New VP for Venezuela: What the Press Says Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit here's AP.... Sunday January 13 9:22 PM ET (via Yahoo) Chavez Dismisses Vice President By ALEXANDRA OLSON, Associated Press Writer CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez on Sunday dismissed his vice president, replacing her with one of his comrades in a failed 1992 military coup. Although Adina Bastidas had been one of the most criticized Cabinet members, Chavez insisted he was pleased with her performance as vice president. He called her removal an `adjustment.'' `I must send a kiss to Adina Bastidas ... a woman whose work I consider exceptional,'' Chavez said during his weekly radio show. Chavez named his chief-of-staff, Diosdado Cabello, as his new vice - president the third to hold the post since it was created in the - 1999 constitution. Cabello, with Chavez, was jailed for two years for participating in a failed military revolt against the unpopular government of President Carlos Andres Perez. Cabello, who became chief-of-staff in May, is best known for his work as head of telecommunications regulator Conatel when the sector was opened to competition. Chavez's decision drew praise from opposition lawmakers, who last year tried unsuccessfully to remove Bastidas - along with the entire economic Cabinet - citing inefficiency in reviving the economy. `Better late than never,'' said Gerardo Blyde, a lawmaker with the opposition Justice First party. `We think the decision, finally, to remove the vice president is appropriate.'' `Let's hope that Diosdado Cabello, as vice president, takes on the same tolerant and progressive attitude that he had when he headed the office that oversees telecommunications,'' Blyde added. Chavez defended Bastidas' work on 49 new laws that provoked an outcry from the business elite, who argued the legislation gave the state too much control over industries ranging from agriculture to oil. However, he acknowledged the laws were `not perfect'' and said changes might be made. Last month, businesses and unionized workers paralyzed the country in a one-day strike to protest the laws. Chavez initially reacted by vowing not to modify the legislation. Last year, opposition lawmakers also tried unsuccessfully to censure Bastidas for her comments on the U.S.-led war against terrorism. In a speech to Congress, Bastidas called terrorism a product of the global dominance of `WASPS,'' which stands for White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Bastidas, an economist, became vice president in December 2000 after serving as Venezuela's representative to the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington. Chavez did not say who would replace Cabello as chief-of-staff. * Reuters really had to do contortions to get in every possible negative image and connotation with this one: Sunday January 13 1:35 PM ET (via Yahoo) Venezuela's Chavez Names Coup Plotter as VP CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday named as his vice president a retired military colonel who participated in his failed 1992 coup, replacing the much-criticized leftist academic Adina Bastidas. Chavez, a former paratrooper elected in 1998 with a landslide mandate to fight widespread poverty and graft in his South American oil exporting country, promoted Diosdado Cabello from minister of the presidential secretariat to his executive vice president. `Very soon I will swear in Diosdado Cabello, a trained systems engineer, as vice president of the republic,'' Chavez said during his weekly radio and television show `Hello President.'' Cabello began his career in government by presiding over the successful liberalization of the telecommunications market as the head of telecoms regulator Conatel. He is regarded by many as a moderate within the circles of Chavez's `democratic revolution.'' Bastidas drew stern criticism during more than a year as vice president for a number of comments. These included a well-publicized rant, shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, against White-Anglo Saxon Protestant terrorism in the developing world. Since taking office three years ago, Chavez has alarmed many analysts by naming a number of active and retired military officials to senior government posts, including the current foreign minister and the head of state oil company PDVSA. He has also reportedly irked many in the armed forces by raising his fellow conspirators in the botched 1992 uprising to influential positions in the military. Thanking Bastidas for her work, Chavez said her greatest achievement as vice president had been steering the content of 49 controversial laws that the president decreed last year using special legislative powers. Business leaders have said these laws, ranging from finance and fishing to central government administration and land reform, discriminate against the private sector and will discourage investment. `Of course they are not perfect, there are some errors as in every human work, but these are mistakes which we will gradually correct and we are currently correcting,'' said Chavez, who has rejected opposition appeals to amend the laws. After an unprecedented nationwide strike on Dec. 10 to protest this legislation, opposition politicians, business leaders and unions have announced a march in Caracas on Jan. 23 -- the anniversary of the birth of modern Venezuelan democracy -- to protest against what they call Chavez's authoritarian style of government. Chavez did not immediately name a successor to Cabello in the ministry of the presidential secretariat, nor did he specify if Bastidas would occupy any new government post. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcov-01.14.02-06:40:13-8886