<a href=www.sfgate.com>SFGate.com-AP Friday, April 25, 2003
(04-25) 18:00 PDT SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) --

The government is considering asylum for two former Venezuelan soldiers who allegedly held President Hugo Chavez in custody during a brief coup last year, officials said Friday.

Brothers Alfredo and Ricardo Salazar, both former army captains, entered the Dominican Embassy in Venezuela on Thursday and requested asylum. Their attorney said that they had received death threats.

"The Dominican Foreign Ministry is evaluating the information and corresponding documentation to make a decision," the ministry said in a statement.

During the coup, dissident generals briefly ousted Chavez. The action was spurred by violence that left 19 Venezuelans dead when opposition and pro-government marches clashed in downtown Caracas.

Loyalists in the military returned Chavez to power three days later on April 14.

Since then, the opposition has been pushing for a referendum on Chavez's rule, accusing him of trampling on democratic institutions and alienating investment with leftist policies. The president says his foes want to oust a democratically elected leader and restore power to two corrupt political parties that ruled Venezuela for four decades.

In addition to the brothers, two other Venezuelan army officers requested asylum -- at the Peruvian Embassy in Caracas, officials said Friday. Their request was being reviewed.

Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador Charles S. Shapiro urged Venezuela's government and opposition to strike a deal for a vote on Chavez's presidency, a day after the government refused to sign an internationally brokered pact on the matter.

Venezuela's constitution allows opponents to organize a referendum halfway into the president's six-year term, or next August.

Shapiro said foreign governments are "willing to help the government and opposition on this point if they ask for it."

By Boston.com-Reuters, 4/25/2003

RECIFE, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he and his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, agreed Friday to create an ''integrated South American economic area'' by the end of 2003.

Hosting Venezuela's leader in his home state in the northeast of Brazil, Lula said it was ''urgent'' to reach a free trade deal between the Mercosur trade group and the Andean countries of Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador.

''We agree on giving the highest priority to the integration of South America,'' Lula said after meeting Chavez. ''We are in full agreement about ... a free trade zone between the Andean Community and Mercosur.''

The statement by Brazil's new center-left president signaled his ambition to continue his predecessor's drive to unite South America's main trade groups before the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), including the United States and Canada.

Mercosur includes Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, as well as associate members Chile and Bolivia. Brazil is South America's largest economy.

Brazil's former President, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, sought to unite the region with an eye to giving it greater clout in comparison with the United States in FTAA negotiations. FTAA would be the world's largest free trade area, running south from the Canadian Arctic to Patagonia in South America. Trade is expected to begin in 2006.

Lula said that FTAA talks needed to ''keep in mind the different levels of economic development of the hemisphere's countries and the grave social needs in many of them.''

Lula hosted U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow this week, who hinted during his trip that Washington could address Brazil's long-held grievance that the U.S. is doing too little to get rid of subsidies Brazil says hinders its farm goods from reaching U.S. markets.

''In spite of many promises and declarations, markets in developed countries remain closed to many of our products, especially those that have clear comparative advantages,'' Lula said in reference to farm exports.

Despite Lula's ambition to strengthen Brazil's negotiating clout by working with other South American states, his agriculture minister said in Washington Friday that Brazil could consider bilateral trade talks with Washington if it gained greater access to U.S. markets.

<a href=www.sfgate.com>SFGate.com-AP HAROLD OLMOS, Associated Press Writer Friday, April 25, 2003
(04-25) 16:29 PDT RECIFE, Brazil (AP) --

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Friday that foreign powers shouldn't meddle with Iraq's oil and that any interference would be a return to colonialism.

"Iraqi oil should be handled by the Iraqi people," Chavez said after arriving in this northeastern Brazilian city. "Otherwise it would be going back 200 years, and I don't want to think that the new century is beginning with colonialism."

Chavez and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva discussed several joint business projects, including construction of a $2 billion oil refinery.

No agreement was formalized to build the refinery, but Chavez told reporters he wants to sign an agreement as soon as possible.

Although five Brazilian states are vying for the project, Chavez said he prefers Pernambuco state.

Recife, the capital of Pernambuco, was the home of Jose Inacio de Abreu e Lima, a 19th-century Brazilian independence soldier who fought against Spain along with Venezuela's liberator, Simon Bolivar -- who is Chavez's hero.

Chavez's visit to Brazil was the third since Silva took office on Jan. 1, but this was the first specifically to discuss business, not politics.

For years, Brazil was little more than a customer for Venezuelan oil. But the populist Chavez has pushed for closer ties with Silva, Brazil's first leftist president in 40 years.

Early this year, as Chavez faced an opposition strike demanding his resignation, Brazil played a key role creating a Group of Friends of Venezuela. The group -- which includes the United States, Mexico, Spain, Portugal and Chile -- works with the Organization of the American States to help the oil-rich nation resolve its domestic strife.

Weeks before the group was formed, Brazil sold Venezuela over half a million barrels of gasoline, just at the peak of a two-month oil strike that crippled Venezuela's economy. The strike eventually ended without reaching its goal of ousting Chavez.

The refinery is a long-standing economic development idea to meet the needs of Brazil's north and northeast, a vast poverty-stricken region with a population of 40 million -- nearly a fourth of Brazil's 170 million people and almost double Venezuela's 24 million.

It would also improve refining capacity for Venezuela and Brazil, Chavez said. Brazil exports crude oil, but must import gasoline because it lacks refining capacity.

"We want to refine oil in or as close to Venezuela as possible -- in the Caribbean, in the Andes or here in Brazil," he said. "We can refine all this oil here and sell gasoline not only in South America but also in the Caribbean and Africa."

The Brazilian government has not yet decided where to build the plant, which eventually would process up to 200,000 barrels of crude daily. At least five northeastern and northern states are interested.

At their meeting, Chavez and Silva discussed the situation in post-war Iraq. Silva, who opposed the war, said he is "committed to contributing for the United Nations to have again a key role in a lasting solution of this matter."

<a href=www.indianexpress.com>www.indianexpress.com Thomas H. Maugh Ii & Usha Lee Mcfarling

Toronto, April 25: In an effort to stave off economic disaster, Canadian officials launched a campaign Thursday to repudiate the World Health Organization’s warning that it is potentially dangerous to travel to Canada’s largest city because of an outbreak of SARS.

Local officials met Thursday morning to plot strategies to restore tourism in this normally bustling city, dispatching Canadian diplomats to WHO headquarters in Geneva to plead for the warning to be rescinded. ‘‘Fortress Toronto’’ and ‘‘Boo WHO’’ read banner headlines on local newspapers, as the mayor and other officials made high-profile public appearances to dispel what they considered misguided perceptions about the city, the sixth largest in North America and the financial capital of Canada.

Toronto officials argued that, despite the WHO warning, they were making major progress in controlling Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. Dr Sheela Basrur, the city’s chief medical officer, said that Toronto had not had a new case for seven days.

WHO’s warning against unnecessary travel, issued Wednesday, was quickly echoed by the governments of Britain, France, Ireland, Australia, Venezuela and Jamaica.

Local hotels, convention centres and theatres were already beginning to feel the effects of cancelled reservations. The US is by far the largest source of foreign visitors to Canada, with more than 62 million border crossings each year.

Some good news came from the nearby Nova Scotia, which has issued a similar warning, then withdrew it overnight.

Toronto officials feel a strong sense of outrage. ‘‘They (WHO) have quarantined an entire city,’’ said Mayor Mel Lastman. ‘‘I demand that WHO come to Toronto and see for themselves that Toronto is safe to visit, safe to work in, and safe to play in.’’

Masks are rarely sighted on Toronto streets. Bus and subway drivers have been ordered not to wear masks, even though some reportedly would like to do so.

There have been no cases of infection on public transportation, officials said, so there is no need for the masks.

The Canadian government’s effort to rescind the WHO travel warning will probably do no good. The warning will remain in force for a full three weeks, WHO spokesman Jon Linden said Thursday. (LAT-WP)

By Ted Rall, <a href=www.alternet.org>AlterNet April 25, 2003

Iraq is going to hell. Shiites are killing Sunnis, Kurds are killing Arabs and Islamists are killing secular Baathists. Baghdad, the cradle of human civilization, has been left to looters and rapists. As in Beirut during the '70s, neighborhood zones are separated by checkpoints manned by armed tribesmen. The war has, however, managed to unite Iraqis in one respect: Everyone loathes the United States.

Some Iraqis hate us for deposing Saddam Hussein. No dictator remains in power without the tacit support of at some of his subjects. Now that we've committed the cardinal sin of conquest – getting rid of the old system without thinking up a new one – even those who chafed under Saddam blame us for their present misery.

Others resent our Pentagon-appointed pretender, 58-year-old banker/embezzler Ahmed Chalabi. The State Department points out that Iraq's new puppet autocrat has zero support among Iraqis, having lived abroad since 1958. But who knows? Maybe he was a really popular kid.

Thousands of Iraqis have been reduced to poverty, raped and murdered by rampaging goons as U.S. Marines stood around and watched. We watched the plunder of museums in Mosul and Baghdad safe at home with our tisk-tisk dismay, but Iraqis will remain outraged by the wanton devastation we wrought through war, permitted through negligence and shrugged off through arrogance. "We didn't allow it," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shrugged. "It happened."

Imagine foreign troops sitting idly, laughing as hooligans trashed the Smithsonian, stole the gold from Fort Knox and burned down the Department of the Interior. That was us in Iraq.

But let's forget this penny ante stuff. Let the real looting begin! George W. Bush's bestest buddies, corporate executives at companies which donate money in exchange for a few rounds of golf and a few million-dollar favors, are being handed the keys to Iraq's oil fields.

Bush's brazen Genghis Khan act seems carefully calculated to confirm our worst suspicions. First he appoints retired general Jay Garner, president of a GOP-connected defense contractor, SYColeman Corp., as viceroy of occupied Iraq. "The idea is we are in Iraq not as occupiers but as liberators, and here comes a guy who has attachments to companies that provided the wherewithal for the military assault on that country," marvels David Armstrong, a defense analyst at the National Security News Service. A smart and/or decent president would have picked a civilian for a civil administration post.

Then Bush slips a $680 million contract to the Bechtel Group. The deal puts the company in position to receive a big part of the $100 billion estimated total cost of Iraqi reconstruction. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Bechtel gave Republican candidates, including Bush, about $765,000 in PAC, soft money and individual campaign contributions between 1999 and 2002.

Finally, refusing to accept bids from potential competitors, Bush grants a two-year, $490 million contract for Iraqi oil field repairs to Halliburton Co., the Houston-based company where Vice President Dick Cheney worked as CEO from 1995 to 2000. "It will look a lot worse if Halliburton gets the USAID [Agency for International Development] contract, too," Bathsheba Crocker, an Iraq specialist for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, warned in March. "Then it really starts looking bad." Guess what! Halliburton has since scored a piece of that $600 million USAID contract.

Are we looking bad yet?

Only Bush's most intimate friends were invited to bid for these contracts. Even businesses based in Great Britain, where Prime Minister Tony Blair risked his political career to support Bush, have been excluded from a rigged process where only U.S.-based, Republican-led, Bush-connected companies need apply.

Two senior Democratic Congressmen, Henry Waxman and John Dingell, are asking the General Accounting Office to look into these sleazy kickback deals. "These ties between the vice president and Halliburton have raised concerns about whether the company has received favorable treatment from the administration," their letter reads. Well, duh. But don't count on appropriate action – like impeachment proceedings – from the do-nothing Dems.

Bush's right-wing Gang of Four – Cheney, Rummy, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz – saw Operation Iraqi Freedom as a chance to line their buddies' pockets, emasculate the Muslim world, place U.S. military bases in Russia's former sphere of influence and, according to the experts, lower the price of oil by busting OPEC.

"There will be a substantial increase in Iraqi oil production [under U.S. occupation], and I wouldn't be surprised if schemes emerged to weaken, if not destroy, OPEC," says Jumberto Calderón, former energy minister of Venezuela. Former OPEC secretary general Fadhil Chalabi (no relation to Ahmed) estimates that increased exploration could potentially double Iraq's proven reserves, which would raise production from 2.4 to 10 million barrels a day. Such Saudi-scale production would "bring OPEC to its knees," says Chalabi.

The cartel's member nations, ten of 11 of them predominantly Muslim, would suffer staggering increases in poverty as a result of falling oil revenues, plunging some into the political chaos that breeds Islamist fundamentalism. Meanwhile, the people of Iraq, whose self-flagellating Shias already make the evening news look like a rerun of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, would starve as foreign infidels raked in billions thanks to the oil beneath their land.

Time to dust off the duct tape.

Ted Rall is the author of "Gas War: The Truth Behind the American Occupation of Afghanistan," an analysis of the underreported Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline project and the real motivations behind the war on terrorism.