1.   Alleged inconsistencies in the transport ministry, according to analysts, also damage confidence.

2.   BR and RENFE are faced with powerful road lobbies with good access to the transport ministries, and with the pressures of user groups.

3.   Mordechai was found not guilty of sexual harassment of a clerk in the transport ministry because of what the court said were inconsistencies in her testimony.

4.   Responsibility for telecommunications and postal services, previously handled by the economics ministry, will fall to the transport ministry.

5.   The government expects to make a decision by the end of this month between two locations outside the capital, said Cuauhtemoc Lazcano, spokesman for the transport ministry.

6.   The transport ministry, however, maintains that its privatisation programme is going well.

7.   Truck drivers walked off the job in western Colombia port of Bueanventura yesterday in protest of higher gasoline prices, a spokesman for the transport ministry said.

8.   A spokeswoman for the federal transport ministry told The Associated Press that a broken wheel on the first car behind the lead locomotive may have been a factor.

9.   Agum Gumelar, another former senior general who served under Wahid, took over the transport ministry.