11.   Ministry officials attributed this increase to higher interest payments on outstanding government bonds.

12.   This was the Maison de la Presse, the creation mainly of a very able foreign ministry official, Philippe Berthelot.

13.   Toyohiko Shimada, a ministry official, said that a decision to cease imports may be reversed if international research proved that turtle stocks were adequate for commercial trading.

14.   At Borderway on Tuesday county auctioneers are meeting a senior ministry official, Richard Cowan, to discuss the problems.

15.   BR managers resisted probing by ministry officials of why a particular service operated in a particular way.

16.   For example, ministry officials and union leaders alike believed that RENFE deliberately gave overpessimistic forecasts so that actual results would be seen in a favourable light.

17.   Already, one of the funds operated by a textile maker in Hyogo has gone bankrupt, the health ministry official said.

18.   An Armenian foreign ministry official attending the conference, Samuel Mkrtchian, played down prospects for a trilateral meeting.

19.   Another ministry official said the announcement of retaliatory measures could be made as early as Wednesday.

20.   At international health conferences, she said, women from developing nations will often raise sanitation and water problems, but get rebuffed by health ministry officials.