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NEW YORK, May 18 (Reuters) - Occidental Petroleum Corp. (OXY.N: Quote, Profile, Research) is seeking damages totaling more than $1 billion as part of an arbitration claim against the Ecuadorean government for seizing its assets, a company spokesman said on Thursday. The U.S. oil producer has also terminated all local employees in Ecuador and is relocating its expatriate staff, the spokesman said.

Venezuela and Mexico are among the potential strategic partners for joint operations in the fields that used to be developed by oil corporation Oxy. The corporate agreement to drill oil in the Ecuadorian Amazon was made null and void, the Ecuadorian Government disclosed Tuesday. "There is the possibility of forming a strategic alliance with a state company, as set forth in the regulations," Ecuadorian Minister of Energy Iván Rodríguez said. Additionally, there is the possibility of "contracting directly a state company of a foreign country to reinforce technically Petroproducción. The subsidiary of state oil company Petroecuador will be responsible for...

Latin America: Ecuador's government deserves all the trouble it's got coming now that it's decided expropriation is the way to get rich. But the trouble won't come from the U.S. It's headed their way from Ecuadoreans....The loss of Ecuador's hard-won free-trade pact with the U.S., something it was on the razor's edge of signing, is virtually guaranteed. Ecuador also will probably lose all practical access to U.S. markets when its 2006 Andean trade preferences expire.Two free-trade-pact neighbors, Peru and Colombia, will gladly help themselves to Ecuador's market share in exports of flowers, shrimp and other regional specialties. About 60% of...

My advice: pay cash. Here's why--TWICE within the last 3 months (at different gas stations in the northeast--one in Westchester County, NY and one in Morris County, NJ) I was charged a second time on my credit card. The one in Westchester charged the 34 dollar fill-up twice and the Jersey one added a dollar as a separate charge to the gas charge (I imagine the dude was giving himself a tip). Has this ever happened to anyone else? Or was this a remarkable coinkydink? Probably also a coinkydink that neither of the gas pumpers was born in the USA......

Hello all,I am writing a rare vanity and I hope it is in the correct forum. I need some information as I am not too swift on business law. I hope some freepers can help me. I went this evening to Billy Jeans, a resturant here in Gastonia, NC. It seems they charged my visa debit card more than the tab was. We were a party of four and my tab was for $54.93 but my online statement shows they charged me $65.92.The receipt that I signed said $54.93. On the line where it says "Tip" I wrote "On Table"...

Jefferson City, Missouri -- Secretary of State Robin Carnahan's Commissioner of Securities Matt Kitzi issued a consent order last week concerning a St. Louis business that claimed it could produce a car that runs on water. The order alleges that William P. Alexander and his company, Emerging Technologies Development Company, offered and sold unregistered investments in Emerging Technologies Investment Group LLC. In a July 2004 news release, the company claimed it would create several thousand jobs in St. Louis to produce a water-powered car that would likely make the need for gasoline obsolete in 100 days. However, the company admits...

Maryland lawmakers are forever trying to resolve the vexing issue of illegal aliens seeking driver's licenses, which would be almost funny if their moral flaccidity did not show how vulnerable we are to another terrorist strike. The obtuse thought process is hardly limited to Maryland's windbags. Nothing provokes doublespeak or total capitulation in a politician like the seemingly clear-cut issue of illegal aliens. They are here illegally, so send them back, right? That old-school thinking apparently has no place in these enlightened times of feeling pain and emoting on Oprah's couch. We are obligated to embrace the desperate plight of...

Hawaii residents paid more state taxes in 2004 than residents of any other state in the country... Hawaii residents paid an average of $3,050 per person in 2004, while Texans paid the least — an average of $1,368. Every state but one collected more taxes per person in 2004 than it did a decade earlier... State taxpayer burdens increased by an average of 41 percent from 1994 to 2004. Only Alaska saw the amount it collects per person decline. Even when the numbers are adjusted for inflation, the individual tax burdens increased in 43 states. Rising education and Medicaid costs...

Taxes were up in the past 10 years for Maryland and Virginia residents, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, disappointing both lawmakers and anti-tax advocates. The tax burden in Virginia increased by 55 percent in that period, with a per capita amount of $1,903 in 2004. In Maryland, the tax burden increased by 46 percent, with an individual tax burden of $2,214 in 2004. The District's tax statistics are computed with cities' and local governments' financial data, which won't be available until April, the Census Bureau said.

The D.C. government knocked down an apartment building in Southeast in 2002, and now it wants the building's owner to pay about $98,000 for it, with interest. But, owner Erika Brown objects because, her attorney says, city officials never told her that they were going to demolish the building she purchased from the city weeks before. Gary M. Sidell, an attorney for Miss Brown, calls the District's move to recoup demolition costs "theft by government." He also said that by charging an 18 percent annual interest on a demolition lien, D.C. officials are treating Miss Brown as "a profit center."

WASHINGTON — A bill for busing evacuees from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was $32 million more than it should have been, and the government paid it without question, the Transportation Department inspector general said Friday.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - A Minneapolis school board member may owe the district more than $29,000 in unpaid health insurance premiums due a computer glitch, according to documents obtained by the Star Tribune of Minneapolis. Board member Audrey Johnson's unpaid premiums began adding up during the 2000-01 school year, when she made partial payments, according to a district memo written in May. In the past two school years, the amount jumped by about $20,000 when she was listed as paying nothing.

In the beginning, experts gave it a week. Two, tops. Now, a state Supreme Court justice finds himself out of a job, and other incumbents in Harrisburg are left sweating over their political futures because of what pundits are calling a "populist insurrection." The anti-pay-raise movement that many had dismissed early on as a passing thunderstorm is developing into a Category 5 hurricane that threatens to uproot incumbents across the state next year. "Rome is burning, and the empire is crumbling," said State Rep. Thomas C. Petrone (D., Allegheny), who took the raise but later donated it to charities, including...

The president's tax reform panel's report is due at the end of this month, but don't hold your breath if you were looking for the reform that is really needed. Preliminary signs are the panel will recommend relatively modest (but several desirable) changes to the federal tax system. For decades the present income tax system, with its tens of thousands of rules and regulations, has been widely recognized as so complex no one human, no matter how talented, can understand it.

As the controversy over a pay raise for Pennsylvania lawmakers continues, a public relations event at a Pittsburgh elementary school this week turned out worse than state House speaker John Perzel of Philadelphia could have pictured -- literally. At the school event, Speaker Perzel again tangled with reporters over the pay raise (see related story) -- prompting a blistering editorial in Friday’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette saying the speaker’s “arrogance was on full display.” But to make matters worse, says Prof. Terry Madonna, political analyst and pollster at Franklin and Marshall College, a photograph (above right) published by another Pittsburgh newspaper, the...

Posted by Baja Cactus, owner of the Pemex station and motel in El Rosario. The Mexican government sets the price each month. As you all may already know, the last of every month, Pemex changes the fuel prices...usually only a couple of cents. So, here you go the prices for October 2005... Magna............$ 6.12 pesos per liter Premium..........$ 7.23 pesos per liter Diesel.............$ 5.06 pesos per liter These prices are in liters, and 1 gallon = 3.7854 liters. Today (october 4th) 1 dollar = $ 10.70 pesos (+/-) Using the previous information, this is what we have.... Magna............$ 2.165 dollars...

BATON ROUGE, La. More than six (m) million dollars has poured into Governor Kathleen Blanco's Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation in the past four weeks, but hurricane victims have yet to receive any of the money. The holdup? The governor hasn't appointed a committee to distribute the contributions. The foundation's Web site says the fund was established "to help provide immediate assistance." The governor's press secretary, Denise Bottcher, says the foundation actually is meant to meet more long-term needs. Organizations such as the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army are providing day-to-day help. Bottcher says the foundation is designed to...

It's time for all investors, and opponents of government greed, to sign the "Say No To Income Trust Taxation" online petition. Please sign now online. It only takes a few seconds at: http://www.petitiononline.com/income/petition.htmlThis latest Liberal tax grab, by Ralph Goodale, has got to be stopped. Please let your voice be heard in opposition. It's time for the silent overtaxed majority to finally speak up.

About 1,500 protesters stood in a steady rain on the steps of the state Capitol this afternoon to demand that the legislators huddled inside repeal the 16 to 34 percent pay raise they approved for themselves in July. "We are revolting against the opulent lifestyle these people have given themselves with our money,'' Harrisburg radio talk show host Bob Durgin thundered. "Do you want to repeal the raise? Do you want to get rid of legislators' car leases? Are you angry?" he asked the crowd, which boomed back "YES!" to each question. Other speakers took to the microphone and got...

CNBC currently lists gasoline at $2.02, down $.01. The CNN/Money site quotes Unleaded Gas at $2.04 on 9/8.