Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's government said on Tuesday it would survive a six-week-old opposition strike -- which it dismissed as "fiction" -- and insisted it aimed to rule until the end of its term in 2007.

Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel told reporters the government had no intention of holding early elections demanded by organizers of the strike aimed at forcing the populist Chavez to resign. The shutdown has crippled oil output and shipments by the world's No. 5 petroleum exporter.

The uncompromising stance dimmed hopes for a quick settlement of Venezuela's economic and political crisis, which has jolted world oil markets and stirred efforts by the international community to try to mediate a solution. The country's bolivar currency fell 3.2 percent against the U.S. dollar on Tuesday to 1,612.50 bolivars. It has lost about 13 percent of its value this year.Rangel said the government's objective was to rule until the end of Chavez's term in early 2007, although he noted the constitution allowed for a binding referendum on the presidential mandate after Aug. 19.

Troops fired tear gas in Caracas on Tuesday to keep pro- and anti-Chavez protesters apart. At least five people have been killed in street clashes since the strike began on Dec 2.

Chavez's opponents, who have staged almost daily street protests, say he is trying to install a Cuban-style communist system. The opposition includes business and union leaders, striking oil executives and dissident military officers.

Hugo Chavez to meet Kofi Annan    
The Venezuelan leader was due to discuss his country's crisis in New York on Thursday with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan after attending the inauguration in Quito on Wednesday of Ecuador's new president, Lucio Gutierrez.

"I will be seeing President Hugo Chavez here on Thursday ... and I hope to be able to discuss with him the developments in Venezuela, and how one can intensify the mediation efforts, to calm the situation and return it to normalcy," Annan told a news conference in New York on Tuesday.

He urged Venezuela's government and its foes to solve their differences through "constitutional and democratic means."

The Venezuela crisis has helped push oil prices to two-year highs of over $30 a barrel as the market frets over supplies at a time when Washington is preparing a possible war in Iraq.

Chavez, a former paratrooper elected in 1998, six years after leading a coup attempt, and who survived a coup in April, accuses his foes of trying to destroy his self-styled "revolution" aimed at helping the poor. Most Venezuelans live in poverty despite the nation's oil wealth.

The President has said he will not resign even if he massively loses the nonbinding February referendum

Dead or Alive, bin Laden regroups

"They are trying to persuade people to join a jihad (holy war). They carry out guerrilla activities in these areas and then flee to Pakistan," he told Reuters.

Afghan officials said last week that four people had been killed and one wounded in an armed clash between Afghan forces and Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan. Two Taliban fighters were arrested after the firefight.

The Taliban's resurgence in the border regions comes despite the presence in Afghanistan of thousands of U.S.-led foreign troops pursuing the war on terror. The Taliban regime was overthrown in late 2001 when the United States pounded Afghanistan with massive air strikes as part of its campaign against the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden. Many Taliban fighters took refuge in the rugged borderlands with Pakistan.

In recent days posters and pamphlets have appeared in border villages calling for a jihad against foreign troops. Residents of Spin Boldak said last week that posters threatening death to anyone who supported the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai appeared to be the work of Taliban supporters.

Khalid Pashtoon, a spokesman for Kandahar governor Gul Agha Sherzai, told Reuters there was still a risk of militant attacks in the southern region.

"We have put our forces on alert because of the risks of attacks on foreign forces," he said.

But Fazal Deen Agha, a senior security official in Spin Boldak, said the Afghan government would not let the ousted Taliban become a real threat.

"There are clear indications of Taliban presence in the region. But Afghan people don't support them," he said. "We will continue our hunt against the Taliban."

In September, Karzai narrowly escaped assassination in Kandahar. The botched attack was blamed on a Taliban sympathizer who was shot dead during the attack.

Colombia has received $2 billion in military aid from Washington in recent years, mainly to fight the Andean nation's cocaine industry. It called the decision "inappropriate" and suggested the move would hurt the war on drugs.

The State Department decided to decertify the 1st Air Combat Command late last year and informed the Colombian government of it earlier this month, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told a briefing.

"The message is that we want to see these issues investigated and resolved, that we think that the professional military in Colombian needs to be transparent, open and just," he said. But overall aid to Colombia will not change, because money can be allocated to other units, he added.

"It covers (U.S. supplies of) equipment, fuel, training. It's anything," added a U.S. official who asked not to be named. Boucher said the unit was not currently receiving U.S. aid but it was not clear if it received any in 2002.

"The prolonged investigation has raised questions about the Colombian air force's commitment to determine the facts and, we think, damages the reputation of Colombia's air force. We support due process and we expect a just ruling based on objective facts," Boucher said.

The decertification would prevent the crucial counter-rebel unit from buying munitions from the United States as it fights in a bloody, 38-year guerrilla war. It is the first time a Colombian air force unit has been decertified, although army units have been cut off from U.S. aid in the past.

"It's a decision we do not share. We think it is inappropriate to suspend assistance to an entire air force unit," Defense Minister Marta Lucia Ramirez told reporters.

Deployed in the Puerto Salgar Air Base, in central Cundinamarca province, the suspended air unit is responsible for about 20 percent of Colombia's air force combat capacity, including anti-drug and anti-narcotics operations.