Iran Daily

October 21, 2004

11

Parmalat Files Suit for US Damages

MILAN, Italy, Oct. 20-Investors stung by the collapse of Parmalat have
filed a class action lawsuit
in a US court as they seek
more than $8 billion in
damages from the Italian
food group's former management, banks and auditors, Reuters reported.
The suit was deposited
on Monday in New York
and is the latest in a string
of demands for damages

after the dairy multinational slumped into insolvency

under 14 billion euros
($17.5 billion) of debt last
December.
The suit--whose lead
plaintiffs include British
fund management firm
Hermes--targets
Parmalat's former directors
and officers, said Umberto
Mosetti, a partner with
consulting firm Deminor.
Also on the list of defen-

dants are Bank of

America, Citigroup, Credit
Suisse First Boston and
auditors
Deloitte
&
Touche
and
Grant
Thornton, Mosetti said.
Three other banks,
Morgan Stanley, UBS and
Deutsche Bank, were listed on the suit as nondefendant third parties.
Bank
of
America,
Citigroup and the auditing
firms were recently hit

with separate $10 billion

damage suits filed in US
courts by Parmalat's
administrators.
Parmalat has also taken
legal action to recover
more than 550 million
euros in fees and other
money paid by Parmalat to
Deutsche Bank, CSFB and
UBS in the run-up to its
crisis.
Parmalat's administrators
say the banks and auditors

Robots Boom as Labor Costs Grow

GENEVA, Oct. 20--Worldwide
sales of industrial robots surged to
record levels in the first half of
2004 after equipment prices fell
while labor costs grew, the United
Nations Economic Commission
for Europe said Wednesday, AFP
reported.
In its annual survey of world
robotics, the UNECE said the
number of robots in operation in
industry exceeded the 800,000
mark for the first time at the end
of 2003 (800,772).
The growth continued this year
with an 18 percent increase in
orders worldwide in the first six
months of 2004 compared to the
same period last year.
"Falling or stable robot prices,
increasing labor costs and continuously improved technology are
major driving forces which speak
for massive robot investment in
industry," said survey author Jan
Karlsson.
The motor industry now uses
one robot for every ten production
workers, according to the
UNECE.
In 2003 the world market for
robots grew by 19 percent to

81,800 units fuelled by broadbased demand, the survey

showed.
Sales in Japan, still the world
leader in robotics use, rose by 25
percent to 31,600 units in 2003
while Asian industry's demand
increased by an estimated 57 percent in the first six months of this
year.
European industrial demand for
robots rose by an average of just
four percent last year and has fallen so far in 2004, following a double-digit boom in previous years.
South Korea was the second
major user with 138 robots in
operation per 10,000 people
employed, compared to 322 in
Japan, but the UNECE noted that
EU countries were catching up.
German (148) and Italian industry (116) remained the second and
fourth largest users of robots in
the world and their demand grew
by more than the European average.
"As robots are made for both
increasing capacity and rationalizing production, robot investments are made also during periods of economic recession,"

Karlsson said. "When the economy recovers, production can then

to a large extent be increased

Falling robot prices, increasing labor costs

and continuously improved technology are
major reasons behind massive robot
investment in industry

without necessarily hiring new

labor," he added.
The survey highlighted sharp
falls in the cost of robots relative
to labor costs in Germany and in
North America.

C. America Corruption Rising

Budget Cuts
BELGRADE--The
Serbian
parliament
narrowly approved the
government's revised
budget on Tuesday,
giving a reluctant goahead for spending
cuts and fiscal reform
designed to squeeze
the deficit.

Americans
Worried
WASHINGTON-Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about the state
of the US economy
and blaming President
George
W.
Bush,
according to Gallup
poll figures released
Tuesday.

Oil Discovery
HANOI--A joint venture
between
A m e r i c a n
Technologies,
Malaysia's Petronas,
PetroVietnam
and
Singapore Petroleum
said Wednesday it has
found new oil reserves
off Vietnam's northeast coast.

New Strike
AMSTERDAM-Thousands of Dutch
metal workers plan a
one-day strike next
week as part of an
ongoing
campaign
against governmentproposed pension and
welfare reforms, the
country's
biggest
labor union said on
Tuesday.

SAN JOSE, USA, Oct. 20--A wave of

scandal has buffeted presidencies from
Guatemala to Nicaragua, and even Costa
Rica, previously an oasis from corruption
in Central America, AFP reported.
On Tuesday, an association of Honduran
prosecutors criticized a suspension of an
investigation against former president
Rafael Callejas on the misappropriation of
some $20 million, along with other members of his government. "We are
ashamed," said the statement signed by
399 prosecutors.
Late Monday, Nicaraguan President
Enrique Bolanos admitted to having
received $326,000 from Nicaraguan businessmen living in the United States.
The tide of corruption is rising so fast
that Central American leaders banded
together on Saturday to demand the
Organization of American States (OAS)
stop Nicaragua's legislature from
impeaching Bolanos.
Guatemalan President Oscar Berger,
Salvadoran President Antonio Saca and
Honduran President Ricardo Maduro
attended the special meeting at Managua's
international airport.
The affair threatens to throw the OAS
into a crisis. Interim Secretary General
Luigi Einaudi and Permanent Council
President Aristides Royo of Panama
directed a mission to Nicaragua.
Former OAS secretary general Miguel
Angel Rodriguez quit his post recently to
defend himself on corruption charges dating back to his presidency of Costa Rica,

1998-2002.
Costa Ricans mobbed downtown San
Juan last week to protest increasing corruption, which has been less a part of
political life here than in most of Latin
America. The Central American country
comes in third in Latin American transparency
ratings,
according
to
Transparency International.
Costa Rica's current president, Abel
Pacheco, is also suspected of taking some
$490,000 from the government of Taiwan.
Guatemala's former president, Alfonso
Portillo, recently applied for a visa to work
in Mexico, where he lives, beyond the
reach of prosecutors who want to question
him about an alleged misappropriation of
$3.7 million.
And Panama's recently installed government, under President Martin Torrijos,
sought to overturn a decision by outgoing
president Mireya Moscoso to exempt
Hutchinson Wampoa, a Chinese company
that manages the country's two main ports,
of 22.2 million dollars in taxes.
Over the 50-year life of the management
contract, Panama loses $1.5 billion, the
largest scandal in Panama's history,
according to Enrique Montenegro of the
anti-corruption front, and perhaps the
largest in Central America.
Meanwhile, a poll released by
Consulting firm KPMG in Argentina on
Tuesday said that Argentina's current government is viewed as the least corrupt
among all the governments since the
nation's return to democracy 20 years ago.

either played a part in or

failed to prevent what the
US
Securities
and
Exchange Commission
has called "one of the
largest and most brazen
corporate financial frauds
in history". The banks and
the auditors have denied
wrongdoing.
Mosetti said the class
action was based on similar arguments as in the
Parmalat claims but sought

to raise money directly for

investors, including former shareholders in the
bankrupt company.
Parmalat's legal offensive aims to generate cash
for a restructured version
of the company, which
will be owned by its creditors under a planned debtfor-equity swap.
Parmalat's main factory in
Collecchio, Italy. (AFP File Photo)

$2b Needed for Black Land Claims

PRETORIA,
South
Africa, Oct. 20--South
Africa must spend some
13 billion rand ($2.05
billion) to resolve outstanding land claims by
blacks in an effort to
reform land ownership in
the formerly white-ruled
country, the government
said on Tuesday, Reuters
reported.
Agriculture Minister
Thoko
Didiza
also
acknowledged
to
reporters that the cost of
completing the return of
land legally claimed as
part of a "restitution"
process since apartheid
ended would make it

hard to meet a 2005

deadline.
"We will need around
13 billion rand to resolve
just the restitution,"
Thoko Didiza said after a
meeting of the country's
Commercial Agriculture
Working Group, which
includes the country's
main farming organizations.
That would comprise a
big chunk of planned
spending for the 2005/06
budget, estimated in the
last official budget at
404.6 billion rand ($64
billion).
A decade after the end
of apartheid, most com-

mercial farmland in the

continent's biggest economy remains in the hands
of minority white farmers.
Land reform is seen as
vital if the forcible
seizure and redistribution
of lands undertaken by
Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe are to be
avoided.
South Africa has long
asserted its land reform
process will be conducted in an orderly, legal
and transparent manner.
The main aim of the
reform is to ensure that
50 percent of farmland is
in black hands by 2014--

with 30 percent directly

owned and another 20
percent leased.
Another goal involves
resolving by the end of
2005 legal claims by
communities who were
forcibly removed under
white rule, but Didiza
said the amount of land
involved in that restitution was "insignificant"
compared with the wider
goal.
"We all agree that
resolving land restitution
by 2005 is a common
objective. We are all
committed to see the
process finished," Didiza
told reporters.

Germany in Need of Foreign Workforce

BERLIN, Oct. 20--Germany
needs 25,000 highly qualified
immigrants next year to fill labor
shortages even though the country
has four million unemployed, a
government-appointed commission said on Tuesday, Reuters
reported.
Legislation passed earlier this
year to allow a limited number of
immigrants into Germany should
be expanded because of acute
shortages of skilled workers in
areas such as engineering, health
care and financial services, the
expert commission said.
Interior Minister Otto Schily said
he would consider the appeal from
the commission headed by former

parliament
president
Rita
Suessmuth, a senior member of
the
opposition
Christian
Democrats (CDU).
"It could make a significant
impact on the economic success of
the country," Suessmuth said. "In
order to be able to react to bottlenecks in the labor market the number of workers allowed in each
year needs to be adjusted."
But other leaders of the conservative CDU party criticized the
appeal as an attempt to undermine
the immigration law agreed in
June after years of tough negotiations.
The law allowed a smaller inflow
of immigrants than the Social

Democrat-led government had

originally planned. It was restricted to highly qualified professionals such as computer specialists
and academics.
The government and the opposition struck the deal against a backdrop of growing worries over the
demographic implications of
Germany's low birth rate and ageing population. Germany, a country of around 80 million, has 7.3
million foreigners.
Business leaders say Germany
needs more skilled workers to
remain competitive. But high
unemployment of more than 10
percent makes immigration a
politically sensitive issue.

Report Demands Radical Reforms in France

PARIS, Oct. 20-France must learn to
work harder and rein in
its "excessive" public
sector if it is not to sink
into irreversible economic decline, a committee of experts led by
former
IMF
chief
Michel
Camdessus
warned the government
Tuesday, AFP reported.
Commissioned
by
Finance Minister and
presidential
hopeful
Nicolas Sarkozy, the
report
painted
a
depressing picture of a
country hampered by
unemployment of nearly 10 percent, declining
productivity and investment and permanently
low growth rates.
Proposing
radical
reforms, the report said

these obstacles could be

overcome by an economic "leap forward"
and recommended a
series of measures to
restore labor incentives,
encourage technological
innovation, reduce the
debt overhang and safeguard the country's system of social benefits.
It warned that public
debt, which has tripled
as a proportion of gross
domestic product in the
past 20 years, as well as
heavy public spending,
were jeopardizing the
state's capacity to cope
with future problems.
France repeatedly has
been under fire for
breaching a European
Union budget rule that
caps the public deficit
at three percent of out-

put.
The report's recommendations were immediately welcomed by
Sarkozy, who plans to
resign his post next
month to become a candidate to lead the ruling
Union for a Popular
Movement
(UMP)
party. He has already
indicated the proposals
will form the basis of
the party's economic
manifesto ahead of his
probable presidential
bid in 2007.
"I identify with this
report because it says
three essential things:
that it is urgent to carry
out reforms in our country, that reforms are not
to be seen as a punishment, and that the number of public workers

can be reduced in
exchange for productivity gains," Sarkozy said.
But trade unions, as
expected, began to register
their
protest
against the report's liberal economic tone and
its strong rejection of
the theory of reduced
working hours--which
has underpinned recent
unsuccessful attempts
to fight unemployment.
Camdessus, describing
France as in the grip of
a "surreptitious stalling
process", said the severity of the country's
problems was masked
by a number of factors
including historically
low interest rates and
the equally poor performance of many eurozone partners.

15,000 Russian Teachers Strike

VLADIVOSTOK,
Russia, Oct. 20--Over
15,000 teachers and kindergarten employees went on
rallies and strikes all over
Russia's Far Eastern region
of Primorye Wednesday as
part of nationwide demand
for higher pay, AFP reported.
One of the largest demonstrations, staged in the
Pacific port of Vladivostok,
rallied some 3,000 people
under slogans calling for "A
worthy salary for teachers
and doctors" and "For a dignified life".
"The salary of a teacher

who has been working for

30 years is no more than
6,000 rubles ($200) now. A
young teacher can hope for
up to 2,000 rubles, and the
salary rise in 2003 helped
us not at all because of
inflation,"
Primorye's
teacher trade union chairwoman Raisa Shabanova
said.
"I have been working as a
physics teacher for 30 years
and get only 5,700 rubles a
month, while it takes up to
15,000 rubles to live normally
in
Primorye,"
mourned another protester,
Tatyana Puzyrevskaya.

However, local authorities

did not send any official to
meet with the protesters.
Around one million
Russian state school teachers were expected to strike
Wednesday to press their
demand for an increase to
their salaries, which average 100 dollars a month,
union officials said earlier.
Around 800,000 teachers
were expected to take part
in the strike with others
organizing demonstrations.
The current Russian state
budget contained a provision to raise the pay of
teachers in schools financed

Published by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA)

Add.: Iran Cultural & Press Institute, #212 Khorramshahr Avenue
Tehran/Iran

Thousands of people carry banners calling for "a worthy salary for
teachers and doctors" and "a dignified life," during a rally in the
Pacific port of Vladivostok on Wednesday. (AFP Photo)

by federal funds-as opposed

to regional or municipal
treasuries--but trade unions
said that raise had still not
been implemented.
Around one-third of
Russia's state schools are

financed through the federal budget, but trade union

officials said the strike
action would press the
demand for the salaries of
all public teachers to be
increased.

Managing Director:
Executive Editor:
Editorial Dept. Tel:
Fax:
Subscription Dept. Tel:
Fax:
Advertising Dept. Phone:
Internet Add.:
E-mail Add.:

Mohammad T. Roghaniha
Amin Sabooni
8755761-2
8761869
8415866
8417715
8753119, 8757702, 8733764
http://www.iran-daily.com
iran-daily@iran-daily.com

Iran Daily has no responsibility whatsoever for the advertisements and promotional material printed in the newspaper.