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To: Giraffe who wrote (22307)	10/26/1998 8:42:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116753

Hussein's illness threatens Middle East stability By Alan Philps JUBILATION over the latest Israeli-Palestinian withdrawal agreement has been dampened by the realisation that King Hussein of Jordan, who stepped in to prevent the talks collapsing, may not be on the scene much longer. <Picture> King Hussein: seriously ill King Hussein, who has been on the throne for 45 years, is suffering from cancer of the lymph glands and has been undergoing radiation therapy in America. While he has made no secret of his ill health, the sight of him at the Middle East summit at the Wye Plantation in Maryland - totally bald from chemotherapy - brought home the seriousness of his cancer. It has raised the question of who would have the authority in future to remind the summiteers that they were dealing with questions of peace and war, not petty political advantage. While there were cross words between Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, and Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, as well as between Mr Netanyahu and President Clinton, all listened with respect to the king. Many observers saw his triumph as a diplomatic swansong. According to the Israeli press, quoting American intelligence sources, his cancer is thought to be terminal and there have been suggestions that he has only three months to live - though none of this has been confirmed in Amman. As his health has weakened, the king has loosened his hold on power in favour of his brother, Crown Prince Hassan. A highly educated man, the Crown Prince is a more cerebral and earnest figure than his brother. He does not have his military prestige - the monarch was trained at Sandhurst - to bolster his authority with the army. The loss of an elder statesman will affect the power balance in the region. Israeli Right-wingers have long seen the kingdom of Jordan as the natural home of the Palestinians, if they could be persuaded to leave Israel and the occupied territories. However, King Hussein has stood in the way, carrying out the near impossible task of melding his Palestinian and Bedouin subjects into a stable whole. Beneath the surface in Jordan discontent is rising, channelled increasingly into support for Islamic groups which oppose the country's peace treaty with Israel. Without King Hussein's prestige, Jordan may no longer be an island of stability in a turbulent region. telegraph.co.uk

To: Giraffe who wrote (22307)	10/27/1998 2:55:00 AM
From: Alex	Respond to of 116753

BUFFETT MULLING BUYING OUT LONG-TERM By BETH PISKORA ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Super-investor Warren Buffett may be ready to breathe new life into Long-Term Capital Management, the troubled hedge fund that had a near-death experience last month. Buffett, who was rebuffed in a previous attempt to take over the hedge fund, is now believed to be planning a buyout of the fund from the consortium of 14 Wall Street banks and brokerages that put up $3.6 billion to bail out the fund last month, according to a report in the Times of London. The consortium, which got a 90 percent stake in the fund in return for the new capital, allowed the fund's original investors, including founder and portfolio manager John Meriwether, to retain a 10 percent stake. The fund is said to be worth about $3.8 billion now, though its investments could ultimately be worth much, much more. Although a committee of consortium partners - representatives from Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Travelers Group and UBS - has been attempting to sell off some of the holdings, the fund at one time had outstanding holdings that would have been worth $1.25 trillion if they had all paid off. It was not immediately clear whether Buffett would be bidding for a full 100 percent stake, or just the 90 percent held by the bailout partners. A spokeswoman for Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway said it was corporate policy not to comment on market speculation about the company's investment ideas. A spokesman for the consortium also declined comment, as did a spokesman for Long-Term. But Buffett is no stranger to Meriwether. The two men first became acquainted in 1991 when the Oracle of Omaha briefly took over Salomon Brothers when the investment bank teetered on the edge of collapse after being indicted in a government bond trading scandal. Meriwether, who headed Salomon's bond trading desk, lost his job, though he personally claimed not to have been involved in the fraud. But Meriwether and Buffett reportedly remained friends, even as Meriwether started his new venture, a hedge fund in which the minimum investment would be $10 million. The fund eventually grew as big as $400 billion before getting into trouble earlier this year by betting on overseas bonds while investors around the world poured money into the safe haven of U.S. government bonds. According to the Times of London report, Buffett then faxed a $250 million buyout offer to Meriwether, giving the disgraced portfolio manager 50 minutes to accept his offer and two days to leave the premises of Long-Term Capital's tony Greenwich, Conn.-based offices. Meriwether refused. But now that Buffett can deal directly with the consortium of Wall Street banks to acquire a whopping 90 percent of the hedge fund, Meriwether may have no choice but to acquiesce. If Buffett managed to turn around Long-Term Capital with the help of his own highly-rated team, including Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charlie Munger and Geico's CEO Louis Simpson, the profits would be substantial, even by his standards, reports the Times. nypostonline.com