Reuters, 04.25.03, 5:58 PM ET  

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, April 25 (Reuters) - Brazilian state oil company Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras) <PETR4.SA>(nyse: PBR - news - people) said on Friday it lowered its 2005 production target due to delays in the construction of exploration platforms.

Production in 2005 should reach 1.82 million barrels of oil a day, not the previously targeted 1.9 million bpd, said Petrobras Finance Director Luis Sergio Gabrielli. He added that output should reach 2.22 million bpd in 2007.

"The events of the last years have caused us to draw a more conservative scenario," said Gabrielli, who explained that some oil exploration platforms would not be ready as soon as previously expected.

The firm's projections were based on forecasts for 3.1 percent annual economic growth and 2.8 percent yearly growth in consumption until 2007. Petrobras plans to invest $34.3 billion from 2003 to 2007, slightly higher than the $32 billion previously forecast.

Gabrielli also said Petrobras decided to construct a heavy crude refinery in northeast Brazil with a capacity of 150,000 bpd in partnership with Venezuela's PDVSA state oil company, which would supply some of the refinery's crude oil.

Rogerio Manso, director of supply for Petrobras, said the new refinery would help meet increased demand for diesel oil in the country.

BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD — Special for Granma International —

Without Frontiers • Under the pretext of fighting for press freedom, Reporters Without Frontiers has been transformed into a tool of Washington and its Interests Section in Havana • In order to try and undermine the Cuban Revolution, Robert Menard, leader of this organization, is purchases the services of pseudo-reporters to fuel the fascist, annexationist and Batista-loving Miami press

PLAGIARIZING the name of credible international organizations was not that difficult for neo-reactionary Robert Menard - pseudo-journalist, fraudster and CIA agent – in order to make a space for himself in the communications world. Nor was it difficult to find funds for his projects of misinformation: the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) are offering the bread and butter.

One of Robert Menard’s protégés, journalist Néstor Baguer, was president of the Association of Independent Cuban Journalists...until it became known, during the trial of those mercenaries of misinformation, that he was State Security agent Octavio. Menard also lent his support to Aleida Godínez, journalist with Lux magazine, an alleged trade union publication from the electricity industry, printed in Miami and distributed by USIS. Above, Néstor Baguer in a "journalists" meeting held in the U.S. Interests Section.

Following the arrest in Cuba of those individuals who actively collaborated with the U.S. Special Interests Section and its plans to destabilize the Cuban Revolution, Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters Without Frontiers-RWF-), Menard’s NGO (that’s not that non-governmental) in support of "independent journalists" (who are not exactly journalists or independent), has thrown itself into an hysterical anti-Cuba campaign worthy of counterrevolutionaries in Miami.

For several years now, Menard and the RWF organization have managed to penetrate the editorial offices of several French and international media agencies, disguised as imperialist-style human rights activists, demanding the right to interfere in the internal affairs of individual nations and justifying the military interventions of their bosses.

A recent, sensationalist publicity stunt by RWF was to make a scandalous parallel of the human rights situation in Baghdad - where U.S. fascism has just carried out a massacre - with Cuba, where the Revolution exercises the right to defend itself from brazen foreign intervention.

In a press conference on April 9, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque recalled that there is an abundance of financial sources which groups like Menard’s – obsessed with Cuba and supposedly "humanitarian" - have access to.

The balance sheet is, quite simply, indecent.

RAINING BUCKS

In 2002, the International Republican Institute in the United States received the sum of $1,674,462 USD in order to "help create bases of international support to provide material, moral and ideological aid to activists in Cuba."

On December 27, Adolfo Franco (a member of the so-called Miami Connection and one of more than 20 Cuban-Americans to have penetrated the upper echelons of the Bush administration), the USAID administrator for the Latin American and Caribbean region (get this!) openly stated before the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee that the US foreign aid agency had invested $22 million USD in materials, propaganda and other items for Cuba, including 7,000 radios "to listen to Radio Martí."

It is worth mentioning that the very same Radio Martí receives $25 million USD from Voice of America funds, of which it is a simple subsidiary... In the same way every year, from the many sources created by the government in Washington to supply mercenaries, tens and tens of millions of dollars rain on those who collaborate with imperialism, as much in Paris or Havana as in Miami.

The self-same James Cason - a CIA agent and head of USIS – who was commissioned by George W. Bush’s government to intensify the subversive campaign against Cuba, announced on Miami television that he would meet at every possible opportunity with the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF), an organization created, sustained and directed by the CIA, servant of the NED and USAID, and identified by terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, currently imprisoned in Panama, as his principal financial source.

Cason also acknowledged his immoral and active relationship with the paramilitary version of CANF, the Cuban Liberty Council, an organization run by terrorist couple Ninoska Lucrecia Pérez Castellon and Roberto Martí Pérez, the proven organizer and financier of multiple acts of terrorism committed against Cuba.

In his eagerness to "liberate Cuba" and "support press freedom", and with the anti-communist venom he has been unable to hide, Menard has not only hired out his organization but has transformed it into a misinformation agency and a mechanism for distributing funds to counterrevolutionaries, one that also provides false material for all the neo-fascistic and Batista-supporting media channels in South Florida: a French version of CIA-operative Frank Calson’s Freedom House, which also devotes itself to distributing payment funds.

"WE GAVE THEM $50 USD A MONTH"

Some years ago, Menard implicitly confessed to his participation in the distribution of money to an important number of "collaborators" who were carrying out work for the USIS.

"We gave around 20 journalists $50 USD per month each to survive," Menard confirmed to Hernando Calvo Ospina and Katiijn Declercq, authors of ¿Disidentes o mercenarios? (Dissidents or Mercenaries).

In fact, the way in which these funds - of "undetermined" origin – were distributed by Menard and his organization correspond with the methods used by various organizations in the United States openly connected to the NED and USAID and reveal the relationship between RWF and the CIA; like the destination of the supposed "information" circulated by the counterrevolutionary "agencies".

This material, systematically directed at undermining and damaging the Revolution’s image, is destined for publications characterized by their alignment to Washington. In such a way that RWF is not just fulfilling its mission to locate, recruit, direct and financially support a series of mercenaries, but also to fuel media channels controlled by a stew of Batista-loving personalities such as El Diario de las Américas, El Nuevo Herald, Radio Mambí and Radio Martí, each of them with clear neo-fascist, annexationist tendencies.

By behaving in this way, Menard is aligning his supposedly humanitarian organization with the vision of Cuba held by the "Pontiff" of Radio Martí, Alberto Pérez-Roura. This individual is the head of a loathsome channel that constantly expresses its support for the bloodiest terrorism, represented by Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles.

A clear collaborator with the blockade in respect of information, Menard has always abstained from condemning the tremendously repressive policies of numerous "regimes" associated with the United States. Nor does he attack the empire that generates them, preferring instead to get his funds from those in the European Union and various business people suspiciously interested in the cause of information.

Significantly, Menard’s organization is one of three similar organizations provided with large budgets and saturating the global market of the defense of press freedom in its monopolistic version. Curiously enough, the other two are U.S. organizations: CPJ of New York and Miami’s Inter American Press.

Some months ago, Menard let his mask slip in Venezuela, by rushing to the aid of the putschist press, that of multimillionaire Gustavo Cisneros and others like him, whilst ignoring the fate of journalists from the community press, those in favor of the immense popular support enjoyed by President Hugo Chávez.

In the same way, he has always ignored the brutal attacks on and detentions of reporters connected to the anti-globalization campaigns (most notably those from the Indymedia network) and the large-scale protests that have taken place since 1999 against the World Trade Organization in Washington.

A self-proclaimed freedom fighter, he has embarked on his new crusade whilst George W. Bush sets off on his, with admirable simultaneity.

In the same way that George W. Bush and his regime use the issue of human rights as their defense in crushing them - either through the Patriot Act or cluster bombs - Robert Menard uses it to finish off with information. Dreaming of one America...without frontiers.

<a href=www.outlookindia.com>Znet-outlookindia.com Web | Apr 25, 2003

The struggle for secular democracy in the third world, if sincere, is inseparable from our struggle at home against Western imperialism.

JEAN BRICMONT

The slogan was repeated around the world: "no blood for oil". But blood and oil have flowed together for a long time. From the betrayal of the Arab world by the French and the British following the fall of the Turkish empire in 1917 to the latest war against Iraq, Western policy has been dominated by oil. Western thirst for oil has been satisfied through opposition to Middle Eastern reformists in favor of the most backward and corrupt traditional rulers, through support to the strategic asset of aggressively modern Israel, through fanning the flames of the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, then the 1991 Gulf War followed by endless embargo and bombing of Iraq.

In 1945, the U.S. State Department described the Saudi Arabian petroleum reserves a "stupendous source of strategic power and one of the greatest material prize in world history". Today Bush's war regime is less frank and pretends that the conquest of Iraq has nothing to do with its huge petroleum reserves. However, their soldiers massively protect the Petroleum Ministry in Baghdad while abandoning to looters and vandals the ministries responsible for public services, the hospitals and the country's priceless archeological treasures. The looting can serve to demoralize and divide the population of a conquered country and make it welcome whatever invader is able to use force to restore law and order.

Today there is universal rejoicing over the end of the dreadful dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, as if opponents and advocates of the war could at least agree that the Pentagon chose the right target. But the Pentagon has already struck many targets in the past, and will be encouraged to strike many more in the future, and crimes such as those attributed to the Iraqi dictator have little to do with the criteria for selection.

In their effort to escape from Western exploitation, third world peoples have produced many diverse leaders: Ho Chi Minh, Mao Tse Tung, Gandhi, Martin Luther King et Malcolm X, Lumumba, Nkrumah, Nasser, Allende, Fidel Castro, Amilcar Cabral, Arafat, the Sandinistas, Ben Bella and Ben Barka... All these leaders, and in Europe, the rare defenders of third world revolution, Olof Palme in Sweden or Otelo de Carvalho in Portugal, all of them, whether reformist or revolutionaries, socialists or nationalists, armed or non-violent, have all been reviled by the "Free World", and have been various plotted against, demonized, invaded, imprisoned or assassinated by the West or its agents.

In 1953, the CIA overthrew the reformist Iranian prime minister Mossadegh in favor of the Shah's dictatorship which led to the Islamic revolution and the regime of the Ayatollahs. In 1954, the CIA overthrew the elected reformist president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz, leading to decades of military dictatorship and bloody massacres. In 1965, the United States engineered the overthrow of the reformist Goulart in Brazil, the reformist Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic and President Soekarno in Indonesia, with hundreds of thousands of victims. Mandela is recognized today as a hero, but it should not be forgotten that he spent 27 years in prison with the complicity of the CIA.

Whenever third world peoples try to free themselves by essentially peaceful and democratic methods, whether the Palestinians during the Oslo period, or Allende in Chile, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and today Chavez in Venezuela, their hopes are countered by violence and endless subversion. If they arrest their opponents like Castro, or turn to violence like the suicide bombers in Palestine or the Maoists in Nepal, their cause is reduced to their methods by Western humanitarians whose standards of pure non-violence never applied to the creation of the modern dominant nations.

Perhaps one should ask the imperial powers to spell out precisely what methods oppressed peoples may be allowed to use for their defense and liberation. 

The failure of the Afghanistan war to catch Osama bin Laden or to create a new democratic Afghanistan is forgotten, just as the Bush administration can hope people will forget the pretexts for the war against Iraq, along with the nonsense about gas masks and duct tape. Richard Perle says the famous "weapons of mass destruction", neither found nor used during the U.S. invasion, may be hidden deep underground, or in Syria...

How many countries can be invaded in the course of this hunt? Now that the U.S. controls the terrain, any belated "discovery" will have no more credibility than the many discredited "proofs" and falsehoods offered by the Anglo-Americans to justify war. Besides, it is difficult to see how weapons of mass destruction possessed by a regime that does not use them at the very moment that it is toppled can be a threat to anybody. As for the accusation -- which polls indicate was believed by 40% to 50% of Americans -- that Saddam Hussein was linked to September 11, it remains as totally unsubstantiated as ever.

The only pretext left is "democracy", today the opium of the intellectual warriors. The official position of the reluctant European governments and their media is not very different: the war is an illegal and illegitimate aggression, but still, we hope it succeeds as soon as possible. Otherwise, it would be catastrophic for "democracy". The moment may have come to ask some questions about that concept. How does "real existing democracy" appear to people in the Arab world? Just how attractive is a system that gives full power to individuals such as Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, or Reagan's secretary of state George Shultz of the Bechtel corporation and Dick Cheney of Halliburton, whose companies profit rebuilding the countries they pick for destruction?

How impressive is freedom of the press when the mass media, concentrated in few hands, can convince the American public that Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks? What do they think of being told by the star New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman that "we left you alone for a long time, you played with matches and in the end we were burned. So we're not going to leave you alone any longer". (quoted by Ari Shavit in "White man's burden", Ha'aretz, April 7, 2003). The same Friedman adds that the war against Iraq would never have taken place in the absence of 25 neo-conservative intellectuals, all near his Washington office, whom he could name. So much for democratic process. And what can they think of the choice of retired general Jay Garner, ardent champion of Israel, to be the new proconsul of occupied Iraq?

Enough abuse and hypocrisy can eventually discredit even the best ideas, democracy as well as socialism.

The new conquerors claim to want free elections in Iraq. Let them try. Certainly, it is odd to make war in order to have free elections in Iraq, when there are no such elections in countries already dependent on the United States, such as Egypt. Are there elections in Afghanistan? But the basic reason to doubt the authenticity of U.S. support for free elections in the Middle East is to be seen in the outcome of elections in Algeria, Turkey or Pakistan. The Arab-Muslim world today appears to be largely convinced that if secular nationalism has failed to bring full independence, it is because it was secular. God's help is needed, and God will only help the true believers. The voters will not choose the corrupt pro-Western elites, who more or less openly support Israel, that the West dreams of seeing legitimized through elections. Free elections would be won by political Islam, more hostile to the West than the existing undemocratic regimes.

For all those in the Arab world or in the West who doubt the existence of divine intervention in human affairs, this evolution can only be felt as a huge step backward. Regardless of their mistakes and crimes, Arab nationalists, like the communists, tried to improve human life on earth by the only means accessible: social transformation and not the interpretation of sacred texts. We may believe that such means are not exhausted, but belief in their efficacy has faded.

It is also interesting to contrast the reaction of mainstream Western intellectuals to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and of the Shah of Iran back in 1979. Both were ruthless dictators, both secular in some ways and both trying to modernize their country. And downfall of both benefits (or will likely benefit in Saddam's case) political Islam. One of them, however, was a close ally of the United States and the other not. The reactions are markedly different- in one case huge celebration, in the other, warnings that the next regime won't be any better.

It is not easy to be optimistic today as Iraq is plunged into a new night of colonialism. But if we take the long view of history, we can see that at the beginning of the twentieth century, all of Africa and a large part of Asia were under the rule of European powers. In Shanghai, the British could declare a park off limits "to dogs and Chinese". The Russian, Chinese and Ottoman empires were helpless to stop Western intervention. Latin America was invaded even more often than now. Since then, colonialism has been defeated and discredited, with a few exceptions, notably Palestine.

Even more than the defeat of fascism, this no doubt constitutes humanity's most important social progress of the 20th century. One of the underlying reasons for the "post-modern" pessimism of so many Western intellectuals, who deny that there is such a thing as historical progress, is that the very real progress of recent times has essentially been attained through the defeat of the West and the gradual emancipation of the colonized peoples. Those who want to revive the colonial system in Iraq -- and why else conquer the country? -- even with an "Arab façade" as the British used to say, are blinded by their military force to the awakened determination of all the world's people to decide their own future. The struggle for the genuine independence of the former colonized peoples is still far from completed, and cannot be stopped by occasional setbacks.

In its present stage, that struggle faces what can be called the "Latin Americanization" of the world, that is, the replacement of Europe by the United States as the center of the imperial system, along with the substitution of neo-colonialism for colonialism, meaning a continuation of traditional pillage, exploitation of third world resources and labor (with the more recent addition of brain-power, imported by the West to make up for the inadequacies of our own education system), combined with formal political autonomy and a correlative delegation of repression tasks. In such a world, there can be no real peace and no genuine democracy, which presupposes national sovereignty.

In 1991, the collapse of their unreliable but only potential defending power seemed to leave third world countries once again at the mercy of the West. The debt mechanism could be used for a gigantic hold up of the raw materials and industries of the south. Small recalcitrant States could be demonized and isolated as "rogues".

With the Oslo accords, the Palestinian resistance could be made to accept the endless fragmentation of the Occupied Territories into tiny bantustans strangled by armed settlements. And yet, things are not going so well for the West. The Americans were chased out of Somalia. The Israeli occupation force was driven out of Lebanon. U.S. control of Afghanistan is precarious. The Palestinians stood up to overwhelming destructive force in Jenin. In Latin America, neo-liberal illusions have evaporated and the neo-colonial system is facing rising challenges. There is no reason to believe that the Iraqi people are resigned to U.S. military rule and that various forms of resistance will not appear. Above all, worldwide opposition to U.S. intervention has never been so strong and widespread. The Bush regime is resorting to repressive measures at home, while its propagandists try to dismiss their ever more numerous critics as "anti-American" or "anti-Semitic".

A new worldwide movement is waking up to the fact that corporate globalization is directly or indirectly enforced by militarization, subversion, intervention and war. The struggle for secular democracy in the third world, if sincere, is inseparable from our struggle at home against Western imperialism.

<a href=reuters.com>Reuters

NEW YORK, April 24 - Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said today that it affirmed its 'CCC+' corporate credit rating on Harvest Natural Resources Inc. and revised its outlook on the company to stable from negative.

"The outlook revision follows a similar change to our outlook for the foreign currency rating on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (CCC+/Stable/C) and Harvest's resumption of production and sales to Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA; CCC+/Stable/--), Venezuela's national oil company. As a result, we believe there is less uncertainty surrounding future production sales--hence, cash flow--from Harvest's Venezuela operations," said Standard & Poor's credit analyst Daniel Volpi.

Harvest's production sales to PDVSA were interrupted from Dec. 14, 2002 to Feb. 6, 2003 due to political turmoil in Venezuela. Harvest estimates that it lost roughly 1.6 million barrels of sales to 1.9 million barrels of sales over the fourth quarter of 2002 and the first quarter of 2003. With a resumption of more normalized production levels, currently about 25,000 barrels per day(bpd), 2003 production is estimated to average about 22,000 bpd to 25,000 bpd, compared with 26,000 bpd in 2002.

Harvest relies on its operations in Venezuela and its service agreement with PDVSA for essentially all of its operating cash flow. The ratings on the company are constrained by the political risk attendant to its Venezuela operations.

The stable outlook reflects Standard & Poor's expectations that Harvest will maintain normal production sales to PDVSA. Until the company becomes less reliant on its Venezuela operations, its ratings will track those of PDVSA and Venezuela. Complete ratings information is available to subscribers of RatingsDirect, Standard & Poor's Web-based credit analysis system, at www.ratingsdirect.com. All ratings affected by this rating action can be found on Standard & Poor's public Web site at www.standardandpoors.com; under Fixed Income in the left navigation bar, select Credit Ratings Actions.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Friday, April 25, 2003 By: VenAmCham

VenAmCham's Jose Gregorio Pineda (chief economist) and Jose Gabriel Angarita (economist) write: Economic analysts do not like the changes in the economic cabinet, and that was immediately reflected in the international markets, which have shown concern. In the first place, the prices of Venezuela's sovereign bonds fell in the latest trading session, with the DBCs losing 1.5 percentage points, the Flirbs retreating 1.0 percentage point, and the Global 27s dropping 1.25 percentage points.

In the second place, JP Morgan, one of the leading investment banks in the United States, downgraded its recommendation on Venezuelan sovereign bonds from "overweight" to "neutral," mainly because of the possibility of an oil price decline but also due to the appointment of Minister Giordani. Venezuela's country-risk remains among Latin America's highest at 1,184 basis, exceeded only by the bonds of Argentina, Uruguay, and Peru.

Analysts never imagined that Giordani's appointment could have so strong an impact. This possible effect chiefly reflects fears that the new minister may be incompatible with Finance Minister Tobias Nobrega, who said a few days ago that Venezuela is interested in a foreign debt swap. That incompatibility could imply Nobrega's departure from the Finance portfolio and a delay in the implementation of the foreign debt swap he advocates.

Another factor that may contribute to explaining this market behavior is that the cabinet shift undermines the continuity of the Chavez administration's economic policy. The president himself has said that Minister Giordani will just go back to the 2001-2007 development plan, which could imply a return to the past. But that is just what worries some analysts, who believe that economic policy was what put Venezuela in such extreme difficulty last year.

• Giordani's return will probably bring greater cohesion among the economic ministers, but it will come at the expense of greater changes in the rest of the cabinet, adding even more justification for the market's high risk perception of Venezuela.

There is no question that the current state of economic policy is very fragile, and major changes in policy making will not contribute to improving economic expectations. In the end, what the government needs to change is not just ministers, but its basic economic strategy. It needs to formulate an economic policy that will elicit trust and put Venezuela on a path of sustained growth based on a strong and vigorous private sector, because private investment is a key tool for achieving higher economic growth, increasing our national wealth, and reducing the level of poverty from its currently high peak.

read this article in Spanish here.