The law stated that a fuel surcharge should take effect as of January 1, 1998, replacing existing road maintenance and other fees paid by motorists. But plans to reform the taxation system have been resisted by local governments and the military. Local governments have set up many toll collection points along roads straddling county and provincial lines and have diverted taxes to uses other than road construction and maintenance, analysts say. Military vehicles have been exempted from paying mostroad taxes. The new fuel tax, however, would make no exceptions, the analysts say. "The amendments aim to put an end to arbitrary road tax collections," the newspaper said. "They aim to relieve the burden of companies and the public while raising road maintenance and construction fees in a rational way."

Kuwait welcomes Saudi warning to oil cheatsKuwait Oil Minister Sheikh Saud Nasser al-Sabah thanked Saudi Arabia on Wednesday for issuing a warning to fellow OPEC states who failed to fully comply with pledged output cuts. "I am grateful to His Highness (Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah) for this statement," Sheikh Saud told reporters before flying to South Africa to attend an oil conference where he will also discuss measures needed to boost world oil prices. Prince Abdullah, in a rare public statement, said other OPEC nations were to blame for continued low prices because they had failed to fully implement agreements on cutting supply from the glutted world market. "There were decisions by OPEC whichwould have maintained the oil prices had everybody kept to them," the Crown Prince, heir to the Saudi throne, said in an interview with the Saudi al-Riyadh newspaper on Tuesday. "But unfortunately there are some brothers in OPEC who did not abide by these decision," he said. Sheikh Saud warned OPEC and non-OPEC producers on October 13 against violations and a production war, stressing that Gulf Arab allies would suffer the least as they could damage the economies of others with their huge reserves and low crude oil production costs. He said if Gulf Arab producers "wanted to flood the market (with oil) and destroy non-OPEC economies then the impact upon them (non-OPEC) would be grave. I warn that we can live with low oil prices ... if they do not abide by their pledges."

Taiwan's state-run Chinese Petroleum Corp [CHIP.CN] said on Wednesday it had resumed operations at its crude and gas ports as the impact of fading Typhoon Babs eased. "The crude ports have returned to normal," a senior company executivesaid. Deliveries of liquefied natural gas at the two ports in southern and northern Taiwan also resumed, the executive said. The ports had been closed on Monday due to rough seas whipped up by Typhoon Babs, which rapidly lost strength on Tuesday as it squeezed into the narrow Taiwan strait. Taiwan's third crude port, built by Formosa group