News In Brief

BellSouth Corp., the third-largest regional telephone company in the US, announced it will eliminate 2,100 jobs, or about 2 percent of its work force. The cuts, most of which will come in the Atlanta area, aim to reduce overlapping positions in subsidiaries as the company creates central administrative departments. On the other side of the ledger, the company said it is adding employees in the sales and marketing areas.

Despite recurring ethnic and separatist turmoil and rumors of a military coup, the government of Indonesia was OK'd for a new $5 billion loan by the International Monetary Fund. Terms of the deal make $349 million available immediately as Indonesia continues efforts to pull out of its 1997 economic collapse. Lending to the Jakarta government was withheld for months last year as strife raged in the now-independent province of East Timor and a banking scandal engulfed key members of the party of ex-President B.J. Habibie. The government is pledged to sell the institution involved, Bank Bali, by this summer.

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