. "The reason is simple. Chávez is the only one who has addressed the poor, the one who gives a hope to the poor about a possible inclusion."
Beyond his direct apeals to the poor, analysts note, Mr. Chávez has also carefully directed his assistance programs, like the one benefiting Mr. Montilla.
Taken as a whole, these programs fail to form a broad, coherent public policy, said Luis Pedro España, a poverty expert and director of the Institute of Economic and Social Studies at Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas. But they go a long way toward explaining Mr. Chávez's enduring popularity as the economy shrinks.
The programs — ranging from new homes to subsidized food markets to mobile clinics — are welcomed in long-neglected barrios, deftly spread, and then their importance inflated, Mr. España said.
"The government does not really have a social policy," he said. "What they have is social theater."
No one blames Mr. Chávez for bringing poverty — he won office in 1998 after two decades in which poverty rose to nearly 60 percent from 28 percent of the population.
But the downward economic slide has come hard and fast, particularly since last year. Indeed, the economy may fall by 17 percent, unemployment is approaching 20 percent, thousands of businesses are closing and capital flight amounts to billions of dollars. The government and many economists in the United States blame the effects of a two-month national strike called in December by Chávez opponents. The opposition blames government mismanagement.
In any case, Mr. Chávez retains the support of nearly 40 percent of Venezuelans, higher than other Latin American leaders and vital if he is to avoid losing power in a referendum that opposition groups are demanding for later this year.
Mr. Chávez's poverty programs, and his vocal promotion of the rights of the poor, have been remarkably effective in mobilizing a community as a rule not politically active.
In the wretched neighborhoods ringing Caracas, where the president has drawn most of his support, it is easy to find throngs faithful to the man they call "my commander."
"He moves us and that is why I am here," said Marisela Araujo, 36, as she waited to catch a glimpse of Mr. Chávez at the opening of a government-subsidized food market. "The people here — we are not paid like the opposition says. No one told us to come. We come here because we love him."
In interviews across several of Caracas's poorest neighborhoods, residents did not readily point to tangible benefits under Mr. Chávez's time in office. Those were seemingly in short supply.
Instead, most quickly pointed to the Constitution, the 50-cent bible of Mr. Chávez's self-styled revolution, for having instilled pride and provided direction.
Critics call the Constitution a mobilizing tool manipulated by Mr. Chávez. But the devoted tout articles in the jumbled document that give rights to people to undertake their own urban planning projects, embark on community activism and allow them to seek titles to plots where they have built makeshift homes.
The Constitution goes hand in hand with government efforts to organize local councils that do everything from paving sidewalks to picking up trash. Even where Venezuelans still live in poverty, they say they now believe they have a voice in the political process.
"The people have learned how to build," said José Gregorio Blanco, a community leader. "The president wants people to go and learn, to learn how to get things done."
More tangibly, the government has more than doubled spending on education, mostly for teacher salaries. While other spending is murkier, the government is clearly funneling aid and services toward poor neighborhoods.
In the barrio Las Marías, where Mr. Blanco provided a tour, five buildings with 288 apartments for the poor are being built. In Isaías Medina Angarita, residents thank Mr. Chávez for paved sidewalks. In the Sucre district, the Florencio Jiménez school, long neglected, now serves free lunches and offers expanded school hours for 563 pupils.
The government has also set up people's banks, giving credit to small enterprises. It is handing out titles to poor squatters in Caracas slums. Low-priced or free medical services are provided through roaming clinics.
The programs have the feel of old-style patronage. With them, Mr. Chávez has managed to erase doubt among followers by taking up the populist script in a way that has not been seen in Latin America in recent years, spending hours with crowds of followers.
In Caricuao, a poor neighborhood of Soviet-style apartment blocks in southwest Caracas, his aides led a hunched group of elderly women from the crowd and provided them seating under a white tent, just feet from the president, who was there to inaugurate the first of what will be 100 markets across the city. Afterward, they expressed everlasting loyalty.
"He does not care if you are rich or poor," explained Irda de Belandria, 66. "His heart is so pure."
But for the neighborhood, the affection for Mr. Chávez may outlast the material effect of the markets, which offer only a modest assortment of goods like canned products, powdered milk and sugar. Even the actual opening was unclear.
The president left, and military officers shut the metal gates over the storefront. One woman asked when it would reopen.
"I do not know," a military official said. "They told us tomorrow, maybe."
US invades to bolster its own economy
examiner.ie 30/04/03
THE US claimed that their war on Iraq was done to bring democracy to the people of Iraq. Now they say that they do not want (read ‘will not allow’) a fundamentalist Shi’ite regime in Iraq. So much for their promise of a free democratic Iraq, as the US rejects and arrests various representatives of the Iraqi people.
The US has a history of meddling in other states’ affairs for their own self-interest, and of setting up puppet regimes headed by infamous dictators: Pinochet in Chile, Suharto in Indonesia, Maurice Bishop in Grenada and Saddam himself. When these dictators get fed up with US interference and revolt, the US then turns on them and puts them down. Their latest effort in 2001 at doing the same in Venezuela (another oil rich state) was thankfully thwarted by the people of Venezuela, but only just.
US foreign policy and warmongering is based solely on economic self-interest. As they seek to dominate world markets and as they boycott French goods, so should we, fellow EU members, play the US at their own game and boycott US goods.
Kevin T Finn, King’s Square, Mitchelstown,
The importance of Iraqi oil to the US
<a href=english.aljazeera.net>aljazeera.net
Dr. Abdul Hay Zallom is the author of “The New Empire of Evil” and “Forewarnings of Globalization”. He was a key player in the formation of three major oil companies in 1959, two of them owned by two OPEC member states. He is also a founder and board chairman of “Zallom and Associates”, an oil industry consultation company.
Though US Secretary of State Collin Powell has repeatedly stressed that oil is not the goal of the US war on Iraq, many observers reiterate that oil remains the major motivation. They point to Iraq’s huge oil reserves and US oil needs as being behind the US decision. A destroyed Iraqi tank lies gutted as a wellhead burns on the Rumaila oilfield in southern Iraq: Though the US has repeatedly stressed that oil is not the goal of the war on Iraq, many observers reiterate that oil remains the major motivation
Iraq owns 11 per cent of international oil reserves, which accounts for more than 112 billion barrels of oil. Studies by the US Energy Information Administration put the reserves in excess of 200 billion barrels. An added attraction is that the cost of pumping Iraqi crude is the cheapest worldwide.
The studies show that the world’s demand for oil will reach 112 million barrels per day in the year 2020 and that only six countries namely Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela, will be able to meet that demand. The US is the world’s largest oil consumer. While an US citizen consumes 28 barrels per year, his Chinese counterpart burns only two barrels per year.
Q: Why did the United States decide to disarm Iraq and democratise it while the world is full of similar regimes?
A: The declared reason is to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. International observers and United Nations inspectors have so far indicated that Iraq is clear of such weapons…even the United States knows that Iraq possesses no such weapons…As for the excuse of replacing the current regime with a democratic one, it is not democratic at all to impose a democratic regime with tanks...Besides, the United States is not the world’s most qualified to defend democracy.
Q: What then are US objectives in Iraq?
A: The United States’ real objectives were revealed by Powell to Congress…when he said that Washington would carry out structural change after occupying Iraq…for us, this structural change, which would primarily depend on oil, would be the establishment of a new empire…Empires do not come into being by coincidence…The Sykes-Picot agreement designed the Arab world according to the interests of the British and the French empires…currently our Arab world is subject to a Bush-Sharon intended empire.
Q: What is the importance of Iraqi oil for the United States?
A: Let me just read to you what “Orbs” Magazine wrote in 1957. Its editor-in-chief was William Eliot, and after him his student Henry Kissinger…The magazine wrote that the mission of the United States was to unify the whole world under its leadership…that is to say a worldwide Empire led by the United States and stamped by the American spirit and culture
Q: Was that just speculation or a kind of strategy…?
A: The plan always existed, but the implementation is divided into phases, in accordance with the circumstances.
Q: What is the role of oil in all this?
A: This means that oil is the pillar and the soul of such future empires…
Q: But why Iraqi oil in particular?
A: Because Iraq’s reserves are huge…According to declared figures, Iraq’s reserves are estimated at around 115 billion barrels…which equals the total reserves of the United States, Canada, Mexico, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, China and the whole non-Middle Eastern Asia…The reserves of all these countries altogether are 116 billion barrels, while Iraq’s alone, as mentioned before are 115 billion barrels…It is worth mentioning here that these quantities of oil are pumped from only 15 out of 74 oilwells.
Q: Does this mean that more than 60 oil wells are not operative or productive in Iraq?
A: Exactly…the West has repeatedly declined to declare the real reserves of oil in the Arab region because of political reasons…Iraq’s reserves of oil can equal that of Saudi Arabia…As declared in 1996, Saudi oil reserves stood at 115 billion barrels…
Q: Some studies indicate that Iraq may have a reserve of 200 billion barrels.?
A: Iraqi oil reserves may even exceed 200 billion barrels…
Q: Since it is a fact that Iraq’s oil reserves equal those of the United States, Canada, Australia and most of the Asian and European countries put together, does this really consolidate the objectives of war on Iraq?
A: Iraq is a prey and the opportunity should be seized, especially since the United States’ oil reserves stand at just 22 billion barrels.
Q: Some studies point out that by 2007 Washington will stop using its own oil, reserving all production for strategic purposes and that every litre of oil will be imported. Is that true?
A: US oil reserves will be kept only for strategic purposes…
Q: Will these strategic reserves help the United States to maintain its industrial superiority and to enable it to remain the number one industrial power of the world?
A: Strategic reserves mean that the United States will not use its own oil except in cases of emergency.
Q: How do you assess the United States’ future need of oil, if it wants to maintain its industrial growth and to form the empire through which it seeks to dominate the world?
A: Oil for the United States is a matter of life or death…Not only Iraqi oil…Iraq will only be the first step and will be followed by other countries…the Middle East and Iran possess 65 per cent of the world’s oil reserves…that may be one of the reasons for picking off Iraq…The US divides oil producing countries into two categories…they call the first category absorber countries, while the second, non-absorber countries…According to the US absorber countries are dangerous because they possess the capability to build modern and powerful states…They include Iraq and Algeria and may now include Saudi Arabia…
Q: These are the most indebted countries in the Arab world. The debt of Algeria, which is categorized as one of the richest oil countries in the Arab world, exceeds 52 billion dollars. Iraq’s debts are far more than that, while Saudi Arabia’s debts, according to its finance minister are 600 billion riyals (US$170 billion). How did this happen?
A: It is not a coincidence that these three major Arab oil producing countries have joined the club of debtors…there was a fear that these absorber countries might become powerful states…It is worth mentioning here that when the current US administration came to power, it brought an agenda to establish a new US empire to dominate the world.
In October 2001 and after the September 11th attacks, Robert Cooper, an advisor to Blair was transferred to the Foreign Ministry to accomplish a specific mission, polishing the final touches on the project of the future empire …The former British empire is the imperial advisor to the future American empire…In “Prospect” magazine, Cooper explicitly said that “Nation States” had proved their failure after independence…and that all conditions are set for the beginning of a new imperialism with an Anglo-Saxon culture…This is what really happens and Iraq is only a part of a series of plots
Q: America did not import a single barrel of oil before 1970, but now 60 percent of its oil need is imported. How did US oil imports jump from zero to 60 percent in a period of 32 years?
A: The first US trade deficit was caused by its oil imports…before the 1991 Gulf War, the United States used to import 45 per cent of its oil demand. Studies at that time predicted that US oil imports would increase to 60 percent by the end of the 90s and to 100 percent in the years to follow…
Q: Do you mean by the year 2007?
A: Exactly…if a projection was made about the United States’ complete reliance on imported oil, how would then the US trade deficit look?
Q: British Petroleum and the US Energy Information Administration have recently said in a study that the world’s oil production will soar to 112 million barrels per day by 2020, compared to 77 million barrels per day in 1997. What does that mean for the United States?
A: It means that if oil was very important for the United States in the past, it will be a matter of life or death for it in the future…Oil is the Arabs’ real weapon of mass destruction…We do not practically benefit from oil…the price of our oil is very low…and does not reflect the real price…
Q: Oil prices in the late 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s stood at $ 40 per barrel, the prices have deteriorated ever since and have sometimes stood at seven or eight dollars per barrel…
A: If the price of oil remained at $ 40 per barrel as you mentioned, Arab wealth would have exceeded 1.5 trillion dollars…Bottling water actually cost between 50 to 60 dollars per barrel…The issue of the price is a matter of national security for the United States…in other words, if a state decides to increase or decrease the price in contradiction to the US interests, Washington would consider that a violation of its national security…
Q: Do you think that the current anti-war positions of France and Germany are linked to the issue of oil?
A: Yes…this is a conflict for profit and not for ideology…the French ELF-Total has a contract for exploiting 25 per cent of Iraqi oil…
UNDATED: Bill Shoemaker.
<a href=www.sfgate.com>SFGate.com Tuesday, April 29, 2003 (04-29) 16:03 PDT (AP) --
Pincay broke the cervical 2 bone in his neck, one of the uppermost seven vertebrae of the spine.
His family, including wife Jeanine and his two grown children Lisa and Laffit III, had urged him to retire after the accident. Pincay also has a 6-year-old son, Jean-Laffit.
"The doctor recommended that I never ride again," Pincay said in a statement. "It's a very sad day for myself and Jeanine. But we always prepared ourselves for the worst.
"I am very grateful to a lot of people who helped me throughout my career and I want to thank the fans for all the cards and well wishes. And I want to thank all my friends for their support."
Pincay was supposed to be in Louisville on Saturday to ride Indian Express for trainer Bob Baffert in the Kentucky Derby. He had recommended that Baffert purchase the horse that is from Panama.
The son of a famous rider in Panama and Venezuela, Pincay came to the United States at 17, speaking only Spanish and carrying a $500-a-month riding contract. He taught himself English by watching "Hollywood Squares" on TV.
He reached the winner's circle on his first U.S. mount, in 1966 at Chicago's Arlington Park.
What was most exceptional about Pincay's longevity was his ability to control his weight.
He battled the scale since he was a teenager. Back then, he was told he was too big to be a jockey. He weighs 113 pounds and rode at 117 pounds, which included his saddle and tack.
Pincay's final injury was one of many in his career. He broke his collarbone 11 times, broke 10 ribs, had two spinal fractures, two punctured lungs, two broken thumbs and a sprained ankle.
With an enterprise value of over $1 billion, MISC's acquisition of AET from NOL sets a new record. The largest Malaysia-Singapore M&A ever?
financeasia.com By Steven Irvine 30 April 2003
It is the largest transportation M&A globally in 2003 and bankers suspect it is the biggest ever M&A between Malaysia and Singapore - two countries that are not known for selling assets to each other. Petronas-controlled MISC has paid Singapore's NOL $445 million for American Eagle Tankers (AET), an asset that will fuel MISC's global shipping pretensions.
The size of the deal goes above $1 billion if you include debt assumed and measure the strict enterprise value. Bankers close to deal are ecstatic that such a deal could get done in the midst of SARS and such turbulent markets.
"In these challenging markets it's good to see that companies are still taking steps to address strategic issues," says Richard Seow, Citigroup's head of Southeast Asian investment banking, and whose firm advised MISC.
"This is definitely a win-win deal for both companies," acknowledges Todd Marin, head of M&A at JPMorgan.
His firm was appointed by NOL to dispose of AET in the fourth quarter of last year. NOL has actually been trying to dispose of AET for some time.
In July 2001 it tried selling 30% of the company in a US IPO with Singapore Depositary Receipts attached. This $130 million deal - which valued the company at $433 million - however was pulled due to turbulent market conditions by then lead manager, Salomon Smith Barney.
In spite of two Asian companies being involved, however, this is less of an Asian asset than one might assume. Indeed, it is really a US company.
American Eagle Tankers has three main operations: lightering, voyage chartering and long-term chartering. The first involves the transfer of crude oil from long-range large tankers to smaller tankers capable of entering shallow water ports.
Voyage chartering involves the transportation of oil from loading port to discharging port, and long-term chartering involves leasing company's tankers on a pay per-day basis. American Eagle gets 69% of its revenues from the Atlantic basin but had recently signed the so-called Bitor contracts with Venezuela which saw the firm transporting oil from the Gulf of Mexico to Asia.
The deal will provide MISC with 29 Aframax tankers and two very large crude carriers. With the acquisition the Malaysian company will have the second largest combined Aframax fleet in the world. It will also have the youngest Aframax fleet with an average age of 7.5 years.
Analysts explain that the main benefit of having such a young fleet lies in the premium rates oil companies are willing to pay to avoid the embarrassment of environmentally damaging oil spills. MISC will be transformed to become one of the leading tanker operators globally.
MISC is paying 1.45 times book value for the company, but will allow NOL to keep a $75 million dividend from this year and will also allow NOL to share some upside via an earn-out structure based on actual cargo rates versus projected cargo rates for the next two years.
From Citigroup's perspective, this is the second M&A deal closed for Petronas group companies in as many weeks. It also recently closed the $1.7 billion sale of Edison's Egyptian oil assets to Petronas.