The OPEC oil cartel started a landmark summit pledging to work for market stability and to discuss consumer fears - but snubbed calls for concrete action to cut soaring prices. In a rabble-rousing speech opening the two-day gathering on Wednesday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threw the gauntlet by demanding that any talks with industrialised countries should also cover such issues as the debt burden that he said crushed impoverished countries. “We are willing to talk with anybody, anywhere at any time, but as equals,” Chavez said, noting that he had recently received a call from a president of a powerful industrialised country. “It was good that we talked. But why don't we discuss the foreign debt that crushes poor countries, why don't we discuss terms of trade that are so unequal, and the savage imposition of economic systems?” he said.
The gathering of sovereigns and presidents of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was only the second in the cartel's 40-year history. The gathering of sovereigns and presidents of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was only the second in the cartel's 40-year history. Bureau Report