-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- Oil Market US and Mexico to Stabilize Oil Price? I thought that when prices go up, you are supposed to get a government check. Mexico and the US this weekend saw eye to eye on the need to stabilise world oil markets as Bill Richardson, US energy secretary, began a tour of leading oil producers to convince them of the dangers of rapidly rising prices. It marked the start of a delicate mission by Mr Richardson to convey US fears that oil at more than $30 a barrel would stoke world inflation, without giving the impression the US was forcing sovereign oil nations to pump up production. "I'm not coming to pressure anybody," he told a news conference in Mexico City on Saturday, before heading on to countries including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Norway. So keen was he to play down any impression he had come to bully, he claimed the main reason for the visit was to see his mother, who lives in Mexico. The meeting between Mr Richardson and Luis Téllez, the Mexican energy minister, ended with a strong common message: that it was in the interest of both Mexico and the US for oil prices to soften. But they declined to say by how much, or to what level production should be increased. Mexico "is looking for stable, high prices, but that allow growth of the world economy", Mr Téllez said. With only 6 per cent of Mexican exports coming from oil, down from about 90 per cent in the 1970s, he argues that an inflation-induced slowdown in the US economy would hurt Mexico more than lower oil prices. Mexico, alongside Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, has led efforts among the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) and non-Opec producers to orchestrate 5.2m barrels a day of output cuts over two years to boost prices from a trough of about $10 a barrel. Mr Téllez said the cuts were intended to remain intact until March 31, though he said they were based on "a gentlemen's agreement" rather than a formal commitment, which indicated there could be flexibility. He is to meet his Saudi and Venezuelan counterparts on March 2, who have also said the price of oil should be eased. The US government is under intense pressure at home to bring down energy costs, which have risen rapidly during a freezing winter in the north-east and pose a particular threat in an election year. One way to do that would be to sell oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which holds 569m barrels. But Mr Richardson said the US was reluctant to play that card because it would disrupt the market. Mexican officials played down the importance of the visit, viewing it as an attempt by Mr Richardson to score political points back home. To counteract the impression that Washington was calling the shots, Mr Téllez invited opposition Mexican congressmen into the meeting, who were quietly impressed. The Financial Times, February 21, 2000 Iranian Elections Iranians Are Tired of Force-Fed Religion Gee, why can't people just count their blessings? TEHRAN - Reformers running on a platform of political and social liberalization have taken clear command elections for the Iranian Parliament, results showed Sunday, reversing 20 years of hard-line control in an outcome so convincing that even the losers acknowledged it as a major step in the democratic development of this Islamic state. With more than two-thirds of the ballots cast in the Friday elections having been counted, reformers were winning anywhere from 60 percent to 70 percent of the seats in the 290-member legislative assembly, a result in which incumbents and establishment figures lost to a corps of younger professionals, activists and academics who support President Mohammed Khatami. Together with Mr. Khatami's own election in 1997, in which Iranians rejected a conservative candidate in favor of his call for moderation, the vote offers the chance for a new generation of Iranians to replace the country's strict interpretation of Islamic government with one that grants more individual freedom and that is already repairing relations with both its Arab Muslim neighbors and Western societies. No one here is predicting the speedy return of the discotheques and bars that flourished under the reign of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who was toppled by the Islamic revolution in 1979, or an easing of the public dress code that mandates formless head and body coverings for women and frowns on the display of too much male skin as well. But it will almost assuredly speed the reforms that Mr. Khatami has with only mixed success tried to push through a conservative Parliament for the last three years - fundamental changes that include liberal press laws, reform of the country's opaque and arbitrary judiciary, and a more open foreign policy that could pave the way for renewal of ties with the United States, broken after the 1979 seizure of the embassy here. If the battle cry two decades ago under the revolution's patriarch, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was to export Islamic radicalism worldwide and keep the country morally pure, priorities have shifted to improving the economy, keeping the state out of people's homes, and easing the official paranoia over satellite dishes, rock music and other modern paraphernalia - goals repeatedly enunciated by the politically active youth and young adults who form the majority of Iran's 70 million people. In a country that contains a volatile mix of religious fervor and secular sensibilities - Shiite supplicants who flagellate themselves at religious festivals, and a poetry-reading coffeehouse crowd that calls religious rule ''nonsense'' - a compromise may finally be possible. ''People are sick and tired of someone standing over their head and acting like a big, giant father,'' said Mahmood Ilkhan, a former correspondent for the official Iranian news agency who took time from his current export business to volunteer with the Islamic Iran Participation Front, a slate of candidates supporting Mr. Khatami. ''The real winners are the great people of Iran,'' the hard-line daily Kayhan proclaimed in its lead headline, quoting the country's clerical leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and reflecting what has become a widely accepted part of Iran's conventional wisdom: that democracy works here, and its results will be respected. Though the outcome for Tehran's 30 parliamentary seats have not yet been announced, even Kayhan printed on its front page a preliminary tally showing reformers holding the top 15 spots, while a conservative favorite, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani - touted as a possible speaker and brake on the reform movement before the election - was running an embarrassing 23d. ''The results are not as we thought in Tehran,'' said Mohammed Reza Bahonar, a candidate and spokesman for the conservative Coalition of Followers of the Line of the Imam. Mr. Bahonar claimed that the conservatives would win more than 70 seats, mainly in the provinces, even as its followers were being swept from office in such cities as Esfahan and Masshad. Races in which no candidate receives more then 25 percent of the vote will go to a runoff; there are perhaps as many as 90 of these, though backers of reform said that in some of those races their candidates would be the only ones left to compete against each other. Approximately 80 percent of Iran's 38 million eligible voters participated in the election. [The otherwise trouble-free election was marred by the deaths of eight people after the police fired at crowds protesting Saturday against alleged ballot rigging in two towns in southwestern Iran, Reuters reported. The daily Kayhan said that five people were killed in the town of Shush and three in Dasht-e Azadegan, both in Khuzistan Province.] Evidence of the importance of Iran's moderation to regional politics is easy to see, from the positive words filtering in from diehard opponents like the United States and Israel, to the announcement Sunday that Saudi Arabia, nervous for years about Iran's potential to rouse Shiite minorities against the Gulf monarchies that practice Sunni Islam, had invited Ayatollah Khamanei to participate in the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. International Herald Tribune, February 21, 2000 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. 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