FT: US to release 30m barrels of reserve oil Bill Richardson, the US energy secretary, said that US President Bill Clinton had authorised the release of a limited amount of oil from the US government's emergency reserves, in order to force the price of crude oil lower. http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3RWCWBG DC&live=true&tagid=ZZZU2IUKJ0C FT: Euro's decline prompts world's banks to step in The world's main central banks took financial markets by surprise day with a co-ordinated intervention aimed at ending the euro's relentless decline against other major currencies. http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3UHPU8G DC&live=true&tagid=ZZZU2IUKJ0C FT: Milosevic 'plans to retain power' A senior Yugoslav official has given a clear warning that President Slobodan Milosevic intends to remain in power even if he loses this Sunday's elections. http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT31SLC4G DC&live=true&tagid=ZZZU2IUKJ0C FT: South Korea to inject $45bn to aid banks South Korea has said it will inject a further $45bn into the ailing banking sector to calm market fears about a new financial crisis. http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3Q7C23G DC&live=true&tagid=ZZZU2IUKJ0C FT: Schroeder plan to offset oil price rises Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany announced a DM2.9bn (E1.48bn, $1.28bn) compensation package to offset soaring oil prices as opinion polls showed support for his government tumbling. http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3I5P38G DC&live=true&tagid=ZZZU2IUKJ0C Times: World banks launch euro rescue mission FROM LEA PATERSON IN PRAGUE, PHILIP WEBSTER AND JANET BUSH THE world's most powerful nations yesterday stunned the financial markets by throwing billions of pounds into a high-risk rescue operation for the crisis-ridden euro. Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, sanctioned the use of tens of millions of pounds in a co- ordinated international effort to prop up the value of the ailing single currency. The total from Britain is understood to be less than �100 million; the Chancellor gave approval in response to a request from the European Central Bank, believing the move to be justified on the grounds of promoting world economic stability. In Britain the Conservatives did not oppose the intervention, which, if successful, would help British exporters. But it revived memories of the events, eight years ago to the month, when billions of pounds of taxpayers' money was poured into an ill-fated attempt to keep Britain in the exchange-rate mechanism. Michael Portillo, the Shadow Chancellor, said that for it to have happened at all was a big vote of no confidence in the euro and the economic fundamentals behind it. "Whether it will work or not remains to be seen - though the history of currency interventions like this is far from encouraging." Central banks of members of the Group of Seven industrialised nations (G7) bought billions of pounds of euros on foreign exchanges as fears grew that the currency's disastrous performance since its launch last year was jeopardising world economic growth. Preliminary signs last night were that the G7's risky move had met with limited success. The euro initially surged when central banks began intervening in the market a little after midday, but this mini- recovery proved short-lived. In late European trade, the currency sank back to 88 cents to the US dollar, just over half a cent above the level before the banks began to act. In London the euro closed at 60.30p compared with 59.97p on Thursday. The Treasury confirmed that it had asked the Bank of England to use some of the Government's $40 billion foreign exchange reserves before a G7 summit in Prague today. Times: Milosevic harnesses one-horse towns RICHARD BEESTON IN SMEDEREVO IF ONLY the rest of Serbia were as loyal as this drab industrial town on the Danube, then President Milosevic could comfortably put his feet up and cruise to a landslide re-election victory tomorrow. Smederevo, 30 miles southeast of Belgrade, is a one-factory town, with a tradition of voting for the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), whose inhabitants, through conviction and sometimes fear, believe that they need Mr Milosevic as much as he needs them in the closing days of his flagging campaign. With only one day to go before the polls open, the Serb leader is depending on the ordinary workers, in towns and villages where his support is still strong, to come out and save him in the greatest political test he has faced since coming to power more than a decade ago. Mladen, a painter-decorator wearing a communist-era black leather cap, looked surprised when asked who he would be voting for, as though there was little choice in the matter. "Slobodan Milosevic, of course. A vote for anyone else means voting for our enemies, it means our destruction," he said, politely noting that only last year Nato aircraft knocked out the town's bridge and oil depot. "The world, apart from the Russians, hates us because we are Orthodox. If Milosevic is no longer there to defend us, we will lose Montenegro, then [the Hungarian region of] Vojvodino and then [the Muslim region of] Sandzak," he said emphatically. His opinion was not the ranting of some paranoid ultra-nationalist but the conviction shared by many ordinary Serbs, who have been fed on a steady diet of anti-Western propaganda and sincerely believe that the nation state faces an existential challenge. While the nationalist theme certainly has popular backing - with all four main presidential candidates espousing the Serb cause - there are also far more practical means of ensuring that this town, and many others across the country, votes the way the Milosevic regime wants. The main employer here is the Sartid metalworks factory, a state-owned enterprise, run by Dusan Matkovic, one the main figures in the SPS hierarchy. Workers claimed that they had been instructed to vote for Mr Milosevic and were warned that without him the factory would most likely collapse - and with it the town's future. The story can be heard repeatedly across Serbia. Although the country's economy has been in sharp decline caused by a decade of wars, refugees and economic sanctions, workers who do still have jobs in state enterprises cling to their jobs even more tightly. "Why go and muck everything up?" asked Snejen, a retired worker. "The present is not perfect but it gives enough for people to survive. The alternative could be much worse." Although Mr Milosevic has projected his rule in a nationalist guise, he remains at heart a product of the Yugoslav Communist Party he served in the 1980s before rising to become President of Serbia in 1989. While communist ideology has largely been discredited and state controls dismantled across the former Soviet bloc, the hybrid form still lives on in Serbia, where the economy, the media and the security forces remain under tight central control. Television news usually consists of coverage of party meetings, the opening of bridges and the inspection of factories, with the only foreign news usually concentrating on bad news from the West, like terrorist attacks, natural disasters and political scandals. The big test now for Mr Milosevic is whether his obsolete system of government, already swept aside throughout the Balkans, can survive what is in effect a national referendum. It has remained intact through a decade of turmoil and the state apparatus will use all its considerable power to make sure that it is still in place on Monday morning. It is clear that the system will remain intact in Smederevo and other Milosevic strongholds, but this time that may not be enough to save him. _______________________________________________ Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
