District Congress committee chief Gopalrao Gulve, former minister Vinayak Dada Patil and Bhagwan Bhoge of Congress handed over a memorandum to the chief minister urging him to take up the issue of ensuring remunerative prices to onion growers with the union government. Onion prices were fluctuating between Rs 150 and Rs 100 per quintal in the market currently. Earlier, NMC presented a cheque of Rs 18 lakhs to Deshmukh collected from contributions madeby NMC officers and employees towards the Chief Minister's Relief Fund for the cyclone-affected people of Orissa. Local cooperative banks and other organisations also donated more than Rs 70 lakhs towards the fund.

Crude oil import
The country has so far imported 22.83 million tonnes of crude oil in the first six months of fiscal 1999/2000 (April-March) as against 39.61 million it had planned for the full year, a government document showed on Monday.

The country imported 3.73 million tonnes of diesel in April-September against the planned 3.06 million for the whole year, according to the mid-term appraisal paper obtained by Reuters. Imports of diesel, one of Asia's largest importers, have been discontinued since mid-October. The country has bought 10.23 million tonnes of diesel in 1998/99 from the international markets, the status paper showed.

Oil price increase seen
Venezuelan energy and oil minister Ali Rodriguez said in an interview published on Monday that the oil price couldrise in the short-term to as much as $30 per barrel, but that it should stop at that level. In a interview with Spanish newspaper La Razon, when asked whether $30 a barrel was a possibility, Rodriguez said: ``In the context of the current conditions it is possible, but I think it won't go above that level.''

Rodriguez said producers would work to defend price stability. International oil prices hit last week a post-Gulf War high of $25.90, rising to more than double the level early this year. ``It is possible that under a specific situation, such as a cold winter in Europe, the oil price picks up speed but afterwards it will find its level again,'' Rodriguez said, without specifying further. He said at its September meeting in Vienna, OPEC had agreed to work for price stabilisation, adding that current levels of between $25 and $26 per barrel have been said to be satisfactory by major producer countries.

However he declined to comment on plans for further action. ``All the countries I talked to recently,Arabia, Kuwait,Iran, Iraq, Qatar, Algeria decided to maintain production cuts until March next year. We do not see any reason to change this policy. We don't dare to make any forecasts for beyond March,'' Rodriguez told La Razon.

GMO labelling
South Korea will start genetically modified organism (GMO) labelling of corn, soybean and bean sprouts in March 2001, the ministry of agriculture and forestry said on Monday. The ministry has completed a proposal for GMO labelling and the government will publish it on December 1 this year, a ministry official said.``After collecting opinions on the proposal, we will announce the final proposal for the GMO labelling in March of next year and enforce the labelling from March 2001,'' the ministry official said, quoting the proposal.

GMOs have become a controversial issue globally as consumers react to concerns raised by some groups that the GMOs might be unsafe, a charge denied by their makers, who also argue restrictions against them could violateinternational trade agreements. South Korea enacted its Agro Fisheries Quality Management Act regulating GMO labelling on July 1.