<a href=www.sunspot.net>Baltimore Sun By Kimberly A.C. Wilson Sun Staff

June 4, 2003

Thirty-seven cars trailed Beltran Navarro's gray hearse through Baltimore yesterday, wending past settings of the dynamic community leader's professional triumphs and personal delights.

The processional rolled past the northern tip of Fells Point, where Navarro, a Charm City-raised Venezuelan, united members of disparate Latino communities and helped create a business district that reflects the diversity of the city's Hispanic population. It passed the Washington Monument in Mount Vernon, a spot so central to Navarro's childhood in Baltimore that he settled in an apartment with an unobstructed view.

When the memorial ended, city officials, extended family and friends from around the world bid a reluctant farewell to a man Mayor Martin O'Malley eulogized as "a revolutionary spirit."

"He was never afraid to speak truth to power," O'Malley told a standing room-only crowd packed into the Kaczorowski Funeral Home in Dundalk.

Heads nodded. Loved ones willed back tears. And for an hour, in both English and Spanish, mourners from Honolulu, Boston, Korea and all over South and Central America remembered a man so consistently in motion and so inexplicably energized that few imagined a future without him.

"He was like a magnet that attracts small bits of iron," said Oscar Caceres, flanked by two rows of national flags that served as reminders of Navarro's travels and the scope of his relationships. "He attracted people to him, languages, races, nationalities, all that crowded around Beltran."

Navarro's death May 24 - he suffered a heart attack as he and Young-Mi Kim celebrated their 24th wedding anniversary in Paris - stunned the friends around the world who had come to expect his scathing e-mails, whimsical cards and forthright phone messages.

Born in Trinidad in 1945 and raised in Venezuela's capital, Caracas, until the age of 5, Beltran Navarro arrived in Baltimore with an aunt in time for grade school. Educated at universities in Caracas and at Indiana University, he held scores of titles during his 57 years.

Variety of posts

He served on Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski's committee to review applicants for armed services academies in Maryland. He taught diversity courses at the city's police academy. He lobbied support for a capital bond bill for city museums before last fall's election. He ran the small public relations firm of Navarro, Kim & Associates out of a Charles Street apartment house, steps from the flat that he shared with his wife.

Navarro wasn't a big-name newsmaker in Baltimore, but his death was front-page news for readers of El Tiempo Latino, the region's most widely distributed Spanish-language weekly.

When word of his death reached the paper's Arlington, Va., newsroom, discussion swiftly turned to the proper headline for the obituary.

"Someone wrote 'Baltimore loses a Latino leader,'" recalled Alberto Avendano, associate publisher and editor in chief. "I just erased 'Latino.' He was not just about Latinos. He was about justice for America."

Carmen Nieves, executive director of Centro de la Communidad in Baltimore, called Navarro a friend for 13 years.

"If he had a hobby, it would have been people. He was a people watcher and a people connector, and he would sit back and enjoy where the connections would go," she said.

His legacy, said his widow, includes the young people he mentored. More than a dozen of them attended the funeral, each with a Navarro story of guidance and inspiration. Natali Fani was one.

When Fani enrolled at Goucher College four years ago, she filled her schedule with pre-med courses and dreamed of a career in medicine. A chance encounter with Navarro at a Spanish heritage celebration set her dreams onto a different path: She graduated Friday with a double degree in political science and intercultural studies.

"He was an inspiration," she said yesterday, waiting for the funeral procession to form.

He took special pride in the fruits of his labor on Fani's behalf: Last month, she helped organize a legislative summit between local members of Congress and immigrant teens from Patterson High School to discuss state bills that would have permitted undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition at Maryland universities. The measure passed the General Assembly but died when Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. vetoed it three days before Navarro died.

Final wishes

"I basically did [for them] what he did for me," Fani said as she waited for the caravan to leave the funeral home. "That was what he wanted."

There was something more Navarro wanted.

"He used to say when he died he didn't want people to cry, he wanted them to party," said Reinita Riemann.

Riemann, a math instructor and doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whom the childless Navarro proudly considered "daughter," said her mentor was such a force that few had the nerve to tell him no.

So after he was buried at Oak Lawn Cemetery, about 80 people gathered at Tio Pepe, the Mount Vernon haunt where Navarro had dined prodigiously on paella marinara.

Waiters served one final meal in his memory, covering his favorite table with a dish of saffron rice and seafood, a bottle of Carchelo wine and flowers from the funeral home.

A band struck a high note.

"It was a really lively party with a nice orchestra," said owner Miguel Sanz, as the last revelers left. "The only one missing was Beltran."

<a href=www.busrep.co.za>IOL Business report June 4, 2003 By Edward West

Cape Town - Exxoteq, the local subsidiary of international group Exxoteq Corporation, was planning to drill an oil well near Port Elizabeth in the second half of next year as new technology had made the exploitation of this country's oil reserves viable.

Exxoteq was also planning to list on the JSE Securities Exchange, possibly by August, according to Gerhard Brink, the managing director-elect of Exxoteq and previously a Soekor geologist.

It will be one of only two listed oil explorers on the JSE, the other being Energy Africa.

Brink, whose qualifications include 20 years as a petroleum geologist and seismic specialist as well as being a "proven oil finder" in Chile, Venezuela, New Zealand, Pakistan, Egypt and South Africa, said there was no oil-bearing rock in 99 percent of South Africa, but there was oil under the remaining 1 percent.

In 1967 Soekor drilled test well CO 167 north of Port Elizabeth, in the Algoa Basin. As with many onshore tests the results confirmed oil below the surface, but its economic viability could not be confirmed.

"Some of the wells Soekor sank showed oil traces. Soekor processed a test case gallon and it was good quality. Now we are taking the old data and blending it with new technology so we can accurately establish which of the wells hold economic promise," Brink said.

Frank Brown, a retired professor and consultant working with the University of Texas, had developed exploration models for potential oil deposits on the Texas and Gulf of Mexico coastlines. The areas are similar to the Algoa Basin.

On reanalysing the old data from Soekor, Brown wrote: "The information definitely indicates the prospective petroleum potential of the Algoa Basin, especially now that remarkable advances in sequence stratigraphy and petroleum systems have been made since wells were last drilled .

"Re-evaluations of mature and 'dry' basins in the US have had considerable success using newer concepts and technology." Brink said the Algoa Basin wells would probably all be marginal, including the one to which Exxoteq had the rights.

"Marginal means anything under 50 million barrels. That is the accepted minimum level that excites most major producers. Below it their heavy overhead costs make production unviable. Mid-size oil companies are exploiting fields with as little as 5 million to 7 million barrels. Even at this level they yields revenue in excess of $100 million," said Brink.

Brink said Exxoteq would also focus on exploration off the west Africa coast.

"Our international holding company, Exxoteq Corporation, uses what it calls a Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) system.

"It was developed to reduce costs on marginal fields. In simple terms it keeps the recovered oil in a storage facility close to the rig, separates out the water and other residues, then pumps it straight to awaiting tankers.

It was currently being used by PetroSA, "but we have the rights to use the system throughout sub-Saharan Africa".

"We are currently finalising discussions with a few west African governments to buy the rights to marginal oilfields, and the officials involved are aware that the FPSO system makes our bids viable," said Brink.

By <a href=ogj.pennnet.com>Oil & Gas Journal editors

HOUSTON, June 3 -- The US refining industry is poised for a good year in 2003 because gasoline stocks are on the rise while refinery throughput and gasoline imports are near record levels.

"With the exception of the West Coast markets, industry margins across the remainder of the country were at record levels in the first quarter," said Bryan Caviness, an analyst with Fitch Ratings Ltd.

West Coast refiners did not receive the benefit from a cold winter or from the uncertainties in global crude supply during late 2002, he explained.

Overall, the US downstream sector experienced "unseasonably strong (first quarter) earnings for most refining and marketing companies. The cold winter, a heavy turnaround season, the general strike in Venezuela, and the looming war in Iraq factored into strong demand for gasoline and distillates, and a sharp drop in inventories," Caviness said.

Summer driving season As the US enters the summer driving season, refiners are running at more than 94% capacity and 15.8 million b/d of throughput to capture the historically strong summer margins, he said.

"The refining sector's ability to control production will again be the key issue to sustaining the strong margins seen in the first quarter," Caviness said.

A run up in throughput during recent weeks has pushed gasoline stocks to more normal levels than seen earlier this year, and margins have reflected that, he said.

Gasoline imports The US imported nearly 460,000 b/d of distillates and a record 767,000 b/d of gasoline during the first quarter.

"Compared with full year 2002, Canada and the Netherlands showed the most notable increases in refined product exports to the US in January and February. Argentina, Norway, and the UAE have also significantly increased refined product sales into the US markets," he said.

In the short term, gasoline imports averaged more than 1 million b/d through April, a 23% increase compared with April 2002.

"Looking forward to 2004, gasoline imports will become a key issue with the ultra-low-sulfur gasoline regulations. With nearly 40% of gasoline imports in the form of blending components and a significant percentage of refiners not required to meet similar specifications domestically, Fitch Ratings expects a significant drop in gasoline imports in 2004," Caviness said.

Refining environment A difficult margin environment last year taught the US refining industry that its record earnings experienced during 2000-01 are not guaranteed and that paying too much for refining assets can strain a company's financial flexibility, he said.

After last year's dismal earnings reports, refiners are more committed to improving and maintaining a stronger balance sheet than they have been in previous years, he said.

"Fitch maintains a stable outlook for the downstream sector, although sharp volatility in margins will remain. The remainder of 2003 is expected to be a midcycle or better as refiners begin investing the capital to meet the low-sulfur gasoline regulations in 2004 and diesel regulations in 2006," Caviness said.

Miss Dominican Republic, Amelia Vega receives a trophy for the best national costume as she was crowned the new Miss Universe 2003, in Panama City, Panama, Tuesday June 3, 2003 (AP Photo/Victor Ruiz) 02:24 AM EST June 04, 2003 The Associated Press PANAMA CITY, Panama

There were no tears of joy, just the confident smile of a winner when 18-year-old Miss Dominican Republic, Amelia Vega, was crowned Miss Universe 2003.

A 6-foot-1 aspiring singer, the niece of merengue musician Juan Luis Guerra, Vega accepted the crown from outgoing titleholder Justine Pasek of Panama on Tuesday night.

"God has been my strength all along," the brunette told a news conference immediately after her triumph at a U.S. military base-turned-convention center.

Tuesday's finals were hosted by television personalities Daisy Fuentes and Billy Bush - who is President Bush's cousin.

Asked if she was nervous when she stood alone with co-finalist Mariangel Ruiz of Venezuela after 70 other contestants were eliminated, Vegas said, "No, I just said, 'God, whatever is going to be, let it be.'"

Vega's mother competed for the Miss World title in 1980.

Cindy Nell, a South African tourism promoter, was the second runner up, followed by Miss Serbia and Montenegro Sanja Papic and Miss Japan Miyako Miyazaki.

Dropping out after reaching the top 10 were representatives from Trinidad and Tobago, the Czech Republic, Namibia, Canada and Brazil. An earlier cut took out Misses USA, Greece, Panama, Angola and Peru.

Kai Davis of Antigua and Barbuda was named Miss Congeniality. Miss Puerto Rico, Carla Tricoli, was named Miss Photogenic.

The event gave Panama a chance to promote its new image as a tourist destination after decades of living under the shadow of the U.S. military, which protected the Panama Canal until Dec. 31, 1999.

An estimated 600 million television viewers and nearly 7,000 Panamanians watched the event at the new Figali Convention Center, built on the former U.S. base known as Fort Amador.

Hotels, restaurants, a marina and a $10 million convention center now adorn the former base.

Last year, for the first time, Panama's annual income from tourism - $678 million - surpassed revenues from the canal.

The jury included Maria Celeste Arraras of Telemundo TV; Deborah Carthy-Deu, the 1985 Miss Universe; Italian designer Roberto Cavalli; Richard Johnson of the Washington Post; professional model Audrey Quock; Peter Reckell of NBC's "Days of Our Lives;" professional model Fernanda Tavarez; Matthew St. Patrick of HBO's Six Feet Under series, and Amelia Marshall of NBC's "Passions" series.

Wednesday June 04, 2003 07:30 - (SA)

PANAMA CITY - 21-year-old South African Cyndy Nell was judged second runner-up in the Miss Universe competition. She was behind Amelia Vega, an 18-year-old student from the Dominican Republic, who took top honours, followed by Miss Venezuela, Maria Angel Ruiz, 23. Reigning Miss Universe Justine Pasek of Panama and pageant co-owner Donald Trump placed a $250,000 crown of diamonds and pearls on Vega's head. Representatives from 71 countries took the stage earlier at the contest held at a brand new convention center in Amador, a former US military base at the Pacific Ocean entrance to the Panama Canal. Vega, a recent high school graduate and niece of popular Dominican singer Juan Luis Guerra, also was voted best dressed contestant for her shimmering gown that was reminiscent of the ocean's waves. Pasek was only the runner-up in the 2002 Miss Universe pageant: in September she took over as queen when organizers stripped Miss Russia, Oxana Fedorova, of the title - officially "for breach of contract because she has failed to fulfill the duties required of the title" - but unofficially because Fedorova reportedly married in secret and was pregnant. It was the first time since the pageant was first held in 1952, organized by a swimsuit company in southern California, that a Miss Universe lost her crown. One contestant this year was forced to drop out: Miss Iceland, Manuela Osk Hardardottir, couldn't handle the tropical heat and was hospitalised over the weekend for dehydration. Hardardottir, 19, was not in the running as a finalist, though she participated in the event, organizers said. Since their arrival here two weeks ago, the contestants' every move have been shadowed by the tabloids, one of which reported that Miss Spain, Eva Maria Gonzalez, and her roommate Miss Colombia, Diana Lucia Mantilla, got into a fistfight over Gonzalez's smoking habit. They later denied it all happened. And Venezuela almost failed to send a representative due to money problems. AFP