COMPILED FROM NEWS DISPATCHES

February 20, 2003 Vatican Files on Nazis The first documents from newly opened Vatican archives dealing with the Roman Catholic Church's relations with Germany on the eve of World War II are beginning to emerge, including a letter seeking papal intervention against the Nazis written by a famed Jewish convert to Catholicism, Edith Stein. The letter's existence has been known for decades - Stein wrote about it before she was killed at Auschwitz in 1942 - but its text was published for the first time yesterday in the Italian paper Corriere della Sera. Other documents from the era are also coming to light, including one some historians say proves the Vatican did intervene on behalf of the Jews: a document from 1933 that shows the Vatican ordered its diplomats in Germany to warn Hitler's government not to persecute Jews. The documents have become available following the Vatican's decision to open its prewar archives to scholars years ahead of schedule to deflect criticism that it was silent in the face of the Holocaust.

Muslim Leader Expelled Norway said yesterday that it planned to expel the founder of a radical Kurdish Islamic group who is suspected by Washington of having links to the Iraqi government and the al-Qaida terrorist network. Mullah Krekar, leader of Ansar al-Islam, was given two weeks to leave Norway and three weeks to appeal the ruling. Krekar has denied he or his group has any links to terrorism. Officials said they wanted Krekar, who has had refugee status in Norway since 1991, sent to Kurdish-held northern Iraq. Amnesty International called the plan irresponsible, saying Oslo should test its suspicions that Krekar has links to terrorism in court rather than send him home.

S. Korea Tightens Security A subway fire that killed more than 125 people Tuesday in South Korea is forcing officials to strengthen safety measures on trains. Officials with the subway system in Taegu, the country's third-largest city, promised to install emergency lighting, increase the number of exit signs, make car interiors flame-resistant and heighten security. The city government also said it would increase the number of guards, set up security cameras and quickly run a series of fire drills in subway stations. Police, meanwhile, said the blaze was ignited by a suicidal man who did not want to die alone. Kim Dae-han, 56, who was hospitalized with light burns, told authorities "he decided to die with others in a crowded place," said police Lt. Cho Doo-won.

Sex Abuse Lawsuits Upheld A judge refused yesterday to dismiss more than 400 sexual abuse lawsuits against the Boston Archdiocese, rejecting arguments that the Constitution bars the courts from interfering with church operations. The lawsuits allege church officials were negligent in their supervision of priests accused of molesting children. Church lawyers had argued that the court does not have jurisdiction over cases involving the relationship between a church supervisor and a priest because that involves church policy, which is protected by the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion. But Superior Court Judge Constance Sweeney said: "The cases ... do not lure the court into involving itself in church doctrine, faith, internal organization or discipline." Sweeney dismissed claims that church supervisors were negligent in their ordination of a priest or their failure to remove a priest from the priesthood, saying those were "purely ecclesiastical matters." She also rejected arguments that because a priest is a priest 24 hours a day, church supervisors can be held liable for anything he does.

Killings Not Political Venezuela reeled yesterday from the killings of three dissident soldiers and a protester opposed to President Hugo Chávez, as police and grieving relatives split over whether the homicides were political. Police said about 12 unidentified armed men kidnapped the four victims Saturday as they were leaving a protest. The last two bodies were found Tuesday. Police said the motive for the killings appeared to be revenge, not politics. They cited an alleged scuffle between the slain soldiers and a fellow protester, who has become the lead suspect. Relatives of the victims slammed the probe as corrupt and said the four were clearly killed for their protests against Chávez.

www.sun-sentinel.com By Patrick Markey Reuters Posted February 20 2003

CARACAS, Venezuela · British anti-terrorism police arrived in Caracas on Tuesday to piece together the life of a Venezuelan man who flew from the South American country to London's Gatwick airport with a live hand grenade in his luggage. Three officers from the Metropolitan Police were scheduled to arrive as part of their investigation into Hasil Mohammed Rahaham-Alan, 37, who was arrested last week after stepping off a British Airways flight from Caracas, sources close to the investigation said. Venezuelan immigration authorities say Rahaham-Alan was carrying a false domestic identification card and they could not confirm his identity. "It's the same name, but we are not sure we are talking about the same person. We're not sure if he is a Venezuelan or not," said Alfredo Gil Romero, director of the immigration control agency. Reporters visited the two-story green-and-white home where Rahaham-Alan told a London courtroom he had lived. Neighbors said that a family named Rahaham had lived for more than a decade in the house, perched along a sun-scorched hillside overlooking the eastern part of Caracas. Interpol police on Friday visited the home, which had been unoccupied for almost a month, local residents said. "I was surprised to hear this," said one neighbor. "They are really decent, professional people. I used to call the mother `grandma' and she would invite me in for tea and coffee." The elderly mother and her four children were not thought to be native Venezuelans, but residents of this middle-class neighborhood said they didn't know where the family had come from. Two sons and a daughter lived outside Caracas, but the third son had not visited the home for about three years, they said. Rahaham-Alan appeared in a London court on Monday, where he was charged with possession of an article for the purpose of committing a terrorist act and possession of an explosive substance with intent to endanger life or damage property. He also is charged with carrying a dangerous article on a British-registered plane. He has been remanded in custody and will appear at London's Old Bailey court on Feb. 24. U.S. officials last year said they were concerned that extremist Islamic groups were receiving financial backing from Middle Eastern expatriate communities on Venezuela's Margarita Island, a popular Caribbean tourist haven. The mainland shares a rugged, porous border with Colombia and has long been a conduit for drugs and counterfeit goods to and from other South American countries. Venezuelan government officials admit their troubled immigration controls need an urgent overhaul. Rahaham-Alan, bearded with long dark hair, arrived at Gatwick last Thursday on a British Airways flight that officials said started in Bogotá, Colombia, and made stops in Caracas and Barbados before heading to London. He was arrested after police discovered the grenade in his bags. Police, already on high alert because of threats of an attack, were forced to evacuate the airport's north terminal, delaying or canceling scores of flights. British officials also want to determine how a hand grenade got through Caracas airport security. Sources said the grenade was in a metal box that helped mask it from X-ray equipment.

www.globeandmail.com By JOHN SAUNDERS and STEVEN CHASE Thursday, February 20, 2003 - Page B9

WASHINGTON and OTTAWA -- There are as many as 180,000 Canadian tax dollars at work in today's issue of The New York Times, where you will find a full-page ad from something called the U.S.-Canada Partnership for Growth, which gets most of its money indirectly from Ottawa but says it is not a Canadian government front.

The $125,000 (U.S.) ad, one of a series in U.S. newspapers and on U.S. television, seems at first glance to be about oil, but aims to persuade Americans to give Canada a break on trade in lumber. "Reliable energy. Right next door," it says, stressing that Canada and the United States are "steady allies" and that the United States gets more oil and natural gas from Canada than from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Mexico, Kuwait or any other country.

The main sponsors, not named in the ad, are the Canadian government and the Forest Products Association of Canada, which got a $17-million (Canadian) federal grant last year to run a two-year lumber information blitz. FPAC confirms that it is the "primary funder" of the ads, and Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade says it is given a chance to check and revise them before they run.

James Blanchard, formerly a Michigan governor and a U.S. ambassador to Canada, is one of the old Washington hands hired to serve as co-chairmen of the partnership.

"The idea very simply is that Americans generally have no idea of the magnitude of the trade with Canada and the jobs produced, and most people have very little idea of the incredible energy relationship with Canada," Mr. Blanchard said in an interview yesterday.

If people understood the situation, he said, they would see that there is no excuse for special U.S. import duties of 27 per cent on Canadian softwood lumber, which Washington alleges is unfairly subsidized through cheap provincial wood sales and dumped on the U.S. market.

"They've been seeing our TV ads and I have people come up to me and say, 'Do you know that we get more energy from Canada than anywhere? Do you know that?' They don't even know that I'm affiliated with the our Canada-U.S. Partnership for Growth."

The original ad in the series, run late last year, was a soft sell illustrated by a snapshot of two freckled-faced youngsters. "We grew up together," it said.

Another ad, scheduled for certain editions of USA Today tomorrow, is headed "Canada buys American." It points out that Canada is the United States's biggest trading partner and a major buyer of goods from Arizona or Pennsylvania or wherever.

Mr. Blanchard comes to the campaign as a consultant to Burson-Masteller, the giant New York public relations firm orchestrating the partnership's ad and lobby efforts. He said that his law firm receives a fee for his services as co-chairman but would not disclose the amount.

Mr. Blanchard said that some of the money going into the campaign is from the partnership's U.S. members, notably house builders, lumber retailers and others who stand to gain from lower lumber prices, but he declined to name the donors or to give a figure.

Communications director in the office of Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew, Sébastien Théberge, said: "It is true that there is a competition for attention in the United States media to reach the American public and we believe we have a role to play in ensuring that the average American, as well as media and politicians in Washington and New York have a clear understanding of the importance of this two-way relationship."

www.ctnow.com February 20, 2003 By MICHAEL DOBBS, Washington Post Enough oil is stored in the deep, cone-shaped salt caverns along the Gulf of Mexico - most of them large enough to accommodate the towers of the World Trade Center - to replace a year of imports from Saudi Arabia. Originally conceived as a response to the oil crises of the 1970s, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has become as much a part of the United States' strategic arsenal as the aircraft carriers, airborne divisions and spy planes converging on the Persian Gulf region. According to the Department of Energy, the 599-million barrel reserve constitutes the nation's "first line of defense" against disruptions in energy supplies. As President Bush prepares for war with Iraq, he has been pressured to use the reserve to calm an increasingly jittery market. In addition to the uncertainty caused by the Iraqi crisis, a general strike in Venezuela has helped push oil prices to new highs and slashed inventories in many parts of the world to critically low levels. Members of Congress from the Northeast - including Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut - have urged Bush to release some of the reserves to ease heating oil prices, which have soared to an average $1.77 a gallon in Connecticut. If the past is a guide, and Bush follows the precedent set by his father in the Persian Gulf War in 1991, he probably will resist the temptation to tap the underground storage sites in Texas and Louisiana until the onset of any hostilities. If the attack on Iraq begins, he will order the release of some of the oil in the reserve, a move designed to signal the United States' ability to ride out any temporary panic over the oil market. If the war goes badly, and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein succeeds in torching Iraqi oil fields or hitting oil facilities in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, the reserves would assume huge strategic importance. The 50 or so caverns in Louisiana and Texas contain enough oil to replace 53 days of lost imports. In practice, officials say, supplies should last considerably longer, as the United States buys much of its oil from such countries as Canada and Mexico, which would probably not be interrupted by a crisis in the Middle East. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is "a powerful instrument," said John Shages, one of the Energy Department officials responsible for managing the network of storage sites, pipelines and loading facilities strung out along the Gulf of Mexico coast. "It gives the president a tremendous tool to use in the event of a severe disruption to the market, from an act of God to a political-military event." Because of the tightness of the international oil market, said Edward Porter, an economist at the American Petroleum Institute, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve could play "a much more central role" in a new Gulf war than it did in 1991. A decade ago, there was plenty of excess capacity in the oil market. After the war began in January 1991, prices dropped from more than $30 a barrel to about $20. Today, by contrast, it would be much more difficult to offset a likely loss of Middle Eastern oil, if the region became embroiled in war. Iraq alone sells 2 ½ million barrels a day to foreign countries, including the United States, through smuggling and "oil for food" arrangements approved by the United Nations. Although Venezuelan oil is slowly coming back on stream, as a general strike against populist President Hugo Chavez winds down, exports are no more than half those of pre-strike levels. According to oil analysts, the only country in the world that can significantly increase production levels practically overnight is Saudi Arabia, which has about 1 million barrels a day of excess capacity. In recent weeks, the Saudi government has boosted production to offset losses from Venezuela. But the Bush administration does not want to be held hostage to a potentially unstable Arab country rife with anti-Americanism that has previously used oil as a weapon against the United States. "We shouldn't allow U.S. national security to be dependent on decisions in Riyadh, when the president has the ability to take those decisions," said Edward L. Morse, who was responsible for international energy policy at the State Department during the Reagan administration. "The Strategic Petroleum Reserve allows the U.S. government to put much more oil onto the market (in the short term) than we can get from the Saudis." How much oil should be released from the reserve, and under what circumstances, is the subject of great debate among energy specialists. President George H.W. Bush was criticized for not acting after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, when oil prices rose as high as $40 a barrel. He finally ordered a limited drawdown of 33.75 million barrels on Jan. 16, 1991, the same day he announced that U.S. warplanes had begun attacking Baghdad. By the time the oil reached the market, prices had fallen sharply, and the crisis was largely over. Last week, as the price of light sweet crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose to more than $36 - a 26-month high - calls for the release of oil from the reserves came from airlines hit by soaring fuel costs, refineries suffering from a lack of Venezuelan oil and senators worried about the rising price of both heating oil and gasoline for their constituents. Oil industry executives oppose the release of oil from the reserve, except in a national emergency. The Bush administration is keeping its options open. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said last week that the reserve should be used only in the event of severe supply disruptions, and not to bring down prices.

europe.cnn.com Thursday, February 20, 2003 Posted: 0809 GMT

PARIS, France (Reuters) -- French oil group TotalFinaElf posted a 13 percent rise in underlying fourth quarter profit on Thursday, fuelled by higher crude oil prices.

But Chief Executive Thierry Desmarest said oil prices would ease from their highs around $37 a barrel after a possible war in Iraq and that would give breathing space to a fragile world economy as supplies catch up with global demand.

"I think unfortunately there is going to be a war, but after that things should ease up because there is enough supply to meet demand globally,'' he said in an interview with television channel France 2.

Oil prices are near 29-month highs as the United States and Britain seek support for a possible attack on Iraq.

Desmarest was speaking after TotalFinaElf predicted a five percent rise in the company's own output each year through 2007.

It is shortening its name to Total and is seen as France's top contender for Iraqi deals if and when sanctions are lifted.

But he denied the name change was motivated by a wish to distance itself from a scandal surrounding former top managers at Elf Aquitaine, which it took over in the late 1990s.

The world's fifth largest oil company's unwieldy name had come to symbolise the merger boom of the 1990s as it bought Elf and another medium-sized oil company, Belgium's Petrofina.

TotalFinaElf, France's largest company, said its net income before exceptional items rose to 1.609 billion euros ($1.73 billion) in the fourth quarter from 1.424 billion a year ago.

Continuing share buybacks boosted pre-exceptional earnings per share to 2.44 euros from 2.11 previously, and Total said it would propose a net dividend of 4.10 euros for 2002, up eight percent from 2001 .

The results were slightly below analysts' expectations of net income before one-time items of 1.65 billion euros for the quarter, but analysts called the figures solid and said investors would be pleased its production targets.

"At first glance Total's net profit was slightly light but this was partly due to write-downs on Argentinian assets. Its EBIT was in line with our expectations, its share buy-back continues and it gave encouraging production targets,'' said one London-based energy analyst.

The company's oil and gas production rose eight percent in 2002's last quarter to 2.532 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, despite lengthy strikes in Venezuela.

This was in stark contrast with some of the oil majors like BP who failed to deliver on production targets last year.

Paris equity traders said Total could however suffer a double hit from lower oil prices and the weakening the U.S. dollar, the currency on which oil transactions are based.

"What worries people is the dollar exchange rate. Lower oil prices would be one thing for Total, but lower crude prices and a simultaneous further weakening of the dollar would be disastrous for the company,'' said one trader.