Honduras seeks to resume oil imports from Venezuela

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Honduras seeks to resume oil imports from Venezuela
Sun Nov 25, 2007 5:17am GMT

TEGUCIGALPA, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Honduras is seeking to resume oil imports from Venezuela after 15 years in a move that would further strengthen President Hugo Chavez's influence in Central America.

The administration of President Manuel Zelaya, burdened by the surge of international oil prices, will start talks with Caracas next week and the idea is to make all of its fuel oil imports from Venezuela.
(snip)

Honduras oil imports in 2006 were around $1.05 billion. The budget for this year is $1.2 billion.

From 1980 to 1993, Honduras bought oil from Mexico and Venezuela as part of a pact aimed at offering cheap oil to debt and war-ridden Latin American countries.



Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN2535278720071125

[Judi Lynn]

1. US Congress has the chance to prevent destruction of Honduran forests & environmental workers:

The price of a living forest
Mark Lynas

Published 22 November 2007

The blunt economic truth is clear: deforestation can never be stopped as long as trees are worth more dead than alive

The two environmentalists never stood a chance. As they drove into the small Honduran town of Guarizama on 20 December last year, armed men forced Heraldo Zúñiga and Roger Iván Cartagena to the side of the road, dragged them from their car, stood them against a wall next to the municipal building in full view of passers-by, and shot them. Although at least 40 shots were fired, Zúñiga survived long enough to denounce those who had hired the assassins - the timber barons who are making a fortune by razing the region's pine forests and exporting wood to the United States.

Such is the price of taking on the power of the illegal timber trade. But almost as shocking as the murders of those who try to protect the forests in countries such as Honduras is that neither the US nor the EU has any enforceable means of stopping illegal timber imports.

Now, after a long campaign, the Environmental Investigation Agency is supporting a rare bipartisan legislative effort in the US Congress to choke off domestic demand for imported illegal wood products. Promoted by Republicans and Democrats alike, as well as by an unusual coalition of environmental and industry groups, the Legal Timber Protection Act would make it a crime to import or sell illegally sourced timber. The EU is also on the way to similar legislation.
(snip/...)

http://www.newstatesman.com/200711220028

[Joanne98]

2. Good!