CARACAS, Wednesday May 21, 2008 | Update
Under the Endorsing Law of the Energy Treaty of the Bolivarian
Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), member nations, including
Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela, will drill jointly
oil from a block located at the Orinoco Oil Belt.
The treaty released in the Official Gazette is aimed at "ensuring
a balanced energy matrix," in addition to a reasonable use
of energy and development of energy alternative sources.
The main goal is to "have available the oil resources that
ensure their energy supply over the next 25 years."
Therefore, state-run oil companies of each member country
will organize a "grand-national" company named "Petroalba."
"A grand-national company will act as a corporation of bilateral
companies. It will have all the advantages to be offered by
each state in order to develop projects based on the principles
of solidarity and complementariness, instead of competition
and free market," the instrument claims.
04:17 PM. Western Hemisphere. "Damned empire; I curse you one thousand times; some day you will be finished off and wrecked. I curse you one thousand times, empire." This is the least that President Hugo Chávez has uttered to refer to the US government. In urging the Bolivarian Armed Forces to prepare for war, he said that a US raid on Venezuela through Colombia would trigger and spread over the region "the 100-year war."