published: Thursday | May 15, 2003 CARACAS, Venezuela (AP):

VENEZUELA, CONSIDERED by many to be the world capital for beauty queens, may not be able to participate in this year's 'Miss Universe' pageant due to a lack of United States (U.S.) dollars.

Osmel Sousa, president of the Miss Venezuela Organisation, said Tuesday he is "very worried" because foreign exchange controls have prevented the organisation from buying US$80,000 needed to pay expenses for the pageant.

In the last 24 years, contestants prepared by the Miss Venezuela Organisation have won the three most important international beauty contests 12 times -- more than any other country.

Venezuela has won four 'Miss Universe' crowns, five 'Miss World' crowns and three 'Miss International' crowns.

President Hugo Chavez's government imposed foreign exchange controls on January 21 to stop a sharp decline in foreign reserves.

Since sales of U.S. dollars were suspended, Venezuela's exchange controls committee, or Cadivi, has granted just over US$100 million to local businesses. Usually, monthly dollar sales top US$1 billion.

"We have had some inconveniences due to the dollar problem," Sousa told the local Globovision television channel. "We haven't been able to do all the things we need to do bring our representative to the Miss Universe" pageant.

Mariangel Ruiz, a tall 23-year-old brunette, is Venezuela's contender in the 2003 Miss Universe pageant, slated to be held on June 3 in Panama.

Atlanta journal Constitution

Atlanta TV pioneer Yvonne Febres-Cordero de Wright, who began the Spanish language program "Viva Nuestra Amistad" ("Long Live Our Friendship") in 1968, is a 2003 recipient of the Governor's Award in the Humanities, given by the Georgia Humanities Council. The language and culture program ran until the mid-1970s and was used in schools to teach Spanish.

De Wright also hosted "Latin Atlanta," from 1977 to 1997. The community affairs program was on WAGA-TV and was rebroadcast on Atlanta Public Broadcasting.

"Latin Atlanta," which was in Spanish, oriented newcomers with "information about what was going on in the community," said de Wright, a native of Caracas, Venezuela. "It helped integrate the community with information about health, taxes, jobs and immigration."

De Wright is among eight individuals and three organizations honored Monday during a lunch ceremony at the Old Georgia Railroad Freight Depot in Atlanta.

The humanities council is an independent nonprofit organization. It supports educational activities that help Georgians learn about their heritage. For a list of the other recipients, go to www.georgiahumanities.org.

Poll: Immigrants anti-war

A multilingual poll of 1,000 immigrants found that they tended to be less supportive of the war in Iraq than the U.S. population as a whole and more concerned about negative repercussions around the world.

About 61 percent of Asians, 50 percent of Latinos and 44 percent of Middle Eastern immigrants supported the war, the poll said.

The poll, conducted by New California Media, turned up variations by nationality that underscore the danger of broad categories such as "Asian" or "Middle Eastern." Among Asians, for example, 85 percent of Vietnamese-Americans and 75 percent of Filipino-Americans supported the war, compared with 40 percent of Chinese-Americans and 48 percent of Indian-Americans. Results are online: news.ncmonline.com/news.

Contributing: Yolanda Rodríguez and Shelia M. Poole

allafrica.com OPINION May 5, 2003 Posted to the web May 13, 2003 Muthoni L. Wanyeki Nairobi

Over the past few years, Labour Day celebrations in the developed north have been marked by massive demonstrations by the so-called "anti-globalisation" protesters.

The description does the protestors a disservice. Yes, they include the anarchist organisations that the mainstream media so loves to capture and denigrate.

But the protestors also include representatives from the growing anti-racism movement, from the labour and women's movements and from the wide range of left-of-centre political parties.

What they protest is the state of the human condition across the world. Their analysis of the world as created by bilateral and multilateral financing as well as by international trade and investment is far from simplistic.

Their anger has helped shape public opinion and create pressure. They have thus made the work of advocates who lobby international financial institutions that much easier.

The results are there for all of us to see. We now have programmes for debt relief for the most highly indebted states. The International Monetary Fund is developing an international bankruptcy and insolvency mechanism for states.

International financing is increasingly targeted at poverty alleviation. More interestingly, late last month, we had the first national bill in support of the so-called Tobin Tax, in Venezuela.

The Tobin Tax refers to the proposal to develop an international mechanism for the taxing of international currency transactions. It is aimed at decreasing speculation in and reducing the volatility of international financial markets and is viewed as a potentially new source of financing for development.

It is a proposal that has been avidly adopted and promoted by the wide range of so-called "anti-globalisation" protestors. Now, the Venezuelan Ministry of Economic Development has presented a bill for adoption by its parliament containing its own version of the Tobin Tax.

The Bill proposes a two-tier currency transaction tax (CTT) - a small tax on currency transactions linked to international trade and a higher tax on currency transactions motivated by international financial markets.

What is remarkable about the proposed CTT in Venezuela is that it comes from the government of an indebted (although oil-rich) underdeveloped state. A state in political and economic crisis following last year's attempted coup d'etat by the right.

A state that needs foreign direct investment just as much as the rest of the underdeveloped south. Venezuela's experience with the CTT will thus be instructive to us all.

These changes, internationally and nationally, are what protestors like those who clashed with the police in Germany over Labour Day can bring about and have brought about.

I watched those clashes thinking about what protestors have achieved - painfully slowly as innovations they propose find their way into the arena of national and international policy. I watched those clashes thinking, too, about our own Labour Day celebrations.

Here, Labour Day celebrations were a sober and unquestionably state affair, despite the recent (and threatened) industrial unrest. It was a time for workers to sit back to hear what the state had decided to concede. For the state knew what it was expected to respond to, as came through in the president's speech.

But the minimum wage just announced is unacceptable. I cannot imagine trying to live on Ksh4,000 ($53) a month (and I am sure our president, who made the announcement, cannot either). I also know that the delay in resolving the teachers' salaries is equally unacceptable.

It is high time that debate on those salaries shifted from "what is achievable" to "how to make it achievable."

The long-term and systematic gains that collaborative efforts by all of civil society, including the labour movement, can achieve are obvious. Especially in view of the fact that the urgent bread and butter issues that still preoccupy labour here are intrinsically, if not obviously, linked to the issues raised above.

Muthoni Wanyeki is executive director of the African Women's Development and Communication Network (Femnet)

San mateo County Times By Alec Rosenberg, BUSINESS WRITER

SINCE STARTING in 1988, the Women's Initiative for Self Employment has helped Bay Area low-income women create 1,000 businesses from caterers to clothing designers. There's El Salvador native Gladys Nunez, who started a beauty salon in Hayward; Nicaragua native Maria Osejo, who followed in her mom's footsteps and began a house cleaning business; and Oakland artist Latisha Baker, who started Ishama Designs.

"It gave me a foundation of empowerment, motivation, resources, expertise," Baker said. "(They) want you to be successful. It's not just a job to them."

The nonprofit Women's Initiative plans to increase its efforts. On Friday, it celebrated the opening of its new, larger facility in Oakland, which will allow it to expand its bilingual training and technical assistance programs.

"The growth has been fast and furious -- women are creating businesses at twice the rate of others," said Paulette Meyer, co-founder and outgoing chairwoman of the Women's

Initiative. "We try to figure out what they need and how can we provide it."

The Women's Initiative provides low-fee services in English and Spanish with training to help low-income women start and manage businesses, including consultations and ongoing support. Also, it gives loans of as much as

$25,000 and access to Individual Development Accounts, where participants' savings are matched on a two-to-one basis.

It pays off. Within 18 months of graduation, the average Women's Initiative participant doubles her income to $26,000. Overall, the organization has assisted more than 10,000 low-income women -- and some men -- loaned $700,000 and helped clients leverage another $1 million in capital from other lenders.

The Women's Initiative serves Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties with offices in Oakland and San Francisco. Its new 2,300-square-foot downtown Oakland office is at 519 17th St., which also houses the Oakland Business Development Corp. and Small Business Administration One Stop Capital Shop.

"If there were not someone like Paulette to do it, it would not have happened," said Mark Quinn, San Francisco district director of the SBA, which Friday honored Meyer as its Women in Business Advocate of the Year.

Meyer was quick to credit the Women's Initiative staff, board and donors. The initiative is funded by a mix of individuals, banks, corporations, private foundations and public agencies such as the SBA and Port of Oakland.

"Lower-income women do have the talent and creativity and determination to make these businesses work ... if they have the access," Meyer said.

Venezuela native Ana Kwan, a former bank employee and housewife, opened Sage Documents a year ago. Her translating business has prospered since completing the Women's Initiative's Spanish-language training in September.

"They opened my horizons," she said.

Ishama Designs' Baker was graduated from the Women's Initiative two years ago. After getting laid off from her executive assistant job eight months ago, she devoted herself full time to her business, which now includes handcrafted jewelry, greeting cards and keepsake boxes.

"Getting laid off was an opportunity," she said. "It's pushing me to take it to another level."

For more information, visit www.womensinitiative.org or call (510) 451-3415.

Posted: Sunday, March 30, 2003 <a href=www.vheadline.com>By: The Very Reverend Roger Dawson

4th Sunday in Lent 2003 sermon by The Very Reverend Roger Dawson Dean of St. Mary's Anglican Cathedral, Caracas

In Christianity it has been traditionally thought that God was male. After all, Jesus' prayer "Our Father" and told his followers to think of God as a close and caring father. He never, as far as I know, ever said that God was a caring mother. The God that Jesus worshipped was YHWH, the God of war and creation ... a God that lived in cloud and spoke in thunder.

Such a God would naturally be thought of as male and, as all societies were patriarchal and male dominated and women were not thought intelligent enough to be worth educating, it is not surprising that God came to be thought of as male.

Some Greek and Roman societies considered male children to be so superior to female children that they would put female infants on the hillside to die rather than take them into their families. There are societies today that still practice this family "cleansing." Yet where would any of us be without women in society?

So much were past ages against women, that men who turned to a holy life rejected women altogether, seeing them as a distraction and full of the devilment that they were to live without if they were to come close to God. Christian monks today still have to swear to chastity as one of the three vows though, by all accounts, a good few of them are sodomites and they don't seem to count this as breaking the rule which just goes to show how hypocritical the whole system is.

The Roman Catholic Church in the United States is tottering on the brink of collapse because of homosexual practices and most of the priests who are not so inclined are likely as not living with their housekeepers. There is a point at which it is both unnatural and downright dangerous to keep the sexes apart and not to regard them as equal.

Equality does not mean that the two sexes have to do the same functions in the family or in the household. There are obvious differences that require men to be fathers and women to be mothers, but both sexes in fact mother and father their children. Understanding the two roles is good for everyone, including the children.

There seems to be no reason why, in all other stages of life, and in every sphere of living and working the two sexes can't work together as equal partners.

Of course there are men who don't like this because they like to think that God has a special and direct line of revelation that will only work through the male species.

I hate to tell them that it isn't true. What is true is that in the past women have been so denied that they did not have the opportunity to participate in the gift of revelation of God's wishes. It does require some learning and study and understanding, otherwise women are relegated to the mysterious and mystic and the mad in order to make an impact on the male world ... to bring in a special revelation of God, and then it doesn't always work, as Joan of Arc found out.

Hilda of Whitby and Mildred of Kent and Hildegarde of Bingham were women who did make a difference to the ecclesiastical scene, but they are the exceptions rather than the rule. Julian of Norwich, whose book we have been following in the magazine, had to take on a male name in order to be recognized; a trick that was taken up again by female authors in the 19th century as an aid against rejection.

The odd thing is, that weak men often marry strong-minded women who become even stronger as a result. Take the biblical figure of Jezebel as an example. Her husband the king was infatuated with her, and let her bring in her own religion and gods, much to the anger and frustration of Elijah who was still on the side of YHWH. Jezebel came after him, and he escaped to Beersheba, in the southern most part of Judah, and leaving his servant there, goes into the mountains to hide, only to find God whispering his next instruction to him to get off his butt and go and face this woman and her priests. He wins ... which is why it is remembered ... though it is thought that he wins only by trickery, but as Jezebel herself was a woman of trickery and treachery this is considered OK.

The bible likes the men to win, unless they are on the side of YHWH ... and then they are allowed to take part in the action.

Today, we are seeing women in a way that history has always denied them, except for odd instances that have never lasted for long. In the United States, women had to work as hard as men doing difficult physical tasks to establish farms and businesses in this new world. They became a formidable breed that was unlikely to be subdued for long.

Wars in Europe reduced the male population to such levels that women began to play a more active role in almost every sphere of life. Education to girls as well as boys created a whole generation of educated women, who were not content just to sit around looking pretty. They wanted the vote and have a say in the affairs of the world.

When the industrial revolution came, manual workers were wanted by the thousand, and women were the cheapest labor, so they got the jobs and proved that their strength was enough for almost every kind of job.

In the Second World War, women fought side by side with men in some armies, and in other countries they were the ones who built the tanks and guns. When the war was over, there was no going back to the old system. Economics and economies had changed as well as people's perceptions of what women could do.

In spite of the handicap that women throughout history have labored under, a number of them have contributed to the world in ways that we should never forget. Way back at the end of the 3rd century, Hypatia of Alexandria was a scientist who invented the plane astrolabe used to measure the position of the sun and stars. She also invented a hydrometer by which specific gravity can be measured. Her life was cut short by fundamentalist Christian monks who hacked her to death with scallop shells.

In the eleventh century, Trotula of Salerno was a female physician who promoted hygiene, a balanced diet and exercise to promote good health. She wrote a book "Practica Brevis" that was in use for the next seven hundred years. Calculus was devised by Maria Agnesi, in Milan, at the beginning of the 18th century. Bette Nesmith invented "Liquid Paper" because she was a bad typist. When she died in 1980 she left $50 million. Marion Donovan invented the disposable nappy (diaper) and Margaret Knight invented the machine to make the brown paper bag in the mid-1800s. The Russian Ida Rosenthal invented the bra at the turn of the 20th century, and set up the MaidenForm Brassiere Company in 1923. Eleanor Butterick had the bright idea of paper patterns for dresses to be made at home, and a young woman invented the ice cream cone but no one knows her name.

These are just a few of the women who have changed our lives, and the way we live them, but the one woman who has changed us most is the mother who gave us birth and the woman who brought us up till we were at least six or seven. She is, or was, as much of the God of creation as any man though he should be remembered too, for many men are as much our mothers as women. Indeed it is a mixed and happy combination of skills and temperament that makes God into God and us into who and what we are.