www.newsmax.com NewsMax Wires Wednesday, March 12, 2003

LOS ANGELES -- Crude futures settled 55 cents lower on the New York Mercantile Exchange Tuesday after OPEC announced it would keep the world supplied with oil should "geopolitical tensions" deteriorate further.

While not mentioning its fellow OPEC member Iraq by name, the cartel repeated its pledge that it would be able to continue production and the flow of supplies to its customers at the conclusion of its latest conference meeting in Vienna.

"In addition, noting the uncertainties stemming from increasing geopolitical tensions and while expressing its hope that peace and tranquility will prevail, the conference reiterated OPEC's determination to ensure that the market remains stable and well-supplied," OPEC said in a statement.

"The organization (has) repeatedly demonstrated its ability and willingness to continue to satisfy oil market demands in a timely fashion."

OPEC refused to withhold oil from the West in a show of support for the increasingly beleaguered Iraqi government. It also refused to increase exports from its current level of 24.5 million barrels per day to help cool off oil prices that have helped send gasoline prices in the United States to near-record levels.

News Cools Market

The news from Vienna and reports that the Bush administration might be willing to extend the proposed March 17 deadline for Iraqi disarmament combined to cool off the bullishness on NYMEX, where April crude settled at $36.72 per barrel while May settled at $35.74. Early after-hours trading Tuesday evening saw crude as largely stable.

A chronic tightness in the U.S. crude and gasoline supply has combined to push the average price of a gallon of regular in the United States to $1.702, according to AAA, whispering distance from the May 2001 record of $1.718.

"Motorists also should resist the urge to immediately buy gas following a possible declaration of war on Iraq or the commission of a terrorist act, because 'panic buying' and long gas lines have the potential of causing needless fuel shortages," AAA spokeswoman Dawn Duffy suggested.

OPEC's statement maintained, however, that there was no physical shortage of oil on the market and the recent run-up in prices was primarily the result of oil trader worries over the Iraq situation, cold weather in the United States and the continuing labor dispute that has bogged down Venezuela's state-run oil industry.

Uncertainties

"The current high price levels ... are predominantly a reflection of uncertainties resulting from prevailing geopolitical tensions," OPEC said. "In light of the supply-demand picture for the balance of the first quarter and the second quarter, the conference decided to maintain, for the time being, the current OPEC production ceiling. Supplies are adequate to meet current market requirements."

OPEC's ability to keep its pledge depends a good deal on whether the war spills over into Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations.

The Washington Times said Tuesday that al Qaida might be forming terrorist squads to attack Kuwaiti and Saudi oilfields in the event of war.

www.grandforks.com Posted on Tue, Mar. 11, 2003 Associated Press

BRASILIA, Brazil - Soldiers from the Brazilian army will be deployed to help fight wild fires spreading out of control in the country's northernmost Amazon state, federal officials said Tuesday.

The federal government is sending three helicopters and three fire fighting brigades to Roraima state, on Brazil's border with Venezuela and Guyana, the country's Environment Ministry said in a statement.

The troops will aid the 500 firefighters already working to contain some 86 fires that so far have claimed nearly 40 square miles of forest and scrub land.

Most of the fires were started by farmers and spread out of control because of dry conditions in the region.

Slash and burn agriculture is a common practice in much of the Brazilian Amazon, because burning jungle brush to replenish the region's poor soil is cheaper than fertilizer.

In 1998, wild fires in Roraima claimed more than 1,150 square miles of forest and scrub land.

The 1998 fires drew international attention after spreading into the Yanomami Indian reservation in the western part of the state.

It was not immediately clear if the reservation was threatened by this year's fires.

www.simcoe.com Bruce Hain: The Advance Mar. 11, 2003

How would like to spend your annual vacation keeping an eye out for deadly snakes, or being offered fresh dog meat for supper? Or having to negotiate with a hostile group of Amazonian natives?

If you're a member of the congregation at Heritage Baptist Church in Barrie, or contractor Ed Donnelly of Springwater Township, these cheery scenarios have all been just part of a typical work day, while being on 'holiday'.

For the past decade, members of Heritage Baptist have been helping construct new churches in exotic locales such as the Philippines and Venezuela. It all started back in 1990 when Pastor Leroy Pennell was invited by a minister in the Philippines to visit one of their work sites.

"I really wanted to see first-hand what some of the issues were in that country," Pennell recalls. "I spoke in a church over there, sort of a storefront operation, and I came home with a real burden."

Pennell realized there was a pressing need for a new building to house the far-away congregation.

"I told the pastor if he could get land, I could arrange to build a new church."

The property was acquired, and the Canadian campaign began to raise funds for building materials, and to seek out volunteers who would accompany Pennell back to the island nation archipelago. Pennell was hugely successful on both fronts.

"For about $10,000 Canadian, we were able to put up a 20-foot- by 40-foot building. It was our first project."

Pennell says back in 1990, his congregation initially raised approximately $13,000 for their mission work.

"Now, we're on schedule to raise $130,000 this year," he says.

And members of his church have returned several times to the Philippines.

"We went back and did a church campground, and then built an orphanage," Pennell states. "Last year, we built dormitories in Venezuela."

News of these good deeds have spread throughout the congregation, making the task of finding volunteers easier.

"A large number of our people have gone on one, or more of these trips," Pennell says. "It gives them a real sense of the mission field. In two weeks, you get a real bond with the people you go with."

Pennell and his followers have always been warmly received by their hosts, wherever that might be.

"One of the things is that we've been treated very well," he says. "They were surprised at first to see us getting dirty, and watching us work hard. They always thought of North Americans as businessmen. I think it broke down some walls."

"Some of them were amazed to see our pastor get down mixing mortar, getting blisters," Bob Martin adds. "In turn, they taught us a lot about reaching out and ministering to children."

Pennell says, "we leave behind a building, but we're taking away a lot more. It enriches your life and you're grateful for the experience."

Brothers Ben and Jonathan Langman of Elmvale are two of the youngest members of the Heritage Baptist Church who have participated in the mission work.

"It's one of the best things a teenager can do," Ben says.

"We had a great time, too," Jonathan says. "It was fun to do."

"It's just a thing that makes you appreciate your own family more," Martin says. "It's a time to grow spiritually, and you rely on Him to overcome any challenges."

"We've never had any real problem getting people to go," Pennell says. "People have taken their own vacation time, and rather go lie on the beach in Florida, buy a air ticket and go work for two weeks. You see Christianity in its barest form, stripped of the materialism. You see joy, laughter, singing, which is a little harder to come by in this country."

The church's next project is on tap for 2004.

Born and raised in Springwater Township, contractor Ed Donnelly shares many of the sentiments expressed by Pennell and his flock.

"At one point in my life, I used to just fly south to some island," Donnelly says. "But I just didn't like sitting around in the sun."

He found out about an organization called Maranatha Volunteers International, based in California, which organizes working expeditions to developing nations.

"I had a chance to go help build a church in Brazil," Donnelly says. "It was quite eventful."

Journeying to far-away lands is one of the best forms of personal growth, he believes.

"It's such an opportunity to get to know the flavour of a country, and get to know the people. We don't have a clue up here what it's like in the poorer countries."

Donnelly made his first trip in 1989, and has made six in total. His passport includes stops in Brazil, Santo Domingo, Mexico, Chile, Honduras and Panama.

"The big high is helping the local people," he states. "Churches are really community centres. They are used seven days, and seven nights a week."

Being handy with his hands has served Donnelly well. Jobs he has performed include masonry, roofing, general labour, painting, carpentry, and even helping out in the kitchen.

One of his most memorable anecdotes happened in Brazil.

"We had put up a building in a village. It was complete, and we were on our last day."

They were just about to leave, when the group encountered some tribal politics along the Amazon River.

"Some canoes came up river," Donnelly recalls. After some heated discussions, and through interpreters, "we appeased them by giving them all of our medicine, and sent our dentist to remove their chief's mother-in-law's abscessed tooth.

"However, we had lost four hours, so we decided to take a shortcut. The rudder of our boat broke, and we started to drift in the river. It took about five hours before we could get back ashore. It was just like 'The African Queen.'

"It was pretty scary. The Amazon can be more than a mile wide, with whirlpools and sandbars. We finally landed in a village. There was only one phone, and it was broken. We fixed it, and got a boat to come and get us. A bus picked us up, and we caught our flight - with about an hour to spare."

Other excursions have been mercifully less exciting.

"In Chile, we worked for 11 days, and then took a two-day excursion into the Andes," Donnelly says.

"It was very exotic, and very beautiful."

Even though they are foreigners in a distant land, and there is little, or no English spoken, Donnelly says he, and his fellow travellers, know they are welcome.

"In Chile, the chief of police came to see us. He said they had some building materials, but didn't know how to build the structure. We accommodated them. We built it, and made sure it was safe. They threw us a banquet - complete with costumed dancers.

"The people are ecstatic with their smiles, they really appreciate your help. If you went for a walk at lunch time, they would invite you into their house. It was a very warm feeling," he states.

"You're in a village, say the size of Stroud, and you're building a school. Everyone knows why you're there."

Donnelly doesn't stop at just donating his time and talent, either.

"I go down fully loaded with clothes to give away - socks, shirts, and anything else I can carry."

Being away from home also brings out Donnelly's creative side.

"When I go down there, I write poems and music of my experiences. Some day, I'm going to put them on CD."

For those wondering if they could pass muster on such an adventure, Donnelly offers these words of encouragement.

"Don't be concerned about your age, or lack of expertise. There's a job for you!"

ToogoodReports.com By Burt Prelutsky Toogood Reports [Wednesday, March 12, 2003; 12:01 a.m. EST]

Like Truman, Bush came to the White House greatly under-estimated, even by those who voted for him. I was one of them. People made fun of his speechmaking ability, his leadership potential, even his intelligence. Leaders in his own party compared him unfavorably to his Democrat predecessor.

Truman got to be president mainly because the smarter Democrats didn't want Henry Wallace to be the ailing FDR's vice-president a second time. Of course, Truman's enemies couldn't make that same claim in 1948, when he pulled off the biggest upset in presidential history, knocking off Thomas Dewey.

For his part, we were told, Bush got the job because the electorate in Florida didn't know how to cast their ballots, and because the U.S. Supreme Court was part of a vast right-wing conspiracy. (Funny how the Democrats never point out that Al Gore is one of the few presidential candidates who have failed to carry his home state. If Tennessee had voted for its least favorite son, it wouldn't have mattered what happened in Florida!)

The Democrats, still licking their wounds from 2000, haven't yet gotten around to explaining how this political nonentity managed to lead his party to victory in the 2002 elections without any help from Justice Rehnquist and his judicial cohorts.

What Bush and Truman have in common, besides their less than dazzling oratorical skills, are honesty, principles and a respect for the Office. Truman had a sign on his desk stating that The Buck Stops Here. Bush might as well have one of his own.

Bush speaks of an Axis of Evil, and he names names. For his part, Truman waged the Cold War because he recognized that evil exists in the world, and you either combat it or you become its accessory. And for men of honor, the latter course is never an option.

In Truman's day, the appeasers claimed that the Soviet Union was not a danger to America or the world. They claimed that Joseph Stalin was, at worst, a tinhorn dictator ruling a backward nation; at best, a heroic leader who had helped defeat the Nazis. When he gobbled up all of Eastern Europe, enslaving hundreds of millions of people, they defended him. Stalin needed a buffer; after all, mother Russia had been invaded by Napoleon and Hitler. They pointed out that Germany had slaughtered millions of Russians, while ignoring the brutal fact that for a quarter of a century, Stalin had done the exact same thing with never a peep heard from the American left.

Now the children and grandchildren of these people cast Bush, not Saddam Hussein, in the role of villain. It doesn't matter to them that Iraq has invaded Iran and Kuwait and launched missiles at Israel, just as it doesn't faze them that Hussein gassed Kurds by the tens of thousands, and has amassed weapons of mass destruction. These people are so estranged from truth and logic that they will, on the one hand, emphatically insist that Hussein possesses no such weaponry, and then wring their hands in fear that he will unleash these non-existent chemicals if we invade Iraq.

These four-flushers will praise the likes of France and Russia as representing the conscience of mankind, while accusing Bush of being beholden to the oil interests — all the while ignoring the fact that it's France and Russia that have billion dollar oil deals with Hussein. Obviously, if Bush were out to gain control of Arab oil, he would go to war against such pushovers as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. If we merely wanted Iraqi oil, we'd buy it, the same way we get the stuff from Mexico, Venezuela and the rest of the Middle East. Hussein would be only too happy to sell it to us. No, if it were really about oil, the way the pinheads insist it is in their childish chants and slogans, would George Bush so openly side with Israel, the one country in that part of the world that is bereft of oil? Because Bush's detractors lack principles themselves, they can never acknowledge the virtue in others. Because they despise America, they regard patriotism as villainy. Because they indulge in double-talk, they abhor plain-speaking. They claim that North Korea has become suddenly hostile and dangerous because Bush dared to call them evil, disregarding the fact that he called them evil because they had broken their nuclear treaty within a few months of brokering the agreement with the previous administration.

The hypocrisy of the left is boundless. They demanded that Bush get congressional backing before invading Iraq. He did. They then demanded he take the matter up with the Security Council. He did. Then they demanded that he do it all over again. In the meantime, they insist that he not rush to war. If this is their idea of rushing, one has to wonder what they regard as slow and steady.

The left insists that U.N. inspectors be given more time to play hide-and-seek with Hussein. The inspectors were never supposed to find anything; their sole mission was to confirm that Hussein had disposed of his gases and chemical plague agents. Obviously he never did, so confirmation was out of the question. But, then, why would he? Why should he? All he had to do to get so-called world opinion behind him was claim that he only kicked the original arms inspectors out of Iraq because they were spying. Boys and girls, that is what inspectors do.

No matter how patient Bush is, no matter how much he kowtows to the U.N., it's not enough for these people. But you notice they never said a discouraging word when Clinton dropped bombs in Serbia, Somalia and the Sudan. There was no outcry that he was being imperialistic, that he was trying to take over the world. Martin Sheen and Susan Sarandon didn't demand that he go hat-in-hand to the United Nations. I don't recall liberals moaning about collateral damage, just as I don't recall any of these aging hippies offering themselves up as human shields.

George W. Bush's being in the White House embarrasses these folks, but Bill Clinton, the man who turned the Oval Office into the Oral Office, him they'd enshrine on Mount Rushmore.

To show you how foolish and out of sync with the American people those on the left truly are, you have merely to consider that they call Bush a Texas cowboy, just as they used to call Truman a Missouri haberdasher — and that's their idea of an insult!

To comment on this article or express your opinion directly to the author, you are invited to e-mail Burt at BurtPrelutsky@aol.com .

NOTICE TO WRITERS: To obtain required information prior to submitting your essay to Toogood Reports for publication send for “Commentary Submissions” guidelines. Nonconforming submissions will not be considered for publication.

www.channelnewsasia.com First created : 12 March 2003 0853 hrs (SST) 0053 hrs (GMT) Last modified : 12 March 2003 0853 hrs (SST) 0053 hrs (GMT)

Members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have agreed to stick with their current quotas for crude oil production.

But the cartel promised to boost output in the future to keep supplies flowing in case of any serious disruption, such as might be caused by war in Iraq.Advertisement OPEC's president, Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, confirmed that the cartel was not changing its output target of 24.5 million barrels a day and said delegates planned to meet on June 11 in Doha, Qatar, to review market conditions.

The decision was announced on Tuesday at the end of the OPEC ministers' meeting at the group's headquarters in Vienna, Austria.

They ruled out formally raising output now as a way of reassuring nervous markets before any US-led attack on Iraq.

However, they took extreme care not to mention such a conflict as a likely source of disruption, apparently afraid of seeming to support such a war simply by preparing to respond to its possible impact on markets.

Despite sharply higher oil prices, OPEC members argued that the world has enough crude to meet demand.

Since January, crude prices have skyrocketed due to fears of a war on Iraq, which has the world's second-largest proven oil reserves after Saudi Arabia, and a general strike in Venezuela, which crippled production there at the start of the year.