Business Journal, Vol. 15, No. 10, June 2, 2003

Meridium’s Bonz Hart: ’We are having to be careful; we are a heavy-traveling company’

Meridium’s Bonz Hart: ’We are having to be careful; we are a heavy-traveling company’

Hard times call for drastic measures as Blue Ridge region businesses adjust to the new reality of business travel

By Ben Calloway

Business owners in the Blue Ridge Region are learning to adapt to what may be new trends affecting how their employees travel. Hit by the multi-pronged effects of a grim economy, war, terrorism threats, disease and exorbitant rates for airline travel, some of the region's businesses have cut back their travel budgets and learned that they can get a lot done without leaving town. Others have found that their time on the road can be used more efficiently than in the past.

Travel industry veterans say there is little improvement expected in the near future for most who use domestic and international transportation. The Travel Industry Association of America in Washington, D.C. says 26 percent of business travelers traveled less or not at all this year compared to 2002. Travel budgets have been reduced by 39 percent of businesses and 29 percent have reduced travel because of its high cost.

The risks in international travel are especially real, says Bonz Hart, president and founder of Meridium Inc., a Roanoke firm which sells process management software to petroleum and chemical businesses. "We are having to be careful; we are a heavy-traveling company. We have people in Saudi Arabia and we have worked all the way through the Iraqi war and in Venezuela."

Hart says that his firm is taking extra precautions like having security personnel move employee groups from terminal to terminal. It also has accepted the help of knowledgeable Meridium clients in foreign countries. The outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Asia forced the company's Korean clients to ask Meridium to postpone its annual April software conference in Houston, but the commitments already had been made.

Looking for bargains

"There is a lot of uncertainty out there. Our clients know that and they appreciate that we still come to their countries to work, in Qatar for instance. The distances and the dangers make it an additional concern on the part of employees' families," Hart says. "Venezuela also has caused some challenges because of the volatile relationship between the government and the nation's oil business."

Hart says that he has no clients in the region and that "most new refineries and chemical plants are being built overseas because of stiff environmental compliance costs in the U.S. They are still good plants but they just are not built to U.S. standards."

International travel to service his customers is costing a lot more for business class, "seven or eight times the price of a regular ticket," Hart says. "The airlines are being very aggressive on fares so, if we have the time, there is a difference of hundreds of dollars that can be saved by driving to Greensboro, Lynchburg or Raleigh. If we are flying six to 10 people to a conference, it is simpler and cheaper to rent a van and drive to Greensboro. Air travel pricing policies simply are counter-intuitive. It's like saying 'The more you travel, the more we are going to charge you.'

"Traveling coach meant saving thousands per person on our trips to Australia. We find a big difference in fares out of Lynchburg and we get some flights in Charlotte, going to Houston that are $300 or $400 cheaper," Hart says.

Viewing the condition of air travel in the U.S. today, Hart says he is hearing business people praise low-cost upstart airlines like JetBlue because it is in the forefront of a change in the air travel industry. "Two things could happen in the airline industry: the conventional airlines will get their costs under control, or Jet- Blues will take their market share. That's one reason we support the effort to get a low-cost carrier into Roanoke.

"I've been to meetings in Texas with other software companies who say their cost of doing business is less because Southwest, a low-cost airline, was there," Hart says. "Typical trips on other airlines cost two to three times more. Southwest is smart and effective and there is no 'mystery' to selecting a fare. You look at two or three choices and you decide."

Nearing the bottom

Airlines in the U.S. are suffering from multiple problems but may be nearing a bottom on the fall in seat bookings, according to Mark Courtney, airport manager at Lynchburg Regional Airport.

"Airlines are going through all sorts of ways to adjust by reducing capacity, parking some planes and negotiating new contracts. But they have the twin problems of declining revenues and high labor costs," Courtney says. "Bookings are weak, with double-digit falls in April compared to a year ago. "The slowing means smaller communities are disproportionately impacted by the decrease in service occurring in most states, causing some of our customers to fly out of Roanoke or Raleigh, N.C. Still, the upgrade to jet service on Delta was successful due to revenue guarantees from the U.S. Department of Transportation." Seating capacity was down 35 percent in Lynchburg in April, Courtney says, but improved to 28 percent after the new jet service arrived.

The Iraqi war caused business travelers to defer trips but things are starting to look better and Lynchburg Regional is working to maintain fare parity, especially with Roanoke, Courtney says. He expects more "fare sales" will help stimulate travel demand. "To get the industry humming again, we need to see improved consumer expectations for the economy and we need to see the business traveler returning to the skies."

The cost of flying has some surprising numbers, despite the attempts to go elsewhere for better fares. Courtney says that in 1982 it cost about 15 cents a revenue mile to fly, while in 2002 it cost less than 10 cents, a 45 percent decrease in inflation-adjusted terms. To bring the market back into equilibrium, revenues need to increase. Losing a major airline to bankruptcy might free a 20 percent share of the market and provide some breathing room for survivors, Courtney says, but it would lead to higher prices and leave service gaps in smaller cities.

"Losses in the industry are unprecedented, like AMR, the parent of American Airlines, which lost $1 billion last quarter. It is painful to reduce over capacity and it already was bad before 9/11," Courtney says. "The major airlines need high revenues to support their high costs. Their pricing and distribution systems need revamping to even them out and make them less complex. Nowadays it may cost more to fly from here to Atlanta than to fly to Los Angeles."

Reduced fares

Airports in North Carolina are more than willing to compete for the passenger's business with reduced fares but it has an impact beyond their own state, Courtney says. "It is really frustrating for us when our passengers drive to Raleigh to get a fare that the airline there is losing money on.

"But if low-cost carriers become the predominant mode of travel in this country the smaller areas will suffer or even lose service. We need a route system that can profitably serve small cities. Regional jets help but they are much more expensive on a per-seat basis and fly shorter legs. When you add distance, you reduce operating costs."

Business is feeling the restrictions at a painful level but those in the business of travel have a broader view of the situation. Mel Ludovici, president of Martin Travel in Roanoke, says business is down 15 percent from last year, which was no great shakes itself.

"All these things have certainly had a negative impact, to say the least. But the underlying issues are the economy and the difficulty in flying," Ludovici says. "A lot of our short haul business has been cut out because people would rather drive than be strip-searched at an airport."

Ludovici says the end of the war in Iraq has had a modest positive effect on overall travel but there remains a problem of public confidence in air travel. "There are not too many airlines for this country when the economy is strong, even though you see some of them flirting with or in bankruptcy. There are too many seats for right now, but if we get people making more money and improve the economy those seats can be used."

Poor management

Despite their problems, the airlines are not totally victims of outside influences and Ludovici says he worries about the federal government subsidizing poor management with tax dollars. "If there is good money out there to be made in air transportation there will be investment in airlines, much as JetBlue and Primaris are doing.

"On the horizon we see air travel as the backbone of American commerce and an integral part of daily life. It won't fail. We just need to loosen up some dollars. Regardless of how you purchase it, there has not been a better time to buy travel because it is truly a buyer's market. The supply far exceeds the demand," Ludovici says.

Joyce Bradford, retail district manager at AAA Travel in Lynchburg, says that while many different factors have affected travel, a core problem is that the industry still has not rebounded from the effects of 9/11.

"Travel trends since then have undergone tremendous change to embrace more domestic travel. Our clients generally do not travel to Asia so SARS is not a big issue with them. But some still are apprehensive about getting on a plane," Bradford says. "People still are going on cruises and we are seeing some pickup in business as a seasonal effect. But more people are driving on their vacations and more are driving to Florida and getting on a cruise ship, rather than flying. There are big discounts being offered on all-inclusive, seven-day cruises and the cruise portion costs less than the flight to Florida."

Bradford says that she can't help but think that if the airlines cut fares in half "you'd see a lot of that fear go away. International rates to Europe and elsewhere already have been cut unbelievably and this is the high season for travel there. In some cases it is cheaper than flying to the West Coast of the U.S."

'Closer to home'

Discretionary income lost to three years of a tough economy and a losing stock market is another reason for the decline in travel, Bradford says, and travel businesses are feeling the pinch.

"Our volume is not bad and people are still going to take vacations. What we are finding is that they are going closer to home and taking shorter and less expensive trips. However there still are those people who sign up for trips to Russia and the Far East," Bradford says. "Sales are down but they are not down further because we had a long-term strategy and we saw the trend before 9/11. It has not hurt us as bad as it has others."

The people whose job it is to sell the Roanoke Valley as a business location say they are forced to do their job smarter but the work is getting done, despite the problems of travel. Philip Sparks, executive director of the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership, says he travels 60,000 miles a year and has seen some organizations lose as much as 90 percent of travel budgets.

"We have been very fortunate that our travel budget has increased but we are combining trips and making our travel arrangements well ahead of time in most cases. Going out of Roanoke we have flown to Toronto, Canada for $229 and even on short notice we got to New York for $789, which was better than Greensboro and Charlotte prices. At those rates we were pleased. Rates are good if reservations are made 14 or more days out, but really go up if you don't."

A hotel room in New York City that normally costs $400 now goes for $189 a night, Sparks says, "and only about a third of our floor was filled. Travel into Roanoke does not seem to have been affected because we have had our second best January for incoming prospects since 1994. In the last 12 months we have announced 950 new jobs and $71 million in investment as a result of development efforts."

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 By: Andrew McKillop

WASHINGTON, Sept., 2002 - Africa, the neglected stepchild of American diplomacy, is rising in strategic importance to Washington policy makers, and one word sums up the reason: oil. Within the next decade, recently discovered offshore reserves are expected to enable West Africa to outproduce the North Sea's oil rigs and capture as much as 25 percent of America's oil-import market. Source/ New York Times, 19 Sept 2002 « In Quietly Courting Africa, U.S. Likes the Dowry: Oil » By James Dao

VHeadline.com petroleum industry commentarist Andrew McKillop writes: Through 2001 and 2002 a flurry of initiatives, state visits, studies, projects and actions have underlined the growing importance of Africa especially for the US, but also for European and Asian oil and gas importers. Now that Baghdad is occupied by US troops, and with luck Iraqi oil production may be able to satisfy domestic needs of the country (about 0.7 Mbd) within a few months, it is possible that US interest in Africa, and concern for its plight can be ‘back-burnered’ again, as it was right through the Cheap Oil interval of 1986-99. But this is unlikely ... if only to assure some distribution of risk away from rising risk of supply interruptions from the Middle East all of the major powers have a new found interest in and concern for Africa. Or at least for its oil.

A slim resource base

The above extract from the NY Times is a typical, upbeat, distorted and exaggerated report boldly advancing the American ‘expectation’ of West Africa rapidly becoming a major oil exporter region, producing more oil than is currently produced by the North Sea province, which is now falling like a stone and likely to average about 5.8 - 5.9 Mbd in 2003. These and similar articles typically forget to note that only fast depletion of North Sea oil production makes for any possibility of West Africa, with about 2% of the world’s proven reserves of oil, being able to ‘outproduce’ the North Sea province. That is, West Africa has a tiny resource base and restricted geological potentials for oil and gas, and it is only the minuscule oil consumption of West Africa, and the rest of the continent that enables any export surplus to be obtained.

Any additional production from the region in the 2003-2010 period is therefore very unlikely to exceed about 2.5 - 3 Mbd or around 50% of current output from the North Sea.

Further as the above, typically exaggerated article also forgot to mention total African oil production, continent-wide and including established producers such as Algeria, Egypt and Sudan, in North and East Africa, together with Angola, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria and Gabon, is only about 7.7 Mbd. This total production, continent wide, was only equivalent to North Sea output in 1999-2000, the peak year of North Sea production. Because oil consumption by all nations of the Dark Continent is so low, increased local consumption is the real short-term priority for African countries: any serious attempt at conventional economic development in Africa will likely lead to reduced oil export surpluses.

Only poverty permits any export surplus

Such facts of course do not worry sensation-seeking editors, and import hungry OECD national leaders will maintain their eyes riveted on the Dark Continent for one reason because it is so dark.

NASA's "earthlights" illustrate power consumption worldwide

As the Light Pollution Institute and International Dark Sky Association web sites at www.darksky.org   and www.lightpollution.it graphically show, so low are the levels of night-time, electricity based artificial lighting in Africa relative to Europe, or N America, or Asia that the continent appears like an inky black hole. A few figures show why this is so: for countries in the Ecowas (West African) group, including Black Africa’s second biggest economy – oil exporting Nigeria ... average electricity consumption per capita is around 35 kWh to 75 kWh per year, compared to annual average European, Japanese or US consumption rates of around 3500 to 5000 kWh/capita. The entire oil consumption of the continent’s 50-plus countries and estimated 900 Million inhabitants was around 2.6 Mbd in 1999, less than is imported and mostly burnt by for example Germany’s 83 Million inhabitants, and well below a third of what either the US, or the EU-15 countries import each day.

With such magnificent economy of consumption ... quite easy to achieve with typical GNP/capita figures around 150 to 250 Euro/year ... Africa can export a large proportion of its small production. This situation could maintain itself, or it may not. As many upbeat articles cheering on new production opportunities from non-OPEC countries will add, much or most of any projected, and very unlikely ‘explosion’ in African oil and gas production, almost exclusively on the western side of the continent, will be heavily oriented to offshore production.

While ignoring the very high costs of this continent-edge exploration, discovery and then production in water depths already attaining 5000 feet (e.g. in the Xikomba field off Angola), these upbeat articles will sometimes note, discreetly, that being offshore these vital installations will or can shelter this lifeline oil supply from the many civil wars that have ravaged Black Africa since the 1980s.

Quite simply, and this is shown in the shallower waters of Nigeria’s delta region, oil installations and output can often feature in civil unrest, simply because they are given prominence by world media and represent small poles of wealth among huge and increasing poverty.

Continental economic meltdown

It would be no exaggeration to state that Africa is more wracked, exploited, and oppressed in the period from around 1985 to now, than it ever was in any heroic time of White slavery or colonial war, either before or after the « Carve up of Africa » through the 1850-1900 period, or in any liberation war that followed.

Yet this onslaught is by free market forces, and tied loans supplied under strict conditions, by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, following Africa’s brief day in the sun, during the hike in primary product prices that was triggered by the first Oil Shock, and lasting through about 1975-83. During this period international lenders fell over themselves to finance huge projects for minerals, metals and agrocommodity development, throughout Africa.

When the Reagan-Thatcher recession and slump of 1980-83 ‘brought the world back to its senses,’ these loans became close-to impossible to repay because African commodity export prices fell through the floor. Africa’s debts then only grew, much like ... for example ... the US National Debt which just in the time you take to read this article (or 30 minutes if that is longer) will rise by several dozens of millions of dollars.

The US trade deficit, running at about $50 million per hour as you read this article, is however in sharp contrast to harsh ‘structural adjustment’ conditions for their trade accounts that are imposed on African debtors. Squeaky clean balanced budgets are policed to the last dollar, to the last kilo of food not imported, and not fed to tens of thousands of undernourished children, when it concerns conditions for new loans to African countries to pay interest due on existing loans.

Black Africa’s outstanding loans continue to this day to be topped-up with interests amounts arising from variable rate loan schedules, set during the long years of extreme real interest rates through the 1980s. At the same time, some principal, the original loan amount, is occasionally ‘forgiven’ in well-publicized acts of generosity by Club of Paris lenders ... that is the main G-8 powers and a few others.

By 1985 Africa counted a string of countries where more than 25% of total export receipts for their agricultural and mineral or primary product exports, whose price levels had fallen far and fast from their 1975-82 highs, were needed simply to pay interest due on ‘sovereign’ or State-guaranteed loans.

This situation has continued and the crisis has deepened, to the point where ‘reverse development’, that is snowballing poverty in Africa is now at last recognized as a danger to any kind of foreign investment ... even in oil prospecting and development ... because of the raging, coalescing civil and international wars that have been generated by ‘benign’ neglect to ever rising poverty.

Yet still today the price for bailing out poverty-wracked African borrowers whose Sunset Commodity exports command such low prices they are unable to pay back their loans, called ‘structural adjustment,’ first demands huge cuts in the number of public sector jobs to bring unemployment levels to at least 30%-40%. National assets, in the form of state companies, are immediately privatized.

More often than not, these privatized companies are asset stripped by US, European, Japanese, Chinese or Indian companies, and are often simply abandoned, like tuna fishing canneries and equipment of some West African countries ... now that fish stocks have been decimated.

• Huge rises in the price of food, fuel, medicines and schooling are always featured in ‘structural adjustment.’

This general impoverishment of already poor countries is always nicely defended by various aseptic policy speeches and documents, but the applicability of or reason for free market pricing in countries where often 50%-75% of the population, still today, is outside the cash economy is hard to fathom.

This reverse development policy is laughably described as making its victims ‘lean, mean and competitive’, but starving children, with unemployed and undernourished adults deprived of public services are hard to see as complying with this Neoliberal fantasy, or nightmare for its victims.

‘Blood oil and gas’ or international cooperation?

Unsurprisingly, the forced and additional impoverishment of countries and communities already among the poorest in the world not only transformed Black Africa’s few oil and gas exporting countries into the most pliable price takers any yuppie economics guru will wax eloquent about, but it also prepared conditions for large-area, multi-country rebellions, massacres and wars. These last, when they concern oil current or emerging exporters such as Angola, Chad or Sudan, are receiving some determined attention to stop the killing, if only in the interest of cheap oil supplies, but continuing, generalized, mass poverty in Africa is unlikely to rapidly lever more oil supplies, even outside the free-fire zones of these long-running mass killing sprees.

After ‘blood diamonds’ we are unlikely to see any large increments to current supplies of ‘blood oil and gas’ ... a change of tactic and strategy is very much needed.

In the period 2000-2002, policy and attitudes of the so-called International Community towards Black Africa has rapidly changed, and because of oil and gas. Black Gold from the Dark Continent is a hope, or chimera reinforced by military adventure in the Middle East, with locally-decided regime change through popular action in the region, and fast rising resistance to military occupation of Iraq no longer being far-out and worst case scenarios.

Exactly as with the Caspian region, US and European media and governments feel it is necessary to wantonly exaggerate oil reserve and production potentials for Africa, but this mix of greed for Cheap Oil and fear of supply loss, if accompanied by ‘benign neglect’ to snowballing poverty, will be a straight loser.

Cheap Oil and terms of trade

Black African economies are heavily dominated by primary product exports, ranging through plantation agriculture, specialty and exotic (to temperate climate countries) crops, metals and energy minerals, and the relative price of these exports to prices for imported food, manufactured goods and services sets GNP numbers and human wellbeing, or the lack of it. Benign neglect to coffee prices, for example, that are now at all time lows, spells ruin to many African communities. Yet even a doubling or tripling of the price for bulk coffee would add scarcely 1 or 2 Euro or US cents to prices for a cup of coffee in Europe or the US retailing at around 100-200 Euro or US cents-per-cup.

Just the same applies to oil. Most European consumers happily pay 150-175 Euro/barrel at the retail level. At $30/bbl (around Euro 25.25/bbl) the commodity price is below 16 Euro cents-per-liter.

Economists can wax long on the question of rent split but more wealth for producers of real resources, certainly for African producers, is a dire necessity ... the so-called alternative of benign neglect, and deliberate intensification of poverty through ‘structural adjustment’ are losing strategies ... if more oil is wanted, a higher price should be paid for it.

The richworld may believe it is wise ... or blessed by geology ... through focusing offshore oil and gas development in Africa, far from the land and danger of damage to installations. Africa’s entire existence and survival is in fact threatened by the AIDS epidemic, the certainty of increasing war and civil strife, and crushing poverty itself increased by ‘structural adjustment,’ sometimes known as Belsen Economics.

Imagining that that this « strategy » will enable the richworld to suck out cheap oil and gas supplies, to slow or stall the arrival of Peak Oil, is likely unsure to perform, as well as starkly showing the morality and humanity we can expect from the ‘inspired’ creators of the so-called New World Order.

Andrew McKillop  is a former expert, policy and programming, Divn A - Policy, DG XVII-Energy, European Commission, founder member, Asian Chapter, Intl Assocn of Energy Economists. You may contact Mr. McKillop by email at andrewmckillop@onetel.net.uk

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Jack Kemp, a former NFL quarterback, legislator and vice presidential candidate in 1996, apparently wants to get into the lucrative oil business on behalf of Venezuela.

Kemp is a key figure in a proposed unusual deal by a company with offices in New York to supply Venezuelan crude oil to help fill the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The deal would allow Free Market Petroleum, which has Kemp on its board of directors, to supply 50,000 barrels of crude a day for three years to the U.S. government oil reserves in Texas and Louisiana.

If the deal goes through, which is still uncertain, it could bring Free Market Petroleum business of more than $1 million a day or as much as $1 billion over a three-year period.

The proposed transaction brings together Kemp, a widely known conservative who espouses free-market values, with a leftist government accused of being unfriendly to business. President Hugo Chavez has slapped controls on the Venezuelan economy and presided over a dramatic recession.

The accord signals that Venezuela wants to regain its image as a reliable supplier of crude to the U.S. markets following a calamitous two-month strike that briefly paralyzed its state oil industry.

Several facets of the deal are unusual.

Free Market Petroleum is a new company with no presence on the Internet and few known business deals under its belt. Its president, William Hickman, said in a brief telephone interview that the company is a year old and has offices in New York and London.

"We're a subsidiary of a larger company about which I can't go into," Hickman said.

The deal between Free Market Petroleum and the Venezuelan government has set off sparks in Caracas as well, for reasons unrelated to the U.S. firm.

The state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., "traditionally never has sold petroleum through intermediaries - not only because it loses a margin through intermediation but also because the practice opens all sorts of doors to corruption," said a newsletter last Friday from the Veneconomia consulting group.

Venezuela's ambassador to the United States, Bernardo Alvarez, said Kemp arrived in Caracas last year with other representatives of Free Market Petroleum and pitched the idea of the company serving as a middleman to sell crude to the U.S. government.

"We talked to him," Alvarez said. "We checked them out and, as I said, it's a registered company. It presented to us all the requirements we needed."

Kemp's office said he was unavailable for comment.

Since 1977, the U.S. government has maintained stocks of crude oil in huge salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana. The stocks serve as an economic buffer against potential disruption of world oil supplies.

The reserve holds about 602 million barrels of crude; the White House has directed that stocks increase to 700 million barrels.

U.S. policy bars direct purchases of oil from foreign governments, however, and that is where private companies such as Free Market Petroleum can do business.

Most of the oil accumulated in the salt caverns comprises in-kind contributions made by companies drilling along the U.S. continental shelf. The companies owe royalties for rights to pump the oil. Since some of the offshore oil is of poor quality, companies swap for better crude with other firms - such as Free Market Petroleum - to turn over to the U.S. government.

Venezuela, which supplies U.S. consumers with about 14 percent of their oil, says it is pleased with the prospect of selling to the reserve.

"There is a willingness in the government to increase our energy relationship with the United States," Alvarez said. "It's a good business for Venezuela from an economic point of view. It's another client."

The two-month strike in Venezuela last December and January paralyzed the state oil company, bringing production to a trickle. Since breaking the strike, Chavez has fired more than 17,800 of the company's workers, remaking an institution that had become a hotbed of discontent with his populist government. Venezuela claims it has recovered oil production to prestrike levels of more than 3 million barrels a day.

The Hindu Panama City, Panama, June 4. Miss Dominican Republic, Amelia Vega, won the 2003 Miss Universe title today, topping 70 other contestants, including India's Nikita Anand. Outgoing titleholder Justine Pasek of Panama slipped the crown on the head of the winner, who smiled widely and waved to the crowd.

Vega, 18, is the niece of famed merengue singer, Juan Luis Guerra, and the daughter of her country's representative in the 1980 Miss Universe pageant.

The first runner up was Miss Venezuela, and second-runner up South Africa's Cindy Nell, 21, a tourism promoter. Miss Serbia and Montenegro, Sanja Papic, was third runner up and Miss Japan, Miyako Miyzaki, was fourth runnerup.

Dropping out after reaching the top 10 were women from Trinidad and Tobago, the Czech Republic, Namibia, Canada and Brazil. An earlier cut took out Misses USA, Greece, Panama, Angola and Peru. However, India's Anand even failed to make it to the top ten.

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

<a href=timesofindia.indiatimes.com>Times of India-AP[ WEDNESDAY, JUNE 04, 2003 12:52:43 PM ]

PANAMA CITY: There were no tears of joy, just the confident smile of someone who was prepared to win when 18-year-old Miss Dominican Republic, Amelia Vega, was crowned Miss Universe 2003.   A 6-foot-1 tall aspiring singer - niece of merengue master Juan Luis Guerra - Vega accepted the crown from outgoing titleholder Justine Pasek of Panama.   "God has been my strength all along," the brunette told a news conference immediately after her triumph at a US military base-turned-convention center.   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.   Vega said she is ready to help the Miss Universe in its campaign against AIDS and to help those who suffer it.   "I do not know what is going to happen in my life, but I am ready to do work with the Miss Universe organisation," she said.   Dropping out after reaching the top 10 wererepresentatives from Trinidad and Tobago, the Czech Republic, Namibia, Canada and Brazil. An earlier cut took out MissesUSA, Greece, Panama, Angola and Peru.   Kai Davis of Antigua and Barbuda was named Miss Congeniality. Miss Puerto Rico, Carla Tricoli, was named Miss Photogenic.