Spain Backs Venezuela's 'Multipolar' World Vision

[Say_What]

<clips>

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s policy of greater participation in South American affairs and a series of trade agreements are likely to highlight four-way talks between Spain, Venezuela, Brazil and Colombia today.

Seeking to revive its shipbuilding industry, Spain is considering the sale of ships and transport planes to Venezuela and Colombia. Those deals may be discussed at the meetings in the eastern city of Puerto Ordaz on today and Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, tomorrow.

Venezuela is expected to push for the creation of jointly-controlled regional oil and television companies, which have been respectively dubbed “Petrosur” and ”Telesur” by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez.

A cooperation agreement between Spain’s Repsol oil company and Venezuela’s state-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, may be negotiated, said Venezuela Deputy Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez.

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4321128

[Spazito]

1. Venezuela and what is happening there is fascinating

to watch. It looks like Chavez knows exactly what to do and when to do it to foil the bus admin and build alliances as well as trade deals that will solidify his part in a new Latin sphere of influence apart from any US influence.

[sui generis]

2. hell yes he does, here's where he's got our short hairs:

when he threatens to withhold oil sales from us he CAN because he already has another customer waiting in the wings. It's no skin off his knuckles and we have everything to lose.

That's why we must invade them. All their oils are belong to us.

[Say_What]

5. China, LatAm, Canada, Middle East

While those stoooopid Bushistas wage their neocon wars and bankrupt the USSA, China goes about quietly planning its future. Impressive!!

<clips>

....In 2004, China's oil consumption rose by 40 percent, to 6.5 million barrels a day. U.S. domestic demand is 20 million barrels a day. U.S. demand is rising by about 500,000 barrels per day per year. China's is increasing by about 1.5 million barrels per day per year.

...To me it looks like China's strategy is more farsighted and coherent. We've spent $300 billion to invade Iraq, have tried to overthrow the Chavez government in Venezuela and now threaten Iran. China has quietly entered into long-term contracts with many of these countries. It has invested about $15 billion in foreign oil fields and expects to invest 10 times more over the next decade.

China has begun to negotiate directly with our largest long time oil suppliers to lock up future supplies. Canada is currently our largest supplier. Virtually all Canadian oil pipelines go south to satisfy the energy needs of a thirsty U.S. Midwest. That will soon change. Chinese and Canadian companies are negotiating to build a pipeline from northern Alberta west to British Columbia. Murray Smith, Alberta's former energy minister candidly observed, "The China outlet would change our dynamic."

In December, China signed a deal with Venezuela and neighboring Colombia to construct a pipeline linking Venezuelan oil fields to ports along Colombia's Pacific coast. This will allow China to bypass the U.S.-dominated Panama Canal.

China is protecting its energy interests with a string of military bases and diplomatic ties from the Middle East to southern China. Recently, it signed a 25-year oil and gas deal with Iran. Currently, about 80 percent of China's oil imports pass through the Straits of Malacca. China views that Southeast Asia sea corridor as under U.S. Navy control. It is investigating the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Kra in southern Thailand that would allow it to bypass the straits.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/535/5311910.html

[Say_What]

3. Venezuela's Chavez: “Oil is a Geopolitical Weapon”

Latest from COHA.

<clips>

Venezuela's Chavez: “Oil is a Geopolitical Weapon”

...PDVSA Serves the Nation
Keeping Pdvsa under firm government control was politically important. In recent years, Chavez has sought to utilize oil revenue to carry out an ambitious social agenda. In a recent study it was estimated that over 60 percent of Venezuela's 24-million people live in poverty and make less than $2 a day. Accordingly, as a result of record high oil revenues, Chavez has been able to carry out an impressive array of programs promoting literacy, job training, land reform, subsidized food, and small loans. Perhaps most ambitiously, Chavez has used the nation’s oil wealth to extend health care and import Cuban doctors.

As Chavez began to export cheap subsidized oil to Cuba, Fidel Castro sent over 13,000 doctors to Venezuela. Today, the doctors are spread throughout the Andean nation and have access to over half the population, a first in Venezuela’s history. Chavez’s move to bring in Cuban doctors was one of many factors regarding his rule that provoked Washington. In May 2004, the U.S. State Department’s Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba—the administration’s propaganda office on Cuban issues—issued a report stating that Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba needed to be halted if political change on the island was to occur – which was tantamount to calling for a de facto embargo against the Castro regime.

Are there any signs that the confrontation between the two antagonist nations will soon abate? Recently, Chavez has publicly stated that he wanted to mend relations with the United States. "We want to continue to send 1.5 million barrels of oil to the United States on a daily basis and to continue doing business,” he said. What is more, Chavez added that although "we have said things, sometimes, very harsh things, it has been in response to aggressions." Chavez explained that, "what I have said is that if it occurs to the United States, or to someone there, to invade us, that they can forget about Venezuelan oil." He clarified that this is just "a theory that we of course do not want, and I hope that the United States does not want it either."

Chavez turns on the Charm
Chavez’s recent conciliatory statements have brought little slack from Washington as the Bush administration’s harsh anti-Chavez rhetoric continues to boil over whether its splenetic utterances coming from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or routinely from the White House and State Department press offices. On one level, Venezuelan imbroglio seems to be heading towards deeper water. Chavez has repeatedly stated his determination to reduce his country’s dependency on oil sales to the United States. Accordingly, he has begun exploring the sale of parts of Citgo, Pdvsa’s marketing and refining affiliate in the U.S. Citgo owns eight refineries and almost 14,000 gas stations located primarily in the eastern part of the country. Chavez has complained that Citgo, whose refineries are especially adapted to process heavy crude oil from Venezuela, sells oil to the U.S at a discount of two dollars a barrel. “We are subsidizing the U.S. budget,” griped Chavez, who says Citgo contracts were signed before he assumed office in 1999. Moreover, Chavez maintains, "not one Venezuelan works at these refineries…They don't give us 1 cent of profit. They don't pay taxes in Venezuela. This is economic imperialism." According to Citgo's 2004 financial reports, the company paid $400 million in dividends to Venezuela but simultaneously paid as much in U.S. taxes. Energy Minister Rafael Ramírez, who also serves as Pdvsa’s president, has announced a freeze on plans to expand Citgo. Meanwhile, though Citgo CEO Félix Rodríguez notes that” the government does not plan to sell off the company's assets,” specialists suggest that Chavez may very well consider such a move after evaluating the profitability of each refinery. Alberto Quirós, a former executive at Royal/Dutch Shell in Venezuela, commented that selling the refineries would not be a bad idea right now. Chavez, he says, could get a decent price for the refineries because oil prices and demand are high. Were such facilities to be sold, however, the process would probably take at least a few years to be finalized.

http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2005/05.35%20Venezuela%20Oil%20the%20one.htm

[scarletlib]

4. rest of world moves forward

US moving backwards

[gtar100]

7. Because of our backassward Right-Wing Politics

with its "me-first, i-want-it-now!!" mentality. These jerk-offs in the WH are trying to bully the world while so many others are building alliances and planning for their future.

If the US is to escape from this, part of our escape will have to do with eliminating our dependency on oil for energy. The other part will have to be in getting rid of this disease called "right-wing, neo-conservative, fundamentalist christian" thinking. Our worst enemy is us.

[scarletlib]

9. i'm in 100% agreement with you

[bemildred]

6. The presence of Uribe/Colombia here is interesting.

Especially in the context of the aborted confrontation with
Venezuela two months or so ago.

Colombia tends to have close ties with Spain, and Spain
has moved left. I predict that sometime in the next year
or two the budget for "Plan Colombia" will be cut drastically.

[Say_What]

11. Politically Disparate Leaders Find Common Cause

It should be noted that the resolution between the two leaders was negotiated by Cuba! Tio Sam has to burn over that one--a COHA report described it as *two bulls stand down*.
:applause:

<clips>

Less than three months after coming to the brink of a major bilateral conflict, Venezuela’s leftist President Hugo Chávez and right-wing Colombian Alvaro Uribe are meeting Tuesday in Ciudad Guayana in southeastern Venezuela with the leaders of Brazil and Spain, who also represent the leftist end of the political spectrum.

...Chávez is meeting with President Uribe, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in the complex where the Macagua hydropower plant is located.

The leaders are discussing social and economic cooperation and the drafting of "a new map of the world, that deconcentrates power," said Venezuelan Deputy Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez.

Later, Zapatero will make his first official visit to Caracas, where he will also get together with leaders of the anti-Chávez political opposition movement.

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=28065

[bemildred]

12. The COHA analysis more or less predicted this.

That Uribe would choose to get along with his neighbors
and advance their common interests rather than fall on
his sword for Uncle Sugar.

http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2004/04.88%20Venezuela-Colombia%20the%20one.htm

And this one:

Having sent an unmistakable signal to the Bush administration that further interference in South American regional relations, such as the clumsy intrusion of the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, William Wood, in strong support of Uribe against Chávez, will not be tolerated--Chávez agreed to meet with the Colombian president in order to discreetly end the standoff before any damaging economic repercussions could set in. While he aggressively confronted Bogotá--viewed throughout Latin America, along with El Salvador and Chile, as one of Washington's most faithful bootlickers--demonstrated that the Venezuelan leader is capable of responsibly managing what has to be considered his most important bilateral relationship. It also showed that ultimately Uribe was not prepared to sacrifice his all important bilateral ties with his neighbors just to be used as a stalking horse against Venezuela. Ultimately, Chávez may attempt to position himself as a bridge between Uribe, who remains relatively isolated in South America despite (or perhaps because of ) his close relationship with the Bush administration, and the center-left Mercosur governments, thus further broadening a South American coalition that Chávez envisages as part of his hemispheric legacy.

I dunno if Hugo sits around and ponders his legacy a lot, but let
it pass.

http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2005/05.15%20Venezuela%20Arms%20the%20one.htm

They get many marks in my book for that.

[Javaman]

8. Multipolar is better than morons* bi-polar world...

[Say_What]

10. Kick

:kick:

[oasis]

13. There will be no kissing of Godfather Bush's ring.