THE National Theatre actress Maureen Beattie, who is playing the role of Iago’s wife in a production of Othello in Hong Kong, has emerged as a heroine in the struggle against excessive use of mobile phones, writes Stephen Vines. Following a particularly grievous outbreak of mobile phone calls during a National Theatre performance at the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Miss Beattie took it upon herself to berate the audience after a final curtain call. “Everyone cheered, I could not get them to stop,” she said.
Few artistic performances in Hong Kong get away without the menace of mobile phone interruption. with the basic purpose of seeing to it that the United States, and others working with Indonesia, see [through] the implementation of these IMF guidelines, the restoration of confidence and the stability that’s crucial to this country,” said Mr Mondale who arrived on Monday as the personal envoy of President Clinton.
State Department officials have made it clear, however, that the US will not suggest that Suharto declines the renomination as president that is expected to be made next week.In the last few weeks, Mr Suharto has been toying with the idea of stabilising the rupiah by pegging its value to the US dollar, an idea which is regarded with alarm by the IMF.

THE FORMER US vice-president, Walter Mondale, warned President Suharto yesterday that there are no “quick fixes” for the economic crisis ravaging Indonesia, and that the country’s only hope is to push through the reforms which it has agreed with the International Monetary Fund

“I came … Kim Jong Pil is best known for founding the notorious Korean CIA which arrested, tortured and attempted to kill the new president on several occasions.The GNP, whose own presidential candidate was defeated by the alliance of the two Kims but which retains its parliamentary majority, has been milking this inconsistency for all it is worth.As a one-time prime minister and associate of former military dictators, and lacking economic expertise, JP is an appropriate premier for a modern Korea, they argue.All this might be convincing if it were not for the fact that the GNP itself, several years and changes of names ago, was itself the party of these same generals.Some within the GNP acknowledge this, indeed their reluctance to allow a straightforward vote appears to stem from a fear that it will expose divisions and encourage defections.. “We will never be able to overcome today’s crisis without co-operation from you,” he said. “[You] must help me if only for one year – this year – when the nation is standing on the brink of disaster.”
If the new president saw any real prospect of cross-party co-operation, he has been rudely disappointed in the last week.A few hours after his speech, the opposition Grand National Party (GNP) rejected his choice of Prime Minister by boycotting the vote; on Monday opposing MPs were seen on national television shoving one another in the Assembly over the same issue.With a bit of constitutional legerdemain, President Kim yesterday managed to form a cabinet, but his choice of prime minister has still not been fully endorsed, and he faces continuing political argy-bargy.Mr Kim’s troubles emphasise that his moral authority – as a lifelong democrat and former political prisoner – is far stronger than his political mandate.Central to his troubles, and symptomatic of his weak position, is Kim Jong Pil, another veteran politician and the president’s nominee for the premiership.Yesterday, President Kim named a cabinet, but the best he could do for Kim Jong Pil was to name him as “acting prime minister”, a decision which was immediately challenged by the opposition.Without the support of Kim JP, Kim DJ (as they are respectively known) could never have won the presidency.Even with the support of his partner’s United Liberal Democrats (ULD), his majority was barely one per cent and, throughout the campaign, he made it clear that JP would be his prime minister.This is despite the fact that, throughout their lives, the two have been on diametrically opposed political sides.

KIM DAE JUNG knows better than anyone that Korean politics is an unforgiving business but, for a few hours at least, he had his hopes. But departments have not been given central benchmarks for the work ahead – nor have they been given deadlines for testing their equipment.The Department of Health even reported: “Programme completion date is end of March 2000, this to allow for remedial work after 1.1.2000.”Mr Clark said he had no direct responsibility for hospitals, and that Frank Dobson, Secretary of State for Health, had written to them separately, asking to be kept informed of progress.. A week ago, before the 45,000 strong crowd which flocked to the National Assembly for his inauguration as South Korean president, he made an appeal to his parliamentary opponents. It also said replies it had received from suppliers, asked for assurances that they were dealing with their Y2K problems, were “patchy”.Mr Clark said in a Commons reply: “The progress reports indicate that many organisations have reached the testing stage, and in some cases, completed work for significant systems.”He also said that all organisations now set themselves a completion date, “with 81 per cent expecting to complete work by March 1999″. Mr Clark summed that up as “management of traffic lights”.So far, the agency has spent just pounds 130,000 – less than one per cent of its overall budget – and its answers to the standard questions put by the Cabinet Office illustrate the fraught nature of the exercise faced by government and business.Asked what percentage of its computer system components for which it had adequate assurance of millennium compliance, the Highways Agency replied: “Unknown”. Tony Blair, who has taken keen interest in the issue, is to make a speech on it at a Midland Bank conference later this month.An illustration of the escalation in costs was provided yesterday by the Highways Agency, which had previously budgeted for pounds 4.3m.

Yesterday, that shot up to pounds 14.3m, with a completion deadline slipping from the end of this year to Spring 1998 – because of “new activities”.The new work included projects for “Type approval of traffic control equipment” and “Trunk road highway network infrastructure”. Creating winners and losers will not forge unity.”A ballot could be highly divisive and any formula agreed might seem quite out of date in a very short time. By the time of the general election, we could have boxed ourselves into an unsustainable position.. The threat of the Millennium computer bug blacking out traffic lights and other traffic control systems has belatedly been recognised by the Highways Agency, it was revealed yesterday. David Clark, the Cabinet minister with responsibility for public service computer networks, last night published Whitehall’s latest report on preparations for the Year 2000 (Y2K) computer date-change – when many computers are expected to crash because they are programmed to interpret the year suffix “00″ as 1900, rather than 2000.
According to Mr Clark’s calculations, the overall costs of putting the problem right have increased from an estimated pounds 370m to pounds 393m over the last three months – but final costs could well be three times as much as that when hospitals, schools, police and fire services are taken into account.Computer Weekly reports tomorrow that internal government figures already show a millennium bug budget in excess of the pounds 750m planned for the Millennium Dome. THE Conservative Party could “break up” or “fracture” over Europe if the leadership insisted on outright opposition to the European single currency, Kenneth Clarke warned yesterday.