1. Mark Whitaker 2. "Economic Development Businessman"--and Mayan Priest-- Elected to Guatemalan Presidency
3. Well, I just had my blog entry accidentally deleted on this topic. I'll make this shorter. Back to the Maya soon, though involved in the international political economy flows and state formation 'under treatment' of dominating finance from singular commodities and the effects it has for durable political frameworks in Latin America. Karl's methods of separating out 'state, regime, and government' (my 'formal institutions, and formal policy') is a nice comparative historical method to approach this common feature of commodity effects on state formation in Latin American under different commodity experiences.
We talk about Karl's views of Venezuela's dependence on oil for finance on Tuesday, then we talk about some of coffee dependency on finance in several Central American states on Thursday, then banana dependencies next week.
Nice short review of Karl's book at Amazon.com:
David Waldner, University of Virginia, quoted in MESA Bulletin, n. 32, 1998 "Brings new theoretical and methodological insights...merits the close attention of students of rentier states...As a bonus, Karl contributes to the literature on the structure-agency problem, arguing for what she calls 'structured contingency' or the highly biased preference of certain types of decisions. The Paradox of Plenty, in any respect, deserved to be placed at the top of our reading lists and should become a staple in courses on political and economic development." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
You can guage the potential level of foreign interst in a state by figures like these.
"Banana republic is a pejorative term for a small, often Latin American, Caribbean or African country that is politically unstable, dependent on limited agriculture, and ruled by a small, self-elected, wealthy and corrupt clique.[citation needed] In most cases they have kept the government structures that were modeled after the colonial Spanish ruling clique, with a small, largely leisure class on the top and a large, poorly educated and poorly paid working class of peons. The term was coined by O. Henry, an American humorist and short story writer, in reference to Honduras. "Republic" in his time was often a euphemism for a dictatorship, while "banana" implied an easy reliance on basic agriculture and backwardness in the development of modern industrial technology. Frequently the subject of mockery and humour, and usually presided over by a dictatorial military junta that exaggerates its own power and importance—"the epaulettes of a banana republic generalissimo" are proverbially of considerable size, usually portrayed in satire with a pair of mops—a banana republic also typically has large wealth and income inequities, poor infrastructure, poor schools, a backward economy, low capital spending, a reliance on foreign capital and money printing, budget deficits, and a weakening currency. Banana Republics are typically also highly prone to revolutions and coups.
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It was in Honduras that the United Fruit and Standard Fruit companies dominated the country's key banana export sector and support sectors such as railways. The United Fruit Company was nicknamed "The Octopus" for its willingness to involve itself in politics, sometimes violently. In 1910, Sam Zemurray, who 22 years later would take over United Fruit in a hostile bid, hired a gang of armed toughs from New Orleans to help stage a coup in Honduras in order to obtain beneficial treatment from the new government for his own banana-trading company, Cuyamel Fruit. Four decades later, the directors of United Fruit played a role in convincing the Truman and Eisenhower administrations that the government of Colonel Arbenz in Guatemala was secretly pro-Soviet, thus contributing to the CIA's decision to assist in overthrowing Arbenz's government in 1954 (see Operation PBSUCCESS). [Poet] Pablo Neruda would later denounce the dominance of foreign-owned banana producers in the politics of several Latin American countries in a poem titled "La United Fruit Co." "
Guatemala elects anti-poverty candidate [and Mayan Priest!] By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 9 minutes ago
Alvaro Colom, a businessman promising to end Guatemala's desperate poverty, won the country's presidential election Sunday.
Colom beat retired Gen. Otto Perez Molina, who conceded defeat after results from 97 percent of the vote showed him trailing Colom by 6 percentage points in the two-man runoff.
"I am the nation's president elect," Colom, of the center-left National Unity of Hope Party, told cheering supporters.
Colom had nearly 53 percent of the vote, while Perez, of the conservative Patriotic Party, had 47, according to results published on Guatemala's Electoral Tribunal Web site.
Electoral officials had not declared an official winner late Sunday but Perez acknowledged that Colom's lead was insurmountable.
"We are going to be a constructive opposition," said Perez, who ran on a tough anti-crime platform. "We're willing to keep fighting the war against impunity, the war against corruption and against violence."
Calm prevailed during the vote, which was guarded by more than 30,000 police and soldiers, on alert after weeks of campaigning marred by violence. There were no reports of serious incidents Sunday, when about 47 percent of the 6 million registered voters went to the polls.
Security was a top issue among voters in Central America's most violent country, with more than 5,000 homicides per year.
Colom, a 56-year-old former vice economy secretary and ordained Mayan minister, promised jobs, a judicial overhaul and increased social spending in Guatemala, where more than half of the country's 13 million people live on less than $2 a day.
Colom said he would use his experience brokering a civil war peace pact to reduce crime.
Perez, also 56, held a slight lead in polls heading into the vote. He promised to institute the death penalty, hire more police and send soldiers into the streets to fight crime.
A former military intelligence director, he has been accused of overseeing massacres during Guatemala's 1960-96 civil war, which he denies.
In one gang infested Guatemala City neighborhood, soldiers carrying automatic weapons and police with shotguns guarded polls.
Ruben Cruz, 60, a studio photographer, said Guatemala must deal with gangs that extort money from businesses and residents. He said thugs come to his home every four months to collect what they call taxes.
"I voted for Colom because he offers jobs for a lot of people, but also to fight criminals," Cruz said.
But housewife Marta Bustamante, 40, praised Perez.
"I like the fact that he's an army officer and that he's strict," she said. "Here we need that. There are too many gangs."
Political violence made for a harrowing campaign, with more than 50 candidates, party activists and their family members killed. Last month, Perez's secretary and a presidential security guard were gunned down.
In the first round of voting in September, Perez and Colom finished far ahead of 12 other candidates, including Nobel winner and Mayan activist Rigoberta Menchu. Pre-election polls gave Perez a slight edge in Sunday's vote.
2."Tropical Storm Blamed for More Than 100 Deaths in Caribbean"
3. This fall, storms and floods have attacked many Latin American countries recently including Mexico. We studied that the range of the climate in the region is extensive and unpredictable. I wonder if these rainfall disasters are usual, as Asian countries get through it almost annually. As many of Latin American states' industries are dependent on natural resource production, it seems that storm would have considerably affected their industries like, by destroying oil field or such.
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NASSAU, the Bahamas, Nov. 1 (AP) — Tropical Storm Noel drenched the Bahamas and Cuba on Thursday while rescue workers in the Dominican Republic headed out in boats and helicopters to reach dozens of communities isolated by floods and mudslides. The death toll in the Caribbean rose to 107.
The storm is the deadliest in the Atlantic region this year. Hurricane Felix, a Category 5 storm, killed 101 people when it lashed the Caribbean and the Nicaraguan and Honduran coasts in early September.
Rescuers in the Dominican Republic reached isolated communities for the first time in three days. Hundreds of volunteers joined Dominican civil defense forces to help stranded residents. Rescue teams left at dawn Thursday, many in boats lent by private owners.
“We will go to each point where there have been people affected who require the government’s help,” said Leonel Fernández, the Dominican president, “so that we can return to a normal situation in the shortest amount of time possible.”
The storm has left at least 66 people dead and 27 missing in the Dominican Republic, according to Gen. Ramón Rodríguez, the spokesman for the country’s National Emergency Commission. Some 52 towns and villages are still cut off.
More than 62,000 people have been displaced and more than 21,000 of them are in shelters.
The rain had eased off somewhat on Thursday and is expected to stop on Friday, which should help rescue efforts, General Rodríguez said.
More than three days of heavy rain caused an estimated $30 million in damages to Dominican rice, plantain and cacao plantations, according to the country’s economic secretary, Juan Temístocles Montás.
At least 40 people were reported to have died in Haiti, where the majority of bodies were found in and around the capital of Port-au-Prince. One person was killed in Jamaica.
In Cuba, muddy, rain-swollen waters overflowed a dam, washing into hundreds of homes and over highways, and knocking out electricity and telephone service. Dozens of small communities were cut off.
Cuban soldiers went door to door in low-lying areas and evacuated about 24,000 people, according to state radio and television reports. At least 2,000 homes were damaged by flood waters, but there was no official word of deaths.
The storm brought a record accumulation of 15 inches of rain to the Bahamas, said the prime minister, Hubert Ingraham. Flooding forced the evacuation of almost 400 people as the storm swirled toward the capital, Nassau. The majority of those forced to move were residents of the northeast Bahamian island of Abaco, Mr. Ingraham said.
Residents of Andros Island, one of the least developed in the Bahamas, hunkered down. “The walls were rattling, but we rode it out pretty well,” said Angela Newton, who was waiting Thursday for the power to come back on.
Nassau International Airport closed but was expected to reopen Friday. Only one of 10 cruise ships arrived on schedule.
Late Thursday afternoon, the storm’s center had edged away from Florida and was passing near Nassau. A tropical storm warning and watch for parts of southeastern Florida were canceled.
1. SuJung,Kim 2. Brazil announces new oil reserves 3. This week, we studied about oil in Latin America. And I found an article related to it. New oil reserves in Brazil! While reading this article, the most interest thing for me is scenario analysts said. They said it could give great influence on the U.S. since Brazil could became a new source of oil instead of Venezuela who has bad relationship with the U.S. ------------------------------- The Brazilian government says huge new oil reserves discovered off its coast could turn the country into one of the biggest oil producers in the world.
Petrobras, Brazil's national oil company, says it believes the offshore Tupi field has between 5bn and 8bn barrels of recoverable light oil.
A senior minister said Brazilian oil production had the potential to match that of Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.
Petrobras delivered its estimate after analysing test results.
The state-controlled company says the results show high productivity for gas and light oil - the best quality oil - which is more valuable and cheaper to refine.
Petrobras says the find has the potential to move Brazil into a position where it is one of the top ten oil reserves in the world.
The news, which led to a sharp rise in company shares, was also given an enthusiastic welcome by the government.
The senior minister in charge of the cabinet, Dilma Rousseff, said if the deposits turned out to be as significant as first thought, it would place Brazil in the same league as Venezuela and countries in the Arab world.
With a reserve like this, the country could be transformed into an exporter of petroleum, she said.
Most of Brazil's oil is heavy and found at great depth but even so its reserves have almost doubled in the last ten years, as has output.
Some analysts say this latest find raises the interesting scenario of offering a new source of supply to the United States, reducing its dependence on Venezuela, a country with which it has such a fraught relationship.
With the Tupi field potentially equal to 40% of all oil ever discovered here, it seems by any standards a significant moment for Brazil. ------- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7086264.stm
2. Indigenous Socialism/Green Movements Popping Up Throughout Latin America, lots of examples
3. Historically, socialism has been mostly a secular movement, a continuation of European Enlightenment and celebration of that culture. However, indigenous movements in Latin American are increasingly framing this movement as their own, 'greening' it, and taking state power through elections.
My other post above was the "business leader/Mayan priest" elected to the Presidency in Guatemala after a 36 year civil war that led to about 20% of the population of the country to either leave it or around 100,000 to suffer death; we have Chavez (grandmother was indigenous), we have Ecuador's president (who speaks Quecha, the Incan state language), we have Evo Morales, an Amyara indigenous as President of Bolivia.
Evo Morales recently attended an "Encouter of Indigenous Peoples" with representatives of 30 different indigenous society/tribal groups, with hundres of others attending unofficially, and with hundreds more from international groups. It's a theme worth watching in Latin America.
Three posts are below. One from the UK-Guardian on the indigenous socialist movements, and two about Morales attending the indigenous conference.
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1.
Columbus toppled as indigenous people rise up after five centuries
Explorer's reputation is victim of region's pink tide of leftwing governments
Rory Carroll in Caracas and Lola Almudevar in Sucre Friday October 12, 2007 The Guardian
Victorian illustration by T Sinclair idealising Christopher Columbus' arrival in the New World. Photograph: PoodlesRock/Corbis
He had been sailing west for five weeks and sensed he was close when at 2am on October 12, with nothing but stars and moon to illuminate the waves, it was spotted: a dark lump ahead. Land. Christopher Columbus had reached the New World. At sunrise he took a small boat and armed men to shore and planted a royal standard. With a solemn oath he took possession of the territory for the king and queen of Spain. Natives emerged from the trees and watched from a distance, puzzled. It was 1492.
More than five centuries later the anniversary of that event resounds with an ominous clang. Millions of people in central and South America lament that encounter in the Bahamas as the beginning of their ancestors' annihilation. The indigenous inhabitants lost everything to the invaders: gold, land, freedom, culture, until there was almost nothing left. Disease and slaughter wiped most of them out. "It was a calamity," said Mark Horton, an archaeologist and Columbus expert at the University of Bristol.
Now, however, a counter-attack is under way. After centuries as underdogs, indigenous people are rising up - peacefully - to seize political power and assert their heritage.
The so-called pink tide of leftwing governments has surged on the back of indigenous movements intent on dismantling the region's eurocentric legacy - starting with Columbus.
Across the Andes the explorer once feted as a hero by the Europeanised elite is having his story rewritten, his statue toppled and his name turned to mud. Leading the assault is Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez.
"They taught us to admire Christopher Columbus," he said during a recent televised address, his tone incredulous, while flicking through a 1970s school textbook. "In Europe they still speak of the 'discovery' of America and want us to celebrate the day."
Instead Mr Chávez has renamed October 12 "indigenous resistance day" and mounted a campaign against colonial residue. Textbooks are to be revised under a curriculum that will stress the opposition to Spanish conquest as doomed but heroic.
This week the president, who boasts of having an indigenous grandmother, renamed the cable car system which soars over Caracas, the capital, as Warairarepano, which means big mountain in an indigenous coastal tongue.
"For Chávez this is a natural cause because of his philosophy about the mistreatment of the downtrodden and the need for redress," said Larry Birns, of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs thinktank.
City authorities confirmed this week that a bronze Columbus statue which activists toppled from a Caracas plaza three years ago will remain under wraps. Repairs were almost complete but it would not return to its plinth because the site had been renamed: Avenue Columbus is now Avenue Indigenous Resistance. The statue is expected to go to a museum.
In contrast, a statue of María Lionza, a legendary indigenous queen who is the subject of a thriving cult, has been prominently restored. Last night thousands of devotees made their way to the holy mountain of Sorte for an annual festival which honours her and an indigenous chief and black slave killed by the Spanish.
Rehabilitated
Scholars tend to assign Columbus a walk-on part in history as the one who opened the New World door but had little role in the bloody aftermath. "He was part of a process that was inevitable, of Europe coming into contact with the wider world," said Dr Horton. "It's mistaken to see him as a totem of the bad guys. He actually wasn't too bad."
It has been a rollercoaster reputation. A dispute with Spain's king and queen landed Columbus in chains and disgrace. The Victorians rehabilitated him as an inspiration for their own explorers, a valiant image which largely endures in the west. Spain hopes DNA analysis will prove he came from Castille, while Italy hopes to confirm he was Genoese.
The 500th anniversary in 1992 prompted debate in the US about whether he should be recast as a villain but the controversy petered out, leaving the navigator a bruised but still revered figure. US schoolchildren get the day off on what remains Columbus Day.
In South America, however, radical leftwing governments in Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela are busy overturning what they see as his legacy: centuries of domination by Spaniards and their descendants, pale-skinned elites who continued oppressing darker compatriots even after the continent gained independence.
"Even now they conceive us as animals, as dogs. That has got to change, which is what we are fighting for - to be recognised as equal citizens with equal rights," said Wilber Flores, a congressman and president of Bolivia's indigenous parliament.
In Venezuela Mr Chávez enshrined indigenous rights in a new constitution and made the country's 35 tribes visible through state-funded TV stations which broadcast from regions barely known to city-dwellers.
In Ecuador President Rafael Correa, who often wears traditional dress and speaks in Quechua, has rallied indigenous voters behind his effort to "reinvent" the country along socialist lines.
President Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian and Bolivia's first indigenous leader, has also fused indigenous rights with a socialist agenda hostile to Washington. He regards the US as the latest manifestation of a predatory colonialism that started in 1492. Last month it voted against a United Nations declaration on indigenous rights.
Rapacious
Mr Morales has accused the US of raiding Bolivia's natural resources and persecuting coca farmers as cocaine producers when in fact they are cultivating a plant that has had other, innocent, uses since the Incas.
He will mark the anniversary of Columbus's landing with a visit to the coca growing region of Chapare, which is playing host to a summit of indigenous people from across Latin America.
In an interview with the Guardian the Bolivian leader suggested the rapacious intruders who crossed an ocean thirsting for riches, and those who later invented capitalism, should have been studying, not conquering, the natives.
"Indigenous communities know how to live in harmony with mother earth and that is the difference between us and Europe and the United States."
La Paz, Oct 13(Prensa Latina) Representatives of indigenous communities from the five continents return to their countries Saturday, after having participated at the "Encounter for World Indigenous People's Historic Victory" here, which called to save the planet from environmental damage.
At the closing of the meeting, attended by Bolivian President Evo Morales, and 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner Guatemalan Rigoberta Menchu, the indigenous leaders presented a 14-point declaration for the preservation of nature and peace, among other issues.
The text, read during a popular congregation in the central locality of Chimore, highlights the UN approval of the Declaration on the Indigenous Peoples Rights on September 13.
According to the document, indigenous people will urge their respective States to build a world based on culture, identity, philosophy, cosmovision, and spirituality of their communities.
They also called for national and international efforts to save Mother Nature from disasters caused by decaying capitalism.
In addition, the indigenous movements reiterated their willingness to carry out a new international campaign supporting Bolivian President Evo Morales' candidature for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Evo Morales Condemns US Interference BY Charly Morales Valido
COCHABAMBA, Bolivia.— Bolivian President Evo Morales lashed out at US interference in his country’s domestic affairs including so-called cooperation aimed at sponsoring groups that are against the current process of change taking place in Bolivia.
During the closing of the Encounter for the World Indigenous Peoples’ Historic Victory, President Morales made reference to recent investigations that revealed the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is providing funding to neoliberal political parties in Bolivia.
Speaking to an audience of thousands of farmers and indigenous people who had gathered in Cochabamba, the Bolivian leader also criticized the Bush administration for the continuous bad treatment received by Bolivian officials when traveling to the United States.
“Our development does not depend on the United States,” said Morales who contrasted US “cooperation” with the disinterested collaboration of other countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina and China.
Among the proposals put forward by the forum was the need to listen to the “indigenous cultures of peace and life” as the only alternatives for preserving nature, declaring October 12 as the “Beginning day for the struggle to save planet earth” and the announcement of the Fourth Continental Summit to be held in 2008 on the borders of Bolivia and Chile. (PL)
1. Heaeum Cho 2. "Students take reins of anti-Chavez protests" 3. Keeping up with the escalating protest in Venezuela, I found this article to remind me of what South Korea went through in the 70s and 80s. Student demonstrations were perceived as a threat to the regime at the time and were cracked down on relentlessly. Similar events have been happening in Venezuela and Chavez's vague dismissal of the mobilized students who want a say in the democratic system has gotten me somewhat disappointed in his character more as a person than as a president of a country. Inclusion of minority voices is a crucial part of a healthy democracy yet quickly labelling students as being supported by the U.S. and also a miniature version of the opposition parties leaves more exasperation than answers at the end of the day. ---- CARACAS: Finding Yon Goicoechea, a leader of the nascent student movement protesting the expanding power of President Hugo Chávez, is not easy.
He changes cellphones every few days. After receiving dozens of death threats, he moves among the apartments of friends here each day in search of a safe place to sleep.
In an interview this week in a backroom at one such residence with a striking view of the Venezuelan capital's Ávila mountain, Goicoechea explained the goals of a movement that has surprisingly supplanted traditional political parties in recent weeks as the most cohesive and nationally respected challenger to Chávez's government.
"We believe in exhausting the democratic options available to us through peaceful action," said Goicoechea, 23, who studies law at Andrés Bello University here, referring to the movement's opposition to a constitutional overhaul. In the polarized world of Venezuelan political debate, such pausing and polished statements are rare.
But what about the claims, from Chávez himself and on downward through the ranks of his loyalists, that the students ultimately want to oust him from office?
"We want social transformation, not a coup," Goicoechea said. "The real coup d'état is coming from Chávez, who wants to perpetuate himself in power."
The students first burst on to the scene this summer with protests against Chávez's move to push RCTV, a critical television network, off public airwaves. But the president's proposed charter, which would abolish his term limits, has led to much larger protests here and in other large cities this month.
About 80,000 students flooded main avenues in Caracas on Wednesday in a march to the Supreme Court to ask it to suspend the referendum on 69 constitutional amendments, scheduled for Dec. 2. Students returning from that march were attacked by gunmen at the campus of the Central University of Venezuela, with nine wounded in the melee.
Chávez has refrained from condemning that violence, opening his government to claims that pro-Chávez armed groups are being allowed to operate unfettered to respond to the growing student movement. Speaking Friday at a summit of Latin American leaders in Chile, Chávez called the student protests a "fascist attack."
In other statements about the students, the president has gone even further, accusing them of conspiring to carry out a "soft coup" supported by the United States and inspired by groups like the Albert Einstein Institution, a nonprofit organization in Massachusetts that advocates nonviolent struggle.
American involvement in Venezuelan affairs remains an extremely sensitive subject here, following the Bush administration's tacit support for the brief coup that removed Chávez from office in 2002. Chávez has also criticized the United States for channeling money to nongovernmental groups that are critical of him.
Hewing to a new policy trying to avoid verbal clashes with Chávez, U.S. officials here carefully denied supporting the students.
"The United States government has no role in the student demonstrations," said Benjamin Ziff, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Caracas.
But part of Chávez's assertions, that the students draw inspiration from nonviolent movements that have toppled governments elsewhere, is not entirely off the mark. In the interview, Goicoechea said he was fascinated with the Serbian opposition's toppling of Slobodan Milosevic and Gandhi's struggle against British colonialism.
The movement led by Goicoechea and handful of others in their 20s has evolved since June, when protestors painted their palms white and inserted flowers in the rifles of security forces. Since then, they have efficiently coordinated protests around the country with a tone of increasing defiance, though while largely shunning violent actions.
"The student leaders now have more credibility among people in the street than any leader of the opposition parties," said Alberto Garrido, a political analyst.
That strength has been gathering in the face of persistent efforts by Chávez to discredit the movement, describing the students as "daddy's boys" and "rich bourgeois brats." Still, the unusual inclusiveness of Venezuela's public higher education system, which draws students from a variety of class backgrounds, has made it difficult for the government to play class politics in this sphere. ---- http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/09/america/venez.php
3. I got this article from a Latin American news portal site called "Prensa Latina," although I don't know how reliable this news source is, it was good to read articles written from a local perspective. This article is basically a summary of Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage's opening speech at the 17th Ibero-American Summit. The article merely reiterates what Large had to say. It is plain to see that the tone of his voice is loaded with antagonism against the US, which was not surprising. Though what Lage is opting for seems reasonable, and even favorable--such as equality, dignity, and fairness, it is questionable whether anyone or any government so tilted toward a certain belief and so antagonistic toward another could acheive such characteristics which require balance and openness. ---------------------------
Santiago, Chile, Nov 9 (Prensa Latina) Speaking at the opening of the 17th Ibero-American Summit Friday, Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage said social cohesion will never be achieved by the supposed goodness of the market, but through a system of fairness and equality.
A fair and democratic international political and economic order is essential to reach social cohesion and we must be willing to face up to national selfish and violent oligarchies and the current US administration"s criminal policy, he told the 22 presidents.
Lage insisted "they would do anything to prevent us from achieving social justice, or even more social unity, because it would affect their historic privileges." He also held that neither will there be social cohesion if "the nations that are developed with our resources and by the sweat and blood of our peoples behave selfishly and irresponsibly, or try to seduce us with demagogic aid." The same would happen "if the central banks are under the orders of the International Monetary Fund and a questioned consensus reached in Washington, and they ignore the needs of their peoples." Neither will it be reached, nor it will not make sense to seek social cohesion, if we are not able to save the existence of our species, he said.
He then asked who would be able to deny the main responsibility and harmful influence of the US government in these circumstances.
After stressing that "nothing would be given to us," the head of the Cuban delegation emphasized the right of all human beings to health, education and work.
Referring to Cuba, he said "despite invasions, terrorist acts, economic war and huge monetary efforts to organize an internal counterrevolution, social cohesion - a direct result of Fidel Castro"s historic work - is Cubans" pride." It is also an achievement that cannot be waived, and has solid pillars, said the Cuban vice president, who contributed figures and indicators illustrating progress in Cuba in several social spheres.
He also highlighted that there is no possible freedom without culture; no one has more right to live than others and, in a society that is considered fair, no human being should be left out.
In the austere living conditions of our people, amid the most prolonged blockade in the history of humankind, we are struggling and will defend Cubans" unity and dignity, Lage concluded.
1. Hyunji Ju 2. Venezuela's gas prices remain low, but the political costs may be rising
3. Venezuela is dealing with a severe economic polarization problems. And Chavez, is the one who talks about overcoming their poorness all the time. So, this is quite odd that he does not try to solve this kind of oil problem. Hummer? That is a monster and it requires so much gas!
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By Simon Romero
Tuesday, October 30, 2007 CARACAS, Venezuela: In a country moving toward socialism, the beneficiaries of government largess here are still people like Nicolás Taurisano, a businessman who dabbles in real estate and machinery imports. He is the proud owner of a Hummer.
Motorists in the United States smarting from rising gasoline prices, take note: Taurisano pays the equivalent of $1.50 to fill his Hummer's tank. Thanks to a decades-old subsidy that has proven devilishly complex to undo, gasoline in Venezuela costs about 7 cents a gallon.
"It is one clear benefit to living in an otherwise challenging country," said Taurisano, 34, who also owns a BMW, a Mercedes-Benz, a Ferrari and a Porsche.
Many Venezuelans consider the subsidy a birthright even though it bypasses the poor, who rely on relatively expensive and often dangerous public transportation. Economists estimate that it costs the government of President Hugo Chávez more than $9 billion a year.
Critics of Chávez, and the president himself, agree that the subsidy is a threat to his project to transform Venezuela into a socialist society, draining huge amounts of money from the national oil company's sales each year that could be used for his social welfare programs.
Gasoline prices have often been a taboo subject for Venezuelan governments. There are memories of the riots in 1989, in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people died after protests set off by an increase in gasoline prices that resulted in higher transportation costs. That instability helped set in motion a failed coup attempt by Chávez in 1992, which first thrust him into the public eye.
After his re-election to a six-year term last December, when his political capital was abundant, Chávez called the gasoline prices "disgusting" and said his government was planning to raise them with a measure "financed by those who own a BMW or a tremendous four-wheel drive." But he turned his attention to other matters, avoiding the touchy subject.
The link between social peace and gasoline so cheap it is almost given away is evident to many motorists. "If you raise gasoline, the people revolt," said Janeth Lara, 40, an administrator at the Caracas Stock Exchange, as she waited for an attendant to fill the tank of her Jeep Grand Cherokee at a gas station here on a recent day. "It is the only cheap thing."
During an oil boom that is lifting the incomes of both rich and poor, Venezuela is grappling with Latin America's highest inflation rate, about 16 percent. The local currency, the bolívar, has plunged almost 50 percent in unregulated trading this year, reaching a record low of about 6,000 to the dollar in October (the official rate is fixed at 2,150 to the dollar.) Gasoline is one of the few products subject to price controls here that is in relatively ample supply. Newspapers have been filled recently with tales of consumers struggling to find milk. Last month, eggs were scarce.
Economic uncertainty makes it harder to tinker with fuel prices because a small increase could cascade. There could be an impact on the poor, with higher costs for food and other goods for which transportation costs are important, said Francisco Rodríguez, a former chief economist at the National Assembly.
One option is to keep the price of diesel cheap, because it is used in most freight and public transportation, while raising gasoline prices for relatively prosperous car owners. Another idea is to give transportation vouchers to people in poor neighborhoods.
"We are gradually moving toward an economic storm because of our addiction to cheap fuel," said Orlando Ochoa, an economist at Andrés Bello University in Caracas.
Scholars trace the origins of Venezuela's subsidy to the 1940s, when leftists imposed caps on gasoline prices after overthrowing the government of General Isaías Medina Angarita. Because profits on sales of gasoline went to foreign oil companies at the time, the measure was seen as a way of redistributing oil revenues to Venezuelans.
Leaders were forced to raise prices in the 1980s and '90s in the midst of financial distress. But Chávez has been hesitant to raise gasoline prices since his presidency began almost nine years ago.
Venezuela is not alone among oil-rich countries grappling with subsidized gasoline. Iran, a close ally, was shaken by unrest in June when its government rationed gasoline, which cost 34 cents a gallon at the time. But a thriving car-buying habit rivaled by few nations is forcing the government here to sell greater amounts of cheap gasoline.
Vehicle sales in Venezuela climbed 49 percent in the first nine months of the year from the same period last year, in part because cars are seen here as an investing hedge against economic uncertainty. Not only has the bolívar dropped in value, but there is also concern over real estate as squatters are allowed to take control of vacant properties.
Fuel smuggling into neighboring Colombia, where prices are much higher, is also rife. Domestic fuel consumption is up 56 percent in the past five years, to 780,000 barrels a day, said Ramón Espinasa, a former chief economist at Petróleos de Venezuela, the national oil company. One-third of oil production now goes to meet the subsidy, he said.
Petróleos de Venezuela has disputed such estimates but recently stopped providing public figures on domestic fuel sales. A spokesman at the company said officials were not available to comment on the matter.
Despite government efforts to open the market to car manufacturers from Iran and China, bulky, gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles from the United States remain among the most sought-after automobiles here.
Perhaps the most coveted SUV of all in Venezuela is the Hummer, an ethical quandary for Chávez.
"What kind of a revolution is this?" the president said on his television show this month, after a report here that General Motors was planning to import 3,000 Hummers to meet a rising demand. "One of Hummers?"
"No," he said with the angry tone of a schoolmaster, answering his own question while announcing a measure that makes it more expensive to import Hummers and other luxury items like whiskey. "This is a revolution of truth."
1. Hyunji Ju 2. Venezuela's gas prices remain low, but the political costs may be rising
3. Venezuela is dealing with a severe economic polarization problems. And Chavez, is the one who talks about overcoming their poorness all the time. So, this is quite odd that he does not try to solve this kind of oil problem. Hummer? That is a monster and it requires so much gas!
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By Simon Romero
Tuesday, October 30, 2007 CARACAS, Venezuela: In a country moving toward socialism, the beneficiaries of government largess here are still people like Nicolás Taurisano, a businessman who dabbles in real estate and machinery imports. He is the proud owner of a Hummer.
Motorists in the United States smarting from rising gasoline prices, take note: Taurisano pays the equivalent of $1.50 to fill his Hummer's tank. Thanks to a decades-old subsidy that has proven devilishly complex to undo, gasoline in Venezuela costs about 7 cents a gallon.
"It is one clear benefit to living in an otherwise challenging country," said Taurisano, 34, who also owns a BMW, a Mercedes-Benz, a Ferrari and a Porsche.
Many Venezuelans consider the subsidy a birthright even though it bypasses the poor, who rely on relatively expensive and often dangerous public transportation. Economists estimate that it costs the government of President Hugo Chávez more than $9 billion a year.
Critics of Chávez, and the president himself, agree that the subsidy is a threat to his project to transform Venezuela into a socialist society, draining huge amounts of money from the national oil company's sales each year that could be used for his social welfare programs.
Gasoline prices have often been a taboo subject for Venezuelan governments. There are memories of the riots in 1989, in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people died after protests set off by an increase in gasoline prices that resulted in higher transportation costs. That instability helped set in motion a failed coup attempt by Chávez in 1992, which first thrust him into the public eye.
After his re-election to a six-year term last December, when his political capital was abundant, Chávez called the gasoline prices "disgusting" and said his government was planning to raise them with a measure "financed by those who own a BMW or a tremendous four-wheel drive." But he turned his attention to other matters, avoiding the touchy subject.
The link between social peace and gasoline so cheap it is almost given away is evident to many motorists. "If you raise gasoline, the people revolt," said Janeth Lara, 40, an administrator at the Caracas Stock Exchange, as she waited for an attendant to fill the tank of her Jeep Grand Cherokee at a gas station here on a recent day. "It is the only cheap thing."
During an oil boom that is lifting the incomes of both rich and poor, Venezuela is grappling with Latin America's highest inflation rate, about 16 percent. The local currency, the bolívar, has plunged almost 50 percent in unregulated trading this year, reaching a record low of about 6,000 to the dollar in October (the official rate is fixed at 2,150 to the dollar.) Gasoline is one of the few products subject to price controls here that is in relatively ample supply. Newspapers have been filled recently with tales of consumers struggling to find milk. Last month, eggs were scarce.
Economic uncertainty makes it harder to tinker with fuel prices because a small increase could cascade. There could be an impact on the poor, with higher costs for food and other goods for which transportation costs are important, said Francisco Rodríguez, a former chief economist at the National Assembly.
One option is to keep the price of diesel cheap, because it is used in most freight and public transportation, while raising gasoline prices for relatively prosperous car owners. Another idea is to give transportation vouchers to people in poor neighborhoods.
"We are gradually moving toward an economic storm because of our addiction to cheap fuel," said Orlando Ochoa, an economist at Andrés Bello University in Caracas.
Scholars trace the origins of Venezuela's subsidy to the 1940s, when leftists imposed caps on gasoline prices after overthrowing the government of General Isaías Medina Angarita. Because profits on sales of gasoline went to foreign oil companies at the time, the measure was seen as a way of redistributing oil revenues to Venezuelans.
Leaders were forced to raise prices in the 1980s and '90s in the midst of financial distress. But Chávez has been hesitant to raise gasoline prices since his presidency began almost nine years ago.
Venezuela is not alone among oil-rich countries grappling with subsidized gasoline. Iran, a close ally, was shaken by unrest in June when its government rationed gasoline, which cost 34 cents a gallon at the time. But a thriving car-buying habit rivaled by few nations is forcing the government here to sell greater amounts of cheap gasoline.
Vehicle sales in Venezuela climbed 49 percent in the first nine months of the year from the same period last year, in part because cars are seen here as an investing hedge against economic uncertainty. Not only has the bolívar dropped in value, but there is also concern over real estate as squatters are allowed to take control of vacant properties.
Fuel smuggling into neighboring Colombia, where prices are much higher, is also rife. Domestic fuel consumption is up 56 percent in the past five years, to 780,000 barrels a day, said Ramón Espinasa, a former chief economist at Petróleos de Venezuela, the national oil company. One-third of oil production now goes to meet the subsidy, he said.
Petróleos de Venezuela has disputed such estimates but recently stopped providing public figures on domestic fuel sales. A spokesman at the company said officials were not available to comment on the matter.
Despite government efforts to open the market to car manufacturers from Iran and China, bulky, gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles from the United States remain among the most sought-after automobiles here.
Perhaps the most coveted SUV of all in Venezuela is the Hummer, an ethical quandary for Chávez.
"What kind of a revolution is this?" the president said on his television show this month, after a report here that General Motors was planning to import 3,000 Hummers to meet a rising demand. "One of Hummers?"
"No," he said with the angry tone of a schoolmaster, answering his own question while announcing a measure that makes it more expensive to import Hummers and other luxury items like whiskey. "This is a revolution of truth."
This maybe seen only as a scandalous incident for morning gossip, however no matter how ridiculous such emotional outburst of Chavez at a global summit seems, this seemed to be yet another display of diplomatic and political confrontation of Chavez against all US allies.
Speaking in terms of political strategy wise, I wonder whether Chavez’s grand plan to build a Latin American army against US and their neo-liberal ideology as he states it. Although Chavez has been surviving pretty successfully (?), pressuring the US while collaborating inner bonds among Latin American nations, as the world economy is immensely connected and linked under the overpowering roof of US it is likely to become increasingly difficult for Chavez to play on an even field going against US. Not to mention that most of the players playing under the roof are either close partners or prays of US government.
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Spain's King Juan Carlos told Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez to "shut up" as the Ibero-American summit drew to a close in Santiago, Chile.
The outburst came after Mr Chavez called former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar a "fascist".
Mr Chavez then interrupted Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's calls for him to be more diplomatic, prompting the king's outburst.
Latin American, Portuguese, Spanish and Andorran leaders were meeting in Chile.
'Democratically elected'
Mr Chavez called Mr Aznar, a close ally of US President George W Bush, a fascist, adding "fascists are not human. A snake is more human."
Mr Zapatero said: "Former President Aznar was democratically elected by the Spanish people and was a legitimate representative of the Spanish people."
Mr Chavez repeatedly tried to interrupt, despite his microphone being turned off. The king leaned forward and said: "Why don't you shut up?"
According to reports, the king used a familiar term normally used only for close acquaintances - or children.
Later, Mr Chavez responded to the king's rebuke. According to the Associated Press news agency, he said: "I do not offend by telling the truth. The Venezuelan government reserves the right to respond to any aggression, anywhere, in any space and in any manner."
The theme of this year's 22-nation summit was "social cohesion".
Earlier, a row between neighbours Argentina and Uruguay threatened to overshadow the summit.
The long-running dispute erupted anew after Uruguay gave an operating permit to a paper mill despite unresolved environmental objections by Argentina.
On Saturday, scores of Argentine protesters staged a peaceful protest against the setting up of the plant, which they fear could contaminate their crops. Some of the marchers carried banners reading "No to the paper plant!". Police stopped them from marching across a bridge into Uruguay.
'Stabbed in the back'
Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez granted a long-awaited start-up permit to the mill on Thursday - hours after giving a conciliatory speech at the summit, which he ended by hugging outgoing Argentine President Nestor Kirchner.
On Friday, Uruguay announced it had closed its border crossing with Argentina closest to the mill in Fray Bentos. The moves led to protests from the Argentine delegation in the Chilean capital, with Mr Kirchner blaming Mr Vazquez for putting an end to efforts by King Juan Carlos to mediate a resolution to the dispute.
"You have stabbed the Argentine people in the back," Mr Kirchner told his counterpart according to the official Argentine news agency Telam.
This is the latest instalment of a two-year row.
The Finnish owners of the pulp mill - the biggest foreign investment in Uruguay - insist it employs the latest technology and will not pollute. But Argentina disagrees and has taken the case to the International Court in The Hague, whose ruling is pending.
A very down to earth* kind of guy. I'm an environmental sociologist interested in establishing material and organizational sustainability worldwide. I'm always looking for interesting materials/technologies, inspiring ideas, or institutional examples of sustainability to inspire others to recognize their choices now. To be fatalistic about an unsustainable world is a sign of a captive mind, given all our options.
*(If "earth" is defined in a planetary sense, concerning comparative historical knowledge and interest in the past 10,000 years or so anywhere...) See both blogs.
9 comments:
1. Mark Whitaker
2. "Economic Development Businessman"--and Mayan Priest-- Elected to Guatemalan Presidency
3. Well, I just had my blog entry accidentally deleted on this topic. I'll make this shorter. Back to the Maya soon, though involved in the international political economy flows and state formation 'under treatment' of dominating finance from singular commodities and the effects it has for durable political frameworks in Latin America. Karl's methods of separating out 'state, regime, and government' (my 'formal institutions, and formal policy') is a nice comparative historical method to approach this common feature of commodity effects on state formation in Latin American under different commodity experiences.
We talk about Karl's views of Venezuela's dependence on oil for finance on Tuesday, then we talk about some of coffee dependency on finance in several Central American states on Thursday, then banana dependencies next week.
Nice short review of Karl's book at Amazon.com:
David Waldner, University of Virginia, quoted in MESA Bulletin, n. 32, 1998
"Brings new theoretical and methodological insights...merits the close attention of students of rentier states...As a bonus, Karl contributes to the literature on the structure-agency problem, arguing for what she calls 'structured contingency' or the highly biased preference of certain types of decisions. The Paradox of Plenty, in any respect, deserved to be placed at the top of our reading lists and should become a staple in courses on political and economic development." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Particularly note here that over 40% of Guatemala trade exports are to the U.S. and more than 30% of its imports are from the U.S.
You can guage the potential level of foreign interst in a state by figures like these.
"Banana republic is a pejorative term for a small, often Latin American, Caribbean or African country that is politically unstable, dependent on limited agriculture, and ruled by a small, self-elected, wealthy and corrupt clique.[citation needed] In most cases they have kept the government structures that were modeled after the colonial Spanish ruling clique, with a small, largely leisure class on the top and a large, poorly educated and poorly paid working class of peons. The term was coined by O. Henry, an American humorist and short story writer, in reference to Honduras. "Republic" in his time was often a euphemism for a dictatorship, while "banana" implied an easy reliance on basic agriculture and backwardness in the development of modern industrial technology. Frequently the subject of mockery and humour, and usually presided over by a dictatorial military junta that exaggerates its own power and importance—"the epaulettes of a banana republic generalissimo" are proverbially of considerable size, usually portrayed in satire with a pair of mops—a banana republic also typically has large wealth and income inequities, poor infrastructure, poor schools, a backward economy, low capital spending, a reliance on foreign capital and money printing, budget deficits, and a weakening currency. Banana Republics are typically also highly prone to revolutions and coups.
...
It was in Honduras that the United Fruit and Standard Fruit companies dominated the country's key banana export sector and support sectors such as railways. The United Fruit Company was nicknamed "The Octopus" for its willingness to involve itself in politics, sometimes violently. In 1910, Sam Zemurray, who 22 years later would take over United Fruit in a hostile bid, hired a gang of armed toughs from New Orleans to help stage a coup in Honduras in order to obtain beneficial treatment from the new government for his own banana-trading company, Cuyamel Fruit. Four decades later, the directors of United Fruit played a role in convincing the Truman and Eisenhower administrations that the government of Colonel Arbenz in Guatemala was secretly pro-Soviet, thus contributing to the CIA's decision to assist in overthrowing Arbenz's government in 1954 (see Operation PBSUCCESS). [Poet] Pablo Neruda would later denounce the dominance of foreign-owned banana producers in the politics of several Latin American countries in a poem titled "La United Fruit Co." "
Absolutely Great picture of Banana Republic elites here
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Guatemala elects anti-poverty candidate [and Mayan Priest!] By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 9 minutes ago
Alvaro Colom, a businessman promising to end Guatemala's desperate poverty, won the country's presidential election Sunday.
Colom beat retired Gen. Otto Perez Molina, who conceded defeat after results from 97 percent of the vote showed him trailing Colom by 6 percentage points in the two-man runoff.
"I am the nation's president elect," Colom, of the center-left National Unity of Hope Party, told cheering supporters.
Colom had nearly 53 percent of the vote, while Perez, of the conservative Patriotic Party, had 47, according to results published on Guatemala's Electoral Tribunal Web site.
Electoral officials had not declared an official winner late Sunday but Perez acknowledged that Colom's lead was insurmountable.
"We are going to be a constructive opposition," said Perez, who ran on a tough anti-crime platform. "We're willing to keep fighting the war against impunity, the war against corruption and against violence."
Calm prevailed during the vote, which was guarded by more than 30,000 police and soldiers, on alert after weeks of campaigning marred by violence. There were no reports of serious incidents Sunday, when about 47 percent of the 6 million registered voters went to the polls.
Security was a top issue among voters in Central America's most violent country, with more than 5,000 homicides per year.
Colom, a 56-year-old former vice economy secretary and ordained Mayan minister, promised jobs, a judicial overhaul and increased social spending in Guatemala, where more than half of the country's 13 million people live on less than $2 a day.
Colom said he would use his experience brokering a civil war peace pact to reduce crime.
Perez, also 56, held a slight lead in polls heading into the vote. He promised to institute the death penalty, hire more police and send soldiers into the streets to fight crime.
A former military intelligence director, he has been accused of overseeing massacres during Guatemala's 1960-96 civil war, which he denies.
In one gang infested Guatemala City neighborhood, soldiers carrying automatic weapons and police with shotguns guarded polls.
Ruben Cruz, 60, a studio photographer, said Guatemala must deal with gangs that extort money from businesses and residents. He said thugs come to his home every four months to collect what they call taxes.
"I voted for Colom because he offers jobs for a lot of people, but also to fight criminals," Cruz said.
But housewife Marta Bustamante, 40, praised Perez.
"I like the fact that he's an army officer and that he's strict," she said. "Here we need that. There are too many gangs."
Political violence made for a harrowing campaign, with more than 50 candidates, party activists and their family members killed. Last month, Perez's secretary and a presidential security guard were gunned down.
In the first round of voting in September, Perez and Colom finished far ahead of 12 other candidates, including Nobel winner and Mayan activist Rigoberta Menchu. Pre-election polls gave Perez a slight edge in Sunday's vote.
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1.Kyunghee,Kang
2."Tropical Storm Blamed for More Than 100 Deaths in Caribbean"
3. This fall, storms and floods have attacked many Latin American countries recently including Mexico. We studied that the range of the climate in the region is extensive and unpredictable. I wonder if these rainfall disasters are usual, as Asian countries get through it almost annually.
As many of Latin American states' industries are dependent on natural resource production, it seems that storm would have considerably affected their industries like, by destroying oil field or such.
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NASSAU, the Bahamas, Nov. 1 (AP) — Tropical Storm Noel drenched the Bahamas and Cuba on Thursday while rescue workers in the Dominican Republic headed out in boats and helicopters to reach dozens of communities isolated by floods and mudslides. The death toll in the Caribbean rose to 107.
The storm is the deadliest in the Atlantic region this year. Hurricane Felix, a Category 5 storm, killed 101 people when it lashed the Caribbean and the Nicaraguan and Honduran coasts in early September.
Rescuers in the Dominican Republic reached isolated communities for the first time in three days. Hundreds of volunteers joined Dominican civil defense forces to help stranded residents. Rescue teams left at dawn Thursday, many in boats lent by private owners.
“We will go to each point where there have been people affected who require the government’s help,” said Leonel Fernández, the Dominican president, “so that we can return to a normal situation in the shortest amount of time possible.”
The storm has left at least 66 people dead and 27 missing in the Dominican Republic, according to Gen. Ramón Rodríguez, the spokesman for the country’s National Emergency Commission. Some 52 towns and villages are still cut off.
More than 62,000 people have been displaced and more than 21,000 of them are in shelters.
The rain had eased off somewhat on Thursday and is expected to stop on Friday, which should help rescue efforts, General Rodríguez said.
More than three days of heavy rain caused an estimated $30 million in damages to Dominican rice, plantain and cacao plantations, according to the country’s economic secretary, Juan Temístocles Montás.
At least 40 people were reported to have died in Haiti, where the majority of bodies were found in and around the capital of Port-au-Prince. One person was killed in Jamaica.
In Cuba, muddy, rain-swollen waters overflowed a dam, washing into hundreds of homes and over highways, and knocking out electricity and telephone service. Dozens of small communities were cut off.
Cuban soldiers went door to door in low-lying areas and evacuated about 24,000 people, according to state radio and television reports. At least 2,000 homes were damaged by flood waters, but there was no official word of deaths.
The storm brought a record accumulation of 15 inches of rain to the Bahamas, said the prime minister, Hubert Ingraham. Flooding forced the evacuation of almost 400 people as the storm swirled toward the capital, Nassau. The majority of those forced to move were residents of the northeast Bahamian island of Abaco, Mr. Ingraham said.
Residents of Andros Island, one of the least developed in the Bahamas, hunkered down. “The walls were rattling, but we rode it out pretty well,” said Angela Newton, who was waiting Thursday for the power to come back on.
Nassau International Airport closed but was expected to reopen Friday. Only one of 10 cruise ships arrived on schedule.
Late Thursday afternoon, the storm’s center had edged away from Florida and was passing near Nassau. A tropical storm warning and watch for parts of southeastern Florida were canceled.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/02/world/americas/02noel.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/F/Floods
1. SuJung,Kim
2. Brazil announces new oil reserves
3. This week, we studied about oil in Latin America. And I found an article related to it. New oil reserves in Brazil! While reading this article, the most interest thing for me is scenario analysts said. They said it could give great influence on the U.S. since Brazil could became a new source of oil instead of Venezuela who has bad relationship with the U.S.
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The Brazilian government says huge new oil reserves discovered off its coast could turn the country into one of the biggest oil producers in the world.
Petrobras, Brazil's national oil company, says it believes the offshore Tupi field has between 5bn and 8bn barrels of recoverable light oil.
A senior minister said Brazilian oil production had the potential to match that of Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.
Petrobras delivered its estimate after analysing test results.
The state-controlled company says the results show high productivity for gas and light oil - the best quality oil - which is more valuable and cheaper to refine.
Petrobras says the find has the potential to move Brazil into a position where it is one of the top ten oil reserves in the world.
The news, which led to a sharp rise in company shares, was also given an enthusiastic welcome by the government.
The senior minister in charge of the cabinet, Dilma Rousseff, said if the deposits turned out to be as significant as first thought, it would place Brazil in the same league as Venezuela and countries in the Arab world.
With a reserve like this, the country could be transformed into an exporter of petroleum, she said.
Most of Brazil's oil is heavy and found at great depth but even so its reserves have almost doubled in the last ten years, as has output.
Some analysts say this latest find raises the interesting scenario of offering a new source of supply to the United States, reducing its dependence on Venezuela, a country with which it has such a fraught relationship.
With the Tupi field potentially equal to 40% of all oil ever discovered here, it seems by any standards a significant moment for Brazil.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7086264.stm
1. Mark Whitaker
2. Indigenous Socialism/Green Movements Popping Up Throughout Latin America, lots of examples
3. Historically, socialism has been mostly a secular movement, a continuation of European Enlightenment and celebration of that culture. However, indigenous movements in Latin American are increasingly framing this movement as their own, 'greening' it, and taking state power through elections.
My other post above was the "business leader/Mayan priest" elected to the Presidency in Guatemala after a 36 year civil war that led to about 20% of the population of the country to either leave it or around 100,000 to suffer death; we have Chavez (grandmother was indigenous), we have Ecuador's president (who speaks Quecha, the Incan state language), we have Evo Morales, an Amyara indigenous as President of Bolivia.
Evo Morales recently attended an "Encouter of Indigenous Peoples" with representatives of 30 different indigenous society/tribal groups, with hundres of others attending unofficially, and with hundreds more from international groups. It's a theme worth watching in Latin America.
Three posts are below. One from the UK-Guardian on the indigenous socialist movements, and two about Morales attending the indigenous conference.
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1.
Columbus toppled as indigenous people rise up after five centuries
Explorer's reputation is victim of region's pink tide of leftwing governments
Rory Carroll in Caracas and Lola Almudevar in Sucre
Friday October 12, 2007
The Guardian
Victorian illustration by T Sinclair idealising Christopher Columbus' arrival in the New World. Photograph: PoodlesRock/Corbis
He had been sailing west for five weeks and sensed he was close when at 2am on October 12, with nothing but stars and moon to illuminate the waves, it was spotted: a dark lump ahead. Land. Christopher Columbus had reached the New World.
At sunrise he took a small boat and armed men to shore and planted a royal standard. With a solemn oath he took possession of the territory for the king and queen of Spain. Natives emerged from the trees and watched from a distance, puzzled. It was 1492.
More than five centuries later the anniversary of that event resounds with an ominous clang. Millions of people in central and South America lament that encounter in the Bahamas as the beginning of their ancestors' annihilation.
The indigenous inhabitants lost everything to the invaders: gold, land, freedom, culture, until there was almost nothing left. Disease and slaughter wiped most of them out. "It was a calamity," said Mark Horton, an archaeologist and Columbus expert at the University of Bristol.
Now, however, a counter-attack is under way. After centuries as underdogs, indigenous people are rising up - peacefully - to seize political power and assert their heritage.
The so-called pink tide of leftwing governments has surged on the back of indigenous movements intent on dismantling the region's eurocentric legacy - starting with Columbus.
Across the Andes the explorer once feted as a hero by the Europeanised elite is having his story rewritten, his statue toppled and his name turned to mud. Leading the assault is Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez.
"They taught us to admire Christopher Columbus," he said during a recent televised address, his tone incredulous, while flicking through a 1970s school textbook. "In Europe they still speak of the 'discovery' of America and want us to celebrate the day."
Instead Mr Chávez has renamed October 12 "indigenous resistance day" and mounted a campaign against colonial residue. Textbooks are to be revised under a curriculum that will stress the opposition to Spanish conquest as doomed but heroic.
This week the president, who boasts of having an indigenous grandmother, renamed the cable car system which soars over Caracas, the capital, as Warairarepano, which means big mountain in an indigenous coastal tongue.
"For Chávez this is a natural cause because of his philosophy about the mistreatment of the downtrodden and the need for redress," said Larry Birns, of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs thinktank.
City authorities confirmed this week that a bronze Columbus statue which activists toppled from a Caracas plaza three years ago will remain under wraps. Repairs were almost complete but it would not return to its plinth because the site had been renamed: Avenue Columbus is now Avenue Indigenous Resistance. The statue is expected to go to a museum.
In contrast, a statue of María Lionza, a legendary indigenous queen who is the subject of a thriving cult, has been prominently restored. Last night thousands of devotees made their way to the holy mountain of Sorte for an annual festival which honours her and an indigenous chief and black slave killed by the Spanish.
Rehabilitated
Scholars tend to assign Columbus a walk-on part in history as the one who opened the New World door but had little role in the bloody aftermath. "He was part of a process that was inevitable, of Europe coming into contact with the wider world," said Dr Horton. "It's mistaken to see him as a totem of the bad guys. He actually wasn't too bad."
It has been a rollercoaster reputation. A dispute with Spain's king and queen landed Columbus in chains and disgrace. The Victorians rehabilitated him as an inspiration for their own explorers, a valiant image which largely endures in the west. Spain hopes DNA analysis will prove he came from Castille, while Italy hopes to confirm he was Genoese.
The 500th anniversary in 1992 prompted debate in the US about whether he should be recast as a villain but the controversy petered out, leaving the navigator a bruised but still revered figure. US schoolchildren get the day off on what remains Columbus Day.
In South America, however, radical leftwing governments in Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela are busy overturning what they see as his legacy: centuries of domination by Spaniards and their descendants, pale-skinned elites who continued oppressing darker compatriots even after the continent gained independence.
"Even now they conceive us as animals, as dogs. That has got to change, which is what we are fighting for - to be recognised as equal citizens with equal rights," said Wilber Flores, a congressman and president of Bolivia's indigenous parliament.
In Venezuela Mr Chávez enshrined indigenous rights in a new constitution and made the country's 35 tribes visible through state-funded TV stations which broadcast from regions barely known to city-dwellers.
In Ecuador President Rafael Correa, who often wears traditional dress and speaks in Quechua, has rallied indigenous voters behind his effort to "reinvent" the country along socialist lines.
President Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian and Bolivia's first indigenous leader, has also fused indigenous rights with a socialist agenda hostile to Washington. He regards the US as the latest manifestation of a predatory colonialism that started in 1492. Last month it voted against a United Nations declaration on indigenous rights.
Rapacious
Mr Morales has accused the US of raiding Bolivia's natural resources and persecuting coca farmers as cocaine producers when in fact they are cultivating a plant that has had other, innocent, uses since the Incas.
He will mark the anniversary of Columbus's landing with a visit to the coca growing region of Chapare, which is playing host to a summit of indigenous people from across Latin America.
In an interview with the Guardian the Bolivian leader suggested the rapacious intruders who crossed an ocean thirsting for riches, and those who later invented capitalism, should have been studying, not conquering, the natives.
"Indigenous communities know how to live in harmony with mother earth and that is the difference between us and Europe and the United States."
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,,2189422,00.html
2.
Bolivia: Indigenous for Planetary Safety
La Paz, Oct 13(Prensa Latina) Representatives of indigenous communities from the five continents return to their countries Saturday, after having participated at the "Encounter for World Indigenous People's Historic Victory" here, which called to save the planet from environmental damage.
At the closing of the meeting, attended by Bolivian President Evo Morales, and 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner Guatemalan Rigoberta Menchu, the indigenous leaders presented a 14-point declaration for the preservation of nature and peace, among other issues.
The text, read during a popular congregation in the central locality of Chimore, highlights the UN approval of the Declaration on the Indigenous Peoples Rights on September 13.
According to the document, indigenous people will urge their respective States to build a world based on culture, identity, philosophy, cosmovision, and spirituality of their communities.
They also called for national and international efforts to save Mother Nature from disasters caused by decaying capitalism.
In addition, the indigenous movements reiterated their willingness to carry out a new international campaign supporting Bolivian President Evo Morales' candidature for the Nobel Peace Prize.
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http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7BB0D0D56C-DA7D-4296-97B0-CE9120B85ADF%7D)&language=EN
3.
Evo Morales Condemns US Interference
BY Charly Morales Valido
COCHABAMBA, Bolivia.— Bolivian President Evo Morales lashed out at US interference in his country’s domestic affairs including so-called cooperation aimed at sponsoring groups that are against the current process of change taking place in Bolivia.
During the closing of the Encounter for the World Indigenous Peoples’ Historic Victory, President Morales made reference to recent investigations that revealed the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is providing funding to neoliberal political parties in Bolivia.
Speaking to an audience of thousands of farmers and indigenous people who had gathered in Cochabamba, the Bolivian leader also criticized the Bush administration for the continuous bad treatment received by Bolivian officials when traveling to the United States.
“Our development does not depend on the United States,” said Morales who contrasted US “cooperation” with the disinterested collaboration of other countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina and China.
Among the proposals put forward by the forum was the need to listen to the “indigenous cultures of peace and life” as the only alternatives for preserving nature, declaring October 12 as the “Beginning day for the struggle to save planet earth” and the announcement of the Fourth Continental Summit to be held in 2008 on the borders of Bolivia and Chile. (PL)
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http://www.periodico26.cu/english/news_world/evo101307.htm
1. Heaeum Cho
2. "Students take reins of anti-Chavez protests"
3. Keeping up with the escalating protest in Venezuela, I found this article to remind me of what South Korea went through in the 70s and 80s. Student demonstrations were perceived as a threat to the regime at the time and were cracked down on relentlessly. Similar events have been happening in Venezuela and Chavez's vague dismissal of the mobilized students who want a say in the democratic system has gotten me somewhat disappointed in his character more as a person than as a president of a country. Inclusion of minority voices is a crucial part of a healthy democracy yet quickly labelling students as being supported by the U.S. and also a miniature version of the opposition parties leaves more exasperation than answers at the end of the day.
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CARACAS: Finding Yon Goicoechea, a leader of the nascent student movement protesting the expanding power of President Hugo Chávez, is not easy.
He changes cellphones every few days. After receiving dozens of death threats, he moves among the apartments of friends here each day in search of a safe place to sleep.
In an interview this week in a backroom at one such residence with a striking view of the Venezuelan capital's Ávila mountain, Goicoechea explained the goals of a movement that has surprisingly supplanted traditional political parties in recent weeks as the most cohesive and nationally respected challenger to Chávez's government.
"We believe in exhausting the democratic options available to us through peaceful action," said Goicoechea, 23, who studies law at Andrés Bello University here, referring to the movement's opposition to a constitutional overhaul. In the polarized world of Venezuelan political debate, such pausing and polished statements are rare.
But what about the claims, from Chávez himself and on downward through the ranks of his loyalists, that the students ultimately want to oust him from office?
"We want social transformation, not a coup," Goicoechea said. "The real coup d'état is coming from Chávez, who wants to perpetuate himself in power."
The students first burst on to the scene this summer with protests against Chávez's move to push RCTV, a critical television network, off public airwaves. But the president's proposed charter, which would abolish his term limits, has led to much larger protests here and in other large cities this month.
About 80,000 students flooded main avenues in Caracas on Wednesday in a march to the Supreme Court to ask it to suspend the referendum on 69 constitutional amendments, scheduled for Dec. 2. Students returning from that march were attacked by gunmen at the campus of the Central University of Venezuela, with nine wounded in the melee.
Chávez has refrained from condemning that violence, opening his government to claims that pro-Chávez armed groups are being allowed to operate unfettered to respond to the growing student movement. Speaking Friday at a summit of Latin American leaders in Chile, Chávez called the student protests a "fascist attack."
In other statements about the students, the president has gone even further, accusing them of conspiring to carry out a "soft coup" supported by the United States and inspired by groups like the Albert Einstein Institution, a nonprofit organization in Massachusetts that advocates nonviolent struggle.
American involvement in Venezuelan affairs remains an extremely sensitive subject here, following the Bush administration's tacit support for the brief coup that removed Chávez from office in 2002. Chávez has also criticized the United States for channeling money to nongovernmental groups that are critical of him.
Hewing to a new policy trying to avoid verbal clashes with Chávez, U.S. officials here carefully denied supporting the students.
"The United States government has no role in the student demonstrations," said Benjamin Ziff, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Caracas.
But part of Chávez's assertions, that the students draw inspiration from nonviolent movements that have toppled governments elsewhere, is not entirely off the mark. In the interview, Goicoechea said he was fascinated with the Serbian opposition's toppling of Slobodan Milosevic and Gandhi's struggle against British colonialism.
The movement led by Goicoechea and handful of others in their 20s has evolved since June, when protestors painted their palms white and inserted flowers in the rifles of security forces. Since then, they have efficiently coordinated protests around the country with a tone of increasing defiance, though while largely shunning violent actions.
"The student leaders now have more credibility among people in the street than any leader of the opposition parties," said Alberto Garrido, a political analyst.
That strength has been gathering in the face of persistent efforts by Chávez to discredit the movement, describing the students as "daddy's boys" and "rich bourgeois brats." Still, the unusual inclusiveness of Venezuela's public higher education system, which draws students from a variety of class backgrounds, has made it difficult for the government to play class politics in this sphere.
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http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/09/america/venez.php
1. Euna Lee
2. Cuba: Fair System for Social Unity
3. I got this article from a Latin American news portal site called "Prensa Latina," although I don't know how reliable this news source is, it was good to read articles written from a local perspective.
This article is basically a summary of Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage's opening speech at the 17th Ibero-American Summit. The article merely reiterates what Large had to say. It is plain to see that the tone of his voice is loaded with antagonism against the US, which was not surprising.
Though what Lage is opting for seems reasonable, and even favorable--such as equality, dignity, and fairness, it is questionable whether anyone or any government so tilted toward a certain belief and so antagonistic toward another could acheive such characteristics which require balance and openness.
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Santiago, Chile, Nov 9 (Prensa Latina) Speaking at the opening of the 17th Ibero-American Summit Friday, Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage said social cohesion will never be achieved by the supposed goodness of the market, but through a system of fairness and equality.
A fair and democratic international political and economic order is essential to reach social cohesion and we must be willing to face up to national selfish and violent oligarchies and the current US administration"s criminal policy, he told the 22 presidents.
Lage insisted "they would do anything to prevent us from achieving social justice, or even more social unity, because it would affect their historic privileges." He also held that neither will there be social cohesion if "the nations that are developed with our resources and by the sweat and blood of our peoples behave selfishly and irresponsibly, or try to seduce us with demagogic aid." The same would happen "if the central banks are under the orders of the International Monetary Fund and a questioned consensus reached in Washington, and they ignore the needs of their peoples." Neither will it be reached, nor it will not make sense to seek social cohesion, if we are not able to save the existence of our species, he said.
He then asked who would be able to deny the main responsibility and harmful influence of the US government in these circumstances.
After stressing that "nothing would be given to us," the head of the Cuban delegation emphasized the right of all human beings to health, education and work.
Referring to Cuba, he said "despite invasions, terrorist acts, economic war and huge monetary efforts to organize an internal counterrevolution, social cohesion - a direct result of Fidel Castro"s historic work - is Cubans" pride." It is also an achievement that cannot be waived, and has solid pillars, said the Cuban vice president, who contributed figures and indicators illustrating progress in Cuba in several social spheres.
He also highlighted that there is no possible freedom without culture; no one has more right to live than others and, in a society that is considered fair, no human being should be left out.
In the austere living conditions of our people, amid the most prolonged blockade in the history of humankind, we are struggling and will defend Cubans" unity and dignity, Lage concluded.
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http://www.plenglish.com/print.asp?ID={DA2E8735-C88E-4EB3-95DC-DF25EA8A665E})&language=EN&user=guest
1. Hyunji Ju
2. Venezuela's gas prices remain low, but the political costs may be rising
3. Venezuela is dealing with a severe economic polarization problems. And Chavez, is the one who talks about overcoming their poorness all the time. So, this is quite odd that he does not try to solve this kind of oil problem. Hummer? That is a monster and it requires so much gas!
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By Simon Romero
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
CARACAS, Venezuela: In a country moving toward socialism, the beneficiaries of government largess here are still people like Nicolás Taurisano, a businessman who dabbles in real estate and machinery imports. He is the proud owner of a Hummer.
Motorists in the United States smarting from rising gasoline prices, take note: Taurisano pays the equivalent of $1.50 to fill his Hummer's tank. Thanks to a decades-old subsidy that has proven devilishly complex to undo, gasoline in Venezuela costs about 7 cents a gallon.
"It is one clear benefit to living in an otherwise challenging country," said Taurisano, 34, who also owns a BMW, a Mercedes-Benz, a Ferrari and a Porsche.
Many Venezuelans consider the subsidy a birthright even though it bypasses the poor, who rely on relatively expensive and often dangerous public transportation. Economists estimate that it costs the government of President Hugo Chávez more than $9 billion a year.
Critics of Chávez, and the president himself, agree that the subsidy is a threat to his project to transform Venezuela into a socialist society, draining huge amounts of money from the national oil company's sales each year that could be used for his social welfare programs.
Gasoline prices have often been a taboo subject for Venezuelan governments. There are memories of the riots in 1989, in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people died after protests set off by an increase in gasoline prices that resulted in higher transportation costs. That instability helped set in motion a failed coup attempt by Chávez in 1992, which first thrust him into the public eye.
After his re-election to a six-year term last December, when his political capital was abundant, Chávez called the gasoline prices "disgusting" and said his government was planning to raise them with a measure "financed by those who own a BMW or a tremendous four-wheel drive." But he turned his attention to other matters, avoiding the touchy subject.
The link between social peace and gasoline so cheap it is almost given away is evident to many motorists. "If you raise gasoline, the people revolt," said Janeth Lara, 40, an administrator at the Caracas Stock Exchange, as she waited for an attendant to fill the tank of her Jeep Grand Cherokee at a gas station here on a recent day. "It is the only cheap thing."
During an oil boom that is lifting the incomes of both rich and poor, Venezuela is grappling with Latin America's highest inflation rate, about 16 percent. The local currency, the bolívar, has plunged almost 50 percent in unregulated trading this year, reaching a record low of about 6,000 to the dollar in October (the official rate is fixed at 2,150 to the dollar.) Gasoline is one of the few products subject to price controls here that is in relatively ample supply. Newspapers have been filled recently with tales of consumers struggling to find milk. Last month, eggs were scarce.
Economic uncertainty makes it harder to tinker with fuel prices because a small increase could cascade. There could be an impact on the poor, with higher costs for food and other goods for which transportation costs are important, said Francisco Rodríguez, a former chief economist at the National Assembly.
One option is to keep the price of diesel cheap, because it is used in most freight and public transportation, while raising gasoline prices for relatively prosperous car owners. Another idea is to give transportation vouchers to people in poor neighborhoods.
"We are gradually moving toward an economic storm because of our addiction to cheap fuel," said Orlando Ochoa, an economist at Andrés Bello University in Caracas.
Scholars trace the origins of Venezuela's subsidy to the 1940s, when leftists imposed caps on gasoline prices after overthrowing the government of General Isaías Medina Angarita. Because profits on sales of gasoline went to foreign oil companies at the time, the measure was seen as a way of redistributing oil revenues to Venezuelans.
Leaders were forced to raise prices in the 1980s and '90s in the midst of financial distress. But Chávez has been hesitant to raise gasoline prices since his presidency began almost nine years ago.
Venezuela is not alone among oil-rich countries grappling with subsidized gasoline. Iran, a close ally, was shaken by unrest in June when its government rationed gasoline, which cost 34 cents a gallon at the time. But a thriving car-buying habit rivaled by few nations is forcing the government here to sell greater amounts of cheap gasoline.
Vehicle sales in Venezuela climbed 49 percent in the first nine months of the year from the same period last year, in part because cars are seen here as an investing hedge against economic uncertainty. Not only has the bolívar dropped in value, but there is also concern over real estate as squatters are allowed to take control of vacant properties.
Fuel smuggling into neighboring Colombia, where prices are much higher, is also rife. Domestic fuel consumption is up 56 percent in the past five years, to 780,000 barrels a day, said Ramón Espinasa, a former chief economist at Petróleos de Venezuela, the national oil company. One-third of oil production now goes to meet the subsidy, he said.
Petróleos de Venezuela has disputed such estimates but recently stopped providing public figures on domestic fuel sales. A spokesman at the company said officials were not available to comment on the matter.
Despite government efforts to open the market to car manufacturers from Iran and China, bulky, gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles from the United States remain among the most sought-after automobiles here.
Perhaps the most coveted SUV of all in Venezuela is the Hummer, an ethical quandary for Chávez.
"What kind of a revolution is this?" the president said on his television show this month, after a report here that General Motors was planning to import 3,000 Hummers to meet a rising demand. "One of Hummers?"
"No," he said with the angry tone of a schoolmaster, answering his own question while announcing a measure that makes it more expensive to import Hummers and other luxury items like whiskey. "This is a revolution of truth."
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http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/30/america/30venezuela.php?page=1
1. Hyunji Ju
2. Venezuela's gas prices remain low, but the political costs may be rising
3. Venezuela is dealing with a severe economic polarization problems. And Chavez, is the one who talks about overcoming their poorness all the time. So, this is quite odd that he does not try to solve this kind of oil problem. Hummer? That is a monster and it requires so much gas!
--------------------------
By Simon Romero
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
CARACAS, Venezuela: In a country moving toward socialism, the beneficiaries of government largess here are still people like Nicolás Taurisano, a businessman who dabbles in real estate and machinery imports. He is the proud owner of a Hummer.
Motorists in the United States smarting from rising gasoline prices, take note: Taurisano pays the equivalent of $1.50 to fill his Hummer's tank. Thanks to a decades-old subsidy that has proven devilishly complex to undo, gasoline in Venezuela costs about 7 cents a gallon.
"It is one clear benefit to living in an otherwise challenging country," said Taurisano, 34, who also owns a BMW, a Mercedes-Benz, a Ferrari and a Porsche.
Many Venezuelans consider the subsidy a birthright even though it bypasses the poor, who rely on relatively expensive and often dangerous public transportation. Economists estimate that it costs the government of President Hugo Chávez more than $9 billion a year.
Critics of Chávez, and the president himself, agree that the subsidy is a threat to his project to transform Venezuela into a socialist society, draining huge amounts of money from the national oil company's sales each year that could be used for his social welfare programs.
Gasoline prices have often been a taboo subject for Venezuelan governments. There are memories of the riots in 1989, in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people died after protests set off by an increase in gasoline prices that resulted in higher transportation costs. That instability helped set in motion a failed coup attempt by Chávez in 1992, which first thrust him into the public eye.
After his re-election to a six-year term last December, when his political capital was abundant, Chávez called the gasoline prices "disgusting" and said his government was planning to raise them with a measure "financed by those who own a BMW or a tremendous four-wheel drive." But he turned his attention to other matters, avoiding the touchy subject.
The link between social peace and gasoline so cheap it is almost given away is evident to many motorists. "If you raise gasoline, the people revolt," said Janeth Lara, 40, an administrator at the Caracas Stock Exchange, as she waited for an attendant to fill the tank of her Jeep Grand Cherokee at a gas station here on a recent day. "It is the only cheap thing."
During an oil boom that is lifting the incomes of both rich and poor, Venezuela is grappling with Latin America's highest inflation rate, about 16 percent. The local currency, the bolívar, has plunged almost 50 percent in unregulated trading this year, reaching a record low of about 6,000 to the dollar in October (the official rate is fixed at 2,150 to the dollar.) Gasoline is one of the few products subject to price controls here that is in relatively ample supply. Newspapers have been filled recently with tales of consumers struggling to find milk. Last month, eggs were scarce.
Economic uncertainty makes it harder to tinker with fuel prices because a small increase could cascade. There could be an impact on the poor, with higher costs for food and other goods for which transportation costs are important, said Francisco Rodríguez, a former chief economist at the National Assembly.
One option is to keep the price of diesel cheap, because it is used in most freight and public transportation, while raising gasoline prices for relatively prosperous car owners. Another idea is to give transportation vouchers to people in poor neighborhoods.
"We are gradually moving toward an economic storm because of our addiction to cheap fuel," said Orlando Ochoa, an economist at Andrés Bello University in Caracas.
Scholars trace the origins of Venezuela's subsidy to the 1940s, when leftists imposed caps on gasoline prices after overthrowing the government of General Isaías Medina Angarita. Because profits on sales of gasoline went to foreign oil companies at the time, the measure was seen as a way of redistributing oil revenues to Venezuelans.
Leaders were forced to raise prices in the 1980s and '90s in the midst of financial distress. But Chávez has been hesitant to raise gasoline prices since his presidency began almost nine years ago.
Venezuela is not alone among oil-rich countries grappling with subsidized gasoline. Iran, a close ally, was shaken by unrest in June when its government rationed gasoline, which cost 34 cents a gallon at the time. But a thriving car-buying habit rivaled by few nations is forcing the government here to sell greater amounts of cheap gasoline.
Vehicle sales in Venezuela climbed 49 percent in the first nine months of the year from the same period last year, in part because cars are seen here as an investing hedge against economic uncertainty. Not only has the bolívar dropped in value, but there is also concern over real estate as squatters are allowed to take control of vacant properties.
Fuel smuggling into neighboring Colombia, where prices are much higher, is also rife. Domestic fuel consumption is up 56 percent in the past five years, to 780,000 barrels a day, said Ramón Espinasa, a former chief economist at Petróleos de Venezuela, the national oil company. One-third of oil production now goes to meet the subsidy, he said.
Petróleos de Venezuela has disputed such estimates but recently stopped providing public figures on domestic fuel sales. A spokesman at the company said officials were not available to comment on the matter.
Despite government efforts to open the market to car manufacturers from Iran and China, bulky, gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles from the United States remain among the most sought-after automobiles here.
Perhaps the most coveted SUV of all in Venezuela is the Hummer, an ethical quandary for Chávez.
"What kind of a revolution is this?" the president said on his television show this month, after a report here that General Motors was planning to import 3,000 Hummers to meet a rising demand. "One of Hummers?"
"No," he said with the angry tone of a schoolmaster, answering his own question while announcing a measure that makes it more expensive to import Hummers and other luxury items like whiskey. "This is a revolution of truth."
------
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/30/america/30venezuela.php?page=1
Yong Mie Jo
Shut up, Spain king tells Chavez
This maybe seen only as a scandalous incident for morning gossip, however no matter how ridiculous such emotional outburst of Chavez at a global summit seems, this seemed to be yet another display of diplomatic and political confrontation of Chavez against all US allies.
Speaking in terms of political strategy wise, I wonder whether Chavez’s grand plan to build a Latin American army against US and their neo-liberal ideology as he states it. Although Chavez has been surviving pretty successfully (?), pressuring the US while collaborating inner bonds among Latin American nations, as the world economy is immensely connected and linked under the overpowering roof of US it is likely to become increasingly difficult for Chavez to play on an even field going against US. Not to mention that most of the players playing under the roof are either close partners or prays of US government.
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Spain's King Juan Carlos told Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez to "shut up" as the Ibero-American summit drew to a close in Santiago, Chile.
The outburst came after Mr Chavez called former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar a "fascist".
Mr Chavez then interrupted Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's calls for him to be more diplomatic, prompting the king's outburst.
Latin American, Portuguese, Spanish and Andorran leaders were meeting in Chile.
'Democratically elected'
Mr Chavez called Mr Aznar, a close
ally of US President George W Bush, a fascist, adding "fascists are not human. A snake is more human."
Mr Zapatero said: "Former President Aznar was democratically elected by the Spanish people and was a legitimate representative of the Spanish people."
Mr Chavez repeatedly tried to interrupt, despite his microphone being turned off. The king leaned forward and said: "Why don't you shut up?"
According to reports, the king used a familiar term normally used only for close acquaintances - or children.
Later, Mr Chavez responded to the king's rebuke.
According to the Associated Press news agency, he said: "I do not offend by telling the truth. The Venezuelan government reserves the right to respond to any aggression, anywhere, in any space and in any manner."
The theme of this year's 22-nation summit was "social cohesion".
Earlier, a row between neighbours Argentina and Uruguay threatened to overshadow the summit.
The long-running dispute erupted anew after Uruguay gave an operating permit to a paper mill despite unresolved environmental objections by Argentina.
On Saturday, scores of Argentine protesters staged a peaceful protest against the setting up of the plant, which they fear could contaminate their crops. Some of the marchers carried banners reading "No to the paper plant!". Police stopped them from marching across a bridge into Uruguay.
'Stabbed in the back'
Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez granted a long-awaited start-up permit to the mill on Thursday - hours after giving a conciliatory speech at the summit, which he ended by hugging outgoing Argentine President Nestor Kirchner.
On Friday, Uruguay announced it had closed its border crossing with Argentina closest to the mill in Fray Bentos. The moves led to protests from the Argentine delegation in the Chilean capital, with Mr Kirchner blaming Mr Vazquez for putting an end to efforts by King Juan Carlos to mediate a resolution to the dispute.
"You have stabbed the Argentine people in the back," Mr Kirchner told his counterpart according to the official Argentine news agency Telam.
This is the latest instalment of a two-year row.
The Finnish owners of the pulp mill - the biggest foreign investment in Uruguay - insist it employs the latest technology and will not pollute. But Argentina disagrees and has taken the case to the International Court in The Hague, whose ruling is pending.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7089131.stm
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