Work was continuing on a draft text last night, and some diplomats held out the hope that a resolution could be adopted today.
As drafted by Britain, with clear encouragement from the US, initial versions of the resolution were designed to impart new solidity to Mr Annan’s agreement. Mr Mondale, who is acting as a special envoy of President Clinton, is expected to urge Mr Suharto to stick with sweeping reforms promised under a $43bn (pounds 27m) IMF package. In Washington, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin denied Mr Mondale was sent to Indonesia to ask Mr Suharto to quit.. JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) – Dozens of riot police were deployed when about 600 college students staged a noisy but peaceful protest against the government yesterday. The protest was staged as former US vice-president Walter Mondale arrived for talks with President Suharto over Indonesia’s economic crisis. So when the office is strapped for cash, one’s Chinese assistant is duly dispatched to do the rounds.. The press conference had been jointly arranged by the China Performing Arts Agency, and it had secretly organised the bungs for Chinese hacks.

Such pay-offs are routine nowadays within the Chinese media, but are rarely offered to foreign journalists. “Yes, it stimulates the circulation in the scalp, so can help the hair grow,” said Mr Zhao.NO ONE ever said journalism in an authoritarian, one-party, media-controlled country would be easy But it is at least becoming increasingly profitable. The British Council recently organised a press conference to publicise the arrival in Peking this week of the National Theatre which is staging Othello as part of the “Britain in China” year. It is all part of the warming relations between London and Peking.The Independent’s Chinese assistant duly turned up for the briefing, in the company of about 20 journalists from local publications.A press kit was handed out, with fulsome details about the theatre company and the play. But the best going-home present was not revealed until the end when the journalists were each handed a white envelope A theatre ticket, wondered my assistant? Even better.

A crisp 100 yuan (pounds note – not to be sniffed at in a city where the average weekly wage is little more than that.Inquiries were made to the British Embassy as to whether this was British taxpayers’ money being used to buy favourable coverage of Othello in the local press Absolutely not, was the reply. I suggest that the secret to commercial success might be as a baldness cure. “With the development of science and technology, people tend to worship medicine and injections. Maybe our cap looks simple, but the components are not simple at all.” The cap is now on offer for pounds 15 in at least one department store, but sales are disappointing. Inchcape, the distribution and marketing group, yesterday announced plans to break itself into three parts in an attempt to reverse the recent slide in its share price. But they have not sought any formal guidance from the Office of Fair Trading or approached the Department of Trade and Industry.Texas wants to keep Energy Group’s senior management on board although there are doubts about whether Mr Devaney will stay long-term once ownership changes hands.Outlook, page 21.

The bid was referred to the MMC by the President of the Board of Trade Margaret Beckett in July and cleared last December.Mr Nye said he was confident that the bid would escape an MMC referral. Texas, he said, had agreed to abide by all the conditions attached by the Office of Fair Trading to a PacifiCorp takeover of Energy Group.Texas executives have briefed Professor Stephen Littlechild, the electricity regulator, and a number of MPs on the bid. “We will be a net investor in Eastern and we will not be taking funds out of the enterprise,” added Mr Nye.Should PacifiCorp come back with another increased offer then the takeover battle is likely to become even more heated. Mr Nye described reports circulating before its bid that Texas was anti-union as “an unadulterated lie” and defended its record of running nuclear plants in the US.PacifiCorp began the auction for Energy Group last June, bidding 695p or pounds 3.7bn. After the disposal of Peabody and the planned issue of new equity, Texas would have debts of some $14bn and a debt-equity ratio of 155 per cent.Erle Nye, chairman of Texas, said none of the funding would be in the form of junk bonds and that Eastern would be ring fenced with an independent credit facility and access to low-cost capital. Assuming one of the two rival bids goes through, it will be the fifth time that ownership of Eastern has changed hands since it was privatised in 1990.Texas has agreed to sell Energy Group’s US coal business Peabody to Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking for $2.3bn (pounds 1.4bn) if the takeover goes through. PacifiCorp, which already has substantial US coal interests, would retain Peabody.The Texas bid is being funded through a $10.3bn debt facility arranged by Chase Manhattan, Lehman and Merrill Lynch and would create a combined business with debts of $18bn.

FARM INCOMES have been slashed, according to the Government’s own figures issued last night, underlining the protests made in the countryside march on London, writes Colin Brown. Provisional figures show that dairy farmers’ net incomes for 1997-98 are likely to be about pounds 19,100 compared with pounds 30,300 for the previous year, a fall of pounds 215 a week, or 36.9 per cent.
Ministry of Agriculture figures show that the biggest slump in net incomes was suffered by cereal farmers, who saw their incomes drop from pounds 40,500 to pounds 24,900, a fall of pounds 15,600 or 38.5 per cent.Hill farmers, who have been protesting about their dire situation, have the lowest incomes and saw them fall further from pounds 18,700 to pounds 12,200, a drop of pounds 125 a week or 34.7 per cent.. The bid topped an agreed 810p offer tabled earlier in the day by PacifiCorp’s US rival Texas Utilities. PacifiCorp, which already has regulatory clearance to bid for Energy Group, also disclosed that its advisers Goldman Sachs had bought up 8.6 per cent of Energy Group in a market raid. Texas said last night it was considering whether to come back with a higher offer.
The frantic activity sets the scene for a bitter battle between the two US utilities for Energy Group. Its shares rose 28p to 806p last night as the markets calculated that the latest bid was unlikely to be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and are likely to rise further today.Eastern is set to become the eighth regional electricity company to fall under US ownership. If we can’t house them then they are more likely to reoffend.”The key question is where sex offenders are to be housed rather than whether or not they should be housed.”.