From: Paul Zarembka (zarembka@BUFFALO.EDU)
Date: Thu Jan 08 2004 - 08:56:28 EST
There's an interesting graph in this article: http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1145 showing the history of recent unemployment rate in Venezuela, and how it spiked upward around the coup to overthrow Chavez and then again around the lockout. It is also seems to show that the rate is come back down to where it was when Chavez began his present term of office. Regarding another article, http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1035 offers an interview with Deborah James who is 'the Fair Trade Director at Global Exchange and has recently become a close observer of the changes happening in Venezuela'. She says of Chavez "He was the only head of state at the World Summit on Sustainable Development that came and addressed the civil society groups. I was very impressed by that?that he would come down to our space and contact us and share his thoughts and answer questions about what was happening in Venezuela." and goes on "We [Global Exchange] met him and said we said we were Women for Peace and we were organizing to prevent the war against Iraq. And he said, ?we would love to have more women for peace in Venezuela. You should see the war that is being waged against my administration and against the revolutionary process we are trying to develop?the oligarchy and the media are organizing this terrible media war against the revolutionary process.? And so I came in May for the first time, right after a WTO conference in Mexico City and have been, since the very first moment that I got off the plane, more than impressed, kind of overwhelmed with what?s been happening here and with the people that I?ve met." Later in the article she states, "Venezuela put itself forward as the number one ally of the social movements. When you consider the fact that stopping the FTAA is collectively the number one priority of the social movements of the western hemisphere, Venezuela has really put itself out there as the number one ally to stopping the FTAA. It?s a really important alliance that has come about." Paul *********************************************************************** RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Paul Zarembka, editor, Elsevier Science ******************** http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
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