[Cincinatus' Wife]

Venezuelan central bank director warns against denying dollars to newspapers *** CARACAS, Venezuela - A central bank director warned President Hugo Chavez's government Thursday against using a new foreign exchange system to deprive newspapers of dollars needed to buy newsprint. Domingo Maza Zavala said the government should consider the print media a priority when deciding who can buy dollars under the new system. Chavez, who accuses Venezuela's main newspapers of supporting efforts to overthrow him, has said priority will go to importers of basics like food and medicine. "Everything else will have to wait," he said last week.

Maza Zavala said "it would be irrational" to delay granting dollars to newspapers. "I think newspapers have the right to receive the material they need to function," he told local Union Radio. "Reading the daily press is a primary need for Venezuelans." Newspaper owners - most of whom gave supportive coverage to a failed two-month strike to force early elections - have expressed concern that Chavez will use the exchange controls system to restrict freedom of the press, as past governments have done. ***

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Chavez won't do business with enemies of the state***Venezuela declared force majeure soon after the strike, aimed at forcing the leftist leader from office, started on Dec. 2. The stoppage fizzled out by early February and many non-oil sector businesses reopened but the effects have lingered on in the strategic oil sector. Former paratrooper Chavez said the government would revise all of PDVSA's operations, including all of its contracts and investments, to forge a new-look nationalist oil strategy that would seek to put the interests of the country first.

He made clear that private firms which had supported the crippling two-month opposition strike would be not be allowed to participate in the oil industry in the future. "We cannot continue playing the innocent and keep on handing over strategic areas to enemies of the country," the populist president said. He singled out a U.S.-controlled technology company, Intesa -- 60 percent owned by Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) -- which he had previously accused of joining in sabotage of PDVSA's central computer network. "We will never again hand over the brain center of the company to transnational powers," Chavez said.

His words appeared to signal a strengthening of his government's state-centered oil policy already expressed in a hotly contested oil law passed at the end of 2001. Critics of the law slammed it as hostile to private business and said it would drive off foreign investment.***