One of the things that national media reported the most was the deployment of Venezuelan intelligence personnel to find a retired Colombian colonel who former Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel had denounced on his Sunday interview TV program to be operating in Venezuela as a top CIA agent.

Rangel said that the colonel's name is Mauricio Alfonso Santoyo, and that he belongs to the Colombian National Police. Minister Carreno said that the presence of this kind of agent in Venezuela is considered criminal by the Venezuelan state and that, if the accusation is proven to be true, Santoyo will have to face a legal process.

The minister also used the press conference to denounce opposition sectors that have plans to use the constitutional reform to create destabilization in Venezuela.

He insisted that an opposition strategy is being developed to make President Hugo Chavez' constitutional reform ... which has not yet been presented to the National Assembly ... look like "an illegal and unconstitutional maneuver that seeks dictatorial objectives" and called on opposition sectors to relax, reminding them that the reforms have not yet been submitted for review.

In other information. Carreno said that the recovery of a Venezuelan farm in Tachira State that had previously been under the control of an illegal Colombian citizen is capable of guaranteeing milk and meat supplies and that it will be used to create a socialist cattle enterprise.