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To: Dragon 1 who wrote (36677)	2/3/1999 3:51:00 PM
From: Platter	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 95453

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 3 (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Wednesday it will no longer allow Americans and Britons to work in its humanitarian program in Iraq after Baghdad failed to give assurances for their safety. Baghdad early in January had moved to evict 13 Britons and one American working for the United Nations, saying it feared for their safety because of "deep popular anger" after the mid-December U.S.-British airstrikes. At the time the United Nations rejected Iraq's directive insisting that it alone could decide on the composition of its staff. But on Wednesday, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said Undersecretary-General Benon Sevan, in charge of security, had decided all British and American staff should leave. In practice, the order affects two Americans in Baghdad. U.N. officials said the other 14 involved were already out of the country. But John Mills, the spokesman for Sevan, would not say whether the United Nations had asked the 14 to leave earlier or they did not get their visas renewed. Iraq had made an exception for three staff working in senior posts in Baghdad, one of whom was out of the country this week. Eckhard said the two Americans remaining in the Iraqi capital would have to leave because Sevan did not think any employees should be singled out. They are the secretary to Prakash Shah, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special envoy in Iraq and the deputy director of the World Food Program. Reactions in Washington and London were low-key. A British Foreign office spokesman said, "We regret that the United Nations has been forced to take this decision. We understand they had done this in the interests of preserving the safety of those involved." U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin said the problem had been evolving over time and is "not some new problem that has generated a new decision by Iraq." In an initial letter on the controversy to Iraq on Jan. 5, U.N. legal counsel Hans Corell said it was Baghdad's responsibility, under its agreements with the United Nations, to protect all U.N. staff. Eckhard said no reply had been received, thereby prompting Sevan's decision. "It was clear that the (Iraqi) government was not going to reverse its decision," he added. The United Nations has some 420 humanitarian staff running the "oil-for-food" program in Iraq, including three northern Kurdish provinces not directly under Baghdad's control. The program permits Iraq to sell up to $5.256 billion worth of oil every six months to buy basic goods for ordinary Iraqis living under 8-year-old U.N. sanctions. Of the 14 people on Iraq's original list, all but two work in the Kurdish-dominated north, where the United Nations had complete control of the oil-for-food program. Five Britons worked on clearing mines in the north, a program Iraq dislikes. Two on the list were British employees of the Dutch Saybolt firm, which monitors the flow of oil to Turkey and through Iraq's Gulf port. Saybolt has at least 14 staff in Iraq under contract to the United Nations. Mills said the Britons with Saybolt were on short-term contracts and had already been rotated out.

To: Dragon 1 who wrote (36677)	2/3/1999 3:52:00 PM
From: Platter	Respond to of 95453

HOLDING up , OSX up 3.55

To: Dragon 1 who wrote (36677)	2/3/1999 3:56:00 PM
From: Platter	Respond to of 95453

LONDON, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Oil markets ticked higher on Wednesday despite fresh signs of persistent glut in global crude oil inventories and new forecasts of weak oil prices ahead. International benchmark Brent futures last traded four cents higher at $10.89 a barrel in London, with traders pointing to a discrepancy in U.S. inventory data as the short-term impetus behind the rise. Some afternoon support came from news that the U.N. is withdrawing all American and British staff from key producer Iraq for safety reasons. But prices fell back after diplomatic reassurance that Iraqi crude exports under a U.N. "oil-for-food" programme would continue. None of the oil monitors present there are from the United States or Britain, and a Western diplomat familiar with the situation said he saw no "substantial effect" to the "oil-for-food" programme. Traders earlier turned bearish following the release late on Tuesday of American Petroleum Institute (API) data showing a hefty 6.1 million barrel rise in U.S. crude stocks last week. But the U.S. Department of Energy, in its status report early Wednesday, put the crude stockbuild at a more manageable 2.6 million barrels, closer to market expectations. Brimming crude oil storage tanks in major consumer centres have depressed markets since late 1997, forcing oil analysts to slash their forecasts for oil prices in both 1999 and 2000. The World Bank on Wednesday forecast that crude oil prices this year would average just $12 a barrel, and then to edge up to $15 in 2000 if the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is successful in reining in its oil production. The Bank also said that while moderate growth in oil demand is expected this year in Europe and North America, no growth is anticipated in Asian Pacific nations, as further reductions in demand from Japan materialise. OPEC ministers, meanwhile, seem unable to agree on a clear way forward in supporting world markets through further production cuts. Kuwait said on Wednesday it favoured an OPEC meeting prior to one planned for March 23, but added it saw little readiness for such a gathering. "This matter we called for many times," Oil Minister Sheikh Saud Nasser al-Sabah told reporters. "But I can't see readiness to meet before OPEC's next meeting in March." The minister has repeatedly stressed that fellow OPEC states should meet, around mid-February, to discuss measures needed to boost sagging prices, including further production cuts. He also stressed that Kuwait was in full compliance with its pledged cuts and was producing at its agreed level of 1.98 million bpd. A Reuters survey on Tuesday estimated Kuwaiti production in January at 2.09 million bpd. Prices in dollars per barrel: Feb 03 Feb 02 (close) (close) IPE March Brent $10.89 $10.85 NYMEX March light crude $12.40 $12.30 MORE * end of story *