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To: Seeker of Truth who wrote (56100)	11/17/2004 11:10:32 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Pictures of N Korea's Kim 'missing' The North Korean leader has been in power since 1997 Some portraits of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il have reportedly been taken down in Pyongyang, news agencies quoted diplomats as saying on Tuesday. The portraits were removed from some public buildings, the diplomats said. North Korea is one of the world's most secretive states, and it is difficult to know if the reports are significant. But South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that Mr Kim ordered the move himself, amid worries he had been "lifted too high". Yonhap did not name its source, who was said to have good contacts in the North. Such an explanation, if true, would square with other recent reports that the North Korean leader was scaling back on the cult of personality that surrounds him. This is false information, lies. Can the sun be removed from the sky? It is not possible North Korean embassy official Portraits of Mr Kim and his father, Kim Il-sung, are ubiquitous in North Korea, where they symbolise the ruling party's grip over every aspect of peoples' lives. An unnamed diplomat told the Russian news agency Itar-Tass that at receptions hosted by the North Korean foreign ministry, guests had recently only seen pictures of Kim Jong-il's father, Kim Il-sung, and a mark on the wall where a portrait of the North Korean leader used to hang. "Only a light rectangular spot on the yellow whitewashed wall and a nail have remained in the place where the second portrait used to be," the diplomat said. The French news agency AFP quoted a diplomat as saying that one place where pictures of Mr Kim had certainly disappeared from was the Grand People's Cultural Palace. "In Pyongyang there is always a lot of speculation and on this question too, there is a lot of speculation," the source said. The diplomat who spoke to Itar-Tass said that he understood that a secret edict had been issued to remove portraits of Mr Kim, but that no explanation has been given. However, a Canadian tourist interviewed by Reuters on Tuesday said that he had seen plenty of portraits or Mr Kim around the city. "Just yesterday, actually, I was in an office and saw the pictures on the wall," he said. An official at the North Korean embassy in Moscow denied the reports about the portraits being taken down. "This is false information, lies. Can the sun be removed from the sky? It is not possible," he told Itar-Tass. news.bbc.co.uk

To: Seeker of Truth who wrote (56100)	11/18/2004 4:31:40 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 74559

Brazilians gain from surge of interest in ethanol By Raymond Colitt in São Paulo Published: November 17 2004 17:35 \| Last updated: November 17 2004 17:35 Growing global demand for cleaner vehicle fuels and the possibility of falling farm subsidies in Europe have sparked several investments in Brazil's ethanol industry. Brazilian and foreign investors are set to invest as much as $3bn (€2.3bn, £1.6bn) over the next five years to increase ethanol production by 40 per cent, according to Unica, the São Paulo sugar cane federation. Current ethanol production is about 15bn litres a year. Antonio de Padua, Unica's technical director, says 40 plants are to be built by 2009, each costing about $80m. A dozen are already under construction, he says. "This is the beginning of a massive investment cycle in the sector," said Clayton Miranda, president of Coimex, a commodities trader that is investing $50m in a new plant. Huge water and land supplies help make Brazil the world's largest, cheapest producer of ethanol, derived locally from sugar cane. Production costs for one cubic metre average $160, says FNP, an agricultural consultancy in Sa~o Paulo. In the US corn-based ethanol costs roughly 40 per cent more and Europe's beet-based ethanol roughly double. With far lower emission levels than hydrocarbons, demand for ethanol is expected to surge, with many parts of Europe, Asia, and the Americas legislating for ethanol or other clean fuels to be mixed into petrol. In Brazil, ethanol makes up between 25 per cent and 100 per cent of automotive fuel. "Ethanol is becoming a global commodity and Brazil is its most competitive producer," says Luiz Guilherme Zancaner, president of Unialco, a cane distiller and refiner. With the prospect of falling farm subsidies, European investors are moving into Brazil. Earlier this year Louis Dreyfus, the French agricultural group, bought its third sugar cane processing plant in Brazil and "has further growth plans" there, according to Fernando de Moraes, vice-president of Coinbra, its subsidiary. Tereos, another French group, recently spent R$100m ($36m, €28m, £19m) to boost its ethanol output from 75m litres in 2004 to a projected 110m in 2006. "Everybody wants a foothold in Brazil before the subsidies go," says Alberto Klumb, chief financial officer with Tereos' local Guarani Acucar unit. Germany's Südzucker says it, too, is considering investments in Brazil. The high international oil price has fuelled interest in ethanol. "Ethanol is extremely attractive at $30 a barrel of oil. Imagine at $50," says José Vicente Ferraz, partner at FNP. Brazilians are also beginning to work around tariff barriers, still the largest obstacles to exports. Coimex recently installed an ethanol plant in Jamaica and will begin exporting it to the US in February under a scheme of trade benefits granted to Caribbean countries. news.ft.com