english.peopledaily.com.cn Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, January 18, 2003

Welcoming a new international mediator to help Venezuela solve its seven-week national strike crisis, President Hugo Chavez said Friday mediators must recognizehis government as legitimate and democratic.

PRINT DISCUSSION CHINESE SEND TO FRIEND Welcoming a new international mediator to help Venezuela solve its seven-week national strike crisis, President Hugo Chavez said Friday mediators must recognize his government as legitimate and democratic.

In his annual address to the parliament, Chavez said the Venezuelan government welcomed the mediation of the newly-formed "Group of Friends of Venezuela".

But international mediation "must begin by recognizing a legitimate government, that there is a democratic government that I head, elected by a free people," Chavez said.

He declared that Venezuela had many friends all over the world, but warned that "Venezuela will not be a country under the guardianship of anybody."

"It is and will always be a free and sovereign country that issues its own laws and seeks solutions to its own problems, because the people have their own mechanisms to do it."

At the invitation of Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Latin American leaders on Wednesday agreed to form a six-nation "Group of Friends of Venezuela" comprising Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Spain, Portugal and the United States.

Chavez's opponents have also welcomed the new mediation. "The formation of the Group of Friends ...is a great success," opposition leader Jesus Torrealba said.

The opposition seeks the Chavez's immediate resignation, or an early referendum on Feb. 2 to decide whether Chavez will remain in his position. Chavez insists he will stick to the constitution which allows for a referendum in August at the earliest.

The general strike which began on Dec. 2 has caused great losses to the fifth largest oil producer in the world.

www.qctimes.com Last Updated: 8:51 pm, Friday, January 17th, 2003 By Associated Press . CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez welcomed foreign help to end a crippling seven-week strike but said Friday his government won’t be forced into negotiating with what he called a “coup-plotting, fascist” opposition. . Several countries, including the United States, Mexico, Brazil and Spain, agreed to create a “Group of Friends of Venezuela” this week to seek solutions to the work stoppage that has brought the country’s economy to a standstill.

Advertise Here | Advertising DirectoryChavez cautioned, however, that his government “won’t accept any restrictions from the Friends” group and warned other nations not to legitimize the opposition. . “Each country must make a great effort to understand what is happening in Venezuela,” Chavez said in his annual state of the nation address to Congress. “This is a democratic government, a democratic republic, confronting fascists, confronting terrorists, confronting coup plotters.” . Chavez announced he was traveling to Brazil late Friday to meet with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to discuss the “Friends” initiative. . Opposition leaders accuse Chavez of amassing too much power and ruining the economy. They called the strike Dec. 2 to urge Chavez to back a nonbinding referendum on his presidency Feb. 2. . Chavez says Venezuela’s constitution allows only a binding referendum halfway into a six-year presidential term. In Chavez’s case, that will be in August. . Chavez said if a majority of Venezuelans vote to shorten his presidential term in August, he will respect the outcome. . The strike has punished Venezuela’s oil industry, cost the nation at least $4 billion and led to food and gasoline shortages. Chavez called the strike leaders “cruel” for inflicting pain on Venezuelans. . He insisted his government was reviving petroleum production in what was the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter and the No. 4 crude exporter to the United States. . Venezuela produced 3 million barrels a day of crude before the strike. The country’s crude oil output was 512,000 barrels Friday, up from 484,000 barrels Thursday, according to striking employees of the state-owned oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela SA.

www.qctimes.com Last Updated: 8:51 pm, Friday, January 17th, 2003 By Associated Press . CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez welcomed foreign help to end a crippling seven-week strike but said Friday his government won’t be forced into negotiating with what he called a “coup-plotting, fascist” opposition. . Several countries, including the United States, Mexico, Brazil and Spain, agreed to create a “Group of Friends of Venezuela” this week to seek solutions to the work stoppage that has brought the country’s economy to a standstill.

Advertise Here | Advertising DirectoryChavez cautioned, however, that his government “won’t accept any restrictions from the Friends” group and warned other nations not to legitimize the opposition. . “Each country must make a great effort to understand what is happening in Venezuela,” Chavez said in his annual state of the nation address to Congress. “This is a democratic government, a democratic republic, confronting fascists, confronting terrorists, confronting coup plotters.” . Chavez announced he was traveling to Brazil late Friday to meet with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to discuss the “Friends” initiative. . Opposition leaders accuse Chavez of amassing too much power and ruining the economy. They called the strike Dec. 2 to urge Chavez to back a nonbinding referendum on his presidency Feb. 2. . Chavez says Venezuela’s constitution allows only a binding referendum halfway into a six-year presidential term. In Chavez’s case, that will be in August. . Chavez said if a majority of Venezuelans vote to shorten his presidential term in August, he will respect the outcome. . The strike has punished Venezuela’s oil industry, cost the nation at least $4 billion and led to food and gasoline shortages. Chavez called the strike leaders “cruel” for inflicting pain on Venezuelans. . He insisted his government was reviving petroleum production in what was the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter and the No. 4 crude exporter to the United States. . Venezuela produced 3 million barrels a day of crude before the strike. The country’s crude oil output was 512,000 barrels Friday, up from 484,000 barrels Thursday, according to striking employees of the state-owned oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela SA.

www.nytimes.com Miramax Films

Li'l Ze's gang in "City of God" by the Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles. The movie has been hotly debated in Brazil. It shows the world "that hell is here, just behind Ipanema," another director said. By LARRY ROHTER

RIO DE JANEIRO A CAST composed almost entirely of unknown actors, a setting that is none too attractive, a lot of violence and no sex scenes. If ever a studio wanted a formula for a film to fail, that would be it," said the Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles.

As he was shooting in the slums here two years ago, Mr. Meirelles worried about the commercial viability of the movie he was making. Yet "City of God," which opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, has become a watershed cultural and political event in Brazil, and has now been seen by more Brazilians than any film in nearly 30 years. Advertisement

Every aspect, from its unblinking portrayal of criminality to its innovative cinematography, has been endlessly analyzed and discussed, to the point that Brazil's new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is reported to have said that seeing the movie made him change his policy on public security.

"City of God" ("Cidade de Deus") takes its title from the best-selling novel by Paulo Lins, which in turn is named for a gigantic housing project built here in the 1960's and where some 120,000 people live today. Mr. Lins grew up there, knew the real-life characters portrayed in the book and film, and watched as drug gangs gained a stranglehold over the community.

"The book was the fruit of 30 years of observation and 10 years of research," he said in an interview at his apartment in the middle-class neighborhood where he now lives. "From the time I was a little kid, I watched what was going on around me, so everything that appears in the book is real, and that reality is exactly what the filmmakers wanted to capture."

When "Cidade de Deus" was published in 1997, it became an immediate critical and popular success in Brazil, in large part because it showed slum life from the inside — and did so without condemning the people who live there. A friend of Mr. Meirelles gave the director a copy of the book with the suggestion that it might make a good movie.

As it happened, Mr. Meirelles (pronounced mere-ELLIES), who is 47, was then at a crossroads in his career. He had always wanted to make feature films, and had directed several television programs and documentaries, but had drifted into advertising and become probably the most successful director of commercials in Brazil.

"I had won Clio awards and all the other prizes you can win, but I was at that point when you start asking if there isn't something more," he recalled.

Mr. Meirelles's proposal to film "City of God" was one of eight that Mr. Lins received, including some from directors much better known and with experience filming in Rio's favelas, or hillside squatter slums. But when Mr. Meirelles outlined his calculatedly risky plan to cast amateurs from Cidade de Deus and other slum neighborhoods, the balance shifted.

"It was the idea of using actors from the favelas that really moved me and won me over," Mr. Lins said. "The money was almost the same in all of the offers, but Fernando's vision of the project was the most interesting."

Once that hurdle was overcome, the sheer Dickensian sweep of the novel offered Mr. Meirelles his next challenge. At 550 pages, "City of God" has nearly 300 characters and covers three decades in the slum's history: an early 160-page draft of the script won a prize at a Sundance Institute workshop held in Brazil, but even so, a dozen drafts were required before a filmable version was completed.

As a white raised in a middle-class São Paulo neighborhood, Mr. Meirelles faced an additional problem, that of credibility. The American equivalent of the situation he confronted would be a native of the Upper West Side of New York City deciding to go into Los Angeles' South Central to make a movie about black gangs and expecting to be received with open arms.

To ease his way, Mr. Meirelles decided to enlist a co-director, Kátia Lund. Originally from São Paulo, Ms. Lund is of Norwegian descent and a Brown University graduate but had made several Brazilian rap videos in the favelas and had also filmed "News From a Private War," a highly praised documentary about the drug gangs of Rio's slums.

www.guardian.co.uk Evangelical zeal won't make pill popping cheaper Does OFT ruling serve consumers? Saturday January 18, 2003 The Guardian

Just in case anybody thought supermarkets might not be an attractive business to get into, the office of fair trading tipped the scales again yesterday.

Its long-awaited report into the provision of pharmacy services has come to the expected conclusion: full liberalisation of the market.

The government is being asked to sweep away all the present restrictions that limit entry into the industry; instead any registered chemist with a qualified pharmacist will be able to dispense NHS prescriptions.

So we should stand by for new pill counters springing up in every supermarket across the land.

Local chemists will be decimated, while Boots is facing an ever-tightening competitive squeeze.

This is cold, clinical deregulation imposed in the name of the great British consumer - who the OFT reckons is at present being ripped off to the tune of £30m a year. The number of pharmacies across the country has remained just about static, at 12,250, since the current set of industry regulations were introduced 15 years ago.

This, it is argued, has denied shoppers access to cheap over the counter medicines which the big grocery chains could so easily provide with their huge buying power and adherence to cut-throat competition.

Which is all so run of the mill. The British consumer has already abandoned butchers, bakers, fishmongers and most other traditional high street fixtures in favour of identikit supermarket sheds. The OFT does not think they should be forced to make special local journeys for their regular prescriptions, paying more for their trouble.

Yet its findings simply feel too cold and clinical.

"Empirical modelling of a variety of entry and exit scenarios shows that there would only be a limited reduction in local access, even in an extreme scenario where pharmacies are opened in all medium to large supermarkets and, for each new entrant, the two nearest community pharmacies close as a result," declares yesterday's report.

That is a huge and glib assumption. In fact, there are about 2,000 major supermarkets in Britain. If each puts two existing pharmacies out of business, deregulation will result in a third of all local chemists disappearing.

Similarly, the OFT trumpets the fact that consumers are overpaying to the tune of £30m. Yet the industry - the bulk of which is NHS - turns over £8.6bn, so profiteering is running at about 0.4%.

Free markets are all very well. But given the disruption and the clear risks, these proposals feel like deregulation borne of evangelical zeal rather than sensible reforms benefiting society.

Brazilian flip

International investors spent much of last year keeping a wary eye on Brazil as South America's sleepy giant moved towards electing Luis Inacio Lula da Silva - a former leftwing firebrand - as its new president.

Dire warnings were sounded that the former trade union leader would be incapable of tackling Brazil's economic problems and would quickly default on the government's debt. Corus used the uncertainty as a reason to call off its planned merger with Brazilian steelmaker CSN.

Yet the sky failed to fall in when Lula, as he is known, took the reins on January 1. The result has been "a shock of credibility", according to one member of Lula's cabinet. In little more than a fortnight the new administration has calmed market fears with talk of strong measures - to the extent that Brazilian companies are now back in business on the capital markets.

In the past two weeks Brazilian banks have raised nearly $1bn in international bond issues. Domestic investor confidence is up, as is consumer spending. Brazil's currency, the real, has strengthened by 16% over the last month, and the risk premium international investors demand for holding Brazilian assets has halved since Lula's election. As a result, the government is projecting growth of 3% this year.

The contrast with Brazil's opposite number in the northern hemisphere of the Americas couldn't be more marked. There, a conservative president hands out huge tax cuts to the rich, using a policy his own father famously dubbed "voodoo economics". American presi dents - north or south - never quite turn out as expected.

France farce

In order to help France Télécom pay off its record debt a new financial instrument has been created, "the mop". That's not as in multi-option programme, though Télécom needs all the flexibility it can get. It's "the mop" as in bucket. A group of Télécom workers, concerned by headlines about the need to tackle the €70bn burden, have bought a batch of the said cleaning implement and started selling them to colleagues to raise cash.

That suggests other instruments: "the sponge" to soak up the shareholder value that has leaked out of Télécom; "the umbrella" for corporate rainy days. Not that the mop has had a huge impact. According to the union, the Confédération Générale du Travail, sales so far number 10 at one euro apiece. So that leaves just €69,999,999,990 to go.