Asia-Europe Meeting vows to protect interests of
developing nations

BERLIN, Oct 11: Economic Ministers from 25 Asian and European countries have pledged to give strongest support to the planned launch of a new multilateral trade round later this year and vowed to protect the interests of developing nations during further opening up of the markets.

The ministers, including the fifteen-member European Union, who ended their second meeting under the aegis of the three-year old economic grouping Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) last night, also resolved to ensure full and faithful implementation of the results of the existing Uruguay round.

A eleven page declaration adopted at the two-day meeting here said particular attention should be made to implement and review issues and their early settlement so as to provide further impetus towards the full and active participation of all the 134 members in the WTO.

The declaration said the agenda for the new trade round due to be launched at next month’s WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle should encompass further liberalisation, improving and strengthening of rules and disciplines for an acceptable balance which responds to the interests of all WTO members.

The ASEM ministers agreed to take into account the interests and concerns of developing countries during the negotiations through enhanced and effective market access, strengthened and operational rules on special and differential treatment and by phased implementation of the new trade round.

Berlin meeting is the last major multilateral meeting before the Seattle conference.

German Economics Minister Dr Werner Muller said at a joint press conference that developing countries should have to profit from the new round even though there may not be complete agreement on the issues to be taken up in the new round.

He said a substantial number of ministers voiced support for a comprehensive round, encompassing not only the built-in-agenda issues and market access for all non-agricultural products, but also trade facilitation, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), competition, Government procurement and further work on the issue of trade and environment.

The 10-member Asian component in the ASEM comprises China, Japan, South Korea and the ASEAN countries Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei and Vietnam.

Some ministers proposed the need for further analytical work in conjunction with the ILO on the linkages between trade and core labour rights. A number of ministers expressed real difficulties with this issue, the declaration said.

Thai Deputy Premier and Commerce Minister Supachai Panitchpakdi espousing the cause of the third world countries said developing countries would outrightly reject any attempt to bring the issue of trade and labour in the WTO.

Stating that trade distortions were because of linkage with labour standards, Panitchpakdi proposed convening a high level dialogue under the aegis of any international group to eliminate differences on the vexed issue of linkage between labour and trade.

Panitchpakdi will be also serving as the WTO Director General after sharing the six-year term with New Zealand’s Mike Moore. (PTI)

Jamaica’s Roman catholics to repent for past sins

KINGSTON, JAMAICA, Oct 11: Jamaica’s Roman Catholic Church has said it will publicly repent this month for its role in the country’s history of slavery and genocide of the indigenous local arawak population.

"We have not, often, been mindful or charitable in our Christian crusade," the catholic archdiocese of Kingston said in a statement last week promising the day of repentance on October 17. The church said that it arrived at that conclusion while reflecting on its history in preparing itself for the new millennium.

Against that background, the Catholics said they would host an ecumenical service at the site of the cenotaph in Spanish town, Jamaica’s capital during most of its Colonial history.

Outlining the agenda for the day of repentance, the church said that its repentance and reconciliation will begin with the arawaks, "those whom our missionaries saw when they first arrived here, and continue through total emancipation of slavery in 1838."

Catholic leaders invited other religious denominations to participate, as well as modern-day maroons, descendants of runaway African slaves who lived in Jamaica’s mountains and battled its white planters.

They also said they had invited surviving arawaks, despite the widespread belief that they were exterminated by Jamaica’s early Spanish settlers, who arrived with Christopher Columbus in 1494. A Church spokesman said a family living in Kingston traced its roots to the arawaks.

The Roman catholic day of repentance and reconciliation was scheduled for one day after a similar exercise being organised by a broad-based group of other Christian denominations in response to a recent surge in criminal violence in the Caribbean island nation. (REUTERS)

International flights to halt in Pakistan for Y2K

KARACHI, Oct 11: International Airlines including Pakistan International Airlines will halt flights to and from Pakistan for 18 hours starting on the evening of December 31, a PIA official was quoted as saying.

The news daily quoted PIA chairman Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as saying operations would be suspended from 6 p.m (1300 gmt) on December 31 until noon (0700 gmt) January 1 and that PIA would check aircraft for Y2K computer problems before resuming flights.

"Like other international carriers, PIA will also stop its operations at the evening of December 31, 1999 and will resume at midday of January 1, 2000," Mr Abbasi was quoted as saying.

A PIA spokesman confirmed the report and said a formal announcement on the flight suspensions would be made later.

The newspaper quoted Mr Abbasi as saying PIA would carry out a series of tests of its aircraft for any computer glitches caused by the change to the year 2000 on the morning of January 1.

"Up till now all the (PIA) aircraft were tested for the Y2K problems at the simulator level and found clear but the final clearance can only be given after the actual flying," Mr Abbasi said.

Another senior PIA official was quoted as saying all the airline’s airbus industries and boeing co aircraft would be brought to Karachi and all fokker NV aircraft would be brought to Islamabad for the January 1 checks.

Most of PIA’s 30 planes are made by airbus and boeing.

The newspaper quoted sources as saying most of the airlines operating flights to Pakistan had rescheduled any flights they had in the country during the 18-hour period.

PIA said it would run tests on its ground-based systems for any Y2K problems from the middle of this month.

It said there were no problems with its ticketing systems because a new system was recently installed by the US travel services company Sabre Group Holdings Inc. (REUTERS)

Elvis impersonator high bidder for the King’s shirt

LAS VEGAS, Oct 11: An Elvis impersonator had his dream come true on Saturday night — he outbid the competition to buy one of the King’s sleek 1960s black polyester shirts for 8,500, dollars and doesn’t know whether to wear it or put it on a pedestal.

Anthony Ciaglia is sure of one thing, though: "if it wasn’t for Elvis I might not be here today." Ciaglia, 22, bought the shirt at the second day of an unprecedented three-day sale of Elvis Presley Memorabilia being auctioned off on behalf of the Singer’s estate.

Ciaglia, who earns his living impersonating Elvis in local restaurants and nightclubs, said when he was 15 years old he was in an accident and was brought back from the dead four times, only to lapse into a coma for 31 days.

To help get him out of it his parents played Elvis Presley tapes for him around the clock.

"When I came to I had to learn to do everything all over again — eat, walk, talk, swallow, you name it. But in the back of my mind I kept hearing this guy singing," he said.

Ciaglia was one of hundreds of people — ranging from corporate executives to diehard fans — who have turned a ballroom at the MGM Grand Hotel into a miniature graceland admiration society in an auction expected to raise 4.5 million dollars for a housing project for the homeless.

A man saying he represented Georges Marciano, the founder of Guess Jeans, paid 47,500 dollars on Saturday for a collection of 33 movie posters — one for each film Presley made.

Unknown buyers paid 10,000 dollars for a guitar pick used by Presley, 25,000 dollars for a pair of his black Satin Pajamas with a red pillow case with the letters "EP" in it and 35,000 dollars for a red coat with black fur cape.

In addition to the prices paid, buyers also have to pay 15 per cent premium to Guernsey’s auction house, which is conducting the sale, and local sales tax if applicable.

Other items sold on Thursday included Presley’s wristwatch, sold for 32,500 dollars and his Cigar box for 25,000 dollars. A baseball he once autographed went for 19,000 dollars.

Even Presley’s old credit cards became objects of desire as a signed Texaco card he once used went for 11,000 dollars while three unsigned cards fetched 3,500 dollars, 4,500 dollars and 5,500 dollars, in the sale dubbed "Graceland’s garage sale."

An idealised oil painting of Presley as a young man by portrait painter Ralph Wolfe Cowan sold for 44,000 dollars. One of three portraits Cowan did of Presley, it is known as "the coming home Elvis."

Presley’s desk and chair sold for 11,000 dollars, one of the day’s big bargains at far below the estimated sales price of 50,000 dollars. One of his many television sets sold for 3,250 dollars, also below estimate. Still, an old fashioned rooftop TV antenna, which had been estimated to go for 650 dollars, went for 1,500 dollars.

A blue cross insurance card went for 2,750 dollars while his screen actor’s guild card went for 3,000 dollars. The lowest price of the day was 175 dollars for a letter from the singer Eddie Fisher belatedly thanking Presley for a Christmas card.

Presley, the "king of rock ‘n’ roll" who died at age 42 in 1977, was a pack rat who never seemed to throw anything away: from Christmas cards to proposals for album covers to grocery bills to doodles for football plays.

Two handwritten pages of "sketches" of football plays sold for 6,000 dollars, while a football helmet he once wore in 1961 —white with blue stripes — along with an invoice for the helmet from a memphis sporting goods store, sold for 10,000 dollars.

The helmet was cheap compared to Elvis’s mass-produced Hamilton wristwatch with a futuristic triangle-shaped black watchface. It went, after spirited bidding, for 32,500 dollars to swatch, the company that now owns Hamilton. (REUTERS)

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