I skipped two Thursday updates for a very simple reason: There is nothing o report! Life in Caracas came to a standstill the weekend befoere Christmas and activity has yet to pick up. In fact, I would say that the level of activity continues to go down. This lack of news happens in part because politicians go away, Government officials go away and people either take vacations or go to their home towns to enjoy the holidays with their families. While Venezuela is mostly an urban country today, this was not the case thirty or forty years ago. Thus, the holidays are a good time to go back to the town or city where your family came from or simply go to the beach.

The question is whether this makes sense. With all of our problems with productivity, you would think Governments would try to set the example and work through the holidays, or simply take advantage of the lack of traffic to fix roads, paint walls or whatever. This may be idealistic, but the truth is that Venezuela will be at half pace until Jan. 15th. making the holidays almost a month long by the simple fact that Christmas happened in mid-week in 2003. Add to that Carnival (two days off), Easter week (most people take the whole week off), a dozen holidays during the year plus each individual's vacation (by law up to a month if you have been working at a company for ten years) and in the end you have a very inefficient system of production. How many points of GDP is this worth? What is the economic cost? I am not sure, but every year I wonder and worry about it. I do exactly the opposite. I stay and work every year. I enjoy wonderful Caracas without traffic and people. At work, I prepare documents that I will release early in the year, compile data useful to my job and enjoy getting home early every day.

This blog is a good measure that this phenomena is widespread in Latin America, even if the sample is statiscally too small. Posts have been erratic as everyone went away, turned off their computers and relaxed. The fact is that the phenomenon is actually spreading to the US and other nore developed countries. Today and last Friday few of my business counterparts in New York or London were at their jobs. I could do little about it. This was not the case thirty years ago. However, productivity in those countries is so high that maybe they can afford it. But can we?

The news from Brasil as we head into the holiday break:

Statute of Disarmament - calling it a Christmas present for the millions of Brazilians who fight against violence, President Lula signed into law the Estatuto de Desarmamento, which greatly restricts legal access to firearms, increases penalties for illegal possession or use of them, and mandates the immediate destruction of all seized firearms as soon as they are no longer needed for evidence.

The Central Bank cut interest rates by another percent, to 16.5%, their lowest rate since 2001. This represents a reduction in real interest rates - (rate - inflation) from 15% to 9.25% in the past year. Despite this boost to Brazil's economy, retail interest rates are not keeping pace - credit card interest still hovers around 10% per month.

Brazil's 2004 harvest is expected to exceed 2003's record levels by up to 6%, promising another year of strong foreign exchange earnings from the sale of its soya crop.

Brazil's unemployment rate dropped significantly in November for the first time in a year, dropping from 12.9% down to 12.2% in the past month. The rate had risen from 10.9% last November. However, the average worker's take-home pay has fallen by 13% over the same period, suggesting that the new jobs are lower-paying, possibly seasonal work ahead of Christmas. The weekly research "Focus" shows a final prediction for 2003 GDP growth in Brazil of just 0.13%, although the forecast improves to 3.52% for calendar 2004.

A bus travelling from Sуo Paulo to Fortaleza crashed in Minas Gerais state killing 21 passengers. What makes this case tragic is that the bus company was not certified for inter-city travel and the driver was attempting to flee fiscalizaчуo - monitoring - at the time of the accident. The driver survived the accident.

A dozen armed men dressed as medical workers carried out a daring rescue of a kingpin traficante from his hospital bed in Leblon, one of Rio's poshest neighbourhoods. The traficante had been injured at the weekend in an auto accident, and was guarded by only one MP.

The Staheli case is slipping from the news, although there are some new developments from time to time. Police report they were able to extract DNA from "a man, not the husband" from under Michele Staheli's fingernails. This corroborates the earlier report of her putting up a struggle, and may be the most significant clue yet to the identity of the assailant. The most significant line of enquiry is still with the family's driver. Blood found on his car showed DNA from several persons, consistent with his report that he had helped two women who had suffered domestic accidents in recent weeks. The driver was called to the scene of the incident and was reported to have touched Todd Staheli to check if he was still breathing.

Brazil's Under-20s won their championship match against Spain, giving Brazil simultaneous possession of all three football world titles - the World Cup, the Under-20s and the Under-17s. Brazil's CBD confidently predicts victory in the 2006 World Cup - the "hexa", for Brazil, currently the only country ever to win the Cup five times.

It was indeed the week before Christmas as everything slowed down, politics appeared not to matter as Venezuelans began celebrating the Christmas they did not enjoy a year ago due to the general strike. The Government and the opposition continued trading barbs, the Government accusing the opposition of massive fraud in the petition drive to recall Hugo Chavez, and the opposition refusing to hand in the signatures until the Electoral Council guaranteed that the rules for evaluatoong the signatures would not be changed after the signatures were handed in. On Tuesday the Electoral Council put an end to the threat, announcing by a unanimous vote that the rules would not be changed retroactively as had been suggested by some pro-Chavez lawyers. Thus, tomorrow, if safety and the Chavistas allow it, the 3.4 million plus signatures will be handed in to the Electoral body, giving it thirty days to verify and count whether the required 2.4 million valid signatures are there.

The only negative note before the holiday season was the sudden appearance of violence against reiligious icons. In less than two weeks there have been a number of visible as well as stealth attacks on images of the virgin and churches. Some icons have been desecrated in a twist that is very unusual for a country where most everyone was at least born a Catholic. The first attacks took place during a pro-Chavez march , which the Government tried to blame on the opposition. However, the pictures tell a different story as the Vice-President is seenencouraging the mob in their path of destruction. Other incidents have been ocurring at night, the Government blames the opposition, but the church blames the Government, calling it "irresponsible". Not a pretty affair, not a pretty picture.

Merry Christmas everyone!