<a href=www.riyadhdaily.com.sa>RiyadhDaily.com Economy   Sunday - 20 April 2003 Tehran [Agencies].............................. Iran wants a reduction in OPEC oil output from May 1 only if there is an urgent market need for one, Oil Minister Bijan Namadar Zanghaneh said Saturday in an apparent toning down of earlier calls for a second quarter cut. "A May 1 date for a cut in OPEC production would be too soon unless there is an emergency situation," Zanghaneh told reporters on the sidelines of a Tehran oil and gas conference. On Thursday the minister had caused jitters on world oil markets by suggesting that Iran would push for an immediate cut at the OPEC cartel’s next meeting in Vienna on Thursday. "We need a decrease in production... starting the second quarter of 2003," Zanghaneh said then. "Currently there is a surplus in the oil market, and if it is not controlled in the long term, oil prices will slide." Iran Nominates Aide to Head OPEC Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh confirmed on Saturday he had proposed his deputy for OPEC’s top job. Asked by reporters in Tehran whether he had nominated Deputy Oil Minister Hadi Nejad Hosseinian, Iran’s former ambassador to the United Nations, for the post of secretary-general, Zanganeh said, "Yes." Venezuela’s Alvaro Silva is currently serving as OPEC Secretary-General, having replaced fellow Venezuelan Ali Rodriguez in June 2002. Rodriguez had served just 18 months of a three-year term at the helm of the 11-member producer group before being chosen to run state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). The former Venezuelan oil minister shifted into the secretary-general position in January 2001 to settle an 18-month deadlock in a battle between Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. OPEC rules dictate that the appointment must be unanimous. Meanwhile, Iranian oil minister stated that the possibility of Iraq leaving the Organization of Petroleum Producing Countries (OPEC) would not be in the in the long-term interests of the cartel members, Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namadar Zanghaneh said on Saturday. "It is in Iraq’s interests to stay within OPEC", said Zanghaneh at the closure of an oil and gas conference in Tehran, but he conceded that if it were to leave, "it would not have any influence on the market." However, if Iraq were to quit OPEC it would hurt both the country and the group as a whole, he said. Iraq would have less influence on the world market and the long-term interests of other OPEC members would be harmed, according to the minister. Some analysts are predicting that Iraq, now under the control of US forces, would leave OPEC to rid itself of the system of export quotas assigned by the cartel to its members, thus flooding the market with more oil and bringing down prices. Zanghaneh said he would urge a cut in oil output at OPEC’s next meeting in Vienna on Thursday only if such a cut was needed, in an apparent toning down of a stronger statement favoring a cut two days ago that pushed oil prices higher. The June Brent crude-oil futures contract rose 86 cents, or 3.4 percent, to 25.88 dollars a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange in London on Thursday. The market is closed until Tuesday for the Easter holidays.

<a href=www.theage.com.au<theage.com.au Sunday 20 April 2003, 8:05 AM

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) must do something about the surplus two million barrels per day (bpd) that had come onto the market since the war in Iraq ended, the group's president said.

"There is a surplus of two million bpd that we have to deal with," Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah told reporters at the start of a visit to Oman.

He said OPEC's next meeting at its Vienna headquarters on Thursday, to discuss a possible output cut, would "examine the market situation and take the measures necessary to restore order".

"OPEC has done everything possible to maintain the balance between supply and demand, having increased its production to prevent any crisis," said Attiya, who is also Qatar's oil minister.

He was referring to the US-led war on Iraq launched on March 20, and prior to that ethnic unrest which cut Nigeria's oil output by around 200,000 barrels a day, as well as an opposition strike which battered Venezuela's petroleum industry.

OPEC, whose production ceiling is fixed at 24.5 million bpd for the member countries - except Iraq - said late in March it could announce at next week's meeting that it would reduce output by two million bpd. ©2003 AFP

<a href=www.sfgate.com>SFGate.com-Associated Press Friday, April 18, 2003
(04-18) 16:12 PDT CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) --

A fight between inmates wielding homemade knives and machetes left 11 dead and 40 injured inside a maximum security prison in northcentral Venezuela, authorities said Friday.

Dozens of National Guardsmen were dispatched to restore order at Yare II prison, located roughly 30 miles from Caracas. It was the third Venezuelan prison riot in the last 15 days.

"We have 10 dead inside the prison, one of them decapitated," Fire Chief Denis De Lima told The Associated Press by telephone. "One died when he was being treated at the hospital."

De Lima said the riot was a fight over territory disputed between rival prison gangs.

The Interior Ministry's Inmate Custody and Rehabilitation Director, Carlos Sutrun, told the state-run Venpres news agency that 40 inmates were transferred to nearby hospitals.

Riots are common in Venezuela's 32 overcrowded and understaffed prisons, where almost half the inmates are in pre-trial detention. On April 4, four prisoners died and 10 were injured by gunfire during fight between inmates at Uribana prison.

Six days later, 15 inmates and a security guard were injured during a riot at Rodeo I prison.

There were 244 deaths and more than 1,200 injuries in prisons between Oct. 2001 and Sept. 2002, according to the U.S. State Department 2002 Human Rights Report. Most of the deaths resulted from fighting between prisoners, the report said.

CBSNews.com HAVANA, April 18, 2003 (AP)

"The unquestionable majority vote is a clear signal from the Human Rights Commission that Cuba has the right to apply its own laws." Felipe Perez Roque Cuban Foreign Minister

(AP) The U.N. Human Rights Commission's failure to condemn Cuba for its recent crackdown affirmed the island leadership's belief in the right to defend itself from attempts to subvert its system, Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said Friday.

"The unquestionable majority vote is a clear signal from the Human Rights Commission that Cuba has the right to apply its own laws," Perez Roque told a news conference. "`This was a resonant victory for Cuba, and we express our profound satisfaction."

The top United Nations watchdog on Thursday rejected a proposed amendment criticizing Cuba's recent crackdown on opponents, instead approving a milder resolution calling for a U.N. rights monitor to visit the island.

The 53-nation U.N. Human Rights Commission, which regularly criticizes Cuba on its rights record, voted 31-15 during its meeting in Geneva against condemning the communist state's month-long drive against dissidents and other opponents.

Cuban tribunals earlier this month sentenced 75 dissidents to prison terms ranging from 6 to 28 years on charges of being mercenaries who worked with the American government to harm the island's socialist system. The dissidents and the U.S. government deny the accusations.

The rejected amendment expressed "deep concern about the recent detention, summary prosecution and harsh sentencing of numerous members of the political opposition" and called for them to be released.

Governments and human rights groups around the world have condemned Cuba for jailing dozens of dissidents. The crackdown was followed by the April 11 executions of three men convicted of the hijacking nine days earlier of a ferry filled with passengers.

Perez Roque accused the U.S. government of concocting the failed attempt to condemn the communist-run island and questioned the human rights records of those countries that backed the measure.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Thursday that despite the measure's defeat, the United States was pleased that the commission passed a Cuba resolution.

"It sends a strong message of support for the courageous Cubans who struggle daily to defend their human rights and their fundamental freedoms," Boucher said.

Although Perez Roque acknowledged that the final measure was not a condemnation of Cuba's, he said his country would not comply with it.

The milder resolution, passed 24-20, urged the Caribbean nation to accept a visit by U.N. human rights investigator, French jurist Christine Chanet. There were nine abstentions.

Cuba has previously refused to allow Chanet to visit, claiming such a visit could infringe on its sovereignty.

Latin American countries voting in favor of the resolution that passed included Mexico a longtime Cuban ally as well as Paraguay, Chile, Guatemala and Costa Rica. Argentina and Brazil abstained on the resolution that was approved. Venezuela, a strong political ally of Cuba, voted against it.

The commission also turned down a proposal 26-17, brought by Cuba itself, that criticized the U.S. trade embargo with Cuba.

DailyCamera.com April 19, 2003

Refusing to face reality, much less grow a spine, the United Nations Human Rights Commission voted Thursday in Geneva to give Fidel Castro nothing more than a gentle slap on the wrist for his brutal surge of new human rights violations in Cuba.

The commission had a choice. A resolution amendment, soundly voted down, had been presented by small, democratic Costa Rica. That text expressed "concern about the recent detention, summary prosecution and harsh sentencing of numerous members of the political opposition" and called for them to be released.

The text that was finally approved mildly urged Castro to allow a representative of the U.N. high commissioner for human rights to visit the island. Cuba has refused to allow a U.N. investigator to visit, alleging that would infringe on its sovereignty.

Even the Costa Rican version made no mention of the summary executions of three Cubans accused of hijacking a boat in an unsuccessful attempt to flee the island. Arguing for an outlandish notion of neutrality and "fairness," Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela either abstained or voted against that mild amendment.

Some among the amendment opponents incongruously argued that the U.S. embargo imposed on the island four decades ago was illegal and just as much a human rights violation as the practices of the Cuban regime. The embargo is certainly worth arguing about, but the equation above is not worth the breath used to express it.

Another factor that influenced the vote was a vigorous antipathy to President Bush. An old ghost of anti-Americanism has made a furious comeback after the United States struggle with the Security Council and the subsequent war in Iraq. Members grumbled that they didn't want to justify any U.S. actions against Cuba.

Tentative bursts of freedom in Cuba followed the 1998 visit of Pope John Paul II and last year's visit by former President Carter. But since mid-March, Castro has imprisoned the most effective advocates of free speech and democratic reform, handing down long sentences for their daring to call for freedom of expression, press and association.

What U.N. commission members did, in the false name of political parity, was to make Cuba's newly brutalized human rights advocates pay for the perceived sins of the U.S. president. Shame.

The Los Angeles Times