World corporate imperialism cannot offer any lasting solution to the current crisis without annihilating itself

VHeadline commentarist, University of Los Andes political sciences professor, Dr. Franz J. T. Lee writes: Economic recession, not only threw Iceland into the throes of bankruptcy, political protests against the social crisis, now even are toppling its government. Obviously, because of structural recession, elsewhere this type of economic collapse will continue.

Will Ukraine be next? And finally, who?

According to various international press agencies, currently Carterpillar, Philips, Pfizer, Microsoft and other transnational corporations are beginning to launch massive ill-fated, gigantic, global layoffs, a disastrous shock wave for the international working classes. The capitalist owners and managers of these giant corporations are not concerned about the cost of living of hundred thousands of their wage slaves, about the lost or dwindling salaries which fling whole lower social classes into adverse poverty and dire misery.

These finance moguls are just worried about the deceleration of the accumulation of capital and profits on a world scale, stagnation of economic growth ... that is, of the merciless economic exploitation of nature and society ... which directly produces recession, depression, bankruptcy, falling rates of profits, merging, concentration, brutal genocide, labor uprisings and mass protests; in short, social, political and economic class struggles and world wars.

At the moment the metropolitan working and middle classes are feeling the brunt of world recession, of layoffs. Some individual members of the capitalist classes are becoming paupers overnight; at last, they could also enjoy bourgeois 'democracy', however, instead of experiencing labor hell on earth, by joining the starving armies of billions of 'wretched of the earth', they rather prefer to commit suicide.

Let us just mention a few examples of the economic attacks on the global working classes.

In Europe, what happened to Philips in the electrical industry? Its current account showed that it lost 1,500 million euros ($1,900 million); since 2003, this did not occur in any quarter of a year. What was the immediate reaction, to save capital and costs? 6,000 jobs were eliminated. For similar reasons, ING, also in the electrical industry, and the steel maker Corus followed suit. The former sacked 7,000 of its 130,000 workers; the latter plans to eliminate 3,500 globally, including 2,500 in Britain alone.

In the USA, the same is happening.

• Alone this week major US corporations sacked approximately 75,000 workers nationally and internationally.

This year Corning Inc. which produces fiber-optic equipment will cut 3,500 jobs, abut 13 percent of its total labor force. In the field of construction Caterpillar sacked 20,000 workers; Pfizer is absorbing its rival Wyeth, but it already announces that by 2011, 10 percent of its current labor force will be eliminated .

The rearrangement plan of Sprint Nextel eventually will cost 8,000 workers their jobs, their means of existence.

Among many others, Label maker Avery Dennison Corp., IBM, oil company Baker Hughes, Discount retailer Target Corp., Electronics retailer Best Buy and coffee giant Starbucks, all announced that they will lay off thousands of workers in the immediate future.

Similarly, the other big construction firm Home Depot will sack 7,000 of its employees by March 2009. General Motors still in a technical 'strike' also plans to get rid of 2,000 workers; even Microsoft and Harley-Davidson will sack thousands of laborers within the next months.

US President Barack Obama, more precisely, the Democratic Party can not and will not offer any viable solution to the current recession. Its $825 billion stimulus package will only serve the economic class needs and interests of the United States financial elites.

In fact, according to Robert Stevens, also the Fed cannot stop the fast economic deterioration: "Under the guise of freeing up credit for businesses and consumers, the Fed has already unilaterally committed hundreds of billions of dollars through various programs, surpassing the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) approved by Congress last year. "

Pertaining to this imperialist disaster, let us recollect some pertinent issues. After the real estate fiasco and the debacle of trillions worth of global financial speculation that hit some upper and middle classes very sensitively, now un- and sub-employment, wage slashes, layoffs, cuts of social benefits and severe supression, oppression, repression, depression and recession will now also shake the very foundations, the very existence of the global workers; if this would not wake up the metropolitan wage slaves en masse, well, then the road will be free towards Orwellian global fascism, towards inhuman barbarism.

World corporate imperialism cannot offer any real, true, lasting solution to the current global crisis without annihilating itself.

Capitalism has survived quite a few structural recessions and depressions, could adapt itself again at a cost of colossal destruction of infrastructures, capital and human lives. In mesocosm, in the past, in quantitative geographic expansion, in imperialist conquest, that is, in ransacking and plundering the whole planet, this was still possible, however, now, in its qualitative realization, in the globalization of its French Revolution (and of its Industrial Revolution), capitalism is confronting its alpha and omega.

In the last economic analysis, in micro- and macrocosm are nothing to exploit, to convert into exchange values, capital and profits; only exploited physical human labor force produces surplus value. Intellectual 'labor' or 'property' belong to another genre of galactic transcendence. In a dangerous world, the latter is a realm where without any fear and illusions only some human creators and emancipators dare to tread. However, definitely, it is also a domain that is already being abused desperately by nanotechnology, 'life sciences', cloning, genetic engineering, space colonization and militarization, by imperialism to produce mortal, lethal and fatal weapons of mass destruction.

Progressively, as it is nearing its universal, finite end, our world order, our mode of production inexorably is converting itself into a mode of self-destruction.

Just look around, this has nothing to do with 'end times'; it is very simple, if we do not stop the ominous voyage of this Titanic here and now, then soon natural and social life on planet earth will become Lilliputian, will fade away into stark, dark oblivion.

Franz J. T. Lee
franz@vheadline.com

After 10 years as president, Hugo Chavez has polarized Venezuela, but inspired its poor...

Christian Science Monitor (Sara Miller Llana): Jose Luis Ramirez dropped out of school at age 13 and spent most of his life doing odd jobs. The father of six had little time to think beyond how to make ends meet. But after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was elected and began a series of social programs called "missions," Mr. Ramirez' life changed. He joined a literacy program and later one on television training. Today, he's not only a TV producer, but trains others and sets up everything from street cleaning to fundraising dinners. "I'm considered a community leader," says Ramirez, almost surprising himself.

• Ramirez has come of age alongside the presidency of Mr. Chavez, and he is not alone.

This week marks 10 years since Chavez was inaugurated. His decade in power has been a controversial one. To his harshest critics, he is squandering the nation's oil wealth, lavishing it on programs to boost his popularity and on allies abroad while crime and inflation remain rampant and unattended. To his supporters -- and there are many -- he's the first modern president to care about the poor and offer leadership in a region that has long been overshadowed by US foreign policy. Love him or hate him, many residents, analysts, and politicians say his most lasting legacy will be a sense of participation that has bloomed here -- socially and politically -- and that has been embraced on both ends of the political spectrum.

"In these 10 years, there is something that Hugo Chavez can take credit for, and that is the social question," says Teodoro Petkoff, a newspaper editor and leading Chavez critic. "The fight against poverty is now on the agenda of every sector."

A polarizing figure

When Chavez was elected in 1998, the national mood was one of exasperation: citizens, rich and poor, were sick of political leaders they considered corrupt and uncaring. But polarization, which has always been part of Venezuelan society, has only grown more intense under Chavez. He dismisses his opponents as the "oligarchy," while his opposition gives him little credit, if any at all, for what he's done well.

Chavez' popularity has remained steady in the past decade, starting with massive support after a coup attempt in 2002. Later in 2006, he swept presidential elections. His administration claims that today's Venezuela is democracy at work: they say of 14 various types of referenda and elections in 10 years, he or his party have won 12. But his critics claim it's all an attempt to consolidate power.

Venezuelans rose up in 2007 in protest against his decision not to renew a broadcasting license for a private television station critical of the government. Later that year, they claimed that a constitutional reform attempt, which included a measure to allow the indefinite reelection of heads of state, was another ploy. In his 10 years in power, Chavez has also risen as the US' most uncensored critic: calling former President Bush everything from a donkey to the devil. He has reached out to other US critics in an effort to create a "multipolar" world, sending subsidized oil and funding infrastructure projects across the region.

An actor on the world stage

Even his supporters have complained that as he presides over the world stage he is ignoring the day-to-day issues that affect most Venezuelans, like muggings and the price of milk. Still, they say, he has done more for the poor than any president that many can remember.

Take El Valle, a hillside slum on the edge of Caracas, for example. Over the past few years it has bustled with social programs: Cuban doctors manning a health clinic, soup kitchens providing stew for the neediest residents, supermarkets with rice at subsidized prices. According to government figures, extreme poverty dropped from 16.9 to 7.9 percent between 2000 and 2007. The opposition disputes these numbers, arguing that the government's methods for measuring poverty do not meet international standards.

Where has Chavez taken Venezuela?

Adventure playground: The heart of Venezuela

Hermione Eyre wanted to get away from it all in the wilds of Venezuela. But even in the jungle, she couldn't escape the President's beaming smile

The Independent-UK (Hermione Eyre): My new prized possession is a blowpipe, intricately handwoven, unassuming and deadly. A few weeks ago a man sold it to me on the banks of the Carrao river in the tangled green heart of Vene-zuela where these pipes are still used for hunting. This isn't a line put out for tourists: I know the indigenous Pemon people in Auyantepui really do use blowpipes because, wandering off the jungle path one day I found a sort of lean, mean cocktail stick lodged in the soil. What was it? A blow dart that had missed its prey. A sight unchanged these 4,000 years. Such things you see on an Explore trip to the interior of Venezuela.

I saw a sleepy sloth sunbathing. I saw holy mountains wreathed in mist. I didn't see a proper hot shower for 14 days, but I did walk behind the Salto el Sapo waterfall, where the torrent made it dark as twilight. I saw a Pemon woman cooking with termites. "They taste," said our guide, "like electricity." It was an intense two-week group voyage through four terrains – delta, jungle, savannah and mountain.

We were in Hugo Chavez' heartlands, and he was everywhere, plump and paternal,
beaming from posters in the poorest homes; from roadside walls, next to
well-tended Catholic shrines; from election billboards, eyes scrubbed out and
splashed with red, hostile paint. Ten years in power (and seeking a mandate
for 13 more), President Chavez is loved and hated with equal ferocity.

Travelling there you constantly feel the impact of his radical political personality. Don't cash your dollars for bolivars at the airport: Chavez has fixed the official exchange rate so low that everyone uses the tacitly tolerated black market. Don't order a beer: Chavez has decreed the whole country must be dry for the weekend of the elections. Do sit up straight: the Chavista guard with the red beret and the machine gun wants to see your passport, now!

No wonder everyone disagrees about him – even our two Explore tour guides, who made a handy dialectic. Douglas, a Brit based in Venezuela since the 1980s, believed Chavez was ruining the country. "In a few months there will be food rationing, just you wait." But our other guide, Hanneke, a Venezuelan of Dutch descent, was a loyalist. "He's the only hope for this country's dispossessed. He should stay in till 2021, definitely."

It was certainly nicer believing her view of things. On landing, our group of 16 was met by Douglas. "Welcome to Caracas where the murder rate is about 50 every weekend." Our jet-lagged faces fell a little as we looked out of the minibus window across the deadlocked traffic. Cable car pylons stretched across the slums, unfinished. "Erm, would we be a target? Being tourists?" stammered one of our number, an American. "In Caracas, everyone is a target," said Douglas darkly.

Willingly, then, we left early the next morning, flying over the Caribbean sea via Maturin, to the little river port of Volcan, where we boarded motorised canoes and sped for seven hours down the Orinoco to its delta. It was some journey: we were sun-baked at first, then rain-sodden, breeze-whipped and, finally, night-blinded, so that when we arrived after dark at our destination, a local Warao Indian palafito home built on stilts, and stepped tottering on to the wooden pontoon, we must have looked to our hosts like a brigade of huge, helpless bats, blinking and flapping our plastic macs.

We slept in one open dormitory of hammocks. We went to bed strangers but woke up fellow foot soldiers after a night of muttering, kicking, snoring, belching and sleep-grumbling. Breakfast -- scrambled eggs, watermelon and stodgy arepas or corn cakes -- saw some lively debriefing.

"Who was that snoring?"

"Grunting, more like!"

"It came from your direction ..."

Hanneke stepped in with the plain truth: "It was a pig foraging under the floorboards.

More jam, anyone? It's guava

Such trips live or die by their guides and Hanneke was brilliant: tough ("What do you mean, will there be air con? Of course not!"), warm ("My dear, have you got your sun lotion on?"), and a fount of knowledge about our hosts, the Warao.

She guided us round their peaceful wooden villages, timeless except for a Hello Kitty towel here and a solar-powered satellite dish there. Their reed homes have no walls, but they have Dallas on TV. Hanneke helped us to communicate further than shy waves and smiles –- embarrassingly, what she usually needed to say on our behalf was "sorry, I am too fat for this canoe -– do you have a sturdier one?" Late into the night -– well, till about 10pm when the generator cut out -– she would pass round the white rum and tell us Warao creation myths, or talk politics, the national fascination.

When she was at school she was taught that indigenous people did not exist. Finally, in Chavez they have a champion.

"There is a government hospital here, staffed by doctors from Cuba. There is an
incubator, penicillin, food deliveries. The Warao now have a chance." Douglas
was sceptical, as ever. "He's bought their votes, and their independence. He's
even given them washing machines, which is ridiculous."

And we did see, outside a few homes, the abandoned hulks of state-sponsored washer-dryers.

After three nights in the delta -– and a trip to swim off the wide sandy shore of the Atlantic -– we journeyed back to Volcan, speeding past the old Catholic mission, staffed by ancient nuns. Everyone waved to us from their boats, uniformly flying Chavez flags, all passengers wearing Chavez T-shirts.

Out of the delta, and into the jungle. Kamarata, our next stop, is inaccessible by road, so we flew there in Cessnas, tiny one-engined five-seater planes that traversed steadily over the Guri dam, then swooped marvellously over Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world, and dived down to land, passing nonchalantly at the last minute over an old crashed plane, rotting on the side of the runway. Nervous fliers need not apply.

Perhaps because they are so remote, the local Pemon people have remained more independent, less politicised. No Chavista insignia here. Motoring upriver to Angel Falls, we stopped to visit one isolated home untouched by modernity. The lady of the house, a hut woven from reeds, was tightening a press to squeeze the cyanide off a yukka plant, making comanche (hot chilli sauce -- the one the termites go in). She graciously offered us tiny, delicious bananas and lemons from the Eden of her back garden, and as we moved on upriver we wondered what we had given her in return, except for an eyeful of hulking, sunburnt Westerner. But Hanneke makes sure a fair deal is struck. She is a tour guide to us but a friend to the Pemon; the lady we visited had recently lost her husband, and Hanneke brought her a framed photograph of him. Tourism like this could easily go wrong, but here it felt right.

We spent four nights in jungle shelters along the Carrao, Churun and Akanan rivers, our team of seven porters setting up kitchens wherever we pitched camp. In the morning we bathed in the tea-black river; at night we swung next to one another, mosquito nets our only privacy. No room for vanity here. I had filthy nails, wet feet; mosquitoes ate me alive and I didn't look in the mirror for three days. Easier to remember, the daily treats such as the (extra) trek to the glorious Kavak Canyon, nature's stateliest Jacuzzi; and the jungle march to get a better view of Angel Falls.

Finally, we arrived at the outstanding natural beauty spot of Canaima, a lagoon fed by six hypnotic waterfalls. Once a popular Venezuelan holiday destination, it is eerily deserted. The national airline Avensa, which flew there daily from Caracas, doesn't offer the route any more, and the grand hotel complex overlooking the lagoon (Campamento Hoturvensa) operates with a skeleton staff. "Canaima" means "place of mischief" and local stories bear this out. A previous management reputedly failed to pay its Pemon staff properly, and some years ago, on 12 October (the Day of Indigenous Resistance), the roof of the hotel restaurant mysteriously caught fire.

Canaima is symbolic of tourism in Venezuela: huge natural potential, but deeply dysfunctional. Wherever we went we learnt to expect some fresh adventure: motorboats breaking down, a national coffee shortage, or political unrest -- rather brilliantly, Explore chartered us a private jet so we could avoid revisiting the potentially turbulent Caracas during election weekend. When we arrived in the hot plains of Los Llanos, there were five cane toads in the shower. "All the better to eat the flies,"said Hanneke brusquely.

The pay-off was an amazing abundance of wildlife -- storks, tiger herons and vermilion flycatchers; capybara, spectacled caiman, turtles basking on rocks. In our hostel's backyard alone there was an iguana, several dogs, a turkey, a green parrot, and two orphaned baby wild boar trying to suckle a puppy.

The final ethnic group we encountered was German: high in the Alp-like mountains of Aragua, west of Caracas, a colony of Black Forest émigrés lived undisturbed in Colonia La Tovar from 1834 to 1960. They are here today, thankfully slightly more genetically various now but still wearing dirndls, cooking strudel and dancing around Bavarian maypoles. One night here made a surreal ending to a demanding but life-enriching trip.

Compact facts

How to get there

Hermione Eyre travelled to Venezuela with adventure specialist Explore (0844 499 0901; explore.co.uk). Its 16-day Angel Falls & Orinoco tour departs in April, and monthly between August and December. Prices start at £2,205 per person and include return flights from Heathrow (regional connections available); all transportation; 14 nights' B&B in hotels, hammock camps, stilt-houses, jungle shelters and a mission; 18 other meals; and the services of a tour leader. To take the trip privately, contact Tailormade Explore (0844 875 1890; tailormadeexplore.co.uk ).

Adventure playground: The heart of Venezuela

Angus Reid Global Monitor: 47.5% of Venezuelans would support Constitutional amendments

Angus Reid Global Monitor: Many people in Venezuela would support a set of proposed amendments to the country's Constitution, according to a poll by the Venezuelan Institute for Data Analysis (IVAD) which says 47.5% of respondents would vote in favour of the changes in an upcoming referendum, while 40.4% would vote against them.

Hugo Chavez -- a left-leaning leader -- has been in office since February 1999. In July 2000, he was elected to a six-year term with 59.5% of all cast ballots. In August 2004, Chavez won a referendum on his tenure with 59% of the vote. The special election was called after opposition organizations in Venezuela gathered 2.5 million signatures to force a recall ballot. In December 2006, Chavez earned a new six-year term with 62.89% of the vote.

In December 2007, a package of constitutional amendments tabled by the President and endorsed by the National Assembly -- where pro-Chavez lawmakers control more than two-thirds of the seats -- was narrowly defeated in a nationwide referendum. The proposed changes included the introduction of a clause that would allow the unlimited re-election of the Head of State, new land ownership rules, and ending the autonomy of the Central Bank.

In the November 2008 municipal elections, pro-Chavez parties emerged victorious in 17 of the country's 22 regions. Chavez later proclaimed himself a "presidential pre-candidate" for the 2012 ballot and submitted a bill to the legislature that seeks to allow him to run again by changing the Constitution and ending term limits for Heads of State. The measure would also allow Mayors, Governors, State legislators and National legislators to be re-elected more than
once.

• On January 14, the National Assembly approved Chavez' proposal. The referendum will take place on February 15.
  
• On January 27, Chavez urged voters to support his proposed changes, saying, "I am at your service, if you really want me to stay as your leader for a few more years we have to knock out the anti-patriotic opposition."

Polling Data

How would you vote if a public referendum on the constitutional amendments took place?

In favor - 47.5%
Against - 40.4%
Not sure/Would not vote - 12.1%

Source: Venezuelan Institute for Data Analysis (IVAD)

Methodology: Interviews with 1,200 Venezuelan adults,
conducted from January 13 to January 20, 2009. Margin of error is 2.4%.

Venezuelans Would Support Charter Amendments

Caracas rejects accusations of government-backed vandals; Israel slams attack on Venezuelan synagogue

Israel on Sunday lashed out at the vandalism at the main synagogue in Venezuela after a group of people sprayed the place with "Damn Israel" and "Assassins," referring to Tel Aviv's deadly assault of the impoverished Gaza Strip.

"We deplore this anti-Semitic attack. It is up to Venezuelan authorities to assure law and order," foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said, adding: "The Venezuelan people are neither racist nor anti-Semitic."

About 15 people broke into Venezuela's main synagogue overnight on Friday, tying up and gagging the guards before destroying scripture books and spraying graffiti, said Elias Farache, the president of Venezuela's Jewish Association. "They stayed in the synagogue for about five hours, tied and gagged the guards, destroyed the offices and desecrated the place where we keep rolls of the Torah," Judaism's holy book, explained Elias Farache, president of Venezuela's Jewish Association.

"Damn Israel," "We don't want Jews here," "Jews get out" and "Assassins" were among the anti-Semitic slogans on the vandalized synagogue, an AFP journalist reported.

"Never in the history of Venezuela's Jewish community have we been the target of such an aggression. The climate is very tense. We feel threatened, intimidated, attacked," Farache said. He said the tensions were fueled by the expulsion of Israel's ambassador in Caracas and by the government of Hugo Chavez breaking its diplomatic ties with Israel in mid-January in protest over the military assault of Gaza that left 1,300 Palestinians dead. The Jewish community has filed an official complaint and Farache has requested the government provide protection for the community.

Venezuelan Minister of Information Jesse Chacon said the government "rejects any violent acts against any group in Venezuela" and denied rumors that the vandals had links with the government. "The state of Israel and the policies of the state of Israel toward the Palestinians are one thing that we emphatically reject, and the government's relationship with the Jewish population living in Venezuela with which we have an excellent relationship is another," he said.

Caracas rejects accusations of government-backed vandals

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez calls for Carriles' extradition

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has urged US President Barack Obama to hand over former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles, who is believed to be behind the 1976 bombing of a Cuban jet which left 73 people killed. "Send us the terrorist Posada Carriles," Chavez said in a televised speech. "We've been waiting four years for the extradition of the biggest terrorist in human history."

The administration of George W. Bush had refused to extradite Posada after he was arrested in the United States for illegally entering the country. The decision sparked harsh criticism of double standard regarding the 'war on terror'.

Following the Cuban jet incident investigators from Cuba, Venezuela and the United States traced the planting of the explosive to two Venezuelan nationals, who admitted that they were hired by Carriles to execute the bombing. Among those perished in the incident were all 24 members of the 1975 national Cuban Fencing team, which had just won all the gold medals in the Central American and Caribbean Championship.

• Posada was involved in the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion to topple Cuban leader Fidel Castro, he is also accused in Cuba of plotting 1997 hotel bombings in Havana that killed an Italian tourist.

Following his arrest in the United States Posada was jailed for two years in Texas on immigration charges but was released in 2007 -- He now lives in Miami. The extradition could help improve the relations between the Venezuela and the US, which deteriorated under the Bush administration.

Venezuela, which currently provides 12 percent of US oil imports, has accused Obama of following in the footsteps of his predecessor and repeating the same policies despite the promise of 'change'.

Chavez calls for Carriles' extradition

Venezuela reopens iron mine with Chinese backing

Venezuela, with help from China, reopened on Friday the country's biggest iron mine and began construction on a nearby steel mill set to begin production in the fourth quarter of 2011.

President Hugo Chavez was present for the nationally broadcast ceremony in Bolivar state, 850 kilometers (528 miles) southeast of Caracas. The socialist head of state said China will contribute $70 million toward the cost of reactivating the Cerro Bolivar mine, which is to be operated with technical advice and cooperation from Swiss-based Commodities and Minerals Enterprise Ltd.

• The mine is expected to be producing at a rate of 3 million tonnes of iron ore annually by the end of next year. All of that output is destined for Chinese steel mills.

Chavez recalled that mining began at Cerro Bolivar in 1954 and was halted in 1997, "when the Washington Consensus prevailed and Venezuela was in the abyss, because it was an auctioned country." The term Washington Consensus refers to the market-driven, deregulatory and privatizing economic policies pressed on developing nations by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank with the encouragement of the US government.

Chavez and other Latin American leftists repudiate those policies, blaming them for widening their region's already huge gap between rich and poor, among other ills.

After inaugurating the reopened mine, Chavez oversaw the signing of an agreement to pay a $120 million advance to Brazilian firm Andrade Gutierrez for the construction of a new steel mill in Ciudad Piar that is supposed to be in operation by late 2011. "This event is a palpable demonstration that the country is not in crisis," Chavez said Friday, apparently responding to rumblings that the collapse in oil prices spells big trouble for Venezuela, a leading exporter of crude.

Venezuela Reopens Iron Mine with Chinese Backing

Venezuelan joint venture with Russians for gold mine exploration

Mining Project Blogspot: President Hugo Chavez is awarding a valuable gold mining concession to a joint venture between a Russian-financed company and the Venezuelan government, in an apparent bid to secure new sources of state income as oil prices fall.

VenRus, a joint enterprise formed last year between Rusoro Mining Corp. and a Venezuelan state holding company, will begin developing the country’s largest gold mine, Las Cristinas, this year, Chavez told Congress late Tuesday.

• A Rusoro spokesman at the company’s headquarters in Vancouver, Canada, declined to comment Wednesday on the deal.

The VenRus concession apparently ignores an exclusive contract that Venezuela’s government had granted Toronto-based Crystallex International Corp. in 2002 to develop four sections of Las Cristinas. Crystallex’ request for a final permit to start digging there was denied in May, but the company on Wednesday said it had not been informed of any changes in its deal.

The move would boost Venezuelan state control over the country’s gold reserves, a potentially lucrative resource, said Pavel Gomez, an economist at the IESA business school in Caracas. Those reserves could, in time, compensate for falling oil income and allow Chavez to continue his broad public spending.

Venezuela depends on its vast oil resources for half the federal budget and 94 percent of exports, and Chavez has said he hopes to use other resources to diversify the main sources of state funding. But the country’s precious metal sector has been largely controlled by a handful of private foreign companies.

Chavez is now awarding to the VenRus joint venture five of Venezuela’s biggest gold concessions -- including one called Brisas del Cuyuni and four in Las Cristinas, which holds an estimated 1,100 tons (998 metric tonnes) of gold. He said the venture would help double Venezuelan gold production to 9 tons (8.2 metric tonnes) in 2009. South Africa, one of the world’s top sources of gold, produced to 275 tons (249 metric tonnes) in 2007.

Rusoro, which was founded by a group of private Russian investors and trades on Canada’s TSX Venture Exchange, has recently increased its presence in Venezuela, purchasing Idaho-based Hecla Mining Corp.’s Venezuelan subsidiaries for $25 million in June. It also offered to buy all outstanding shares and equity units in Spokane, Wash.-based Gold Reserve, which holds the Brisas concession.

• Gold Reserve refused the offer, suing to stop the hostile takeover from progressing. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice will hear its case February 4, according to a statement on the company’s Web site. Gold Reserve President Douglas Belanger did not return calls for comment.

Venezuela also plans to rejoin the Kimberley Process -- an international accord to stem the flow of conflict diamonds -- in order to exploit its diamond reserves, Chavez said. Venezuelan diamonds have been barred from mainstream world markets since it abandoned the agreement last year.

Venezuelan Joint Venture With Rusian for Gold Mine Exploration

Reverend Obed Juan Vizcaino Najera: The hypocrisy of Venezuelan Opposition terrorists...

General Fernando Ochoa Antich is worried about payment delays in the Defense Ministry, but he's not scared when proposing violence and death in our country on the day of the referendum.

"The United States seem doomed by destiny to
spread misery in America in the name of freedom."
Simon Bolivar.

The Reverend Obed Juan Vizcaino Najera writes: The possibility to listen to some of the wiretapped conversations between Opposition leaders in Venezuela, brings us the opportunity to find out how little they care about their own people ... they just want to use them in their efforts to regain control of our country and its wealth.

The saddest side of this is to watch helplessly how these guys receive salaries and benefits from the country they betray every day. Fernando Ochoa Antich -- Minister of Defense under (President) Carlos Andres Perez -- urges an active Venezuelan military man to promote violence so the population cannot vote.

Confronted with this fact, what's the reaction of the Attorney General, the Supreme Court of Justice or the National Electoral Council? Absolute impunity! ...and this impunity generates more crimes against the people and the State.

What's the national and international media coverage on this apology to electoral crime and widespread violence? Nothing, absolutely nothing ... and they're co-responsible for generating violence ordered by the USAmerican embassy in Caracas.

Ochoa Antich represents the OLD militarism that still survives in some sectors of the military, that has deep conspiratorial connections with leaders of the past Fourth Republic ... they managed to remain inside the high ranks of the military as moles, obeying orders from old retired military sectors as paybacks for privileges and undeserved promotions. They'll choose violence using weapons they've managed to sneak into the country via the regional and municipal police forces they still control ... they're using demobilized paramilitary forces from other countries in Venezuela.

These drunken, alcoholic generals are dangerous because in full "delirium tremens" they might order the slaughter of the people to prevent the expression of popular vote.
This retired general (Ochoa Antich) DOES have someone who calls him and writes to him (paraphrasing Garcia Marquez' novel, N.T.). People call him from the (current) Defense Ministry to keep him up-to-date about what happens at the top of the government ... especially in the higher echelons of the military, and this is very dangerous.

What can the Defense Ministry do about this? Let's hope there's no more impunity since it's sovereignty and state security what's at stake here.

"Gorilla" militarism is in the minds of those officers who were trained in terrorism procedures and counter-insurgency at the criminal US School of The Americas.

Some of them are on the payroll of the USAmerican State Department, as is the drunken general as per the wiretapped conversation. They're conspiring from within the Defense Ministry against the Venezuelan State and people. Many of them own properties outside the country and barefacedly live in luxury compared to other officers in the military.

Isn't that obvious to many?

The commitment of the Opposition to the culture of death is disclosed in the (bugged) conversation between an ex-Defense Minister and an active member of the military ... they are committed to terror policies sponsored by the USAmerican Department of State, and the ultra-radical USAmerican right-wing, whose orders they blindly obey ... channeled through well-seasoned terrorist US agencies dispersed by G. W. Bush in Latin America and more specifically in our country.

A free people never forgets!

Obed Juan Vizcaino Najera
obedvizcaino@gmail.com
Maracaibo – Venezuela

Dear Lord ... please let our young Nazarene savages vandalize in peace, and vandalize as they please! Amen!

VHeadline commentarist Arthur Shaw writes: "Repression against student demonstrators who oppose the amendment to the Constitution that would allow indefinite reelection was rejected on Wednesday by the catholic university group 'Pastoral Universitaria' (University Pastoral)... The document is specifically aimed at the case of university students who, according to the Pastoral Universitaria, have been repressed "disproportionately" by Venezuelan security forces during their demonstrations against the amendment to the Constitution," El Universal, the big capitalist or cappie newspaper, snivels about the efforts of the police to quell reactionary middle-class students trained largely at Nazarene-controlled Venezuelan universities, to commit acts of vandalism and later to lie about the vandalistic acts they commit.

Evidently, vandalism and lying about vandalism are the two most popular majors taught on Nazarene-dominated college campuses in Venezuela ... for commission of vandalism seems to be the only thing students do at these Nazarene universities.

By "repression," these Nazarene experts on divine beings organized in the Pastoral Universitaria, mean stopping these reactionary student vandals from throwing baseball-size stones, bottle bombs, burning car tires in the middle of busy thoroughfares and spitting in the faces of revolutionaries and police officers who are attempting to keep the peace. The Nazarene experts on divinity suggest that the police officers, in particular, should not any way disturb these poorly-educated reactionary Nazarene students as they vandalize various sites to express their opposition to the proposed constitutional amendment.

In other words, "Oh Lord ... and for your father's sake, too dear Lord ... please let our young Nazarene savages vandalize in peace and vandalize as they please. Amen"

Arthur Shaw
arthur.shaw@vheadline.com

Patrick J. O'Donoghue's news and views from Venezuela -- January 30, 2009

VHeadline News Editor Patrick J. O'Donoghue reports:

On arriving in Belem (Brazil) to attend the ninth World Social Forum, President Chavez says Venezuela has given birth to a new constitutional doctrine, which is imposing itself on the continent and its characteristic is the voice of peoples and not domestic bourgeoisies. Chavez calls the choice of the forum in North Eastern Brazil as significant because it is symbolic of a strategic region where the Amazon has great reserves of water and biosphere for the whole planet. Chavez adds that the forum is taking place within the framework of a world crisis of the capitalist model and cited the words of Chiapas (Mexico) Zapatista Sub-commander Marcos that the WSF is a nest of hope. "The forum should launch a new mental and ideological orientation and move towards a political, ideological and economic offensive throughout the world."

Executive Vice President Ramon Carrizalez has hit out against private-sector importers, alleging that even after obtaining exchange facilities to import, the majority have not complied with supplying black beans. Carrizalez connects the failure to a campaign against the constitutional amendment. Last year 2008, the Vice President recalls, the private sector was given licenses to import about 70,000 tonnes of black beans. Venezuela currently consumes around 80,000. "The permits were granted, dollars made available but the importers have not brought in the full quota of beans and stopped bringing in 37,000 tonnes." Private media sources, Carrizalez condemns, are taking part in the campaign against basic food supplies and the amendment because they have become political parties, just like the business organizations. "What they want is to give an image of non-governance in the country."

National Assembly (AN) secretary, Ivan Zerpa has discovered and raised questions about a new trip of opposition leaders, this time to New Mexico (USA). Zerpa says he does not oppose the trip as such but queries the way some sectors of the opposition are trying to hide such initiatives from the public domain. Among those traveling to the USA supposedly for a meeting with US politicians and spin doctors are: Radio Caracas Television International owner, Marcel Granier, Christian Socialist (COPEI) general secretary, Ignacio Planas, and COPEI dinosaur, Eduardo Fernandez, along with two others.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro has announced that 25 National Assembly deputies will visit key countries throughout the world to explain the constitutional amendment.

During a special operation after a re-launch of the government's "zero contraband" plan, IRS/Seniat agents say they have discovered around 534 containers "legally abandoned" in several warehouses situated in western Venezuela's Puerto Cabello customs area. The agents discovered merchandise, such as semi-automatic washing machines, motor oil, valves, auto spare parts, heavy machinery, wooden doors, babies' nappies, personal health articles, and shoes. Motorbikes and luxury cars were also discovered during the search and a spokesman announces that there will be a daily revision to avoid such anomalies. IRS/Seniat director, Jose David Cabello has promised to install 24-hour work shifts, daily double checks, control of ships entering port and constant vigilance of customs staff.

Writing in his "Line Drives" column, President Chavez titles it: The Cavalry and starts off highlighting the revolutionary offensive that continues with increasing fervor, pointing to visits he made to San Cristobal (Tachira) and Valencia (Carabobo). Meetings with the different electoral units, Chavez relates, were passionate and full of pedagogical content ... he was able to see the advances made in the campaign during the fourth and final phase. Before leaving to attend the World Social Forum and to talk with Brazilian President, Lula De Silva, the President writes that he wants to leave guidelines to ensure the greatest efficiency in the offensive for the "Yes" vote. The first is to materialize the popular vote and get people to the ballot box on February 15. Secondly, there must a command in each electoral center with its respective chief and minimum structure, communications and control over all operational units or patrols in the sector. Each command should have its logistic control and as many operational controls as electoral tables. The patrol should have a leader whose task is to organize, train, motivate and guide the unit towards fulfilling its mission. Thirdly, "we should remember that the patrols are not sufficient" to ensure a massive vote. During the campaign, Chavez notes, something really transcendental has happened, namely that the missions or social programs and social movements have broken the limits of their internal dynamic and come out to take their place in the political battle. None of the groups must be disconnected from the electoral machinery, Chavez urges, and each movement must continue to develop its own natural activities as a social program and the other hand, act as a support unit to reinforce electoral center patrols. In his article the President quotes a verse from poet, Andres Eloy Blanco about the charge of a legendary independence fighter, Maisanta.

Workers at the Mitsubishi plant in Anzoategui are up in arms after two workers were shot dead by the police yesterday. Union general secretary, Felix Martinez says the police tried to evict workers from the company as ordered by a local judge ... "the cost of the operation was two workers dead and several wounded ... instead of opening a dialogue or seeking other means towards a solution." The union leader clarifies that the labor conflict with the company has been running for some time and started after a spare part contractor sacked 33 workers, despite a government decree on job security. The Mitsubishi Company does not recognize any labor relations with contracted workers, Martinez contends, and labor authorities in Anzoategui have not provided any solution to this and other cases, forcing the workers to occupy the plant to force some kind of dialogue.

Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) subsidiary in the USA, CITGO and the Citizens Energy Corporation (CEC) have launched a new program to provide heating oil in Washington DC. CITGO president, Alejandro Granados and CEC president, Joseph Kennedy II, as well as staff from the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington were present at the announcement. The measure will benefit the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker's Center which will receive free oil. Granados calls the program launched in the USA the "most important social initiative that any oil company has delivered." At the moment, CITGO and CEC intend to supply heating oil for more than 1 million persons in the USA.

In the run-up to the referendum on February 15, Federation of Chambers of Industry & Commerce (Fedecamaras) is calling on the government to close ranks with them before the economic situation. Fedecamaras president, Jose Manuel Gonzalez proclaims that the economic situation in Venezuela is not exactly the product of the world financial crisis because it is something that the organization has been warning about since the end of 2007 and during 2008. The world financial crisis, Fedecamaras continues, has intensified the poor economic situation in Venezuela and the fall in oil prices indicates that the economic de-acceleration of 2008, despite high oil prices, will become more pronounced this year. The government should "follow the steps of other countries by calling all sectors to seek a solution to the problems." Fedecamaras, Gonzalez reiterates, is willing to contribute its grain of salt. In a touch of irony, the Fedecamaras communique insists that the business sector has a lot to contribute in the solution of the country's problems. The blame for the situation, it would appear, lies in the fact that the government is not stimulating private production and depending too much on imports. Another accusation is that from a political and ideological point of view the government is seeking complete control over the population and has started rationing. Lastly, an investigation should be made into the exchange rate administration body (Cadivi) to find out what is happening with the dollar.

The National Ranchers Federation (Fedenaga) has issued a public statement, confirming there will be no shortages of their private sector products, such as beef and milk. According to Fedenaga president, Genaro Mendez, the market is saturated with the two products and ranchers are asking that a halt be put on importing beef and milk because, they allege, domestic producers are not finding markets for their products. The excess imports are finishing domestic production, the ranchers complain, and they are concerned. When asked about the constitutional amendment, Mendez states that the board will meet on February 3 to review their position and will make a public statement.

Patrick J. O'Donoghue
patrick@vheadline.com

This or that sop may be thrown to the suckers who voted for the most conservative of possible Democratic candidates

VHeadline's Washington DC-based commentarist Chris Herz writes: Real measures of how US politics really work comes first with the confirmation by the US Senate of Tim Geithner to be Secretary of the Treasury. This bizarre crook won approval in this upper body of the Congress in despite of his delinquency in the payment of his income and capital gains taxes.

This same process pertains in the similar approval of another official to become Deputy US Secretary of Defense, William Lynn, this in despite of his active and on-going role as lobbyist for the Raytheon Corporation -- that is bagman, what we call in the USA a corporate functionary whose task is to pass out bribes to public officials -- for the Raytheon Corporation, a prime stakeholder in the defense budget.

In our massively corrupted system of governance we are not even to pretend to honesty: Two areas are beyond the borders of the normal ethical constraints enforced upon appointees to high office here. The one being the piquantly misnamed US Defense Department and its contractors and the other anything to do with enforcement of law or the infliction of regulations on large financial corporations.

This or that sop may be thrown to the suckers who voted for the most conservative of possible Democratic candidates in the late elections. But we may all be certain that when it comes to real money it will remain business as usual in Washington.

Meanwhile the Congress have voted the second tranche of about US$350 billion in pork for the big banks. This in utter despite of the interesting statistic that shows them sitting on near $750 billion in inactive cash reserves. Half of it the bulk of the proceeds of the first tranche of bailout monies.

The fact is that the US working population are in debt to the tune of about $47 trillion and can never pay it off. A long threatened national bankruptcy which has been building since at least the Vietnam War days, and has been made all the worse for forty years of stopgap expediencies, is now unavoidable.

Perhaps in the dead of night, lying sleepless in their beds, our politicians can perceive this frightening and dreadful spectre. But not a single one can publicly go even as far as William Greider in the Nation Magazine. And other real economists, such as James Howard Kunstler or even Joseph Stiglitz are still resolutely ignored by our somnolent mainstream. For some time yet the theories of corporate globalization and neo-liberalism will remain unchallenged in official Washington.

And so much the better ... in the event that matters could be somewhat amended all that could be accomplished would be to make the land of the fascist and the home of the militarist able for a bit longer to squander the world's wealth on its imperial fantasies.

From the imperial capital

Chris Herz
chris.herz@vheadline.com

Patrick J. O'Donoghue's news and views from Venezuela -- January 29

VHeadline News Editor Patrick J. O'Donoghue reports:

Confederation of Industry (Conindustria) president, Eduardo Gomez Sigala has launched another attack on the government, saying that Venezuela is losing its productive capacity and possibility of generating employment. The Captain of industry wants to see a correction of economic policies and warns of dangerous times ahead, if the measures are not taken. Definitely tongue-in-cheek given his own commercial record, Gomez Sigala denies any possibility of Venezuela becoming competitive and blames it on the government's failure to adjust the exchange rate that would allow domestic production to develop. Pointing to Venezuela's inflation record and serious problems of shortages related to production, the business leader dismisses the State solution which, he groans, consists of "more intervention, more regulation and more control." Gomez Sigala criticizes the government's export record, revealing that while Columbia exports to Venezuela $6 billion worth of goods Venezuela is exporting to Colombia only $1 billion and statistics are even more alarming when it comes to Brazil, China and Argentina.

Interior & Justice (MIJ) Minister, Tarek El Aissami says five people have been arrested for the murder of several persons in El Vigia (Merida). Those responsible for the deaths are, believe it or not, Merida State police officers and State Security & Political (DISIP) agents. On January 24, 8 citizens, of whom 4 were adolescents, were assassinated in the Brisas de Ona barrio while traveling inside a black truck. One of the occupants was wounded and lived to tell the tale. El Aissami claims that the murder of the eight is related to the homicide of Jose Luis Albornoz Escalona in Merida on January 22. In a public statement, the Minister categorically declares that the government will not tolerate any members of the security forces committing crimes against the public and there will be zero tolerance towards the use of extrajudicial mechanisms. The public ministry, he rounds up, will guaranteed legality and due process, while the judicial power will administrate objective and impartial justice in all cases.

Former Defense Minister, Gen (ret.) Raul Baduel has returned to the public arena, criticizing State security forces for repressing student demonstrations over the last few days, calling it a "sign of weakness and an antidemocratic spirit." According to Baduel, opposition students represent the most genuine future of the country and its families. This is Baduel's first statement against the government for some time and is seen to coincide with the opposition's campaign rejecting President Chavez' constitutional amendment proposal. The General maintains that the university is one of the most "genuine representations of plurality of ideas and exercise of dissent within respectful and civic terms." Coinciding with the opposition, Baduel contends that President Chavez has embarked on a career of personal ambition to become life President of Venezuela, which, he claims, the latter is destroying.

When asked about the situation inside the Armed Forces (FAN), the former Defense
Minister admits that those in high command do represent the military institution
but are by no means a "genuine representation of the feeling of the majority of
men and women in the FAN." No less than 80%, he asserts, want to abide by the
Constitution as it stands, the laws and defense of democracy. The General refers
to the recent arrest of 31 alleged Colombian paramilitaries in Petare and
arrests of retired FAN officials supposedly linked to an assassination plot
against the President as "smokescreens to divert the attention of the country"
from the political arena.

Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro has reacted angrily to the Israeli decision to expel two Venezuelan diplomats, calling it a violation of international agreements. According to the Minister, the expulsions demonstrate that the Palestine State does not exist for Israel. The two Venezuelan diplomats were expelled after opening an office in Ramala and each of them declared persona non grata. The two diplomats in question are Roland Betancourt accredited in Israel and Jonathan Velasquez accredited before the Palestine National Authority. Maduro confirms that Venezuela now has no representation with the State of Israel and reiterates the "just and correct" decision to break relations after its invasion of the Gaza Strip.

Communication & Information (Minci) Minister, Jessie Chacon insists that the private media in Venezuela have shown a definite bias in favor of the opposition "No" campaign against the constitutional amendment proposal. The Minister made a statement after visiting the National Elections Council (CNE) to lodge a formal complaint. The Minister argues that private TV stations, the majority of radios and the newspapers are supporting the opposition. The Minister maintains that Venezuelans want to reach February 15 receiving balanced information. Of each 10 articles published in the papers, the Minister quips, eight (8) are in favor of the "No" option and in the case of news, 55% published in the media tow the opposition line. Chacon points to the El Universal broadsheet which, he says, uses up 74% of its space to the "No" vote and El Nacional newspaper, which dedicates 20 pages in favor of the opposition and 5 in favor of the "Yes" vote. Chacon reports that in going to the CNE what he is proposing is to create a mechanism of balance. An opposition web retorts that percentages in the government media are overtly lob-sided in favor of government propaganda.

President Chavez has confirmed a visit to Belem, Brazil today to attend the World Social Forum. The presidents of Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay are expected to attend the annual event in which thousands of social leaders and civil sector movements are taking part. The President made the announcement during a visit to Zulia State to review the regional electoral command working for the constitutional amendment campaign. Chavez says he will be meeting the Presidents attending the forum. President Chavez has told followers to read carefully a new article in his column, which comes out today and which deals with instructions to coordinate the electoral battle. Two weeks ago, Chavez writes, he launched a lightning campaign and not a minute should be lost in fighting opposition lies about the amendment, adding that it's not a matter of passion but organization ... "without a machinery, the (election) commands cannot function, plans can't work and there will be no victory."

Labor & Social Security Minister, Roberto Hernandez has met with hierarchs of the opposition Confederation of Workers of Venezuela (CTV), Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Venezuela (Codesa) and the General Confederation of Workers (CGT) to discuss the national minimum wage, as well as other labor matters. The trade union leaders proposed the setting up of tripartite commission to review and fix the new minimum salary as established by law. They requested that they be allowed to take part in public discussions on the Labor Law reform bill, stating that they have already presented proposals to the National Assembly (AN) social development committee. The once-powerful CTV general secretary, Manuel Cova points to the unification of international trade union organizations, despite ideological differences and insists that in Venezuela the same could happen starting with the setting up of an joint working agenda. It is highly unlikely that the Minister will agree to resurrecting a tripartite commission, owing to obstacles and aggressive anti-government attitude adopted by the main employers associations.
Patrick J. O'Donoghue
patrick@vheadline.com

A century of a propaganda as specious as it is mendacious has had its effect ... this system will not soon change!

VHeadline's Washington DC-based commentarist Chris Herz writes: The US administration proposes not only to fight still more war in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also to continue the so-called Drug War in the homeland and in Latin America.

Of course, having so many US resources deployed 8,000 kilometers from our shores in West and Central Asia is a terrible war crime, but it does have the useful effect of tying down those forces in places remote from Venezuela and other Western Hemisphere targets ... and nothing saving its complete and utter bankruptcy will prevent my country from smashing up others as its elites determine suits their pecuniary motives.

• Thus to have them exhausting their military resources in areas so far removed from the historic schwerpunkt of their empire is the best we can now hope for.

The drug business still retains its utility in the United States of America as the favored tool of destabilizing minority and working class communities. And abroad it is the handiest of mechanisms for justification of more aggressive war. The big victims of the drug traffic are the subject people of this empire -- minority and working folk at home, the Iraqis, where a flourishing drug traffic now afflicts the nation, Afghanistan now the center of world poppy cultivation, Colombia, the center of cocaine production and Mexico the favored land route for drug trafficking northwards.

Police and prison bureaucracies, public and private, enjoy at the expense of the general public immense revenue from the arrest of nearly 900,000 persons per annum for marijuana offenses (this sum alone surpassing all arrests for real crime) plus tens of thousands more for abuses related to other controlled substances.

Literally, as prison or jail space becomes available, the authorities in many towns and cities in the USA launch new sweeps of their communities to fill the empty, and unprofitable cells in their gulag with various classes of drug offenders. And a gulag it is in the words of no one less than General Barry MacAffrey, the former "Drug Czar" himself.

Many local jurisdictions, especially in the poorer portions of the American south finance their police departments by money, goods and real property seized from those arrested ... and, of course, it is in the nature of things here that those who fill these cells have committed the additional offense of being overwhelmingly black or brown of pigmentation. Even more so than their cruel and inhumane treatment of gay people, good Christians here overwhelmingly approve of these measures.

A century of a propaganda as specious as it is mendacious has had its effect ... this system will not soon change ... but kicking the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) out of the various US diplomatic missions to the different states of Latin America is an excellent way of limiting the damages to the imperial motherland only.

• US authorities are locked into their present course, but there is no good reason why anyone else should continue to obey their weird version of morality...

Unless like Mexico or Colombia you too like the idea of being at war with your own people.

From the imperial capital

Chris Herz
chris.herz@vheadline.com

Patrick J. O'Donoghue's news and views from Venezuela -- January 28

VHeadline News Editor Patrick J. O'Donoghue reports:

Metropolitan police (PM) officers have been accused of extorting and kidnapping traders and business persons the Coche district of Caracas. The number of officers believed to be in the gang are 12 and according to Police Detective Branch (CICPC) sources, they are responsible for around 30% of kidnappings that took place in 2008. The targets have mostly been foreigners owning supermarkets, such as the Chinese and Portuguese. The discovery reinforces a common belief among people that the police are more to be feared than common criminals and that the cleansing process inside the force has not gone deep enough.

Interior & Justice (MIJ) Minister Tarek El Aissami has called on the rector of Tachira State National University (UNET) to come clean on an alleged illegal entry of security agencies into the university. According to the Minister, the director had first denied the information during a telephone exchange but since has retracted to "manipulate the incident." The Ministry will open an investigation into the action of the police and National Guard (GN). The Minister accuses the university rector of inciting to violence by his denunciation and slams the opposition student movement that rejects the constitutional amendment, accusing it of lacking moral judgment. The bourgeoisie, El Assaimi taunts, is managing student demonstrations and shows hypocrisy when it talks about student struggles and democracy. The Minister denies any illegal entry into the university since he affirms that neither tanks nor GN soldiers crossed university perimeters. What the security forces did, the Minister states, was to keep the protest inside the institution.

Opening the new year of the judiciary, Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) president, Luisa Estela Morales says the number of decisions published in 2008 increased 55% and rulings from the plenary session reached 68.13%. Morales highlights what she calls an annual report "full of positive statistics which reflects the effort of magistrates to make a positive change in the judiciary power." There was a time when the judicial power, she states, needed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to update its structure but not anymore because it possesses its own technological platform and now Venezuela has a satellite which will allow the legal system to project itself even further. During 2008, the TSJ set up tribunals specializing in violence against women, agrarian affairs and child protection. The constitutional chamber increased productivity 119%, of which 64% were constitutional injunctions.

Lawyer and Washington watcher, Eva Golinger says she sees no change in the USA's "hostile and aggressive tone" towards Venezuela in the month following the swearing in of Barack Obama, concluding that "Empire is Empire, whatever the color." The analyst refers to statements made by Barack Obama during the election campaign and Hillary Clinton's declarations during a hearing before the US Senate foreign affairs committee. Golinger underlines the record of the new Undersecretary of State, James Steinberg, who ratified the new administration's hard line on Venezuela. Golinger informs us that Steinberg has held high positions as rector of the University of Texas Lyndon B. Johnson public policy school, analyst for the Rand Corporation, Pentagon contractor, assistant adviser to the White House National Security Office from 1997-2001 and researcher at the conservative Brookings Institute. In his inaugural speech, Golinger claims, Obama implicitly referred to Venezuela when he outlined his energy policy with the observation that sometimes the USA in using energy strengthens its adversaries even further and that those who seized power through corruption and the silence of the critics should be aware that they are on the "wrong side of history" and that the US will extend its hand, if they are prepared to unclench their fist.

Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro asserts that the Venezuelan government respects US President Obama's decision to reduce his country's dependence on foreign oil supplies. The Minister argues that just as Venezuela respects the internal measures of the United States, it demands respect for its domestic and regional decisions. The Obama decision comes after he stated in his acceptance speech that he would start reducing US dependency on oil producers with supposedly "hostile regimes." Maduro declares that Venezuela has made great strides to guarantee energy security and stability both for itself and South America and Caribbean countries for the next hundred years through Petrocaribe and the Union of South American Nations (Unasur), of which Venezuela presides over the Council of Energy. At the moment, Maduro heralds, Venezuela is building a common energy policy with Brazil, Chile and Argentina.

President Chavez has announced an investment of (Bs.F) 1.7 billion bolivares to open 732 projects within the Barrio Adentro III national health system. 30 projects will kick off on January 30 and one of the first projects is a modern emergency room for the University Clinic Hospital of Caracas. The Barrio Adentro III scheme consists of recovering traditional hospitals and clinics under the old health system. On Friday, 100 modules of Barrio Adentro I clinics will be open, bringing the total in Venezuela to 3,105, as well as 11 new Integral Diagnosis Centers (CDIs) raising the national number to 476. On the same day, 932 general integral doctors will graduate... 968 graduated in 2008.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Venezuela reports that 86 Wayuu indians crossed over from Colombia to Zulia State fleeing violence after an armed group set fire to their houses and threatened to kill their leaders. The report indicates that perhaps more people crossed the border seeking protection but they have not presented themselves to the UNHCR for fear of reprisals. A young child was injured during the journey suffering a brain lesion and the agency has started coordinating with the Venezuelan authorities to provide food and clothes to the refugee group. According to the UN office, the internal conflict in Colombia has created 4 million domestically displaced persons and 35,000 deaths in the last decade.

President Chavez has called on members of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) to minimize abstentions among followers and sympathizers, blaming results of the constitutional reform in December 2007 and regional elections in November 2008 on an increase in abstentions inside the ranks. The President launched the challenge during a review of the party's political structure in Tachira State. The fundamental object of the fourth and last phase of the referendum campaign, Chavez insists, is to ensure concrete votes and eliminate the minimum possibility of abstentions ... "it's the work of the vanguard, the electoral machinery and the regiments ... and it must be done with a lot of clarity and pedagogy, using all means possible." The President points to a 49.82% increase in abstention rates between the presidential election in 2006 and regional elections in 2008 ... "153,503 people did not vote." The President claims that abstention increased in 2008 to almost 230,000 votes, which is a "giant mountain, if we compare it to the 6,000 votes that the government lost in the Tachira State Governor election."

The Armed Force (FAN) operational strategic command chief, General Jesus Gonzalez Gonzalez has taken issue with an editorial that appeared in the afternoon tabloid "TalCual," which, he alleges, aims at manipulating and telling the FAN what to do. Calling the tabloid all sorts of names, the General retorts that soldiers will not receive orders from such "rags" but from its Commander-in-Chief democratically elected. The tabloid, therefore, is at the "service of treason and those who do not love Venezuela." The advice given in the editorial to the commander of the electoral Operation Republic, Gonzalez Gonzalez counters, are offensive. TalCual editor, Teodoro Petkoff says he will reply to the General today.

Patrick J. O'Donoghue
patrick@vheadline.com

TRANSPARENCY: It is but a small step from seeing what politicians are doing, to seeing thru their ploys, games and scams!

VHeadline commentarist and money market expert Fred Cederholm writes: I've been thinking about transparency ... about openness in government, the Illinois Governor, the Obama bailout putsch, how much bailout is really needed, pork/earmarks, and returns to the trough. Transparency is the hot new buzzword in the post 2008 elections. It suggests that the public has a right to watch the decision making process in the open, what options are being considered, and why they are both effective and important. This would be an admirable step in the right direction were it not for the fact that real transparency also puts forth flaws in the logic behind the "deciding" -- warts and all.

It is but a small step from seeing what politicians are doing, to seeing thru their ploys, games and scams!

You see the coming week is shaping up to be a rare smorgasbord of treats for the news junkies, the political groupies, and concerned citizens of all shapes, sizes, and persuasions. The unfolding spectacle of both the Illinois and the national travails are shaping up to be quite a double feature. The commencement of an impeachment trial of any sitting Governor would be national news story, but leave it to the media one-ups-man-ship of Rod Blagojevich to grand stand it to the next level of hyperbole.

While his trial for "conduct unbecoming" as the Prairie State's Chief Executive began in the Illinois Senate this Monday at twelve noon in the Capitol Building, Rod was a no show. He was boycotting the event and he had taken his act on the road to New York City for guest appearances on Good Morning America, The View, and Larry King Live. This was so typical "Blago." Since he began his tenure as "the Guv," he has refused to live in the Governor's mansion and serve the people of Illinois in the State Capitol -- choosing rather to govern from his satellite office in Chicago. He only stages media events and press conferences in the Capitol, shuttling back and forth in a private executive plane which has cost the Illinois taxpayers $millions. He is known for his "great pie in the sky programs" for which he never proposes any funding.

These have a have a snowflake's chance in Hell of realization in a state that has struggled to pass a workable budget since he took office! It is so easy to watch "Guv Blago," and cynically question political foibles/models elsewhere.

This Illinois cynicism can clearly carry over to the Obama Administration's "transparent" efforts to get a bailout package out the door. Their urgent desire to "do something immediately regardless of cost," causes one to seriously question both the motivation AND the methodology. Throwing money at a problem is a long standing (and very costly) Washington DC tradition. In the waning months of the prior Bush administration, a couple trillion of bailout remedies were channeled thru Congress, the US Treasury, and the FED; but to what success?

Has the direness of our financial, economic, and monetary situations improved? Unfortunately… not one iota!

The initial $700 billion in bailout bucks dubbed "TARP "needed to be greased with an additional $150 billion of pork projects and earmarks to get it thru Congress. There was no accountability/tracking for the first $350 billion and the second $350 billion appears headed for the same Wall Street recipients while the Main Street needy are told to be patient and keep waiting! We know that a couple of trillion has not been enough to stem the tide. We still don't know if the magic number is ten trillion, a hundred trillion, or more?

Thus far, AIG, GM, Chrysler, Ford, CITI, B of A, Merrill Lynch, Fannie, Freddie, and sundry other investment (commercial and retail) banks have sought to feast at Uncle $ugar's trough. In numerous cases, they have not received all their earmarked (or appropriated) bailouts only to now return to seek even much more from the public coffers!

I'm all for transparency, but we also need an honest and up-front quantification, prioritization, and accountability.

The "Bama Transparency" is beginning to look like more and more of what we in Illinois know as a "Blago Blitz." (I sincerely hope not!)

Fred Cederholm
fred.cederholm@vheadline.com

It is hardly surprising that many things which must soon happen in the rest of the USA appear first the Golden State

VHeadline's Washington DC-based commentarist Chris Herz writes: In so many ways California is the leading state in the USA. For many years the city of Los Angeles has been our largest city in terms both of area and of population. The city of San Francisco is central to our cultural life ... and never forget that the world center for computer technologies lies in the area around San Jose: Silicon Valley.

• With all that it is hardly surprising that many things which must soon happen in the rest of the USA appear first in this our Golden State.

State Comptroller Chaing has just announced that the state government will shortly be paying many of its obligations in what will amount to bearer bonds, not in US currency. The national bankruptcy is not some event in either the near or distant future, it is now. Other state governments must soon follow, commencing first with Massachusetts. New York likewise is in desperate trouble. California ranks all by its lonesome as the seventh or eighth, depending on who you ask, largest economy in the world. And of course New York and Massachusetts likewise are important players in the economic landscape.

Economist Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in economics, pointed out over a year ago that at that time Iraq and Afghanistan had already cost the US a minimum of US$3 trillion. The Obama regime will be continuing both wars, prosecuting the Afghan adventure into the indefinite future. Equally perniciously, no one in official Washington seriously proposes any other limits to the world-wide military commitments of the imperial regime. Thus there can be no real reform of the swollen military budgets which have for so many decades been so prominent a feature of US economic activity. And which, like the Soviet Union before us have directly led us into the abyss of national bankruptcy. Further, because of the conservative political alignment of the USA taxes which are collected in California tend to be disproportionately spent in the southern states, homeland to social and political reaction, wherein are centered so many military installations and defense corporations.

The political choices for corporate globalization, for social and economic stratification, and for racism which have characterized the years since Reagan's presidency could not have occurred without the solidly conservative south. And now who can doubt the extent to which this sort of politics has likewise contributed to the economic devastation spreading across the whole world. In short there is here all the evidences of a big net loss in tax revenues from the more liberal states of the Pacific and Eastern coasts to the solidly and safely conservative areas of the south and interior west. This game too has been on-going for too many years.

What we see now in California is the first move toward the disunity of the USA ... the state is in effect printing its own money ... and what can be a more essential attribute of sovereignty?

Because of the size and resiliency of her economy California's money, whatever they may choose to call it, may actually in the long term become a better store of value than the venerable and vulnerable US dollar!

There is no question that if California were to somehow become independent she would be much more prosperous than she is. Being stuck in the bankrupt federal union, one which resolutely pursues policies obnoxious to most Californians, is proving very costly indeed. The smaller states of the Pacific coast, Washington and Oregon likewise suffer net losses in revenue by virtue of their membership in the United States.

Alaska has had for years an active independence movement, one for which the serving governor, Sarah Palin, lately the Republican vice presidential candidate, has frequently expressed sympathy.

Of course it is not likely that we will see in California in the near term a serious movement for secession equal to that in Alaska, but certainly politics tends to follow closely after economics.
In New England, in our state of Vermont too there has been, half in jest, but half seriously too, a movement to remove from the USA and to join Canada. As Massachusetts, the economic center of that region, is stricken with the economic bankruptcy spreading from Washington like ripples on a pond perhaps this centrifugal force will gather more strength ... but what is clear is that, if somehow, we were able to rid ourselves of the states of the old southern Confederacy everyone else would be the better for it.

From the imperial capital

Chris Herz
chris.herz@vheadline.com

Patrick J. O'Donoghue's news and views from Venezuela -- January 27

VHeadline News Editor Patrick J. O'Donoghue reports:

During his weekend visit to Colombia, President Chavez sent a message to all those held hostage by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). President Chavez and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe recorded messages last Sunday, which were transmitted on Radio RNC yesterday. Chavez told the captives via radio to have faith and hope to live and fight for liberty, which is a divine treasure that must be guarded. Uribe, for his part, said he was convinced that shortly there would be no more hostages in his country.

Meanwhile, Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba has confirmed the liberation of six more hostages within the next fortnight. Cordoba broke the news after meeting Colombian Interior Minister, Fabio Valencio Cossio adding that she will be holding an important meeting with people from Red Cross International and the Brazilian Ambassador to Colombia, Valdemar Carneiro Leao next Wednesday.

Accion Democratica (AD) general secretary, Henry Ramos Allup says the only way to fight the government's publicity machinery is with direct activism in seeking more votes for the opposition. Ramos Allup dismisses current referendum surveys, which have the government leading and what he calls "other inexistent dangers." The opposition, the AD leader states, has guaranteed coverage in all electoral tables with "well-prepared" witnesses, such as students, professional people and civil sector members. However, Ramos Allup criticized some opposition leaders, whom, he jibes, have failed to make improvements in the quality of witnesses, stating that many times they rely on witnesses to care for their own party interests and not the whole of the opposition. When asked about the lack of propaganda on the part of the opposition, Ramos replies that it is a matter of lack of funds and he criticizes the National Elections Council (CNE) for not penalizing President Chavez for excessive use of government resources to advertise for the "Yes" vote. The opposition, the leader adds, must fight the PR disadvantage with direct activism and anyway, "the majority of Venezuelans accept the opposition's message."

According to leading government educationalist, Carlos Lanz Rodriguez, the opposition's main arguments against the constitutional amendment proposal is that people threw it out at the December 2007 reform referendum. Lanz Rodriguez points out that an amendment is not the same as a reform because the former consists entirely of modifying articles, whereas a reform is a major change and cannot be undertaken twice in the same presidential period, unlike amendments. When the opposition oppose the amendment, Lanz Rodriguez argues, they ignore the power of the primary Constituent force in Venezuela, namely the people of Venezuela, and its sovereignty ratified in the Constitution articles 347 and 5.

• The other argument used by the opposition is that Chavez wants to perpetuate himself in power, which is incorrect, because what the President is asking is for free candidature and election by a majority acceptance.
  
• Any comparison of Chavez with dictators, such as Gomez or Mussolini, Lanz Rodriguez ventures, is publicity spin.

The accusation that the amendment goes against alternability in government is also incorrect since the sovereign people can choose between distinct options, among which are officials currently in power. In other words, there is a big difference between nomination and re-election, which means that the person seeking re-election is just one more candidate but in the end, it is the sovereign people preserving its Constituent power that decides who will be elected. According to the thinker, Chavez can run for office again, but his victory is not automatically secured.

If it is true, as the opposition claims, that the President has been a useless governor, does not have the support of the majority of Venezuelans and that nobody wants him or defends him, then he has already been defeated in the ballot box.

Conclusion: The amendment seeks to widen the people's capacity to decide by appealing to the Constituent power consecrated in the Constitution. So the amendment corrects a block on the Constituent power and popular sovereignty currently existing in the Constitution which states that free nomination can only be made for one period in office.

Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) board member, Armando Leon says the Venezuelan State should review its public spendingand avoid new nationalizations because of the world financial crisis. Leon advises the government not to acquire companies which in three months time generate heavy losses and lose the capacity to pay its workers. According to Leon, Venezuelan crude oil is facing a situation of shortage because of oil prices and for that reason the government has to prioritize investments and associated costs. Another suggestion is to review imports letting imports of raw material, supplies, capital assets, food and medicines take priority over other areas.

President Chavez has announced an extraordinary meeting of the Bolivarian Alternative to the Americas (Alba) countries on February 2 to commemorate his 10 years in office. The Presidents of Bolivia, Nicaragua and Honduras are expected to attend, along with the Prime Minister of Dominica and Cuban Vice President, Carlos Lage. Chavez made the announcement during a radio program hosted by the Minister of the Presidency, Luis Reyes Reyes. The last meeting of ALBA was in Caracas on November 26 when the impact of the financial crisis on member states came under the spotlight. The group had planned to meet on December 14 but the meeting was postponed until the first quarter of 2009.

Cardinal Jorge Urosa has criticized what he calls a tendency to call a person who does not agree with the government an "enemy of the Homeland" and to expose him or her to public ridicule. The Cardinal says that one can defend an idea without disqualifying the other person and calling him an enemy of the Homeland. What is important, the prelate proclaims, is respect for the person, ideas, the Other's opinions and social harmony. The church is not interfering in politics, he declares, because the bishops talk about peace and social harmony as something so important as respect for the fundamental elements of the Venezuelan State in line with the Constitution. The Church, Urosa insists, is defending the rights of all Venezuelans to live in peace ... "that is the great vision we have from a social point of view."

President Chavez has stated that Venezuela will not allow oil prices to reach the six dollars a barrel level of 10 years ago when he arrived in office. Speaking on a radio talk-show hosted by Minister of the Presidency, Luis Reyes Reyes, Chavez warns that if it is necessary to cut 14 million bpd, then Venezuela will do it. Chavez also states that the government's management of oil prices has been coherent with the needs of the country, which has significantly benefited from high oil prices last year. The President forecasts that oil prices will increase, pointing to the current average standing at $35.85 a barrel, admitting that the national budget for 2009 was done pricing the barrel at $60.

Chavez maintains that Venezuela can guarantee resources to hold up imports for two years. The announcement was made after a Council of Ministers meeting. The President highlights the fact that last week the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) transferred $12 billion to the National Development Fund to fund social, economic and productive investment projects. A series of resources for agriculture, infrastructure and environment were approved by the Council and Chavez insists that the country's development will not be affected by the world financial crisis. Two new processing plants will be inaugurated today, a maize-processing plant in Guarico State and a plastic injection plant in Monagas.

Patrick J. O'Donoghue
patrick@vheadline.com