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Briefing
REUTERS & AGENCIES
India requests Opec to raise crude output
India has requested the five member nations of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) to raise the crude output level to bring down global oil prices, a Government official said In New Delhi on Friday. "Our Petroleum Minister has written to Algeria, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Iran requesting them to urge other Opec members to raise crude production levels to facilitate lowering of oil prices to sustainable stable levels," the official, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters. Oil minister Ram Naik wrote in the letter that developing countries like India, which were dependent on oil imports, "find it very difficult to bear the burden of such high prices", the official said.`Genetic terrorism' in Australia
An experimental crop of genetically modified pineapples was today destroyed in what police are treating as Australia's first case of genetic terrorism. A group called free seed liberation claimed responsibility for a break-in at the Queensland Agricultural Biotechnology Centre in Brisbane and the destruction of a seed crop valued at more than $100,000 (about US$160,000). Professor Ken Reed described the vandalism as senseless because pineapples can't interbreed with any other crop. "I find it extraordinary. This is a direct attack on the acquisition of knowledge and has nothing to do with anything else,'' he told Australia's ABC Radio. Russia bans wheat exports
Russia has banned exports of wheat for the duration of an aid programme agreed this week under which the United States is sending Russia 300,000 tonnes of wheat as a donation, the Government said late on Thursday. "For the period of the delivery of the food, in accordance with the agreement, exports of food wheat are forbidden, with the exception of deliveries under contracts signed before the agreement came into force," a resolution published on the Government web site (www.government.gov.ru) said. Russia and the United States signed three agreements on March 6 under which Russia will receive food aid after a second consecutive poor harvest last year. Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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