Caracas, May 15 (<a href=quote.bloomberg.com>Bloomberg) -- Miss Venezuela may have to skip next week's Miss Universe competition, in which the country is one of the most frequent winners, because she can't get the dollars needed to attend the beauty pageant, El Nacional said.

Venezuela's restrictions on buying dollars has left the Miss Venezuela Organization, owned by Gustavo Cisneros' Venevision television station, short of the $60,000 needed to send Mariangel Ruiz, this year's Miss Venezuela, to Panama for the contest, the newspaper said.

If the organization can't buy the dollars it needs, Venezuela won't have a beauty queen in the pageant for the first time since 1959. Venezuelan women have won the Miss Universe title four times since then, tying with Puerto Rico as the second-most frequent winner. Women from the U.S. have won the title six times. The pageant begins next week, with the crowning on June 3.

Venezuela banned dollar sales in January to stem a decline in international reserves after a two-month strike cut oil output, which accounts for 43 percent of government revenue. Limited dollar sales began last month but only for some foods, medicines and students studying abroad.

Ruiz said a decision should be made later today, the paper said. Venevision officials declined immediate comment.

(EN, 5/15, A20)

To see El Nacional's Web site, click on {NCNL } Last Updated: May 15, 2003 10:18 EDT

<a href=www.vheadline.com>venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Thursday, May 15, 2003 By: VHeadline.com Reporters

Charlotte Observer (North Carolina) staff writer Jackie Mah has highlighted the story of Venezuelan immigrant Diana Manrique who arrived in her city in 1993 to learn English and better herself ... "she went home, only to return seven years later to better others."

According to a report in today's Observer, Diana  Manrique (34) graduated last night from Central Piedmont Community College (CPCC) hoping to use her degree in dental hygiene to serve Charlotte's Hispanic community.

When Diana  and her classmates put on a dental clinic during the year for $20 per checkup, Manrique quickly spread the word through Hispanic news outlets to reach what she knew would be an initially hesitant audience ... "they are afraid because they don't speak (English)."

Because the need for Spanish-speaking hygienists is large, Diana says, she has a number of job offers from which to choose.  She doesn't plan on returning to Venezuela, since she believes her mission ... as far as she can see ... is to stay and aid the local Hispanic community.

Some 320 graduates attended Wednesday evening's CPCC ceremony presided over by former US Ambassador Mark Erwin who delivered the keynote address ... about 350 adults had graduated earlier in the day ... "I'm really proud of myself that I did it," Diana Manrique is quoted as saying.  She took English classes at CPCC in 1993 because she had family in the area and returned to the college in 2000 because of an increasingly difficult political situation in Venezuela.

"Studying in a second language was difficult ... but long afternoons in the library didn't faze me ... I gained knowledge of other cultures from my American and international classmates ... they swapped recipes and took day trips, and I made many friends. People thought I was the crazy one when I decided to come to Charlotte because I had to sell everything ... but now they say I am the smart one."

silicon.com Special Report - Outsourcing Thu 15 May 2003 03:48PM BST

We've all heard the stories about far flung call centres in India or coders in Russia, China and elsewhere working for companies while their UK employees are still tucked up in bed. What, apart from cost, are the reasons for offshoring, and is it just a natural extension of outsourcing? Ben King reports.

Unless you’re a very flashy dresser, with a taste for Savile Row suits, it's odds on that most of your clothes were made somewhere far away – the Far East or South America perhaps, maybe Turkey or Morocco but probably not the East End of London.

Where the rag trade leads, the IT business follows, hot on the heels of steel, engineering and almost every other industry, seeking cheap workers beyond the UK's shores.

It began with application development, in cheap overseas code shops, expanding to call centres, application management and full-scale business process outsourcing. Anything can go. The only limiting factor is size, according to Anthony Miller, research director at Ovum Holway. "There are certain overheads that mean that offshoring is only really practical for large corporates. The smallest deals would still be worth several million pounds," he says.

The market is certainly booming. It was the single growth spot in an IT services sector characterised by flat or negative growth. Analysts Ovum Holway estimate the market for work sent offshore from the UK grew 27 per cent last year from £430m to £545m, and forecast a rise to £1bn per year by 2006.

Offshoring often sits together with that other major trend in corporate IT provision, outsourcing. While some companies have set up their own offshore operations, such as BT's offshore joint venture with Mahindra, many do choose outsourcing as a route to offshoring.

Robin Goad, managing analyst at Datamonitor, says: "The vast majority of offshoring is through an outsourcer and even the do-it-yourself efforts normally involve working with a local partner."

The motivations for the two are not necessarily the same - outsourcing is typically justified in terms of focusing on core skills, or increasing visibility of cost, whereas offshoring has been driven by a simple desire to spend less money.

This is a perception that the major offshore vendors are seeking to challenge, as they seek to move up the value chain from labour intensive coding to full business process outsourcing (BPO) and consulting.

Says Srinjay Sengupta, head of Europe at Indian IT giants Infosys: "The general perception was that cost was a major driver but we've really been able to set a benchmark in cost and quality. We complete 90 per cent of our projects on time and on budget." That's quite a claim for a sector known for delays and cost overruns.

Companies 'offshore' almost anything, from data entry and call centers to application development and maintenance. The only thing that can't really be offshored is the human interaction element, anything that involves what Americans call 'face time' - talking to customers, assessing business needs, studying user adoption, graphic design and user experience testing.

Most of the big offshore providers have a presence in the UK, where client interaction and other 'face-time intensive' work is conducted. Design-related aspects of a project would typically be undertaken through a partnership with an onshore design house.

Getting the full benefit of sending work overseas, however, requires a change in the way companies do business. To make the best of the cost savings of sending work offshore, a client needs to minimise the amount of costly 'face-time' a project requires, which means managing the project at arm's length.

Infosys' Sengupta adds: "It’s a lot less optimal if a client wants to micromanage. In the longer term it's up to us to persuade the customer to leave it to the experts."

India has led IT offshoring revolution for a number of reasons. Labour is cheap there and so are other costs. The workforce is vast, and bar the occasional locking of horns with Pakistan, it's relatively peaceful. A network of six elite technical academies of the Indian Institute of Technology produces a stream of highly qualified engineers. But the key element in India's success has been language.

Indian companies like Infosys, TCS and Wipro have been doing it longer than anyone else and now have long track records and lists of reference customers to reassure nervous newcomers to the offshore world.

India represents 90 per cent of the market, according to Gartner estimates, but the cost savings that have made the country such a success are not guaranteed to last for ever.

Vivek Paul, vice-chairman and president of Wipro Technologies, Wipro's global arm, was recently quoted by the AFP news agency as saying: "I personally believe this cost advantage will fritter away as salary costs go up and, more importantly, as the rupee continues to appreciate."

As the demand for talent grows Indian IT staff are beginning to see wage inflation and onshore companies are cutting rates to defend their market share.

South-East Asian nations such as Thailand and Vietnam are also entering the market, seeking to undercut India. With its vast labourforce China will certainly become a player eventually, though language is still a problem and it remains a somewhat difficult place to do business.

Gartner lists a dazzling variety of nations, from Senegal to Venezuela, which are also looking to export IT services. Oddly enough, the big Indian companies are looking to take advantage themselves and move work to cheaper countries to keep their costs low.

While far-flung nations often offer low costs, the cost of doing business at such a remove can absorb a large portion of the saving. India is five and a half hours ahead of the UK, and 14 hours away by plane.

'Near-shoring' represents in some cases an acceptable half-way house. Companies send the work to a nearby country where costs are higher than the UK but lower than at home, but which is easier to visit and communicate with.

For the UK, Ireland - north and south of the border - is the near-shore location of choice. For the US, it might be Canada or Mexico.

Russia has some extremely talented technologists, many of whom are literally former rocket scientists. Other Eastern European countries are also bidding for business. From a European point of view, these nations are conveniently close and have many workers with excellent technical skills, though language is problem from a UK perspective. Cost savings are not as compelling as India, and prices are set to rise with imminent EU membership.

Recent research by Gartner suggests that once various upfront costs are taken into account the savings available from outsourcing a project to India are actually only in the region of 20-30 per cent for the first two years. This is almost exactly what a study from KPMG estimated would be the saving available on near-shoring a project from the US to Canada.

Whether India remains the top dog or the other countries succeed in stealing its crown, IT is heading offshore for good, says Ovum Holway's Miller: "There are not many things that change the name of the game in the IT industry but offshoring is one of them."

Insight On The News Posted May 15, 2003 By J. Michael Waller

Venezuelan strongman Chavez, right, and his oil minister, Rodriguez, center, and Kuwaiti oil minister Saud Nasser al-Sabah are all smiles after colluding to manipulate the oil market.

Oil-producing titans Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia may have passively helped the United States and its allies to topple Saddam Hussein, but they stabbed Uncle Sam in the back before the gunfire subsided in Baghdad. With the world economy in a slump, they easily could have repaid the United States and others for destroying the threat the Iraqi regime posed to their oil fields and their regimes. Instead, they met in Vienna on April 23 with some of the most notorious state sponsors of terrorism, Iran and Libya, as well as the fanatically anti-Western regime of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and a vegetable soup of other countries that might or might not be "with us" in the war on terrorism. In what promised to continue a crushing burden upon the working people of their benefactor nations, they agreed sharply to cut back oil production to keep prices artificially high.

That meeting of the member states of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) brought together an almost-humorous collection of medieval dictatorships and kleptocracies. Weeks before, Saudi Arabia boasted that OPEC's decision to increase production during the war in Iraq helped prevent a spike in oil prices. Indeed, oil analysts say, it did. But the April 23 decision, in effect, declared economic warfare on the rest of the world, including the United States.

With the end of Saddam's regime and the shadow it cast upon much of the oil-producing Middle East, say administration insiders, the United States is reassessing its relationships in the region - particularly with regimes such as Saudi Arabia that financial records show to have been playing both sides in the terrorism war. And with the world evermore conscious about state sponsorship of terrorism, and of how fossil-fuel-dependent countries inadvertently finance such regimes, U.S. policymakers are taking a new, hard look at OPEC as an illegal syndicate in restraint of trade.

Founded in 1960, OPEC's aims, according to its founding statutes, are "the coordination and unification of petroleum policies of the member-countries and the determination of the best means for safeguarding their interests individually and collectively." It was created literally as a cartel or, to use its own words, "The Organization shall devise ways and means of ensuring the stabilization of prices in international oil markets with a view to eliminating harmful and unnecessary fluctuations." Its main "stabilization-of-prices" strategy has been to prevent the free market from keeping prices generally low.

The OPEC members control more than three-fourths of the world's proven oil reserves and supply more than 40 percent of the world's oil, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The cartel cannot afford to allow prices to rise too sharply, as sustained higher prices would give others greater incentive to develop new oil fields outside OPEC's control. Industry analysts say that OPEC has tried to keep prices at about $25 per barrel since 2000, and that recently the price has been fluctuating between $22 and $28 per barrel - just low enough to discourage other countries from exploiting new fields.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), a longtime critic of OPEC, has sought action against what he calls the cartel's "stranglehold on the U.S. economy." He says OPEC "distorts" the gasoline and diesel market and has had a harmful effect on farmers, truckers and ordinary Americans. Grassley has proposed pressuring OPEC members (see sidebar, p. 26) that receive U.S. military backing and foreign aid. Indonesia and Nigeria are among the recipients of this U.S.-taxpayer assistance; Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates among others are beneficiaries of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Regimes hostile to the United States have sought to use OPEC as a tool of political and economic warfare. The Arab oil embargo of the 1970s caused the first sustained price spike, and the Islamic Republic of Iran has been one of the hard-line members arguing for higher prices. More recently, another anti-American force has arrived on the scene: Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez. In 2000, the former paratrooper-turned-president hosted OPEC's first summit in 25 years to strengthen the cartel. He tried to cement OPEC support for his regime by tightly enforcing cartel quotas. Prior to his taking power in 1999, Venezuela was considered a renegade within OPEC, ignoring quotas in an attempt to double production by 2007. But Chavez promised to turn OPEC around and to slash Venezuelan oil production to raise the world market price. In turn, OPEC appointed his oil minister, a former communist guerrilla named Ali Rodriguez Araque, as its secretary-general.

OPEC leaders flatly refused to keep prices down, saying instead that wealthier industrialized nations should cut prices at the pumps by lowering their taxes on energy, while starting a new image-making campaign of its own, pledging to fight to protect the world's environment and safeguard the rights of developing nations. Chavez then worked to develop strategic collusion among the often-fractious OPEC members and to invite independent major oil-producing states such as Angola, Mexico, Norway, Oman and Russia to join the cartel.

"I am one of the many who think that what is happening in Iraq is very dangerous for the world," Chavez told journalists on April 11. He voiced alarm that the successful U.S.-led ouster of Saddam threatened the unity of OPEC. Even more, OPEC is worried that a pro-U.S. Iraq, along with oil producers outside the cartel, might allow world market forces to work by increasing supply and lowering prices. According to a new DOE report, Venezuela's cut in production was keeping post-Saddam prices from "falling too low." Now the OPECers have met once again, like any other band of robber barons, to restrict supply and raise prices.

And this, American strategists say, is the time for the United States to finish off OPEC once and for all. There is no shortage of ways to do it, says John McCormack, head of energy practice at Stern Stewart & Co. in New York. All that's needed, he tells Insight, is a strategy and commitment. Some of the options have the added value of denying revenue to state sponsors of terrorism [see "Economic Warfare Can Win Terror War," Nov. 12-25, 2002]. Options worth considering include the following:

• Make it a priority to construct and safeguard a pipeline to deliver Caspian crude oil from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan on a route that avoids transit through Iran and Russia. The pipeline, called Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan, would begin in Azerbaijan, transit Georgia and end in Turkey, strengthening three pro-U.S. countries in the region and undermining the petropower of Iran and Russia. Former national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and others have been strong proponents of development of Caspian Sea oil and gas, and construction of secure pipelines that would bypass Azerbaijan's large neighbors.

Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan do not coordinate with OPEC, and their immense reserves promise to supply international oil needs for decades to come and help keep prices low. A Muslim state that consistently is friendly toward the United States, Azerbaijan finds itself sandwiched between hostile Russia and Iran and has yet to receive the special treatment that geostrategist Brzezinski and others say it merits. The problem, say industry analysts, is getting the resources to market. Economists such as McCormack, who has worked with many energy companies around the world, offer another reason for avoiding Russia: "stupid Russian oil-company managements."

• Promote the growing democracy movement in Iran. Ripe for regime change of a peaceful kind, Iran needs more creative and strategic attention from the United States. Unrest in Iran continues to grow among a population that is considered the most pro-U.S. in the Muslim Middle East. A democratic revolution in Iran would eliminate another terrorist-sponsoring government that keeps power through Western petro dollars.

• Promote freedom and justice in the rest of the Middle East. Part of this campaign already is under way with the new Palestinian-Israeli "road map," even though it has little to do with oil per se. However, the United States must start telling the truth about the other regimes in the region, beginning with diplomatic and public-diplomacy efforts to highlight the systematic human-rights violations, institutionalized corruption, support for terrorism and decades of economic warfare against the United States by regimes such as those of Saudi Arabia and Syria. A big question with such an effort is what would come after those regimes.

• Promote regime change in Venezuela. As the fifth-largest oil producer, Venezuela is key to U.S. security and vital to OPEC's cohesion. Chavez has broken the independent unions of the state-owned PDVSA oil company and is bringing it under his political control. Purging the senior management of the once-autonomous company, Chavez tapped a longtime confidant, a former communist guerrilla once known as Comandante Fausto, to run the enterprise. Fausto, whose real name is Ali Rodriguez Araque, served as secretary-general of OPEC from 2000 until recently, and has excellent relations with some of OPEC's radical member-states. PDVSA owns the Citgo Petroleum Corp., reported to be the third-largest gasoline supplier in the United States.

• Quickly ramp up Iraqi oil production. Modernization of Iraqi oil exploration, refining and shipping facilities will allow the new post-Saddam government in Baghdad to benefit from a huge inflow of hard currency to rebuild the country and boost the economy. A quick recovery and modernization of the Iraqi energy sector, experts reason, would lessen internal political and economic pressures that otherwise would fan militant anti-Americanism in the country. It also would help strengthen the new, pro-U.S. government.

"By far the most effective way would be to encourage Iraq to reach its potential production capacity of 8 million barrels per day versus the 1 million to 1.5 million barrels per day they have done over the past few years," says McCormack. After Saudi Arabia, Iraq has the second-greatest reserves within the cartel, and its oil is among the cheapest in the world to bring to the surface. Iraq might find it in its interest to discontinue coordination with the rest of OPEC.

For more on this story, read "Taking on OPEC."

J. Michael Waller is a senior writer for Insight magazine.

EurekAlert Public release date: 15-May-2003 [ Print This Article | Close This Window ]

Contact: Susan Brooks susan.brooks@aventis.com 908-243-7564 Aventis

Paula Koenigs koenigs.pm@pg.com 513-622-3923 P&G Pharmaceuticals

New evaluation of osteoporosis therapies

Finds gastrointestinal-related cost differences San Diego, CA (May 15, 2003) -- In a new analysis, gastrointestinal (GI)-related medical expenses for osteoporosis patients initiating therapy with Fosamax® (alendronate sodium tablets) were nearly three times higher than for those patients initiating therapy with Actonel® (risedronate sodium tablets). The data were presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE).

The evaluation assessed the medical costs to managed care organizations for outpatient visits (e.g., hospital outpatient and physician office visits), inpatient care (e.g., hospitalization) and prescriptions for gastro-protective agents, over the first four months of therapy. In this analysis, the average monthly cost for GI-related medical treatment was $2.52 per Actonel patient, compared to $7.40 per Fosamax daily patient and $7.50 per Fosamax weekly patient. Inpatient visits -- typically expensive components in overall medical care -- were 0.2 visits (per 100 patients per month) for Actonel, and 1.2 and 1.6 visits (per 100 patients per month) for Fosamax daily and Fosamax weekly, respectively.

"Extent of inpatient care was the main reason for the difference in GI-related medical costs," said Natalie Borisov, PhD, health economist at P&G Pharmaceuticals, who led the evaluation. "GI-related medical costs are a factor that managed care organizations take into consideration when evaluating the cost profile of an osteoporosis therapy."

Treating patients with a weekly dose of Fosamax versus a daily dose did not markedly change the level of GI-related medical expense or number of inpatient visits that these patients experienced.

Analysis Details The economic evaluation was conducted with a large medical and pharmaceutical claims database licensed from the health care consulting service, Protocare Sciences. The analysis included 3,947 subjects (93 percent women) age 65 years or older who initiated treatment with Actonel (5 mg/day) or Fosamax (5 mg/day, 10 mg/day, 35 mg/week or 70 mg/week) between November 2000 and August 2001.

Patients were separated into two groups: those with a "GI history" and those with "no GI history." The group with a "GI history" had a GI diagnosis (based on internationally standardized codes), had undergone a GI procedure, had taken medications for GI conditions, or had taken medications associated with increased risk of GI conditions, during a six-month pre-treatment period. The data discussed above were for those patients in the "no GI history" group. In the "GI history" group, Actonel patients also experienced lower GI-related medical costs than Fosamax patients. Costs were valued using 2002 US dollars. Causality between treatment and GI events was not assessed.

About Osteoporosis Osteoporosis is a skeletal disorder characterized by reduced bone strength predisposing a person to an increased risk of fracture. According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, 1.2 million women suffer osteoporotic fractures in the U.S. each year. Risk factors for osteoporosis and subsequent fractures include loss of estrogen production, advanced age, preexisting fractures, and low bone mineral density. Studies show that among postmenopausal women with osteoporosis who experience a spinal fracture, one out of five will suffer their next spinal fracture within just one year, potentially leading to a fracture cascade.

Preventive measures, such as not smoking, maintaining a balanced diet supplemented with calcium and vitamin D, and engaging in weight-bearing exercise like walking, can reduce an individual's chances of developing osteoporosis. However, in some people these preventive measures may not be enough, and medications like Actonel may be beneficial.

About Actonel® (risedronate sodium tablets) Actonel is developed by Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals and co-marketed by Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals and Aventis. Actonel 35 mg Once-a-Week and Actonel 5 mg daily are indicated for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. Actonel 5 mg daily is also indicated for the prevention and treatment of glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis (GIO) in men and women either initiating or continuing systemic glucocorticoid treatment (greater than or equal to 7.5 mg/d prednisone or equivalent) for chronic diseases.

In clinical trials, Actonel was generally well tolerated. Actonel is contraindicated in patients with hypocalcemia, known hypersensitivity to any component of this product, or inability to stand or sit upright for at least 30 minutes. Hypocalcemia and other disturbances of bone and mineral metabolism should be effectively treated before starting Actonel therapy. Actonel is not recommended for use in patients with severe renal impairment (creatinine clearance < 30 mL/min).

Bisphosphonates may cause upper gastrointestinal disorders such as dysphagia, esophagitis and esophageal or gastric ulcer. Patients should pay particular attention to the dosing instructions, as failure to take the drug according to instructions may compromise clinical benefits and may increase the risk of adverse events. In clinical trials, the overall incidence of adverse events with Actonel 5 mg daily was comparable to placebo. The most commonly reported adverse events regardless of causality were infection (primarily upper respiratory, placebo 29.7 percent vs. Actonel 5 mg 29.9 percent), back pain (23.6 percent vs. 26.1 percent), and arthralgia (21.1 percent vs. 23.7 percent).

In a one-year clinical trial comparing Actonel 35 mg Once-a-Week and Actonel 5 mg daily, the overall incidence of adverse events with the two dosing regimens was similar. The most commonly reported adverse events regardless of causality were infection (Actonel 35 mg 20.6 percent vs. Actonel 5 mg 19.0 percent), arthralgia (14.2 percent vs. 11.5 percent) and constipation (12.2 percent vs. 12.5 percent). Please visit www.actonel.com for full prescribing information for Actonel.

About The Alliance for Better Bone Health The Alliance for Better Bone Health was formed by Procter & Gamble and Aventis in May 1997 to promote bone health and disease awareness through numerous activities to support physicians and patients around the globe.

About Procter & Gamble Two billion times a day, P&G brands touch the lives of people around the world. Some of the nearly 300 P&G brands consumers know and use with confidence in over 160 countries around the world include: Pampers®, Tide®, Ariel®, Always®, Whisper®, Pantene®, Bounty®, Pringles®, Folgers®, Charmin®, Downy®, Lenor®, Iams®, Crest®, Olay®, and Clairol Nice 'n Easy®. Some of P&G Pharmaceuticals leading prescription products include Actonel® (risedronate sodium tablets), Asacol® (mesalamine), and Macrobid® (nitrofurantoin monohydrate macrocrystals). The P&G community consists of nearly 102,000 employees working in almost 80 countries worldwide. Please visit www.pg.com for the latest news and in-depth information about P&G and its brands.

About Aventis Aventis is dedicated to treating and preventing disease by discovering and developing innovative prescription drugs and human vaccines. In 2002, Aventis generated sales of € 17.6 billion (US $16.6 billion), invested € 3.1 billion (US $3 billion) in research and development and employed approximately 71,000 people in its core business. Aventis corporate headquarters are in Strasbourg, France. The company's prescription drugs business is conducted in the U.S. by Aventis Pharmaceuticals Inc., which is headquartered in Bridgewater, New Jersey. For more information about Aventis in the U.S., please visit: www.aventis-us.com.

Copies of this release are available on the Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals Web site at www.pgpharma.com, on the Aventis Pharmaceuticals U.S. Web site at www.aventis-us.com, or by calling 800-207-8049.

All statements, other than statements of historical fact included in this news release, are forward-looking statements, as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In addition to the risks and uncertainties noted in this news release, there are certain factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by some of the statements made. These include: (1) the achievement of expected cost and tax savings associated with changes in the Company's organization structure; (2) the ability to achieve business plans, including growing volume profitably, despite high levels of competitive activity, especially with respect to the product categories and geographical markets in which the Company has chosen to focus; (3) the ability to manage and maintain key customer relationships; (4) the achievement of growth in significant developing markets such as China, Turkey, Mexico, the Southern Cone of Latin America, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the countries of Southeast Asia; (5) the ability to successfully manage regulatory, tax and legal matters, including resolution of pending matters within current estimates; (6) the ability to successfully implement, achieve and sustain cost improvement plans in manufacturing and overhead areas; (7) the ability to successfully manage currency (including currency issues in Latin America), interest rate and certain commodity cost exposures; (8) the ability to manage the continued political and/or economic uncertainty in Latin America (including Venezuela) and war in the Middle East, as well as any political and/or economic uncertainty due to terrorist activities or war (including Korea); and (9) the successful acquisition, transition, integration, and operation of the Wella business. If the Company's assumptions and estimates are incorrect or do not come to fruition, or if the Company does not achieve all of these key factors, then the Company's actual results might differ materially from the forward-looking statements made herein.

Statements in this news release other than historical information are forward-looking statements subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially depending on factors such as the availability of resources, the timing and effects of regulatory actions, the strength of competition, the outcome of litigation, and the effectiveness of patent protection. Additional information regarding risks and uncertainties is set forth in the current Annual Report on Form 20-F of Aventis on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.