<a href=iccheshireonline.icnetwork.co.uk>Daily PostDaily Post  Article Mar 28 2003 By Hugo Duncan Daily Post Staff, In Valencia   THE men accused of killing North Wales couple Tony and Linda O'Malley have been questioned by a Spanish judge.

The pair, known only as Jorge RS and Jose Antonio UG, were taken from Valencia Police Station to a city court late last night.

The Venezuelans, aged 53 and 38, were handcuffed and taken in separate police cars to answer questions relating to the disappearance and death of Mr O'Malley, originally from Widnes, and his Liverpool-born wife.

The couple, who lived at Llangollen, North Wales, had been house hunting on the Costa Blanca when they were kidnapped and shot last September.

The two men are alleged to have lured the couple to a home in Alcoy, in the mountains above Benidorm, where they held them in a cellar for two weeks before killing them.

The men and each of their wives, all thought to be from Venezuela, were arrested on Tuesday as Spanish police discovered the bodies of 42 year old Tony and his 55 year old wife Linda.

They were buried in a cellar at the house they had hoped to buy.

The suspects were arrested at a flat in El Suler 30 minutes from Valencia.

Documents linking them to the O'Malleys, including passports and a car registration plate, along with a gun thought to be the murder weapon were in the hands of the Valencian judge last night.

Neighbours of the suspects were coming to terms with the horrifying tale last night.

Filipe Guardiola and Ana Gomez live in number 13 on the fourth floor of the Az Bola De Puchol, three floors below number 25 where the suspects were arrested.

Filipe, 22, said he thought the wives, who were bailed by police in Valencia, had returned to the flat. Yesterday the flat was deserted.

Filipe said: "We heard the men were renting buildings and then putting them up for sale. When people came to look at the house they checked out if they had any money.

"We heard they took this couple hostage and walked them to the bank, took their money, and then killed them and buried them in the cellar.

"We were very surprised when the police turned up. I have met one of the women and she seemed very nice, very normal.

"Everyone here is talking about it." The majority of the flats are owned by Spaniards, but yesterday the 14 sto-rey block was almost deserted.

Filipe said only about 10pc of the flats were used outside the summer months.

The block, one of five in the immediate area, is a few hundred yards from the sea and has a private swimming pool.

Filipe said: "I met one of the men once. He seemed OK.

"I think he was in telecommunications - he had a lot of computers."

He said four police cars, two from Interpol and two Spanish, took one of the men away on Tuesday morning and the other that afternoon.

He said: "I didn't know what it was for, but then Ana's mum phoned and said it was about the missing British people. We couldn't believe it."

National Briefs By Detroit News staff, wire and Bloomberg News reports Automotive

DALLAS -- The Texas Supreme Court denied a request by Ford Motor Co. and Bridgestone Corp.'s Firestone unit to block trials involving 30 deadly accidents in Venezuela and Mexico involving Explorer sport utility vehicles with Firestone tires. Ford and Firestone sought to dismiss the Texas state court suits because the accidents happened abroad. Plaintiffs' lawyers said the lawsuits should be tried in Texas because Ford tested the Explorer in the state. Ford called the Texas court decision unfair, while Firestone was "disappointed" with the decision. Ford and Firestone have been named in hundreds of lawsuits involving deaths and injuries blamed on tire failures and vehicle rollovers.

Washington Post By Thomas Boswell Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, March 28, 2003; Page H01

This week, baseball wanted to open its season with a game in Tokyo between the Seattle Mariners, owned by Nintendo founder Hiroshi Yamauchi, and the Oakland A's. The war in Iraq prevented such travel plans. But the point remained the same. It felt natural, not forced, for baseball to begin its season on another continent.

Every pro sport wants to conquer the world. For many years football, basketball and baseball have boasted about their ambitions to develop a true international identity. Who thought that baseball, so backward at times and blockheaded at others, would establish itself as such an exemplary international sport? You've come a long way from Cooperstown, baby.

The day may come, distant to be sure, when the World Series will be contested among the champions of North America, South America, the Caribbean and Asia. That's not the whole world, by a long shot, but it's a pretty good start. The NFL, for one, would be jealous. Football may have started a league in Europe, but its players, aside from soccer-style kickers, are almost all Americans.

Baseball has gone far past that point. The sport is not only loved on three continents, but the game's major league clubhouses have long had players from as far away as Australia.

For some reason, which is hard to understand, few in baseball ever seem to brag about one of the sport's great strengths. In a country that is proud of its melting-pot roots and ideals, baseball's demographics come much closer to mirroring the country as a whole than any other major sport.

The sport as a whole, and almost every team, has a roughly equal mix of white, black and Latino players. Once, the cohesion of these three groups was considered rare enough to be worthy of mention. The great '75-76 Cincinnati Reds, led by Pete Rose, Joe Morgan and Tony Perez, set the example. Now, it's the rule.

For more than 50 years, the game has benefited from, and to a degree been redefined by, the huge contributions of African American athletes, especially those, such as Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson, who epitomized the five-tool star athlete. Now, everyday players start from the assumption that they should, ideally, have speed as well as power, agility as well as strength.

However, it is only in the last 15 years that the sport has practically been saved by an incredible influx of talented players of Hispanic descent. Just when excessive expansion might have diluted the quality of play disastrously, the number of players from the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Venezuela and, in recent years, Cuba have reinvigorated the whole sport.

Look back to the league leaders in the "Baseball Encyclopedia" as recently as 1987 and notice how relatively few Latino players were top-echelon starters. Fernando Valenzuela, Pedro Guerrero, Andres Galarraga, George Bell and Teddy Higuera show up in the top five in major categories. But that's the entire list.

These days, you could put together an all-Hispanic team that could be competitive against a team assembled from all the other countries in the world combined. Give me a battery of Pedro Martinez and Ivan Rodriguez, with Eddie Guardado, Armando Benitez and sublime Mariano Rivera to finish the job. An outfield of Sammy Sosa, Manny Ramirez and Vladimir Guerrero would terrify any pitcher. Give me an infield of Carlos Delgado, Edgardo Alfonzo, Miguel Tejada and Albert Pujols. My designated hitter is Juan Gonzalez. Now pick your team. Good luck. You'll need it.

Just when it seemed baseball couldn't get any luckier in the fresh-blood category, the game suddenly discovered that a stereotype no longer held true. For generations, Japanese baseball was considered the equivalent of Class AAA ball. Ex-major leaguers, especially power hitters, frequently were stars there. To produce enough home runs, fences were shorter there and balls were wound tighter. Curveballs dominated, great fastballs were few.

Now, times have changed. In this new century, the major leagues seem to receive a new gift from Japan almost every year. When Hideo Nomo arrived in 1995, he was considered a bit of a fluke -- a notion that, in retrospect, seems ignorant. Nomo is still going strong (16-6 last year), but, recently, he has been joined in America by a new distinctive Japanese star almost every season. The great reliever Kazuhiro Sasaki arrived in 2000, then most valuable player Ichiro Suzuki left the game breathless in '01.

This season, baseball will get a glimpse of something it has never seen -- a Japanese slugger. Sadaharu Oh never crossed the Pacific, though he played well against American stars in exhibition games. Last winter, the New York Yankees signed 6-foot-2, 210-pound Hideki (Godzilla) Matsui, 28, who hit 50 home runs and won his third most valuable player award last season in his 10th season of greatness with the legendary Yomiuri Giants.

How will his skills translate? Hispanic players, perhaps because of the long tradition of superb Cuban players, were always presumed to be gifted at any baseball position. But Japanese hitters have been stigmatized as lacking power. In a sense, even Ichiro's batting title, done in Ty Cobb style, reinforced the image.

In the last two years, non-descript former major leaguers Tuffy Rhodes and Alex Cabrera each matched the Japanese single-season home run record of 55 (set by Oh). So, Matsui, who will be followed everywhere by a legion of Japanese media, has plenty to prove. So far, Matsui has hit around .300 in spring training, but looks more like a 25-homer man with excellent bat control than a threat to Barry Bonds.

Who's coming next? Perhaps the shortstop Kazuo Matsui, naturally called "Little Matsui," who hit .332 with 36 homers and 33 steals last season for the Seibu Lions; he'll be a free agent after this year. Unfortunately, the Japanese performer we might want to see most, 27-year-old right-hander Koji Uehara, can't escape his contract for several years. Last fall, in an exhibition, he struck out Barry Bonds three times in one game, something nobody in the States has done since '00.

What players from Mexico to Venezuela, Cuba to Japan, the Dominican Republic to Canada, have brought to the big leagues is more that excellent performance. They have widened our vision of the game. Other cultures bring slightly different insights and styles to baseball.

Watch the Expos' Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez pause in the middle of his windup, knee under chin like a flamingo posing on one leg, and you will see a trait of many top Cuban pitchers: perfect balance at the moment they coil above the rubber. Entire Cuban national team pitching staffs can be seen in the bullpen, all standing on one leg, all with one knee near their chins, as they practice hopping on one leg without losing their balance.

To see Ichiro hit is to be taken back almost a century to the hit-'em-where-they-ain't techniques of Wee Willie Keeler and John McGraw's Giants. Who practically runs out of the batter's box in mid-swing as they chop down on the pitch? Once, many players did.

Our international stars also take us into a future we didn't imagine. For example, led by magical shortstop Omar Vizquel, more middle infielders are realizing that you can catch and throw the ball barehanded in one motion while turning the double play. Who needs a glove? What was once called hot-dogging is now seen as an appropriate risk-reward approach to a vital play.

Baseball is a sport that evolves by inches and by inspiration. It's a game of details, but of sudden insights into new methods, too. As more nations and cultures fall in love with the sport, then bring their subtle alterations of the pastime back to us, baseball grows richer as it grows broader.

In the 19th century, America invented baseball. In the 20th, we dominated the game and polished it to a high gloss. Now, in this century, American baseball and the rest of the world appear ready to shake hands across great distances, each glad for the other's version of the sport and better for it, too.

The Kansas City Star Posted on Fri, Mar. 28, 2003 By ERIC PALMER

After an auction lasting 51 rounds, Farmland Industries struck a deal valued at $293 million to sell the bulk of its fertilizer business to Koch Nitrogen of Wichita.

Farmland also agreed to sell an idled plant in Pollack, La., to Vanguard Biosynfuels for $2 million.

The $293 million that Koch will pay in cash and assumed debt includes $171 million for the U.S. fertilizer business and $122 million for Farmland's 50 percent interest in a fertilizer plant in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.

That is $23 million more than Koch offered for Farmland's domestic and international fertilizer business in a negotiated deal last month. That deal would have been approved if another bidder had not materialized.

And it is $113 million more than Koch initially said it might pay for the business when it first notified Farmland of its interest last year, an offer Farmland had waved aside as "lowball."

On Monday, Canadian fertilizer producer Agrium announced that it intended to bid on Farmland's U.S. fertilizer operations, which are among the largest in the United States, with about $1 billion in sales. In bidding that lasted until late in the evening Wednesday, Koch outbid Agrium. Agrium did not bid on the Trinidad plant.

Farmland released the results of the auction after tacking down some details Thursday.

"We're pleased with the results of the auction, which increased the value over $25 million," Stan Riemann, Farmland's executive vice president of crop production, said after the sale. "While no longer a core business for Farmland, the sale of these valued assets is pivotal to our successful reorganization."

The Kansas City farm cooperative filed for bankruptcy protection May 31 after a liquidity crisis that was caused partly by high costs and weak sales of fertilizer last year. According to court documents, the proceeds from the sale are pledged to Farmland's banks, to which Farmland owes about $278 million.

Koch Nitrogen is a unit of Koch Industries, a Wichita-based, privately owned international conglomerate. Koch Nitrogen has one fertilizer plant in Louisiana and 15 distribution terminals in the corn belt. It also has marketing agreements and investments in facilities in Trinidad and Venezuela.

The deal, which requires bankruptcy court approval, includes a dozen fertilizer distribution terminals in Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Iowa, Texas and Illinois. The sale also involves plants in Dodge City, Kan.; Fort Dodge, Iowa; Enid, Okla.; and Beatrice, Neb.

About 335 employees work in the U.S. operations and 81 in Trinidad, according to Farmland spokeswoman Sherlyn Manson.

At Farmland's request, Koch did not bid on Farmland's newest plant in Coffeyville, Kan., which is fueled by petroleum coke, a byproduct from Farmland's petroleum refinery next door, Manson said. Most nitrogen fertilizer plants use natural gas, which is generally much more expensive.

Farmland built that plant under a lease-to-buy agreement and bought it a year ago for $260 million. It initially had some operational problems and is the subject of litigation between Farmland and the engineering firm on the project, Black & Veatch.

Manson said the plant is operating very efficiently.

"We asked Koch to take the Coffeyville plant out of their bid to give us more time to market it in a packaged deal with the refinery and get more value for it," Manson said.

Farmland has a fertilizer terminal in Hastings, Neb., which it is negotiating to sell, and it continues to try to find a buyer for a mothballed plant in Lawrence.

Riemann said last month that the fertilizer business was seeing an operational profit. That comes, however, after significant losses as foreign competition has depressed the price of fertilizer in the United States. Farmland booked a $10.7 million operating loss from its fertilizer operations in the first quarter, which ended Nov. 30. It lost $42 million in the first quarter of last year.

Farmland also wrote down the book value of its fertilizer business last quarter by about $276 million. Most of that write-down was attributed to the Coffeyville plant, chief executive Robert Terry said at the time.

To reach Eric Palmer, regional business editor, call (816) 234-4335 or send e-mail to epalmer@kcstar.com.

<a href=www.sun-sentinel.com>REFERENCE By Sandra Hernandez Staff Writer Posted March 28 2003

MIAMI · Only a few weeks ago, Juan Fernández was a wanted man forced to go underground to escape Venezuelan authorities who sought the former oil executive for a slew of alleged crimes, including rebellion.

But on Thursday, Fernández re-emerged in Miami wearing a blue suit and sounding like the familiar voice that helped lead a two-month strike that paralyzed the South American nation's oil industry and crippled its already shaky economy.

"We are calling for a referendum vote," Fernández, 47, said at a news conference at a Miami law office. "The problem with the strike is we don't have a rational person in charge of the country. If you see thousands of people are on the street clamoring for a solution what you expect is the head of that country would do something to alleviate the problem. Instead, Mr. Chávez did nothing and said I don't care."

President Hugo Chávez is a former paratrooper who helped lead a failed 1992 coup attempt. He was elected by an overwhelming majority of the country's poor voters. While his support has waned among the middle class he maintains a significant base of support among the poor.

Fernández, along with Carlos Ortega and Carlos Fernández led the strike that shut down much of the country and nearly all of the country's oil production. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East and is a key supplier of crude to the United States.

These days, however, Juan Fernández is the only one of the three leaders whose name is tossed around as a possible presidential candidate. He is the only former strike leader not wanted for alleged crimes in Venezuela. Earlier this month a judge struck down the arrest warrant alleging rebellion. Chávez's government accused Fernández of damaging the country's fuel supply.

Carlos Fernández, head of the country's largest business association, is under house arrest pending a hearing for rebellion. Carlos Ortega, a labor leader, was recently granted political asylum in Costa Rica.

Juan Fernández is in South Florida hoping to drum up support for a referendum vote. Opposition members say the vote is a democratic way to remove Chávez.

Fernández acknowledged the opposition team headed by a group called the Cordinadora Democratica, or Democratic Coordinator, had fallen victim to infighting that resulted in deep splits.

Until now the group, which included members of various opposition political parties, was the main body that met with government representatives and the Organization of American States.

But on Thursday, Fernández said changes were in the works. "I don't know if we will still have the coordinator as the franchise for the opposition. What we will have is a strong opposition first, in order to achieve the referendum."

Fernández said he would remain in South Florida for a few days but is afraid of returning to Venezuela.

"I know the government is appealing the case and I'm afraid," he said.

He insists the opposition has not lost credibility with Venezuelans, many of whom are struggling to recuperate from the economic damage caused by the strike.

Fernández called on the United States to take a strong role were both sides to agree on an August date for the referendum vote.

"We need the international community, especially the United States to narrate and ensure we have elections and they are held with transparency," Fernández said.

Fernández is the latest opposition member to appear in South Florida. In January, Carlos Ortega attended a rally at Calle Ocho calling for Chávez's ouster.

Sandra Hernandez can be reached at shernandez@sun-sentinel.com or 954 385 7923.