CARACAS, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Venezuelans rushed to the shops on Saturday, fearful of price rises after a currency devaluation that will let President Hugo Chavez boost government spending ahead of an election but feeds opposition charges of economic mismanagement.
In a bid to jump-start the recession-hit economy of South America's top oil exporter, Chavez on Friday announced a dual system for the fixed rate bolivar.
It devalues the currency to 4.3 and 2.6 against the dollar, from a rate of 2.15 per dollar in place since 2005, giving the better rate for basic goods in an attempt to limit the impact of the measure on consumer prices.
The opposition seized on fears that prices for imported goods will double as shoppers formed lines of more than a hundred people outside some stores in the capital Caracas.
"It was a Black Friday, tinted red," said sales executive Diana Sevillana in reference to the crimson color of Chavez's socialist party. She stood in a line of 30 people outside an electrical goods store in a middle class neighborhood.
The socialist Chavez believes the state should have a weighty role in managing the economy. During his 11 years in office he has nationalized most heavy industry, and business and finance are tightly regulated.
The devaluation is politically risky but means every dollar of oil revenue puts more bolivars in government coffers. That allows Chavez to lavish cash on social projects and fund salary increases ahead of parliamentary elections in September.
Opponents were quick to criticize the socialist, who a year ago promised the global financial crisis would not touch "a hair" of Venezuela's economy. He announced the devaluation on Friday night during an important baseball game.
"By establishing the exchange rate at 4.3 bolivars per dollar, the quality of life for Venezuelans is automatically devalued since we now have half the money we had before," said Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma, a Chavez opponent.
BLACKOUTS, WATER SHORTAGES
Opposition parties, emboldened by public dissatisfaction at frequent blackouts and water shortages and a 2.9 percent economic contraction in 2009, hope to strip Chavez of his legislative majority in September.
The devaluation is embarrassing for Chavez, who resisted calls from economists and many government allies to make the move last year when oil prices were at their lowest and elections a long way off.
"Venezuela's decision to devalue the Bolivar culminates an event that the market has been anticipating for a long time," said Walter Molano, an analyst at BCP Securities. "It helps alleviate the country's fiscal woes and puts it on a sounder macroeconomic footing."
The measure is a relief for state oil company PDVSA, which has struggled to pay service providers and meet requirements to fund social projects since crude prices dropped sharply last year. It also makes Venezuelan businesses more competitive.
Holders of Venezuela's foreign debt are also pleased, since the devaluation improves government finances and lessens the need to issue more bonds.
However, Chavez risks taking a blow to his popularity ratings, which are about 50 percent, as prices for many products inevitably will rise in the country of 28 million people, which relies on imports for much of its consumption.
Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez said the devaluation will add 3 percent to 5 percent to inflation, already the highest in the Americas at 25 percent last year.
"The popularity of the government is obviously going to be sharply and negatively affected," said economist Pedro Palma. "The inflationary impact of the measure diminishes the real income of people. People can consume less."
The new two-tiered exchange system offers the 2.6/dollar rate for goods deemed essential including food, medicine and industrial machinery. Other products, including cars and telephones, will be imported at the higher 4.3 rate.
Last month, BMO Capital Markets cut ratings on Colgate-Palmolive Co (CL.N), Avon Products Inc (AVP.N) and Kimberly-Clark Corp (KMB.N) to "market perform" saying a possible devaluation in Venezuela could hurt the U.S. consumer goods makers' profits.
Economist Pavel Gomez of the IESA economic school said the new system will increase opportunities for graft in a country that already is corruption-ridden.
"Multiple exchange schemes are incentives for corruption, more so if they are applied in the Venezuela way," he said. "Those who have good contacts can buy at 2.6 and sell at 4.3."
Chavez, whose popularity usually rises in correlation with public spending, also said on Friday that the Central Bank had transferred $7 billion of foreign reserves to a development fund used to finance investment projects.
(Additional reporting by Hugh Bronstein in Bogota, editing by Vicki Allen)
Carter defends his handling of Iran hostage crisis
(Agencies) Updated: 2009-11-17 09:19
CHIANG MAI, Thailand: Former US President Jimmy Carter said he was pressed by his advisers to attack Iran during the hostage crisis there more than 30 years ago but resisted because he feared 20,000 Iranians could have died.
Islamist militants stormed the US Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, and seized its occupants. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days.
Carter said Monday that one proposed option was a military strike on Iran, but he chose to stick with negotiations to prevent bloodshed and bring the hostages home safely.
"My main advisers insisted that I should attack Iran," he told reporters in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, where he was helping build houses for Habitat for Humanity. "I could have destroyed Iran with my weaponry. But I felt in the process it was likely the hostages' lives would be lost, and I didn't want to kill 20,000 Iranians. So I didn't attack."
The hostages were released on January 20, 1981, just minutes after the swearing in of President Ronald Reagan, whose victory over Carter is largely attributed to the crisis.
The former president has commented in the past on how military action had been an option but that he feared a death toll in the tens of thousands, according to Carter spokeswoman Deanna Congileo.
Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, are among 3,000 volunteers from 25 countries working with Habitat for Humanity this week to help build and repair homes along the Mekong River in Thailand, Vietnam, China, Cambodia and Laos.
The homes in Cambodia are being built for families currently living in a garbage dump, the ones in Vietnam are for fishermen who now live on their boats, and the project in China involves construction of an apartment building in a part of Sichuan province devastated by a 2008 earthquake.
Habitat for Humanity's Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Reckford said the Georgia-based nonprofit group would construct houses for 50,000 families in the Mekong region over the next five years.
"In an area of the world where many people live in deplorable conditions, we have a chance to help families improve their housing," said Carter, wearing sneakers, jeans and a work shirt. He and his wife spent Monday helping build 82 homes in honor of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who celebrates his 82nd birthday next month.
He was joined by several regional celebrities, including Chinese movie star Jet Li and Japanese football legend Hidetoshi Nakata.
Since its founding in 1976, Habitat says it has built and rehabilitated more than 300,000 homes worldwide, providing simple shelter for 1.5 million people.
Hugo Chavez
Hilton 'evaluating' Venezuelan hotel seizure
Oct 14 09:37 AM US/Eastern
The US-based Hilton hotel chain is "evaluating" the Venezuelan government's seizure of one of its hotels on the Caribbean resort island of Margarita, a spokeswoman told AFP on Wednesday.
President Hugo Chavez ordered the "acquisition by force" of the landmark hotel Tuesday, according to Venezuelan officials.
"At this time, Hilton Worldwide is evaluating how the Venezuelan government's action affects its interest in this hotel," said Karla Visconti, a Hilton Worldwide spokeswoman for the Caribbean, Mexico, and Latin America.
In a brief statement Visconti said the hotel "remains a member of the Hilton system of hotels, and welcomes guests with the same level of service they have come to enjoy."
The sprawling Margarita Island complex includes 280 rooms, 210 suites, a casino, stores, restaurants, offices and meeting areas, as well as the adjoining marina.
The hotel, in Nueva Esparta state, was targeted for state takeover less than a month after it was used to host the Africa-South America Summit.
The assets will be held by the state tourism corporation Venetur, which reports to the Tourism Ministry, part of an "urgent" effort to boost "the social development side of the tourism and hotel industries in Nueva Esparta state," the Venezuela government's Official Gazette said.
Caracas earlier seized the Hotel Hilton in Caracas and re-named it the Hotel Alba, a reference to the Venezuelan-led leftist regional alliance Alianza Bolivariana para las Americas (ALBA).
In the past four years, Venezuela has implemented the nationalization of industries it sees as strategic including electrical utilities, cement, steel, oil services and banking.
Chavez Jokes About Making Atomic Bomb
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
CARACAS, Venezuela —
President Hugo Chavez is poking fun at Washington's misgivings over a possible transfer of nuclear materials between Venezuela and Iran.
During a televised Cabinet meeting Tuesday, Chavez welcomed Mining Minister Rodolfo Sanz as he arrived late and asked, "How's the uranium for Iran? For the atomic bomb?"
Chavez's mocking drew snickers from Cabinet members. Sanz grinned.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said recently the United States is worried about the possibility of nuclear transfers between Iran and Venezuela.
Recent revelations that Iran has secretly been building a uranium-enrichment plant have provoked concerns among countries including the U.S., Russia, France, Britain, Germany and China.
Chavez insists Iran has a "sovereign right" to pursue peaceful nuclear ambitions, and he denies the Islamic republic is building nuclear weapons.
He vowed to press ahead with plans to develop nuclear energy in Venezuela, where uranium deposits have been detected.
Venezuela is not planning to send uranium to Iran, which has significant uranium deposits and currently has no need to import uranium.
"They are going to start saying that we are going to make an atomic bomb," Chavez said.
Qaddafi Lauds Obama, Then Launches Into Rambling Attack on U.N.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
NEW YORK —
Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, declaring that "we'd be content and happy if Obama can stay president forever," launched into a rambling assault against the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, at one point complaining to world leaders gathered to hear him speak that he was tired and jet lagged.
Sometimes speaking in phrases mocking New York City's security efforts during the 64th gathering of the U.N. General Assembly, Qaddafi swung between calling the Security Council a "Terror Council," to demanding that European nations pay $7.7 trillion in compensation and apologize for colonizing Africa, at one point adding, "African nations have the right to go anyplace to get the $7.7 trillion stolen from it."
Qaddafi spoke after President Barack Obama's first speech to the General Assembly.
Referencing Obama as "my son," Qaddafi said: "We are happy that a young African Kenyan was voted for and made president. Obama is a glimpse in the dark for the next four years, but I'm afraid we may go back to squar one.
"Can the U.S. guarantee after Obama that they'll be a government? We're happy and content if he can stay forever."
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice left the chamber before Qaddafi took the podium and left a low-level note taker to listen.
Holding a copy of the United Nations Charter, Qaddafi said the U.N. was founded by the super powers and that now "small countries could be crushed by the super powers." At one point, he motioned to rip up the small blue Charter booklet, but instead he paused and seemed to lose his place as world leaders and their representatives sat in stunned silence.
He then continued to rail against the "inequality" of U.N. member states, often repeating himself while quoting from a section of the Charter that calls for equality of nations. He noted that five nations hold veto power on the Security Council and can block actions contrary to their interests: the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France. He later called for an African seat on the Security Council.
Waving his hands and often turning to look at United Nation's Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the new General Assembly President H.E. Dr. Ali Abdussalam Treki — who also serves as Libya's minister of African affairs — Qaddafi defiantly declared, "Nobody cares about the Security Council."
He added, "this place was founded by terrorists."
As he fumbled through hand-written notes, he mixed his attacks with rambling references to: the Kennedy and King assassinations; the U.S. Civil War; the Korean War; the Suez War; Saddam Hussein's hanging; former dictator Manuel Noriega; jet lag; and, a defense of the Taliban and Somali pirates.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Fidel Castro praises Obama on climate change
By PAUL HAVEN (AP) –
HAVANA — Barack Obama's call for action on climate change and his admission that rich nations have a particular responsibility to lead has received strong praise from an unusual source — U.S. nemesis Fidel Castro.
The former Cuban leader on Wednesday called the American president's speech at the United Nations "brave" and said no other American head of state would have had the courage to make similar remarks.
In a speech at the United Nations on Tuesday, Obama acknowledged that the United States had been slow to act on climate change, but said Washington was now prepared to be a full partner as the world confronts the threat.
He said developed nations that have caused much of the climate change the planet has suffered have a "responsibility to lead," but added that rapidly growing nations must do their part as well.
That admission of America's past errors "was without a doubt a brave gesture," Castro wrote in comments published by Cuban state-media Wednesday.
"It would only be fair to recognize that no other United States president would have had the courage to say what he said," the former Cuban leader continued.
Castro, 83, handed over power to his brother Raul in February 2008, but has continued to release frequent essays on current events which are published in state media under the title "Reflections of Comrade Fidel."
In Wednesday's edition, the former Cuban leader quoted extensively from Obama's speech, though he also criticized what he called America's aggressive military and economic foreign policy.
"Its hundreds of military bases installed in dozens of countries on all the continents, its aircraft carriers and naval fleet, its thousands of nuclear arms, its wars of conquest, its military industrial complex and its arms trading are not compatible with the survival of our species," he wrote.
US-Cuban relations have thawed somewhat since Obama took office in January. The U.S. leader has loosened financial and travel restrictions on Americans with relatives on the island, and the two countries last week held talks on restarting direct mail service suspended since 1963.
Raul Castro has said he is open to meeting face-to-face with the U.S. leader on neutral ground, and that all subjects could be on the table, and Fidel has praised Obama as a smart and sincere man. That is quite a difference from Cuba's attitude toward former President George W. Bush, who was depicted on Havana billboards as a vampire.
But the warm words have so far failed to bring about concrete change on core issues.
Obama has left intact the 47-year trade embargo on the island, and U.S. officials have said for months that they would like to see the single-party, communist state accept some political, economic or social changes.
Cuba has repeatedly ruled out making any concessions in return for the lifting of the embargo.
Obama also was praised by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin earlier this month for canceling parts of a missile defense system that Moscow had viewed as a threat to its security. Putin called the move a "right and brave decision."
Carter: Racism plays major role in opposition to Obama
Story Highlights
Former president says, "That racism inclination still exists"
Carter cites protesters calling Obama a Nazi as example of racial politics
He also includes "You lie" outburst by South Carolina representative
updated 2 hours, 32 minutes ago
(CNN) -- Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that racial politics played a role in South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst during President Obama's speech to Congress last week and in some of the opposition the president has faced since taking office.
Former President Carter tells NBC Nightly News that racism has surfaced in opposition to President Obama.
"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American," Carter told NBC News. "I live in the South, and I've seen the South come a long way, and I've seen the rest of the country that shares the South's attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African-Americans."
"That racism inclination still exists, and I think it's bubbled up to the surface because of belief among many white people -- not just in the South but around the country -- that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It's an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply," Carter said.
Carter made similar remarks at an event at his presidential center in Atlanta, Georgia, The Associated Press reported Tuesday, pointing to some protesters who have compared Obama to a Nazi. "Those kind of things are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate on whether we should have a national program on health care," the former president said at the Carter Center, according to AP. "It's deeper than that." Watch Carter link animosity toward Obama to racism »
He grouped Wilson's shout of "You lie!" during Obama's speech in that category, according to AP. "I think it's based on racism. There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president," he said.
"The president is not only the head of government, he is the head of state. And no matter who he is or how much we disagree with his policies, the president should be treated with respect."
Posted on Wed, Sep. 09, 2009
Cuba uses sniffer dogs to track down crooks, dissidents
A Cuban police dog sniffs a murder weapon and is then set to sniff six bottles holding the scents of suspects, just some of the thousands of odor swabs warehoused in a Havana police building. ``Down with Raúl'' appears on a wall, and police put a dog on the writer's scent.
Cuba indeed puts police dogs to work in an eerily broad range of cases, not only finding fugitives and illegal drugs but warehousing the bottled scents of thousands of suspects so the canines can later identify criminals and political dissidents.
Havana has proudly and publicly claimed that crime investigators regularly solve cases with dogs and human scents gathered from crime scenes and suspects, which it argues are almost as unique as fingerprints.
``In the past 12 years, there have been more than 3,000 cases in which, based on scent, it has been possible to establish the identity'' of criminals, Rafael Hernández, a criminology professor at Havana University, wrote in a 2003 paper titled La Odorología Criminalística en Cuba.
He went on to describe details of the police dog program, among them the preservation of scents in pickle-like jars, the warehousing of the scents for up to five years and their use in olfactory versions of line-ups, with six bottles instead of suspects.
But U.S. experts say such broad use of dogs, especially the bottled and warehoused scents, are highly questionable in terms of evidentiary value in court, and thoroughly draconian when applied to political dissidents.
``Fraudulent, preposterous. Absolutely absurd,'' said Miami defense attorney Jeffrey S. Weiner, who has written professional papers on the legal uses of police dogs. ``A farce,'' said Miami canine unit Sgt. Leo Abad. ``Dogs can't talk. They smell a pizza. They can't say if they're smelling the cheese or something else.''
The ``odor bank'' at the Havana police offices, popularly known as ``100 and Aldabó'' after its street address, measures about 75 by 30 feet and is filled with metal shelving and clear glass jars containing cloth swabs, according to one Cuban exile who toured it in the early 1990s. He asked for anonymity to protect his relatives still in Cuba.
As for the dogs' use against dissidents, ``this is an Orwellian thing, a routine thing,'' said Havana human-rights activist Elizardo Sánchez, referring to George Orwell's 1984 tale of totalitarian repression. ``Criminality here continues to rise in an alarming manner, but they continue to prioritize the political repression.''
ROOTS OF PROGRAM Hernandez's 13-page paper, written in an academic style that includes a definition of ``smell,'' notes that the use of ``criminal odorology'' started in the Soviet Union in the 1960s, was developed by the former East Germany and in 1972 was established around Communist-ruled Europe.
After East Germany collapsed in 1989, West German investigators found a warehouse packed with tens of thousands of sealed jars containing bits of cloth impregnated with the odors of criminals and dissidents -- used to identify or track them.
Cuba began building an ``odorology laboratory'' in 1989 ``with the experience of some compañeros who had visited those countries,'' Hernandez noted. Operational tests were carried out in 1991, and by 1993 the technique had been established throughout the island.
Many of the sniffer dogs are German shepherds from the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Hungary. Less threatening cocker spaniels have been used at the Havana airport.
Cuba uses the dogs for traditional security tasks: sniffing out drugs, explosives or guns, tracking fugitives, crowd control, and searching for survivors or cadavers after natural disasters. But it also uses them for an unusually expansive range of crimes.
``Odorology is applied during the investigations of murders, robbery with violence, terrorism, sabotage, theft with force, rape, illegal exhumations, theft, among other crimes,'' Hernandez wrote in his paper, published in the January-June 2003 edition of Cuban Legal Rights Magazine. A 2008 story in the official Granma newspaper noted that police use sniffer dogs in cases ranging ``from common to counterrevolutionary.''
For dissidents, ``this is routine. Without a judicial ruling, they order them to swab a little cloth on their armpits and genitals. . . . The sample is not because of anything specific. It's just to store it,'' Elizardo Sánchez said by phone from Havana. ``They say that if someone puts up graffiti against the government, the specialized dogs can identify them.''
EXPERTS SKEPTICAL The archives of Cubanet, a Miami group that publishes reports from opposition journalists in Cuba, include at least three cases in which police dogs were called after antigovernment graffiti appeared around the island.
But U.S. experts on the legal uses of police dogs say the Cuban system does not appear even minimally reliable.
``No scientist would know whether that [bottled-scent] swab would still be viable four, five years later,'' said Ted Daus, a Broward assistant state's attorney and expert on the evidentiary uses of scent dogs.
``Weird stuff . . . kindof bizarre,'' Michael Baton, head of the American K-9 Academy in Lisbon, Conn., said of the scent warehouse. ``It's a very rocky concept -- not completely impossible but just not a practical technique.''
Indeed, Jorge Luís Vázquez, a Cuban-born Berlin resident who has been researching STASI-Havana relations, recalled that a former STASI official once told him that storing scents for investigations did not work well in Cuba. The reason, Vázquez said he was told, was the hot and humid climate.
Hernandez's paper, in Spanish, is at http://tinyurl.com/nlsspq.
Venezuela's Chavez accuses Israel of genocide
Wed Sep 9, 2009 4:17am EDT
PARIS, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has accused Israel of genocide against the Palestinian people, telling a French newspaper that the bombing of Gaza late last year was an unprovoked attack.
"The question is not whether the Israelis want to exterminate the Palestinians. They're doing it openly," Chavez said in an interview with Le Figaro published on Wednesday.
The Venezuelan president, who has just completed a tour of Middle Eastern and Arab countries, brushed aside Israeli assertions that its attack on Gaza was a response to rocket fire from Islamist group Hamas which rules the coastal enclave.
"What was it if not genocide? ... The Israelis were looking for an excuse to exterminate the Palestinians," Chavez said, adding that sanctions should have been slapped on Israel.
Israel launched an offensive against the Gaza Strip on Dec. 27 2008 with the declared aim of curbing rocket fire from the region into southern Israel.
The land, sea and air assault lasted 22 days, and left some 1,300 Palestinians dead, according to medical sources.
Chavez said he recognised Israel's right to exist, as with all countries, but added that the Jewish state must respect the Palestinian people's right to self-determination.
The Venezuelan president said he wanted more clarity from the United States on its foreign policy, adding that he was disappointed by recent U.S. dealings in South America, including the installation of military bases in Colombia.
"Sadly, the arrival of Obama brought with it a lot of hope, but little change," he said. (Reporting by Vicky Buffery)
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