"...Mulva?..."
In other comments, Chavez is an open admirer of Comrade Che'. Even going to so far as to be photographed proudly wearing a Che' t-shirt.
Posted on 02/12/2005 1:24:08 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
CARACAS, VENEZUELA - In an unusual meeting scheduled for late Friday night, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was expected to hold closed-door discussions with ConocoPhillips CEO James Mulva.
The stated topic was rather narrow: terms for the development of the Corocoro field in eastern Venezuela which is slated to produce 70,000 barrels a day by 2006.
But this effort to restart th project stalled recently when Venezuelan authorities rejected ConocoPhillips' business plan. It was closely followed by industry watchers hoping for a deal that may unlock many other projects still stuck in negotiations with the Venezuelan government.
Those speculating didn't have the benefit of knowing how the meeting went.
Company officials confirmed that the meeting was on. But as darkness settled over Caracas and the meeting still hadn't started, few expected either side to offer much information.
Nonetheless, just the prospect for talks prompted one analyst to perk up his reviews of Houston-based ConocoPhillips, which only weeks earlier had suffered in the wake of the Corocoro project slowdown.
"We had concerns about ConocoPhillips' position in Venezuela," said Deutsche analyst Paul Sankey, whose worries are being alleviated at least in part because Mulva is meeting with Chavez. "What seemed to be a situation spiraling out of control three weeks ago now seems much improved."
Recent decisions by Venezuela's energy authorities have caused a whirlwind of speculation by pundits on what is happening behind the scenes.
Foreigners seeking deals Analysts were baffled in early January when Venezuelan authorities told Houston independent Harvest Natural Resources, which exclusively produces fields in Venezuela, that it had been denied drilling permits to add to its output.
Meanwhile, foreign state oil firms like Russia's Gazpromneft and China National Petroleum Corp. are seeking bilateral agreements with Venezuela's state oil giant Petróleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA.
"Venezuela's final objective is not to kick out the private companies, but rather to increase the amount of taxes they pay," said Roger Tissot of PFC Energy, a Washington-based consulting firm. "Chavez is in a position to have some companies go, because others are lining up to get in."
Total said Friday it is talking to PDVSA about investing in a $5 billion expansion of a heavy-oil joint venture, said the French company's chief executive, Thierry Desmarest.
But there are still mixed opinions about what's going on.
Some analysts speculate that Friday's meeting shows the increasing involvement of Chavez himself in negotiations with oil companies. Others say Venezuela is using strong-arm tactics to force companies into contracts under the tougher terms of the new hydrocarbons law.
Recent moves by the Venezuelan government to increase tax revenues from its foreign operators have hit ConocoPhillips hard due to its exposure in Venezuela. The Houston company has a 32 percent stake in the Corocoro field, as well as 40 percent participation in Block 2 of the offshore Deltana Platform natural gas reserves.
In addition, the company has a significant stake in two multibillion-dollar heavy crude upgraders that turn Venezuela's tarry Orinoco oil into synthetic crude. Chavez, a firebrand leftist and sworn enemy of President Bush, last November abruptly ended a royalty holiday negotiated in the 1990s, boosting royalty payments from 1 percent to 16.6 percent.
Attractive place to invest Despite its having heavy and sour crude, Venezuela has geography and large reserves that make it an attractive place to invest. Many countries that are the richest oil producers are off limits to international outfits.
Oil majors have shown particular interest in Venezuela's Orinoco Belt, which is estimated to hold as much as 235 billion barrels of extra heavy crude. Majors like Total, ChevronTexaco, Shell and Exxon Mobil are interested in exploiting these reserves as light crude discoveries become increasingly rare. The Orinoco heavy oil projects are crucial to Venezuela's plan to nearly double output to 5 million barrels per day over the next five years through a $37 billion investment plan.
Venezuelan authorities say the country is producing 3.1 million barrels per day, but independent authorities, including OPEC, say output is only 2.6 million barrels per day. Furthermore, legislation decreed by the Chavez government in 2001 toughens terms for investors, requiring 51 percent stake in upstream production and increasing royalties to 30 percent, which has slowed foreign investment.
Beyond diplomacy, however, there are not many options for Washington. Mr. Chavez is democratically elected. And his country's huge oil reserves make it the No. 4 provider to the United States.
"Chavez has shut off a lot of our options. We're very susceptible to a shut off of oil by Chavez," the U.S. official said.
Mr. Chavez has talked of establishing an Al Jazeera-style news network in Venezuela that would reach all of Latin American. Some Pentagon officials considers the Qatar-based Arab-language channel a propaganda arm of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
But Mr. Chavez appeared on Al Jazeera in December and called the station "a symbol of courage, principles and dignity." He added, according to the British Broadcasting Corp.: "It always tells the truth." He expressed support for the Iraqi insurgents attacking American forces.
Mr. Chavez was elected in 1998 on a theme of a "Bolivarian Revolution" — a message of Marxism and populism aimed at the poor. He survived a coup in 2002 and beat back a recall election last August with 57 percent of the vote.
Mr. Chavez traveled to Tripoli, Libya, last November to receive a humanitarian award from Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who has renounced terrorism and given up his weapons of mass destruction.
"Latin America has started witnessing greater interest and involvement in popular and revolutionary movements," Mr. Chavez said, according to the Associated Press.
Among the dignitaries in the audience was Sandinista leader Mr. Ortega, the former Nicaraguan president who seeks to rule Nicaragua again. ***
Increasingly, such rhetoric is frustrating key Chavez supporters - and has created unprecedented friction within his political coalition.
``Change in Venezuela can no longer be an expectation or a campaign promise. It has to be expressed in public policy,'' Felipe Mujica, president of the government-aligned Movement Toward Socialism party, said in a recent interview.
In a major break in the ranks, Mujica's party accused Chavez of inciting unrest when Chavez threatened in May to grab more power by declaring a ``state of emergency'' designed to fight crime and raise living standards.
Chavez has yet to make good on that threat, but he stunned many by announcing he is creating a new political movement to refresh his bond with the people. Chavez gave the new ``Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement'' the vague task of organizing Venezuelans into ``patriotic circles'' to ``defend the revolution.''
Shocked leaders of Chavez's Fifth Republic Movement scrambled to deny he was abandoning his party.
But Guillermo Garcia Ponce, the new movement's head, said the Fifth Republic relied too heavily on the president's charisma and didn't bother to amass grass-roots support.
``The president feels the need to give a new impulse, a new ideological air to the Bolivarian Revolution,'' Garcia Ponce said, referring to the socio-economic changes he is pushing under the name of the 19th-century South American liberator Simon Bolivar.
The new movement has the same name as an underground group Chavez led as a lieutenant colonel in the 1980s - and used in 1992 to spearhead an unsuccessful coup that catapulted him to national fame.
Congress President Willian Lara admits the Fifth Republic Movement was barely an organized political party when Chavez won the presidency in 1998. ...*** (June 2001 article)
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b25296d3822.htm
In other words, L 'ETAT CEST MOI. Chavez is a dangerous megalomaniac. It is only a matter of time before he starts the mass executions of political prisoners and the leftists who are outraged at any mis-step America makes will cheer Chavez on.
Sec. Rice needs to deal with this cancer.
In other comments, Chavez is an open admirer of Comrade Che'. Even going to so far as to be photographed proudly wearing a Che' t-shirt.
Seems as though Chavez is begging for a .50 BMG exit wound in the back of his head. (Administered by one of his countrymen, of course.)
It certainly would solve a lot of problems.
Chavez has brought in tens of thousands of Castro's teachers, sports trainers, doctors and security personel to "assist" him and the people of Venezuela.
A year ago:
Julianne Malveaux: King's legacy lives on - in Venezuela***Although King is an icon of the civil rights movement, he hardly belongs only to African- Americans. As he underscored in his Nobel Peace Prize speech when he asserted his "audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits," King championed all people living in poverty worldwide.
I was delighted, therefore, when I traveled with others from the TransAfrica Forum to celebrate King's birthday in Caracas, Venezuela. We went with Minister of Education Aristobulo Isturiz to open a school named after King. It's among more than 3,000 "Bolivarian" schools created since Hugo Chavez became Venezuela's president in 1999. The schools, open all day, provide two meals and a snack to poor children.
There's also a new Bolivarian University, which increases higher education's availability, especially to poorer students. Further, more than a million adults have taken literacy classes in the past two years.
Chavez has taken his message of economic justice from Venezuela to the whole of Latin America. He opposes a free-trade agreement for the Americas and suggests that a development fund be established to help poor Latin American countries withstand economic oscillations and eliminate poverty.
Not surprisingly, Chavez and George W. Bush have clashed because of their different views of Latin American economic development. Chavez, for instance, appropriately described national security adviser Condoleezza Rice as "illiterate" about Latin American politics and economics.***
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1059050/posts
He needs the Arafat treatment.
Yes, she does. She needs to do it with our people in uniform backing her up. Whether it's all out war or a Cold War we always have to deal with Communism, Socialism, or whatever. They even try to work us from the inside, led by Ted Kennedy, Boxer, The Clintoons, Pelosi, and the list goes on and on. God Bless America and All who defend Her Past, Present, and the Future to come. We have to keep going.
Yes!
And you can add Sen. Christopher Dodd and Jimmy Carter to that shameful list.
"Attractive place to invest Despite its having heavy and sour crude, Venezuela has geography and large reserves that make it an attractive place to invest."
This sentence is brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.
Notice how the Communists (Soviets/Cubans/Red Chinese) are bringing up their agents (i.e. Cavez) through the ranks of the military in Latin America. They learned this lesson the hard way from their failed revolution in Chile (courtesy of Pinochet).
He may have been democratically elected, but, Peanut Farmer and the State Dept. notwithstanding, the only reason why he's still in power is because he fraudulently survived recall.
Hugo Cabezas and Tareck el Aissami were appointed last month as director and deputy director of the Identification and Immigration Directorate, in charge of border controls and issuing passports and national ID cards. The agency also works with electoral authorities on voter registration.
Both were top student leaders at the University of the Andes in the western city of Merida, described by senior school officials as a virtual haven for armed Chávez supporters and leftist guerrillas.
When El Aissami served as president of the student body from 2001 to 2003, his armed supporters controlled the university's dormitories, said Oswando Alcala, a professor and director of student affairs.
Cabezas and El Aissami declined several Herald requests for interviews. Calls to the Information Ministry in Caracas also failed to elicit an official response.
Their appointments to the passport office raised eyebrows both because of the reports of Arabs obtaining Venezuelan ID documents and the possibility of fraud in an ongoing drive for a referendum to recall Chávez. His popularity stands at less than 40 percent.
''These appointments raise suspicions,'' said Pompeyo Marquez, a former Cabinet minister for border issues and an opponent of Chávez opponent. ``The risk is that they can play tricks both as regards elections and with identity cards.''
MAGAZINE REPORT
Allegations that Chávez's leftist government issued ID documents to Islamic radicals surfaced most recently in the newsweekly U.S. News and World Report. ''Venezuela is providing support -- including identity documents -- that could prove useful to radical Islamic groups,'' the magazine reported last month, quoting senior U.S. military and intelligence officials.
Chávez has strongly denied previous opposition allegations of links to Islamic radicals and leftist guerrillas from neighboring Colombia. Following the U.S. magazine's report, he accused the U.S. ''extreme right'' of trying to justify his ouster by ``anything: an assassination, a coup d'etat, an invasion.''*** [More at LINK]
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