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Gold/Mining/Energy : Caussa Capital (formerly Antares) T.CAU -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bill718 who wrote (2353)	1/24/1998 2:01:00 AM
From: bill718	Respond to of 4718

FOCUS-Moslem party backs Suharto, banks to merge Saturday January 24, 1:13 am Eastern Time By Lewa Pardomuan JAKARTA, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Indonesia's President Suharto has won further support towards unanimous re-election for a seventh term in office with the endorsement by the country's second largest political party. The move gives the 76-year-leader crucial Moslem backing at a time of growing economic turmoil and unprecedented calls for Suharto to step down at the end of his present term. Antara news agency reported on Saturday that the Moslem-based United Development Party (PPP) had expressed its support for Suharto. Earlier this month, the ruling Golkar party, basically made up from the country's bureaucracy, named Suharto as its candidate in the March presidential poll. The president let it be known last Tuesday he was prepared to stand for a seventh five-year term in office despite questions about his age and health and growing concern over his leadership. The only other legal party, the Christian-Nationalist Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), has still to name its candidate, although its ousted dissident leader Megawati Sukarnoputri has thrown her hat into the ring. Suharto, in power since 1965, had always been expected to be re-elected by the largely ceremonial 1000-member People's Consultative Assembly if he stood. But he has come under pressure to step down over perceptions he has mismanaged attempts to drag Indonesia out of its financial mess. Suharto has unveiled a series of economic reforms over the past 10 days under an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in return for a $43 billion bail-out. The IMF reform package has so far failed to check a plunge in the rupiah currency. Four banks, including the large privately owned Bank Umum Nasional and middle-ranking Bank Duta said on Saturday they would merge to create ''a solid and healthy bank.'' The government is pushing the country's more than 200 private banks into mergers as part of its reform of the shaky financial system. Bank Duta director Muchtar Mandala said the new bank would have assets of about 21 trillion rupiah ($1.55 billion). Indonesia signed a fresh economic reform deal with the IMF on January 15, which superseded a package agreed last October. The government was widely seen as backsliding on the initial reform agreement. Following the PPP's move to back Suharto, Antara quoted party officials as saying it had also made a list of candidates for vice-president, including Research and Technology Minister Jusuf Habibie, incumbent Vice-President Try Sutrisno and Planning Minister Ginanjar Kartasasmita. Other vice-presidential candidates include Information Minister Hartono and army chief-of-staff General Wiranto, diplomats have said. During last May's general elections, won easily by Golkar, the PPP was highly critical of government policy, dwelling particularly on the issue of corruption, and even threatened to refuse to endorse the polling results. The Jakarta Post newspaper on Saturday quoted armed forces chief of socio-political affairs Lieutenant-General Yusuf Yosfiah as saying the military welcomed either a military or civilian figure for the vice-presidential post. Speculation has mounted the big-spending Habibie, who also heads the country's aircraft maker which had its state funding cancelled under the agreement with the IMF, might be a leading contender and therefore Suharto's possible successor. But diplomatic analysts say Habibie's past relations with the military have been strained over his control of weapons procurement and strategic industries. The announcement of a fresh bank merger plan on Saturday indicated the country was moving ahead to try to consolidate its banking industry, which is hobbled by bad debts. Apart from Bank Umum Nasional and Bank Duta, the other two involved in the plan are unlisted Bank Bukopin and Bank Tugu. ''The aim of this merger is to create a solid and healthy bank with advanced technology,'' Bank Duta's Mandala said. He said the merged institution would hopefully be established by June. Last Sunday, Bank International Indonesia, a major private bank, said it would merge with four other banks. The crux of Indonesia's woes is its private sector debt. Analysts have slammed the government for not showing enough leadership on the corporate debt mess, which has hampered firms and threatens to drive the economy into the ground. They have said foreign corporate debt -- $66 billion out of total external debt of $140 billion -- was virtually impossible to pay off given the rupiah's plunge. The fragile rupiah ended in Jakarta on Friday at 13,000/13,500 after falling to a day's low of 15,000. On Thursday, it crashed to a historic low of 17,000, compared with 2,400 against the dollar last July when the region's currency woes began. Highlighting regional concern over Indonesia's predicament, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer was due in Jakarta on Sunday, with diplomats monitoring any potential threat for Australians in Indonesia in the wake of its economic crisis. ''Certainly on the streets (in Indonesia) there is tension and there is an expectation that as the economic situation gets worse that problem may be exacerbated,'' Foreign Affairs and Trade department spokeswoman Sally Mansfield told Reuters. Jakarta and other parts of mainly Moslem Indonesia have been relatively calm. Apart from food looting in East Java and panic buying in the capital over rising prices, there have been few unusual incidents or a reported rise in attacks on foreigners.

To: bill718 who wrote (2353)	1/24/1998 11:26:00 AM
From: john	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4718

wayne re edmonton show they have all slack in the world, totally understandably and i mis wrote or you mis understood my intent their. they were better prepared for calgary show but far from professional, if i were a new investor in calgary i would not have bought after watching that presentation. they need a salesman to sell the story in my opinion, they created very little excitment, i hoped they learned from both edmonton and calgary, the lesson to be learned from edmonton fly out the evening before. the light plane crashing at the edmonton airport is a good example of what can go wrong that is why in the sales game you prepare yourself and part of that is being there, had i been organizing that show i would have had all my people their the night before. afterall wayne they could have caught the evening flight to edmonton and NOT missed a moment in the office on the wednesday. regards john