BRIEFS

Big US oil producer to cut thousands

DENVER (AP):

Chevron Corporation said yesterday it would cut 2,000 jobs this year and sell some overseas operations as it revamps its struggling refinery, marketing and transportation operations.

The job cuts represent almost 12 per cent of its 17,000 workers in the so-called downstream part of its business and just over three per cent of its overall work force.

Executives of the second-largest United States oil producer are still deciding where and when they will eliminate the jobs as they try to complete the restructuring by the third quarter, company spokesman Lloyd Avram said.

Additional cuts are expected next year.

Chevron said it would also seek bids for the Pembroke refinery in southwest Wales, and fuels marketing, aviation and lubricants businesses in the Caribbean and some markets in Central America.

Four indicted for assisting suicide

ATLANTA (AP):

A Georgia grand jury indicted four members of an assisted-suicide group yesterday on charges they helped a 58-year-old man with cancer kill himself.

The four, the Final Exit Network's former president, its former medical director and two others, were formally indicted by a Forsyth County grand jury on charges of offering assistance in the commission of suicide, tampering with evidence and violating the state's anti-racketeering charges.

They were arrested more than a year ago and charged with assisted suicide in John Celmer's death at his north Georgia home.

The arrests came after an eight-month investigation where an undercover agent posing as someone seeking suicide infiltrated the group.

Authorities say the network, which was also indicted, has helped dozens of people kill themselves. Some members already faced charges in a suicide in Arizona.

Yesterday's indictment names former network president Thomas E. Goodwin, ex-medical director Dr Lawrence D. Egbert, regional coordinator Nicholas Alec Sheridan, and member Claire Blehr.

The four are scheduled to be arraigned April 1, said Forsyth County District Attorney Penny Penn.