abcnews.go.com March 5

— LONDON (Reuters) - World oil prices fell on Wednesday as France and Russia warned the United States that they could use veto powers to stop a United Nations resolution authorizing war on Iraq.

The two countries issued a joint statement with Germany after a meeting in Paris at which they also called for accelerated weapons inspections in an attempt to prevent an attack on the world's eighth largest oil exporter.

International benchmark Brent crude oil fell 19 cents to $32.90 per barrel, while U.S. crude futures dropped 54 cents to $36.35.

"There has been a distinct lack of buying since France, Russia and Germany said they would not support a war," said Christopher Bellew of brokers Prudential-Bache International.

"It's a fickle market and will probably go back up again because we do seem to be sliding toward war," he added.

The prospect of a war comes at a time when crude stocks in the United States are hovering at their lowest levels since the mid-1970s.

U.S. government data showed crude oil stocks recovered somewhat last week, countered by a fall in heating oil and gasoline inventories.

"While this would appear to be a positive report for prices, the market has become accustomed to much larger (stock) draws," said Lawrence Eagles of brokers GNI-Man.

U.S. crude has swung in a wide range of $5 over the last week since touching a 12-year high of $39.99 on Feb. 27. It is still 20 percent above where it started the year.

Heating oil shortages in the U.S. northeast have worsened fears of a supply crunch in the world's top consumer.

On top of a crippling oil strike in Venezuela, which normally supplies 13 percent of U.S. imports, traders fear war in Iraq may disrupt exports from other countries in the Middle East, which account for 40 percent of world exports.

OPEC REASSURES

OPEC exporters have said they can cover any shortfall if an attack on Iraq disrupts its exports of roughly two million barrels per day.

But traders and analysts say that most members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are already pumping at full tilt and have little spare capacity outside the world's top producer Saudi Arabia.

"We're looking for crude to move above $40 when the attack is launched on Iraq. Even if OPEC does increase production we still see supplies remaining tight," said Tetsu Emori, chief strategist at Mitsui Bussan Futures in Tokyo.

The United States ordered 60,000 more troops into the Gulf region on Tuesday in its preparations for a military strike on Iraq, which it says is not in full compliance with U.N. demands to disarm chemical and biological weapons.

The United States and Britain have already amassed a 250,000-strong force in the region.

U.S. preparations hit a snag at the weekend when Turkey's parliament voted against the deployment of U.S. troops on its soil, which would have given access to northern Iraq.

Turkey's powerful armed forces backed a tentative government move to submit a fresh motion to parliament allowing U.S. troops into the country.

story.news.yahoo.com 55 minutes ago By SUSANNAH A. NESMITH, Associated Press Writer

BOGOTA, Colombia - A bomb set off by suspected rebels ripped through a shopping center in northeastern Colombia on Wednesday, killing seven people, injuring at least 20 and setting the complex on fire.   Television images showed shocked survivors wandering around the shopping stalls, blackened Ash Wednesday marks still on their foreheads.

Government officials said the attack in Cucuta, on the border with Venezuela, was part of an attempt by guerrillas to bring the nation's long-simmering war to Colombia's cities.

Defense Minister Martha Lucia Ramirez said the urban offensive is a response to government offensives in the countryside. "Unfortunately, that is the risk we have to run," she said.

After the bombing, President Alvaro Uribe appointed a police general to find rebel infiltrators in Cucuta government offices. The state news agency identified the prosecutor's office as one government agency where people got jobs because of pressure from rebels.

"The police are conducting an internal investigation and will do everything necessary in Cucuta and North Santander (state)," Uribe said, according to the State News Center agency.

Cucuta Mayor Manuel Guillermo Mora said seven people were killed in the blast.

Police Gen. Luis Alfredo Rodriguez said the National Liberation Army, or ELN, was responsible for the attack. The bomb was left next to a car in the basement parking lot, police said.

Firefighters, rescue crews and police officers hustled through the smoke into the shattered complex as frightened passers-by looked on.

Family members of shopping center employees gathered nearby waiting for word of their relatives.

The ELN and the nation's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, are battling outlawed paramilitary groups for control of Cucuta. The city has one of the highest murder rates in Colombia.

Colombia is torn by a 38-year civil war that pits the leftist rebels against the government and right-wing paramilitary groups. About 3,500 people, mainly civilians, are killed in the fighting each year.

www.washingtonpost.com By Nora Boustany Wednesday, March 5, 2003; Page A14

Sakie Yokota said she still lives in the moment when her 13-year-old daughter, Megumi, went missing. For years, the girl's room and her world of schoolbooks, dolls and dresses remained untouched. Today they are neatly packaged, awaiting her return.

"I have not been able to forget for a second the exact moment when my daughter vanished," Yokota said yesterday in an interview at the Mayflower Hotel. "I am still in that moment when she was lifted out of her life, and I am still waiting for her to come back to it. It has been very, very painful."

Megumi disappeared in 1977 while on her way home from badminton practice, walking along a road in the city of Niigata that leads to the dark, windswept shores of the Sea of Japan. At the time, no one suspected that North Korean agents had abducted the girl, stuffing her in a canvas bag and locking her aboard a ship bound for Pyongyang, where she would join other kidnapped Japanese in training North Korean spies in Japanese customs and language.

Now, at a time of heightened anxiety over North Korea's nuclear weapons program, the parents, relatives and other supporters of Japanese abducted by the Communist state are in Washington to appeal to legislators and the public. Frustrated in their efforts to gain more information about their missing loved ones -- or the return of those they believe to be alive -- they want the United States to take up their cause in any future talks with North Korea.

"We wanted Americans to realize there was another major cause," Yokota said. "People have been subjected to a terror that is ongoing: North Korea's continued terrorism. We want this to be a focus as well." In addition, she said, the United States ought to have leverage with other countries such as Russia and China that can bring pressure on Pyongyang.

When family members met with U.S. Ambassador Howard H. Baker Jr. in Tokyo last week, he advised them to take their case to Washington "as soon as possible," said her husband, Shigeru Yokota, who added that similar efforts by the Japanese government are at a stalemate.

For six years after Megumi's kidnapping, the Yokotas kept their front-porch light on so their daughter would find her way home. When they moved away from Niigata in 1983, they left a note for her.

It was not until a defector and former spy from North Korea testified in 1997 that he had seen the dimpled girl that North Korea's involvement in the disappearance of several Japanese nationals was acknowledged. On Sept. 17 last year, during normalization talks that North Korea hoped would help obtain aid from Japan, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that Japanese citizens, including Megumi, had been grabbed off Japanese shores.

North Korean officials said Megumi committed suicide in 1993, but her parents do not believe she is dead. North Korea did not provide her remains, first claiming that they were moved, then that they were washed away in a flood. In addition, the Yokotas said, other North Korean defectors had claimed there were sightings of their daughter.

The authorities in Pyongyang produced a photo of a 15-year-old girl born to Megumi, and DNA testing of hair and blood samples proved a match with her grandparents. The Yokotas wrote their granddaughter two letters, but have no proof they were delivered, and a request to meet her was declined.

Asked if she wanted to believe her daughter was still alive, Sakie Yokota shook her head. "It is not that I want to believe, I believe she is alive and so does our family, as do her younger twin brothers," she said.

From his left breast pocket, Shigeru Yokota pulled out a tortoise-shell comb in a brown leather case, Megumi's birthday gift to him the day before she disappeared.

"The leather used to be light," he said. "Now it is dark. It is because of my finger oil; I am always pulling it out to stroke it. I touch it and I think of my daughter."

www.washingtonpost.com

President Bush accepted the credentials of 12 new ambassadors last Wednesday in the first such ceremony this year. It was the largest group of new chiefs of diplomatic missions to arrive in Washington in a single month and to be accredited so promptly, according to the State Department's office of protocol. Though the administration is wrestling with other priorities at the moment, the scheduling signified that diplomacy matters during troubling times.

Despite snowy weather, the afternoon reception proceeded without a hitch, with the diplomats bringing large families for the ritual champagne reception and courteous exchanges with the leader of the world's only superpower.

By virtue of arriving on U.S. soil before the rest, Argentina's Eduardo Amadeo was the first ambassador to be received by Bush, and Khamrokhon Zaripov became the first ambassador to Washington from Tajikistan.

There were only two women among the fresh wave of ambassadors: Marina Valere from Trinidad and Tobago, and Inonge Mbikusita-Lewanika from Zambia.

The others were Bolivia's Jaime Aparicio, Sri Lanka's Devinda R. Subasinghe, Panama's Roberto Alfaro, Venezuela's Bernardo Alvarez Herrera, Madagascar's Rajaonarivony Narisoa, Mongolia's Ravdangiin Bold, Malta's John Lowell and Mohamed Latheef from the Maldives.

biz.yahoo.com Press Release Source: Crystallex International Corporation Wednesday March 5, 12:31 pm ET

TORONTO, March 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Crystallex International Corporation (Amex: KRY; Toronto) confirmed today that it has closed the private placement of 2,562,500 special warrants at a price of C$1.60 per special warrant raising gross proceeds of C$4.1 million. Each special warrant shall entitle the holder thereof, upon exercise and without payment of any additional consideration, to acquire one common share and one-half of one common share purchase warrant of Crystallex. Each whole purchase warrant is exercisable for one common share for a period of two years after issuance at a price of C$2.00 per share.

The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933 or the securities laws of any state, and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to US persons unless an exemption from registration is available.

Proceeds from the offering will be used by Crystallex to finance the continued development of its gold properties in Venezuela and for general working capital purposes.

About Crystallex:

Crystallex International Corporation is a Canadian based gold producer with operations and exploration properties in Uruguay and Venezuela. Crystallex shares are traded on the TSX and AMEX Exchanges and Crystallex is part of the S&P/TSX Composite Index, the most widely followed benchmark index in Canada.

Note: This news release may contain certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding potential mineralization and reserves, exploration results, and future plans and objectives of Crystallex, are forward-looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations are disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in documents filed from time to time with the Toronto Stock Exchange, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory authorities. The Toronto Stock Exchange has not reviewed this release and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this new release.

Visit us on the Internet: www.crystallex.com .

Source: Crystallex International Corporation