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To: Zardoz who wrote (36824)	7/7/1999 11:05:00 PM
From: Probart	Respond to of 116752

I could live with that! Someone else has to always clean up the mess. Arms team goes to Baghdad soon to shut down UN lab By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS, July 7 (Reuters) - A team of disarmament experts from South Africa, Russia, China and Germany goes to Baghdad next week to shut down a controversial U.N. laboratory in the Iraqi capital, a U.N. spokesman said on Wednesday. The scientists, accompanied by diplomats and other officials, leave for Bahrain on Thursday and then go to the Jordanian capital of Amman over the weekend for the trip to Baghdad, spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said. Samples of chemical materials in the laboratory, which Iraq says are dangerous, were left behind by the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) when it left Baghdad in mid-December and had expected to return in a matter of weeks. But Iraq will not let UNSCOM scientists or their associates from a Swiss government laboratory, who helped set up the operation, back into the country and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's office agreed to these demands. Instead the United Nations, at the suggestion of Russia, asked the Hague-based U.N. Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to recruit the scientists. Almeida e Silva named the chemical experts as Dirk van Niekerk of South Africa, a chemical production technologist and the team leader; Li Hua, a Chinese analytical chemist; Sergei Orlov, a Russian analytical chemist; and Wolfgang Beyer, a microbiologist at Hohenheim University in Stuttgart, Germany. Accompanying the experts is Miroslav Miklasz, a medical doctor from Poland; Jaakko Ylitalo of Finland, the former administrator for UNSCOM in Baghdad who is now in Bahrain; and Prakash Shah, Annan's special representative in Iraq. Once they arrive in Baghdad diplomats from Russia, France and China, all sympathetic to Iraq, are expected to join the group for the trip to laboratory. UNSCOM, in charge of ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, has denied that the chemical and biological testing samples were dangerous but asked Annan's office in late May to make arrangements for their removal before potential power failures in the summer. The commission has told the Security Council that the laboratory contained tiny quantities of chemical agents used to calibrate equipment, which it said ''do not represent a threat, even in case of an accident,'' as well as some 2.2 pounds (1 kg) of mustard gas recovered from Iraqi shells. Iraq and Russia have also alleged that UNSCOM stored explosives in the country, which the commission has denied. UNSCOM evacuated its staff on the eve of the mid-December U.S.-British air strikes and has not been allowed back into Iraq since then. 13:17 07-07-99 Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

To: Zardoz who wrote (36824)	7/8/1999 5:53:00 AM
From: Zardoz	Respond to of 116752

FX IN EUROPE-Intervention fears prop sagging euro LONDON, July 8 (Reuters) - The euro kept away from life lows set against the dollar overnight as fears that European central banks could intervene if it lost more ground surfaced early in the European session on Thursday. The currency of the 11-nation euro zone fell as far as $1.0169 in late Asian trading, but climbed back above $1.02 amid mounting wariness of central bank action. ''There are ongoing rumours that the European Central Bank is trying to buy some euros,'' said Lucas Krattiger, head of forex trading at Citibank in Zurich. ''The market got a bit nervous as we drew closer to $1.0150, which is the next big support level.'' By 0742 GMT, the euro was at $1.0090/92 from $1.0218/25 late in Europe on Wednesday, only 0.2 percent above its life lows and less than two cents away from the $1.00 borderline. ''As we draw closer to parity (in euro/dollar), the danger is that there will be more and more rumours about central banks' intervention,'' said a U.S. bank trader in London. Wariness that the Bank of Japan might also step in to curb yen gains against the euro helped the single currency to maintain a toehold above the key 124.50 yen support level. Euro/yen was at 124.63/76 from 124.86.90 in late Wednesday European trading. The market was kept on its toes about possible BOJ action by the latest remarks of senior Japanese Finance Ministry official Haruhiko Kuroda who reiterated on Thursday that he was continuing to watch dollar/yen and euro/yen exchange rates. ''If Japanese investors start to unwind their position in euro/yen, that would accelerate the fall of the euro and should prompt the BOJ to intervene,'' said Jeremy Stretch, currency strategist at NatWest Global Markets in London. Dollar/yen remained trapped in a tight trading band. It was at 122.36/41 early in Europe against 122.15/25 in late London trading on Wednesday. While fears of central bank action were temporarily keeping dollar bulls away from the euro, the dollar was scaling new peaks against the Swiss franc and was also firm against sterling. The dollar rose on Thursday to a new eight-year high of 1.5765 against the Swiss franc, getting nearer to the key June 1991 barrier of 1.5937 which will bring the dollar to 10-year highs if breached. Meanwhile, the pound remained mired near a 33-month low of $1.5550 hit on Wednesday ahead of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee decision on rates, expected at 1100 GMT. All 10 economists polled by Reuters on Wednesday said they expected the Bank of England to keep its key repo rate unchanged at five percent after the current MPC meeting. Stretch said signs of economic improvement in Britain and the recent fall in the pound on a trade-weighted basis seemed to indicate no more cuts were on the cards. ''Recent data show that economic activity in Britain is moving to the upside,'' he said. ''This suggests that the rate cutting cycle has ceased.'' The pound stood at $1.5570/75 and 65.44/50 pence per euro from $1.5595/05 and 65.49/03 late on Wednesday. biz.yahoo.com