www.boston.com By Kimberly Blanton, Globe Staff, 1/29/2003

The Federal Reserve's rate-setting panel is not expected to announce a reduction of short-term interest rates when it ends a second day of meetings today, but the nation's top monetary officials have had much to talk about.

Adding to the specter of war with Iraq and a general strike in Venezuela that cut oil production and caused world crude prices to rise, the Conference Board in New York reported yesterday that US consumer confidence fell this month to its lowest levels in nine years. Orders for durable goods rose in December, though not by enough to lift a moribund manufacturing industry burdened by excess capacity.

Other economic data argue against an interest rate cut by the Fed, economists said, including a housing market that was strong in December and prospects that some portion of the $670 billion tax-cut package by President Bush, if passed by Congress, would spur the economy later this year.

The Fed's open market committee is expected to hold the federal funds rate at 1.25 percent. With rates already low, the Fed wants ''to keep some bullets in the gun'' for use when they may need them more, said Brian Horrigan, chief economist in Boston for Loomis Sayles & Co.

But few economists predict that officials who set monetary policy in Washington will change the wording of their statement to reflect the rising uncertainty in the economy. The US will release its fourth-quarter estimate of growth tomorrow, and analysts expect it to show the economy slowed dramatically, or even contracted. While most economists forecast a turnaround later this year, they warn of many risks. The Fed ''won't do anything unless they have to,'' Horrigan said. ''The next meeting is March. If we're in a situation where bombs are dropping, they might decide to give us one more ease. They also could do it in the interim.''

Conflicting signals from the economy caused confusion in the markets. Yesterday, optimistic investors pushed up stocks in reaction to positive earnings reports by various companies and in anticipation of the president's State of the Union message last night and higher orders for durable goods. The Dow, which has trended downward for more than a week, rose 99.28 points, or 1.2 percent, to 8,088.84. The Nasdaq Composite index gained 16.91 points, or 1.3 percent, to close at 1,342.18.

Speaking yesterday at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, Treasury secretary nominee John Snow, the chief executive of CSX Corp., said about President Bush's sweeping tax-cut proposal, which would cut taxes on stock dividends, ''I do know, and I believe this deeply, [that] this is a well-conceived growth package ... that the country needs.''

But economists say a tax package tilted toward wealthy investors may do little to stimulate economic activity at a time when consumer spending may be trailing off and consumer confidence is at its lowest level since November 1993. The Conference Board's monthly index dropped nearly two points, to 79.0 in January, from 80.7 in December. The index does not necessarily portend a decline in actual spending, however, and a closer look revealed mixed sentiment: Consumers said their present situation has improved, but they are pessimistic about the future.

Orders for durable goods rose by 0.2 percent in December, a more sluggish pace than many expected. Excluding defense orders, total orders would have fallen. One surprise was a 3.2 percent surge in December orders for computers and electronics, which matched the pace in July 2002, said Jeoff Hall, economist for Thomson Financial IFR, a financial markets advisory firm in Boston.

In making their decisions about rates, Fed officials must weigh data from the consumer sector against manufacturing activity, Hall said. While the manufacturing sector has barely responded to low interest rates, another rate cut might encourage consumers to continue the questionable practice of building up debt by tapping into home equity to finance discretionary purchases, such as cars.

''It's not that the Fed doesn't want to see consumer spending continue, but I think they are concerned about how that spending is coming about,'' he said.

Kimberly Blanton can be reached at blanton@globe.com.

www.interfax.ru 29.01.2003 11:12:03

DAVOS/MOSCOW. Jan 28 (Interfax) - The world is changing its outlook on the Russian economy, presidential advisor Andrei Illarionov believes.

   "Whereas previously, Russia was feared as a source of threats, and as a zone of political and economic instability, now it is being viewed as a factory of global stability," Illarionov has told Interfax, commenting on the World Economic Forum which ended in Davos on Tuesday.

   "Since the forum began, no one has asked me when a crisis will break out, or a default will occur in Russia. In the 1990s, such questions were quite common," Illarionov said.

   He said no special session on Russia had been held, which is a positive thing. "Special sessions usually dealt with such countries as Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, or North Korea - countries that may breed crises. The Davos forum vividly demonstrated that the world's attention is focused on Iraq. Russia could make its contribution to ensuring international security," Illarionov said. RTS$#&:

asia.reuters.com Tue January 28, 2003 12:34 PM ET By Isabel Garcia-Zarza

HAVANA (Reuters) - Latin Americans are lining up in droves these days at Spain's consular offices around the region as they seek citizenship under a new Spanish law that makes close to a million of them eligible.

Even Cuban President Fidel Castro meets the criteria for gaining Spanish citizenship. Although Latin America's most famous leftist is unlikely to apply, many of his people are hoping to use their ancestry to gain the coveted European passport.

Cuban descendants of Spanish immigrants are not the only ones dusting off the birth certificates and baptism records of their parents and grandparents to lay claim to this new right.

Thousands of people have been lining up in Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Venezuela and other countries, a reflection of the hard times the region is going through.

Spain's nationality law was amended effective Jan. 9 to allow people of all ages to become citizens if one of their parents was a Spaniard born in Spain, when before only those under 20 could apply.

The grandchildren of Spaniards born in Spain also will have the opportunity to become citizens, but they must first obtain visas to live in Spain for a year.

Spanish officials have estimated that close to 1 million people would be eligible to apply, although they do not expect all of them to do so.

Castro, at 76, would have no problem under the new law gaining citizenship. The Cuban leader's father left Ancara, in the Spanish province of Lugo, at the end of the 19th century to seek his fortune on the Caribbean island, a colony of Spain for hundreds of years.

ESCAPE FROM NATIONS IN TURMOIL

Like Castro's father, millions of Spaniards at the end of the 19th century and during the first half of the 20th century crossed the Atlantic in search of a better life in Spain's former American colonies.

"This new law was born out of the recognition of Spanish immigration to Latin America" a Spanish consul official said, asking his name not be used.

Some commentators have also suggested the law is intended to improve the chances that future immigrants to Spain, which has experienced an influx from north Africa, share its language and culture. It could also help address the wrongs suffered by Spaniards forced into exile by Gen. Francisco Franco.

Many Spanish immigrants went to prosperous Argentina in the first half of 20th century. Now an estimated 400,000 of their offspring and grandchildren, spurred by the crisis in that country, could cross the Atlantic in the opposite direction.

More than 50 percent of Argentina's 36 million inhabitants live in poverty and the unemployment rate is 17.8 percent.

The Spanish government estimates that in addition to the 400,000 potential candidates in Argentina, there are 100,000 in Mexico, the majority relatives of exiles from the Spanish civil war of the late 1930s. An estimated 100,000 Venezuelans are also eligible, along with 80,000 in Brazil, a similar number in Cuba, 60,000 in Chile and 50,000 in Uruguay.

The news has been received with enthusiasm in these countries, where long lines have formed outside Spain's consular offices to seek more information or apply for citizenship. Space and staff were added in some countries to handle the expected avalanche of applications.

In the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, where an opposition strike against President Hugo Chavez has dragged on for two months, hundreds, and at times thousands, have come knocking daily on Spain's doors.

"The political, economic and security situation in the country is unbearable ... If the situation was not as it is, I would not be in line. It is a reflection of the country," said Venezuelan businessman Julio Lopez, whose father came from Spain, as he waited in line documents in hand.

EUROPEAN UNION'S DOORS OPEN TOO

The doors not only of Spain, but to all of the European Union countries will be open for those eligible under the new law, once they obtain their citizenship, a process that takes several months.

A passport from any European Union country gives the holder access to the others.

Spanish authorities believe that not all the country's new citizens will move to Spain or other parts of Europe.

"People are going to seek citizenship because it includes some economic aid if they stay where they are," the consul official said.

For example, Spanish citizens living in Cuba may be eligible for up to $200 per year. That is no small sum in a country where the average monthly wage is around $15, not including free health care and education and subsidized housing and food.

Long lines have formed at Spain's embassy in Havana, a busy place even before this year. To leave the Caribbean island, Cuban citizens must seek the government's permission.

The Cuban government has made no comment on the program.

"Having another nationality makes things easier here, you have more possibilities to come and go as you please," said Juana Suarez, the daughter of a Spaniard who arrived in Cuba in the 1920s.

washingtontimes.com

   The New York Times      The mixed report on Iraqi weapons compliance presented yesterday by the United Nations' two chief weapons inspectors begins an intense week of diplomacy and decision-making on the next steps in the international campaign to disarm Saddam Hussein. Their findings argue strongly for giving the inspectors more time to pursue their efforts and satisfy international opinion that every reasonable step has been taken to solve this problem peacefully. As President Bush has repeatedly said, war, if it comes to that, must be a last resort. ...      Without Baghdad's full cooperation, inspectors cannot disarm Iraq. They can, however, keep enough pressure on Baghdad to contain its unconventional weapons development and perhaps produce evidence that would mobilize an international consensus for additional steps.      Secretary of State Colin Powell warned Baghdad yesterday that not much time remains to begin disarming, but he said a peaceful solution was still possible if Iraq changed course. The White House should not be impatient to invade Iraq. War there could be a messy, bloody business. The world must be reassured that every possibility of a peaceful solution has been fully explored. To that end, the inspectors should be granted additional time.      -0-      Washington Times      In his report to the United Nations yesterday, chief weapons inspector Hans Blix presented a compelling case that Iraq is in material breach of U.N. disarmament resolutions, in particular, Security Council Resolution 1441, approved last November. While the Swedish diplomat expressed his opinion that more time should be allowed inspectors from his organization, UNMOVIC, to continue their work, the facts reported suggest that this would do little more than give Saddam Hussein more time to evade disarmament and conceal his chemical and biological weapons arsenal. Indeed, Mr. Blix stated that "Iraq appears not to have come to genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament that was demanded" of it. ...      Now that they've documented Saddam's continued cheating, the members of the Security Council are obliged to apply the factual findings to Resolution 1441, particularly paragraphs 4 and 13. Applying paragraph 4 of Mr. Blix's factual report requires a finding of a material breach. Paragraph 13 triggers "serious consequences," understood by all parties to be military action. (Q.E.D.: quod erat demonstrandum.)      -0-      Washington Post      The vital point of the presentations by Iraq arms inspectors to the United Nations Security Council yesterday came at the beginning. "The fundamental aim of inspections in Iraq has always been to verify disarmament," said chief weapons inspector Hans Blix. But Iraq, he said, "appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it." Mr. Blix went on to present, in a deliberately understated way, a devastating catalogue of lies, omissions and obfuscations by Iraq in the 21/2 months since the council passed Resolution 1441, which was meant to give Saddam Hussein "a final opportunity" to give up weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief of nuclear inspections, made it clear that Iraq did not embrace that chance. Yet the two men dodged the obvious question their reports raised: If Saddam Hussein did not accept voluntary disarmament, what purpose could be served by the continued inspections they both advocate? ...      Rather than yield to the inspectors and offer Iraq yet another last chance, the council would do better to simply obey the resolution it approved unanimously just 11 weeks ago. The terms of 1441 said that if Iraq submitted a false declaration of its weapons -- as all agree it did on Dec. 8 -- and failed "at any time" to "cooperate fully" -- Mr. Blix detailed a number of instances -- Baghdad would be in "material breach" of the resolution and the council would be bound to meet to consider consequences. Only if the council sticks to its own decisions will there be any chance that Saddam Hussein will change his.      -0-      Baltimore Sun      Iraq - surprise, surprise -- is not cooperating. The chief U.N. weapons inspector delivered his long-awaited report yesterday, and said that Saddam Hussein's regime was not coming clean on questions of disarmament and in fact does not appear to have accepted the idea that the country should disarm.      Does this mean war? ...      So far, the Bush administration's diplomacy on Iraq has been a spectacular failure, as one ally after another jumps ship. That doesn't hold out much promise for the war to come.      Mr. Hussein's thumbing of his nose at the U.N. inspectors means it's all the more important for the United States to step up its diplomatic efforts, to make a persuasive case for action to the rest of the world and to win back its allies. Instead, President Bush's aides spent the weekend threatening a nuclear attack. That's pure insanity.      -0-      Chicago Tribune      In an indictment laden with particulars and devoid of spin, United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix told the UN Security Council what it knew but perhaps didn't want to hear: Saddam Hussein has failed to comply with much of the council's direction.      The council, you'll recall, voted 15-0 last November to back Resolution 1441, demanding yet again that Hussein disclose his most dangerous weaponry and disarm. If he did not, the resolution said, he would face "serious consequences."      On Wednesday the Security Council will debate how Blix's report influences that threat. ...      So as the Security Council reacts to Blix's report, its members face two urgent questions. Will those who embraced a multilateral approach toward Iraq now honor their word? Or was 1441 a stalling tactic worthy of Saddam?      -0-      Boston Globe      In his report yesterday to the UN Security Council on the work of weapons inspectors in Iraq, Hans Blix, head of the United Nations inspection commission, was not supposed to deliver the kind of a war-or-peace judgment that only the council can make. What he did say, differentiating between the process and the substance of Saddam Hussein's dealings with the UN inspectors, left no doubt that the Iraqi dictator continues to refuse to comply with the December UN resolution calling on him to disarm and with all preceding UN disarmament resolutions going back to 1991. ...      Although Blix found that Saddam has not been disarming, he cannot answer the central question facing President Bush and other Security Council members: How long should the inspection process go on, and under what circumstances should force be used to disarm the dictator. ...      Now it is up to the United States and its allies to balance Blix's ''sense of urgency'' and their need for a reasonable period of inspections.      -0-      Dallas Morning News      Weapons inspectors reported yesterday. The news was neither good nor surprising. Sixty days of inspections revealed Iraq uncooperative and duplicitous. ...      Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke this weekend of the need for America to go it alone against Iraq if need be. But that's likely not necessary. Britain stands besides us. Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, the Netherlands and others are believed to be supporters of acting sooner rather than later to confront Saddam Hussein.      The U.N. Security Council must live up to its name when it meets again tomorrow. Members should understand what a dangerous place the world will become if Mr. Hussein's flouting of the law continues to be routinely ignored.      -0-      Los Angeles Times      In a hateful message driven by anger, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez on Sunday called on the ideologically faithful (detractors call them the globalifobicos) to bury capitalism.      As Chavez spoke at the World Social Forum in Brazil, on the other side of the Atlantic -- at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland -- hundreds of the world's most powerful and, no doubt, well-fed business leaders and politicians heard another leftist's plea for the poor. "Hunger," Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said, "cannot wait." And he called on the Group of 7 industrialized nations and international investors to create a new agenda of shared global development and an international anti-poverty fund.      It was more than altruism that made people cheer so heartily at the gatherings. Lula and Chavez are two in the latest wave of Latin American leftists voted into office by those willing to take desperate measures to solve the seemingly intractable problems of hunger, poverty, inequality and injustice. ...      Lula has been in power for less than a month and has vowed to control inflation by limiting deficits; to pay Brazil's debt; to streamline the country's pension system; to reform the nation's labor laws, and to fight hard against corruption. So far, it looks as if Lula is the kind of man with whom the Western world can and should do business.      -0-      Miami Herald      When a Mack truck is speeding toward a brick wall, something has to intervene to avert a crash. Thus, proposals and pressure from outside Venezuela raise hope of a break in the hostile impasse between President Hugo Chávez and his tenacious opposition.      Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter offered two electoral proposals last week. That alone is an accomplishment. The six nation-friends -- including the United States -- seeking to help end Venezuela's stalemate, add another critical ingredient: international guarantees that both sides will comply with agreed-upon conditions. That is key considering the mutual distrust of Mr. Chávez and the opposition, which for good reason wants him out of office.      Each proposal would require the opposition immediately to end the crippling strike that now is in its ninth week. ...      Mr. Carter's electoral proposals pave new paths from what had become a painful dead end. Now it's up to Mr. Chávez and the opposition to show that each can be reasonable.      -0-      Minneapolis Star Tribune      Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix was blunt Monday in his assessment of Iraq: It "appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance -- not even today -- of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace."      The world knew this, of course, but it was oddly reassuring to hear Blix say it. He's making no excuses for Saddam Hussein, and that is good to know. It suggests the world can have faith in the inspections regime if not in Iraq, and that giving the inspectors the time they need to complete their task would be a wise investment. ...      The ongoing consultations at the United Nations most likely will involve some sort of horse trading, with Washington agreeing to extended inspections in return for a commitment from France, Germany, China and Russia to support military action if Iraqi cooperation does not improve greatly over the next few months.      That's not a bad outcome. Blix and ElBaradei demonstrated in their briefings that to a significant degree they don't depend on Iraqi compliance. There is a great deal they can do on their own. They should get a full chance to do all they can.      -0-      Pittsburgh Post-Gazette      Chief U.N. Iraq arms inspector Hans Blix presented his required 60-day-in report to the U.N. Security Council in New York yesterday. It contained no surprises. Its clear message was to pursue the inspections, with even more intensity and perseverance. The message to those in the Bush administration eager to conclude that the inspections are already a failure was: Hold your horses a bit. ...      The United States cannot allow the U.N. inspections process to fail for want of information it could provide and then cite this failure as justification for an attack. That is a level of bad faith in dealing with the United Nations and our allies that is not consistent with American principles. ...the United States must never get to the point where momentum toward war overcomes the dictates of good judgment.      -0-      Portland Oregonian      Hopes dimmed Monday that more weapons inspections could lead to disarmament in Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell, sometimes described as the Bush administration's "dove" and definitely its strongest advocate for diplomacy, made it clear that Iraq had failed to take a succession of "diplomatic exit ramps" that could have steered the world away from war. ...      At the moment, it seems far more likely that Saddam would share his weapons with al-Qaida than disclose them to U.N. inspectors. And if he does share them, we can be pretty sure who'll be at the top of the target list.      -0-      (Compiled by United Press International)

washingtontimes.com

   The New York Times      The mixed report on Iraqi weapons compliance presented yesterday by the United Nations' two chief weapons inspectors begins an intense week of diplomacy and decision-making on the next steps in the international campaign to disarm Saddam Hussein. Their findings argue strongly for giving the inspectors more time to pursue their efforts and satisfy international opinion that every reasonable step has been taken to solve this problem peacefully. As President Bush has repeatedly said, war, if it comes to that, must be a last resort. ...      Without Baghdad's full cooperation, inspectors cannot disarm Iraq. They can, however, keep enough pressure on Baghdad to contain its unconventional weapons development and perhaps produce evidence that would mobilize an international consensus for additional steps.      Secretary of State Colin Powell warned Baghdad yesterday that not much time remains to begin disarming, but he said a peaceful solution was still possible if Iraq changed course. The White House should not be impatient to invade Iraq. War there could be a messy, bloody business. The world must be reassured that every possibility of a peaceful solution has been fully explored. To that end, the inspectors should be granted additional time.      -0-      Washington Times      In his report to the United Nations yesterday, chief weapons inspector Hans Blix presented a compelling case that Iraq is in material breach of U.N. disarmament resolutions, in particular, Security Council Resolution 1441, approved last November. While the Swedish diplomat expressed his opinion that more time should be allowed inspectors from his organization, UNMOVIC, to continue their work, the facts reported suggest that this would do little more than give Saddam Hussein more time to evade disarmament and conceal his chemical and biological weapons arsenal. Indeed, Mr. Blix stated that "Iraq appears not to have come to genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament that was demanded" of it. ...      Now that they've documented Saddam's continued cheating, the members of the Security Council are obliged to apply the factual findings to Resolution 1441, particularly paragraphs 4 and 13. Applying paragraph 4 of Mr. Blix's factual report requires a finding of a material breach. Paragraph 13 triggers "serious consequences," understood by all parties to be military action. (Q.E.D.: quod erat demonstrandum.)      -0-      Washington Post      The vital point of the presentations by Iraq arms inspectors to the United Nations Security Council yesterday came at the beginning. "The fundamental aim of inspections in Iraq has always been to verify disarmament," said chief weapons inspector Hans Blix. But Iraq, he said, "appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it." Mr. Blix went on to present, in a deliberately understated way, a devastating catalogue of lies, omissions and obfuscations by Iraq in the 21/2 months since the council passed Resolution 1441, which was meant to give Saddam Hussein "a final opportunity" to give up weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief of nuclear inspections, made it clear that Iraq did not embrace that chance. Yet the two men dodged the obvious question their reports raised: If Saddam Hussein did not accept voluntary disarmament, what purpose could be served by the continued inspections they both advocate? ...      Rather than yield to the inspectors and offer Iraq yet another last chance, the council would do better to simply obey the resolution it approved unanimously just 11 weeks ago. The terms of 1441 said that if Iraq submitted a false declaration of its weapons -- as all agree it did on Dec. 8 -- and failed "at any time" to "cooperate fully" -- Mr. Blix detailed a number of instances -- Baghdad would be in "material breach" of the resolution and the council would be bound to meet to consider consequences. Only if the council sticks to its own decisions will there be any chance that Saddam Hussein will change his.      -0-      Baltimore Sun      Iraq - surprise, surprise -- is not cooperating. The chief U.N. weapons inspector delivered his long-awaited report yesterday, and said that Saddam Hussein's regime was not coming clean on questions of disarmament and in fact does not appear to have accepted the idea that the country should disarm.      Does this mean war? ...      So far, the Bush administration's diplomacy on Iraq has been a spectacular failure, as one ally after another jumps ship. That doesn't hold out much promise for the war to come.      Mr. Hussein's thumbing of his nose at the U.N. inspectors means it's all the more important for the United States to step up its diplomatic efforts, to make a persuasive case for action to the rest of the world and to win back its allies. Instead, President Bush's aides spent the weekend threatening a nuclear attack. That's pure insanity.      -0-      Chicago Tribune      In an indictment laden with particulars and devoid of spin, United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix told the UN Security Council what it knew but perhaps didn't want to hear: Saddam Hussein has failed to comply with much of the council's direction.      The council, you'll recall, voted 15-0 last November to back Resolution 1441, demanding yet again that Hussein disclose his most dangerous weaponry and disarm. If he did not, the resolution said, he would face "serious consequences."      On Wednesday the Security Council will debate how Blix's report influences that threat. ...      So as the Security Council reacts to Blix's report, its members face two urgent questions. Will those who embraced a multilateral approach toward Iraq now honor their word? Or was 1441 a stalling tactic worthy of Saddam?      -0-      Boston Globe      In his report yesterday to the UN Security Council on the work of weapons inspectors in Iraq, Hans Blix, head of the United Nations inspection commission, was not supposed to deliver the kind of a war-or-peace judgment that only the council can make. What he did say, differentiating between the process and the substance of Saddam Hussein's dealings with the UN inspectors, left no doubt that the Iraqi dictator continues to refuse to comply with the December UN resolution calling on him to disarm and with all preceding UN disarmament resolutions going back to 1991. ...      Although Blix found that Saddam has not been disarming, he cannot answer the central question facing President Bush and other Security Council members: How long should the inspection process go on, and under what circumstances should force be used to disarm the dictator. ...      Now it is up to the United States and its allies to balance Blix's ''sense of urgency'' and their need for a reasonable period of inspections.      -0-      Dallas Morning News      Weapons inspectors reported yesterday. The news was neither good nor surprising. Sixty days of inspections revealed Iraq uncooperative and duplicitous. ...      Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke this weekend of the need for America to go it alone against Iraq if need be. But that's likely not necessary. Britain stands besides us. Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, the Netherlands and others are believed to be supporters of acting sooner rather than later to confront Saddam Hussein.      The U.N. Security Council must live up to its name when it meets again tomorrow. Members should understand what a dangerous place the world will become if Mr. Hussein's flouting of the law continues to be routinely ignored.      -0-      Los Angeles Times      In a hateful message driven by anger, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez on Sunday called on the ideologically faithful (detractors call them the globalifobicos) to bury capitalism.      As Chavez spoke at the World Social Forum in Brazil, on the other side of the Atlantic -- at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland -- hundreds of the world's most powerful and, no doubt, well-fed business leaders and politicians heard another leftist's plea for the poor. "Hunger," Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said, "cannot wait." And he called on the Group of 7 industrialized nations and international investors to create a new agenda of shared global development and an international anti-poverty fund.      It was more than altruism that made people cheer so heartily at the gatherings. Lula and Chavez are two in the latest wave of Latin American leftists voted into office by those willing to take desperate measures to solve the seemingly intractable problems of hunger, poverty, inequality and injustice. ...      Lula has been in power for less than a month and has vowed to control inflation by limiting deficits; to pay Brazil's debt; to streamline the country's pension system; to reform the nation's labor laws, and to fight hard against corruption. So far, it looks as if Lula is the kind of man with whom the Western world can and should do business.      -0-      Miami Herald      When a Mack truck is speeding toward a brick wall, something has to intervene to avert a crash. Thus, proposals and pressure from outside Venezuela raise hope of a break in the hostile impasse between President Hugo Chávez and his tenacious opposition.      Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter offered two electoral proposals last week. That alone is an accomplishment. The six nation-friends -- including the United States -- seeking to help end Venezuela's stalemate, add another critical ingredient: international guarantees that both sides will comply with agreed-upon conditions. That is key considering the mutual distrust of Mr. Chávez and the opposition, which for good reason wants him out of office.      Each proposal would require the opposition immediately to end the crippling strike that now is in its ninth week. ...      Mr. Carter's electoral proposals pave new paths from what had become a painful dead end. Now it's up to Mr. Chávez and the opposition to show that each can be reasonable.      -0-      Minneapolis Star Tribune      Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix was blunt Monday in his assessment of Iraq: It "appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance -- not even today -- of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace."      The world knew this, of course, but it was oddly reassuring to hear Blix say it. He's making no excuses for Saddam Hussein, and that is good to know. It suggests the world can have faith in the inspections regime if not in Iraq, and that giving the inspectors the time they need to complete their task would be a wise investment. ...      The ongoing consultations at the United Nations most likely will involve some sort of horse trading, with Washington agreeing to extended inspections in return for a commitment from France, Germany, China and Russia to support military action if Iraqi cooperation does not improve greatly over the next few months.      That's not a bad outcome. Blix and ElBaradei demonstrated in their briefings that to a significant degree they don't depend on Iraqi compliance. There is a great deal they can do on their own. They should get a full chance to do all they can.      -0-      Pittsburgh Post-Gazette      Chief U.N. Iraq arms inspector Hans Blix presented his required 60-day-in report to the U.N. Security Council in New York yesterday. It contained no surprises. Its clear message was to pursue the inspections, with even more intensity and perseverance. The message to those in the Bush administration eager to conclude that the inspections are already a failure was: Hold your horses a bit. ...      The United States cannot allow the U.N. inspections process to fail for want of information it could provide and then cite this failure as justification for an attack. That is a level of bad faith in dealing with the United Nations and our allies that is not consistent with American principles. ...the United States must never get to the point where momentum toward war overcomes the dictates of good judgment.      -0-      Portland Oregonian      Hopes dimmed Monday that more weapons inspections could lead to disarmament in Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell, sometimes described as the Bush administration's "dove" and definitely its strongest advocate for diplomacy, made it clear that Iraq had failed to take a succession of "diplomatic exit ramps" that could have steered the world away from war. ...      At the moment, it seems far more likely that Saddam would share his weapons with al-Qaida than disclose them to U.N. inspectors. And if he does share them, we can be pretty sure who'll be at the top of the target list.      -0-      (Compiled by United Press International)