South America Goes Nationalist With Its Oil and Gas Amid High World Prices

[NNN0LHI]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBGEKKPREE.html

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Protesters in Ecuador have dynamited oil pipelines, a Bolivian presidential candidate says he wants to seize private gas fields, and Venezuela is threatening to kick out any foreign oil companies that won't submit to more state control.

For international oil companies like BP PLC and Exxon Mobil Corp. and their customers, who used to look to South America for stable supplies, this powerful wave of nationalist sentiment comes at a particularly bad time.

Tight supplies worldwide already have driven oil prices close to record highs, and while the nationalist swing is unlikely to further escalate prices unless it curtails oil production or exports, it's heightening risk in a region that once was willing to offer much more to attract foreign investment, experts say.

Some warn that such changes could land governments in a tight spot if oil prices fall, investment has been compromised, and there's less to meet the inflated expectations of poorer citizens who have been promised more benefits.

[brainshrub]

1. The only "positive" I can think of about George Bush:

The only "positive" I can think of about George Bush is that he's so incompetent that he's unable to overthrow elected governments like his predecessors were.

The moment the next competent Republican administration comes to power, all those peoples-movements can expect to get overthrown. It would be going on already, but Negroponte is to preoccupied trying to figure out why the Iraqis hate America.

www.brainshrub.com/token-advisor

So Mr. Negroponte, a man best-known for heading up death squads in Honduras and funding terrorists in Nicaragua, can't figure out the true nature of the Iraqi insurgency?

This is a like a mugger struggling to understand why his victims don't enjoy being robbed, and then ponders what in their nature would make them want to call the police or fight back afterward?