“The problem is too serious,” Mr Dehaene said “My concern is not with my image. It is to get to grips with this problem, contain it, have clean supplies, both for the home and foreign markets.” But his government, now under attack even from parties within the centre-left coalition, admitted yesterday that there are no controls whatsoever on the raw materials which go into the manufacture of animal feed. “There are no controls at the entry point of the food chain,” the Health Minister, Luc Van den Bossche, said. “Things can go wrong there permanently.”
Almost a week into the crisis provoked by cancer-causing dioxins in chicken, the government has still not been able to come up with a definitive list of which farms may have used the animal feed contaminated by fattener, polluted with dioxin.

The chemical is thought to have come from mechanical oil, which somehow became mixed up with 80,000 kilos of feed for poultry, pigs and cattle.Hundreds of Belgium’s butchers, bakers and grocery stores were closed down over the weekend or expected to close for the coming days: many of their products including such Belgian favourites as waffles and chocolate have been either banned or are now impossible to sell since the scandal.The affair has almost wiped out the country’s multi-billion-pound food industry. Egypt and Kuwait yesterday joined the ranks of countries refusing to accept imports of Belgian meat and poultry. New restrictions on the sale and use of poultry, eggs, fatty pork and beef and all byproducts were announced at the weekend.Last Tuesday, the health and farm ministers resigned after it became clear they had known about the problem for a month without informing the public or even Dehaene. Dioxin is a carcinogenic byproduct of the manufacture of some herbicides and pesticides.The European Union’s veterinary experts meet in Brussels today to assess the gravity of the food scare and decide whether any of the trade curbs imposed on Belgium can yet be relaxed.. THE TRIAL of the Khmer Rouge commander accused of the 1994 murder of three foreign backpackers, including a Briton, opens today in Phnom Penh.

Nuon Paet, 53, denies murdering the backpackers, Briton Mark Slater, Frenchman Jean-Michael Braquet and Australian David Wilson.
With presiding judge Ms Boninh Bunnary yet to hear a word of testimony, the trial has already been slammed as a sham by relatives of the victims and UN observers. The prosecution’s case has been prepared very quickly with the aim of serving up Nuon Paet as a scapegoat, observers say.Lawyers representing the families have been cautioned not to ask “embarrassing questions”, and claim they have had very little support from the embassies of their clients.Dorothy Slater, the mother of Mark Slater, has flown to the Cambodian capital to face the alleged murderer in court. She decided to go after receiving a letter from the accused pleading his innocence. The judge is expected to conclude the case quickly as the Cambodian government does not want embarrassing questions asked about the role of senior army officers in the botched attempt to rescue the backpackers.Two senior officers, General Sam Bith and Lt Col Chhuk Rinn, accused by Nuon Paet of ordering the killings, have ignored summonses to attend. A key witness has gone into hiding following death threats and will not be available to give testimony.Nuon Paet allegedly ordered the execution of the three tourists after they were kidnapped during a bloody ambush on a train by Khmer Rouge troops in July 1994. The rebels blasted the train with grenade launchers and shot at least 13 passengers dead before marching over 200 captives away.The Cambodian prisoners were later released but the three Westerners were taken to a mountain stronghold south of Phnom Penh, where they were put to work An attempt to pay a $150,000 ransom demand was botched Two months after their capture the backpackers were shot. Their bodies were later found in a shallow grave.There are dozens of UN and embassy observers in Phnom Penh for the trial.

Sunday’s talks, inside a cavernous army tent at an airfield in Macedonia, had broken off after 10 hours in the early evening to allow the Serbs to consult with Belgrade. They were due to resume at 9pm (1900 GMT), but three hours after that the Serbs asked for an extension to the interval. The sticking point appeared to be the Serbs’ refusal to accept the terms for Nato troops entering Kosovo.As Sunday night became the early hours of Monday, the talks between Nato generals and their Yugoslav counterparts resumed for a third time with growing signs of Nato impatience.Just as the night filled with speculation of a complete break-down, the Serb generals returned to the negotiating table – and the threat of intensified bombing if they did not agree Nato’s terms. But within an hour, the talks had broken down.The tense end to the weekend was in stark contrast to the optimistic mood when the talks began on Saturday at Blace, Macedonia. One Western official reported at the end of that day “encouraging and progressive talks”.Yesterday, however, expectations of a quick signature to the withdrawal plan were wrecked.

Nato accused the Serb delegation of acting in “bad faith” and of trying to alter the conditions of the deal ratified by Belgrade.Nato planes continued to attack Serbia’s province of Kosovo while the Serbs haggled over the timing of the end of the bombing and Nato’s insistence on a seven-day deadline for getting all Serb forces out of Kosovo. Belgrade insists that no Nato troops should go into Kosovo until all the Serb troops have come out. The Serbs also balked at Nato’s demand for a 30km demilitarised “buffer” zone inside Serbia to prevent its heavy artillery striking at alliance forces.While the generals were negotiating, there was no sign of peace on the ground. Serb forces pounded Kosovo Liberation Army positions, some inside Albania, and Nato continued its air strikes, including a massive bombardment close to Morini on the Albanian-Kosovo border. UN officials began evacuating the town of Krume, north-west of Morini, after it was battered by Serb shells late Saturday night.. A DISPUTE has broken out between the Defence Ministry and the Treasury over who should pick up the bill for Britain’s military operations during the Kosovo crisis. George Robertson, Defence Secretary, says his stretched budget should be given a special top-up from the Treasury’s pounds 1.2bn “reserve kitty” to fund its work in the Balkans.

But the Treasury insists the MoD meets a significant part of the spending from its own resources. So far the only costs disclosed by the Government are pounds 40m for humanitarian relief and pounds 37m for military operations. However, these figures exclude the cost of bombs dropped during the 10-week air campaign, which is expected to take the MoD’s bill to more than pounds 200m.
Ministers say the military spending already incurred will be “peanuts” compared to the amounts Britain will have to contribute towards the cost of rebuilding the Balkans. The European Commission has estimated reconstruction costs at up to pounds 3.9bn a year for five years. EU leaders are divided over whether the money should come from the EU’s existing funds or whether member-states should make top-up payments.The Government may ask other countries to meet a higher share of the burden than Britain, on grounds that its 13,000 troops being sent to the region will play the leading role in enforcing the peace settlement accepted by President Milosevic last week.The long-term presence of British servicemen in Kosovo will fuel the row between the the MoD and the Treasury. A Treasury source dismissed the MoD’s request for its extra costs to be met from the Government’s reserve fund as “a try-on”. He added: “If the armed services are not there to fight a war, what are they there for? It is misleading to suggest that all the costs incurred are extra.”The Treasury is also unsympathetic to Mr Robertson’s bid because, it claims, the MoD rejected its advice by refusing to set up a reserve kitty within its pounds 22.3bn-a-year budget.

The war in the Balkans also threatens to provoke a long-term battle over the level of defence spending. MoD officials believe they will need a bigger budget for Britain to play its part in Nato’s role as a “world policeman”.But Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, believes there is scope to secure a further “peace dividend” following the end of the Cold War. He sought pounds 2bn of defence cuts during last year’s strategic defence review, but had to settle for pounds 500m after Tony Blair backed Mr Robertson.Yesterday Mr Blair hinted that he might side with his Chancellor in the battle over the cost of military operations in Kosovo. Asked on BBC TV’s Breakfast with Frost programme whether the Treasury would foot the bill, Mr Blair replied: “Not necessarily”.The Prime Minister insisted that the Government did not yet know how much it had spent during the Kosovo crisis. He said countries such as Macedonia, Albania, Romania and Bulgaria would would also need financial aid. “It is worth making that investment rather than coming back again and having to spend billions on fighting another conflict because we haven’t given them the proper chance to rebuild themselves,” said Mr Blair..

He reiterated his gratitude for Libya’s support to the ANC in its fight against apartheid, adding: “Those who feel irritated by our friendship with President Gaddafi can go and jump in a pool.” During Libya’s time as a pariah state – which formally ended in April with the scrapping of the air embargo against the north African country – President Mandela, 80, frequently irritated Western diplomats by restating his fondness for the Libyan dictator.President Mandela’s appearance yesterday was his first since voting last Wednesday. Even though not all 16 million votes have been verified, it appears that the ANC will fall between one and five seats short of a two-thirds majority in the national assembly. With two-thirds of seats (66.6pc) , the ANC government would be able to change some clauses in the constitution, though fundamental alterations require the endorsement of 75 per cent of the national assembly’s 400 MPs. President Mandela said: “Concern that a two-thirds majority will be abused by the ANC flies in the face of the facts of history. No one can say we abused our majority.”In the provincial election in KwaZulu-Natal, the Inkatha Freedom Party appeared to have pulled ahead of the ANC, giving its leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi added leverage in his campaign to become national deputy president.Last night, the ANC’s score stood at 66.4 per cent and the runner-up looked set to be the Democratic Party, on 9.57pc.

Nationally, the IFP stood on 8.53pc, followed by the NNP – the old aparthied party – on 6.9pc.. FIRST THE gun lobby, now Hollywood. As the US struggles to make sense of the recent spate of school shootings and work out who to blame for turning white middle-class teenagers into mass murderers, the heat has turned from a badly scalded National Rifle Association to the entertainment industry. For the past week, studioshave been running scared as Washington has hurled invective at them for overdosing children on a diet of senseless violence. Hollywood is well used to attacks from Republican lawmakers, but the industry appeared utterly stunned when its good friend President Clinton announced last Tuesday that the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission would be launching investigations into the possibility of criminal responsibility in purveying violence to children.
Studios marketing departments may have materials subpoenaed as early as this week to see whether the nation’s youth is being deliberately and knowingly corrupted. For the first time in decades, Hollywood executives are afraid of official censorship and government interference in what they can and cannot show on screen.One might have expected a defiant reaction, with industry representatives arguing forcefully that screen violence has nothing to do with violence in real life.

“The effects of reduced daylight in the winter months and harsher weather could be affecting the unborn child,” he said. Previous research has tentatively suggested that serious illness such as schizophrenia, manic depression, autism and eating disorders are also more common in people born in the winter and spring months.The 231 people who took part in the study were aged 20 to 29. They were assessed for mild depressive symptoms, using a questionnaire, and their scores correlated against their date of birth. Those born earlier in the year had a greater tendency to show depressive symptoms, and this tapered off towards the end of the year with those born in October, November and December having the least depressive tendencies.. ONE OF the victims of the Soho nail bombing has spoken for the first time to describe how, amid the blood and the carnage of the blast, he found the strength to joke with his rescuers.

Mark Taylor took the full blast of the bomb as he tried to lead his customers out of the Admiral Duncan pub.
The 31-year-old was bleeding heavily and covered in burns as passers- by tried to keep him conscious while he waited for an ambulance. Bored with reciting his age and date of birth, Mr Taylor turned to bystanders and joked: “I can’t believe this, I’ve just paid pounds 30 for a facial.”Manager of the Soho pub for two years, he suffered a nail in the arm, shrapnel and glass injuries as well as extensive burns after taking the full force of the blast on 30 April.As he lay in the middle of Old Compton Street, he became convinced he would not survive his injuries “I stared death in the face and lived. It obviously wasn’t my time to go because the bomb exploded right next to me,” he said.His burns were so severe that he was transferred from St Thomas’s Hospital to a specialist unit in the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, west Sussex.”There are no words to describe that pain other than hell. My whole body felt like it was on fire,” he explains in It Happened To Me, a current affairs programme to be broadcast tonight on Channel 5.Within it, he talks of the bomb aftermath, his injuries and anguish of his father, Phil, mother, Josie, and brother Aaron, 22.The young man from Warwick, who was one of 65 hospitalised on that night, has since left the East Grinstead unit. Seven people remain in hospital though all are now out of danger.Gary Reid was the last person to move out of intensive care last week. The 43-year-old New Zealander, who had his left leg amputated, is now being treated in a general ward at St Thomas’s Hospital.”He was critical but he is stable now and improving,” a hospital spokesman said on Saturday.n David Copeland, 22, from Sunnybank Road, Cove, Hampshire, is to appear in court today accused of three counts each of murder and causing an explosion.. THERE IS too much sex on British television according to a growing number of viewers.

CONSERVATIONISTS AND anglers have moved to head off the first serious clash between Britain’s fishermen and Britain’s steadily reviving otter population. They have agreed joint guidelines on how to protect still water fisheries, in particular carp lakes, from predation by otters, which can cause thousands of pounds worth of damage by killing very large fish of enormous value. One of Britain’s best-loved mammals, the otter suddenly declined and became extinct over much of the country in the 1950s and 1960s, probably as a result of poisoning by new organochlorine pesticides. It is now returning to many rivers encouraged by a national restoration project, on which pounds 700,000 a year is being spent.
In the intervening period, however, there has been an explosion of interest in specialist carp angling and there are now thousands of carp lakes where devoted anglers, often fishing though the night, hunt prize fish of up to 30lbs and more – all to be carefully returned to the water after being caught.Yet for otters carp waters represents a magnificent larder, especially in winter when the big fish lie dormant on the lake bed and are caught with ease. A single animal can wreak financial havoc by killing a 30lb carp that may be worth pounds 2,000. One owner of a long-established and profitable carp fishery at Carlisle, Fred Sykes, was put out of business by hungry otters. The fishery he built up over 15 years fell apart within weeks in January 1992 when recolonising otters ate his stock.

But rather than hit back at the animals – which are protected by law – Mr Sykes has joined other fishery owners and anglers in helping draw up guidelines to highlight the problem and, it is hoped, solve it.Published jointly today by the Environment Agency and the Wildlife Trusts, the guidelines warn that otters may become a problem for more and more still waters and fish farms, especially if the official target of restoring the animal to all UK rivers by 2010 is met.They suggest various ways that fishery owners can protect themselves, in particular by electric fencing, and by developing “decoy ponds” stocked with fish of much lower value, and suggest they take precautions before they suffer the attentions of otters, not after.The guidelines are endorsed by national angling associations, in particular the Specialist Anglers Conservation Group (Sagc), which represents carp anglers. “It is essential that we work together with conservationists, so there is no conflict,” said the Sagc vice-chairman, Chris Burt. Lisa Schneidau, newly appointed director of the Otters and Rivers Project, run by Water UK and the Wildlife Trusts, agrees. “We want environmentalists to understand the problems anglers have, and anglers to accept that otters have a right to be there,” she said. Both feel an understanding is essential because the returning animals, so welcome to the public at large, have caused real anguish among carp fishermen. Mr Burt added: “It’s not like trout fisheries, where the fish in general are killed and eaten.

In the bathroom, you could not fail to notice the large truck battery on the floor, connected in curly red wiry spirals to the metal bath. On the far wall, a vast Japanese mask glared at down at anyone sitting on the loo. In the kitchen the lampshade that dangles over the supper table is a Russian tank commander’s peaked cap, through which a light bulb obtrudes. Overhead, a mysterious collection of dead leaves, and a single tea-bag, hung down from a length of string.

Two plastic mannequin hands, each bearing a crystal, seemed to emerge from a radiator on either side of a fencing foil which had been thoughtfully scabbarded in the heating device. Up in the master bedroom, you were spoilt for choice: the parachute on the floor, the leopard-trophy rug, the pigeon’s wings nailed to the wall, the headless rocking horse, the magistrate’s wig, the bits of bird and animal skulls and skeletons… What charnel house, I thought, have I come to?”Oh, you’re in the clown’s house,” say the locals when you tell them about the place. Goffee the clown, shaman and “international fire theatre wizard” conceals the identity of David Eveleigh, a visionary cove who designed the wicker man that floated down the Wye. The house so delighted, then finally spooked, me (the children’s reaction was the other way round) that I thought it deserved a memorial of some kind; but the poet Tobias Hill got there first. He stayed at the house a year ago, and his reaction can be found in “A Night in the Room of the Clown” in his collection Zoo.Weirdly we had exactly the same midnight experience: “If I click on the light, skins and bones/grin at the captive audience/ of themselves. I sit alone,/laughing until it hurts/ at the joke of growing thin,/ the tick of the clock and the tapping of rain.”.

But gleaning other snippets of information from Mike Smith, the new chief executive of Rank, is an uphill struggle I suppose you can’t blame him. I doubt if it’ll last for that long, but at the moment things are looking bright.”It’s not quite the end of the show for Britain’s piers.n This article first appeared in the current edition of `Director’ magazine.. The admits to being “a West Ham man”, to getting “all the difficult jobs”. These are tough times: “I’m 57 and I’m working harder than when I was 25.”But, when the sun is shining and holiday-makers have money in their pockets, it’s not all gloom: “I have a feeling that this season is going to be one of the better ones.”There is a sense of prosperity about the British public at the moment. Grim days at the beginning of last season cut his revenue by as much as one-quarter in the three months from May to July. The amusement hall may be a refuge from the rain but who wants to spend money on ice- cream, one of the pier’s staple offerings, when it is cold and damp?”The ideal day is sunny but with a cool breeze coming up about 11am so that people move off the beach looking for something else to do I’ve had bad knees from praying,” Mr Brenner says.

Mr Brenner spends pounds 40,000 a year on equipment such as video games Another option is to try to “deseasonalise” the pier. Children’s rides are perennially popular, and five years ago Mr Brenner decided to keep the pier open all year round.Even so, it’s difficult to deny the importance of the weather to the business. In towns that rely more heavily on the bucket- and-spade brigade, it may be a question of catering for changing consumer tastes. At Brighton’s West Pier, promised grants of pounds 11.6m, the Eugenius Consortium (the original pier was built by Eugenius Birch) is planning a development of restaurants, bars and a “performance area”, taking the concept of the seaside pier up-market That may work in Brighton with its sophisticated visitors. A restored structure counts for little, they say, if money for future maintenance cannot be made.Diversification and new sources of revenue are the only guarantee of survival. “The lottery hit our income by 10 per cent in its first year and it hasn’t come back to what it was,” says Mr Brenner.The National Heritage Fund has given pounds 16m in lottery grants to repair piers such as Penarth, Southport, Swanage and Clevedon, but critics argue that renovation is a short-term solution.

“We always look after our regular staff but I don’t honestly see why casual summer staff – mainly students – should have holiday pay,” he says.And then there’s the changing face of British gambling. Mr Brenner runs Teignmouth pier with a staff of five in the winter but needs 20 people in the summer. A euro made in Greece may not operate a machine in Britain.The minimum wage and enforced holiday pay have increased operating costs. Labour’s group of seaside MPs, chaired by Gordon Marsden, MP for Blackpool South, is said to be sympathetic. Mr Greenman is hopeful, but it’s hard to see New Labour making a reduction in the tax on one-armed bandits a vote winner in the run-up to the next election.Pier owners are also worried about the European single currency. Mr Brenner says he has 300 coin slots that will need conversion if the euro comes to Britain.

The bill could be anything from pounds 200 to pounds 300 a machine, with some older amusements having to be scrapped, incurring write-off charges.Then there’s the problem likely to be caused by the different electronic signatures from coins manufactured at different European mints. Since leisure machines generate 20 per cent to 45 per cent of their revenue, pier owners have made a lot of the taxation issue .Stuart Greenman, who is in charge of government relations at BACTA, which represents Britain’s pay-to-play leisure machine industry, wants the government to cut the licence duty. “Then you pay VAT on the takings and corporation tax on the profits It’s a very highly taxed business,” he complains. What pier owners find unfair is the fact that they pay the same duty as pub owners, whose machines are allowed to pay out cash prizes three times the size.

If they have no spares we have to ring the house sitter or any neighbour with whom they have left duplicate keys, arrange to collect them, and then take them by car to wherever the car is stuck.”
The RAC expects around 200,000 cars with GB stickers will get into trouble this summer The basic policies don’t vary much between the operators. Luke Basdet, of the AA, says many of the problems are relatively minor but can be hard to deal with abroad: “Burst tyres, flat batteries and overheating provide the three biggest problems A surprising number of people manage to lose their keys. Many groups, including the AA, RAC, Green Flag and EuropAssistance offer insurance cover for driving abroad. Millions of Britons have discovered the dubious de-lights of taking their cars abroad. The AA estimates 3.5 million car trips are made to Europe each year, and every one of those drivers fears one thing: breaking down abroad. Unless you are familiar with the French word for head gasket, buying breakdown cover for your summer holiday is money well spent. At the other end of the spectrum, Ms Bowen-Jones takes clients to a Ba’hai community, Burn Law, based on an organic farm in Northumbria.

But what both venues have in common is an atmosphere that seems to play an important part in fostering creative thinking.n Contact the Samling on 01539 431922; Ann Bowen-Jones at Awaken on 01434 602437.. Strategically, these breaks also help people to see connections between things and work better together.”The Samling is not the only venue that can foster such results. But even two days away from the workplace can have far-reaching effects.”Employers are entitled to look for results,” she said. “They want fresh ideas on old problems and evidence of new thinking. They’re also concerned for people to find a way to sustain the energy needed to meet all the demands on them, and deal with the massive complexities on every level. But let’s not forget the bottom line: what do employers get out of the experience? Ms Bowen-Jones says sometimes it’s nothing more than a treat for hard-working senior executives – a freebie luxury break. They suddenly realise that there’s an awful lot to say about what they are doing at work,” Ms Bowen-Jones says.She also uses creative techniques – metaphor, music and myth, for example – to help clients to examine challenges such as relating to difficult people, leading a team, or coping with pressure.So far, so cosy.

“There’s no end to my job. Investors will be scrutinising results for any indications of growth in subscribers for its SkyDigital service.CGU, the insurer, is among a string of insurers slated to report a first- half profit. Sun Life and Provincial Holdings and United Assurance Group, which specialises in door-to-door insurance sales, will also post interim results.Among other companies expected to report first-half earnings are Smith & Nephew and Nycomed Amersham. It is likely to report second-quarter earnings up 9 per cent to $1.25bn (pounds 77m) as it benefited from a 26 per cent surge in Brent crude oil during the period.BSkyB is expected to report a fiscal profit for this year on Wednesday. Analysts believe the company will post earnings per share of 3.2p, down from 14.5p a year ago.

“I don’t see it setting the heather on fire,” he said.BP Amoco, may rise. That pulled UK bonds lower on concern that inflation will spill over to Britain and could hit shares like HSBC, Prudential and Lloyds TSB.Last week, the FT-SE 100 index dropped 2.66 per cent, which means it has lost 5.59 per cent in the past three weeks.Phone and computer-related shares led declines, with BT dipping 12.6 per cent, Colt Telecom sliding 15.6 per cent and Vodafone AirTouch losing 11.2 per cent.The prospect of higher interest rates make investors less willing to bet on future earnings of those companies that command a premium because of their growth prospects; that particularly hurts phone and computer- related companies.The market is unlikely to be buoyed by corporate profits while the telecoms, banking and pharmaceutical sectors are under a cloud, according to Mr Kirton. US bonds ex-tended three weeks of decline on Friday after a bigger than expected gain in jobs and wages in July heightened expectations for a Federal Reserve interest rate increase later this month. “The main worry is the direction long bond yields in the US are going to take,” said Simon Kirton, manager of UK equities at Aberdeen Asset Management. “It’s not going to be solved next week.”
Bonds usually fall when interest rates rise, pulling down those financial stocks that hold large bond portfolios. STOCKS may slide with bonds this week as concern that interest rates are set to rise in the US overshadows profit reports from some of the UK’s biggest companies – BP Amoco, BSkyB and CGU. July’s consumer price report comes on 17 August.However, few expect a repeat of last year, when the Dow average fell 19.2 per cent between its 1998 high on 17 July and 31 August in the wake of the Russian financial crisis..

The government releases figures on retail sales on Thursday, and on prices paid to farmers and other producers on Friday. “This further reinforces the view that we may be seeing signs of pressure in the labour market, and the odds are better for further rate increases,” said John Bartlett, at Commerce Bancshares.Average hourly wages rose by 0.5 per cent in July, higher than the 0.3 per cent expected by analysts.Robert Bacarella, president at Monetta Financial, anticipates the main indexes will fall another 3 to 5 per cent from current levels before a rate increase will be fully discounted.Investors will see several economic reports before the policy-making Federal Open Market Committee meets. It also shifted to a neutral stance, implying it would not raise rates again unless there were signs of inflation.Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress last month that one indicator that might force the Fed to act would be a shrinking pool of available workers – which would put pressure on wage levels and filter through to higher prices for goods and services. September futures on the Federal funds rate show that investors are building in an 80 per cent probability of a rate increase on 24 August.The Fed last raised rates on 30 June, by a quarter point to 5 per cent.

Henry Cavanna, at JP Morgan, said the Fed needed ammunition and “being practically at full employment” suggested the Fed would act.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was little changed on the week at 10,660.84; the S&P 500 Index fell 2.6 per cent to 1,294.20; and the Nasdaq slid 3.8 per cent to 2,536.35. “The correction is in full bloom.”

The spectre of rising rates sent two main indexes lower for a third week, a concern given more credence when the July employment report showed that the economy added 50 per cent more jobs than expected last month – proof to many that the economy is growing fast enough to spark inflation. “Selling pressure on exporters won’t go away as long as currency concern remains.”. US STOCKS are likely to fall further this week on expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates on 24 August. Investors “are worried that the Fed is probably going to tighten”, said Thomas McManus, an equity portfolio strategist at Bank of America Securities. “People will try and find where the new level of support is and once we get through 17,000 [on the Nikkei], we see people saying 16,500.”"Everyone is looking into the dark, trying to figure out when the yen will stop rising,” said Hitoshi Ichio, strategist at Commerz Securities (Japan). Canon, Japan’s largest maker of office equipment, exports 83 per cent of its products, while Sony, Japan’s second-largest consumer electronics company, exports 68 per cent of its goods.

Concern about earnings at those companies has kept many foreign investors away from the stock market.”It’s hard to see anything that’s going to change sentiment on the positive side,” said Mr Migliorato. Each one-yen fall in the value of the dollar means exporters lose several billion yen in operating profit. This, however, decreases the likelihood that Japanese investors will put money overseas, encouraging them to invest domestically instead – in bonds.”We’re reducing foreign bonds and buying domestic bonds,” said Keisaku Ujihara, at Sanwa Asset Management.Companies such as Sony and Canon could slip, concerned that the US central bank may raise interest rates to curb inflation, thereby reducing consumer sentiment. Last week the yield on the 10-year benchmark government bond rose two basis points to 1.805 per cent.Investors’ main concern is a rise in the value of the yen, which has gone up 5.6 per cent to a high of 114.11 against the dollar over the past three weeks on demand from foreign investors wanting to buy Japanese stocks. The electrical machinery Topix sub-index, which contains exporters such as Canon and Hitachi, plunged 5 per cent..”As long as stocks are weak, bonds will be supported,” said Jun Fukashiro, fund manager at NCB Investment Management. JAPANESE stocks may fall this week, led by exporters, as the strong yen threatens to reduce the earnings they make from sales overseas.

“One of these has to do with the fact that there is no longer a military dictatorship in Argentina They have a form of democracy in its infancy. The second has to do with the British government which, for the first time ever, is about to enshrine the right to self determination for every overseas territory.”But the negotiations were held up because of Foreign Secretary Robin Cook’s preoccupation with Kosovo, and then foreshortened by his desire for a quick result, according to councillors. But the islands’ councillors, who participated in the negotiations, have defended the deal.”There is a major difference between the Seventies and now,” Councillor Mike Summers told a recent meeting, according to the Falkland Islands News Network. “But he can come here as any ordinary Argentine visitor can come now, neither expecting nor receiving any special treatment.”The deal sparked protests and flag-burning in the Falklands, where opinion is sharply divided on Argentine visits and direct flights. “We agreed that the visit by Mr Maradona was not likely to have a positive influence and his most recent comments to the media appear to support that judgement,” said the Falklands Governor, Donald Lamont.

The Chilean airline Lan Chile has lifted a ban on flights imposed because of the Pinochet affair, and later this year will make a stop in Argentina before flying to the islands.Amongst those who have said they want to visit are footballer Diego Maradona, who has said he wants to prompt the islanders to change their minds on sovereignty. But the agreement has left the islanders bitterly divided.
Since the deal, signed last month in London, Argentines have been free to visit the islands, though there have been earlier visits by next-of- kin to grave sites. The deal between London and Buenos Aires gave Argen-tina a tenuous foothold on the islands, which it claims as its territory, and in exchange it recognised the local government and said it would help with fisheries conservation. Thirty journalists were due to land at RAF Mount Pleasant, the windswept air base an hour’s drive from Stanley.