February 16, 2003	Sunday	Zul Hijjah 14, 1423

ASSALUYEH, Feb 15: Iran’s President Mohammad Khatami on Saturday said Opec does not need to raise oil production levels to cool soaring oil prices.

Speaking to reporters after inaugurating a gas project in southern Iran, Khatami said Opec members were already producing about 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) above the cartel’s official quota but prices are still rising.

For this reason, we don’t believe there is a shortage of supply in the world, he said.

Oil prices hit fresh two-year highs on Friday amid growing tensions surrounding a war in Iran’s neighbour Iraq.

Opec will always fulfil its commitment in producing and supplying the market, Khatami said.

JOHANNESBURG: Opec donated $9.2 million to the United Nations food agency’s emergency aid operation in southern Africa on Friday, to be used to buy vegetable oil and corn soya blend.

The oil and corn soya blend, much of which will be sourced from South Africa, will be used to allay food shortages that threaten more than 14 million people with starvation, the United Nations World Food Programme said. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries also donated $1.4 million for emergency aid to Eritrea and $300,000 for aid to Mauritania.

This extremely generous donation will help millions of hungry people survive through the April harvest, especially in Zimbabwe where the situation is deteriorating at an alarming pace, said WFP regional director Judith Lewis.

Southern Africa’s money would be spread over the six affected countries in the region — Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zambia and Zimbabwe — with Zimbabwe receiving the lions share, the WFP said.

The agency said in a separate statement that it needed an estimated $84 million-worth of food for refugees in Africa over the next six months.

Food rations to Burundian and Congolese refugees in Tanzania had already been cut due to shortages, as had maize distributions to refugees in Kenya, the WFP said.

The government estimate of the number of people facing starvation in tiny Swaziland was also upped on Friday.

The kingdom’s Disaster Relief Task Force told Reuters 297,000 people, just under a third of the population, were now with-out food, an increase from a previous WFP estimate of 270,000. —Reuters