www.nola.com Saturday February 01, 2003 By Karen Turni Bazile St. Bernard/Plaquemines bureau

St. Bernard Parish and its insurer will pay $1.15 million to settle a class action lawsuit stemming from a January 1998 refinery discharge that allegedly tainted the parish's drinking water, attorneys said Friday.

The settlement, which still must be approved by the Parish Council at Tuesday's meeting, will save the parish the legal expenses that were expected to mushroom had the parish continued fighting the lawsuit.

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The pending settlement leaves Chalmette Refining LLC as the only defendant in the suit, which is set for trial June 9.

The parish's share of the settlement will be $180,000, said J. Wayne Mumphrey, the attorney representing the parish in the matter. It already has paid about $200,000 in legal fees in the four years that Mumphrey and a team of up to five attorneys represented the parish in the matter, which included a three-week trial in 2000 over whether the case should be tried as a class action lawsuit.

The parish's insurer, Genesis Insurance Co., will cover the rest of the settlement, $970,000. The parish, as part of its insurance policy, must pay the first $250,000 of expenses with the insurance company covering the next $1 million. Anything over that amount would have had to come from the parish's general fund.

"I'm just pleased beyond belief to get us out of this mess," Mumphrey said. "The parish is not admitting any negligence or wrongdoing. It's just a compromise that is based on good business sense. Our legal fees and defense costs from now to this trial would have been more than $180,000."

Sidney Torres, one of the plaintiffs attorneys, called the settlement "fair and equitable" to both parties, adding that plaintiffs attorneys agreed to the settlement because the parish had limited liability and limited insurance coverage.

Plaintiffs attorneys have said the refinery should pay to move the parish's water intake pipe, which is just downriver from the refinery.

At this point, it's unclear how much money the plaintiffs' attorneys would receive from the settlement and how much their clients would receive. The money will be placed in an interest-bearing account until the trial with the refinery is complete.

There are 9,000 plaintiffs in the suit, a number that could still grow. Should the plaintiffs prevail, state District Judge Walter Kollin, who is hearing the case, will ultimately decide the rate attorneys receive.

Kollin made a ruling in April 2000 certifying the suit as class action. The plaintiffs claim they became ill after chemicals discharged by the refinery during a heavy rainstorm seeped into the parish water plant.

Kollin said the class action certification doesn't assign blame to the parish or the refinery, which is a joint venture co-owned by Exxon Mobil Corp. and Petroleos de Venezuela, the state-owned oil company of Venezuela; that will be decided at trial. . . . . . . . Karen Turni Bazile can be reached at kturni@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3835.

sg.biz.yahoo.com Saturday February 1, 9:20 PM

ABU DHABI (Dow Jones)--The president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said Saturday the there is no current need to further increase the overall oil production of the group because there is enough supply in the oil market.

Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiayh, who is also Qatar's Oil Minister, said the high oil prices are currently inflated by psychological and political factors related to tensions over oil producers Iraq and Venezuela and not because of shortage of oil supply.

OPEC on Saturday started to implement a decision taken last month to increase production 1.5 million barrels a day to cool off runaway oil prices in a bid to bring them back into a target range of $22-$28 a barrel.

ADVERTISEMENTAl-Attiyah said OPEC's oil ministers remain in constant contact discussing the oil market situation and would hold an emergency meeting for the group whenever they see there is a necessity to do so.

He also welcomed the increasing oil production of Venezuela as a factor which will bring more stability to the oil market.

However, he said that he's concerned that the current high prices may collapse to unfavorable levels if Venezuela production increased to around 2.6 million b/d in the next few weeks, adding this increased output is actually combining with OPEC's latest production increase of 1.5 million b/d which begins Saturday.

OPEC Pres -3: Sees Possible Oil Glut In 2Q

Al-Attiyah said Venezuela is currently producing around 1.00 million b/d and is expected to boost its output to between 1.5-1.6 million b/d in the next few weeks.

A seasonal drop in oil demand of around 2.00 million b/d is expected in the second quarter and al-Attiyah said that as much as 4.00 million b/d of extra crude oil could flood the market, as Venezuela keeps increasing production.

Venezuela's production has been crippled by a nationwide strike since Dec. 2 - which has recently started to ease.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an energy conference scheduled to open Sunday, Al-Attiyah denied analysts' speculation that oil prices would spike to as high as $60-$100 a barrel if a war on Iraq breaks out.

"There is no historical evidence to support this," he said, citing that oil prices never exceeded $40 a barrel during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and the Gulf War in 1991.

Al-Attiyah said the he hasn't talked with the Paris-based International Energy Agency about the prospect of opening up oil reserves of consuming countries to calm the market in the event a war breaks out.

He said OPEC will consider various options at its regular meeting on March 11, including any shortage of supply or a potential oversupply in the international market.

-By Simeon Kerr and Abudlla Fardan; Dow Jones Newswires; 00973 530758; abdullah.fardan@dowjones.com

www.wsws.org By Bill Vann 1 February 2003

In a remarkable comment to the international press last month, Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe Velez called upon Washington to mount a military intervention in his country equal in scope to the one that is now being prepared against Iraq.

“I believe that the drug-trafficking and terrorism conflict in Colombia is more serious for the democratic stability of the continent in the medium and long term than the Iraq conflict itself,” said Uribe. “If they are mounting this deployment in the face of Iraq, why don’t they consider a similar one to put an end once and for all to the transport of cocaine between Colombia and California, for example.”

Uribe, a right-wing pro-Washington politician who took office six months ago, made the comments at the swearing in ceremony for Ecuador’s new president, Lucio Gutierrez, in Quito January 14. He repeated the statement in several interviews and told other Latin American presidents present for the inauguration that he intends to press for his proposal in bilateral meetings with Washington as well as in multilateral forums. He indicated that European countries as well as Latin American military forces could be invited to contribute naval and air power to interdict traffic in drugs and arms.

The plea for a full-scale US military intervention in the region is a reflection of the desperation of Uribe and the Colombian oligarchy that he represents in face of the country’s deepening economic and social disintegration. Even as the military presence has increased in Colombia, there is a sense within the country’s ruling elite that the attention of official Washington is fixated exclusively on the Persian Gulf and that it is not paying attention to the mounting crisis in Latin America.

Colombia is already the third-largest recipient of US military aid, with some $2 billion having gone to Plan Colombia, a military program initiated by the Clinton administration ostensibly to combat cocaine production in the country. The Bush administration has since September 11, 2001 designated the US intervention in Colombia as part of its worldwide “war on terrorism.” It has explicitly permitted the use of US military assistance in prosecuting a counterinsurgency campaign against two Colombian guerrilla movements: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN).

Last month, the Pentagon carried out a qualitative escalation of the US intervention in Colombia, sending a contingent of 70 Special Forces troops to the province of Arauca, one of the country’s most violent regions, to train a newly formed Colombian army brigade.

The mission of this new unit will be fighting the FARC and ELN and protecting the Cano-Limon oil pipeline from attack. The pipeline carries oil pumped out of the fields operated by the California-based Occidental Petroleum. This marks the first time that US soldiers have been sent with the stated assignment of training Colombian forces to combat the guerrillas. Previously, they operated under the official pretext that the military was being assisted in cocaine eradication efforts. It was claimed that the conflict with the guerrillas was a concern only to the extent that the FARC and the ELN hampered the battle to wipe out illicit drug crops.

One US official said last month that the Green Berets are training the Colombian troops not only to guard the 490-mile-long pipeline against attacks, but to “sniff out” the guerrillas. In other words, they will be teaching the same kind of counterinsurgency “search-and-destroy” tactics that were employed in Vietnam, El Salvador and elsewhere with catastrophic results for the civilian population.

While US officials have insisted that the Green Berets are assigned to training duties only and are strictly prohibited from engaging in combat, Colombian newspapers have already published photographs of heavily armed US troops operating together with Colombian forces.

The connection between the impending war in Iraq and the growing US intervention in Colombia is not just in Uribe’s head. Colombia is the seventh-largest exporter of crude oil to the US market, and it is believed to have some of the greatest untapped reserves in the world. Given the threat of war disrupting oil supplies from the Persian Gulf, together with the continuing effects of the employers’ strike in Venezuela, oil coming out of Colombia could provide a crucial margin in an attempt to hold down prices.

The expanded US military presence in Arauca has contributed to a steady escalation of violence in the oil-rich northeastern province. Uribe declared the province a “rehabilitation and consolidation zone” last September, giving the military extraordinary powers to arrest and hold people without charges, search homes and restrict internal movement.

Just this week, Uribe announced proposals to reinforce the Colombian military presence in the province and the appointment of a new governor. The last one, a retired army colonel, resigned saying that the situation was uncontrollable.

Colombia’s Minister of Defense Marta Lucia Ramirez, meanwhile, has unveiled plans for a dramatic increase in the size of Colombia’s armed forces. The proposed buildup includes the creation of 11 new mobile brigades, the strengthening of the military intelligence apparatus and the addition of 10,000 new members to the National Police. Some 35,000 additional soldiers would swell the army’s ranks.

Meanwhile, the Uribe regime has proposed the recruitment of a vast network of informants that is supposed to include some 1.5 million Colombians. The military has reportedly attempted to initiate this program in the zones of conflict by pressuring school children with threats and bribes to inform on their neighbors. The government has also proposed the recruitment of at least 15,000 “peasant soldiers” to carry out vigilante activities in the rural areas.

The recently initiated “negotiations” between the government and the right-wing paramilitary outfit known as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) are widely seen as a bid to legalize and reorganize these elements as part of the government’s new official vigilante force.

The AUC functions as an auxiliary force of repression, operating in close collaboration with the military while receiving ample financial support from both drug traffickers and the Colombian oligarchy. Human rights groups have estimated that it is responsible for over 80 percent of civilian deaths in Colombia’s protracted civil war. Its death squads target not only suspected guerrilla supporters, but union activists, human rights advocates and leaders of peasant and social action groups. Last year, more than 8,000 such killings were recorded in Colombia.

The AUC leadership proclaimed a “truce” as a precondition for the talks with the government, but it has continued the killings, including the recent massacre of 11 farmworkers in the province of Antioquia.

While the US State Department declared the AUC a “foreign terrorist” organization and officially requested the extradition of two of its principal leaders, Washington has in practice turned a blind eye to the close collaboration between the army and the death squads. It has also flaunted US laws requiring a severing of such ties as a condition for military aid to Colombia. There is substantial evidence that the CIA and Pentagon themselves played a major role in forging the intimate connections between the military and AUC under a US-supervised reorganization of Colombia’s military intelligence apparatus over a decade ago.

With the “dialogue” between AUC and the Uribe regime—brokered by the Catholic Church hierarchy—the conditions are being created to legitimize the death squads and provide them with direct state funding.

During a brief visit to Bogota in December, Secretary of State Colin Powell gave Washington’s blessing to the negotiations with a group that the US government has described as terrorist, while repeating for the record the State Department’s extradition request. “The US will stand behind President Uribe as he moves down this road,” he said.

For its part, the Colombian government has indicated that it is prepared to shelve arrest orders issued against the AUC leaders supposedly wanted by Washington.

Retired US Army Lt. Gen. Gordon Summer, who served as the Reagan administration’s special envoy to Latin America, provided a somewhat more candid assessment in an interview with the Washington Times. “The battle is never too crowded to have friends,” he said. “First have them answer the law, cut out the drugs, and embrace human rights. Try to bring them under the tent, to fight against the guerrillas, who are the biggest threat.”

The Bush administration successfully pressured for an end to peace talks with the main guerrilla movement over a year ago. Unlike the FARC—which the US also branded as a terrorist organization—the AUC is a vocal proponent of the economic policies prescribed by Washington and the International Monetary Fund. “We are defenders of business freedom and of the national and international industrial sectors,” declared the right-wing paramilitaries’ principal leader, Carlos Castaño, one of those whose extradition the State Department has requested.

With the government’s protection, these paramilitary elements are already being used with numbing regularity against opponents of Uribe’s social and economic policies. According to human rights groups, three out of every four murders of trade union leaders and activists worldwide take place in Colombia. More than 150 unionists were assassinated last year, while scores more were reported disappeared.

Last month, security forces raided the headquarters of the CUT union federation in Cali, while prosecutors have sought the arrest of other union leaders on “terrorism” charges for organizing protests against death squad murders of their members.

The Uribe government is implementing policies that can only intensify the class struggle. It recently reached an agreement with the IMF on a $2.1 billion standby loan conditioned on the implementation of far-reaching privatization and austerity measures.

To cut deficit spending, it is firing 40,000 public employees while drastically reducing social services. Among the agencies that are to be eliminated outright is Colombia’s National Geological Service, which conducts surveys of the country’s mineral resources. This task is now to be left entirely in the hands of Occidental and other foreign oil monopolies.

Following the Bush administration’s instructions that it proceed with “free market” policies, the Uribe regime has carried out a “tax reform” that provides a windfall for the country’s wealthy while raising the sales tax as well as fuel and transportation costs. It has advanced a restructuring of the country’s pension system, cutting benefits and raising the retirement age. A “labor reform” raises the maximum working day to 16 hours, freezes salaries and attacks other workers rights.

The government’s policies, aimed at fulfilling debt payment requirements that consume nearly 40 percent of the national budget, are deepening the pervasive social misery in a country where at least 20 percent of the economically active population is unemployed and 70 percent of the people live in poverty.

Behind Uribe’s call for a massive US military intervention lies the growing fear within Colombian ruling circles that these conditions will give rise to a social explosion that will prove a far greater threat to their wealth and privilege than the conflict with the guerrillas.

See Also: As US intervention grows Colombian army lays siege to Medellín neighborhood [19 October 2002] As workers launch general strike Colombia’s President Uribe intensifies repression [19 September 2002] Colombian government steps up civil war preparations [31 August 2002]

www.kansas.com Posted on Sat, Feb. 01, 2003 ALEXANDRA OLSON Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela - For more than two decades, Henri Matisse's "Odalisque in Red Pants" graced the walls of the Sofia Imber Contemporary Art Museum, helping make the museum the envy of the Latin American art world.

But for at least the past three years, the museum now says, the painting that hung in the Caracas museum wasn't a Matisse. It was a forgery.

The 1925 painting of a topless, raven-haired woman kneeling on a floor, worth about $3 million, was stolen as long as two years ago and replaced by an imitation, museum officials said this week.

Now authorities from Venezuela and four other nations are hunting for the original. And the scandal has embarrassed museum officials, who can't say how long the roughly 15,000 people who visit the museum each month have been admiring a fake Matisse.

"You can't just make the switch freely inside the museum," director Rita Salvestrini told a news conference Thursday. "There had to be inside complicity."

The painting is one of Matisse's "odalisques," paintings of Arab dancers in which he expressed his fascination with North African and Islamic culture.

The Sofia Imber museum purchased the painting from the Marlborough Gallery in New York in 1981 for more than $400,000. It had been on display ever since, except for a brief loan for a Spanish exhibition in 1997.

In November, Miami art collector Genaro Ambrosino, a Venezuela native, sent an e-mail to Salvestrini expressing indignation that he had heard the piece was up for sale.

Salvestrini quickly denied it. The painting was in the museum, she said. But on Dec. 1, experts discovered that the painting in the museum was a fake.

The Sotheby's auction house in Miami sent Salvestrini a copy of a document supposedly authorizing the painting's sale on behalf of museum founder Sofia Imber, who was forced to resign in 2001 as part of a people's "cultural revolution" by the government of President Hugo Chavez.

The document was signed by two museum employees who quit with Imber. Officials now believe it was forged.

There are notable differences between the original and the replica, which Salvestrini displayed at a news conference.

The fake has a dark shadow behind the dancer; the original doesn't. The genuine painting has seven green stripes in the lower right hand corner; the replica has six.

The museum has more than 4,000 other pieces, including other Matisses, Picassos and works by renowned Venezuelan kinetic sculptor Jesus Soto. Salvestrini insists there's no reason to suspect other pieces are fake, but she is having them examined anyway.

Investigators from Interpol, the FBI, Venezuela, Britain, Spain and France have pursued a vast array of leads, some suggesting the painting could have been stolen as far back as 1997.

The FBI suspects a Venezuelan woman who lived in Miami Beach, Fla., stored the painting at Fortress Art Storage in Miami, then smuggled it to Spain. The FBI has not named the woman.

French police are investigating leads that a collector brought it to France. The Caracas newspaper El Mundo has speculated the Matisse may have been swapped during the 1997 Spanish exhibition loan.

Wanda de Guebriant, a French Matisse expert, has told French police that a New York gallery owner told her in 2000 the painting was being offered for sale there. Investigators have refused to identify the gallery owner.

Guebriant told police that at the time she believed the one in New York must be a fake and that the original was in the Caracas museum.

In February 2001, she said, she was approached by French gallery owners saying they had been offered the painting.

"The people who knew that the piece was being circulated around the world never informed us," Salvestrini said. "The thing is, it didn't occur to anyone the piece could have been authentic."

ON THE NET

Sofia Imber Museum of Contemporary Art: www.maccsi.org.ve

Art Loss Register: www.artloss.com

www.forbes.com Reuters, 01.31.03, 4:58 PM ET   

CARACAS, Venezuela, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Venezuela's state-owned aluminum smelter CVG-Alcasa said Friday it had chosen a consortium comprising Swiss-based Glencore International AG, Pechiney of France <PECH.PA> and U.S. construction firm Fluor Daniel (nyse: FLR - news - people) to build a fifth production line at the plant.

The $650 million Alacasa Line V project will more than double the smelter's existing output capacity to 450,000 tonnes a year from the existing 210,000 tonnes.

The announcement was made by Alcasa president Dixon Rosillon, the state industrial holding Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana (CVG), which operates the smelter, said in a statement sent to Reuters.