June 13 (<a href=quote.bloomberg.com>Bloomberg) -- Brazil's real rose to an 11-month high on investor expectations capital flows to South America's largest economy will remain strong as investors seek higher returns than available in Europe or the U.S.

The real rose 0.9 percent to close at 2.8385 per dollar from 2.8635 yesterday in Sao Paulo. The real has gained 25 percent this year, the best performance of the 16 most widely traded currencies. The Mexican and Colombian pesos gained.

Brazilian companies and the government have sold more than $8 billion of foreign-currency bonds this year, boosting demand for the local currency as the proceeds are brought into the country and exchanged for reais. About $1.5 billion was sold this week, and companies such as Gerdau SA and Cia. de Saneamento Basico do Estado de Sao Paulo are expected to sell soon.

The market is betting flows will continue -- the outlook for Brazil risk is improving,'' said Flavio Datz, a trader with Agora CTVM Ltda., a Rio de Janeiro brokerage. The government has done a good job to balance expectations, small rises are matched by small declines. We're at a kind of equilibrium.

International investors have helped push up prices on emerging market assets as declining interest rates in Europe and the U.S. plumb the lowest levels in decades.

Yields on European bonds fell to a three-decade low today on speculation a faltering economic rebound will prompt the European Central Bank to pare its benchmark interest rate in coming months. Yields on U.S. five-year notes fell to a 50-year low after reports showing declines in producer prices and consumer confidence added to speculation the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates.

Brazil's benchmark target overnight lending rate has been held at a four-year high of 26.5 percent for three months in a bid to slow inflation running at its fastest pace in seven years.

Ahead

The real rose in the futures market. The U.S. dollar contract for July 1 settlement, the most traded on Sao Paulo's BM&F commodities and futures exchange, fell 1 percent to 2.8610 reais to the dollar.

Interest rate futures fell for the fifth day in six. The futures rate on one-day bank deposits for January delivery, the most-traded the BM&F, fell 25 basis points to 23.16 percent from 23.41 percent yesterday. The contract indicates investor expectations for the end of December. A basis point equals 0.01 percentage point.

Brazil's 8 percent bond maturing in 2014 rose from yesterday's record closing high, adding 0.19 cent to 92.19 cents on the dollar, paring the yield to 9.90 percent, according to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

Mexico

Mexico's peso rose for the second day in three after Mexico's central bank took no action on interest rates in its regularly scheduled twice-monthly meeting on monetary policy.

The peso gained 1.1 percent to 10.5385 per dollar from 10.6595 yesterday in Mexico City and U.S. trading. The currency has declined 1.6 percent in 2003, the worst performance of the 16 most widely traded currencies.

Banks are playing a game with the central bank and interest rates,'' said Luis Garcia Pena, who manages $360 million in debt at Investra Consultores in Monterrey, Mexico. When interest rates fall, people sell off their positions and buy dollars.''

The central bank, which raises and lowers peso lending to commercial banks in an effort to influence interest rates, said that the daily money-market short will remain at 25 million pesos a day ($2.4 million), or 700 million pesos per month.

The currency rose in the futures trading, with the peso contract for September delivery, the most traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, rising for the second day in three, adding 1.5 percent to 9.3875 pesos per dollar.

Colombia, Argentina

Colombia's peso rose for the first day in three, adding 0.4 percent to 2,821.40 per dollar from 2,833.10 per dollar yesterday.

Chile's peso was unchanged at 707.55 per dollar and Argentina's peso rose 0.3 percent to 2.8280 per dollar, boosting its gains against the dollar in 2003 to 19 percent, the second- best performance of the 59 tracked by Bloomberg.

Peru's new sol strengthened for a third day, gaining 0.2 percent to 3.4703 per dollar from 3.4783 per dollar yesterday in Lima, boosting its gains in 2003 to 1.3 percent. Venezuela fixed its bolivar at 1,598 per dollar earlier this year. Last Updated: June 13, 2003 16:22 EDT

<a href=www.zenit.org>ZENIT - The World Seen From Rome Code: ZE03061308 Date: 2003-06-13

CARACAS, Venezuela, JUNE 13, 2003 (Zenit.org).- The head of the Catholic bishops' conference expressed his concern over Parliament's loss of authority, and lamented that the law is being applied only at the whim of the government.

In a statement published Wednesday, Archbishop Baltazar Enrique Porras Cardozo, president of the episcopal conference, said: "This is a mortal blow to the legislative power, in which any kind of opinion that is not in line with that of the government, must simply be eliminated."

"It is a blow that destroys the real meaning of the independence of powers," he said.

According to the archbishop, the political situation in Venezuela does not guarantee full respect of democracy and undermines the existence of institutions, Vatican Radio reported.

The archbishop's concern is directed particularly at a new law that regulates the media.

The "law of social responsibility in radio and television" has been severely criticized by the political opposition and the publishing world as a governmental attempt at censoring all voices that disagree with the official line.

Albany Democrat-Herald, Tuesday, June 24, 2003 Last modified Friday, June 13, 2003 1:41 PM PDT By Jennifer Rouse

When Roger Hawthorne of Albany went to the post office to mail a letter to Iraq last week, he was hoping to make a connection.

"We always just hear about what the government is doing in Iraq," he said. "I'd like to know how I can help specific local people over there. I'd like to be able to close my eyes and see a person, not a mass of people."

He thought he had a good chance of making a personal connection, because through his church he had obtained the address of the National Protestant Evangelical Church in Mosul. So he was dismayed when he went to mail the letter and learned that the U.S. Postal Service has discontinued all mail service to Iraq.

"It's important to me that the people of Iraq know that the people of America care about them," Hawthorne said. "I don't understand why we can't get the mail through."

According to the U.S. Postal Service Web site, mail in Iraq has been suspended since April 7. That doesn't affect mail to military personnel staying at military bases and camps, just Iraqi citizens. According to the site, the post was suspended due to the war and there "being no viable option for postal deliveries to that country."

Any mail for Iraq that gets to the post office will be returned to the sender with a note explaining the suspension of the mail service.

Private companies like UPS and Fed-Ex have not delivered to Iraq in years because of the United Nations' trade embargo. Roger House, a window technician at the Albany Post Office, said until the ban is lifted, it's better for everyone if people just wait to send their mail.

"When there is an uprising in a certain country, if someone here sends a letter, it might just get destroyed, not delivered," House said.

Iraq is not the only country with postal restrictions. Mail to Afghanistan is restricted to "airmail letter post-items, including post cards, postal cards, and aerogrammes, weighing a maximum of four pounds," the Web site says.

Other countries that currently have postal restrictions include Cuba, Guinea Bissau, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, North Korea, Somalia and Venezuela. More information about the restrictions is available online at www.usps.com.

Hawthorne has written to Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., and he's hoping that things will change soon.

He doesn't see why the government can't at least truck a load of mail in to be distributed on a will-call basis once a month. A retired pastor in Hawthorne's church, Dick Cochran of Albany, was a missionary in Mosul in the 1950s. Two young men Cochran worked with back then are now elders at the Mosul Presbyterian church, and Hawthorne was hoping to get in touch with them and find out how people here could help people there.

"I think something neat could come out of it," he said. "I'd like the people of Iraq of all faiths to know that we care. It just doesn't seem like it should be that complicated to get some mail through."

13 Jun 2003 19:52:58 GMT By Patrick Markey

CARACAS, Venezuela, June 13 (Reuters) - At least three people were wounded on Friday, two by gunfire, after Venezuelan police clashed with militant supporters of President Hugo Chavez.

Police fired volleys of gas canisters, sending white stinging clouds wafting through the streets of the eastern Petare neighborhood after a few hundred Chavez sympathizers pelted them with bottles, stones and fireworks.

One police officer and one civilian were wounded by gunfire and another officer was injured by a thrown object, Caracas Fire Services Chief Col. Rodolfo Briceno told Reuters.

Ambulances evacuated patients from a nearby hospital to escape the tear gas as protesters and local residents scurried for cover into side streets.

A block away, a few thousand opposition party supporters rallied to demand a referendum on the mandate of Chavez, whom they blame for driving Venezuela into political and economic ruin.

"Chavez has to go. He's done nothing but trick us. He talks but never delivers," said Nelida Sanoja, an unemployed secretary carrying a huge green flag of the Copei Christian Democratic party.

Political tensions over the government of populist Chavez have troubled Venezuela for more than 18 months. At least 50 people have been killed in street clashes and violence since April last year when Chavez survived a short-lived coup.

Last month, one man was shot to death and around 20 wounded by gunfire in an opposition rally in another impoverished pro-Chavez district in the west of the capital.

"It's either bullets or votes and we want the solution to be through votes," Eduardo Fernandez, president of Copei told local television at the rally.

His opponents accuse the president of dragging Venezuela toward Cuban-style communism. But the fiery leader brands his foes rich elites bent on scuttling the reforms he says are aimed at tackling poverty in the world's No. 5 oil exporter.

Chavez, who weathered a two-month opposition strike ended in February, has vowed to press on with his self-styled revolution. Opposition leaders hope to cut short his mandate with a referendum after Aug. 19 -- halfway through his current term, which is due to end in early 2007.

BBC News Oil prices have fallen sharply after new figures suggested that world stockpiles are bigger than originally thought.

The International Energy Agency, a body which monitors global oil supplies, on Friday said it was upgrading by 79 million barrels its previous estimate of stockpiles held by major consuming countries.

The upgrade, which raised the IEA's global supply estimate to 2.4 billion barrels, helped push US light crude prices down by $1.18, or nearly 4%, to $30.33 on Friday.

The decline partly reversed a price rally earlier this week triggered by fears that producers' cartel OPEC was planning to cut production levels.

A fall in oil prices is usually welcomed by major consuming countries, as cheaper energy costs help curb inflation.

Tight market

However, the IEA said the overall supply situation remains uncertain.

"The market is obviously better supplied than we thought as little as two weeks ago, but stocks are still low and fundamentals are still tight," said Klaus Rehaag, editor of the IEA monthly oil market report.

Oil prices have been boosted this year by disruption to Iraqi supplies during the US-led campaign to topple Sadam Hussein's regime.

A strike by oil workers in Venezuela, and social unrest in Nigeria, have also pushed the market higher.

Iraq, which accounted for about 4% of world exports before the war, clinched its first major sale of oil since the conflict ended on Thursday, and is expected to get back to full capacity later this year.

The OPEC countries, which aim to keep oil prices within a range of $22 - $28, will meet again on 31 July to assess how the resumption of Iraqi supplies has affected prices.

They may cut their output levels if they decide that prices have fallen too low.