The ships, in their first post-Cold War venture into Latin America, included the Peter the Great, the flagship missile cruiser of the Russian navy, and several other vessels.

Under the accord, Russia would help Venezuela build a nuclear energy plant. Joint gas projects were also approved. Military co-operation is also high on the agenda of Mr Medvedev.s talks with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

None of this would be alarming if Chavez were not a known sponsor of violent and radical movements across the hemisphere, from the FARC in Colombia to the worst elements (and a small minority of the overall parties) of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the FMLN in El Salvador.

His closest allies, such as Iran and North Korea, are rogue nations who have repeatedly lied and failed to abide by international nuclear agreements. Having already spent $4.4 billion on Russian weapons in the past three years, and despite a sharp downturn in oil revenues, Chavez wants to go nuclear. The reason he gives is electrical production as the prime peacetime use of the energy. But this raises several important questions. The first is why, in his quest to acquire nuclear power since 2005, Chavez has insisted on involving the Iranians in the program? According to Russian press reports, the link in the new project will be made, at least indirectly.

Atomstroyexport, the same company building the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran, would be the project operator in Venezuela.

The insistence on Iranian involvement in Venezuela.s nuclear future had been enough to scare off both Brazil and Argentina for joint cooperative efforts. As Brazilian Ministry of Energy spokesman said in 2005,

In the view of possible Iran participation, as President Chavez suggested, such a partnership would be risky for Brazil

he said

Brazil is not interested in cooperating with countries that do not follow international treaties and whose nuclear programs are not monitored by competent authorities

the spokesman added.

Aside from the desire to involve Iran, several other issues stand out. The most notable is that Venezuela has a surplus of electricity and sells it to both Colombia and Brazil.

According to the Department of Energy country report on Venezuela, about 75 percent of Venezuela’s electricity is generated by hydroelectric power, which slightly surpasses Venezuela.s internal consumption needs. The surplus is generated by conventional thermal power, generated by locally-produced diesel and fuel oil. Venezuela is a net exporter of 25.8 billion kilowatthours (Bkwh) of electricity, primarily to Brazil, but also to Colombia.

So the rush to nuclear energy for this purpose does not seem credible.

Peaceful nuclear energy use in Latin America, as Brazil and Argentina have shown, have a place. But these are under the control of governments that are not sponsoring violence and not allied with radical Islamist regimes or other outlaw states.

The biggest danger we face is a nuclear bomb in the hands of terrorists, be they Islamists, Marxist or Fascist. Enriched uranium in the hands of Hugo Chavez will greatly exacerbate that danger.

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Relation bewteen Terrorist group FARC and Venezuela

“Today’s designation exposes two senior Venezuelan government officials and one former official who armed, abetted, and funded the FARC, even as it terrorized and kidnapped innocents,” said Adam J. Szubin, Director of OFAC. “This is OFAC’s sixth action in the last ten months against the FARC. We will continue to target and isolate those individuals and entities that aid the FARC’s deadly narco-terrorist activities in the Americas.”

Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios is the Director of Venezuela’s Military Intelligence Directorate (DGIM). His assistance to the FARC includes protecting drug shipments from seizure by Venezuelan anti-narcotics authorities and providing weapons to the FARC, allowing them to maintain their stronghold of the coveted Arauca Department. Arauca, which is located on the Colombia/Venezuela border, is known for coca cultivation and cocaine production. Carvajal Barrios also provides the FARC with official Venezuelan government identification documents that allow FARC members to travel to and from Venezuela with ease.

Henry de Jesus Rangel Silva, the Director of Venezuela’s Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services or DISIP, is in charge of intelligence and counterintelligence activities for the Venezuelan government. Rangel Silva has materially assisted the narcotics trafficking activities of the FARC. He has also pushed for greater cooperation between the Venezuelan government and the FARC.

Ramon Emilio Rodriguez Chacin, who was Venezuela’s Minister of Interior and Justice until September 8, is the Venezuelan government’s main weapons contact for the FARC. The FARC uses its proceeds from narcotics sales to purchase weapons from the Venezuelan government. Rodriguez Chacin has held numerous meetings with senior FARC members, one of which occurred at the Venezuelan government’s Miraflores Palace in late 2007. Rodriguez Chacin has also assisted the FARC by trying to facilitate a $250 million dollar loan from the Venezuelan government to the FARC in late 2007. We cannot confirm whether the loan materialized.

On May 29, 2003, President George W. Bush identified the FARC as a significant foreign narcotics trafficker, or drug kingpin, pursuant to the Kingpin Act. In 2001, the State Department designated the FARC as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist pursuant to Executive Order 13224, and in 1997 as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

This OFAC action continues ongoing efforts under the Kingpin Act to apply financial measures against significant foreign narcotics traffickers and their organizations worldwide. In addition to the 75 drug kingpins that have been designated by the President, 460 businesses and individuals have been designated pursuant to the Kingpin Act since June 2000.

Today’s action freezes any assets the designated entities and individuals may have under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibits U.S. persons from conducting financial or commercial transactions involving those assets. Penalties for violations of the Kingpin Act range from civil penalties of up to $1,075,000 per violation to more severe criminal penalties. Criminal penalties for corporate officers may include up to 30 years in prison and fines of up to $5,000,000. Criminal fines for corporations may reach $10,000,000. Other individuals face up to 10 years in prison for criminal violations of the Kingpin Act and fines pursuant to Title 18 of the United States Code.

Source: ustreas.gov

No Gas

Venezuela’s national energy company will now control almost all elements of the huge oil industry. Exploration and refining is already handled by the state, with some involvement of private partners. But until now, the transport of petrol was in the hands of dozens of private firms, including some major multinationals. President Hugo Chavez said they were making money at the country’s expense.

Nationalization.

Many transport operators will be forced to sell their businesses to the government or face expropriation. Critics have suggested the huge state company won’t distribute petrol as efficiently as private firms. But the government has promised an improved service with regular deliveries to the most remote corners of Venezuela. It has also said the measure will help stop the illegal smuggling of the country’s very cheap fuel across the border to Colombia and Brazil. The move is part of a wider policy that has seen most key sectors of the economy pass into the state’s hands.

It is one of the controversial pledges of President Chavez, who has promised that the government can benefit the nation if it runs more of the country’s businesses itself.

Source: BBC News

The President of La Confederacion de Asociaciones Israelitas de Venezuela, Abraham Levy Benshimol, said that the possibility of a Hezbollah presence in his country was “worrying”. “Clearly this worries us considerably”, stressed a highly-placed source in the Israeli foreign office. The article also warned of a strengthening link between Chavez and the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Since the publication of the article in the LA Times, the Israeli foreign office has remained silent, but today, unofficially, accepted that the accuracy of its contents is ‘reasonably certain’. Furthermore, the article confirmed that two Venezuelans with Arab surnames had bank accounts in numerous countries, from which they financed terrorist groups. Because of this, the US Treasury has frozen their accounts.

Source: Noticias24.com

The Venezuelan government also provided resources to Colombia’s FARC guerrillas, the Basque separatist group known as ETA and Islamic organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah, according to Norman Bailey.

Bailey briefly held the post of Venezuela and Cuba program manager for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence last year, a position that coordinates information-gathering for areas considered top priorities. Bailey, now with the Institute of World Politics and the Institute for Global Economic Growth, testified that Venezuela continues to present a “clear and immediate” threat to U.S. national security, “especially due to the broad and ever-increasing ties to the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Bailey testified Friday during a hearing on Venezuela by the Western Affairs Subcommittee of House Committee on Foreign relations.

He questioned Washington’s “passivity” in confronting the excesses of the Chavez government and criticized the arguments by some U.S. government officials that it “will ultimately destroy itself,” and that any U.S. measures against Chavez could make petroleum prices spike.

Bailey said the impact of a U.S. embargo on oil imports from Venezuela could be countered by releasing around two million barrels a day from the U.S. strategic oil reserves. In contrast, he said, for Venezuela, “the effects would be devastating“.

Bailey also denounced the close relations with Iran that have been “assiduously cultivated” by the Chavez government.

Source: MiamiHerald.com

Pierre Fould Gerges, vice president of the Reporte Diario de la Economia, was shot about a dozen times by an assassin on a motorcycle Monday night, newspaper editor Jose Palmar told the Venezuelan broadcaster Union Radio.

“Everything indicates it was a hit“, Palmar said, adding the 48-year-old was shot about a dozen times and that the gunman stole nothing during the attack outside a Caracas gas station.

The possible motives remain unclear, but the victim’s brother Tannous Fould Gerges is the newspaper’s president and has reported receiving threats while the newspaper has covered corruption cases.

Police said the Fould had been driving his brother’s car when he was killed on Monday night, raising the possibility his killer confused him with the newspaper’s president.

Source: Associated Press
Reference: ElUniversal.com

Glenn Martin, a representative for one of the groups, indicated that the violent demonstrations were also taking place in protest against the private media, especially Patricia Poleo and the evening newspaper ‘El Mundo’, which, by his estimation, were those who had been singled out.

Furthermore, he noted the irony in the fact that “the opposition are awarded with an amnesty law, whilst populist groups are reprimanded”, for which he called upon the various collectives to reject these actions, as much from opposition groups as from the “revolutionary government’s own right-leaning members”.

The “populist strike”
This Thursday morning the entrances to the ‘23rd of January’ neighborhood of Caracas were closed off by groups of hooded people who were protesting against ‘repression’. According to information from the media, government-supporting organizations based in the area decided to ‘kidnap’ the neighborhood, burning tires and firing weapons.

A rise in the rate of arrears has been observed in the accounts of banking institutions, with rates of 1.14% in February 2007 increasing to 1.34% in January 2008 and 1.41% in February.

Of a total of 47 commercial and universal banks, 36 have seen their rate of arrears increase in the last 12 months. This figure, according to Aristimuño Herrera & Associates, will continue to increase through the year. This will strike in unison with a fall in the banks’ profits, which will without doubt hang over the system in a negative way.

The economic slow down which will occur in 2008, along with an increase in interest rates, is a highly detrimental combination for the solvency of Venezuelan banks’ credit portfolio.

The maximum rate of interest that banks can charge for credit card loans has now risen to 32%, which is evidence for the increase in arrears for this credit, which now represents 14% of all loans, equal to Bs.F 14,733,193. Banks have done away with sending out unsolicited credit cards, just as with the phrase “Buy now, pay later”. Credit cards are the easiest form of borrowing to use and the hardest to pay back- in periods of economic cooling things are aggravated even more by the increased cost of borrowing.

At Aristimuño Herrera & Associates, they predict that credit cards will be one of the biggest headaches for banks this year. Furthermore, they foresee 2008 being a difficult year for banking in general, as financial obligations are not met.

Tied up assets belonging to banks increased from Bs.F 733,266,000 in February 2007 to Bs.F 1,472,102,000 twelve months later- an increase of 100.8%.

In February 2008, uncollected debts outstanding were covered by 156.2%, but in the same month last year, they were covered by 203.34%. Seven banks are now below 100% in the cover of their bad-debt portfolios.

Faced with a fall in profits and an increase in arrears, the outlook for banks is not promising.

The greatest reason behind the increase in arrears for consumer credit is that, on the one hand, Venezuelans are spending more, and on the other hand they are now starting to strongly feel the effects of spending in the last quarter of 2007, especially when there are no bonuses to receive and with an increase in interest rates in parallel to an increase in inflation and an overall decrease in the economy (it will grow less than the 8.4% achieved in 2007).

Since October 2007, the average amount of a bank’s assets has increased by 6%, placing itself at 23.12%, and the same rate for credit cards is currently at 31.03%.

However, we must bear in mind that the impact on additional credit spending in banks was behind the Venezuelan Central Bank’s decision to raise interest rates for savings accounts, costing Bs.F 1,747,906,000, which represents 38% of net profits for the banking sector in 2007. This is without even considering the fall in takings from credit for the manufacturing sector, since the interest rate is now fixed at 19%, compared to a previous average of 25%, meaning a decrease of 6%. In a portfolio of Bs.F 7,386,888,000, these 6% are equivalent to a decrease in takings of Bs.F 443,213,000.

Banks are thus looking to compensate for this increase in their costs combined with the decision taken this Tuesday by the Venezuelan Central Bank to regulate certain banking commissions, along with an increase in interest rates and its associated impact on the rate of arrears.

Source: Economista24.com>