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What nice things oil buys.

Caracas, Jul 24, 2008 / 06:13 pm (CNA).- In statements on Union Radio, the vice president of the Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Roberto Luckert Leon, warned that the self-proclaimed “Reformed Catholic Church,” which is backed by the Hugo Chavez administration, is seeking to name military chaplains with government support. Archbishop Lückert reiterated that the small religious sect led by former Catholic, Lutheran and Anglican clergy members, is “financed by the government in an effort to put an end to the Catholic Church, which it has not and will not be able to do.” The “Reformed Catholic Church” announced this week...

On a trip to Caracas, I saw a graffiti comment written on a phone kiosk but can't get the translation. It was: "Chavez Farzanet (or maybe farzanct) Comunista" A friend from Venezuela couldn't translate the second word while the rest is obvious. Can anyone help? I get the probable contextual meaning, I'm looking for someone who can actually do the translation.

MINSK (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez vowed on Wednesday to work with Belarus, an ex-Soviet state long at odds with Washington, to defeat "hegemonistic" U.S. imperialism. Chavez, a self-styled socialist revolutionary, was making his third visit to Belarus in as many years after overseeing energy deals in Russia that consolidated his country's relations with Moscow. Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, described by Chavez as a "brother", has long railed against the influence of the United States in world affairs. Western nations accuse him of flouting freedom of speech and assembly in 14 years in power. "We are struggling against the...

Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has called for a strategic relationship with Russia to counter aggression from the United States. With a long shopping list for state-of-the-art defence equipment under his arm, Mr Chavez did his best to ingratiate himself with his hosts. He first signed off on a deal giving Russia's state-owned energy companies – often accused of doubling as private piggy banks for powerful Kremlin forces – exclusive rights to develop new deposits Venezuela's Orinoco Oil Belt. Then he switched smoothly to flattery, with a call for the Russian rouble to replace the US dollar as the world's...

The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, today arrived in Moscow on his latest arms-buying spree, saying that his country needed to buy more weapons to defend itself from the United States. Chávez met Russia's president Dmitry Medvedev this morning. He is expected to sign a billion-dollar arms deal with Russia for new missile defence systems and diesel-powered submarines. "I have great hopes we will be able to continue building our strategic alliance," Chávez said after landing in Moscow for a two-day trip. He added: "The deals will guarantee the sovereignty of Venezuela which is being threatened by the United States."

CARACAS, July 21 (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez visits a resurgent Russia this week on an arms shopping trip that raises the anti-U.S. leader's profile and will irritate his hosts' rivals in Washington. Chavez, a firebrand socialist who supports Russia's increasingly bold opposition to U.S. foreign policy, will use the trip to burnish his own credentials as a fierce critic of what he calls the U.S. empire. Moscow's friendship with Chavez, Washington's main foe in the Western Hemisphere, highlights the distance between the Kremlin and the White House, which has widened as they jockey for influence in places such...

(CNSNews.com) - A Houston-based oil company will distribute free compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) to low-income residents of 11 U.S. cities in a new program praised by a liberal activist but criticized by a conservative analyst on Friday as “shameless self-promotion” for Venezuela President Hugo Chavez. The project was announced last Tuesday in Washington, D.C., where 1,500 households will receive an estimated 30,000 CFLs throughout the summer and early fall from CITGO, a corporation owned by the Venezuelan socialist government that refines, transports and markets transportation fuels, lubricants, petrochemicals and other industrial products. “I am proud that CITGO invests over...

My advice to DUmmies upset over any position that Barack Obama takes is to wait a minute and he is almost sure to completely change that position. Most politicians do shift positions when it is convenient but none in my memory has ever shifted position so boldly and so quickly as Obama has for strictly pandering electoral reasons. Obama will say anything that he thinks will get him votes and then ditch that position when it becomes convenient to do so. Gun control, FISA, public campaign financing, Iraq (still flipping and flopping on that one), and a whole host...

CARACAS -(Dow Jones)- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez suggested Sunday that an oil price bubble created by speculators could eventually give way to lower oil prices. "We're waiting for the (oil price) speculation bubble to explode...But even with a price of $70 (a barrel) we would have a mass of money" to finance a number of projects at home and abroad, Chavez said as he addressed attendants of the V PetroCaribe summit. Venezuelan officials often attribute high world oil prices to speculators as well as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.

(English-language translation) The negotiations between Puerto Rico and Venezuela for the purchase of more economical oil remain a mystery. The respective secretaries of the Department of State and the Department of Consumer Affairs (DACO), Fernando Bonilla and Jorge Suárez, have not made public the outcome of that country's visit this past weekend. "I believe they're being very cautious about not turning this into a fiasco and, therefore, they don't want to reveal the negotiation in case this cannot be accomplished and thus avoid a possible negative damage to the effort[.] That is why there is silence," was the opinion of...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy sent a letter to his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez thanking him for the "tireless efforts that helped" release last week several hostages held by the Colombian guerrillas, including Ingrid Betancourt. "As we celebrate the release of Ingrid Betancourt and other 14 hostages, I thank you again for your tireless efforts that helped the hostages of Colombia to come back to freedom and the love of their beloved ones," said the French president, as quoted on Tuesday in a press release from the Venezuelan government. Early this year, Chávez welcome six hostages in Venezuela, who were unilaterally...

Hugo Chávez's Jewish Problem Travis Pantin July/August 2008 E-mail This Article to a Friend Subject: Hugo Chávez's Jewish Problem   Yes, I would like to receive periodic updates and information via e-mail from Commentary. Recipient Addresses: Separate each address with a comma. Your E-mail Address:   Message:   E-mail This Article to a Friend Thank You A link to "Hugo Chávez's Jewish Problem" has been emailed to your friends. Most E-mailed articles: The Mind of Seymour HershWhy Iraq Was InevitableDictatorships & Double StandardsAre We Winning the War on Terror?Hugo Chávez's Jewish Problem In December 1998, preaching a gospel of...

Do Democrats Care about Chavez and his Oppression of the Jews? Ed LaskyAmerican Thinker has long noted that many leading Democrats seem to have a special warm spot for Hugo Chavez, the increasingly dictatorial President of Venezuala. He is a supporter of the FARC terrorist group operating inside our ally Colombia's territory. He is a fomenter of radicalism throughout South America, a partner and good friend of the Iranian regime. In short, he is an anti-American tyrant who lately has been trying to impose Nazi-like police powers in Venezuala. He has had a high-level summit meeting with the Holocaust-denying, Holocuast-planning Presdient of Iran,...

The biggest loser of last week's Hollywood-styled Colombian army rescue of 15 hostages in the hands of the FARC guerrillas, in addition to the rebels themselves, was Venezuela's narcissist-Leninist President Hugo Chavez. Judging from Chavez's own public statements and the contents of thousands of e-mails found in FARC laptop computers seized March 1 when Colombia's military raided a guerrilla camp inside Ecuador, Chavez was hoping to use the hostage crisis to become the ultimate power broker in the Colombian armed conflict and become South America's most powerful political leader. Chavez, as well as Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, had been openly...

----snip---- Discontent is rising throughout the land, and Chávez’s popularity is in free fall. The president, who is more and more erratic and contradictory, has fewer resources to spend on remedying the situation and faces a unified opposition. Let’s hope that the country’s democratic forces can resolve what is a very tough situation for the government and put an end to a regime that has created nothing but unnecessary conflicts and greater poverty for almost everyone. ----snip---- After the oil stoppage of late 2002 to early 2003, Chávez decided to fire no fewer than 18,000 of PDVSA’s employees—almost a quarter...

MIAMI (Reuters) - A lawyer for a defendant in the Argentine "suitcase scandal" said a U.S. government witness has sworn that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was personally involved in the affair, according to a U.S. court filing. The government witness, Carlos Kauffmann, pled guilty in March to U.S. charges arising from the seizure of $800,000 in a suitcase in Buenos Aires and agreed to testify against former associate Franklin Duran in exchange for lighter punishment. U.S. prosecutors have indicated that they had been told the $800,000 was intended for the election campaign of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the former first...

Hugo Chavez faces political crisis as allies desert him By David Blair in Caracas Last Updated: 9:24PM BST 29/06/2008 President Hugo Chavez, the "socialist revolutionary" leading a global campaign against America's "empire", is facing a political crisis in Venezuela where crucial elections are approaching and old allies have turned against him. Mr Chavez has given Caracas's slum-dwellers free health care for the first time Mr Chavez, a devoted admirer of Fidel Castro, has forged an anti-American front with leaders ranging from President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. At home, however, Mr Chavez is in trouble....

Considering the many jubilant boasts by "flat world" devotees in recent years, you might have been tempted to regard economic globalization as a juggernaut, powered by inexorable forces of technology and history. Big mistake. There's no preordained direction for the world economy--only an undetermined future that will take the shape of whatever ideas and policies we choose to uphold. The lack of an intellectual defense of capitalism has left free markets vulnerable. "The power of the state is reasserting itself," said Daniel Yergin, co-author of The Commanding Heights and a free-market optimist , in The Wall Street Journal recently. In...

President Hugo Chavez's Venezuela has become the key trafficking route for most of the cocaine sold on Britain's streets, anti-drugs officials believe. Last year, about 250 tons of cocaine are thought to have passed through Venezuela - up to a five-fold increase on 2004. Much of this ended up in Britain. Anti-drugs officials estimate that more than 50 per cent of all the cocaine consumed in Britain has been trafficked through Venezuela - under the "revolutionary" regime of Mr Chavez. The figure could be as high as two thirds. Senior commanders in Venezuela's security forces are thought to be profiting...

That Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez’ regime is enabling Islamic terrorist organizations to take root in South America is no longer in question. What will the US do? In December 2002 freelance journalist Martin Arostegui published an article in Insight Magazine (“Chavez plans for a terrorist regime”) in which he reported the arrival in Venezuela of Hakim Mamad Ali Diab Fattah, a member of Hizballah. Venezuelan officials received him at the airport. In connection with his presence in the country Arostegui interviewed the former Venezuelan Intelligence Director, General Marcos Ferreira, who said Fattah represented only the tip of the iceberg in...

The Bush administration took action Wednesday against a Venezuelan official and others accused of providing financial support to the Hizbullah terror group. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. [file] Photo: AP , AP Slideshow: Pictures of the week The Treasury Department's action covers Ghazi Nasr al Din, whom the United States identified as a Venezuelan diplomat. The order also targets Fawzi Kan'an and two Venezuelan-based travel agencies - Biblos and Hilal - that he allegedly owns or controls. Kan'an denied the Treasury Department's accusations. "That's pure lies," he told The Associated Press. "What do I have...

June 22, 2008: A new battlefield for the war on terror has developed in Venezuela. There, leftist president Hugo Chavez has not only established close diplomatic relations with Iran (and Cuba, North Korea and radical groups throughout the region), but has allowed Iran to set up operations in South America. Regular commercial flights from Iran to Venezuela (via Syria, to accommodate Hizbollah) carry people, cash and whatever else Iran wants to move. No questions asked, no visas required. Several U.S. counter-terrorism operations have gone to work, trying to find out what Iran is up to, and how to block any...

Terrorism: A Venezuelan diplomat is found to be supporting Hezbollah, and his placement on a Treasury no-go list is laughed at in Caracas. Obviously, something's going on here. For the second time in three months, Venezuela has been implicated in foreign terrorism. The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control named two well-connected Venezuelans as facilitators of Hezbollah Wednesday. Ghazi Nasr al Din and Fawzi Kan'an, along with two Caracas travel agencies, were put on the list this past week, their assets frozen and businesses prohibited.

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday threatened to stop selling oil to European countries if they apply a new ruling on illegal immigrants that is criticized in Latin America and by human rights groups. European Union lawmakers ruled on Wednesday that illegal immigrants can be detained for up to 18 months and face a reentry ban of up to five years. "We can't just stand by with our arms crossed," Chavez said at an event to celebrate his OPEC country's oil supplies to South America attended by Paraguay's visiting president-elect, who also criticized the law. Millions of...

ARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened on Thursday to stop selling oil to European countries if they apply a new ruling on illegal immigrants that has been condemned by human rights groups.

Cuban television is showing images of Fidel Castro chatting in a garden with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the first images of the ailing revolutionary broadcast in six months. The 81-year-old Castro looks thinner, and his hair and beard are much whiter in the video images, which did not include any audio. But he nevertheless looks vigorous and animated as he talks with his younger brother, President Raul Castro, and Chavez. He is dressed in a white running jacket with red and blue trim in the images broadcast Tuesday.

HAVANA (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had an "animated and warm" meeting with former Cuban leader Fidel Castro during a visit to Havana, state-run media said on Tuesday, but no photos or videos of the left-wing allies were made public. Chavez, upon arrival on Monday for a two-day visit, told reporters he would meet with top Cuban officials including the ailing, 81-year-old Castro and Raul Castro, Fidel's younger brother, who took over as president in February. "Now we have our team, it's the same team," he said, referring to the close ties he has forged between oil-rich Venezuela and...

It turns out that Hugo Chávez is an adaptable man. The Venezuelan president, who has championed — and almost certainly helped arm — Colombia’s FARC rebels, called last week for the rebels to lay down their weapons and unconditionally surrender their hostages. We suspect this change of heart has been driven more by self-interest than conviction. Mr. Chávez is increasingly unpopular at home and increasingly isolated abroad, especially as evidence has mounted of his meddling in Colombia. The change nevertheless is welcome and well timed. The FARC, which long ago chose drug trafficking over liberation, has been under assault from...

A Venezuelan journalist is reporting that Hugo Chavez’s government is recruiting young men to train with Hezbollah for the purpose of asymmetrical warfare against the US. Fausta has the translation. Hugo Chavez pretends to cut back on his support of the FARC, when his “dangerous” associations go well beyond the Colombian guerrilla. See the original article and read the whole translation.

As I was 'channel surfing' at my grandmother's house in San Juan this past weekend, I came upon TeleSUR, the new Hugo Chavez T.V. venture, live from Caracas. The programming I saw -- after enduring a cooking show featuring how to make 'arepas', the equivalent in Venezuela of 'pancakes' -- started with anti-U.S., anti-'Imperialists', anti-Bush, et.al. from their news proogramming dept. and then, in the entertainment dept., a segment featuring a musician named Rene Calle 13, who basically told the audience: "F*ck George Bush, he's the worse president ever". Here in the U.S. we have Al Jazeera and other international...

CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday denied that he's the father of a man claiming to be his illegitimate son. It was the first time Chavez responded publicly to the claims of 31-year-old Salomon Fernandez, who says his mother became pregnant after an encounter with Chavez in the city of Maracay. The president said he has investigated the matter, including obtaining a birth certificate, but is sure he never knew Fernandez's mother. He accused Fernandez of seeking publicity and said he has nothing to hide. "She says we had relations," Chavez said in a televised speech. "But when...

Chavez angered many Venezuelans by openly supporting Colombia's leftist rebels, and then frightened many citizens by decreeing a tough new intelligence law. ...Facing a chorus of outrage with only months to go before crucial state and local elections, he now says the guerrillas should give up their fight, and insists he never wanted to force people to spy on their neighbors. Chavez had decreed that anyone refusing to work as informants for intelligence agencies would face four-year prison terms. Protesters denounced it as an attempt to impose a police state and held up signs depicting toads — Venezuelan vernacular for...

Terror: Venezuela's Hugo Chavez won plaudits Sunday for urging Colombia's FARC to disarm. Sounds good, but not so fast. He was caught a day earlier aiding FARC and has explaining to do. Judge him by his deeds.Sure, the Venezuelan dictator appeared to have had a change of heart over the weekend by calling on FARC to lay down its arms, release its 700 hostages and come out of the jungle. "Guerrilla wars have become history in Latin America," he said on his Alo Presidente weekly variety show. It caught many by surprise. After all, in the past year, the Venezuelan...

Chavez ends support of Farc rebels By Jeremy McDermott in Medellin Last Updated: 10:29PM BST 09/06/2008 Hugo Chavez said he was ending his support for Colombia's Marxist guerillas, robbing them of their most public and powerful ally. Farc rebels on patrol. Such displays of strength may be a thing of the past after their main ally, Hugo Chavez, withdrew his support The Venezuelan president said the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia were "history", and called on them to release their hostages and end a decades-long war with the government. "Enough of so much war, it is time to sit down...

On the same day Colombia said it had captured a Venezuelan national guard officer carrying 40,000 AK-47 assault rifle cartridges believed to be intended for leftist guerrillas, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela said Saturday he would withdraw a decree overhauling intelligence policies that he had made earlier that week. The rare reversal by Mr. Chávez came amid intensifying criticism in Venezuela from human rights groups. The capture of the Venezuelan officer in eastern Colombia could reignite tensions between the neighboring countries over Venezuela’s support for the rebel group FARC. Colombia’s attorney general, Mario Iguarán, said Saturday that security forces had...

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged Colombian rebels on Sunday to lay down their weapons, unilaterally free dozens of hostages and put an end to a decades-long armed struggle against Colombia's government. Chavez sent the uncharacteristically strong message to the leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, saying their ongoing efforts to overthrow Colombia's democratically elected government were unjustified. "The guerrilla war is history," said Chavez, speaking during his weekly television and radio program, "Hello President." "At this moment in Latin America, an armed guerrilla movement is out of place." Such declarations were unexpected from...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is urging Colombian rebels to lay down their weapons, free all their hostages and put an end to a decades-long armed struggle against Colombia's government. Chavez says ongoing efforts by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to overthrow Colombia's democratically elected government are unjustified. "The guerrilla war is history," he said during his Sunday television and radio program. The Venezuelan leader's statements could help to warm relations between Venezuela and Colombia that have been strained due to Colombia's allegations that Chavez might be aiding the FARC. Chavez denies supporting the FARC. He says his...

Colombia says it has arrested a Venezuelan national guard officer who was trying to deliver assault rifle ammunition to Marxist rebels. The officer is said to have been captured along with three others in the southern Colombian province of Vichada, near the border with Venezuela. The arrest comes at a time of tension between the two neighbours. The Bogota government has accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of supporting Colombia's Farc guerrillas. The arrested officer, named as Manuel Agudo, was helping to carry 40,000 rounds of AK-47 ammunition along with another Venezuelan and two Colombians, Attorney General Mario Iguaran said. Officials...

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez said Saturday he wants to work together with the next U.S. president and that Venezuela and the United States should cooperate to resolve problems including world hunger, energy shortages and climate change. But Chavez also warned that George W. Bush "will be much more dangerous during the last months that he has left" in the White House, and accused the outgoing U.S. president of attempting to orchestrate his assassination or spur a military rebellion in Venezuela. "Whoever is the next president of the United States, I'd like start preparing the way to start working...

Should Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez be engaged? Or isolated? Presidential candidates debated this question in Florida last week. Make that a presidential candidate debated this with himself in Florida last week. Sen. Barack Obama took both positions on successive days. Mr. Obama told Walter Pacheco of the Orlando Sentinel last Thursday he'd personally meet with Mr. Chavez: "One of the obvious high priorities in my talks with President Hugo Chavez would be the fermentation of anti-American sentiment in Latin America, his support of (Marxist narco-terrorists) FARC in Colombia, and other issues he would want to talk about," Sen. Obama said...

While the dollar's reputation has taken a beating in many of the world's financial capitals, here in Venezuela the fallen-from-fashion greenback reigns supreme. Middle-class Venezuelans routinely hop the borders to neighboring countries to get their hands on illicit dollars, spawning a thriving and lucrative black market in local currency exchange. Some gamble on nearby islands, while others make fake shopping excursions to Panama or Colombia. Middlemen, taking a hefty cut, deliver the dollars and manufacture an elaborate trail of fake receipts in case the Venezuelans are later audited by the currency control board at home. Locals do all of this...

Venezuela fired live missiles from fighter jets and ships Friday during exercises intended to demonstrate the firepower of President Hugo Chavez's military. Smoke rose from ships off the La Orchila island military base as Otomat MK2 missiles arced into the sky and Russian-made Sukhoi fighter jets flew in formation. The televised war games allowed the military to showcase some of the hardware bought under Chavez, who says Venezuela's main threat is the United States. A U.S. Navy plane last month flew over the same Caribbean island base, drawing a diplomatic protest from Venezuela. U.S. officials said the plane accidentally strayed...

LONDON, June 4 -- For much of the world, Sen. Barack Obama's victory in the Democratic primaries was a moment to admire the United States, at a time when the nation's image abroad has been seriously damaged. From hundreds of supporters crowded around televisions in rural Kenya, Obama's ancestral homeland, to jubilant Britons writing "WE DID IT!" on the "Brits for Barack" site on Facebook, people celebrated what they called an important racial and generational milestone for the United States. "This is close to a miracle. I was certain that some things will not happen in my lifetime," said Sunila...

They called him "Angel." He was the highest-ranking outside contact for the Colombian guerilla organization FARC. More and more details are now emerging that demonstrate the close relationship between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the jungle terrorists. * * * The death of its leader is the most recent in a string of serious blows to FARC. In early March, the Colombian military killed Raul Reyes, the group's second-in-command, in an air attack. A few days later, Ivan Rios, a commander, was killed by a bodyguard hoping to collect a bounty that had been offered for the guerilla leader. Finally,...

A new intelligence law brought in by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has caused concern among rights groups who say it threatens civil liberties. Mr Chavez argues the law will help Venezuela guarantee its national security and prevent assassination plots and military rebellions. The new law requires Venezuelans to cooperate with intelligence agencies and secret police if requested. Refusal can result in up to four years in prison. The law allows security forces to gather evidence through surveillance methods such as wiretapping without obtaining a court order, and authorities can withhold evidence from defence lawyers if it is considered to be...

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela said Thursday it arrested a man who identified himself as a U.S. anti-drugs agent, which if confirmed could inflame tensions between the United States and one of its biggest oil suppliers. President Hugo Chavez in 2005 ended cooperation with the the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), saying the agency was spying on him. The United States denied the charge and says Chavez does too little to stop trafficking from neighboring Colombia, the world's largest cocaine exporter. Gen. Gabriel Oviedo said the man was acting suspicious when he was detained close to the border with Colombia while...

Somebody seems to have cut Adam Smith’s invisible hand, at least in what pertains to the market dynamics of the international oil industry. In the past the price of oil in the world markets has followed rather closely the ups and downs of supply and demand. As demand exceeded supply prices rose, national economies in the developed world slowed down, oil demand fell and this, in turn, produced a drop in the price of the product. This “thermostat” effect worked rather well during the oil crises of the 1970’s but it does not seem to be working well today. For...

On February 22, 2008, Ben Smith of Politico reported a story that ran under the headline, “Obama once visited ‘60s radicals.” It concerned how, “In 1995, [Illinois] State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to few of the district’s influencial liberal at the home of two will known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.” Dr. Quentin Young, described as “a prominent Chicago physician and advocate for single-payers health care,” [1] was quoted as saying “I can remember being one of small group of people who came to Bill Ayers’ house to learn that...

When it comes to running the economy, no-one could ever accuse Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez of being a hostage to conventional wisdom. With the country's most recent statistics showing consumer price rises of 29.1% in the 12 months to the end of March - the highest rate of increase in Latin America - now might not be the best time for inflation-busting pay deals. But on 1 May, Mr Chavez gave public sector workers an across-the-board salary increase of 30%. He said maintaining people's purchasing power was a more pressing priority than getting inflation down. At the same time, he...