Cheney became the fourth top administration official to visit the former Soviet republic in recent months, underscoring the importance placed on a country that is strategically located and an ally in the war on terror, as well as rich in energy resources.

Administration policy favors development of multiple means of delivering Kazakhstan's energy supplies to markets in the West and elsewhere.

Among them, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher told Congress recently, the United States is "working on securing the flow of oil" from North Caspian oil fields by tanker to a pipeline terminus in Azerbaijan. That route would bypass Russia and
Iran. There has also been periodic talk of building a pipeline under the Caspian Sea.

Energy aside, one senior administration official said the vice president would prod Nazarbayev to make further democratic reforms in the country he has ruled since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991.

"The government's human-rights record remains poor," according to a recent State Department report.

It was unclear how Cheney would attempt to balance the two concerns - American energy needs in a time of high prices alongside a desire for political reforms. His talks came one day after a speech to East European leaders in Lithuania that sharply criticized Russia for backsliding on democracy.

One senior administration official traveling with Cheney said the remarks, which drew quick criticism from Moscow, had been "very well vetted" in advance within the administration.

Officials disclosed belatedly that while in Lithuania to attend a meeting of eastern European leaders, Cheney had met Thursday afternoon with Inna Kulei, the wife of the jailed Belarusian opposition leader, Alexander Milinkevich .

Meanwhile, a private group said Kazakh authorities on Friday barred an opposition leader from traveling to the capital Astana for a meeting with Cheney.

Police refused to grant Galymzhan Zhakiyanov permission to leave his home city, the commercial capital Almaty, the For a Fair Kazakhstan Alliance said in a statement. Zhakiyanov and other leaders of the alliance were invited to meet with Cheney in Astana on Saturday.

Last month, Zhakiyanov and another opposition leader, Bolat Abilov, were barred from leaving the country for meetings with European officials. Sentenced to seven years in prison for abuse of office, Zhakiyanov was considered the Central Asian nation's highest-profile political prisoner before his early release in January.

The vice president's stop in Kazakhstan followed visits in recent months by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns and Samuel Bodman, secretary of energy.

According to the Web site of the U.S.-Kazakhstan Business Association, the Asian country has potential oil reserves of as much 110 billion barrels.

American energy companies are heavily invested in that nation's oil industry, and Halliburton, the company Cheney ran before becoming vice president, has an oil-field services presence there.

"Kazakhstan, an economic success story, is rapidly becoming one of the top energy producing nations in the world," Boucher told a House committee on April 26.

Along with its economic reforms, Boucher said, the nation "has an opportunity to achieve stability by upholding standards of democracy and human rights."

Nazarbayev has ruled the country, which shares borders with China and Russia, since the Soviet Union broke up, and recently was elected to what he has said will be his last term. The elections have been criticized for failing to meet international standards, but administration reaction has been muted. One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters that the "trend, even though it's not as fast as we would like, is in the right direction."

Still, an opposition leader, Altynbek Sarsenbayev, was killed earlier this year, prompting protests.

The vice president concludes a three-nation trip with a weekend visit to Croatia and is scheduled to return home Monday.

"Central America is important for Chávez because the rest of his influence is concentrated in the Andean countries [of South America]," says Michael Shifter, vice president for the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue. Mr. Shifter says Chávez is clearly on a mission to challenge US influence in the region, but that he also appears genuinely concerned with helping the poor - two traits that don't necessarily contradict one another. "This shows a larger ambition, and he is focusing his resources on Nicaragua and calculating that Ortega has a chance to win [elections in November]."

In the past few years, Chávez has made high-profile deals to sell discounted oil to Central American and Caribbean nations, and even to poor citizens in US states such as New York and Massachusetts.

But the deal struck between Chávez and Ortega comes during a grinding energy crisis, and before a pivotal election that could see another leftist leader come to power in the region. In the past year, energy shortages here have led to power-rationing blackouts and transportation strikes. Under the agreement, Venezuela will accept 60 percent of payment within 90 days of shipment, while the remaining 40 percent will be paid off over 25 years at 1 percent interest, including a two-year grace period.

The deal could be one of the most important real-world applications to date of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), a Latin American integration initiative started a year ago by Cuba and Venezuela to counter US efforts to promote hemispheric free-trade integration. ALBA promotes the principles of social and economic justice, but so far is known more for its symbolism than concrete action.

Yet the pact is gaining steam, with newly elected Bolivian President Evo Morales signing on to ALBA in Havana this past weekend to much fanfare. On Monday, Mr. Morales also sent shockwaves throughout the energy sector when he announced that he would nationalize Bolivia's gas reserves, the second largest in the region.

When in Venezuela last week, Ortega vowed to join ALBA if elected this November. But critics say the agreement between Chávez and Ortega, signed during Ortega's visit, effectively means Ortega has joined ALBA early, undermining the legitimacy of the current Nicaraguan government, and using Venezuelan oil money to boost his campaign bid.

"This is just a sophisticated mechanism for Ortega to launder Venezuelan money for his campaign," charged congressman Wilfredo Navarro, vice president of the incumbent Liberal Constitutional Party (PLC). "Forty percent credit is the same as 40 percent of the money that will disappear and end up in Ortega's campaign."

The Sandinistas, however, claim the pact with Venezuela is an example of how they offer solutions to problems that the pro-business government has been unable to resolve - a form of "governing from below," which Ortega promised he would do when his revolutionary government was voted out of office in 1990.

Since that time, Ortega's party has managed to consolidate enormous power in the legislative, judicial, and electoral branches of government, despite losing three presidential bids in the process. He's currently polling third among Nicaragua's presidential candidates, but is only six points behind the pro-business frontrunner and US favorite, Eduardo Montealegre.

Last month, the incumbent PLC accused Chávez of planning to finance Ortega's campaign to the tune of $50 million - an allegation that was denied by both Ortega and Venezuela's ambassador to Nicaragua.

President Enrique Bolaños, in statements to the local press, went as far as to warn Chávez that giving oil on credit to Sandinista mayors could constitute an electoral offense in Nicaragua.

Ortega maintains that the oil agreement is about helping the people of Nicaragua, rather than helping himself get elected. Yet the political implications of the pact with Chávez are obvious, and Ortega isn't afraid of playing that card.

"Where is the United States when Bolaños needs help resolving problems with oil prices?" Ortega demanded last September, following Chávez's initial promise to broker a deal with the Sandinistas. "The yanquis had hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in the war in Nicaragua; hundreds of million of dollars to kill Nicaraguans. But where is the US when Nicaragua has to start rationing energy?

"Chávez has an alternative, a proposal that's being implemented," Ortega added.

The US government, for its part, maintains that its commitment to Nicaragua's economic and social development is "longstanding, regardless of political affiliation," says US Embassy spokeswoman in Managua, Preeti Shah. "Since 1990 the United States has provided the people of Nicaragua with more than $1 billion with programs designed to improve health, education, trade and development, as well as democracy and the rule of law."

The Chavez-Ortega pact has led to the creation of a Nicaraguan-Venezuelan oil firm, Alba Petróleos de Nicaragua, which will be managed by Nicaragua's Sandinista-controlled municipal government association, known as AMUNIC.

Patricia Delgado, executive director of AMUNIC, says that the agreement is still "in the beginning stages of analysis," and that the logistics are still being worked out.

She estimates that the first shipment of oil could be made in October, but admits there are a lot of external factors at play. But once the company is up and running, she says, it could generate some serious income for the local governments.

"This will strengthen the autonomy of municipal governments and facilitate local development," Ms. Delgado says. "The municipalities can't wait for the central government, we have to keep moving forward and advancing with whomever will take our hand."

Sandinista congressman and hardliner Bayardo Arce agrees that the initiative will strengthen his party's leadership. "We are trying to offer answers on the municipal level, but when we return to govern the country, we will start to offer more integral answers," he said, after returning from Venezuela to help negotiate the oil deal.

Political analyst Carlos Fernando Chamorro says the Sandinistas should wait until the oil is distributed before they take too much credit for resolving the countries problems. "There is still a lot that is not clear about this agreement, and as long as the oil isn't coming, it remains just a campaign promise."

Does this clear anything up? Maybe a little? His major priority is to pay them back in spades, then they tell him what a good job he's doing and give him more money.

So if you're waiting for him to grow a spine or learn to read or ever ever ever go so far as erecting a single solitary obstacle in the way of folks making obscene profits on fossil fuels... you'd best be advised not to hold your breath unless you enjoy that certain bluish look most often associated with people no longer eligible for social security benefits due to the fact that they've become altogether much too skinny and dead. Get it? Got it. Good.

The President says "there's no magic wands." No kidding. Neither are there talking fish or fairy wings or giant toadstools upon which Donald Rumsfeld can perch naked eating flies with his bifurcated tongue. What's your point?

Bush plans to investigate possible

collusion or price fixing and the good news is, the report is already finished and it turns out everything is okey dokey folks. Nope, everything's on the up and up and George knows because his buddies assured him it is.

He also plans to relax environmental rules which you could see coming like an 18 wheeler full of concrete blocks rolling off a 45 degree ramp straight up the driveway towards your front door. He wants to boost domestic supply, which is code for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, baby and he's delaying deposits into our strategic petroleum reserve, which might save a thimble's worth. Measures destined to be about as effective as cleats on a duck.

I've come up a few other things the President could do that would be as effective to cut gas prices:

* Run around in circles until he gets dizzy and falls down.

* Bang a walking stick on the ground real hard like Nanny McPhee.

* Get the entire House of Representatives to sing "Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog" in the key of off.
* Lay a wreath of 80 dollar gas receipts at the tomb of the unknown SUV driver.

* Shoot a 78 year old Texas lawyer in the face with a gun.

* Propose a bill that gives more tax incentives to oil companies.

* And the last thing the President can do that will be as effective as what he's doing now in cutting gas prices... mandate the oil companies change their accounting practices to base 12 so those profits don't sound so big.