Iraqis carry an injured employee at Baghdad's al-Salhiya communications centre after it was hit by a missile during a coalition air raid yesterday.Agence

Baghdad rocked by more blasts on 12th day of war

Two large blasts rocked central Baghdad early on Monday as US and British warplanes kept up a fierce barrage on the Iraqi capital.

Washington too optimistic entering Iraq war: poll

More than half of Americans believe the US government was too optimistic in its assessments of the probable course of the war in Iraq, and one in three would not support the war if more than 500 US troops were to die, according to a poll released early on Monday (HK time).

Casualty toll may be high in battle for Baghdad

The defences of Baghdad do not look much: sandbagged emplacements outside government offices, trenches in parks and palm groves, ditches of blazing oil belching out smoke to interfere with the US and British laser-guided bombs. Six-lane motorways ideal for fast-moving armour snake into the city.

Iraqi suicide bomber offers up a prayer before dying

"After he kissed a copy of the Koran, he got into his booby-trapped car and went to an area where enemy armoured cars and tanks were gathered on the fringes of Najaf and turned his pure body and explosives-laden car into a rocket and blew himself up."

Rumsfeld's strategy is questioned

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's influence in crafting the plan for the Iraq war is facing scrutiny as it becomes apparent the campaign will not be as quick or easy as some American leaders had predicted.

Death and uncertainty put a family's faith to the test

When Americans Jane and Athos Riley heard that their son had been taken prisoner in Iraq, they thought things couldn't get much worse. Then their daughter died.

Father cheers attack on radical Islamists

Nabi Aga sheds no tears at the thought that US special forces are closing in on the mountain hideout of his youngest son and his fellow radical Islamists.

Hundreds turn out at China's first public protests

China allowed its first public protests against the war in Iraq yesterday as hundreds of people demonstrated at several different locations.

<a href=www.dailytrojan.com>War may affect U.S. gasoline prices Abran Rubiner | Daily Trojan By ALLISON RUECKER Contributing Writer

As the war continues, the ever-changing oil prices have caught the attention of both traders and American consumers.

On Wednesday, CNN reported that the price of oil has increased 7 percent to $28.93 per barrel after hopes faded for a quick end to the war in Iraq. This was the largest one-day percentage rise since December 2001.

On Thursday, however, the Chicago Tribune reported that the oil prices rebounded and posted the first gain in eight trading sessions and the greatest daily advance in 15 months.

These recent fluctuations have been linked to Iraqi sabotages of oil wells.

The price of oil is dictated by supply and demand, not because of a shortage of it, said Iraj Ershaghi, professor of petroleum engineering.

"Consumption is definitely not going down," he said. "The United States alone uses 16 (million) to 17 million barrels of oil a day."

In 1979, a barrel of oil cost suppliers $30, but because of fear, the prices began to climb, Ershaghi said. This shows that besides the supply and demand concept, the phenomenon of oil prices is greatly affected by perception, he added.

The national average for regular gas remains at $1.71 per gallon. Gas prices will remain the same until buyers purchase crude oil at a lower wholesale price, Ershaghi said.

What people often do not understand is that once the price of oil is lowered, they may not see a change in gas prices for at least a couple of weeks, he said.

For every dollar that a barrel of oil's price is increased, the price of gasoline increases by a reported 2 cents a gallon.

Although the gas prices have skyrocketed in the recent months, some students believe that they should put this issue in perspective.

"The gas prices are very high, but in comparison to other countries, it's not that bad," said Aimee Nadeau, a senior majoring in music industry. "In Europe, it can be $6 or $7 a gallon, but I think that it more directly affects us because our public transportation is so limited."

California's gasoline prices have surpassed the $2 per gallon mark. Because of air pollution standards that must be met and taxes, California has the highest gasoline price of the 50 states, Ershaghi said.

Although the Middle East supplies 40 percent of the world's oil and is a major U.S. oil supplier, the United States has continually been depending on sources elsewhere.

The oil market instability can also be traced to the recent civil unrest in Nigeria and the oil industry strike in Venezuela.

Many students believe that the high gasoline prices come as a result of the war with Iraq.

"I think there's an indirect correlation between the war and the prices," said Benjamin Skidmore, a senior majoring in business administration. "I think that once we end the war with Iraq, the prices will fall."

From the March 28, 2003 print edition Atlanta Business Chronicle Mary Jane Credeur   Staff Writer

After years of worsening political and economic conditions in Latin America, Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp.'s escalating losses in the region reached a staggering $2.1 billion in 2002.

That's a five-fold increase from the $396 million net loss BellSouth posted for its Latin American unit in 2001.

During the past year, the overall value of BellSouth's assets in Latin America has plunged from $6.6 billion to $3.7 billion because of accounting changes, currency devaluations and write-downs associated with the economic collapse of several Latin American countries where BellSouth is heavily invested, namely Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and Uruguay.

Currencies for each of these countries have dropped 30 percent to 40 percent against the U.S. dollar in the past year, with the Argentine peso losing 71 percent of its value.

The financial situation for some of BellSouth's Latin American holdings has gotten so bad in recent years that affiliates in Argentina and Brazil — of which BellSouth owns 65 percent and 45 percent, respectively — have defaulted on some $1.8 billion in U.S. dollar-denominated debt. Although BellSouth is not on the hook for all of that debt, the defaults are another indication of the grave situation faced by companies with sizable investments in Latin America.

"We have our hand in a very rough part of the international marketplace," BellSouth Chairman and CEO F. Duane Ackerman said during a recent talk before business leaders as part of the University of Georgia's Terry Third Thursday speaker series. BellSouth spokesperson Maria Schnabel declined to make executives with the Latin American unit available for interviews, saying those executives were traveling for several days and could not be reached for comment.

"BellSouth still believes there are significant opportunities for growth in Latin America," Schnabel said. "The region is important for BellSouth because it represents an additional market for us."

About 10 percent of BellSouth's annual revenue of $22.4 billion comes from its Latin American holdings, which consist of prepaid cellular service provided through joint ventures with other Latin American companies.

Neither of BellSouth's Baby Bell peers have such high exposure in Latin America. New York-based Verizon Communications Inc. and Texas-based SBC Communications Inc. each get less than 1 percent of their revenue from Latin America.

Other telecom and data companies had greater Latin American exposure in recent years.

Reston, Va.-based Nextel Communications Inc.'s international unit had racked up $2.7 billion in debt (much of which came from Latin American holdings) before filing for bankruptcy protection a year ago, restructuring its debt and emerging under the new name NII Holdings Inc.

Data services firm Genuity Inc. had invested hundreds of millions in Latin American and European networks before filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy and getting bought by Colorado-based Level 3 Communications Inc. recently for $137 million in cash and vendor payments.

"American telecoms keep on making these investments that are far more risky than trying to grab market share in the U.S., where they have to fight to pick up more services with their [domestic] customers," said Phil Jacobson, founder of Network Conceptions LLC, an independent telecom research firm based in Virginia. "It's like they think it's better to go outside the country and try to create another monopoly than compete domestically."

Until recent years, Latin America proved to be a tremendous growth market for BellSouth.

The company first entered Argentina in the mid-1980s. At that time, foreign trade policies made Latin America a difficult market to enter, so most of the other American telecom giants shied away from South America.

But BellSouth executives wanted to expand the company's presence throughout Latin America, where many of the region's 400 million people did not have access to basic land-line telephone service.

BellSouth poured hundreds of millions of dollars annually into Latin America during the next 15 years, reaching a peak of 13.5 million subscribers in Latin America at the start of this decade (a substantial figure compared with the 25 million access lines it controlled in the United States at the time).

The Latin American unit nearly broke even during the economic boom of the late 1990s, when BellSouth was getting an average of $40 in revenue per customer each month and adding more than 1 million new customers each year in Latin America.

Company officials boasted in a 1999 annual report that BellSouth's expertise in technical, operating and marketing activities made the company a "highly desired participant" in international joint ventures and that BellSouth's experience could be a "significant factor" in the success of regulatory license applications.

By 2000, however, political unrest and currency devaluations sent the Latin American economy spiraling.

BellSouth's customer base in Latin America eroded from 13.5 million two years ago to 11.5 million today, and the company's average monthly revenue per customer has dropped by half from $40 a couple of years ago to just $19 last year, though monthly minute usage has continued to climb.

"The Latin American opportunity that looked so hot just a few short years ago has iced over," said local telecom analyst Jeff Kagan. "It turned very quickly."

When the Latin American economy began to falter in 2000, BellSouth officials thought it was a temporary setback and announced plans for a Latin American tracking stock that would raise as much as $1 billion in capital and trade on the New York Stock Exchange. BellSouth terminated those plans last fall.

BellSouth is not the only Atlanta company affected by the turmoil in Latin America.

The Home Depot Inc. opened nine stores in Chile and Argentina in the late 1990s but sold them a couple of years later. However, Home Depot still owns more than a dozen stores in Mexico and Puerto Rico.

Consumer credit reporting firm Equifax Inc. has seen revenue from its Latin American operations shrink by nearly 25 percent during the past year, and The Coca-Cola Co. has taken hundreds of millions of dollars in impairment charges related to company-owned Brazilian bottlers' franchise rights.

One local investment adviser with Smith & Howard Financial Group LLC said more companies with sizable international operations are now faced with taking larger write-downs to clear up balance sheets while the global economy remains weak and the value of foreign assets shrinks.

"This is a trend you're seeing across corporate America," said Frederick S. Wright IV, chief investment officer with Smith & Howard. "BellSouth is pulling away from the notion of gaining market share at all costs and doing more to clean up its balance sheet, and you'll see more of that this year and next."

Some Atlanta companies have actually benefited from their recently expanded business operations in Latin America.

Although Latin passenger revenue for Delta Air Lines Inc. remained flat in 2002, the carrier credits recent Latin American expansions with helping prop up capacity figures last year.

And United Parcel Service Inc. recently added overnight delivery to some Latin American hubs in an effort to tap into additional markets there.

Despite the fact that about 10 percent of BellSouth's entire business comes from Latin America, the company may reach a point where it simply cannot afford to continue covering the debts and losses of its affiliates, industry watchers said.

BellSouth in early March sold its entire stake in Brazilian venture BSE to a subsidiary of America Movil after BellSouth disclosed that BSE's operating cash flows weren't enough to meet its debt obligations.

BellSouth still has a 45 percent interest in another Brazilian venture, BCP Telecomunicacoes, which had defaulted on $1.4 billion in loans in early 2002, though BellSouth's Schnabel said it is "not likely that BellSouth will retain its equity interest in BCP."

Some industry observers suggest that the sale of BSE may be a sign of things to come for BellSouth, or that Wall Street may be pressuring the third-largest telecom in the country to write off some impairments.

BellSouth's stock (NYSE: BLS) was trading in the low $20s on March 26, down from $35 per share a year ago.

"The Latin American economy is one of the worst right now and [BellSouth] wasted a lot of stockholders' money down there," said Jacobson, the researcher from Virginia. "They're getting their butts handed back to them."

BellSouth has slashed its Latin operating expenses by nearly $1 billion during the past couple of years to just under $2 billion for 2002, and the company is offering new services in Latin America, such as mobile Internet, public telephony and fixed wireless over its existing Latin networks to prop up revenue. BellSouth also has reduced its head count and slashed capital expenditures in Latin America from $820 million in 2000 to $250 million last year in an effort to offset other losses.

There may be a silver lining in BellSouth's Latin strategy. Four of BellSouth's Latin holdings — affiliates in Ecuador, Chile, Colombia and Peru — had double-digit revenue growth between 2001 and 2002.

"In light of the current economic situation in Latin America, we have taken a strategic approach of restricting investment and focusing on profitability," Schnabel said. "We'll continue to do the right things that drive organic growth in countries where it makes sense and we'll continue our focus on profitability."

Vol. 7, No. 13 Week of March 30, 2003 Gary Park PNA Canadian Correspondent

Province fears impact on energy trade from Canada’s opposition to Iraq war and federal minister’s anti-American comments; Alberta talking to OPEC about applying for observer status even though those seats are occupied by countries with state-owned production

Against a backdrop of growing cross-border tensions, the Alberta government is trying to separate itself from a stream of anti-American comments by senior Canadian politicians.

Alberta Energy Minister Murray Smith has called for federal Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal to either be fired or reassigned in cabinet.

Dhaliwal last week became the flash-point for a growing rift between Canada and the United States when he said the Iraq war reflected President George W. Bush’s failure as a statesman.

With the fallout from those remarks and Canada’s decision not to join coalition forces in Iraq spreading over the 49th parallel, Smith said March 27 that Dhaliwal “represents a serious, if not mortal liability for the oil and gas industry.”

He told the Financial Post that Dhaliwal will have “difficulty building confidence, close relationships, bilateral trade relationships, or anything of that nature” and suggested the federal minister has damaged energy trade worth C$50 billion a year to Canada.

Meantime, Smith said Alberta is “taking under active consideration” a solo international energy role for the province.

He said Alberta is speaking with members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries about gaining observer status at cartel meetings.

Alberta rebuked Smith told reporters March 25 that Alberta has no intention of consulting with the Canadian government, breaking with the traditional practice of provinces attending international forums in partnership with the federal government.

Last week, Alberta Premier Ralph Klein was rebuked by the Canadian government for sending a letter to Paul Cellucci, the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, supporting the U.S. “war on terrorism.”

A spokeswoman for Prime Minister Jean Chretien said Klein was “entitled to his own opinion … but foreign policy is decided by the federal government.”

The Alberta government shares the concerns of business leaders that Canada’s refusal to send troops to Iraq will have serious repercussions to bilateral trade, although Canada has three warships operating in the Persian Gulf and is sending 2,000 troops to Afghanistan to relieve the United States of that responsibility.

Cellucci expresses disappointment Cellucci, in a speech to business leaders March 25, took the rare step for a diplomat of expressing U.S. disappointment with Canada’s decision not to support the United States in Iraq.

“When Mr. Klein issues strong support for the United States, the Canadian government comes down hard on him,” Cellucci said. “When Mr. Dhaliwal makes totally inappropriate remarks about the president of the United States, they totally ignore it.”

However, Cellucci said it was not in the U.S. economic interests to punish Canada through trade agreements, but added “we’ll have to wait and see if there are any ramifications.”

The overriding Alberta concern is to maintain its access to U.S. energy markets. Currently, about 60 percent of all Canadian oil and natural gas production is shipped to the United States, making Canada one of the three largest sources of imported U.S. oil along with Saudi Arabia and Venezuela and the second largest exporter of gas in the world after Russia.

Alberta seeks observer status at OPEC Smith also said the federal government’s handling of the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions has prompted Alberta to seek observer status at OPEC, even though those seats have until now been occupied only by countries that have state-owned production, such as Russia, Mexico, Oman and Norway. Alberta regulates its petroleum industry, but has no control over prices or production.

Smith said Alberta would have no interest in joining OPEC decisions on regulating production levels, but he said closer collaboration would be valuable for Alberta.

“It’s important and beneficial for Alberta and Canadians to know as much as they can about their competition,” he said.

Mel Knight, a government member of the Alberta legislature who attended a meeting of the U.S. Energy Council last weekend, said the Venezuela ambassador to the United States mentioned the prospect of observer status for Alberta.

“On a world stage that would give us some recognition,” Knight said, noting that Alberta oil sands reserves of 175 billion barrels have just been included in the world’s oil reserves for the first time, reducing OPEC’s share of global reserves by 11 percent.

Alberta first flirted with OPEC 14 years ago, when it was offered “unofficial membership” in return for restraining production to prop up commodity prices.

The province at the time said the meetings it attended were only “technical,” although cabinet ministers argued at the time that development of the oil sands would only be possible if oil prices rose and were maintained. But the prospects of closer ties between Alberta and OPEC fizzled as quickly as they surfaced.

Posted on Sun, Mar. 30, 2003 STEPHEN IXER Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela's military exchanged gunfire with Colombian paramilitaries and bombed a zone close to the border as a warning to the fighters, President Hugo Chavez said Sunday.

During his weekly TV program, Chavez said Colombian paramilitaries recently "invaded Venezuelan territory" and fired on an army patrol surveying the border area, hitting their helicopter.

A 90-minute gun battle ensued and the assailants ran back to Colombia.

Chavez also said armed forces recently dropped bombs near where Colombian paramilitaries were hiding.

"I said to bomb the area, not on direct targets but over the adjacent area so as to warn them and establish a security cordon," Chavez said. "We did it, it was effective, and they withdrew toward Colombian territory."

Chavez has been criticized for not doing to enough to defend the 1,370-mile border with Colombia, where a civil war has raged for 38 years, pitting leftist rebels against government troops. In recent years, the right-wing paramilitary fighters have joined the fray against the rebels.

Tensions also have mounted between the two countries over allegations that Venezuela's left-wing government supports Colombian guerrillas, a charge Chavez denies.

Meanwhile, in Colombia, Defense Minister Martha Lucia Ramirez accused rebels of using bullets soaked in liquid cyanide, which is prohibited by international treaties.

Ramirez didn't say when the bullets were found or if they had killed soldiers.

In September 2001, four members of the Colombian National Police died in what was alleged to be a poison gas attack blamed on the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.