Chavez Offers Cheap Oil to US Poor

by **proldic** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 1:28 pm

Thursday August 25, 2005 The Guardian UK Chávez taunts US with oil offer Venezuelan president hits back at assassination remarks with offer of cheap petroleum for poor Americans by Duncan Campbell President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela hit back vigorously at calls by an ally of President George Bush for his assassination by offering cheap petrol to the poor of the US at a time of soaring fuel prices. In a typically robust response to remarks by the US televangelist Pat Robertson, Mr Chávez compared his detractors to the "rather mad dogs with rabies" from Cervantes' Don Quixote, and unveiled his plans to use Venezuela's energy reserves as a political tool. "We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States," he said. Mr Robertson's remarks have threatened to inflame tension between the US and one of its main oil suppliers... Venezuela, the world's fifth largest crude exporter, supplies 1.3m barrels of oil a day to the US. It remains unclear how poor Americans might benefit from the cheap petrol offer, but Mr Chávez has set up arrangements with other countries for swapping services in exchange for oil. Cuban doctors are working in the poorer areas of Venezuela in exchange for cheap oil going to Cuba. Jamaica yesterday became the first Caribbean country to reach an agreement with Venezuela for oil at below-market terms. The Petrocaribe initiative is a plan to offer oil at flexible rates to 13 Caribbean countries. Jamaica will pay $40 a barrel, against a market rate of more than $60... <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,12716,1555970,00.html">www.guardian.co.uk/venezu...70,00.html</a>

by **proldic** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 1:39 pm

Observer (JA) Friday, August 26, 2005, 2:42 AM EST Venezuela, Cuba offer free health care to Latin American, Caribbean citizens PETRE WILLIAMS, Observer staff reporter MONTEGO Bay, St James - Venezuela and Cuba have committed to providing free health care to an estimated 6 million Latin American and Caribbean citizens over the next 20 years. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez told reporters here Tuesday night that he and Cuban president Fidel Castro signed off on the commitment last Saturday in Cuba... "In September Jamaicans will also have the opportunity of receiving this health assistance," the president said. Among the other beneficiaries annually will be an estimated 100,000 people from Brazil, 60,000 from Colombia, 12,000 from Panama, Ecuador 30,000 and 20,000 from Bolivia. ".These are some of the figures we can offer right now. But we are talking about a global figure of 600,000 operations a year, 6,000,000 in 10 years," he added. Chavez has, in the interim, indicated that the offer of free health care and more so eye care, was also open to US citizens. "This offer also includes the people of the United States. So I call upon all US citizens who cannot afford eye surgery to go to the Venezuelan embassy in Washington and look for help since Cuba does not have an embassy there," he said. "There in the embassy you will be very much welcomed. Your name will be registered on a list. There will be an evaluation to access the seriousness of the eye problem." At the same time, Chavez said that he and Castro were going to be working to educate an additional 200,000 doctors to help the poor in need of health care. "Given that the poor of this world, including the poor people in the US do not have medical doctors to take care of their health then Fidel and I have decided, within the framework of the Bolivarian alternative, to train in the next years 200,000 medical doctors to take care of the poor and we have started already," he said. <a href="http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20050825T220000-0500_86876_OBS_VENEZUELA__CUBA_OFFER_FREE_HEALTH_CARE_TO_LATIN_AMERICAN__CARIBBEAN_CITIZENS.asp">www.jamaicaobserver.com/n...TIZENS.asp</a> XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Prensa Latina 22 September 2004 Cuba Offers Medical Aid to Save Lives of America's Poor and Disadvantaged 21 June 2004 Cuban President Fidel Castro offered free medical care to save the lives of 3,000 poor U.S. citizens in five years in a new letter to American president George W. Bush he read Monday at a rally... Before making his proposal, Fidel Castro recalled the total solidarity with the U.S. people expressed by Cuba right after the unjustifiable terrorist attack against the Twin Towers. "That same day," he said, "we expressed our views that have been corroborated by subsequent events with an almost mathematical precision." "War is not the way to put an end to terrorism and violence in the world," he said. "That tragic incident has been used as a pretext to impose a policy of terror and force on our entire planet," the Cuban leader added... "You are surely aware that there are 44 million people in the U.S. without medical insurance, that in the last two years 82 million people lacked at some point medical insurance and they could not afford the colossal amounts of money charged for vital health services in the U.S. "By a very conservative estimate, dozens of thousands of lives are lost in the U.S. every year because of this, maybe 30 or 40 times the number of people who died in the Twin Towers," the Cuban leader said. The Cuban President said that over a five-year period the Island will be ready to save 3,000 poor U.S. citizens who could travel to Cuba with a relative and be treated absolutely free of charge... ...the Cuban president noted that a very conservative estimate indicates many tens of thousands of lives are lost every year in the United States because of the astronomical costs of essential health care services. Because it is possible to forecast and prevent heart attacks and illnesses that inevitably lead to death, Fidel Castro asked Bush to give permission to 3,000 poor Americans to come to Cuba over a five year period in "a program designed to save a life for every life lost in the horrendous attack on the Twin Towers." As this article goes to press, there has been no response from the Bush administration that it would not punish those whose lives could be saved in Cuba if they choose to come. <a href="http://www.canadacuba.ca/news/Free_Health.php">www.canadacuba.ca/news/Free_Health.php</a>

Chavez Offers Cheap Oil to US Poor

Chavez Offers Cheap Oil to US Poor

Castro's Long-Standing Offer of Free Care for US Poor

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